Chapter 127: Xu Sa Awakens
“Have you noticed the temperature rising again? A few of the regular folks who went out came back with varying degrees of sunburn,” Xiong Jie said, lifting Zhuang Ai Yi for a look. “Ai Yi, from now on, don’t go out after 9 a.m., okay? It’ll hurt if you get burned.”
“Okay,” Ai Yi replied obediently.
“We noticed. The high was 38°C the day before yesterday, 42°C yesterday, and today it was already 44°C around noon,” Zhuang Mingxu said. The residential area employed many regular people—especially for sorting medicine and laundry. Most of the workers were women, whose bodies were more sensitive, so heatstroke and sunburn appeared earliest among them.
Zhuang Mingxu had already been paying close attention to the temperature changes. “What about you guys? Have any of the ability users felt anything?”
Xiong Jie shook his head. “Maybe I’m too low-level to notice. People like Li Zhuang, Liu Rui, and Antonio didn’t sense anything.”
Zhuang Mingxu nodded thoughtfully.
Around five or six in the evening, the sky outside suddenly darkened. The low-hanging black clouds looked like they could be touched. The air grew oppressive. With a loud clap of thunder, the still-unconscious Xu Sa suddenly opened his eyes and leapt up from the bed, panic in his gaze as he looked toward the window.
“Xu Sa!” Lu Weiyi shouted, and in a flash, a small green vine shot out and wrapped tightly around him.
“Brother Sa!” Liu Rui’s voice choked with emotion.
“Huh?” Xu Sa finally came to his senses after a while. “Lu Xiaoyi? Little Stutter? I…” He furrowed his brow, trying to rub his forehead, but was tied up too tightly. “I just got startled—is it really necessary to tie me up like this?”
Lu Weiyi saw the clarity in his eyes and, confirming there was no danger, let out a breath and released him.
Liu Rui immediately threw his arms around Xu Sa and broke down crying.
“What’s with this? Two guys sticking together like this in the sweltering heat,” Xu Sa said teasingly, but he hugged Liu Rui back anyway.
“You were bitten by a zombie. Nearly died,” Lu Weiyi sat on the edge of the bed, his nerves finally relaxing. He even felt a bit hungry. “How do you feel now?”
“Weak… a little nauseous,” Xu Sa said with a grin as he looked at his still-vivid hand. “I must be lucky as hell—survived a zombie bite. I’m destined for a life of comfort.”
Lu Weiyi rolled his eyes. “Qingyue said it might be heatstroke—symptoms probably haven’t fully passed yet. Can you walk? Come down and eat something, take another dose of medicine, then sleep.” He handed over some aloe vera gel from his storage space. “Put some on, don’t ruin your looks.”
“I am kinda hungry,” Xu Sa accepted it, murmured a few comforting words to Liu Rui, and the three of them headed downstairs.
As the first clap of thunder echoed outside, torrential rain began to pour. It cooled the stifling heat but added a sense of heaviness.
Lu Weiyi spotted Zhuang Mingxu sitting by the living room window. “When did you get back?”
“With Xiao Xi,” Zhuang Mingxu replied, eyeing Xu Sa. “Did you awaken your powers?”
Lu Weiyi raised an eyebrow, about to say Xu Sa didn’t awaken naturally, when Xu Sa’s eyes lit up. He clenched his fists and seemed to feel something. A moment later, he exclaimed in surprise, “I think… I feel a kind of energy.”
Lu Weiyi was stunned into silence, staring at him. Then he saw crackling sparks flicker from Xu Sa’s hands.
“That… fire-type?” Xu Sa looked at Lu Weiyi.
Lu Weiyi pressed his lips together. “Try a few more times.”
Xu Sa tried several more times, and eventually the energy in his hands stabilized. It became obvious—it was identical to the occasional flashes of lightning in the sky.
“…Lightning? I thought powers were just metal, wood, water, fire, and earth?”
Lu Weiyi was also a little surprised. However, in his previous life, he had seen someone with lightning-based powers—only one person, and that was the leader of a southern base.
Lightning abilities were not only rare but also incredibly powerful once upgraded. Anyone who possessed such powers was never an ordinary figure.
Lu Weiyi shook his head. “Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth are the most common elements. But there are also rarer abilities, like Lu Xi’s mental power… and Dean’s healing type.”
He cleared his throat and added, “Lightning abilities seem quite powerful. If you train more, you’ll definitely become very strong.”
“Brother Sa, I… I have crystal cores,” Liu Rui said, pulling five crystal cores from his pocket. Four of them were gray, and one was a transparent water-type. “You… absorb them.”
“Aren’t these the ones I gave you before? I told you to use them. Why keep them if you couldn’t level up with just one more step?” Xu Sa said, though he still happily took them and absorbed four. The remaining water-type core he handed back to Lu Weiyi and exchanged it for a gray one, saying that water-type users would benefit more from that core.
“I wonder how effective it is?” After absorbing the five, Xu Sa’s lightning power clearly grew stronger. He casually threw a bolt of lightning toward the open doorway and mumbled to himself—when suddenly, a voice shouted “Shit!” from outside.
The group froze and looked out the door, only to see Antonio and Dean standing at the doorstep, soaked to the bone. Even more awkward, Antonio was convulsing on the ground as if he’d just been electrocuted.
“David!” Dean had been protected under Antonio the whole time and hadn’t noticed what happened.
“No way…” Xu Sa quickly ran over with Liu Rui, helping Antonio back inside. “Are you okay? Any discomfort?”
“I was attacked!” Antonio finally recovered, his arm still twitching involuntarily, glancing around with alertness.
“Ahem… Sorry, I just awakened my ability and haven’t learned to control it yet. I didn’t realize anyone was out there…” Xu Sa said, deeply embarrassed.
Once Antonio realized it wasn’t a real attack, he let it go. He wasn’t the petty type. Seeing that Xu Sa had not only recovered but awakened a powerful ability, he began chatting excitedly with him.
“What are you thinking about?” Zhuang Mingxu asked, seeing Lu Weiyi frown and space out.
Lu Weiyi hesitated for a moment, then leaned in and whispered, “Xu Sa’s power didn’t awaken naturally. The infected zombie blood had already spread, and I panicked and gave him some of the snow water I’d stored. After that, the infected blood gradually got expelled.”
Even as steady as Zhuang Mingxu was, he was startled to hear this. He tried to stay calm and pulled Lu Weiyi into a room, shutting the door behind them before asking seriously, “Did anyone see this?”
“Liu Rui,” Lu Weiyi replied. “I had the others leave.”
That would probably raise suspicions, but without hard evidence, they couldn’t do much. Zhuang Mingxu rubbed his temples, then after a pause said, “If anyone asks, just say it was normal water and you were trying to flush out toxins by drinking more.”
“You think anyone would believe that?” Lu Weiyi looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
“Whether they believe it or not isn’t the point. That’s what you say, and under no circumstances reveal anything else,” Zhuang Mingxu warned seriously. Seeing Lu Weiyi’s handsome face looking blank and confused, he elaborated, “If others find out, they might think you have a way to resist zombie infection and also awaken powerful abilities.”
“Possessing such a secret makes you a target. If everyone believes in it and covets it, then your enemies become everyone. No one can guarantee your safety then. Understand?”
Lu Weiyi nodded.
“Xiao Yi, I’ve always wanted to ask—why did you collect so much snow water back then?” Zhuang Mingxu asked.
“When you absorb too many crystal cores, beyond the body’s limit, it can cause you to explode. This purifies the impurities in the cores—it’s a refinement process,” Lu Weiyi explained, taking two gray crystal cores from his storage space and handing them over.
Zhuang Mingxu examined them. One looked like ordinary dull gray, but the other, though still grayish, clearly lacked the murky essence inside. “Have you told anyone about this?”
Lu Weiyi shook his head.
“But you’ve been giving them these purified cores every day,” Zhuang Mingxu said with certainty.
Lu Weiyi nodded.
Power without the strength to protect it.
At that moment, Zhuang Mingxu felt a deep anxiety. He worried that no one could protect Lu Weiyi.
“It’s okay. If something happens, we’ll just run away. Worst case, we go somewhere no one knows us. I’ve got enough supplies in my space to last us a lifetime,” Lu Weiyi said optimistically, lacking any strong sense of danger due to how well-protected he’d been in his past life.
Zhuang Mingxu didn’t challenge his naivety, just smiled and nodded. Then he thought of something and said, “If you get a chance in the future to find someone who’s been bitten by a zombie, secretly try giving them some snow water. See if it really works.”
If it does work, Zhuang Mingxu glanced at his own legs…
“Okay,” Lu Weiyi agreed. Then he asked, “Liu Rui, Antonio, and Li Zhuang are probably close to leveling up. Should I help them?”
“You can help them level up?” Zhuang Mingxu was stunned by just how much Lu Weiyi seemed to know—so much that it scared him. Not because he feared Lu Weiyi, but because he feared he couldn’t protect him.
“If you absorb a bunch of crystal cores at once, it creates a shock that triggers an upgrade. It’s uncomfortable, but effective. You can also absorb this—it’s especially potent.” Lu Weiyi took out a transparent crystal core from his space.
An ability user could level up either through a sudden burst of potential or by absorbing many crystal cores at once. But the impurities in the cores could cause power loss or even an explosion, making each upgrade a gamble with one’s life.
But with Lu Weiyi’s purified cores, that danger no longer existed.
“Keep this for yourself. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, don’t use it,” Zhuang Mingxu said directly, asking him to put away the white crystal core. Anyone with eyes could see that it looked exactly like the crystals that appeared at the beginning of the apocalypse. If he used it publicly, people might start to suspect he had foreseen something.
“Ask them if they want to upgrade. If they do, you provide the crystal cores, and they owe you for them. After all, our team doesn’t have many crystal cores, and we can’t afford to upgrade everyone for free. Plus, the purified cores you provide are already a big favor.”
“Okay,” Lu Weiyi agreed.
I’m glad someone got lightning power