Qi Yue drooped his head, abnormally dejected. The new ability he had been looking forward to for so long had turned out like this. The grief and indignation filling his chest were impossible to put into words.
Seeing Qi Yue looking unhappy, the others felt a bit amused and a bit curious, unable to figure out exactly why he had such a long face.
With a sigh, Yan Bin rubbed Qi Yue’s messy hair and lightly patted his shoulder, silently comforting him.
Tang Ke teased Qi Yue. “Yueyue, I can feel that you’ve upgraded. Hurry and tell big brother what your level-six ability is like.”
Qi Yue’s face scrunched into a ball. He pointed at the already empty plate. “There, what you just ate was it.”
Huh? After carefully recalling it and then probing around with his spiritual power, there was still no feeling at all. Tang Ke looked at the others in confusion.
They looked at each other, either shrugging or shaking their heads. It seemed everyone was the same, no change at all.
“What is it? So mysterious?” Tang Ke unknowingly rubbed salt into the wound.
“There’s actually no effect at all. Don’t you think that’s strange?” Qi Yue felt like throwing up. He didn’t really mind what the effect was, but at least there should be some effect. What did it mean for there to be nothing at all? Could it be that he had ruined his ability himself?
Tang Ke glanced at the others, propped his chin with his hand and rubbed it twice. “Yueyue, actually we already felt your ability’s effect last night.”
Ah? Qi Yue widened his eyes at Tang Ke and asked urgently, “What was it?”
He crooked his finger, signaling Qi Yue to come closer.
Qi Yue leaned over and put his head close to listen. The other’s hot breath sprayed against his ear. “Your little mouth down there got tighter. Last night you almost squeezed me to—”
Qi Yue hurriedly covered the other’s mouth to stop the words that were about to come out, his face red as he glared at him. This was simply too shameless. Usually he looked proper and serious outside, so how did he become this obscene when it came to Qi Yue?
The greatest advantage of ability users was that their senses became extremely sharp, especially hearing, which grew stronger as their ability level increased. Seeing the fiery looks in the others’ eyes, Qi Yue’s face flushed crimson, even his collarbones tinged red.
In the end, he still couldn’t escape being ravaged by those people. While rubbing his sore waist, Qi Yue cursed them inwardly. These beasts really took advantage at every possible moment. He wasn’t young anymore, and those high-difficulty positions were too stimulating for him to endure. But he didn’t dare say these words to them. If he did, they would probably crave even more those positions that made him unable to bear it.
After all that tossing about, Qi Yue truly forgot quite a bit about the new ability. After soaking in the hot spring once, all the fatigue in his body was washed away, and Qi Yue became lively again. Rarely getting out like this, he didn’t want to waste all his time on bed activities.
The grassland was still as beautiful as before. An endless stretch of emerald green spread beneath the sky, and a gentle breeze carried waves of fragrance. Of course, that was only if those outrageous mutated animals didn’t appear. Those wild rabbits as big as pigs, those wolves as large as horses with sharp fangs protruding from their mouths, completely ruined the scenery. But since they came to deliver themselves to death, it suited Qi Yue just fine. His joy was collecting all kinds of food.
Every day, the group swept from one end of the grassland to the other, then the next day swept back from the other end. They returned nearly every day with full loads, and Qi Yue tirelessly enjoyed this chasing game day after day.
“Yueyue, my space is about to turn into a slaughterhouse,” Han Fei said pitifully. His space was filled everywhere with hanging meat, animal carcasses, and all kinds of food. Just looking at it made him feel a bit nauseous.
“Hehe, hehe.” Qi Yue’s brows and eyes curved with a smile as he glanced over sideways.
Han Fei immediately froze. Something tightened, and he fawned his way over, rubbing against Qi Yue. “Yueyue, what’s mine is yours. Even I belong to you. You can use me however you want. What are we going to hunt today?”
Shameless. That word flashed through the others’ minds.
“Let’s go to the camp. I haven’t been back for several years. I want to see how it is now,” Qi Yue said, looking at the others expectantly.
The suggestion was accepted. They left immediately, driving a stretched off-road vehicle toward the Hailar camp.
When they arrived at the camp where Qi Yue had once lived for five years, they could hardly believe it. A camp that had survived such harsh conditions back then had actually fallen in just two short years. Circling around the outside of the camp, they discovered that the traces were all fresh, left not long ago.
Outside the walls, zombies wandered everywhere. After so many years of wind and rain, their bodies had become even more tattered. Their clothes hung in strips over rotten flesh, with mosquitoes clinging to some of it and feeding. Much of the decayed flesh on some zombies had fallen away, exposing pitch-black bones beneath. Some zombies had even lost their eyeballs, and their limbs were incomplete. After all these years, how had these zombies not starved to death? Qi Yue thought resentfully.
Judging from the combat marks on the ground and the state of damage to the walls, they had likely been left just in the past few days. Hearing this, Qi Yue immediately felt overwhelming regret. If only he had come to take a look as soon as he arrived, things wouldn’t have turned out like this.
Tang Ke bent his index finger and flicked Qi Yue on the head. “Stop thinking nonsense. Even if the zombies didn’t come now, they would come sooner or later. Could you really protect them for a lifetime?”
Even though that was true, Qi Yue still felt terrible inside.
“Let’s go in and take a look. Maybe there are still survivors,” Lin Yuze spoke up. He rarely voiced opinions, but he really didn’t want to see Qi Yue so sad and self-blaming.
After so many years and so much experience, Qi Yue still hadn’t learned to become cruel. That was exactly what they lacked, and also the reason they liked Qi Yue. Someone with love in their heart always had the most genuine emotions.
After dealing with the zombies blocking their route, Qi Yue handed the others a series of foods: multi-element ability buns, pan-fried steak, and breath-holding water. He himself ate an extra bowl of stewed eggs compared to the others. He didn’t give this to them mainly because he had tested it before. When others ate the stewed eggs, there was no effect. Only when he himself ate them did the locking function appear.
After successfully turning invisible, the group avoided the zombies in the corridors and walked into the camp.
The camp appeared to have suffered a joint attack from zombies of a higher level than theirs. A large section of the wall had collapsed. Entering the interior of the camp, they could see dried bloodstains everywhere. The farther in they went, the more severe the destruction became. Qi Yue pointed to the building he had once lived in, signaling the others to go take a look.
There were still some zombies wandering the streets and roaming inside houses. Most of the zombies had probably followed the collapsed wall and left this place to forage elsewhere.
The door was broken wide open. Qi Yue walked in front, while the others formed a protective circle around him.
There were a few zombies moving about inside the house. Carefully passing by them, Qi Yue headed toward the room he had lived in before.
As soon as he entered, he was stunned by the scene inside.
A zombie stood in front of the bed, its back to them. On the filthy bed lay a female zombie whose signs of decay looked very fresh, her legs spread wide. The sheets beneath her were stained with dried blood, along with foul, putrid fluid flowing from the zombie’s body.
What shocked them was that this female zombie was actually giving birth.
After all of them had entered the room, the zombie that had been standing by the bed with its back to them suddenly turned its head. It looked as though it had been infected for a long time, the decayed flesh on its body badly ruined. When Qi Yue saw that the zombie’s right hand was missing part of a finger, he recognized him. This was the old herdsman’s son.
Before Qi Yue left this place, he had given the house to a family in the camp. That family had many members and had originally been herders on the grassland. The whole family had moved into the camp. At the time, their son had just taken a wife. When Qi Yue gave them the house, the family had been very grateful and had even given Qi Yue many medicinal herbs.
That zombie seemed to know they had entered. Its blood-red pupils stared straight at Qi Yue. The scene was hair-raising, and Qi Yue felt as though every hair on his body had stood on end.
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