On August 2, Xin Xiaoru and the other two had already used up about half of their cash. They couldn’t spend electronic money, so they could only exchange small amounts of supplies with optimistic people who still trusted online payments or with those who had no other choice.
For example, there was a paint manufacturer selling various types of paint, anti-rust, heat-insulating, waterproof, radiation-proof, at an average of 11,000 per bucket, supporting electronic payment. Seeing this, Xin Xiaoru and the others immediately spent 500,000 to buy 50 buckets of radiation-proof paint and 100,000 for other types, which they secured on the roof of their RV.
There was also a down quilt manufacturer who was reluctant to accept electronic payments. However, all the roads to and from his factory were blocked by car accidents, earthquakes, and landslides. Goods couldn’t be transported, and people could only travel by motorcycle or bicycle. With no other option, he had to accept electronic money, selling various down quilts and jackets.
Seeing that this manufacturer’s location was similar to their camp, Xin Xiaoru bought the warm clothing and quilts and gifted him a pound of wheat seeds: “You can plant a small half-acre in winter. Check the information and plant as conditions allow.”
Afterwards, Xin Xiaoru spent a lot of time looking for factories, farms, and other places in remote areas where electronic payment was possible. Before leaving, she would give them half a pound or a pound of seeds, forming a goodwill bond and leaving a thought for survival.
On August 4, a total of 62 cities, including Yicheng, experienced a complete power outage.
During the day, the cities didn’t look much different. As night fell, the cities plunged into a dead, silent darkness.
Some people conserved all resources and went to bed early. Others were restless and too hot to sleep, fanning themselves and chatting with neighbors to relieve anxiety.
The streets were still filled with vehicles. Some were leaving the city on the last day; others were moving from outside, still arranging their belongings.
The 35°C heat made the busy people irritable, and even the slightest disturbance could set them off.
From dark, unlit corners came sounds of quarrels, fights, and robberies for unknown reasons, but no one dared to go and see.
With no police around and mobile networks down, people couldn’t call for help. By the time police or the military arrived, most problems had already occurred and the culprits had fled.
This scenario played out in many corners of the city. Those who heard the commotion felt fear but also realized that the era of “survival of the fittest” had arrived…
Xin Xiaoru didn’t return to Yicheng. Instead, she spent electronic money in cities that still had power, buying up stockpiled goods.
Those receiving transfers, along with dry food and able-bodied family members, queued day and night at bank doors. Waiting for several days and nights didn’t matter; they just wanted their turn to withdraw money.
Finally, on August 7, Xin Xiaoru spent all her electronic money. Although prices had skyrocketed, and over two million in electronic money was worth about the same as a hundred thousand in real terms, she managed to spend it all, acquiring a lot of supplies.
The RV’s stamina continued to increase while acting as a shuttle bus. After deducting consumption, 2,293 remained.
The group didn’t stop, they continued as a bus service, promoting themselves in areas with electricity and internet, transporting passengers back and forth.
Finally, on August 18, the RV completed its mission, upgraded to Lv2, and gained 15 square meters of extra-dimensional space, totaling 16 square meters. Xin Xiaoru finally had space to spend her remaining cash.
She found the farmers and farm owners she had previously arranged with, buying vegetables and fruits that were on the verge of spoiling, and stored everything in the extra-dimensional space. After finishing this, she returned to Yicheng and placed He Guying’s off-road RV and all supplies into the extra-dimensional space. With all materials gathered, the group, after nearly a month of hard work, finally breathed a sigh of relief, everything coming to a temporary pause.
Deep in the remote mountains, the three of them lay on the RV bed, which was fully extended and took up almost the entire interior floor space, staring up through the skylight at a starry sky untouched by light pollution.
The cool breeze from the air conditioning brushed over their faces, and even the leaves outside, wilted from the daytime sun, seemed a little more alive.
A blender of watermelon juice sat nearby, a stainless steel straw inserted into it, ready to drink the icy fresh juice with a simple turn. Everything felt so peaceful and beautiful.
He Guying spoke of the time his organization had sent him to kill Xin Xiaoru: “Those people didn’t understand how the virus spreads. They thought that if someone’s blood splashed on you, you’d be infected. You were a witness and were near the spot where that zombie fell. Just in case, they ordered me to kill everyone involved. I rented your RV for a high price, thinking I could handle my task while watching you for a few days. If you weren’t infected, I would let you go.
But instead of being uninfected, you developed abilities.”
Xin Xiaoru smiled. “I know.”
She pointed to a storage box. “Your smartwatch fell in the RV. The RV can hack it directly.”
He Guying was momentarily stunned, lowering his gaze in silence. After a long pause, he said, “You knew and still came to save me?”
Xin Xiaoru replied, “You had already split from them, and you didn’t harm me. On the contrary, you helped me a lot, didn’t you?”
The room fell silent.
After such a not-too-small secret was revealed, everyone felt more at ease.
As they were drifting off to sleep, He Guying heard Zhao Changyue say, “As long as the ones behind us hide, things should remain stable.”
Stable?
They hoped so.
But she knew the three of them could only relax for a short while. After two days of rest, they would have to get busy again, because…
“Aren’t we consuming food a bit too fast?” the next morning, Zhao Changyue said suddenly while cooking noodles.
He Guying and Xin Xiaoru didn’t respond, just silently watched him.
He scratched his head, a little embarrassed. “You noticed already?”
Xin Xiaoru sighed. “I noticed that very morning when you two woke up from your mutated state.”
Although going two days without food and then eating a lot seemed natural, the amount they consumed, often measured in entire bowls, was still enormous.
Nearly a month later, their appetite had become almost four to five times that of ordinary people.
In her previous life, Xin Xiaoru had only been a nurse struggling to survive in a shelter, far removed from any ability users. But hearing about the appetite of those with abilities and witnessing it firsthand were entirely different experiences.
When their large appetites were considered in practical terms, it meant that the food, canned goods, fruits, and compressed biscuits they had stockpiled, which could last an ordinary person ten years, would only last them two. From then on, they would either have to grow their own food, trade with people who could farm when supplies were needed, or join a base as ability user operatives working for it.
Xin Xiaoru leaned toward trying to farm on their own first.
“There’s a hill in the nearby rural village of Youzhuang that I’ve been eyeing; the terrain is relatively high,” Xin Xiaoru said. “We went there to harvest vegetables half a month ago, remember?”
Both nodded.
Xin Xiaoru continued, “There’s a whole hillside of terraced fields that hasn’t been farmed in four years. It’s already abandoned. We can go and try to reclaim it. If we succeed, we’ll be self-sufficient. If not, we can look for Z/F or local farmers to cooperate with.”
She pulled up the farming guides she had previously downloaded on the RV’s television. He Guying had obviously prepared as well, taking out a farming book filled with his own notes. They were all theorists; now it was time for practice.
Based on her previous life’s experience, Xin Xiaoru had a rough idea of the natural disasters that could come. She let the RV’s warning system handle early alerts: “In the next few months, there won’t be rain in Yicheng. Severe drought is expected. So most of our farming will rely on your Snowball ability, Brother Ying. You can use this opportunity to train your powers.”
After discussion, they agreed to fly to Youzhuang during the day and designate a small section of the terraced fields as a test plot, starting with a crop of bok choy that matures in just one month.
The RV had already reached Lv2. The next upgrade required 60 five-star ratings.
Xin Xiaoru was not worried. With 30 days, they could complete it by September 17.
The reward for this upgrade was again a choice of two: either 50 square meters of space or an in-RV hotel that could accommodate 30 people densely.
The schematic showed the hotel with ten bunks arranged in a compact space, and four toilets in the corners for washing.
There was also a note: completing a special mission would activate the RV hotel’s detachment function. In other words, while the RV was elsewhere, the hotel could be placed separately on the terraced fields or elsewhere, using a tree or wall as a portal for guests to enter the extra-dimensional hotel for rest.
【Friendly reminder: detachment carries risks. If the hotel’s portal is damaged, repairing it will consume a large amount of stamina and cannot dodge hazards like the RV.】
Xin Xiaoru mentally opened the special mission to activate this function: establish a friendly relationship with a base.
“Emmmm…” Xin Xiaoru raised an eyebrow, realizing that the RV was her golden tool but also subtly guiding her.
It hadn’t given a final upgrade goal or promised what the future would look like, but the hotel itself indicated that she needed to connect with more people.
Looking at this special mission, it was clear that she needed to establish as many positive connections as possible.
The system immediately chimed in: “Yes! I’m a good system!”
Xin Xiaoru smiled: “Yes, yes, yes, you’re the best.”
The system watched expectantly, curious how she would establish friendly ties with a base… only to realize she was still busy farming her land.
Farming was not simple. Even fertilizing required effort. Blindly using chemical fertilizers would harden the soil. Only natural fertilizers made from fermented human or animal manure and urine could make the land increasingly fertile.
After arriving in Youzhuang, Xin Xiaoru found the septic tank that the local farmers had originally used with the dry toilets and emptied the waste from the RV’s toilet into it.
He Guying took the bucket proactively and said, “I’ll do it.”
Without caring about the mess, he poured the waste into the septic tank.
At this time, Yicheng was extremely hot. Daytime temperatures under the sun exceeded forty degrees Celsius, and even at night it only cooled to around 34 degrees. Outside the RV, they were constantly feeling the heat. In such high temperatures, human waste could naturally ferment into organic fertilizer in just five days without any additives.
However, with only three people, the amount of fertilizer they could produce was limited. They weren’t worried. They cleared a small patch of land not far from the dry toilet as an experimental field, gathered weeds and nearby dead branches and leaves, set them on fire, and collected the resulting wood ash to spread over the soil, improving its fertility.
The water pipe at this abandoned farm ran from a distant dam. Surprisingly, it had survived the earthquake and was still usable, though the flow was weak, probably due to a leak somewhere.
Zhao Changyue patiently carried the water, bucket by bucket.
He Guying began training his Snowball ability, generating as much snow as possible and piling it in the field. As the sun melted it, the water would seep into the soil.
This was a very simple process, yet the three people, who had never farmed before, were surprisingly enthusiastic, working energetically under the sun.
While the three of them treated farming like a game, the Z/F leadership in Yicheng was close to losing their minds.
Once they realized that anything using electricity greatly increased radiation and accelerated the spread of the zombie virus, they reported the situation and ordered a blackout across 62 cities.
The other hundreds of cities didn’t shut down but sent observers.
In the blink of an eye, the power had been out for over half a month. Whether the zombie virus was under control remained uncertain, but the chaos in the cities was undeniable.
Street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, cases of crime, robbery, murder, and sexual assault were on the rise. With no signal, no electronic devices, and disrupted communication, everyone had returned to an ancient-era lifestyle, though most people were far from innocent.
Yicheng couldn’t focus on everything at once. They organized manpower to build radiation-proof shelters and, once completed, small power supply facilities to provide limited electricity on top of the radiation protection.
They were also building city walls. The original wall plan was enormous, intending to enclose nearly all of Yicheng, including remote counties.
But without working equipment, the walls could only be built manually.
Z/F initially tried to provide specialized power, informing workers of the radiation risks and seeing who would volunteer.
They provided radiation-proof clothing to protect workers as much as possible.
However, very few skilled workers were willing to build walls despite knowing the radiation risk. Even those who did found the protective clothing unbearably hot and heavy; working for less than two hours could result in heatstroke.
Yicheng then tried recruiting people from cities that still had electricity. Most of them didn’t believe in the idea that electronic devices combined with radiation were dangerous and would work in exchange for food and money.
They didn’t need protection suits and could work just like during ordinary construction projects.
However, the result was that, disbelief aside, no one was willing to take risks.
With no other choice, Z/F had to abandon using equipment and build the walls the old-fashioned way.
But building manually was too slow. With no idea when the zombies might completely break out, it was impossible to enclose all of Yicheng. The best they could do was use the dense existing buildings in the city center as part of the wall’s perimeter.
So, the authorities called on citizens to help build the walls while also encouraging people to leave the city and reclaim any nearby hillside or mountain land for farming. Staying holed up indoors was not viable, there wouldn’t be enough food later to support so many people.
Only a small fraction of citizens responded to the call.
People naturally feared difficulty. Those in the city center had never farmed before; most didn’t even know whether vegetables and fruits came from trees or grew in the soil. Farming? How do you even farm? Just scatter seeds and water them?
Many couldn’t even keep a potted plant alive at home.
The outside world was also dangerous. What if there were bandits? What about zombies? What if they were trapped by an earthquake or a landslide?
Those who had access to the rural areas had already left. For the remaining people, even if they were sent to the countryside, they had no idea where to live, what to eat, or which land to reclaim. Only a few, like Xin Xiaoru, could accurately find abandoned land and quickly get started. The rest were like headless flies, completely at a loss.
Z/F had no choice but to create more detailed regulations to relocate and disperse the population, trying to make everyone self-sufficient.
But the city had too many people. Even if all the abandoned land was found, it wasn’t enough to accommodate everyone.
Z/F still had to cooperate with farm owners and the local agricultural institute, using high-quality seeds to grow as much food as possible and reduce the risk of starvation.
But, as luck would have it, Yicheng was not a major city for agricultural research or cultivation! It had been nearly a month of drought! Earthquakes had broken many water pipelines, which were repaired only to be broken again by new quakes. The entire water network was like a leaky sieve, nothing worked properly!
With no alternative, Yicheng announced: “City construction requires massive manpower. Anyone who does not participate in building the walls, shelters, or farming will not be offered protection in the future.”
Z/F staff went door to door, surveying residents’ intentions, who was willing to work, who was not.
Those willing to work were arranged housing near research institutes or shelters.
Unwilling residents, unless over 68 years old or under 14, were forcibly relocated to make room for workers.
Rioting?
No arrests, people were simply driven out by force. If they resisted, the staff would use guns.
For a time, the entire city resounded with cries, shouts, and curses. Some aggrieved residents secretly stirred up unrest, organizing several violent incidents, wielding hammers, axes, and knives to confront Z/F personnel.
The zombie virus had not yet destroyed humanity, but humanity was beginning to destroy itself.
After painful deaths, injuries, and suppressions, Yicheng finally established a protected zone of only 400 square kilometers.
At this point, Yicheng was no longer truly Yicheng in the original sense, it had become the Yicheng Base. After a series of upheavals, the massive city with tens of millions of people had been halved: only about half remained in the protected zone for various reasons, while the others were living somewhere in the buildings outside the zone.
No one demanded anything, and no one was managing them. Crime on the streets surged further. With Z/F no longer in control, some operators organized themselves, restarting power stations, and Yicheng outside the protected zone began generating electricity again.
In short, Yicheng’s blackout-based protection measures had completely failed.
Xin Xiaoru, feeling a mix of joy and worry while farming, was genuinely shocked when she suddenly discovered that her phone had signal.
Ignoring the helpless pests and the insecticides that had not only failed to help but killed many of her bok choy, she drove the RV on a tour of Yicheng.
Well… how should she put it…
Perhaps it was because of the stir she had caused in the hospital, fluttering a [1]“Little butterfly wing” comes from the butterfly effect. It means a small, seemingly insignificant action that ends up causing large, unexpected consequences later on. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1756900_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1756900_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });little butterfly wing—Yicheng had opted for blackout measures that hadn’t existed in her previous life.
But this butterfly wing was weak. Although it had tried to flap, it failed. The city was now even more chaotic than before.
Still, that didn’t mean it had been meaningless.
When Xin Xiaoru arrived at the protected zone, the area where Yicheng Base was located, she saw that many walls had already been forcibly and rapidly built by human labor, day and night.
The base seemed to have organized teams of ability users to help. For example, strength-type powers replaced mixers to stir cement, gravity-type powers reduced the weight of stones and bricks for easier transport, and so on.
Even so, working during the day was exhausting. Many people could only work for half a morning and then had to rest, returning in the afternoon when the sun was less intense and continuing until evening, working until darkness made it impossible to see.
The base built this way was effective. At the very least, it was over twenty times larger than the hastily designated base from her previous life, and it housed as many as five million people. When the zombie tide truly erupted in two months, its value would become apparent.
But for now, everyone was blaming Yicheng’s management. Internal and external pressures were shaking the base, even though it was already doing its best.
Xin Xiaoru hung on the wall, thinking about all this in a jumble, when someone, whether a gravity-type, wind-type, or flying-type ability user, flew into midair and greeted her.
“Hello. The Yicheng Base management wants to talk with you. Is that okay? They mean no harm, they probably want to recruit ability users or discuss cooperation.”
Xin Xiaoru exchanged a glance with He Guying and Zhao Changyue, then followed the person down.
The person meeting them was Officer Liu, originally responsible for the illegal organization shooting incident. When he saw He Guying and Zhao Changyue, he couldn’t help frowning. “You’re with Waterlin?”
He Guying remained expressionless. “We’ve already defected. That previous shooting incident, they were hunting me and my brother.”
Officer Liu’s expression softened imperceptibly. “Come first. We’ll talk about two things together.”
Officer Liu, an older-looking leader, and a woman in her early thirties received them.
Xin Xiaoru observed the woman. She was probably the manager of the ability user team; her aura and relaxed posture reminded Xin Xiaoru of the ability users she had seen in her previous life.
As she had guessed, Xin Xiaoru was right. Officer Liu introduced the others: “This is Director Hu. He participated in the blackout decisions for Yicheng and is involved in its current management. This is Ms. Zhang Jiayi, captain of Yicheng Base’s Ability User Team 1.”
Xin Xiaoru nodded. “Hello.”
Director Hu invited them to sit and stated his request: “We’ve heard that your RV’s abilities produce no radiation. We’d like to borrow its high beams to assist with nighttime construction at the base. Is there anything the base could do to help you in return?”
Xin Xiaoru immediately thought of the special mission displayed on the RV’s notice board, establishing a friendly relationship with a base.
Yicheng was in a difficult situation, partly because of the butterfly-wing effect she had caused. If she were just an ordinary citizen forced to work, she would have surely harbored resentment. But as a precognitive, reincarnated individual, Xin Xiaoru felt a certain admiration.
“The high beams aren’t a problem. I can come over at night. It’s just that I have a terraced hillside in Youzhuang I want to restore for farming, but I’ve encountered some problems with pests while planting vegetables. If someone familiar with the land could help me take a look, it would make things much easier.”
For the base, this was a very minor issue. There were plenty of farmers over 68 who couldn’t do much physical work. Letting them sit comfortably in an air-conditioned RV to inspect the land in Youzhuang would surely attract volunteers. Choosing someone reliable would be effective.
Both sides quickly reached an agreement and began discussing He Guying’s previous organization, Waterlin.
It was the first time Xin Xiaoru had learned the organization’s full name.
Waterlin was an international genetic research organization, involved in many gray and even black-market industries. Zhao Changyue had been trained as a enforcer in their domestic branch, while He Guying served as both enforcer and technical worker, stealing confidential data from various other companies conducting secret genetic research.
These secretive projects had gone on for years with little progress. But earlier this year, a foreign company extracted a special substance near a meteor crater. During experiments, it induced a mutation in a rat, giving it extreme regenerative and attack abilities, it could chew through cages and chains.
This breakthrough energized Waterlin, which then began conducting human experiments.
In war-torn countries, people died every day. When someone disappeared, no one was surprised, and no one searched for them. Even family members were left numb in grief, powerless to intervene.
Waterlin targeted these countries, abducting many people for experiments, resulting in numerous failed and deformed cases.
Some cases, however, were relatively successful.
They found that people with stronger willpower were more likely to mutate in a controlled, positive way.
Thus, the organization’s cruel focus inevitably turned toward Huaguo.
At first, He Guying had no idea what the organization had been doing. Both he and Zhao Changyue were abandoned orphans with heart conditions. Adopted into orphanages secretly controlled by the organization, they were treated at great expense and trained for operations.
Although stealing company data, assaulting others to extract research information, and even participating in foreign gunfights were common, they had never killed their own countrymen.
When he was summoned to Huaguo’s branch under the pretext of eliminating “monsters,” He Guying was shocked.
These “monsters” were people subjected to experiments by Waterlin, including wealthy individuals with terminal illnesses who had actively sought experimental procedures.
Some of the “monsters” initially underwent positive mutations, it looked as though their genetic upgrades had succeeded. But after they returned to normal life for a period of time, they ended up transmitting the zombie virus to many others. Only then did the uncontrolled abnormalities of genetic collapse reveal themselves.
By that point, however, everything was already too late.
Whether in Huaguo or in other countries involved in the experiments, especially those wealthy, terminally ill individuals who had voluntarily undergone the procedures, after a brief recovery, they unknowingly infected large numbers of people. Many areas began to fall one after another.
This was how He Guying and Zhao Changyue received their orders: to kill everyone infected with the zombie virus, as well as anyone who had come into contact with zombies.
In the eyes of the organization, Zhao Changyue was the type who wasn’t very sharp, so they hadn’t been particularly careful around him in certain matters. As a result, he discovered before He Guying that the organization had been abducting people from Huaguo for experiments.
He Guying, still unaware of the truth, carried out orders with a grim face, hunting down the infected everywhere. He was entered into police suspect records and destined never to live openly in the light again. Meanwhile, Zhao Changyue confronted people within the organization, demanding explanations. He was captured, beaten, and ultimately subjected to human experimentation, being injected with the zombie virus himself.
That led to the scene where He Guying went back to save his brother, took what was said to be the most complete genetic serum available, and was then relentlessly hunted down, to the point that guns were drawn openly in the streets.
As He Guying and Zhao Changyue filled in each other’s gaps and finished telling the whole story, everyone listening clenched their fists in anger.
It was Xin Xiaoru who recovered first.
Conducting human experiments, those people were truly beasts. But the zombie virus itself was probably not caused directly by the genetic serum.
In her previous life, many people who had never been bitten or scratched by zombies still turned into them. There had been rumors at the time that it was related to cosmic rays, solar radiation, and the like. Now it seemed that was indeed the case.
Radiation itself induces mutations. The genetic serum had simply acted as an accelerator for zombie mutation.
The Waterlin organization deserved to die, but humanity’s catastrophe seemed almost inevitable. And tracing it further back, it likely had something to do with the environment.
It was now the year 2036. More than a century earlier, humanity had already begun damaging Earth’s ecosystems. The current rate of mass extinction far exceeded that of the five previous mass extinctions in Earth’s history, and temperature fluctuations were extreme.
What took nature millions of years to accomplish, humanity had managed to “make visible progress” on in a single century. Earth’s atmosphere and ozone layer had thinned, their composition had changed, and their radiation-shielding capacity had weakened significantly. Add solar magnetic storms or cosmic rays into the mix, and then Waterlin just had to roll out a genetic serum on top of that…
All the debuffs were stacked to the max.
Might as well let it all be destroyed.
Everyone can just die together.
…
Letting her thoughts wander for a bit, Xin Xiaoru then heard Director Hu ask, “Can the remaining vial of serum be handed over to us for research?”
He Guying asked, “What do you plan to do with it?”
Director Hu promised, “Rest assured. We’ll conduct joint research with the Beijing Research Institute and institutes in other provinces and cities. We’ll also make the relevant information public within the scientific community, so no researchers are kept in the dark.”
Xin Xiaoru suddenly asked, “If research based on this serum leads to a way to cure zombies and restore them to normal, then would the zombies we’ve killed, now and in the past, count as killing people?”
Director Hu froze for a moment, not expecting her to think so far ahead. He gave a wry smile. “If that day truly comes, it would be wonderful. Before a solution exists, killing zombies, and even resisting violent attackers who aren’t zombies but lack all humanity, is justified.
When order exists, we follow the rules of order. When order collapses, survival becomes everyone’s top priority.”
Although Director Hu couldn’t fully represent the official stance, Xin Xiaoru still had him stamp an exemption statement with the Yicheng Base seal.
Whether the statement would be useful in the future was unknown, but it was better to have it written down.
“Also add that if an antidote or a positively mutating genetic serum is developed, it should be given to He Guying first,” Xin Xiaoru added. “Consider it compensation to him. If He Guying can’t be contacted at that time, then give the serum to me.”
Director Hu looked at her. “You’re already a ability user. What do you need this for?”
Xin Xiaoru made up a reason. “I didn’t mutate from a bite or scratch—I mutated due to radiation. If I get bitten in the future, I’ll still need it.”
Director Hu turned to He Guying. He Guying nodded. “Don’t give it to me. If it’s developed, give it directly to her.”
“Alright,” Director Hu said.
References[+]