Chapter 158.2: “Did we just come here to walk the dog?”
The shattered surface shot up hundreds of feet into the air. Columns of water broke apart, crashing down in a torrential barrage onto every umbrella below. Those who reacted quickly injected energy into their umbrellas in an instant, reinforcing them against the impact of a thousand-pound blow. Those who reacted too slowly were knocked flat to the ground, umbrellas and all.
“What is this…?”
When the spray finally fell away, every visible body of water had been tightly covered by broad elephant-ear leaves, layered seamlessly edge to edge. Yet the leaves were far from calm—something enormous beneath them was ramming upward desperately.
Bang—bang—
Rhythmic impacts resounded around the humans—no, throughout all the waters of Qianzhou—unceasing.
Realizing that breaking upward was futile, there was a brief lull. Then the earth began to tremble soundlessly.
“They’re digging! They’re trying to escape underground!”
In less than half a minute, the ground began to bulge with protrusions like boils on skin. Mud-caked crayfish claws broke through the surface, gleaming coldly.
The ability users’ hearts shot into their throats. A portion of mutated crayfish wasn’t impossible to handle—but what Wu Heng had just done was effectively enrage and flush out every mutated crayfish in all of Qianzhou. A swarm of mutated creatures at this scale could exhaust them all to death even without winning outright.
The driver dropped heavily back into his seat with another duang. “Run!”
But the moment the word left his mouth, green earth-dragons burst from beneath the ground like long whips. The surface cracked open. They lashed, pierced, coiled, and crushed—whether already above ground or still tunneling below, not a single one escaped.
The aquatic plants beneath the surface absorbed the wood-element energy carried by the elephant-ear leaves and joined the slaughter of the mutated crayfish still underwater.
The trembling beneath their feet stopped. The cracked earth sealed itself shut. The crayfish that had surfaced were left without even a trace of life.
What was happening underwater couldn’t be seen clearly—except by water-element ability users. They could see that nothing remained below but fragments of crayfish. Even the energy cores had been completely devoured by the sudden attacker.
In an instant, heaven and earth fell silent.
“That’s it?”
“It was that simple?”
The water began to ripple again. The green leaves swayed like boats. To avoid contaminating the water source, countless fragments were scooped out by vine-nets woven together.
One mound after another, built from shattered crayfish remains, rose upon the flat ground. Jet-black shells still dripped water—tails, claws, eyes, long feelers—piling higher and higher.
The vines, their task complete, withdrew back into Wu Heng’s body.
Most of the color had drained from Wu Heng’s face. His pupils were so green they were nearly black—but they were already slowly recovering, the color gradually lightening.
“I’ve left one elephant-ear plant behind. It can help you guard this place.” As long as Wu Heng lived, it would remain the most unshakable guardian here.
Aside from the fine rain gnawing softly against umbrella surfaces and green leaves, an eerie silence filled the air.
The boy’s power had surpassed the limits of everyone’s understanding. From the chaos of the apocalypse to this barely maintained order, he was stronger than anything they had ever witnessed.
Even members of his own team began to wonder—did they truly understand the full extent of Wu Heng’s strength?
Whether subtly or openly, they turned to look back.
Wu Heng stood behind them all—slender and straight, somber and sharp in a way that inspired instinctive awe.
They had to admit: once anyone had seen Wu Heng, they could never unsee him.
Suddenly, something stirred at his feet.
A mutated crayfish the size of a cat crawled out from the ground.
As if it had finally found the culprit who slaughtered all its kin, it raised its claws in fury and snapped toward the calf in front of it.
A streak of black flashed past. Xie Chongyi—who hadn’t made a single move until now—lightly lifted his foot and crushed the mutated crayfish into pieces in one effortless step.
The tip of his boot ground mercilessly against the crayfish that hadn’t quite died yet. There was no joy or anger in the corner of his eyes.
But when he looked at Wu Heng, a smile surfaced in his gaze. “My boots are dirty.”
Wu Heng lowered his head and saw that a few drops of mutated creature fluid had indeed splashed onto Xie Chongyi’s shoe. He reached out, took the umbrella from Xie Chongyi’s hand, tugged the dog along, and turned away. “Let’s get back on the bus.”
Shukui wagged its tail and followed.
The others—who had braced themselves for a brutal battle—stared at the two retreating figures, mouths open, dumbfounded.
“Did we just come here to walk the dog?”
“If only they could stay at our base.”
Lin Mengzhi walked past them expressionlessly, umbrella raised. “Stay here to sl*ve away for you? What nonsense are you dreaming about?”
—
Back at the guesthouse, Wu Heng headed straight into the cafeteria kitchen. The green-headed duck was pinned down by Shukui and X working together; it could only quack furiously at the intruder who had already opened the freezer.
“So noisy,” Wu Heng said.
X covered the duck’s beak with its wing.
“What kind of milk is this?” Wu Heng picked up a two-liter bottle, twisted off the cap, and sniffed it.
Energy expenditure could be replenished with energy cores—but hunger couldn’t be completely offset. Right now, he urgently needed food.
By the time Xie Chongyi walked into the kitchen, Wu Heng was already tilting yet another bottle of milk back into his mouth. The long table behind him was strewn with empty bottles in messy disarray.
“I’ll make you something to eat.” Xie Chongyi rolled up his sleeves and opened another refrigerator beside Wu Heng.
Only then did Wu Heng stop chugging milk. “Since when do you know how to cook?”
“I don’t.” Xie Chongyi smiled lightly at him. “But I can learn.”
That definitely won’t taste good, Wu Heng thought.
Even though that was what he thought, after finishing the milk in his hand, Wu Heng still closed the refrigerator door and waited for Xie Chongyi to cook.
“If you’re going to fight, take it outside.” As he spoke, he shooed the dog, the bird, and the duck—now tangled in a chaotic brawl—out of the kitchen. The green-headed duck took advantage of the confusion to counterattack and bit X right on the backside.
“Mom, mom, mom, mom—!”
Shukui lay on the ground, relentlessly gnawing at the duck’s two feet, while the duck kept lifting its legs and stomping on Shukui’s snout.
Wu Heng moved to the other side of the table and watched as Xie Chongyi methodically gathered ingredients. Most of the meat was shrimp, along with an entire vividly colored slab of beef. There were also several vegetables so large they looked almost unnatural.
“You learned to cook in Jingzhou?”
“No.” Even though he had endured hardship, Xie Chongyi wasn’t the type to deliberately suffer when he didn’t have to.
Even during those years in high school when he lived alone in Hanzhou, he had a fixed restaurant where he ate. He had never even reheated a meal himself.
“?”
Xie Chongyi tore off the plastic wrapping around the beef, his voice clear. “In my opinion, making simple dishes doesn’t require learning. It’s like getting dressed. Ingredients need to be washed and cut into the desired shape before going into the pan; clothes need to be clean before you wear them. After the ingredients go into the pan, you wait for them to cook through, then season them according to preference. As for dressing, you decide whether to pull it over your head, zip it up, or tie it…”
Wu Heng dragged over a chair and sat down. “What are you planning to make?”
Xie Chongyi picked up a knife. “This cut should be tenderloin. Let’s try pan-seared steak. If it doesn’t taste good, we’ll turn it into beef strips instead. The shrimp can be made into shrimp-ball soup. As for the vegetables—is this green tomato?”
“…Yeah.”
Xie Chongyi quickly sliced the beef tenderloin into thick pieces, each about three centimeters. This cow was probably no ordinary one—each steak weighed roughly two to three jin. In one go, he cut thirty portions.
“There’s quite a bit of fat on it.” Xie Chongyi found a large frying pan under the table. “I’ll cook, and you eat.”
After saying that, he set the pan on the stove and turned on the flame.
The thin base of the pan heated up quickly. Holding the steak flat with chopsticks, Xie Chongyi laid it into the pan. With a loud sizzle, the sound of searing burst out along with a puff of steam, and beads of beef fat slowly seeped from the meat.
“If the meat itself is good, cooking it like this should already make it tasty.”
One hand braced against the edge of the table, Xie Chongyi estimated the timing. When it felt about right, he quickly seared the edges of the steak, then flipped it to cook the other side.
He turned, took a large white porcelain plate, and slid the steak—cooked to what he judged was just right—out of the pan. He cut it into bite-sized strips, arranged them neatly, set down a pair of chopsticks, and pushed the plate toward Wu Heng. “Try it.”
Xie Chongyi turned off the stove. The kitchen fell quiet, and all his attention shifted to Wu Heng.
“There’s no seasoning. However you cook it, the taste should be about the same.”
“Class Monitor, are you making excuses for your cooking in advance?”
Wu Heng sat upright, picked up the chopsticks, and lifted the piece at the edge of the plate into his mouth.
The outside of the beef was crisp, while the inside remained tender and juicy—more fragrant than raw meat, yet not dry like fully cooked meat.
“Tastes good,” Wu Heng said honestly. He picked up another piece and stuffed it into his mouth, his cheeks puffing slightly—clear proof that he wasn’t lying.
“Have some fruit.” Xie Chongyi washed a green tomato, cut it in half, lightly seared it until the surface blistered, and placed it onto Wu Heng’s plate.
Without hesitation, Wu Heng shifted the tomato to the side and continued eating the meat.
Xie Chongyi said nothing when he saw that. He simply walked back and continued searing more steaks.
The pace of cooking matched Wu Heng’s eating perfectly. Each time Wu Heng finished the last piece on his plate, a fresh serving was pushed in front of him.
For the last steak, Wu Heng only ate a third himself. Holding the plate, he went to the window and tossed the rest to the three mutated animals taking their mid-break—immediately, they all started fighting over it again.
Meanwhile, Xie Chongyi had already brought a large pot of water to a boil on the back stove. Using his ability, he instantly mashed hundreds of jin of shrimp meat into a smooth paste, even forming the shrimp balls with his power so that each one was perfectly round.
The green tomatoes were mashed as well, but Xie Chongyi stir-fried them into a sauce, seasoning it lightly with salt.
A whole bowl of cooked shrimp balls was placed in front of Wu Heng, along with a big bowl of tomato sauce. “If it tastes good, dip it and eat. If it doesn’t, feed it to the dog.”
Hearing the words “feed it to the dog,” Shukui immediately dropped the green-headed duck and X, ran in a wide circle, and sat down next to Wu Heng.
“It thinks feeding the dog is a reward.” Wu Heng picked up his chopsticks again, cut the too-large-to-grab shrimp balls into pieces, and hesitated a moment before dipping one piece lightly into the tomato sauce and putting it into his mouth.
Xie Chongyi rested his chin on his hand across from him. “How is it?”
Unsure, Wu Heng took another bite before nodding. “Good.”
Better than any chef in Qianzhou, and not worse than anyone in the team—perhaps even tasting better.
Xie Chongyi wasn’t hungry. He leisurely watched Wu Heng eat, murmuring, “You’ve gotten really strong now.”
Wu Heng glanced at him. “Hm.”
He didn’t understand what Xie Chongyi meant.
Xie Chongyi lifted his striking, peach-blossom-like eyes, smiling yet not fully smiling. “So… will the elder brother abandon his poor, long-suffering wife?”
