Chapter 109.1: “I have something to say”
Aside from Lin Mengzhi and Wu Zhi, Wu Heng didn’t expect anyone to willingly follow him—and Xie Chongyi had now lost even the value of being knocked out and carried off.
“But…” Lin Mengzhi tugged at his clothes. “With just the few of us, isn’t that a bit too few? We wouldn’t even be able to clear two mu of land.”
Wu Heng thought for a few seconds. “That’s true.”
“So we’d better come up with a feasible, fairly detailed plan first, preferably bring more people with us. And besides, no matter where we go…” Lin Mengzhi said awkwardly, “I still like lively places. Places where there’s food and drink and things to do.”
“How about Mengzhou? Before the apocalypse, Mengzhou was the busiest and most prosperous city—there’s no way it’s bad now.”
Before Wu Heng could respond, Lin Mengzhi immediately shot down his own idea. “No, no, no—that’s not right. Mengzhou is probably even more sought-after than Jingzhou. Those popular cities, plus Lizhou, Zhenzhou…
A’Heng, we’re screwed. If we want to live the kind of life you’re talking about, we can only head west—some godforsaken place where there’s nothing to eat, nothing to use, but mutated creatures everywhere. But places like that have very few people, which means almost no entertainment. If we go there, we might have to suffer for years—though, to be fair, life right now isn’t exactly easy either.”
Lin Mengzhi sat cross-legged beside Wu Heng’s calf. A fireball the size of a fist floated up from his hand, flew past the railing, then shattered, scattering countless sparks like a firework blooming in midair.
“Having superpowers is something a lot of people probably dreamed about as kids.” Lin Mengzhi rested his elbow on Wu Heng’s knee. “But right now? I’m not happy at all.”
“Even cities like Nanbei and Nansu, which were only mid-tier in development, were already taken long ago. Coastal cities are even less worth considering,” Wu Heng said, his eyelids drooping. “And as long as a species called ‘human’ hasn’t gone extinct, the things we hate will keep existing.”
Lin Mengzhi thought of his grandmother and was already tearful. He lifted his head. “Aren’t we humans too?”
“Do you think you don’t hate it?”
“? What about you?”
Wu Heng was silent for a moment. “Do I have anything on me that would make you hate me?”
Lin Mengzhi couldn’t even imagine.
Because if Wu Heng were replaced by anyone else, he would have already died back home in Hanzhou.
It wasn’t that he thought humans were inherently bad—it was just that in that situation, self-preservation was so difficult, not to mention that Wu Heng’s companions at the time were all old, weak, sick, or disabled.
“Alright then,” Lin Mengzhi shrugged. “Back to the main topic—where are we going?”
“Xuedi, Yaozhou, Fucheng, Tan County…”
Lin Mengzhi: “Those are all remote places. I can’t even imagine how terrible the weather is there, or how scary the mutated flora and fauna could be.”
“Would a yak be as tall as a building?!”
“Would butterflies be as big as dogs?!”
“Mushrooms… can be hollowed out and turned into houses!”
Lin Mengzhi’s capacity to accept the absurd remained as high as ever. He was already starting to look forward to the kind of life where he could claim a corner all to himself, rambling on without pause.
At that moment, a black shadow crept up along the wall.
Wu Heng leaned forward to look, and an arrow simultaneously aimed at it.
The shadow had initially moved slowly and gently, but as it reached the top of the wall, it suddenly expanded, spreading like a net and surging toward the zombie horde outside.
X and several tendrils stood above the watchtower, watching helplessly as the zombies charged into the black shadow, only to be shredded into pieces in an instant. The energy cores were completely absorbed.
Lin Mengzhi lunged at the railing. “Holy crap, who is this? So badass?!”
“Mo Xie.” Wu Heng didn’t make a sound, only muttered the name.
The man’s face seemed to melt into the shadow, leaving only very faint outlines. The only distinct feature was a single enormous eye that appeared and disappeared in the sky, staring down at the ground.
As the number of zombies surged, streaks of blood appeared in the inky black fog. Beneath it, the man in the coat emerged, handing the zombie tide over to the already constructed psychic barrier.
Wu Heng and Lin Mengzhi both leaned over the railing, watching from above.
Is the strongest figure of a city really as formidable as Mo Xie?
One of the two boys was stunned, the other confused; their presence was so strong that Mo Xie looked up, and the two boys, the bird, and the row of vines all immediately recoiled.
“Mr. Mo Xie is that strong?” Lin Mengzhi panted. “Is Xie Chongyi that strong too?”
“The class monitor is just injured,” Wu Heng said, strangely feeling the words sounded harsh. “Don’t compare him to anyone else.”
“Besides,” Wu Heng sat back in his chair, “Mo Xie didn’t seem this strong to me before.”
Lin Mengzhi muttered that Mo Xie must secretly be practicing some kind of dark magic.
With Mo Xie’s appearance, most of the exhausted people finally got a chance to breathe and relax. The logistics team lit fires and prepared steaming hot cauldrons of rice, huge bowls of cold dishes, and herbal teas to beat the heat. Those who hadn’t slept all night simply slept on the ground.
Almost all the moisture in the air came from the foul body fluids of the zombies. Everyone carried a layer of stench in and out. The guards who had died in battle were neatly arranged in rows in the open spaces of the base.
Wu Heng tied a guard to his waist and placed him into a sack specially used for storing energy cores. He kept bending over, pulling fresh hearts out of the blackbird corpses, stuffing them into the sack, and simultaneously biting into them with his hands.
The bottom of the sack was soaked red, pooling at the corners and dripping continuously.
Everyone else was collecting energy cores, but the boy was fully absorbed in pulling hearts from bodies.
“Has he always been like this?” Sheng Jiang crossed his arms, standing behind Xie Chongyi, but his gaze was fixed on Wu Heng weaving through the mass of blackbird corpses.
Xie Chongyi sat on a bench, eyes closed, while Chen Meng squatted in front of him administering treatment. At Sheng Jiang’s words, Xie Chongyi moved his lips. “Who?”
“Your little classmate, Wu Heng.”
Only then did Xie Chongyi open his eyes, look around, and fix his gaze on Wu Heng’s back. He paused and let out a faint laugh. “What’s it to you?”
“You guys are going to Jingzhou together?”
Xie Chongyi slowly closed his eyes. “Of course.”
“Do you know him well?”
“No.”
Sheng Jiang snorted. “You don’t know him, and yet you treat him like your heart and soul?”
“It doesn’t conflict. Only in choosing a partner do you need to understand first, then decide,” Xie Chongyi said lightly.
Sheng Jiang responded with another “Oh?” He didn’t think his intuition was wrong, so he asked, “Aren’t you choosing a partner?”
“No,” Xie Chongyi replied casually. “I already like him. Talking about not understanding him now—it’s too late.”
Though Sheng Jiang and Wu Dian knew Xie Chongyi’s personality well, they hadn’t seen him in years. They weren’t sure if he had changed, but now it was obvious: his personality hadn’t changed at all.
“So… you told him? He doesn’t look like he’s gay,” Sheng Jiang paused deliberately, then added, “and he doesn’t look straight either.”
“He knows I’m gay. I told him before.”
“And him?”
Xie Chongyi didn’t answer, and Sheng Jiang already knew the answer.
After a long while, Wu Heng, carrying a heavy sack, turned around and casually glanced in their direction.
Xie Chongyi opened his lips. “He could be.”
It wasn’t that Xie Chongyi was overconfident—it was that Wu Heng was an utterly obvious hedonist. Ethics and morality could never make him give up pleasure to endure discomfort. Right now, even the law couldn’t stop him.
He would let Wu Heng feel pleasure.
The joy he brought to Wu Heng was unique. Wu Heng could never find it in anyone else, neither women nor men.
As long as humans couldn’t overcome appetite, love, and sex, Xie Chongyi was unsurpassable to Wu Heng.
At that moment, Chen Meng’s hand had unconsciously reached in front of Xie Chongyi’s face.
So smelly.
Xie Chongyi opened his eyes.
Chen Meng was startled. He hurriedly said, “Sorry,” and continued adjusting the chaotic energy within Xie Chongyi’s body.
Although he didn’t outwardly show any interest in the patient’s “private matters,” inside, his mind was already in turmoil. No wonder people online said being a doctor lets you know all sorts of incredible gossip! He had just happened to witness some.
But he had medical ethics. He wouldn’t spread the patient’s privacy.
—
Dawn arrived, and with it, the temperature rose. The corpses that hadn’t yet been cleared off gave off an almost unbearable stench. The zombie tide kept surging in waves toward the black fog, unable to resist the tempting aroma of food inside the base.
Scattered mutated birds and animals ran out from the forest, crouching outside the base to tear and gnaw at whatever they could find.
Inside the outer city of the base, at a rest station.
A middle-aged woman was dragged in front of Xie Chongyi, screaming at the top of her lungs, “I swear I didn’t do anything!!!”
Mo Xie squatted down in front of her, covering his mouth and nose, then turned to Wu Dian. “What exactly is this thing?”
“A source of contamination,” Wu Dian shared without hesitation, scanning the group. “You can also think of it as an energy impurity in this disaster.”
“Unlike energy cores, which provide energy to humans, these impurities exist everywhere, and their purpose is to suddenly trigger contamination or chaos at a certain moment. So far, we haven’t found a way to completely eliminate them.”
Wu Heng sat cross-legged in a corner, resting his chin on his hand, quietly listening. But in his mind was a recent memory: in the hotel at Meili Town, the poppy had accidentally touched the black liquid flowing from Xie Chongyi’s wound.
The poppy had fractured, and the part that had been contaminated had also broken into chunks, losing all vitality. It seemed that complete elimination was possible after all.
But he said nothing.
“So… aren’t we in grave danger?” Lin Mengzhi swallowed hard. Several of them had just seen clearly that these contamination sources weren’t even afraid of fire.
“That’s true,” Sheng Jiang nodded.
“I’ll handle it.” Xie Chongyi’s wrist revealed a dagger. He stepped in front of the woman without the slightest hesitation, and the tip of the blade drew a parallel line across her neck.
“Uh—” the woman let out a choked gasp.
No one inside was psychologically prepared, and what happened next left them no time for pity.
The woman’s head tilted back, her neck severed like a broken tree stump. Not a drop of blood spilled. Her body looked like an opened container, revealing it to be filled entirely with black contamination.
In an instant, the energy in the room expanded, as if it were going to blow apart the small rest station. Everyone inside was immediately crushed by the force, their heads spinning and eyes flashing white. Their hearts throbbed violently; lower-level ability users even began bleeding from the mouth and nose, stumbling toward the door and rushing outside.
But Wu Heng only felt the aroma—it almost made him faint.
Xie Chongyi placed his hand above the severed area, and the contamination immediately surged out of the woman’s body, invading the young man’s body.
Wu Heng stared intently at Xie Chongyi. He saw a black, hook-like leg of an insect probe out from Xie Chongyi’s eye before retracting.
His gaze slowly moved downward, noticing faint patches of hard insect-like carapace appearing on Xie Chongyi’s hand and arm.
Recalling Wu Dian and Sheng Jiang’s strange behavior the night before, Wu Heng’s eyes flickered. What seemed to be an energy enhancer in Xie Chongyi’s hands was probably not something harmless.
Moreover, Xie Chongyi had previously said that he would die—his companions in Jingzhou would all die too; the only uncertainty was the timing.
Even though Xie Chongyi could no longer be considered food, Wu Heng didn’t really look forward to his death.
Even if Xie Chongyi couldn’t be eaten, they could still… have fun together.
Whether it was the former or the latter, it was something that made Wu Heng very happy.
The contamination was gone. The woman’s body was now like a soft, crumpled piece of skin, lying on the ground with her skin wrinkled and unrecognizable.
Wu Dian ground her into a small pile of ash, stuffed it into a bag, and handed it to a guard. “Find a place to bury it.”
Mo Xie said, “Everyone, tidy up and head to the cafeteria for breakfast. Afterward, you may need to resume your watch shifts. The pay for the past two days will be triple—thank you for your hard work.”
Liu Ning distributed yesterday’s wages—ten A-grade energy cores per person.
Wu Heng also received two S-grade energy cores from Mo Xie’s private account.
“The base doesn’t have enough energy cores that match everyone’s attributes. If you can’t absorb them now, you can use them as currency, or wait until your level exceeds S to absorb and digest them.”
Lin Mengzhi cried tears of joy. “There’s enough food for us?!”
“The zombie tide is more than enough to keep you busy for now,” Liu Ning said with a smile, having grown familiar with the group.
Even though Wu Heng coughed lightly from behind, and Dou Lu and Ying Liuquan pinched him hard, they couldn’t bring him back to reason. He shouted loudly, “I love working!!! I want to keep working!!!”
Liu Ning pinched Lin Mengzhi’s cheek. “Good job.”
For a moment, Lin Mengzhi felt dizzy and confused, as if he didn’t know what was happening in the world.
Wu Heng already knew that even if Lin Mengzhi understood that Liu Ning carried something enormous, he still couldn’t resist her graceful beauty. With a helpless sigh, he turned and left the rest station.