As it turned out, concealing the fact that Fang Yangyang had not awakened a ability was the right call.
Out of all seventy-nine people present, everyone except her had gained an ability. Regardless of the type or strength of their powers, they were now the “normal” ones, leaving Fang Yangyang as the sole outlier.
Yan Fengji logged everyone’s information, and the group soon became familiar with the various ways their abilities manifested.
A lively discussion broke out among them.
“With this fire, it won’t matter if we run out of cooking gas,” a canteen worker said, holding up her hand and inspecting it from every angle. She still found it incredible that a “genetic mutation” had granted her the wondrous ability to produce flames from her palm.
“It’s pretty handy.”
“And we don’t have to worry about running out of drinking water either,” a male sports student said gleefully.
Having his own source of water, the very essence of life, vastly improved his chances of survival. Possessing a power that belonged entirely to him and could never be taken away gave him a profound sense of security.
Someone shook their head and cautioned the male student from the sports department, “You shouldn’t be so quick to assume. We don’t know yet if water created by ability is safe to drink. It’s better to wait until we can test the water quality and confirm its safety before consuming it.”
This was a sensible concern. With the city’s water supply system still functioning, tap water that had been disinfected and filtered was clearly far safer and more reliable than “clean water” generated by human bodies.
The other students with water-related powers nodded in agreement.
After categorizing and analyzing the ability manifestation across their sample of seventy-nine people, they reached a conclusion.
“It’s tied to metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.”
“More accurately, natural elements.”
Their informal theories about ability classifications turned out to be remarkably close to what experts would determine later in the original apocalyptic novel.
Fang Yangyang rested her chin in her hands, blinking slowly. Her thick, dense eyelashes resembled small fans, highlighting her striking beauty in the dim indoor light.
Meng Zizhao caught sight of Fang Yangyang’s ability manifestation from Yan Fengji’s notes: Ice.
For some reason, Meng Zizhao felt something was off, but then his eyes drifted back toward Fang Yangyang and Dou Qing.
The young man was gathering the beautiful girl’s long hair, deftly looping a hair tie around his fingers until he had put it up into a neat, round bun. Once he finished, she tilted her head to murmur a few words to him. Moments later, Fang Yangyang turned Meng Zizhao’s way and flashed him a sweet, crinkly-eyed smile.
Meng Zizhao froze for a second before catching the infectious warmth of her smile, unable to hold back a grin of his own.
A classmate from aviation turned to tease him. “What’s got you smiling so big, Brother Meng?”
Instead of explaining, Meng Zizhao gave a cheerful nod. With a soft whoosh, he playfully flared the little flame in his hand and hummed a tune. “Just in a good mood, that’s all.”
Day six of the apocalypse.
Following the awakening of human superpowers, the cafeteria welcomed several new survivors into their growing group, two men and three women.
Upon arriving, the five brought news from outside.
“The iron shutters at Jialeyuan Supermarket were locked,” one said. The supermarket was Jiangpu Canteen’s second convenience store, nestled between the dormitories some distance away. “So we broke a window.”
Looking guilty, the boy scratched his flushed cheek. “I left some cash behind. If I get the chance later, I’ll definitely pay the owner back properly.”
The five of them had met on the road and joined forces. The boy had used his strength to smash open the window of Jialeyuan Supermarket, and the shorter girl had climbed inside to grab half a sack of instant food.
Picking up where he left off, she added, “There were rats inside. Taotao and I grabbed all the instant noodles and biscuits we could carry, then ran straight back out.”
Rats.
The mere mention of the word sent a chill through the room.
One of the students was tending to the scrapes on the newcomer’s arm from climbing through the window. “Were they mutated too?” she asked.
The short girl gave a grim nod. “Luckily, Xiao Ju was still in the store. The second I heard Xiao Ju catching rats, I hurried out.”
Xiao Ju was the nickname students had given the ginger stray cat kept by the supermarket’s owner.
No one dared ask whether Xiao Ju had mutated into a Da Ju.
They could only count themselves lucky that cats naturally hunted rats. Inside the supermarket, the humans had managed to gather what food they could and escape without drawing the attention of either mutated predator.
The other girl was starving. Digging through the pile of instant food she had brought, she tore open a ready-to-eat pack and wolfed it down. “Our dorm ran out of food entirely, which is the only reason I dared to run down.”
Pale-faced, she began to choke on her bites. Someone quickly handed her a glass of water, and she murmured a grateful thank you. “If I hadn’t felt like I’d awakened some bizarre power yesterday, I never would’ve had the courage to leave.”
Looking around at everyone, she ventured cautiously, “I’m not the only one, am I?”
Being the only person left in her dorm, she had no way of knowing if everyone had awakened a superpower. The four companions she met on the road all possessed powers, an astonishingly high rate, but she still couldn’t be sure if it was universal.
“Right, all of us have them,” someone replied.
The girl visibly relaxed. If she wasn’t the only one, she wouldn’t be stared at like a rare panda in a zoo.
Dou Qing gently took Fang Yangyang’s hand, the warmth of his palm gradually steadying her emotions. Yan Fengji’s help in covering for her and playing along kept her from standing out as the center of attention.
A student from the south looked puzzled. “So they’re about the same size as the big rats down in Fujian and Guangdong?”
“Southern rats really are huge, as big as an adult’s palm,” he said, gesturing animatedly as everyone turned to look at him.
“I just wonder if the mutated ones have any other terrifying traits aside from their size.”
“Plague, hemorrhagic fever, rabies.”
Wen Qing stated it matter-of-factly, sending a collective shiver through the room. In their current situation, nobody knew what terrible diseases a bite from a mutated rat might transmit.
A physical education major, who had fought off a British Shorthair in his dorm room a few days earlier and ultimately crushed it with a chair, scratched his injured arm.
He raised a trembling hand. “If it was a pet that had all its core feline vaccines and rabies shots, it should be fine, right?”
The senior female student glanced at him quietly, unable to offer much reassurance. Without a lab to run tests, she dared not make any definitive claims.
In the end, she could only offer a cautious reply. “The incubation period for rabies is usually one to three months. To be safe, let’s just keep you under observation for now.”
The young man’s face went pale. He clasped his hands together in prayer, muttering under his breath as anxiety overtook him.
***
On the sixth day of the apocalypse, the five newcomers eased the canteen’s food shortage by sharing some of their instant provisions.
Later that evening, after a small group discussed plans to venture outside and forage for supplies in the coming days, Yan Fengji led an effort to break through the metal shutter of the cafeteria’s convenience store.
Among the awakened, those with metal-related abilities proved far more effective for this task than anyone else, though others still contributed. With the mutated rats from Jialeyuan Supermarket fresh in their minds, the group prepared for the worst before forcing the shutter open.
Fire-affinity users placed combustible materials near the entrance, ready to ignite them and burn any vermin that bolted out.
Dou Qing, whose ability was tied to ice, seemed to have little to offer in this situation. Standing near the back of the crowd, he watched from a distance as Meng Zizhao, the cafeteria auntie, and the other fire users stood poised for action.
Meanwhile, the metal users conjured sharp implements, dragging the hardened edges across the iron shutter with a screech like fingernails on a chalkboard.
The process took several shifts of metal users and dragged on for dozens of minutes before the door finally gave way.
Just as they had anticipated, mutated rats lurked inside.
The canteen lady’s voice rose. “I told him! Old Su’s shop has always been crawling with rats, but he never wanted to hear it. Our canteen keeps everything spotless, while his little supermarket is practically overrun.”
Catching the scent of fresh human flesh, mutated rats with blood-red eyes burst through the iron door with startling speed.
Yan Fengji was prepared. He and his fellow students had already seen mutated white mice in the lab, and wild gray rats turned out even uglier and more massive.
A thick wall of flames flared up, blocking the mutated rats before they could reach the crowd.
Everyone capable of using a ability followed Yan Fengji’s earlier instructions. Metal users, having breached the iron door, pulled back.
Fire users formed the innermost ring, striking first with flames. Earth users came next, raising mounds of dirt and gravel to obstruct the rats’ advance. As for Wood and Water, only Yan Fengji and Dou Qing wielded significant strength.
Nearby, a flaming mutated rat thrashed wildly, darting toward an opening in the crowd. Calm and precise, Yan Fengji sent out a vine, wrapping it tightly around the creature.
An instant later, Dou Qing extended a hand. Instead of conjuring loose blocks of ice, he coated the rat directly, encasing it in a solid layer of frost.
Its limbs frozen stiff, the mutant rat gave a few reluctant twitches of its slender pink tail before freezing to death.
It had been a display of seamless teamwork, though neither Dou Qing nor Yan Fengji looked particularly pleased about it.
Meng Zizhao, on the other hand, was thrilled to have burned a mutant rat to death, practically strutting with pride. Once he confirmed that all the creatures were dead, he flicked small bursts of flame like a flamethrower, treating the carcasses to a full-on barbecue.
Before he could finish messing around, Yan Fengji called out to him.
“Meng Zizhao.”
His voice was deep and refined, carrying the precise, detached demeanor typical of a medical student.
Meng Zizhao stopped what he was doing and turned around with a grin, only to see Yan Fengji holding out his hand with the length of vine still extended.
“What is it?” Meng Zizhao pointed at his hand, puzzled. “Aren’t you going to retract that?”
Yan Fengji glanced toward Fang Yangyang, who was busy examining Dou Qing’s palm nearby, before looking back with a serious expression. “Do me a favor.”
“With what?”
“Burn it.”
Fang Yangyang slowly shifted her gaze toward them.
Meng Zizhao reacted faster than he could think, immediately using his flame to incinerate the protruding vine.
As a wood-element user, having his vine burned naturally took a toll on Yan Fengji. He endured the sensation without letting out a sound.
Only after that section of vine had burned away did his brow smooth over.
“That vine touched a rat earlier,” he said, feigning nonchalance. “I couldn’t stand the dirt.”
Fang Yangyang watched him quietly for a long moment before the corner of her mouth twitched. “Germaphobe,” she muttered under her breath.
Her tone carried no real complaint or criticism.
Yan Fengji kept his gaze lowered, staring at his empty palm for several seconds until a tender green shoot sprouted from his skin once more.
Later that evening, while everyone gathered food and daily supplies in a convenience store, Yan Fengji found the clean little blanket Fang Yangyang had been hoping for.
Instead of touching her with his hands, he let a slender, glowing green vine shoot from his palm to tug gently at the hem of her clothes. His expression was cool. “For you.”
Fang Yangyang looked up at him in surprise, then down at the vine. Almost instinctively, her fingers pinched the fresh, newly sprouted leaf.
Yan Fengji did not react.
Realizing what she had done, Fang Yangyang quickly let go. “…Oh.”
She pulled the blanket into her arms, nodded to him, and offered an unexpectedly bright, lovely smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Yan Fengji replied, sounding deceptively detached.