Regarding the request for combat training, Lin Xia was not acting on a wild whim. It was an ambition that had germinated in his mind ever since he woke up from the pollution.
His awakening had brought not just the food stall cart, but also certain changes to his body.
His eyesight had improved, and his night vision was heavily enhanced. In a state of intense concentration, Lin Xia possessed a startling sharpness when it came to capturing dynamic trajectories.
When they were attacked by the mutated crows in the courtyard, Lin Xia had actually seen it coming. However, his mind had only just cleared back then, and it couldn’t keep up with the speed at which his eyes gathered information, leaving him standing frozen on the spot without reacting.
This evolution became even more distinct during the battle with the Big-Headed Lizard. By then, Lin Xia was already able to accurately track the lizard’s movements and could even make small-scale, short-term predictions. This was what allowed him to successfully complete his first independent kill.
After that battle, a vague idea took root in Lin Xia’s mind.
Perhaps his supernatural power wasn’t just a food stall cart, but also the enhancement of his bodily functions. Of course, unlike other ability users, he couldn’t unleash lightning or fireballs, but being able to predict an opponent’s next move was a special ability in its own right.
What he needed to do now was strengthen his muscles and neural reflexes through training and real combat, helping his brain find the most efficient pathways to process information. This would allow his body to adapt to combat coordination as quickly as possible, preventing a repeat of the crow tragedy.
Perhaps sensing Lin Xia’s resolve, the Challenge Quest page—which had been stuck in an “activating” state—suddenly refreshed.
Challenge Quest (1): First Blood
Objective: The host must independently kill a mutated creature of Rank R or above.
Note: Detected that the food stall cart system has activated the automatic collection feature, and the collected material level is N4. The system defaults the host Lin Xia’s initial kill level to N4; therefore, the required kill level for this task must be R2 or above.
Reward: An on-board odor-eliminating toilet. This product comes with high-density partitions for odor and sound isolation. Built-in and wall-mounted, it saves space inside the vehicle and avoids embarrassment. (The reward model is the basic version and does not include the fully automated sewage and garbage disposal system; if you wish to pair it with this function, please purchase it separately.)
Lin Xia: …
He felt a strong urge to complain. A toilet without any plumbing—isn’t that just a glorified chamber pot?!
Still, nature calls, and using the restroom was a truly important matter. Right now they were in the supermarket warehouse, so they could use the infrastructure here for their daily needs. But if they set off for a survivor base, the restroom situation along the way would become very troublesome. Having to relieve oneself out in the wild was nerve-wracking, and one constantly had to worry about someone sneaking into the cart. Thinking of it this way, getting a toilet inside the food stall cart was highly necessary.
The food stall cart had built-in defense, and the odor-eliminating toilet came with high-density partitions, meaning he could do his business in peace.
Lin Xia instantly grew excited. He eagerly clicked open the details page for the Challenge Quest, only for his brow to furrow.
The details page listed a conversion reference for mutation ranks based on species:
Mutated Crow (N1)
Mutated Blood-Slime Monster (N2)
Black Fog Resurrected Rib-Winged Membrane Water Moth (N3)
Black Fog Glandular Lizard (N4)
Black Fog Gland-Sac Tiger (R3)
Credit where credit was due, the cart’s system was quite considerate; the reference points it used were all things Lin Xia had encountered.
However, by this standard, Lin Xia had to kill a mutated creature at least two ranks higher than the Big-Headed Lizard for the Challenge Quest—just one rank lower than the mutated tiger. The difficulty of the task was immense.
—Beep.—
A prompt popped up from the food stall cart:
Would you like to spend 5 standard units of energy to purchase a simple rank tester? (This tester utilizes universal standards to determine the rank of mutated creatures, featuring a detection range of 300 meters and an accuracy rate of over 80%. It is your most economical choice for completing Challenge Quests.)
Below the prompt were several links recommending various models of testers from the system mall. Aside from the first one, they were all incredibly expensive.
Naturally, the detection range and accuracy rate scaled up drastically with the price. Lin Xia looked at them longingly, but he simply couldn’t afford them.
In the end, he bought the cheapest, simple tester.
Since he was aiming for the rewarded toilet, having a tester was better than nothing. At least he would know what he was up against before stepping onto the battlefield.
As for a target of Rank R2 or above, Chi Zheng had mentioned that the documents regarding cooperation with Zenith were inside the supermarket manager’s safe, and two shipments of Zenith containers were currently in transit within the Fourth District. If they could locate those two shipments, there was a high probability they would find mutated creatures from the Polar Black Fog Zone inside. Before that, however, he needed to properly hone his combat skills to ensure he could complete a kill independently.
Having made up his mind, Lin Xia accepted the Challenge Quest.
Challenge Quests had no time limit, so he and Chi Zheng decided to rest for a while, gathering their energy before setting out.
After enduring an entire night of tense combat, Lin Xia was also exhausted. The supermarket warehouse had showers for the employees. Although the power outage meant the heat pump no longer worked, the hot water already stored in the tank was enough for the two of them to have a quick wash. Half an hour later, Lin Xia lay comfortably on the wooden board bed inside the food stall cart, covered by a soft, light blanket, drifting off to sleep.
Then, he felt someone slide into the bed beside him.
“Chi Xiaozheng?”
“The bed is too small to fit two separate blankets,” Chi Zheng said with a look of pure innocence. “…If Xiaxia finds it too crowded, should I go make a bed on the floor outside the cart?”
How could he possibly let him sleep on the floor!
Thus, Lin Xia instantly accepted the reality of sharing a blanket.
It wasn’t as if they hadn’t slept together before anyway. When they were poor back at home and couldn’t even afford blankets, he and Chi Xiaozheng used to huddle together for warmth, only separating into different beds once their finances improved.
“Goodnight, Chi Xiaozheng.”
“Goodnight, Lin Xiaxia.”
Click—
The lights of the food stall cart went out, and the massive warehouse plunged into complete darkness.
Contented, someone patiently waited until the breathing beside him grew steady and even. Only then did he noiselessly edge closer, carefully circling the treasure of his heart in a firm embrace, locking them together until their breaths intertwined.
Lin Xia slept soundly and deeply. When he opened his eyes again, it was already evening of the next day.
To be honest, waking up to Chi Zheng’s handsome face right in front of him was a bit intense. Especially since this guy was bare-chested, clinging to him like an octopus, radiating a stifling heat that felt a bit uncomfortable.
Lin Xia strongly suspected he must have fainted from exhaustion previously. Otherwise, being held this tightly, how could he have passed the night entirely dreamless? Was he a corpse?
“Awake?” Chi Zheng rubbed against him, his arm still wrapped around his shoulder. “Want to eat?”
He showed absolutely no intention of letting go, so the two remained locked in a tight embrace, close enough that Lin Xia could look straight into his dark pupils.
Chi Zheng’s eyes were exceptionally black, so dark that they didn’t reflect a single shred of light.
How should one put it? When this man looked down at someone, his thin eyelids half-raised, he always carried a sort of arrogant look that practically begged for a beating.
But that arrogance was merely a surface layer; the true core of his nature was an innate coldness and detachment.
From childhood to adulthood, there were very few things Chi Zheng cared about. When Lin Xia first picked him up, he didn’t even care about his own life, looking entirely like a living corpse.
For him to be so grounded and human now, Lin Xia had truly done a magnificent service!
“Has the rain still not stopped?”
“No, it’s been falling continuously, and it’s coming down even harder than it was a few hours ago.” Chi Zheng sat up from the wooden bed, leaving Lin Xia with a view of his perfectly sculpted V-tapered back. “Fog has rolled in outside, so visibility is extremely low. Water has probably started accumulating on the lower floors.”
In the third-floor hallway, Chen Song retracted his gaze from the distance.
He took a sharp drag from his cigarette. The ground was littered with cigarette butts; clearly, he hadn’t slept a wink all night.
Yesterday, he had waited for a long time but never saw those two come out. The cold storage door was locked from the inside, and it wasn’t right for him to force it open, so he had no choice but to leave in frustration.
However, the degradation of his special ability was becoming increasingly severe. Moreover, Monkey had developed a fever yesterday evening and still hadn’t regained consciousness.
Chen Song made up his mind. He absolutely had to find an opportunity to strike up a conversation with those two today. He refused to believe he was the only one experiencing problems!
“Brother…”
“Yellow-hair and I are going out to look for medicine. We can’t just watch Monkey burn his brain out.”
Thus, just as Lin Xia and Chi Zheng finished their dinner, they saw a drenched Chen Song supporting a staggering Yellow-hair as they stumbled over from the parking lot.
Yellow-hair’s left leg was dripping with blood, and he grimaced in agony. Chen Song carried a soaked hiking backpack on his back. The moment the two groups crossed paths, Chen Song first spotted the assault boat in Chi Zheng’s hands.
“Be careful, there are things in the water below!” he warned voluntarily. “The water has risen too high, and mutated creatures from the river have entered the city. My buddy was accidentally bitten by something; their teeth are venomous.”
“What kind of thing?” Lin Xia asked.
“Piranhas,” Yellow-hair pointed at the gruesome wound on his leg. “…Once they bite down, they won’t let go. And there are water snakes too. They move in packs. If my boss hadn’t seen how bad things were and dragged me back with force, I would have been pulled straight to the bottom of the water!”
They had also gone out in an assault boat, wanting to gather as many medicines as possible before the water rose too high. There was a pharmacy across from the warehouse. While the two were wading through the water, they encountered a torrential current, and a school of piranhas in the water took the opportunity to swarm Yellow-hair.
Yellow-hair was a physical mutation ability user; ordinary piranhas shouldn’t have been able to bite through his skin. Yet, this particular school included a mutated king fish whose bite force and teeth hardness were terrifyingly high. Compounded by the fact that Yellow-hair’s physical strength had degraded somewhat after the aurora, he was no match for the king fish’s sharp teeth, and several chunks of flesh were savagely torn from him.
Accompanying the king fish was a pack of mutated water snakes. Once the king fish bit into its prey, the water snakes would swarm forward, dragging the prey into the water. Once the prey was submerged, the water snakes would constrict tightly around the prey’s airway, causing them to choke on water and suffocate, ultimately becoming food for the fish and snakes.
To save Yellow-hair, Chen Song had exhausted all his special ability. He was currently completely dizzy, gritting his teeth to hold himself up simply because he didn’t want to show weakness in front of others.
“In short, if you don’t have an emergency, you’d better wait until the rain stops before heading out.”
Chen Song meant well, but Lin Xia and Chi Zheng couldn’t afford not to go out.
Their energy reserves were running on empty, and they had to find a way to earn some crystal cores. Having piranhas and mutated water snakes in the water actually saved them the time of hunting around for targets.
However, the information provided by Chen Song was very important. After the cataclysm, the food chain had changed. Piranhas and water snakes, which originally had absolutely nothing to do with each other, had actually formed a symbiotic relationship and had even derived a joint hunting strategy.
“We owe him a favor,” Lin Xia whispered. “He didn’t have to tell us at all, which would have caught us completely off guard. Now that he shared the information, it really did us a huge favor.”
Chi Zheng nodded.
Although he didn’t believe a school of piranhas and water snakes could cause any significant harm, since Xiaxia said it was a favor, then it was a favor. Worst case, he would just return the favor later.
In truth, he had noticed long ago that the man was observing them, hovering around them several times, though he had never taken any actual action.
What exactly did Chen Song want?
Crystal cores? Mutated beasts? Or supplies?
Regardless, as long as he wasn’t asking to join them, everything was negotiable.
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