PSW – Chapter 15

Based on the destination Li Yunhan and Wang Youfei had provided, Yu Yinan planned a rough route. To be safe, she decided they would cover some distance first, find a place to rest for the night, and then take them the rest of the way back once the previous day’s zombie horde had mostly subsided.

“You ran all that way?”

“No, we rode an electric scooter on the way there, but it ran out of power halfway. Then we managed to find a bicycle. But we were in such a hurry and a mess when we escaped the hospital, and zombies had started gathering where we’d left the bike, so we had no choice but to run.” Wang Youfei couldn’t help but sigh at the memory. Fortunately, they had made it through and even received help from kind people.

As evening approached, Zheng Yi and Yu Yinan found a safe place to park the car, then set up an iron pot. Zheng Yi made no attempt to hide her ability, filling the large pot with water directly. Yu Yinan then summoned some stones to build a stove and gathered flammable materials to start a fire.

“You must be hungry, right? Come eat with us.” Zheng Yi pulled a bag of dried noodles from her hiking backpack and put them in after the water boiled. “It’s nothing special, just some plain noodles in broth.”

At most, she could add a little soy sauce and salt. Maybe a bit of chili sauce?

Li Yunhan was moved to tears. What kind of great benefactors were these? They were willing to share their food for free? Plain noodles in broth! Not only were there noodles, but there was hot soup, too!

And when she saw Zheng Yi pull a bottle of soy sauce, a bag of salt, and a jar of chili sauce from her bulging backpack, she couldn’t hold back her tears of gratitude. In fact, other tears threatened to stream from the corners of her mouth.

Was this some kind of Doraemon backpack? Or was there a dimensional space hidden inside? This was… this was just too amazing!

While Zheng Yi and the others were enjoying their hot noodles, a conflict was brewing back at the survivor camp.

“Li Yunhan and Wang Youfei still aren’t back! That electric scooter barely had any charge left; there’s no way it could have gotten them to the hospital. And the hospital is so dangerous, they’re probably… they’re most likely dead.” A young man paced back and forth inside the camp. “I told you we shouldn’t have let them take the risk! Yan Han, we’re running low on food.”

“Exactly! If they hadn’t taken that scooter, we could have at least used the remaining power to scavenge more supplies nearby,” another person chimed in, though his concern was clearly for the scooter, not the people.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up! That scooter was theirs to begin with, and they were the ones who went out to scavenge. Who the hell are you to be making snide remarks?” The young man, however, wasn’t having any of it. Hearing the undertone in the man’s words, he pointed a finger right in his face and cursed, “If you’re so damn capable, why don’t you go out and scavenge? Why don’t you go get the medicine?! Jiang Jue, you can stop with the hindsight bullshit. I was going to go with them, but you’re the son of a bitch who was too scared to go out, insisting I stay behind to keep searching the immediate area!”

The man instantly fell silent. But the loud shouting startled a baby being held by a couple in the corner, and its shrill wails immediately filled the room.

“Cry, cry, cry, that’s all you do all day!” Jiang Jue, having been silenced by Yan Han, was fuming. He was just an ordinary person, not enhanced, so how could he go out to scavenge? It was too dangerous! If it weren’t for this brat’s high fever, those two might not have decided to risk their lives for medicine.

In such a chaotic and hopeless world, with the zombie virus spreading everywhere, what was the point of raising a baby? They could barely keep themselves alive!

He scanned the room, seeing an old man curled up in a corner, suffering from a high fever; a timid middle-aged man who didn’t dare meet his gaze; a few other men who remained silent; and Yan Han, who shot him a fierce glare the moment he looked over.

The companions who had gone out to find food today hadn’t returned, and there was no word from Li Yunhan and Wang Youfei, who had left long ago. Standing in this crude “survivor camp,” a gathering of a few people with nowhere else to go, he found it incredibly difficult to feel any hope for the future.

A bunch of old, weak, sick, and disabled people with no fighting ability, unable to venture out. The rest were cowards like him, unwilling to take risks. How did people who couldn’t provide any value deserve to live? Yan Han was willing to go out and find supplies, but judging by his attitude, he’d clearly disliked him for a long time.

The thought began to form in his mind. Years of education told him it was wrong, but he couldn’t stop himself from dwelling on it. These people needed to eat and drink, and food and water were limited! If Li Yunhan and Wang Youfei actually came back with medicine, that would be another scarce resource gone!

The baby… even if they saved him this time, how many years could he survive in the apocalypse? He might not even make it to adulthood! And those old folks weren’t worth it either. They’d lived long enough; dying early in the apocalypse would be a blessing for them, saving them from further suffering. Their own sons and daughters hadn’t come to take care of them, so why should he, a stranger, have to look after them? He had mentioned his thoughts to Li Yunhan before, but that woman, with her misplaced kindness, just didn’t understand. A woman is just a woman, no big-picture thinking at all. All that education and good grades were a waste.

And that guy Wang Youfei was just as bad, foolishly following Li Yunhan around. All he knew was how to chase after a woman’s ass. What good would ever come of him? He’d completely wasted his chance at enhancement.

Once these resentful thoughts started, there was no stopping them. He looked at the timid middle-aged man and thought about how the guy ate so much every day without going out to find anything. Two compressed biscuits per meal weren’t enough for him; he always wanted more, and then he’d drink so much water afterward!

He looked at the old man with the persistent fever and thought about how this half-dead geezer was wasting their food and water. It was all for nothing.

The longer time went on, the harder it became to find food and clean water. Even the military had fallen. Could Genbin really hold out for a rescue? If those two didn’t come back… He glanced at the place where they stored their food, then at the other survivors in the camp. He sat down in a corner by himself, picked up a copy of the Ling Country Road Atlas, and began flipping through it with his head down.

Wang Youfei and the others had been planning a road trip for their vacation, so they had bought this atlas and kept it in their bag. The apocalypse had come too suddenly, so they hadn’t taken out some of their books. Now, they were keeping them here as emergency fuel.

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This was probably the most peaceful night’s sleep Li Yunhan and Wang Youfei had gotten since the apocalypse began.

These two powerful figures gave them an unparalleled sense of security. If it weren’t for the people waiting for them back at the camp, they would have even volunteered to follow them.

“We’re almost there, it’s just around here!” Li Yunhan grew excited as they neared the camp. She wondered how everyone else was doing. The medicine… it should still be in time, right? “Thank you, thank you so much!”

She thanked them repeatedly. Zheng Yi and Yu Yinan didn’t need the medicine they had retrieved, and besides saying thank you, they truly didn’t know what else they could do.

‘A thousand thanks are worth less than believing I’m a Saint.’

‘And they’re not willing to believe it.’

[…After all, in the current context, you can’t even casually call someone a “good person,” so who would dare to sincerely praise someone as a “Saint”?] Zero One sighed softly.

“Don’t thank me, I didn’t do much. You should thank Jiejie. She worked hard driving all this way~” Zheng Yi thought about the Saint Points Yu Yinan had contributed yesterday, and her tone became three parts sweeter and softer.

Yu Yinan was clearly a little flustered by this. She avoided Zheng Yi’s gaze, silently looking away as she continued to drive along the route Li Yunhan had given her. “Don’t thank me.” She was no… kind person.

Was this an abandoned factory? A large iron gate was shut tight. Li Yunhan and Wang Youfei painstakingly climbed out of the car windows and stretched their limbs after landing on the ground.

“Our two benefactors, would you like to come inside and see?” Li Yunhan’s eyes held a hint of apprehension. She was well aware of the personalities of some of her “companions” in the camp. Logically, she knew she couldn’t stick with some of them long-term in the apocalypse, but for now, huddling together for warmth was a necessity for survival.

“Of course, we came all this way~” Zheng Yi said with a smile, summoning a small amount of water in her hand. “Besides, you must be short on water, right? Now that you’ve gone to all the trouble of bringing back medicine, it’s best to take it with boiled water if you can.”

Li Yunhan hadn’t expected Zheng Yi to be so thoughtful. In that instant, it was as if Zheng Yi was enveloped in a golden halo in her eyes.

Wang Youfei began to pull a rope hanging outside a crack in the gate. The rope was connected to the inside of the factory, leading all the way to the entrance of their resting area, where it was tied to a string of small bells. Pulling the rope made the bells ring.

Soon, the sound of hurried footsteps approached. The lock on the inside was undone, the bolt was drawn, and the gate was quickly pulled open. In almost the same instant, a young man from inside threw his arms around Wang Youfei, not forgetting to pound his shoulders twice during the embrace. “You brat! You finally decided to come back alive!”

“Well, we got held up on the road for a bit.” Wang Youfei grinned foolishly. Before he could break free from the enthusiastic hug, another voice cut in abruptly.

“Yan Han! Are you opening the gate without even checking if they’ve been bitten by zombies?!”

“Jiang Jue, you watch your mouth! Wang Youfei and Li Yunhan risked their lives to get medicine for everyone!” As he spoke, Yan Han finally let go of Wang Youfei. He patted him on the shoulder, looked him up and down, and felt his arms. “No bite marks! Their clothes aren’t even torn, where would any bite marks come from?!”

“We got the medicine. You have no idea how many zombies were at the hospital. We were almost swallowed by a horde. If it weren’t for these two great benefactors, you wouldn’t be seeing me right now,” Wang Youfei said, pulling Yan Han to the side to push the gate fully open. The car, with the motorcycle tied to its roof, slowly drove in.

“You went out to get medicine, how did you end up bringing two more people back!?” Jiang Jue walked over quickly, not having quite heard what Wang Youfei said. Just as he spoke, he saw Yu Yinan and Zheng Yi in the car. He paused for a moment, his tone softening as he looked the vehicle over. “Never mind, never mind. The car is nice, and the motorcycle too. It’ll be convenient for us to use the motorcycle to go out later. We’ll just have to find some gasoline.” As for the two women, it didn’t matter if they had no fighting ability. Though he hadn’t gotten a clear look, they seemed pretty and were still young. Two more mouths to feed was acceptable.

“Jiang Jue! Shut up!” Li Yunhan shouted. “This car is theirs! Don’t you get any funny ideas! They saved my life and Wang Youfei’s, so show some respect!”

Jiang Jue was stunned by her yelling. When he recovered, blood rushed to his head. He was about to say something more when the woman in the car pushed her door open, got out, and fixed him with an icy stare. A cluster of flames appeared out of thin air in her hand.

An Ability User…