Chapter 69 - Jingchen’s Entanglement

Nie Yi lived in relative peace in B City secure base in his last life, and Qi Jingchen had been locked up, so they didn’t know much of someone secretly hunting and killing ability users during the beginning stage of the apocalypse to artificially become a manmade ability user. As for the future...

The ability nucleus in an ability user’s head couldn’t give ordinary people abilities. Ability nuclei weren’t the same as mutated plants; they were produced by the ability user’s absorption of surrounding energy and already were imprinted with the ability user’s characteristic. They even contained a portion of the ability user’s spiritual strength, so the regular people who wanted to use them to awaken an ability would only suffer.

However, other ability users could absorb ability nuclei to upgrade their own ability.

Back then, nobody knew how to improve their abilities and after this method was discovered, many rushed like lemmings to massacre ability users with similar abilities to them. Afterwards... Those who became stronger by absorbing energy that wasn’t originally theirs were the first to self-explode and die.

Realizing this, humans later stopped killing each other, but now... it seemed that this was just beginning?

“Burn that person’s bones ba,” Qi Jingchen said. Dying by human hands, then devoured by zombies; this person really was rather miserable.

Since the people cut open his skull and took away the ability nucleus inside, that meant he, at the very least, had been a level two ability user who already condensed his ability into a droplet shape. That also meant that he was presently a well-known figure among ability users.

Someone like this died by human hands... Who knew how many ability users perished like so at the start..

If humanity had been united from the beginning... Forget it, that was impossible.

Nie Yi held Qi Jingchen and rushed towards the centre of the zombies, then encircled them with a fire dragon. After coming in contact with the zombies, the flames immediately burned the heads of some zombies into ashes.

However, zombies weren’t afraid of death. Nie Yi may be strong, but since they sniffed out flesh, they still charged towards Nie Yi and Qi Jingchen dauntlessly.

Nie Yi took some effort to slaughter the zombies around him, then condensed an ice spear, swept together the mangled corpses of people who hadn’t transformed into zombies and had probably been plotted against, and burnt them into ashes.

“Let’s go ba,” Qi Jingchen said. Helping them dispose of their bones and preventing them from being picked clean by zombies was already quite benevolent of him. He wouldn’t go any further.

“Wait,” Nie Yi said, before using his water ability to douse an area.

There had originally been some torn up clothes, but after the water ability washed it away, a bright and gleaming sign was revealed.

It was an oval-shaped sign made of stainless steel. The words engraved in it were extremely common, but also very familiar.

In his last life, Qi Jingchen had many subordinates, but Mu Yu was rather high up in their ranks. This woman even had an impressive and fierce nickname, ‘Witch’. On her neck, hadn’t she hung a stainless steel sign on it all year round?

“Go take it and look,” Qi Jingchen said.

Nie Yi quickly picked it up and discovered the sign was a decoration hung with car keys. There was an engraving on it with very sappy words.

Love you for all my life. From Mu Yi.

Without a doubt, this was a gift Mu Yi had given someone...

During the apocalypse, there were too many people who had gone through hardship. Some liked to be likeMistress Xianglinand constantly tell others about their bitterness, but many also didn’t like to speak of it.

What would happen even if they spoke of it? What had happened was already in the past, and they couldn’t redo anything... Of course, it seemed that several people had started over now.

Qi Jingchen didn’t like talking about the past, and so no one knew he had once been kept in captivity. Nie Yi also did not like to speak about the past, and so not many knew of Yan Zhe’s name. Mu Yi similarly did not like speaking of her matters so they didn’t even know whether she was married.

However, judging by the present situation, even if she had been unmarried, she at least had a boyfriend and he was this unfortunate man before them.

Nie Yi and Qi Jingchen looked at each other. In the end, Nie Yi condensed a tiny box and shovel from ice, then scooped up the ashes on the ground.

In any case, Mu Yi was their comrade. If this person really was the one Mu Yi liked, they naturally couldn’t leave his ashes here.

Nie Yi held the ice box in his hands and returned to the encampment with Qi Jingchen. Then, he found a funerary box they had grabbed from a crematorium and placed the nameless man’s ashes inside.

“This is?” Qi An asked, puzzled. Back in the crematorium, Chenguang team had given Nie Yi the best-looking funerary boxes. He had asked Nie Yi for a spare for himself and Xiaomao but Nie Yi wasn’t willing to give it to him. How come he would actually use it for someone else?

“Found this sign on him.” Nie Yi threw the sign in his hand over to Qi An.

Qi An looked at the sign and fell silent. “Mu Yi’s person?”

“Probably. You keep it,” Nie Yi said. He had no wish to hold this love token so it was better to give it to Qi An.

Qi An curled his lip and put away the stainless steel sign.

That night, Nie Yi and Qi Jingchen slept in the same bed as usual.

It was getting deeper into the night. When midnight came, Qi Jingchen felt discomfort again and quickly opened his eyes.

He had already become like an ordinary person during the day but was still uncomfortable at night. But he had never told others and just woke up often through the night.

Today, he had just woken up when he felt a little strange. Nie Yi would usually lay beside him and change his methods to stick closer to him.

Recently the weather had gotten colder and he used the pretext of helping warm the blankets to refuse to leave... But now, Nie Yi wasn’t here.

Qi Jingchen felt unwell from his pounding headache and was in a bad mood. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before Nie Yi returned and carefully slipped under the blanket.

Normally, one’s body would be a little cool when they returned from outside, but Nie Yi’s body was nice and warm... Having a fire ability was really useful!

Qi Jingchen didn’t move at all, as though he were completely unaware that Nie Yi had left and had been sleeping soundly, but he soon fell asleep for real.

When Qi Jingchen woke up the next day, the sky was already bright and Nie Yi had prepared clothes for him to wear.

A white, slim-fit cashmere sweater and blue jeans; when they were worn together, Qi Jingchen looked even smaller.

Seeing that Qi Jingchen had dressed, Nie Yi took out a platinum bracelet and put it on Qi Jingchen, then placed a golden Guanyin around Qi Jingchen’s neck.

The gold Guanyin was attached to a very delicate gold chain and could give off a tacky feel on certain people but on Qi Jingchen, it was unusually fitting. But before Qi Jingchen could take more than a couple glances, Nie Yi had already shoved the gold Guanyin into Qi Jingchen’s cashmere sweater.

Didn’t Nie Yi usually have him wear anything expensive? Why did he suddenly give him a gold necklace?

Qi Jingchen felt suspicious but didn’t object. After that, the ring—that he didn’t quite like—Nie Yi had chosen for him to wear was placed on his hand for no reason.

Nie Yi finally began to tidy himself up once Qi Jingchen was done, then went outside to arrange the battle teams and food for Qi Jingchen.

Just as Nie Yi left, Qi Jingchen pulled out the gold Guanyin necklace from his collar and turned it over. Sure enough, there was a sappy sentence on it as well as Nie Yi’s name.

He just knew that Nie Yi had a reason for being so troublesome. Moreover, perhaps Nie Yi didn’t really want to hide it and purposely let him see.

Qi Jingchen frowned slightly at the thought of him sticking to his back every morning and causing him to always feel something inappropriate. Young people were always young and vigorous, so it was completely understandable for Nie Yi. Yet he himself... For some reason, he had no feelings of that sort at all.

He... can’t?

Qi Jingchen stuffed the gold Guanyin back into his cashmere sweater then walked out after picking up the lettuce by the side. Right at this time, the team was preparing breakfast.

Their team was always running outside and could be said to have extremely arduous work. It would be a little inhumane to always be severe to them and might cause them to harbour grudges. As such, Nie Yi had always arranged their three meals very well.

The packets of pickled mustard plants were boiled in water and cooked into soup, then they took minced salted duck egg and cured meat. Half of it was used for fried rice and the other half was for stir-fried noodles; everyone ate their pick. There were also sauces like Laoganma so that those with heavier taste could eat with the sauce.

Shao Zhenglan and Qi Yaoyao took a bottle of spicy sauteed peanuts and ate it with fried rice, causing their bowl of rice to be dripping with oil, and they ate especially cheerfully.

Qi Jingchen remembered that when Mother Qi used to add a lot of oil when she made rice, Qi Yaoyao would become unhappy, thinking that she would grow pimples if she ate it. Now, this girl was pouring chilli oil in her bowl...

Of course, Qi Jingchen’s food wasn’t the same as the others. Back when Nie Yi passed by a village, he had exchanged for three hens with the villagers and raised them in a cage in one of the trucks at the back. The eggs these three hens laid were all Qi Jingchen’s.

Qi Jingchen ate fried rice with egg and carrots, vegetable soup and a saucer of peanuts that Nie Yi had personally fried with a cup of soy milk.

While everyone was eating, activity was heard from outside. It turned out to be some people who were being chased by zombies and had run over to their factory. Then, they were rescued by the team members who had been clearing out the zombies that gathered at night.

“Thank you. Without you, we might have become zombie food.”

“What cursed luck; there had never been zombies here before.”

“So many trucks... Do you guys have many people?”

“How fragrant...”

...

The few people rested outside the factory entrance for a while and discovered that the people clearing the zombies outside ignored them from the start, and began to straightforwardly knock on the entrance to the factory building— In any case, they had no way of leaving this place with their current strength.

Early in the morning, after reporting to Nie Yi, someone brought those who had come to knock on the door to him. When these people saw Qi Jingchen’s food, they couldn’t help swallowing their saliva; they began to show envy when they saw the surrounding people eating the fried rice that even smelled delicious.

They who dared to travel outside generally wouldn’t starve, but who could eat a warm meal during the apocalypse? The vast majority would just eat a few casual bites of something to deal with their hunger.

“Are you from J City secure base?” Nie Yi looked at the people before him.

“We’re from J City secure base. Are you guys from another base?” A middle-aged man who was the leader asked. J City... definitely didn’t have a team like this.

“We came from B City secure base.” Nie Yi directly said, “We’re eating breakfast. Since you’re here, do you want to eat some?”

Their eyes instantly brightened, and without a pretence of refusal, they sat down to eat. Seeing this, Nie Yi had Ping Shengchao receive them.

Ping Shengchao had someone cut some ham sausage, then tore open a few packets of dougan that would have been snacks pre-apocalypse and served it. Only then did he begin to chat as they ate. Not long after, he understood the general gist of these people’s situation as well as the situation in J City secure base.

J City secure base was being controlled by the military. The current leader of J City secure base was a general surnamed Sun.

General Sun possessed a team with considerable numbers, and he himself was a strong fire ability user. He did as he said he would in J City secure base, of course, J City secure base also had other influences, but none were comparable to General Sun.

When Nie Yi heard these people’s words, he was a little puzzled. General Sun himself was an ability user and his team also had many ability users. According to reason, he definitely wouldn’t experiment on ability users... What on earth was going on with J City secure base?

In his last life, he didn’t really care about these matters and would rarely take the initiative to find out. He also had no time to do so. Now, he was caught unprepared... Simultaneously, the people before him seemed to have no clue about their base having kidnapped ability users.

It was probable that this matter hadn’t been revealed yet. Nie Yi packed up and headed to J City secure base with his team.

Chenguang Team, if nothing else, had a frightening loftiness. During the journey to J City secure base, Nie Yi and his team completely annihilated any zombies they encountered when they passed by.

The people who had knocked on the door of the factory building Nie Yi and the others were living in and freeloaded a meal off of them were a small, inconsequential team from J City secure base. They had left the secure base early this morning so that they could find more supplies, and so did not follow Nie Yi back to J City secure base. Instead, they searched through the factory building where Nie Yi and his team had cleared out the zombies.

Factories mostly worked with the system of three shifts in 24 hours, and there would be people working in the company at night as well. The company would usually prepare midnight snacks for these people—such as instant noodles.

For factory girls who worked in this sort of factory workshop, instant noodles were something they ate the most often. After these people gained access to the little lockers where the factory girls kept their lunchboxes, coats, and water cups, they found a lot of instant noodles, as well as the snacks the factory girls placed inside.

“Take all of the things...” The leader showed a delighted expression when he saw this. He wanted to search through this factory because he had been thinking for the safety of the team, but unexpectedly gained an abundant harvest.

“Uncle Zhang, I just went to the top floor. Guess what I saw?” Someone suddenly ran over.

“What did you see?” the middle-aged leader asked.

“The people who invited us to eat are too powerful!” That person said, “I saw them kill a ton of zombies!”

These people had already gathered almost everything. Upon hearing this, they all went to the factory’s top floor, then took out the binoculars they had prepared to look outside. Sure enough, they saw a group of people killing zombies speedily in the distance.

“That group really is amazing... Could it be that B City secure base’s strength is that much higher than ours?” The middle-aged leader couldn’t help saying, “They suddenly ran over. Who knows what effect they’ll cause...”

People who exclaimed in astonishment over Nie Yi and his team’s strength definitely weren’t just these few. In reality, during the team’s journey forward, they encountered many people who showed reverence towards them.

historical

When they neared J City secure base, they didn’t encounter many zombies anymore but the team’s cohesive movements caused other people to feel that they were somewhat special.

And at this time, at J City secure base’s entrance, there was a group preparing to leave.

This group was all dressed in military outfits and the leader had a fierce appearance. She was a young woman about twenty-four or five years old. Though their loftiness couldn’t compare to Nie Yi’s team, it definitely wasn’t weak.

“Boss, there’s a group coming over outside!” Someone came over to the young woman and gasped out.

“What does it have to do with me?” the woman immediately responded.

“Boss, those people aren’t ordinary. You’d better take a look,” that person said.

The person called boss still wanted to say something when she saw the team truly coming from afar, and there were really a lot of people.

This team wholly was comprised of trucks, and the roofs of the trucks all had vegetables planted atop. It was obvious that they weren’t from J City secure base; who knew why they were coming here... “I’ll go look!”

This woman quickly reached Nie Yi and the rest, then saw two people walk out from the truck that had stopped first.

The first one looked good and had a strong imposing manner, but there wasn’t much difference between him and the other soldiers she had seen. Instead, the youth beside him...

“Xiao Anzi, what do you say we snatch that one to be the male mistress of the fort?” The person this woman was pointing at was Qi Jingchen.