TSIAGBICATMWI Chapter 60

Chapter 60: The Hardships of the Apocalypse

Lu Yunzhou was bursting with pride over his awakened powerful ability. The lack of long-range attacks was nothing.

He arrogantly planned to show off to Lin Yi in the central district later. He wondered how he was doing there.

Speaking of Lin Yi, he was currently sitting next to Xu Yuzhe with a long face. There were ten people in their team, and only he and Xu Yuzhe were ability users.

One would think he was already second in the team, so why the long face? But anyone who had only half a bowl of watery porridge with a few grains of rice floating in it for breakfast before heading out to deal with zombies would not be happy.

Just thinking about it made him angry. Lin Yan followed him to the cafeteria like a shadow this morning, and he had to share the already pitifully small portion of porridge with him.

Xu Yuzhe watched the entire process of him sharing the porridge with Lin Yan this morning and said softly, “You’re not full, are you? Bear with it. Once we complete this mission and return, we’ll get more food.”

It wasn’t so much that he wasn’t full, but that it wasn’t even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth. Lin Yi’s stomach was already rumbling non-stop.

He awkwardly covered his stomach. Seeing this, Xu Yuzhe considerately turned his head and looked ahead, avoiding his gaze.

A middle-aged man in his forties muttered, “The apocalypse is tough. Too many people are starving. Corpses are everywhere. Our base is a small one and doesn’t have many resources. We rely on everyone to search the surrounding towns bit by bit.

“Unfortunately, even when we find food, we can’t bring back much at once. We also have to fend off zombie attacks. Every time we go in and out, a large number of people die.

“We used to have a space ability user, and it was a little better. We could bring back a lot of supplies every time we took her out. Now… Sigh!”

This was his third time going out with the team to search for supplies. Both of the previous times were dangerous. Fortunately, Xu Yuzhe was a good captain and rescued him many times, and he was also lucky enough to escape death each time.

If his wife and children weren’t about to starve to death, he wouldn’t have had the courage to come a third time.

Lin Yi looked at the man who was speaking. He remembered his name – Liu Ping. He looked to be in his forties but his face was full of vicissitudes, showing signs of decline.

His skin was tanned by the sun, as if he had experienced countless storms. His facial contours were distinct, not with the beauty of superior lines, but with the skin and bones of extreme thinness, without the support of flesh.

Lin Yi saw that most of the people in the team were like him, with a gray and lifeless aura, their eyes dim and without brilliance, like death row inmates about to go to the execution ground.

Perhaps they were not even as good as death row inmates. A last meal, a last meal. Prisoners can eat a good meal before they die, but they all came out with empty stomachs.

They basically chose to come out because they couldn’t survive in the base and were about to starve to death. If they had something to eat to prolong their lives, no one would be willing to face the bloodthirsty and flesh-eating monsters again.

The few people here were still selected by Xu Yuzhe from a pile of people who looked like they could still walk and run, and wouldn’t be staggering.

There were very few ability users in the base. Lin Yi asked Xu Yuzhe, and he said there were probably a dozen.

A small number of people would awaken their abilities from time to time, and ability users would also be sacrificed, but for the time being, the survival rate of ability users was quite high.

Ability users would not be infected and mutated, so unless they were eaten completely or injured in vital areas, they would recover quickly after escaping from death with a breath left.

Lin Yi had different concerns about this trip. From what he had learned from Xu Yuzhe, the reason why many of their ability users were able to return alive was because they had never encountered very powerful zombies.

The most special ones were just a little faster, a little more agile, and would consciously launch targeted attacks.

Lin Yi hadn’t seen many special zombies. After they separated from Xie YunChuan and his party, they took a shortcut to Half-Moon Base. Along the way, they mostly searched for food in some farmhouses, and Lin Yi could easily deal with the zombies they encountered.

In other words, apart from the one that Xie YunChuan killed that night, he and the other survivors in the base had not encountered very strong zombies afterward.

There were two possibilities. Either the zombie that Xie YunChuan killed that night was particularly rare and seldom encountered, and the people in the base had never encountered it, or the small team that had disappeared without a trace, along with the ability user leading the team, had been wiped out after encountering it, and no news had been sent back.

Lin Yi was more inclined to guess the latter. If they encountered it this time, he was sure he couldn’t beat it. He heard that Xu Yuzhe was okay, so hopefully, he had some ability.

The only one who looked calm and healthy was Xu Yuzhe. The car was filled with a dark and depressing atmosphere, but he was always calm, and his face always had a gentle smile when he issued orders and commanded.

This was Lin Yi’s first time, and even though he was an ability user, he couldn’t lead the team out himself. He inquired around and chose to join Xu Yuzhe’s team.

Everyone else thought he was good, but along the way, the more Lin Yi looked at him, the more he felt that he was a smiling tiger, gentle and kind on the surface, but stabbing people in the back, making everyone think he was a great person.

Hopefully, he was just overthinking it.

His mind was racing, but his face remained expressionless. He only asked Liu Ping lightly, “You had a space ability user before? What happened to her now? Is she dead?”

Liu Ping sighed deeply, “Alas, I don’t know. She went out half a month ago and never came back. I guess she’s probably met with misfortune!”

“Since she was such an important ability user, why didn’t you send more people to protect her?”

“What can we do? At that time, there were no more than ten awakened ability users in the entire base, including her own space ability. We also had her sister follow and protect her all the way, and we couldn’t send out any more people.”

Lin Yi felt that they must have encountered a particularly powerful zombie and been wiped out. That kind of zombie was not something that ordinary ability users could deal with. What was even more annoying was that it would chase after one person alone, not giving you a chance to breathe.

In the evening, the car drove smoothly to the edge of a small city. The people from the base had been here two or three times, and the road obstacles had been cleared. They also knew the situation inside.

This used to be a fourth-tier city with a population of two or three hundred thousand. Now, those who died, died, and those who fled, fled. There should be no living people inside. It was a completely city of corpses, with an estimated tens of thousands of zombies.

The survivors in Half-Moon Base, apart from those from Half-Moon City, were mostly from here.

The car left the road and drove into the dense forest, bumping along until it came to a flat depression and stopped. Parking the car here would not attract attention. In front of the depression was a small hill. Climbing to the top, one could see the appearance of the city faintly through the trees.

These were all spots that the people who came before had scouted. They got out of the car and climbed to the top of the hill to look at the small city.

The tall buildings stood tall and beautiful as ever, but they were deathly silent. One could not hear the hustle and bustle of the city, but instead, one or two occasional howls.

It was probably two zombies arguing over a lump of rotten meat.