PSW – Chapter 25

The next instant, the entire restaurant collapsed with a deafening roar.

“Zheng Yi!”

Zheng Yi heard Yu Yinan’s anxious cry but didn’t answer. A solid layer of frost parted the falling debris. Amid the ruins, the metallic beast let out an angry whimper. Zheng Yi walked over, crouched down in front of it, and offered a hand with a gentle smile. “My dear, do you need help?”

In a flash, it lunged, snapping its jaws at her.

A high-pressure water blade materialized instantly. Just as Zheng Yi was about to slice off the impertinent creature’s head, a scorching heat surged from behind. She immediately dissipated the water blade, instead throwing her fire axe at the beast’s head.

In the blink of an eye, a massive fireball slammed into the beast’s body. The heatwave exploded outward but didn’t harm Zheng Yi in the slightest. Yu Yinan stood protectively in front of her, the flames parting around her.

Without any hesitation, Yu Yinan unleashed the full force of her ability. Flames instantly engulfed the beast, burning its metallic fur red-hot until it nearly melted. Under Yu Yinan’s control, the inferno wove itself into a wall, trapping the creature within. No matter how it thrashed and charged, it couldn’t escape the sea of fire.

[It just mutated recently… Its intelligence probably isn’t that high, so it couldn’t understand you.] Zero One silently lit a candle for the beast writhing in agony. Zheng Yi had just offered it a way out, but the creature… truly couldn’t understand.

The main reason was that Zheng Yi didn’t want to expose her true abilities in front of Yu Yinan. Otherwise, with her beast-taming skills, no matter how stupid or primitive this creature was, she could have trained it to be as obedient as a dog.

“Are you okay?” More than the struggling, howling beast, Yu Yinan’s first concern was Zheng Yi. She placed her hands on Zheng Yi’s shoulders and studied her carefully, only breathing a sigh of relief when she saw she was uninjured.

“I’m fine. It’s all thanks to Jiejie coming to save me right away.” Zheng Yi blinked and leaned into Yu Yinan’s embrace.

The beast didn’t last long. It soon collapsed in the flames, its metallic fur sloughing off as it was burned to nothing.

“So animals can mutate and gain special abilities, too,” Zheng Yi murmured. She looked at the extinguished fire and the pile of remains, her eyes downcast with sadness. “My quilt, my water cup, and the sweet potatoes I just roasted…”

“We can slowly gather those things again later. All that matters is that you’re safe,” Yu Yinan comforted her. After its metallic properties vanished, the beast’s corpse had shrunk continuously until it was the size of a normal dog before being incinerated by the flames. Was it a stray dog from this city? How many other animals in the world had also mutated?

Yu Yinan hesitated, then patted Zheng Yi reassuringly before letting her go. “I’ll go take a look.”

The heat from the fire had yet to dissipate. Yu Yinan walked over and gently sifted through the pile of ash, from which a gray crystal tumbled out.

The crystal was diamond-shaped and only as long as her little finger. Its shell was a semi-transparent gray, and the inside appeared to be liquid; when she shook it, she could see a subtle flow within. Amidst that flow, silver-blue specks of light flickered, just like the meteors that had streaked across the sky that night.

Yu Yinan squeezed it lightly but couldn’t crush it.

“Is it from inside the beast?” Zheng Yi came over, curious. Looking at the crystal, she could sense the faint energy it contained. She pondered for a moment before adding, “I read in apocalypse novels before that zombies and monsters have crystal cores in their heads, and ability users can eat them directly to strengthen themselves.”

“But this is reality, so Jiejie shouldn’t try it,” Zheng Yi said with a smile. “If you can’t crush it, maybe try burning it with fire again? But there could be side effects. Let’s just hold onto it for now and try later, okay?”

But it was just burned with fire, Yu Yinan thought. Still, maybe holding it would be different? She didn’t reply to Zheng Yi. Instead, she clasped the crystal in her palm, and a flame quickly ignited in her hand.

…It couldn’t be that this thing was actually edible, could it? No, those stories were all made up. This crystal probably contained the elements that caused creatures to mutate. Who knew what would happen if a person ate it directly. Yu Yinan wasn’t about to take that risk.

As her thoughts wandered, Yu Yinan suddenly felt the texture in her palm change. The crystal was gradually softening in her hand, its volume shrinking as if it were melting into the flames, drop by drop.

“It seems… you really can absorb the energy inside it this way,” Yu Yinan said, choosing her words carefully as she felt the changes in her body. “But the energy in this one doesn’t seem to be much. I don’t feel a significant change, but maybe… my control over fire has improved a little?”

After saying this, she realized that the faint headache from overusing her ability was completely gone. “It also seems to restore a bit of mental energy?”

“Do you feel unwell? I was just guessing, just saying it casually. Why did you actually try it? What-what if it’s something bad? What if something happens to you?” Zheng Yi acted extremely anxious. She took Yu Yinan’s hand and inspected it carefully, finding not a single scratch or any trace of the crystal. “Jiejie, that was too reckless!”

“I’m perfectly fine, see? It’s okay,” Yu Yinan said with a comforting smile, letting Zheng Yi examine her hand and touch her palm.

The beast had probably come out to forage after the snowstorm stopped. As it got closer, it must have sensed the heat from their location or smelled the sweet potatoes, which was why it suddenly attacked.

In this frozen world, the threat from zombies had diminished, but now there was the threat of mutated beasts.

Perhaps before the apocalypse, they were all harmless little pets. But now, humans could barely feed themselves, so who had the energy to care for pets? They were lucky if their pets didn’t become food. Once those abandoned pets gained special abilities and mutated, their physical attributes would also improve. To survive, hunting was inevitable.

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With the hotel destroyed, there was no reason for Zheng Yi and Yu Yinan to stay. The snow had stopped, and the temperature would slowly rise. Although it was still very cold and most of the snow on the roads hadn’t melted, they could manage to drive.

This time, however, when they set off, Zheng Yi put Yu Yinan’s motorcycle into her backpack, tying only the bags with the quilts and bedding sets to the roof of the car.

Pujie.

After surviving a cold wave, Zheng Yi and her companion finally reached the outskirts of Pujie.

The once-bustling city was now covered in white snow. The snow had not yet fully melted, and rows of icicles hung from the eaves of buildings. Along the roadside were zombies frozen into pillars of ice, standing motionless. In this state, they seemed to have truly lost their lives. But when the weather warmed and the ice and snow melted, these frozen zombies would likely be “reborn.”

“It doesn’t look like anyone is living nearby.” But after such a severe cold wave and such heavy snowfall, even if there were survivors, they probably wouldn’t be out and about. Yu Yinan slowed the car and continued forward.

She wasn’t sure if she actually wanted to encounter people. She wasn’t good at dealing with strangers and was probably suited for living alone. But… Yu Yinan glanced at Zheng Yi. She thought that if she had been surviving the apocalypse alone all this time, she would have gone mad sooner or later.

Especially during the cold wave. The world was vast and desolate, and everything was silent, as if she were the only one left, clinging to life. In that extreme cold and solitude, Yu Yinan wasn’t sure she could have endured.

If she were alone, with just a motorcycle, she probably wouldn’t even have been able to secure enough food.

“What’s wrong?” Zheng Yi sensitively picked up on Yu Yinan’s mood. She smiled gently and asked with concern.

“Nothing,” Yu Yinan said, her gaze dropping slightly. “I was just thinking, if there really is a shelter here, what would it be like.”

“Ah, right. I’m really looking forward to it, too~”

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When they drove down a certain street, they discovered that the snow in this area had been cleared by someone. Not only that, but the frozen zombies had also had their heads chopped off, their bodies piled together.

“Someone must have been cleaning up around here.” Yu Yinan looked at the pile of zombie corpses, suspecting that the person who did it hadn’t left yet. Otherwise… it seemed like they should have burned the pile completely. She stopped the car and walked closer to the pile. Each zombie’s head was cleanly severed from its body, the cuts remarkably smooth.

Zheng Yi got out of the car and surveyed the surroundings. The snow hadn’t been cleared perfectly, but the remaining bits of ice had now completely melted into water, revealing the original color of the road. She rubbed her hands together by the roadside, her breath forming a white mist in the air.

It was at that moment that several headless zombies, each carrying its own head, came staggering over from a distance.

What-what was this? What was the principle behind this? Just as Yu Yinan was about to step forward, she noticed that besides the four headless zombies, an old woman was trailing leisurely behind them, her ten fingers constantly moving. A closer look revealed extremely thin threads wrapped around her fingertips, stretching all the way to the four zombies in front.

“Wow, Grandma! Is your ability a puppet show? That’s so cool!” Before Yu Yinan could make sense of the situation, Zheng Yi had already run forward with an excited look on her face. She seemed to have no defenses up at all, even though the threads in the strange old woman’s hands were controlling four zombies, and those sharp threads could easily sever a zombie’s head.

“Hehe, it’s just a little trick, nothing worth mentioning.” The old woman had clearly noticed the two of them. When Zheng Yi praised her so excitedly, she smiled. “It’s just from knitting too many sweaters in the past. I’m just a bit skilled with these threads.”

No, this ability has absolutely nothing to do with knitting sweaters, right? Zero One and Yu Yinan had the exact same thought at the same time.

But Zheng Yi clearly didn’t think so. At least on the surface, she seemed even more thrilled. “Grandma, you can knit sweaters, too! That’s amazing!”

“Haha, what an interesting girl.” The old woman’s laugh was somewhat hearty. Her fingers danced, and she quickly manipulated the four zombies to place their heads beside the corpse pile and then throw themselves on top of it. The moment they fell, the threads, so thin they were nearly invisible, were retracted from their limbs. “Are you two also here to seek refuge at the shelter? I’m about done cleaning up here. Once I burn them, I’ll lead the way and we can go back together.” As she spoke, she took out a box of matches from her pocket. The logo on the box wasn’t a brand name, but the words “Humanity’s Light Shelter.”

Yu Yinan no longer remained silent. She took two steps forward, as if she had mentally prepared herself. “Hello, Grandma. Here, let me help with that.” With that, she flicked a cluster of flames onto the pile of zombie corpses. A large fire quickly erupted, consuming the bodies.

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