Wei Ye opened his palm to reveal two crystal cores. “Are you looking for these?”
Last time Meng Shiwan had left his store, she’d told him to hide well.
Unfortunately, the store had no food, so hiding was impossible, he had to go out and find some.
He put on a poncho and helmet, drew the tang saber he treasured, armed himself fully, braced his nerves, and opened the store door.
He found it wasn’t as dangerous outside as he’d imagined. Most of the zombies had already been cleared, leaving only a few wandering in twos and threes.
After cautiously dispatching two zombies, Wei Ye felt they weren’t so hard to deal with after all.
As long as he was careful, he could handle them fine.
On second thought, he gave up the idea of finding food and hiding, and decided to seek out other survivors to gather together, strength in numbers would greatly boost the odds of survival.
Making a circuit of the mall’s lower level, he noticed all the killed zombies shared one trait.
Their heads were split open, as if deliberately cracked apart.
Cutting off a zombie’s head killed it just as well, so why split every zombie’s head open?
Whenever Wei Ye met a zombie after that, he’d split its head open to look, until he discovered the crystal core inside one of them.
He could be a hundred percent certain: whoever had been slicing zombie heads was searching for these crystal cores.
Sure enough, he noticed the young woman before him, her eyes lit up at the sight of the cores in his hand.
Meng Shiwan said flatly, “Selling?”
Wei Ye withdrew his hand. “I can give you the cores, but you have to answer a few questions for me.”
He didn’t understand the current situation, but this girl before him clearly knew more than he did.
Meng Shiwan still eyed him warily. “Ask.”
Two more crystal cores meant two more cubic meters of space, that was hugely important to her.
Wei Ye asked, “Why do you collect crystal cores? What use are they?
“After you killed that woman, why did the vanished supermarket supplies suddenly reappear?
“Last time you said there’d be a rescue. Is there really a rescue team? Will there come a day when the zombies are wiped out and civilization is restored?”
He’d gone to the supermarket yesterday, seen the survivors sorting the mountain of supplies heaped on the floor, and learned the situation after asking around.
The supplies vanishing and reappearing, the whole thing was too bizarre, but no one dared ask her what had happened.
Meng Shiwan’s eyes darkened. “Crystal cores can become currency later, to trade for supplies. That woman was a spatial ability user. Along with the zombies, powerful ability users have appeared too. When a spatial ability user dies, their stored supplies burst out.
“There’s definitely a rescue team, humanity won’t just sit and wait to die doing nothing. Whether there’ll be a day when civilization is restored, I don’t know.”
She lifted her eyes and fixed Wei Ye with a cold stare. “Put the cores down, keep away from me, and don’t come within ten meters of me.”
Having gotten his answers, Wei Ye kept his word, set the two cores on the counter beside him, and left the small-goods shop.
Once he’d walked far off, Meng Shiwan stepped forward and picked up the cores, in a good mood.
“That’s a fair bit more I can stockpile.”
She wandered on with Taxue, taking a shopping basket and dropping in anything she liked.
A pretty straight-sided metal thermos with a built-in straw, great for holding bubble tea.
A green round-bodied flask with a shoulder strap, good for going out.
Pretty chopsticks and little spoons, worth taking.
The backpacks were nice, grab two.
Swim goggles, now these were good stuff. Worn over the eyes, they’d keep zombie blood from splashing in.
Little hair clips, small scarves, and such, she grabbed some of everything useful.
What wouldn’t fit in the basket she stuffed into a backpack and slung over her shoulder.
Taxue jumped onto a shelf of decorations and fixed its gaze on an exquisite little fish tank.
The tank was retro in style, its four edges fixed with dark-brown metal, a pointed lid on top with air holes.
Even set on the moving RV, the water wouldn’t slosh out while driving.
Inside the tank were colored pebbles and some small green water plants, with a few little red fish swimming about.
Taxue was staring intently at the fish.
“If you like it, take it. Once we’re back on the RV you can watch it all you want.”
Meng Shiwan lifted the little tank down and set it in a corner of the basket.
“Meow~”
Taxue swished its tail happily.
As Meng Shiwan came out of the small-goods shop with her basket and backpack, she saw Wei Ye leading two suit-clad survivors, calling out along the corridor, “Anyone still alive, come out quickly! It’s safe out here, I’ll take you downstairs, there’s food.”
At his voice, a few more survivors emerged from the shops and fell in close behind him.
Meng Shiwan clicked her tongue. She didn’t expect this burly man to be so warm-hearted.
She stepped into a phone shop nearby, grabbed several memory cards, booted up the store’s computer, and began downloading movies and games.
These could pass the time later, once the internet went down, there’d be no network to play on.
All kinds of highly rated films, TV dramas, hit variety shows, and some famous single-player games, she downloaded them all.
One memory card wasn’t enough, so she loaded several, it took up no space anyway.
By the time Meng Shiwan came out of the phone shop with a string of memory cards, Wei Ye was leading a dozen-plus survivors downstairs.
She trailed behind, paid them no mind, and headed straight back to the RV.
Meng Shiwan set her things down and began putting them away.
The tableware went into the cupboard drawer, the water cups on the counter, several swim goggles tucked into a gap in the shoe cabinet.
She stuck a magnetic mount under Taxue’s little fish tank and another on the shoe cabinet’s surface, so it would grip firmly and she needn’t fear the tank falling even while driving.
The two backpacks went into a gap by the passenger seat.
While Meng Shiwan busied herself, Taxue watched the few little fish swim back and forth, thoroughly delighted.
Meng Shiwan patted its head, took out the two crystal cores, and pondered which space to expand.
She summoned up the RV’s cutaway diagram and found that a new expandable-space spot had appeared inside the RV.
That little fish tank…?
Meng Shiwan was startled. She checked the position and marking on the diagram again and again, confirming it really was the fish tank that could be expanded. Excitement surged through her at once.
What would the fish tank’s expanded space be like? Just for storing things, or could it raise fish?
If it could raise fish, that would be a huge, wonderful surprise for her.
It would mean sustainable production.
In an apocalypse of unending disasters, the importance of sustainable production went without saying.
She couldn’t wait, and used one crystal core to expand the little fish tank’s space.
Stepping up to the tank, she swept her consciousness over it, and the tank’s interior instantly grew into a one-cubic-meter space.
Water nearly to the brim, colored stones at the bottom, some green plants drifting about, it was simply a scaled-up version of the tank.
The water plants swayed back and forth, meaning this space had a flow of time, it wasn’t static, and could absolutely be used to raise fish.