Chapter 105 - Leaving For B City
Unedited
Among the three shadow guards Qi Jingchen had controlled, two had died, and the remaining survivor was right before them.
After those two shadow guards died, he sensed a portion of his spiritual strength dissipate. Fortunately, such little spiritual strength wasn’t much to him, thus didn’t bring any discomfort. Whereas this one…
He had wanted to release his control of this shadow guard. After all, these monsters gave him an extremely awful feeling. But probably because they were too far apart, he was unable to do so.
Up until just now before they entered, he finally ‘connected’ to this shadow guard, then immediately withdrew his spiritual strength and terminated his control of this person.
This bodyguard that appeared before everyone was blank all over, his open, jet-black but unfocused eyes, looking just like a puppet.
Although Qi Jingchen previously controlled them, he simply did not have the time to observe these shadow guards’ specific condition, and now had the chance to take a good look.
These bodyguards were unlike zombies; the dark energy on their bodies was a little purer than zombies, which also lessened the erosion on their bodies. But even so, their minds were corroded by the dark energy, so much that now they were mentally confused and being controlled.
Seeing this situation, Qi Jingchen couldn’t help becoming a little admiring over the mastermind. Ignoring everything else, even he, as a dark ability user, was completely unable to use his dark ability to create puppets for himself.
Who told him to be uncultured and not know how to research?
But, who in the world was that mysterious reborn person? In his last life, those that lived to the end were all powerful people with strong abilities, but he had never heard of anyone among them who were skilled in conducting research.
Qi Jingchen looked at the shadow guard again. The other’s scent seemed to be considered a grade higher than the zombies’ scent, and made him even more nauseous than the zombies’ scent. After experiencing that person’s energy, he felt his stomach flip, and he immediately backed up and walked to a corner.
“Jingchen, are you okay?” Nie Yi followed after him, his face filled with concern.
“I’m fine, just a little nauseous,” Qi Jingchen said.
Jiang Pingshi was mainly focused on the shadow guard but was still paying attention to Nie Yi and Qi Jingchen. Seeing that Qi Jingchen unexpectedly felt disgusted by even a half-zombified person and a few corpses, he couldn’t help feeling speechless.
Nie Yi was a very able person, and he didn’t hide out in the secure base when the apocalypse fell, instead travelling everywhere to save several people and sending a lot of supplies back to B City secure base. But his lover…
Nie Yi was clearly a very sober person, so why was he muddled when it came to this person? Jiang Pingshi sighed, then went to study that unmoving shadow guard.
Qi Jingchen could see that this so-called shadow guard’s energy was different from a zombie’s, but other people couldn’t see this. What they discussed were relatively surface, all things like how these shadow guards had no surgery wounds, or how these people did not hide bombs.
“I want to take this person back to B City secure base,” Jiang Pingshi said. Yuncheng did not have many researchers, so they could not make out how this shadow guard was made. But if this person was brought to B City secure base, they would definitely be able to discover many things.
Yu Xuguang said that there would be a dark ability user who would oppose them. Although this person before him didn’t resemble him, these shadow guards might be created by that dark ability user and dispatched as an advanced party!
Thinking of this, Jiang Pingshi simply had his heart set on rushing home, hating that he couldn’t immediately bring this person back to B City secure base.
Li Shu readily agreed to Jiang Pingshi’s request, since he planned to send this shadow guard to B City secure base in the first place.
The person able to create this shadow guard was extremely dangerous, and this person also clearly had enmity against Nie Yi and Qi Jingchen… Now, Li Shu couldn’t wait for B City secure base’s people to be able to figure out everything about the shadow guard’s circumstances!
Because they had such an idea, Li Shu not only agreed to Jiang Pingshi taking away this shadow guard, he even handed over all the information he got from the interrogation. Of course, some things were altered by him, such as those people wanting to capture Qi Jingchen; he had changed it to those people making an exchange with Feng Qinyun and wanting to kill him and Nie Yi.
Jiang Pingshi completely did not doubt Li Shu’s version. After he knew of this matter, he felt that it was probably Feng Qinyun and the mastermind colluding together with the intent to harm Li Shu. As for why attack Nie Yi… Nie Yi was Li Shu’s nephew, was also Nie Boyuan’s son, and he was genuinely very strong. If those people wanted to control Yuncheng secure base, they naturally had to kill him.
Jiang Pingshi had gathered up all the data; he even had that shadow guard tied up then put in a box, intending to first bring it to the central restaurant before moving it to the helicopter tomorrow. He treated all of this with extreme importance.
Those who tied up the shadow guard were all ability users, and they were very careful when touching it, afraid that the dark ability user would resist. However, the other was exceptionally compliant, blankly allowing other people to tie him up and shove him into a narrow little box. When that pair of dark eyes looked at people, it unexpectedly made people feel that he was a little pitiful.
Qi Jingchen watched this and suddenly had an urge to throw up.
“Oh right, Nie Yi, do you want to return to B City secure base with me? You’ve fought with these shadow guards, so it’s best if you can return and explain in detail.” Jiang Pingshi said to Nie Yi, “And General Zhao and Chief Nie are both very worried about you. They’ve always been asking about you these days.”
Return to B City secure base? Nie Yi frowned slightly, and immediately refused.
“Why?” Jiang Pingshi looked at Nie Yi in confusion.
“These shadow guards came from the coastal area. I want to go take a look there,” Nie Yi invented a reason. In reality, he intended to bring Qi Jingchen back to Chenguang secure base.
Jiang Pingshi did not doubt him when hearing this, and naturally did not insist either, and even told Nie Yi some matters of B City secure base.
After Nie Yi left B City secure base, there wasn’t too big a change in the base, but some things did happen. For example, Yu Shuo— who had always been the strongest ability user in the eyes of the secure base’s survivors— was defeated by Yu Xuguang.
“That Yu Shuo really overestimated himself. He went out and killed zombies less than a couple of times and he already believed himself to be so powerful.” Jiang Pingshi clearly had no goodwill for Yu Shuo; his words were filled with disdain, and he was conversely very worshipful of Yu Xuguang.
Nie Yi wasn’t surprised by this. In his last life, the ability users from the military similarly despised Yu Shuo… But the Yu Shuo of that time was probably more powerful than now.
At that time, he often left the base to kill zombies; Yu Shuo refused to be outdone and also followed along, so naturally, he tempered his skill.
But in this life? Without him as motivation at the side, perhaps Yu Shuo wouldn’t want to leave the base at all, much less go out and kill zombies.
Nie Yi felt that Yu Shuo not leaving the base had something to do with him, and reality was also so, but a little different from what he thought—the reason as to why Yu Shuo did not go out and kill zombies wasn’t because he was lacking a person’s ‘motivation’, but that Nie Yi’s previous behaviour of killing off all his subordinates in that sofa factory had frightened him.
He was afraid of coming across an ambush when leaving the secure base, so he simply did not leave at all, so much that he unexpectedly lost to Yu Xuguang now.
Yu Xuguang seized the chance to ask some things about Yu Xuguang, and Jiang Pingshi instantly began talking nonstop and even spoke of Yu Xuguang’s older sister. “Miss Yu may be a woman, but her strength isn’t any weaker than a man at all!”
Nie Yi had also once heard someone speak of Yu Xuguang having an older sister when he was in B City secure base, but never heard of her in his last life. Perhaps she died later.
But this girl’s luck in this life was pretty good. With Yu Xuguang protecting her, she probably could live for a very long time.
At the start when Nie Yi was at B City secure base, he was just acquaintances with Jiang Pingshi, because Jiang Pingshi did not like Qi Jingchen, and he wasn’t willing to sort out this person. But now that they chatted, he conversely felt that this person wasn’t so hateable.
His opinion of Jiang Pingshi had changed a little, but unexpectedly, this person died that very night.
Jiang Pingshi and the others rode the helicopter for a very long time before they could reach Yuncheng secure base. Although the shadow guard’s existence was very important and urgent, they still decided to sleep in Yuncheng secure base for one night and return to B City secure base tomorrow.
This was an extremely normal matter, but unexpectedly, that night, the Yuncheng central restaurant that Li Shu used to welcome Jiang Pingshi and the other had been bombed.
The flame soared into the sky, and the tremendous noise awoke everyone in the secure base.
Nie Yi and Qi Jingchen immediately got out of bed the moment it occurred, then saw a bright expanse outside the window. Instantly, their faces sank.
Li Shu was living right next to them, and naturally also noticed this movement. Draping a coat over his shoulders, he came out of the room. “Let’s go see!”
Nie Yi nodded, and followed Li Shu over.
When they arrived, the central restaurant had been uploaded to the point until only ruins remained. Many people surrounded it, and they were all patrol members of Yuncheng secure base; among them, there were also a few injured.
“What happened here?” Li Shu immediately asked. His eyes had deep bags and his wrinkles had become much deeper, yet his imposing manner did not falter and instead grew.
Those patrolmen soon explained everything they knew.
Because Nie Yi and the others had once been ambushed the night of New Year’s Eve, the patrolmen had increased to some extent in both numbers and shifts during these two days. This time, with Jiang Pingshi and the others coming to Yuncheng secure base, Li Shu even specially dispatched people to stand guard nearby.
The secure base had night curfew, and everything was fine during the first half of the night. Yet ten minutes ago, four people ran out from some unknown place, rushing to the central restaurant without care…
These people standing guard nearby wanted to stop them; as a result, two among the four unexpectedly went all out to prevent them, even setting off the bombs on them, and the remaining two also ran into the restaurant.
After a loud noise, the entire restaurant had been destroyed.
Li Shu then asked a few more questions, his expression becoming increasingly stern. And at this time, the fire at the restaurant was finally put out.
Not a single person among Jiang Pingshi and the men he brought from B City secure base had survived. Even the shadow guard that they had tied up and left here had been exploded into scattered fragments!
“Those people are crazy! We’re all humans; what in the world are they thinking?!”
“They’re simply a group of beasts!”
“You have bombs yet you don’t go kill zombies, and you actually kill people! Even beasts are better!”
Everyone in Yuncheng secure base was extremely angry, and Li Shu was the same. Ever since he realised Feng Qinyun had betrayed him, he never had a good sleep. These two days, he was also so busy his feet practically weren’t touching the floor. Now, seeing this, everything before him went dark and he nearly passed out.
“Uncle!” Nie Yi supported Li Shu.
“I’m fine,” Li Shu said, then immediately ordered men to search the entire base to see whether any fishes escaped the net.
They hadn’t caught all of the people who had tried to kill Nie Yi during New Year’s Eve. Later, the entire secure base had been imposed with emergency measures, but they didn’t find any traces of those few people.
Li Shu felt that those people probably had escaped, yet unexpectedly these people didn’t run, but instead set off a bomb with suicidal attacks to kill the B City secure base people who had visited!
Now, humanity’s enemies were zombies, and everyone was battling against zombies. Although there were people who would kill their own species for supplies, there truly wasn’t this sort of wanting to kill the same race without fear of death!
With the mishap at the central restaurant, Li Shu could not conceal the matter of the B City secure base visitors having been killed by a bomb from the Yuncheng secure base survivors, so he simply explained this matter in the Yuncheng secure base broadcast.
Yuncheng secure base never had much electricity, but on this night, it was brightly lit.
Li Shu issued a speech in the broadcast, reprimanding those antisocial people, and ultimately caused the anger of the entire Yuncheng secure base’s common people to arise.
Many people reported some suspicious matters; they even found two corpses. One was the corpse of a person who had been watching the few shadow guards in the confinement room, and the other belonged to someone who had been attempting to kill Nie Yi. These people probably died by their own men, as their faces were filled with shock.
The men who had ambushed Nie Yi probably weren’t just those out in the open. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been five people popping out and even having explosives…
All the attackers were dead, but some matters could still be guessed—the reason those people would bomb the central restaurant should be to destroy that shadow guard.
When the sun was rising from the east and the sky was lighting up, Nie Yi made porridge for Qi Jingchen and also sent a portion to Li Shu.
“No need.” Li Shu waved his hand in refusal; he didn’t have any interest in eating at all.
Li Shu’s complexion right now was extremely haggard; his entire person was no longer the gentle and cultivated elegance from when he first appeared before Nie Yi. His brows were tightly furrowed, and it was like he had aged a decade in a few short days.
“The matters have already been done and there’s no use for us to be upset about it. We should eat and drink our fill first before resolving this matter,” Nie Yi said, then placed the lunchbox in Li Shu’s hands.
In this lunchbox was brown sugar porridge that he had cooked. Aside from everything, brown sugar was able to restore physical strength in the shortest time. After Nie Yi finished cooking the porridge, he simply added three big spoonfuls.
Li Shu slowly sipped his porridge. The porridge was clearly very sweet, but it tasted a little bitter to him. The arrivals from B City secure base met with an accident here, and the shadow guard research sample was also lost. This was his dereliction of duty.
“Are there any matters that are relatively harder to deal with?” Nie Yi asked.
“There are some. Xiao Yi, give me a hand.” Li Shu looked at Nie Yi. “Send me to K City secure base.”
“Why are you going to K City?” Nie Yi was a little confused.
“K City probably has a helicopter and a pilot. I’ll go there to ask them to send us to B City secure base,” Li Shu said, then laughed bitterly. “Although Yuncheng secure base has two helicopters kept outside and the helicopter Jiang Pingshi used to come here, no one knows how to pilot them. However, with this sort of thing happening now, I have to go to B City to explain to the higher-ups.
How many prefecture-level cities were there in the nation? Their Yuncheng secure base was no more than a small secure base. There may be more than a hundred thousand survivors, but there wasn’t anyone among them who knew how to pilot one!
Now, the matter of the shadow guards needed to be informed to B City secure base. He could only go to the nearby provincial capital, K City’s secure base to ask for help, for those people to send him to B City secure base.
At the start, Nie Yi didn’t know why Li Shu would feel anxious, but now finally understood the whole story.
Qi Jingchen suddenly said, “We’ll go to B City.”
“Jingchen?” Nie Yi looked at Qi Jingchen.
“This matter is also related to us. We can take a trip to explain the situation here,” Qi Jingchen said.
Those shadow guards truly made him feel extremely nauseous, and he uncontrollably wanted to resolve this organisation as soon as possible. Otherwise…
He didn’t know long it would take before his ability would awaken; who knew whether this world would have already been occupied by those shadow guards by the time his ability awakened? Would the plants and animals all be zombified under these things’ catalysis?
If it was really like this, what was the point of him being alive now?
“Then you guys come with me,” Li Shu said. “I’ll go pack up, and we’ll head for K City right away.”
“Uncle, no need to go to K City secure base anymore, and you can also stay behind. Jingchen and I will head straight to B City,” Nie Yi said. B City secure base was still worthy of trust. That reborn person also probably wouldn’t dare look for trouble in B City secure base, so taking a trip there was fine.
“You guys are directly going?” Li Shu was a little astonished.
“I know how to pilot a helicopter,” Nie Yi said. In his last life, he had once robbed someone else’s helicopter, then learnt how to fly it. But later the skies were covered with zombie birds and a helicopter became ineffective…
Baobao Notes
Second extra kofi chapter!