Chapter 1229 Attracting Attention
Li Gensheng was somewhat stunned...
He had seen beautiful women before the apocalypse, including factory beauties and TV stars...
But that kind of beauty is completely different from the beauty of the girl in front of me...
It's a kind of... well... a more primal, purer attraction, seemingly emanating from a higher level of life...
Like seedlings that instinctively graze towards water after a long drought, or a moth that cannot resist the call of a flame, his gaze was fixed on the girl, and his heart pounded uncontrollably.
He could even clearly smell a faint, yet captivating and icy fragrance wafting through the air, in addition to the smell of sweat and dust, which made him feel momentarily dazed.
The girl seemed curious about everything around her, yet also carried a deep sense of alienation and bewilderment.
She tilted her head slightly, looking at the slogans on the wall that she obviously didn't recognize. Her purple eyes (Li Gensheng couldn't see the color clearly, but he felt that the eyes were unusually deep) were filled with childlike innocence and confusion.
She raised a slightly pale hand, as if to touch the whitewashed strokes on the wall, her movements stiff yet carrying a strange rhythm.
"Jingle Bell--"
Li Gensheng subconsciously pressed the bicycle bell again, as if trying to use the familiar sound to dispel the inexplicable palpitation and a trace of... indescribable unease in his heart.
He snapped back to reality and realized that he had been staring at a strange girl in such an inappropriate manner near the patrol team of the inspection bureau.
He hurriedly lowered his head and pedaled hard on his bicycle, wanting to leave quickly. But just as the wheels started turning, he couldn't help but look back one last time.
The girl seemed to notice his prolonged gaze, and slowly turned her head, her empty eyes meeting his for a moment.
In an instant, Li Gensheng felt his breath catch in his throat.
There was no emotion in his eyes, no shyness, no anger, no curiosity, only a bottomless, cold emptiness, as if he were staring at a stone, or... a kind of food.
Upon hearing this, Li Gensheng felt a chill instantly rise from his tailbone to the top of his head, making his hair stand on end.
He dared not linger any longer, pedaling his bike frantically, merging into the sparse traffic, as if there was something extremely terrifying behind him.
But the breathtaking beauty of that fleeting glimpse, along with the chilling fear that followed, was deeply etched into his mind, lingering there for a long time.
However, that brief eye contact did not stir even the slightest ripple in the girl's empty heart. To her, Li Gensheng's hasty escape was no different from that of a startled mosquito flying away.
The girl stood bewildered at the end of the line, looking somewhat out of place. She imitated the people in front of her, waiting quietly, her purple eyes, hidden behind her disheveled hair, curiously observing everything around her.
The various containers in people's hands, the mechanical and precise movements of the staff scooping water...
When it was the turn of the haggard-looking woman in front of her, the woman tremblingly handed her a worn-out plastic bucket.
The staff member took it expressionlessly and used a long-handled ladle to scoop out a small half-bucket of slightly murky clear water from the huge water tank.
The woman took the bucket of water, her chapped lips twitching as if she wanted to say thank you, but in the end she just silently and laboriously lifted the precious water source, her back hunched, and walked towards the low, densely packed tent area not far away.
Seeing this, the girl followed suit and walked to the water dispenser empty-handed, just like the woman in front of her.
This action seemed out of place; in a line where everyone was clutching their containers, her empty hands stood out conspicuously.
The staff member was a young man with a tired and impatient look on his face. He looked at the girl who approached him without any water containers, his brows furrowing habitually, and said gruffly:
"Where's your bucket? Where's your ladle? What are you going to use to hold the water?"
The girl seemed not to understand, or rather, her attention was completely elsewhere.
She tilted her head in confusion, her purple eyes peering curiously through her messy hair at the dripping long-handled ladle in the staff member's hand, and the huge, damp water tank behind him.
His eyes were as pure as a newborn baby's, carrying a kind of innocent and naive charm.
She seemed to find the water ladle interesting, and actually stretched out her slender, pale, almost transparent fingers, carefully and tentatively trying to touch the cold edge of the ladle.
"Ouch! What are you doing?" The staff member was taken aback by the sudden action and subconsciously withdrew his hand.
This immediately drew the attention of the strange girl in the surrounding queue.
At first, people just thought she was silly, but when she slightly raised her head, her messy hair fell down, and more of her face was exposed to the midday sun, a suppressed gasp of surprise rippled through the crowd.
What a face it was!
Despite being covered in dust and having messy, tangled hair, her breathtaking beauty remained undeniable.
Her features were so exquisite that they resembled the most perfect creation of a god, and her skin was pale and translucent, like the finest cold jade.
Especially her purple eyes, which were slightly wide open with curiosity, were like two exquisite amethysts immersed in icy water, deep, mysterious, and with an inhuman, eerie beauty.
This kind of beauty transcends the realm of all stars and models before the apocalypse, carrying a primal and pure vitality that instantly captivates everyone's breath.
Even the impatient staff member was stunned, his hand holding the water ladle frozen in mid-air.
Xiong Yuting was completely unaware of the reactions around her. When she saw the staff member withdraw their hand, she also withdrew her fingers and turned her gaze to the little bit of water left in the ladle.
She seemed to have seen some novel toy, leaning slightly forward and bringing her face close to the water ladle, her nostrils flaring as if she were smelling the water.
Then, to everyone's astonishment, she did something even more unbelievable—she stuck out her small tongue and, with extreme speed and dexterity, licked the water droplets remaining on the edge of the ladle.
Her movements were as natural as a small animal's, carrying a wild and charming naiveté, which, combined with her stunning beauty, created an extremely eerie and powerful impact.
"What...what is she doing?"
"Are you crazy? Licking it directly?"
"This girl... she looks like an angel, but how come her brain seems to be..."
...
The crowd began to whisper, their gazes shifting between her stunning beauty and eccentric behavior with complex emotions, while a very few harbored ill intentions...
'So good-looking...and mentally unstable...with a little guidance...wouldn't that...hehehe~'
...
