Where Rui carried the weight of ghosts, and Li Wei bore the silence of the grave, Chen Yu wore madness like a second skin.
But madness was no longer funny.
The village was gone. Swallowed by itself.
They walked on. No one spoke.
Then, as if the tension in the group wasn't hanging on a thread already, Chen Yu broke into song.
Off-key. Too loud. Something absurd from a pre-apocalypse children's show.
"I'm a little toaster short and stout—"
"Chen Yu," Li Wei said coldly.
"—pull my plug and I'll knock you out!" Chen Yu finished with a grin, spinning around and moonwalking through scorched grass.
Rui didn't laugh. She barely blinked.
Li Wei said nothing more.
Chen Yu sighed. "Tough crowd."
He clapped his hands. "Welp, time to lighten the mood."
Later that day, they found an old checkpoint—burned-out trucks, bodies turned to ash heaps, and a rusted STOP sign covered in dried blood.
Chen Yu immediately grabbed a bone, stood on the truck hood like a stage, and pretended to auction it off.
"Ladies and gentlemen, behold! A perfectly aged femur. Tastes like chicken, screams like mother-in-law. Starting bid: one soul!"
No one laughed.
He turned to Rui. "C'mon, kid, you used to giggle at this stuff."
Rui looked at him flatly. "That was before I saw my own face inside a screaming memory hive."
Chen Yu blinked. "Yikes. Yeah. Fair."
Li Wei picked through the wreckage quietly, gathering ammo and salvage.
Chen Yu stepped down and muttered to himself, "Comedy's dead. Literally."
But then…
They camped near a dry well that night.
Chen Yu was on watch.
He whistled to himself while practicing card tricks—pulling burned playing cards from his coat and pretending to do sleight of hand.
"I swear, if the next mutation gives me actual magician powers, I'm opening a circus," he muttered.
Then he heard it.
Not from the trees.
From the well.
A high, wet, choking giggle.
Slowly, he crept to the edge and peeked in.
Eyes.
A dozen. All peering up.
He didn't scream. He smiled.
"Well hey there, neighbor."
The thing lunged up — not climbing, but jerking upward like a puppet being yanked by a string.
Chen Yu sidestepped, let it land, and calmly shot it in the knee.
It howled.
He walked toward it casually, twirling his knife.
"You know," he said, crouching beside its bleeding form. "I'm not the strongest. Or the smartest. Or the broodiest."
He pressed the knife into its eye socket and whispered, "But I am the most likely to enjoy this part."
The creature spasmed. Twitched. Tried to speak.
"Shh," Chen Yu said, and stabbed it through the throat with a grin.
The Next Morning
When Rui and Li Wei woke, Chen Yu was cooking meat.
They didn't ask what kind.
He handed them each a piece.
"I had a chat with our well guest," he said, sipping water. "Friendly guy. Real 'rise-and-slaughter' type. But guess what? He had a tattoo. Ascendancy brand."
Li Wei raised a brow. "A scout?"
"Maybe. Or maybe one of their… failed pets."
Chen Yu leaned closer. "He whispered something before he died. Just two words."
Rui paused mid-bite. "What?"
Chen Yu smiled.
"'It's waking.'"
Later, when Li Wei went to scout the perimeter, Rui sat with Chen Yu.
She didn't speak for a while. Just watched him juggle three shotgun shells.
Then she said, "Why do you keep joking?"
He caught the shells, pocketed them, and looked up.
"Because if I stop," he said, "I'll remember what we've lost. And I'll cry. And if I cry, I'll break. And if I break…"
He smiled faintly.
"…I'll become worse than the things we're running from."
Rui studied him. "And if you're already becoming worse?"
Chen Yu grinned, too wide.
"Then I hope I go out laughing."
That night, when he thought no one was watching, Chen Yu took out a folded photo from his pocket.
Two kids. A woman. Him — in a ridiculous red hoodie with cartoon teeth.
He didn't cry.
He just whispered, "Hope the sky's still funny up there."
Then he tucked the photo back in, loaded his gun, and turned toward the darkness.
Waiting.
Smiling.