Chapter 106: Mutated Pigs Appear
After the apocalypse, meat was already scarce, and even though the Li family was doing relatively well, there was still not much meat to eat. According to the rules of the various teams in the Li family, they only had to hand over half of the supplies they gathered, with the rest kept for themselves. If Li Ji could bring back a significant amount of meat, it would help solidify his position in the Li family and improve relations with other families.
Therefore, aside from leaving a few people to watch Wu Yue and his group, Li Ji took his ability users and those he had “poached” from Wu Yue’s team along with him on the trip.
Meanwhile, Lu Weiyi and his four companions initially planned to just kill the group on their way. However, upon learning they were heading to a farm, the others unanimously decided to wait until after they had gathered supplies, then strike. This way, they could also get a batch of meat, making it a big profit.
Their original plan was for the four with good marksmanship to use sniper rifles from a distance. Since Lu Weiyi didn’t know how to use one, he wasn’t going. But when he heard that the two ability users, Cheng Hai and Song Yu, were going, Lu Weiyi decided to join as well. According to Wu Yue, Cheng Hai had a jade space, and perhaps he could obtain another space for himself.
As for Song Yu, even if he couldn’t get a space, there would still be valuable items in his space to bring back. It was worth the trip.
The next day, the weather was unusually cloudy. Knowing their destination, Lu Weiyi and his group ambushed Li Ji in a high-rise building not far from the farm.
The building was over twenty stories tall, and with binoculars, they could clearly see the situation at the farm. The five of them relaxed in a bedroom, chatting casually while occasionally glancing at the farm in the distance.
“Lu, once we take care of them, we can go back to find the others, right?” Antonio asked, lying on the bed, feeling a little bored.
“Mm, are you in a hurry?” Lu Weiyi responded while mentally scanning the space and counting how much food they had left.
“Well, I kind of miss Dean. I wonder if he’s doing okay without me,” Antonio replied. Since the apocalypse, he had never been apart from Dean for such a long time, and he was starting to feel anxious.
“They’ll take care of him,” Lu Weiyi said, both to Antonio and to reassure himself. After all, compared to Dean who could run and jump, Zhuang Mingxu was a disabled person who needed constant care.
“We told them we’d be back in five days, no matter what. Today is the fifth day. How about we just go back after we’re done?” Antonio suggested.
“Alright, I hope everything goes smoothly.” Lu Weiyi had left with little food, and now he was a bit worried. He looked at the others. “For the past few days, we’ve been eating food prepared by Brother Xi. There are only ten buns left, not enough for a full meal. What should we have for lunch?”
“We went to a small wholesale market before. Did you pick up a gas stove? We can just cook some instant noodles,” Li Zhuang asked.
Lu Weiyi flipped through his things and nodded. “Yes, we can cook noodles. We’ll eat them with the buns. If we don’t get back by tonight, we’ll have to eat bread.”
He stood up and walked to the window to glance outside. “You guys keep an eye on things. I’ll go upstairs and downstairs to collect anything useful.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lin Yimu offered.
“No need. I can do it alone,” Lu Weiyi replied, thinking it would be easier to use the small green branch to collect things without being restricted by anyone else’s presence.
“Okay, take the walkie-talkie. Don’t push yourself if anything happens,” Lin Yimu said, not insisting further.
Lu Weiyi nodded and left the room.
When they arrived, they hadn’t cleared out many zombies. After opening a path, they went straight up the stairs. The items in each apartment were mostly untouched. Lu Weiyi worked his way up, collecting whatever he could from each unit, even taking the wooden windows and cabinets.
Although these might not be useful to him, they could be used for firewood. In the cold weather without heating, people typically used firewood to stay warm until the development of crystal core energy for heating.
The building seemed to have emptied out without much haste. Most of the food had been taken, but there were plenty of blankets and clothes left, which Lu Weiyi happily gathered.
With no one around, he used the small green branch to collect items from each apartment, occasionally encountering a few zombies. He would simply control the branch to strangle their necks, then use a watermelon knife to split their heads open, checking for crystal cores.
He worked quickly, and time passed by fast. It wasn’t until nearly 11 a.m. that Li Zhuang’s voice came over the walkie-talkie, saying that Li Ji and the others had arrived.
Lu Weiyi had basically finished going through the entire building. After checking the remaining two floors, he returned to the room where everyone else was. “They’ve arrived?”
“Yeah, but they’re eating in the building across the street,” Li Zhuang pointed to another building on the opposite side of the road and handed the binoculars to Lu Weiyi.
Lu Weiyi took a look through the binoculars and asked, “Should we eat too?”
“Of course, eat up and get ready to work,” Antonio replied.
Lu Weiyi nodded and took out a gas stove, pots, bowls, chopsticks, water, a few packs of instant noodles, along with eggs, ham, vegetables, a small packet of hotpot meatballs, a can of braised pork, canned fish, steamed buns, and a few apples from his space.
A proper meal with main course, sides, and even fruit—perfect.
“Lu, I think I’ll stick with you from now on. Just make sure to take care of Dean and me,” Antonio said approvingly, clearly impressed by how meticulous Lu Weiyi was even with instant noodles—and happy to benefit from it.
Lin Yimu had previously discussed this topic with Zhuang Mingxu. Hearing Antonio bring it up now, he poured water into the pot, tore open a noodle packet, and glanced casually at Lu Weiyi.
Lu Weiyi, unfazed, said, “Sure. But I might not stay in Qingyuan. You’ve seen Mingxu’s condition—one day I might need to take him to the Capital. You still want to come?”
“Definitely,” Antonio replied without hesitation as he rinsed the freshly picked vegetables with a bit of water.
Lu Weiyi knew Dean might awaken healing-type abilities and had no intention of letting the two of them go—especially now that Zhuang Mingxu’s condition was worsening and desperately needed a healer. Since Antonio brought it up himself, Lu Weiyi naturally agreed.
Though… he looked at Antonio and really couldn’t tell if he was serious or just joking. Even if Antonio was bluffing now and backed out later, Lu Weiyi couldn’t say anything. After a moment’s thought, he decided not to press further.
“Aren’t you taking me, kiddo? I’m all alone and easy to feed,” Li Zhuang joked.
“Sure,” Lu Weiyi replied casually while opening the canned meat. He couldn’t tell if others were being serious, so he didn’t want to reveal how serious he was either.
“Then we’ll all be living together again. Mingxu has several villas—once we get to the base, we can move right in,” Ning Yuan added enthusiastically. Since learning that their original team had basically disbanded, he had become quite proactive about recruiting people. He immediately began describing the villa situation to the two.
After cooking, eating, and cleaning up, the group across the street also got ready to leave. Possibly aiming for a big haul, Li Ji had brought nearly thirty people, along with three large trucks and an off-road vehicle. The roar of the engines attracted quite a few zombies.
Half an hour later, they arrived at the livestock farm. The first area they entered was a pig farm. As soon as the group got out of the vehicles, they began clearing out zombies. Most of them were ability users, so they dealt with the zombies far more efficiently than ordinary people. In no time, corpses littered the ground.
“No wonder they’re ability users—they really have the upper hand against zombies. Their combat skills are like those of trained soldiers,” said the only non-ability user in the five-person group, impressed.
“They’ve enhanced their bodies with powers, but even so, if you fought them one-on-one, you might not necessarily lose,” Ning Yuan said, patting Lin Yimu on the shoulder in reassurance.
“This is still the early stage. Didn’t the young master say abilities can evolve? Who knows what it’ll be like later on… I wonder if ordinary people will still have a chance to survive.” Seeing that almost everyone on the other side had powers, Lin Yimu, who had never minded before, suddenly felt a twinge of envy.
“How could there be no chance? You still have us. Don’t get all sentimental on me…” Ning Yuan gave him a light punch on the shoulder.
Lin Yimu staggered back playfully and smiled. “Just speaking my mind.” He looked at Li Zhuang and Antonio. “Are we waiting here, or going with them?”
“Let’s stay here. I’m thinking of setting some traps,” Li Zhuang replied, tapping his fingers together thoughtfully.
“Spikes on the road to pop their tires; toss some blood packs to attract zombies; plant some explosives,” Lu Weiyi offered ideas without hesitation.
“Didn’t expect you to be this kind of young master,” Li Zhuang said, surprised, as the others looked at Lu Weiyi with raised eyebrows.
Lu Weiyi paused for a moment, wondering if they had misunderstood him—but didn’t bother explaining. He glanced around and asked, “So… are we still eating meat or not?”
“Eat, eat, definitely eat…”
“Good ideas—worth copying.”
In the end, they did adopt one of Lu Weiyi’s suggestions—placing spikes on the road.
“Looks like someone just died,” said Lin Yimu, still watching through the binoculars.
“Isn’t that normal?” Antonio said but still leaned in for a look. He frowned. “What the hell is that thing?”
“What?” Li Zhuang and the others crowded over. Inside the spacious pigsty, the main gate had already been smashed open. Around a dozen people were fleeing in panic, chased by a creature that was about one and a half times the height of a person and relentlessly on their heels.
“A mutant pig,” Lu Weiyi said under his breath. He hadn’t expected to see one this soon—he’d thought mutant animals wouldn’t appear until after the heavy snowfall.
“Holy crap, that thing has abilities,” Ning Yuan exclaimed. “I just saw it spit a fireball—the guy burning on the ground, that was its doing… look, look again…”
“Wait… that’s a pig, right?” Lin Yimu asked, uncertain.
“Yeah,” Lu Weiyi confirmed. “Looks like it awakened abilities like human ability users.”
I hope that they can eat the mutant pig