Chapter 29 - Upgrade
Zhang Zihai was one of the strongest military ability users.
During middle school, he was very rebellious. Not only had he become the school’s tyrant, he had also even become one of the people in society who swaggered all over the place and didn’t go to class. Later, his parents were worried that he would cause more problems, so they straightforwardly sent him to the army.
Even though Zhang Zihai was a rebel, he had felt that being a soldier was very cool so he cheerfully went. It was only later that he found out that being a soldier was in fact very, very hard…
Some soldiers didn’t have good family circumstances. After they became a soldier, they could eat just a big pot of vegetables and wouldn’t think that it was unpalatable. They could train every day and wouldn’t feel tired. But Zhang Zihai wasn’t the same. In fact, his family was very rich and his parents had pampered him; living this sort of life was simply the same as hell to him…
However, despite the hardships, despite the exhaustion, he got used to it after staying in the army for a long time. After two years of being a conscripted soldier, he didn’t leave the army, and instead, continued to struggle in the barracks. Compared to the past, he had simply become a new man.
Even though he didn’t pass the university entrance exam, his foundation in culture and his behavior in the military were both very good. Later, someone from higher up recommended him to take the military school exam. As a result, not long after he was admitted to the military school, the apocalypse came…
When the apocalypse came, it was complete chaos outside. However, Zhang Zihao had a fever and remained unconscious, to the extent that he wasn’t even able to contact his family at the very start of the apocalypse…
He had a high fever for two entire days and after it passed, he awakened as a fire ability user.
Among the fire ability users, some could only produce a small flame, yet Zhang Zihai was able to produce a fireball as large as a washbasin. Naturally, he was very valued due to this. Among the fire ability users, he was always placed in the position of a leader.
Prior to the apocalypse, Zhang Zihai had always liked to fight for the position of the strongest. After the start of the apocalypse, when he awakened to his fire ability, his temper became even more volatile. On top of that, he was concerned for his parents but couldn’t go look for them, and had to face zombies everyday… Gradually, he became more and more fond of looking for a fight.
The day before, he heard General Zhao say that there would be an expert coming to their base. Zhang Zihai began to think about it constantly and was eager to swap pointers with the said expert. For this, he worked especially hard on the mission today and managed to finish his mission early and quickly return to the base.
Just as he entered the base, Zhang Zihai realized that a few strangers had come to their base. He was certain that they were the newcomers that were supposed to arrive today… Zhang Zihai promptly became excited.
Zhao Chengqi did say that there was an expert among them… Zhang Zihai looked around and felt that the one who was leisurely lying down on the deck chair was the most in character for an ‘expert’.
He didn’t even look closely at their appearances before he threw a fireball over.
He didn’t use his complete strength as this fireball was only a ‘greeting’. As a result, its speed wasn’t all that fast; even if the other person didn’t utilize their ability to stop it, they would still have no problem dodging it. Of course, if this person chose to dodge it, he would definitely be ridiculed.
Zhang Zihai waited for the other’s reaction, but he didn’t expect the person lying on the deck chair to be entirely unresponsive…
What was going on? Zhang Zihai and the people behind him were startled.
Obviously Qi Jingchen wouldn’t react.
Right now, with his lousy body, he was unable to dodge the fireball even if he wanted to, not to mention the fact that he didn’t even really want to dodge.
The fireball was quite big, and it would probably burn him to death…
Some anticipation flashed through Qi Jingchen’s eyes. Unfortunately, this anticipation was very quickly dashed.
The fireball had stopped in front of him. He could still feel the heat, but the heat only made him sweat and didn’t manage to burn even a single hair on his head.
Really… what a pity… Qi Jingchen quietly sighed. Unexpectedly, when he lifted his head, he saw blue veins throbbing on Nie Yi’s forehead, and he had an expression filled with violent rage.
Qi Jingchen looked at Nie Yi in a daze. For a while, he couldn’t put a word on what he was feeling.
In the last stages of his last life, he truly hadn’t wanted to live anymore, but Nie Yi, instead, had wholeheartedly wanted him to live. At that time, he had lived purely for Nie Yi and the people by his side.
Later, there was only him and Nie Yi left, but Nie Yi still wanted him to continue on living&#k2026; He could only live for another twelve more days.
But that sort of feeling was awful. He didn’t think that life was beautiful at all; on the contrary, every second he was alive was just pain and torment to him.
After his rebirth, his opinion didn’t change much, yet Nie Yi still wanted him to live.
He should probably hate Nie Yi, but now, seeing Nie Yi, who exhausted his spiritual strength to stop the fireball for him, he felt a bit bad.
Why did Nie Yi do this? Even if he didn’t want to die, were the two of them just going to watch humanity go extinct, together, once again? Could it be that it’s something interesting?
Qi Jingchen’s open eyes didn’t express his feelings, and at this time, Nie Yi had already thrown back the fireball Zhang Zihai threw over. At the same time, his eyes also seemed capable of emitting angry flames.
Even though he had used his spiritual strength to stop the fireball, it was only because he had experienced enough of the apocalypse that he’d been able to react fast enough. If he had been even the slightest bit slower, wouldn’t he have ended up with no choice but to look at Qi Jingchen’s corpse?
Nie Yi was sure that at present, neither Yu Shuo nor Nie Boyuan had anyone in the military, and that the military ability users wouldn’t attack regular people for no reason. That was why he would bring Qi Jingchen over, but it hadn’t occurred to him that someone would actually attack without a word!
Because he had just used his spiritual strength to intercept someone else’s fireball, his brain now ached dully, but Nie Yi didn’t stop his motions at all…
At first, when Zhang Zihai saw that Qi Jingchen didn’t react at all, he was frightened. But later, as he watched the fireball he’d thrown suddenly halt and even fly back to him, he was stirred up once more.
He had never seen anyone capable of stopping an ability that had already emerged, not to mention reversing it back to attack the ability user. Did that person have a special ability, or some special method?
Zhang Zihai produced another fireball and hit the other fireball head-on. The two fireballs collided and ultimately shot out sparks everywhere. Zhang Zihai himself had been struck by quite a few, but he was a fire ability user and had a certain degree of resistance towards fire abilities, so he was fine.
Or rather, he was fine for the time being, but soon was not fine, because after the two fireballs had collided and disappeared, there was actually another small fireball that was now flying towards him. Its temperature was far higher than the large fireball he had produced!
Zhang Zihai’s face revealed terror as he stepped back, quickly sending out another fireball with the intention of intercepting it. But it wasn’t useful in the slightest, and he could only watch helplessly as the fireball the size of an egg flew over his head. It came incredibly close to his scalp as it went over, directly burning a line of hair in the middle and charring his scalp.
Ever since awakening his fire ability, Zhang Zihai had stopped being afraid of fire. Normal fire wasn’t able to hurt him at all, but now a large part of his scalp was burnt… It hurt to the point he grimaced, and he only managed not to lose himself by resisting strongly. Yet at the next second, a fist suddenly landed on the bridge of his nose.
What Nie Yi hated the most was someone injuring Qi Jingchen. Not killing Zhang Zihai at once was already considered him exercising restraint. He had no authority at the moment, and definitely couldn’t afford to kill anyone. Or else, not only couldn’t he protect Qi Jingchen, he might not even be able to protect himself…
Because of this, Nie Yi didn’t continue to use his ability as he threw punch after punch, aiming for the places where Zhang Zihai would feel the most pain.
“I concede!” Zhang Zihai had gritted his teeth and didn’t cry out from pain, but he still conceded.
In truth, he hadn’t received any heavy injuries, but there was still a score of missing hair in the middle of his scalp and charred skin, and Nie Yi had also punched his nose. His nose was bleeding incessantly, and he couldn’t help his tears from flowing because his nose was too sour… Not only did this appearance appear too miserable, he himself felt that it was difficult to bear and couldn’t open his eyes.
“Next time, if you throw your ability around like that again, I’ll beat you up each time I see it!” Nie Yi said. His expression was fierce and his clenched fist was trembling.
Zhang Zihai’s was in severe pain all over his body, and felt that his continuous tears were a bit humiliating. He subconsciously wiped his face, and ended up smearing the blood from his nose all over his face, giving himself a Kabuki face. “Isn’t it all good? Brother, your fire ability is really awesome. How did you do it?”
Zhang Zihai’s faceful of blood made the people around them want to laugh, but Nie Yi had no time to care about this as he took a deep breath.
When he was fighting with Qian Mingfeng and the others, he had already used a lot of his spiritual strength. Later, when he saw the fireball flying towards Qi Jingchen, he’d anxiously thought that he would not be able to stop it in time and allow Qi Jingchen to be injured, thus using up all his spiritual strength in that second…
Controlling another’s ability was a hundred times harder than controlling his own. His ability had mostly been depleted, but he’d still ended up sending a fireball over to teach Zhang Zihai a lesson…
He had overtaxed his spiritual strength.
Nie Yi’s mind was harboring a pain similar to a pincushion being poked by many needles and his spiritual strength had been thoroughly consumed! He’d unexpectedly forgotten that this was no longer the time before his rebirth…
If his spiritual strength had only been exhausted, then after he waited for it to slowly recover, his spiritual strength could improve. This time, however, he hadn’t simply exhausted it, he’d overtaxed it… He feared that, for a long period after this, his spiritual strength wouldn’t be able to recover and would also give him a constant headache, to the extent that his future development would be damaged.
Nonetheless, Nie Yi didn’t regret it at all. The next time he encountered this situation, he would still do it again.
“Brother, I’ve surrendered to you, can you teach me?” Zhang Zihai said.
“Nie Yi, come here,” Qi Jingchen suddenly said.
These days, apart from wanting to eat and drink, Qi Jingchen didn’t have any other demands. Most things were done just to bother Nie Yi, but now he’d suddenly called Nie Yi’s name… Nie Yi ignored Zhang Zihai, instead, he ran over to Qi Jingchen with lightning speed. “Jingchen, is something the matter?”
Qi Jingchen raised a finger and curled it. “Come closer.”
Nie Yi instinctively moved closer, then Qi Jingchen’s finger pressed under his chin, an action immediately followed with Qi Jingchen’s face coming closer and closer to him…
!
Qi Jingchen actually kissed him!
Qi Jingchen kissed him!
Kissed him!
For the past few days, Nie Yi had often touched him in secret, and at the same time, he couldn’t help fantasizing, thinking that if Qi Jingchen just responded to him, it would be good enough…
He had thought that even if he waited for another apocalypse, he would never come across something as good as this, but he didn’t expect that Qi Jingchen would actually kiss him so soon!
Nie Yi’s eyes widened, speechless. His entire focus was on the softness against his lips. For a moment, he thought that overtaxing his spiritual strength was very, very worthwhile, as it could actually be exchanged for a kiss!
Moreover, Qi Jingchen’s tongue had even pressed into his mouth.
Everything before him was so beautiful, it was like a dream…
But this dream soon shattered.
Nie Yi suddenly tasted a bloody tang, and he seemed to have instinctively stood up, backing away from Qi Jingchen’s kiss.
His head slowly stopped hurting, his spiritual strength was slowly recovering, and the ability in his mind spontaneously spun. In the end, it got quicker as it spun and started condensing into a small droplet in his mind.
The remaining fog-like ability slowly spun, assimilating with the small droplet as it turned the fire-red droplet bigger and bigger…
At this time, if this change had occurred in another ability user’s brain, they wouldn’t have been able to sense it, nor would they have had an idea as to why it was like this. But Nie Yi knew very well that his ability had upgraded.
He’d become a second-level ability user!
His ability was originally very strong already, and had only lacked a chance to rise to the second level. Now, the chance has appeared.
The advancement of level should be a good thing, but the bloody taste from before made Nie Yi’s face turn pale. He didn’t want Qi Jingchen to receive even the slightest of injuries, but just now… Qi Jingchen had bitten his tongue and given him his own blood to drink?
He abhorred those people who had eaten Qi Jingchen’s flesh, but he himself ate it every time.
Why was Qi Jingchen this foolish? He was clearly perfectly fine. It had only been a small problem, yet Qi Jingchen went so far as to feed him blood?
Nie Yi was incredibly distressed, and he had even thought that Qi Jingchen’s face had become a little paler due to the bloodloss.
At this time, Qi Jingchen was also a little regretful. Even though his blood was a good thing, once Nie Yi consumed it, it was possible that Nie Yi’s life would be in his hands later on… but, his state of mind just now was a little abnormal, and didn’t think of this point…
But… In the future, Nie Yi will probably do some dangerous missions. If he met strong zombies or zombie beast, for the purpose of safety, it was still for the best that Nie Yi ate a bit of his flesh in advance for self-protection. In any case, he still needed to consume it, so it didn’t matter if he did so a little earlier.
Finding an excuse for himself, Qi Jingchen saw Nie Yi’s pale face and frowned slightly. “What? You don’t like it? If you don’t like it, then put me to death…”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” Nie Yi immediately cut off Qi Jingchen’s words. It was only at this time that he remembered the side effects of Qi Jingchen’s blood. But Qi Jingchen hasn’t awakened yet, so this side effect was completely useless. Even if it was effective, he was also eager for this; after all, this way, he could bind Qi Jingchen together with himself…
Soon, he had gotten over the consequences. Nie Yi suddenly realized that his tone just now was a little too sharp. “Jingchen, my tone was a little bad, but don’t ever say that kind of thing again.”
“I want to bathe,” Qi Jingchen suddenly said.
“I’ll go draw water for you,” Nie Yi said. He stood up and suddenly lowered his head to kiss Qi Jingchen’s face.
Qi Jingchen threw a fist over, weakly striking Nie Yi’s neck, but Nie Yi was grinning from ear to ear… Qi Jingchen suddenly felt immense regret. He must’ve simply been possessed just now. Not only did he give Nie Yi his blood, he even used the method of kissing because he was worried that other people would discover his body’s uniqueness…
From now on, Nie Yi will probably become more and more troublesome.
Two men kissing in public really surprised the people in the base. When Zhang Zihai saw the man who had beaten him into a sorry state pulled and kissed by that youth, he was even more bewildered.
The interaction between these two, why did it seem like the youth was more powerful? Could it be that this youth was even more powerful?
Recalling how the youth didn’t take the fireball he sent out seriously at all, he was all the more certain of this.
But at this time, Nie Yi coldly looked at him. “Jingchen is a regular person. If I find out that someone had harmed him, I’ll definitely fight that person!”
While speaking, a fire dragon suddenly flew out from his hand. Just like that, it drew a circle around the area Qi Jingchen was staying in, encircling with Qi Jingchen in the middle. It was just like when Sun Wukong drew a circle for Xuanzang with his golden cudgel.
Soon, the ignited blaze sank into the soil, a deep, circular crevice appearing in the drill grounds; who knew how deep it burned into…
“Hurry up!” Qi Jingchen urged. He suddenly felt that he had thought too much. He really didn’t need to think so much, as it was enough to live comfortably.
Nie Yi then walked away. Zhang Zihai walked over to the crevice that was as wide as his hand and reached inside to explore it. Immediately, he cried out in alarm and took his hand back, then looked at Qi Jingchen with a face filled with disbelief. “Regular person? You’re actually a regular person?”
Right then, he was partly glad that his fireball was stopped by Nie Yi and he hadn’t accidentally killed someone, and was partly in disbelief.
What world is this ah?! It was really difficult for him to meet an expert, but that expert is actually ordered around by a regular person as he pleases!
Baobao Notes
We have a new member in the editing harem! Welcome Evane! She’s been editing since 26, but since we weren’t sure if she wanted to add a welcome message, so I’ve decided to delay it. Unfortunately, there isn’t any… Welcome anyways!