Check out our advanced chapters
Please kindly turn off your Adblock
Chapter 96.1
Editor: Jodi
For the next half month, Gu Yuanzhao didn’t let Bai Jing lift a finger, treating him like he was a fragile porcelain that had to be handled with extreme care.
All Bai Jing did every day was eat, sleep, and absorb energy from zombie crystal cores. Slowly, his strength started coming back.
With the addition of well-balanced, nutrient-rich meals, the sharp angles of his chin softened with a bit of flesh, and his complexion looked a whole lot healthier. Compared to when he had just arrived at the base, he was practically a different person.
The food in Gu Yuanzhao’s spatial button was all top-grade, fresh-from-the-starships ingredients.
The preservation technology kept the meat as tender as if it had just been slaughtered, and the vegetables were crisp and juicy, like they had just been plucked from the soil. The flavors were so fresh and rich that it was the kind of food that could make someone bite their tongue from sheer deliciousness.
However to avoid suspicion, every few days, the two of them would go to the cafeteria and use yellow and blue cards to exchange the accumulated rations—rice, flour, vegetables, and meat—before bringing them back.
The rations included flatbread, rice, and flour, but instead of flour or flatbread, they exchanged everything for rice, getting a total of twenty-three jin, which filled up more than half a sack.
The only vegetable available was Chinese cabbage, with each head weighing about three to four jin. For a half-month supply, they could only get four or five heads, and they weren’t fresh at all. At least a third of the outer leaves had to be peeled off before they could even be used.
The meat situation was even worse. The cafeteria only distributed half a jin of meat per day, and after much weighing and calculating, they managed to get about seven jin of large bones.
The bones were a dark red color, obviously old frozen meat that had been stored for who-knew-how-long. There was barely any meat on them—probably only good for making broth.
Fortunately, the rice and flour were sealed well, making it so that even though the rice was old stock, it hadn’t gotten infested with bugs. It was just a little lacking in texture, but overall, it was still edible.
Even so, in the post-apocalyptic world, this kind of food was already considered an extreme luxury.
A few ordinary survivors standing behind them, holding their white ration cards, stared wide-eyed at the pig bones in the sack, their mouths practically watering.
Just casually boiling them into a broth and soaking some flatbread in it would make an incredible meal. But only these high-status supernatural ability users could afford such a luxury.
Gu Yuanzhao took the rations from the cafeteria staff, his brows slightly furrowed. He really wasn’t impressed by this stuff.
But the food in his spatial button could only last three to four more months, and if he included nutritional supplements, maybe six months at best. It looked like he’d need to find time to go scavenging for more supplies outside the base.
The marketplace was bustling with people, selling all kinds of goods.
The currency used here was a green ticket with denominations of 1, 10, and 100 points. It looked similar to old the paper money, however it was a unique currency issued by the base.
After the apocalypse, regular money had long become worthless—so useless that people wouldn’t even bother picking it up if they saw it lying on the ground.
Gu Yuanzhao and Bai Jing walked around the market. They exchanged their seven jin of bones for three 100-point tickets, then bought some household items and seasonings, spending only 20 points in total.
If anything was considered the most valuable in the apocalypse, it was, of course, food.
And among all food types, fruits and meat were the rarest. This was the first time anyone had seen someone trade away meat for other goods.
They had to visit several different stalls before they could successfully exchange their 300 points. The bones were split among several vendors, with each one taking a portion.
If it weren’t for the fact that some of them had children at home who were absolutely craving meat, they probably wouldn’t have even given them up.
That night, in order to prevent the cabbages from wilting, they stripped off the outer leaves, washed them, and made a dish of stir-fried hot and sour cabbage.
The small chili peppers packed a serious punch, and the cabbage cores were tender and juicy. The dish had a perfect balance of salty, sour, and spicy flavors, making it incredibly appetizing.
After dinner, Gu Yuanzhao glanced at Bai Jing and suddenly smiled. “Ah Jing, close your eyes. I’ll give you a haircut.”
“Mm.” Bai Jing obediently sat on the chair, tilting his head up slightly.
To make it easier for Bai Jing to practice shooting, Gu Yuanzhao took the pair of scissors he had just picked up from the market and carefully trimmed the bangs covering Bai Jing’s forehead, revealing those stunning teal colored eyes. They were so beautiful that it was impossible to look away.
He stared for a long moment, and a sense of deep satisfaction welled up in his heart. His Ah Jing should always be this dazzling—there was no need to hide behind anything.
**
The Third Base’s training ground was an old sports field that had been converted, with an iron fence dividing it into two sections—one side for shooting practice, the other for one-on-one combat training.
In the apocalypse, aside from those with offensive supernatural abilities like fire or ice, everyone else had to practice hand-to-hand combat and shooting. It was a necessary skill for survival against zombies.
The training ground charged 5 points per hour per person. It wasn’t exactly cheap.
But since supernatural ability users with blue-level ID cards could train for free, they only had to pay for Bai Jing’s entry.
After paying 20 points, the two of them stepped into the training grounds.
On the shooting range, Bai Jing wore a fitted, water-blue training uniform that highlighted his tall, lean figure and slender waist. His fair skin and delicate features instantly drew the attention of all the supernatural ability users present.
Meanwhile, Gu Yuanzhao stood tall in his black military uniform, his figure strong and well-proportioned, his handsome face exuding maturity and confidence. His powerful presence alone was enough to make people take notice.
“Holy sh*t, who’s that stunning guy?”
A fire-type supernatural ability user with bleached yellow hair was practically dumbstruck. He even let go of the delicate-looking young man he had been holding, pressing himself against the iron fence, his eyes glued to Bai Jing like a predator spotting prey.
His name was Liu Dong. Before the apocalypse, he was nothing more than a small-time street thug, picking pockets and stealing phones, even getting locked up a few times. Later, he worked as an internet café admin, barely scraping by.
But on the second day of the apocalypse, he awakened a highly offensive fire ability, and suddenly, his luck turned.
Money, power, lovers—things that had once been completely out of reach were now easily within his grasp. He almost felt like he should be thanking the apocalypse for happening.
What did other people’s lives have to do with him?
He liked men. However back then, even the cheapest gigolos wouldn’t give him the time of day.
But now, he could pick and choose any cute little guy he wanted, swapping them out every few days.
But the moment he laid eyes on Bai Jing at the shooting range, he suddenly felt that all the ones he had been with before were nothing but cheap imitations—not even worth comparing to this one.
The young man he had just let go of was only eighteen. Watching Bai Jing practice shooting, his eyes flashed with jealousy.
The man next to Bai Jing had to treat him extremely well, because just by looking at that tailored training uniform and the glow in his complexion, it was obvious he was living a good life. He even had someone bringing him to train.
And that guy was tall, handsome, and had an air of power around him, clearly a formidable supernatural ability user.
Why couldn’t he have this kind of luck?
Compared to this man, Liu Dong was nothing but a toad. But even so, the young man beside him had no choice but to flatter and cling to him—otherwise, someone else would steal his spot.
Then he saw the way Liu Dong was practically drooling over Bai Jing and immediately felt a sense of crisis.
But then, his gaze landed on the mature, handsome man next to Bai Jing, and a different thought crossed his mind—maybe this was an opportunity.
After all, wasn’t it true that men couldn’t resist temptation?
Even if that teenager was good-looking, after a while, his man would eventually get bored of him, right…?