Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 53: Before We Finish

Chapter 53: Before We Finish

The sound of something being smashed and destroyed echoed outside the window.

Mu Qinglan’s eyes shook, but she didn’t stop.

Smash. Another sound of destruction, closer and much louder.

Another smash. Louder. Closer.

This time, we both froze and looked towards the window.

The sound was distinct now—glass, maybe a bottle, shattering against stone. A muffled voice shouted something, the words warped by the thick windows.

"...saw him... that guy with the gun—"

Qinglan’s fingers slowly loosened around me, her body still pressed against mine. Her brows furrowed slightly.

"...are they talking about you?" she whispered, lips brushing my cheek.

Before I could answer, there was another crash, it sounded like metal and glass. A trash bin slammed against something, smashing glass, then something toppled onto the pavement with a long scraping grind.

More shouting. Closer this time. "Where’d he go—black coat, tall—he had a fucking machine gun!"

Qinglan pulled back a little, eyes narrowing.

"They’re hunting you," she said softly. "Why?"

"They saw me," I said. "Earlier with the submachine gun."

She didn’t move away. Her body was still straddling mine. But her eyes were searching my face now, scanning, reading.

"How did you get that?"

Her voice wasn’t angry, nor blaming... her eyes were wet and softer than usual as her hands brushed my cheeks, her fingertips caressing my ears.

"I’ll explain," I said. "Later."

Mu Qinglan’s breathing remained hard, cheeks flushed, lips parted. Her hand was still resting on my thigh, the heat of it burning through the fabric.

She looked torn between two instincts—kill or kiss.

However, the barely audible rough voice that followed made her lips twitch.

"...check the houses—he’s alone, he can’t be far!"

Qinglan’s head turned toward the window.

I saw it flicker behind her eyes—decision.

She slid off me in one fluid motion, feet barely making a sound as they hit the floor. Her hand reached down, grabbing her jacket from the chair. Then she peeked through the blinds.

"Do you still have ammo?"

"Yes."

"Loaded?"

"Always."

She nodded, pulling her hair back, tying it swiftly with a thin black cord.

Then she paused—just a second—and looked back at me.

Her eyes became dark red for a moment, so brief that it seemed like I had seen wrong.

Because by the time I blinked, they returned to a neon electric blue colour.

"That..." she gazed at the bed, biting her slightly swollen lips. "Let’s finish off... after dealing with them!"

I smirked. "Count on it."

Another bang echoed outside—wood splintering much closer.

Qinglan moved toward the door without another word.

So did I.

The heat between us was still there.

But now it had something else burning beneath it.

As we approached the window, she turned back and hugged my chest, a strange action for the usual Qinglan, then she whispered.

"Can I get a new weapon?"

Honestly, I didn’t think she needed a new weapon, but from the sounds of it, the people downstairs carried weapons, too. But I had the machete from the fools who ambushed us in the past.

However, I wondered why she didn’t want to use her baseball bat.

"Do you not like your metal bat anymore?" I asked.

"Hmm..." she looked at me with a sigh, before clicking her tongue. Tsk! "Cheapskate."

With that, she grabbed her bat, which leaned beside the bed. Only because I carried it after she collapsed, mind you.

Woosh! She smirked after swinging the bat and pulled the front of her jacket closed. That’s when her expression faded, her face hardened, and her eyes sharpened—cool, calm, focused.

Footsteps and loud bangs sounded from below, a mixture of slow, deliberate creaking over the floorboards and heavy, booming thuds hitting the stone walls.

Mu Qinglan moved first, slipping toward the back of the apartment, slipping on her boots and unhooking the far window. She looked back at me with her sharp, blue eyes that lingered for a moment, just watching my face before hopping out of the room.

I followed her lead, checking the Type-9K bullet magazine and placed my finger just beside the trigger guard. Safety was already off. A full magazine.

"Let’s go quietly first," I muttered, before tossing the gun into the air. The Type-9K vanished, and I grabbed the black spear from my inventory.

With a light hop, I found my body halfway through the air, leaping over two metres.

Swoosh! Mu Qinglan caught me and twisted her hips to reduce the noise, our feet making a slight sound on the metal sheet as we lowered ourselves. "That was dangerous."

"Be careful." A cold voice, but her fingers stroked the back of my hand, squeezing it tight.

"They’re in the building," I whispered.

"I heard," she said. "There are about five of them, two have guns. Pistols."

I nodded once.

Mu Qinglan’s eyes narrowed, scanning the layout—where shadows fell, where the walls created blind corners. Her grip on the bat shifted slightly.

We moved through the alley along the side of the building—dust, cracked bricks, the stink of piss and scorched meat hanging in the heat. Their voices echoed above. Slurred. Overconfident. The kind of loud men who thought guns made them gods.

We climbed the rear steps. Metal groaned beneath us.

The first one appeared near the corner of the third-floor landing. He was pissing into a stairwell, his pistol holstered, eyes half-closed.

Mu Qinglan didn’t slow.

She walked up behind him, lifted the bat, and—

Crack.

The wet sound of skull shattering. His body dropped like meat hitting a butcher’s block. No twitch. Just a dull thud.

Her face didn’t change.

She grabbed his pistol before it hit the ground, twirling it in her hand, almost like second nature, before snatching the man’s holster and wrapping it around her upper thigh.

One down.

She pointed ahead at two voices arguing through a half-open door. I crept closer, my body low, spear in hand. I counted the space between each footstep.

The door creaked wider.

Two men sat on crates inside, eating from a stolen ration pack, blades on their belts and hammers at their feet.

I slipped through the gap and dashed towards them, my feet pushing off the ground to propel me forward faster, driving the butt of the spear into the throat of the one on my left, crunch then using the momentum I lunged at the second male with a powerful thrust.

Blood burst from his throat, the scent of beer and copper filling my nose as he choked to death.

The other gasped.

Not fast enough.

Mu Qinglan stepped in behind him.

The bat swung with a low crunch to his kneecap. He dropped screaming.

She silenced him with the second hit. A vertical smash straight down the skull. His head cracked into a sunken mess and killed his scream.

Three down.

I turned to her. Her chest was rising faster now. But her eyes were cold.

"How many left?"

She tilted her head, listening.

"Two more."

I caught it then—the change. Her posture was wrong.

No, not wrong.

Predatory.

The curve of her body was still delicate, still arched with heat under the jacket, but the way she walked was pure kill. Her footsteps were too quiet. Too smooth.

The fourth man never saw her.

Mu Qinglan slid behind him as he paced down the hall, gun loose at his side, muttering something to himself as if looking for the source of the sound.

"W-What!?"

She didn’t hesitate.

She grabbed his hair, yanked back, and drove the bat into the base of his skull.

Crack.

He spasmed, then went limp.

The bat didn’t even have blood on it yet.

She let his body fall and rolled her shoulders once, as if warming up.

Then—bang.

A shot rang out from across the corridor. Wood exploded beside her.

The fifth man.

He stood half-shadowed at the end of the hallway, both hands on his pistol, already aiming at her chest.

Time slowed.

I saw her freeze, just for a second.

Not fear.

Just... surprise.

I moved without thinking.

I hit her waist with my shoulder and threw us both sideways.

The second shot ripped past us, burying into the wall behind. Qinglan hit the ground hard and rolled.

I didn’t stop.

The Type-9K snapped into my grip mid-motion, yanked from my inventory with a flick of thought.

I raised it.

Bratatatat—

The muzzle flared.

Lighting the hallway with a burst of light, red and while filling my eyes.

The man’s lower body exploded—legs turned to shredded meat. His scream caught in his throat as he dropped hard, a spray of blood smearing the wall.

He didn’t even fire again.

I kept the gun trained on him, eyes scanning for movement. None.

Silence.

Then, after a few seconds when he started to convulse.

"I’m fine," Qinglan said flatly, brushing dust from her jacket. "You didn’t have to hit me that hard."

"You’re welcome."

She looked down at the fifth man, who was moaning and barely conscious.

Her lip curled. "Messy."

"You started it with the bat."

She walked over and—without a word—cracked the bat once across his temple.

He went still.

Now it was silent.

Only our breath remained.

"Uhm... Qinglan?" I called out before she turned to face me, tilting her head.

"What?" she spoke innocently, like she had no clue.

"Couldn’t we have learned something from them, like... information?"

Her mouth dropped with an "Oh..." damn, she was cute.

The hall smelled of gunpowder and blood. Her hair clung to her cheek, sweat making it shine.

I reached for her arm, squeezing it once. Warm. Still trembling. But not from fear. From the inside, her pulse was still rising.

She looked at me with those electric eyes.

Then toward the alley.

"..."

"..."

Qinglan squatted and took the second man’s pistol, and jogged back to my side and leaned close.

She reached for my hand and whispered. "Shall we... head back?"

I glanced at the bat still hanging from her shoulder, then at the faint smear of blood across her jaw.

Her lips were parted again. Not from breathlessness.

From want.

"Only if we pick up exactly where we left off."