Chapter 161: Zombie Horde Attacks the City
Those who could live in the Central District would already have some sort of status or power, so naturally they wouldn’t be lacking in provisions. So, Pei Ran went to set up in the Outer District, setting down a plastic cover right on the roadside and covering it with food he wanted to sell. With two small stools on the side, his set up was complete.
Pei Ran had organized the provisions into their own categories, with instant noodles by themselves, as they were the most numerous, stacked up to about half the height of a person and the rest of the snacks stuffed into one full basket. He and Qu Yan sat on the side, with one of them responsible for talking to the customers and the other responsible for collecting orbs as payment.
Qu Yan was wearing a baseball cap and dressed in a high collared black shirt. With the top half of his face covered in the shadows and the lower half hidden within the collar, he emitted an aura that prevented others from approaching. Seeing Pei Ran’s head lowered and focused on playing games, he reached out to tug on his sleeve and asked,
“Why must you sell these?”
Besides the communicators the base used, the internet was basically dead, with nothing playable besides something like candy crush. Hearing this, Pei Ran momentarily paused his game and looked up from the screen to Qu Yan,
Qu Yan had no concept of sharing in his mind, especially during the apocalypse when provisions were lacking; food was best to be stored in his own hands. He said,
“We could save it for ourselves.”
Pei Ran couldn’t help but laugh. He put away his phone and then lifted up the brim of Qu Yan’s cap. He patiently explained,
“But with so much stuff, we won’t be able to finish them all.”
The dimensional space was in Pei Ran’s hands, so only he would know the sheer quantity that he had stored. Yet the dimensional space did not have the ability to keep them fresh, and with the passage of time, the food was only going to slowly deteriorate.
Limitations exist to limit human’s desires. If the space could keep the food as fresh as they were when they were put in, Pei Ran would only stuff as many things as he could and not think about taking them out.
Couldn’t finish them all……
For Qu Yan, even if he couldn’t finish them all, he would rather throw it away than give it to someone else for their benefit. But he would not say those words to Pei Ran. He only quietly draped himself over the other’s knees as he felt cold gusts of wind slowly brush over every inch of his skin.
Pei Ran was wearing a loose fitting light colored wool sweater and with a lingering warmth in his palms, he pressed his fuzzy sleeves up against Qu Yan’s face. As if sensing something, he said,
The higher ups in the research department at the base were already sectioning off a small part of land to test different types of grain. Perhaps after a few years, they would be able to have some sort of a short term solution to their food shortage problem. Humans had already lived upon the soil of this earth for more than a thousand years, so there was no reason they would be beaten down now.
There were a lot of people looking at their stall, but most of them were normal humans with no abilities. Their eyes were tightly glued to those colorful bags, and perhaps there were some who wanted to buy them but they were afraid that the price was too astronomically high and so no one took a step.
Pei Ran’s stall was not set in any specific spot; he set it up wherever he had walked to. The base was as big as a small town, and it was his first time here near the walls of the outer districts. Seeing no customers, he did not use any tactics to get customers and only went back to continue playing on his phone.
There was a big stretch of road in front of the stand, and military trucks would pass by occasionally, heading out of the city and then driving right back. Every time they returned, they brought with them the scent of blood and the stench of zombies. Each and every one of these trucks held a team heading out to exterminate some zombies, but it was evident that the number of members injured or dead was only increasing.
When his phone ran out of power, Pei Ran lifted his head and saw a man with grey hair taking a stroll by the grass fields nearby, wearing a lab coat and gold rimmed glasses. Following closely behind him were a few soldiers carrying guns as protection. Pei Ran thought that the elderly man must be some important member of the base, but he didn’t seem to have any of that condescending attitude. He was just bending down to talk to the kids hanging around in the area and would occasionally grab a handful of candy from his pockets to hand out to them.
The old man was Professor Bai, a researcher in the base researching a cure for the zombie virus. About sixty years old or so, he would normally be deep in his research in his lab. Occasionally he would take a walk outside, finding a quiet corner to sit and share a bit of his food with the young children in the area before returning back to his work.
Those children were very quiet and obedient. Each one of them were skinny and dark, features of those who were severely malnourished for a long time. They accepted the candy but they wanted to savor the treat, carefully holding the piece of candy in their hands as they surrounded the elderly man.
Pei Ran didn’t know why, but he was entranced looking upon this scene. He thought, was Qu Yan like this when he was young? Looking so pitiful, so skinny and so tiny. But his eyes were big and his skin pale so he was probably very cute.
As he thought this, Pei Ran couldn’t help but lower his head and kiss Qu Yan. Then he smiled as he caressed Qu Yan’s face, finding joy in playing by himself.
He could always be so happy, smiling like this that it could even make the dark and gloomy sky start to lighten up. There were times when Qu Yan didn’t even know what he was happy about, but then he thought that this kind of situation was not bad.
Not long after, the old man left, and the surrounding kids scattered like the wind. One of them curiously looked over at Pei Ran and then ran over, but he stopped a few steps away, carefully eyeing him up again.
Pei Ran squinted his eyes for a while, feeling that the other looked so familiar, but his tiny face was covered in dirt so he couldn’t recall who it was. Qu Yan lifted his head from Pei Ran’s thighs to take a look, and sensing that there was no threat, he lay back down again.
Qu Yan’s memory was very good and he thought about it before saying only three words,
Only then did Pei Ran recall that this was the kid who led them around when they first arrived at the base. He couldn’t help but smile and wave him over. Ding Si Hao hesitated for a moment before quickly pitter-pattering his way over. He was much skinnier than before, but he was also much taller than before.
Ding Si Hao stood very straight in front of him, almost as if he was a soldier standing at attention, and shook his head,
“Mom’s not home. She went to work.”
Pei Ran grabbed a bag of bread from the basket and passed it over to him,
“Are you still helping newcomers and showing them around?”
Ding Si Hao felt a bit awkward about accepting the bread so he only lowered his head to play with the candy in his hand,
“No, no new survivors have entered the base for a while now. Those uncles and aunties could only go out and find orbs in zombie corpses, but mom won’t let me go.”
There were times when the teams didn’t have enough time to dig up the orbs after killing zombies, so those who were brave enough would form groups and specifically head out to nab these rewards. Although it was dangerous, they could find a lot of loot. If they were very lucky, they might even hit the jackpot and find some rare orbs.
Pei Ran stuffed the bag of bread into his hands,
Ding Si Hao held onto the bread, but he did not immediately leave. His eyes stared at Pei Ran’s stall for a while before he very quietly, so quiet it was like the sounds of a mosquito, said,
“This is very dangerous. It will all be stolen by bad people.”
There were a few tyrants ruling over parts of the territories in the outer district. Relying on their muscular bodies and strength, they always went around to rob normal people of their provisions; they were no different from a mafia boss.
Pei Ran’s expression was very calm as he said,
The SB that wanted to steal from him a few days ago had been fried until his own mother wouldn’t even be able to recognize him. Dropped to the floor, jerking his entire body and frothing at the mouth, he could only be dragged away like a dead dog in the end, so having a few of these come around wasn’t an issue.
After another half hour, someone finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and inquired about the price. Pei Ran was selling everything quite cheaply as, after all, they were expired goods,
“Two orbs for one bag. Take your pick.”
The man widened his eyes at that,
“Two orbs for one bag? For real?!”
His expression was not because it was too expensive; instead it was the opposite – it was too cheap. At this time, after the recent explosive rise in zombies, quite a few ability holders had come running back to the base defeated with nothing in their pockets. Even the Ability Hall had stopped selling most of the items in its shop, and even with 5 contribution points, it would only get you the cheapest, the most hard to swallow hardtack.
A wordless panic had begun to spread like wildfire amongst the people, and yet the higher ups at the base had made no mention of any news. In the days following, the quality of life was very clearly deteriorating within the base.
“It’s fake. Don’t buy it.”
That man quickly squatted down and dug out ten orbs from his pockets, two of which were level 2. He tightly held them in his hand and asked Pei Ran,
“How much could these be exchanged for?”
Pei Ran had not really planned to bargain much or he wouldn’t be selling them for so cheap,
“Count it for twelve packs.”
And then signalled for Qu Yan to collect the orbs. He counted out twelve bags of instant noodles to give to the man and then grabbed a small bread bun from the basket as a gift.
The man immediately held those bags in his grasp, using his outer coat to hide them before bending his waist and disappearing off in a cloud of dust like the wind. With the way that he acted, it was as if he had just found a pile of gold ingots.
With one person taking the plunge, business started to pick up. Within half an hour, the items that could fill up two suitcases were all sold out. But there were still some buns left in the basket and these things did not last on the shelf for long. In comparison to instant noodles for the same price, most people would pick the easy-to-store instant noodles. So Pei Ran half gifted, half sold the buns away.
Qu Yan counted all the orbs they earned and then dropped them all in a bag. It was quite heavy, but unfortunately, most of them were level 1s, so they weren’t worth much.
Pei Ran dug a lollipop out of the basket, and thought about something before shaking his head,
“If this was before the apocalypse, I would have gone into debt doing business like this.”
Qu Yan had not been paying much attention as his gaze looked out far into the distance, through the thick slab of walls of the base. Whatever he found then, his eyebrows furrowed for a moment before slowly smoothing out. He tugged at Pei Ran’s hands and quietly said,
“Let’s go, we’ll head back first.”
A cold gust of wind blew by and with it brought a thick stench. Pei Ran’s nose twitched, and he immediately sensed that something was wrong. He quickly packed up his things and followed Qu Yan to the Central District. He quietly asked,
With his eyes closed, Qu Yan sent his sensing ability outwards, and said with uncertainty,
“There is a wave of zombies heading right over here.”
“The target is the base? Are the numbers high?”
“It looks like it. They’re a bit far, so I can’t be sure.”
Before all of his words even left his mouth, there was a piercing screech of cars speeding outside the base and very quickly after, three trucks came whizzing into the base. A mix of rotting flesh and brain juice completely covered the trucks, as if they had just gone through a very intense battle. Pei Ran pulled Qu Yan back a few steps as they saw a few military officers with very pale faces get out of the trucks and fly into the base leader’s office.
This kind of situation immediately indicated that something was very wrong, and connecting the dots to the recent anomalies, Pei Ran’s first immediate thought was to get out and hide as, after all, protecting your life was the most important thing. He dragged Qu Yan along to go back to their rented apartment and pack up quickly.
It didn’t matter what they packed but they must find their car key. Pei Ran searched high and low for a long time before finally finding it right under the sofa.
He easily sweated a lot when he was in a rush, and Qu Yan wiped at his forehead, saying with a very calm expression,
Even if zombies really got in, he could protect Pei Ran.
The sky outside was suddenly darkening, with thick black clouds rolling over, like warning signs before a lightning storm. Whatever was happening, the base sirens began to ring, and its sound was like a needle to the ear, piercing as the cacophony caused hearts to beat fast along its beat.
“What’s happening? Why are all the sirens going off?”
“Most likely something big and terrible is happening. Could it be that zombies got in?!”
Those who didn’t know what was happening shot to their feet from the alarm, almost falling over, their faces in complete confusion as they looked at each other. At the same time, a broadcast from the base came through.
“Emergency notice! Emergency notice! All functioning ability holders must head to the central district plaza in ten minutes.”
“Once again, this is an emergency situation. All functioning ability holders must gather at the central district plaza within ten minutes! All ability holders who have been registered must be present, the list……”
From the windows high above, waves of military teams began to pour out onto the roads, accompanied by the cadence of running footsteps and colorful shapes as soldiers with their guns flew towards the central district plaza.