“What?” Tu Yu looked confused. After a moment he reacted and asked, “Do you mean the severe malnutrition, or your talent as an engineer?”
The confused expression immediately shifted to Tu Sanqi’s face.
Before she could speak, Tu Yu took the initiative to explain what had just happened in the monitoring room.
Then he analyzed it for her.
“Awakening an ability requires very high physical fitness. You’re still malnourished right now. Even if you recover, it’ll take time, and then you’ll still have to spend time training… Besides, Rumeng said that when you first enrolled your body wasn’t this bad. It’s possible the training made your condition worse.”
As he spoke, Tu Yu’s gaze became more complicated. He reached out and patted her head.
“I never expected you to work so hard, getting outstanding results in school like this.”
Tu Sanqi, for whom it had actually been effortless: “……”
“If possible, I still hope you can go study in the Engineering Department,” Tu Yu said seriously as he looked at her.
He himself was an ability user, and he knew how dangerous it was to charge into battle. Deep down, Tu Yu didn’t want Tu Sanqi to experience that too.
At the beginning, when he sent her to school, it was really just so she could learn some skills to protect herself and understand the world better.
Tu Sanqi lowered her eyes and silently swallowed the words she had been planning to confess.
That scared her—she thought she had already been exposed.
After hearing Tu Yu’s words, all her previous hesitation disappeared.
If she really joined the Engineering Department… then people would no longer pay attention to when she would awaken an ability!
As long as she controlled her red eyes, she could lie low forever! And at the same time, she could still contribute to fighting zombies!
Tu Sanqi truly hated zombies.
Thinking of that, her mood brightened. She looked up and smiled at Tu Yu.
“I think what you said makes sense,” Tu Sanqi said sincerely.
Tu Yu felt relieved.
It seemed her choice was exactly what he had hoped for.
“Then I’ll reply to them later. Maybe in a couple of days someone will come pick you up,” Tu Yu said happily.
Tu Sanqi asked, “Is Fei Yucheng going too?”
“Yes. His uncle agreed on the spot,” Tu Yu said. “You two will have company.”
After that, he brought up the issue of her malnutrition again and eventually transferred her some money, telling her to listen to the doctor and go for regular checkups.
Two days later, Tu Sanqi and Fei Yucheng’s access permissions were activated, and they were taken away by people from the Special Zone.
When Lu Yan and the others gathered together, they were quite emotional about it.
“I didn’t expect this child to be interested in research and development,” Huo Wenwu said with his arms crossed, sighing repeatedly.
Xiong Jie patted his shoulder, understanding very well.
Tu Sanqi’s potential was really high. Although it hadn’t fully shown yet, they believed that once she awakened her ability in the future, she would definitely become an excellent soldier!
But instead, she had given up training and gone to study materials engineering.
Qiao Qin was the most accepting of it.
“Interest is the best teacher,” she said. “And she has talent in this field.”
Xiong Jie couldn’t help adding, “She also has talent in combat.”
“But she’s malnourished,” Lu Yan said objectively. “Even if she awakens an ability, what if her body can’t handle the training intensity later?”
Xiong Jie fell silent.
Meanwhile, Tu Sanqi and Fei Yucheng were brought to the Engineering Department’s training camp.
Ability users were already considered scarce resources in the apocalypse. The five major Special Zones often argued over recruiting them.
But compared with ability users, engineers and researchers were even rarer.
People of the level of those two uncles who had appeared in the monitoring room were extremely scarce.
According to some casual conversation from the ability user escorting them, there were only five people in the Engineering Department who could truly be called engineers. The remaining dozen or so were engineering assistants.
The training camp they had arrived at now contained forty people in total, including Tu Sanqi and Fei Yucheng.
After training, those who passed the assessment would become engineering assistants. Those who failed would become technicians.
Technicians often followed ability squads on missions—essentially conducting field research.
In the entire Fifth Special Zone, there were only about twenty technicians.
Fei Yucheng’s goal was to become an engineer.
But Tu Sanqi had her sights on becoming a technician… After all, technicians who could go to the front lines—how were they any different from ability users?!
The ability user who had brought them handed them over to the person in charge of the training camp and then left.
The person in charge was a stern-looking female teacher named Li.
Li An briefly showed them around, took them to see the rooms assigned to them, and finally brought them to the training camp’s library.
“Search here for whatever books you want to read. Classes are held every Wednesday and Thursday in the room next door. The rest of the time you can arrange freely.”
Li An paused for a second, then added,
“This year’s assessment has already ended. The next one will be in March next year. You still have plenty of time, so plan it wisely.”
“If you need anything, contact me.” She tapped her communicator and then left.
It was only May.
“There are still ten months,” Fei Yucheng said excitedly while looking at the books in the room. “Sanqi, we can definitely do it!”
Tu Sanqi was excited too.
So many books!
When Tu Yu returned to his team, Su Rumeng and Ling Yi immediately surrounded him with questions.
“Did your sister get into trouble? Was she punished?”
“What trouble did Sanqi cause?”
“What’s with that expression? Was she punished or not?”
The two chattered nonstop. Even Lin Lu and Ye Ming looked over, their eyes showing concern.
Tu Yu: “……”
In the end, he couldn’t hold it in. He grabbed his good brother Ling Yi and happily spun him around twice.
“It’s fine, not a big disaster. She and another classmate just burned down the Special Zone’s protective net.”
Ling Yi had just freed himself from Tu Yu’s grip and froze when he heard that.
“…That’s not a big disaster?”
Ye Ming reacted faster. “The protective net is made of special materials. What did she burn it with?”
Tu Yu grinned and explained the whole story.
After hearing it, everyone: “……”
“Damn!” Ling Yi jumped onto his back excitedly. “So your sister joined the Engineering Department? She’ll become a great engineer in the future!”
Su Rumeng was pleasantly surprised, but her professional instincts still made her analyze it.
“That’s good. This way she’ll also have time to recover her health.”
Lin Lu raised his hand. A purple flame flickered in his palm as he said thoughtfully,
“So in the future we’ll be able to use ability shells too?”
Ye Ming remembered something and looked at Tu Yu.
“Once she’s in the training camp, she’ll start going out on missions with the training squads.”
Tu Yu: “……”
Tu Yu suddenly grabbed his head.
“Oh no—I forgot to tell her.”
At this moment they had already left the Special Zone again, and the Engineering Department was a confidential sector. None of his messages could reach Tu Sanqi’s communicator.
One month later, Tu Sanqi suddenly received a notice for an external assignment.
She was taken outside the training camp. As soon as she left the Engineering Department’s restricted area, her communicator started buzzing nonstop.
When she looked down, they were all messages from Tu Yu.
Her eyes quickly skimmed over them until they stopped at four words:
“Field training mission.”
Just then, a shadow fell in front of her.
Tu Sanqi looked up and met Yan Shuang’s surprised yet delighted eyes.
“So the new temporary team member joining us… is you!”