Chapter 161: Sudden Chill
“You’re all women?” In his past life, Lu Weiyi had never heard of such a team. Seeing it firsthand now, he was quite surprised.
“Yep. The opposite of your team. All our women have abilities—can fight zombies and cook meals, get supplies too. If your team’s lacking girlfriends, we can arrange a mixer!” said a short-haired woman beside Song Li with a hearty laugh.
Her half-joking remark instantly broke the tension between the groups. The men laughed and started chatting casually. With the map in hand and no need to scout, Lu Weiyi led a few people into the area.
This small snack wholesale market was located in a less central area of Qingyuan City. It was a bit run-down compared to the core district, covering a few thousand square meters. All the structures were one-story units, each less than 100 square meters, used by small vendors to wholesale snacks. The supplies were scattered, but solid—genuine food items. The Ji family had shown great foresight in claiming this place as their own.
Lin Yimu drove the truck while Lu Weiyi led people inside, transferring all the supplies to the truck as they moved through the area. They didn’t need to lift a finger—everything was done with powers, making the process dozens of times faster. The rest of the team followed mainly to guard against unexpected incidents.
Outside, the people brought by Song Li had completely warmed up to the remaining members of the Only Team, chatting away. This made Ji Jin and the dozen or so people behind him appear thoroughly excluded. However, Ji Jin’s calm and confident demeanor helped ease some of their unease.
But just as everyone was starting to relax, a sudden scream came from inside. Wu Yue raised an eyebrow and smiled. “That wouldn’t be one of yours, would it?”
“How could it be?” Song Li replied with a smile, giving Ji Jin a sideways glance.
Then someone behind Ji Jin said quietly, “Captain, that was Old Li’s voice. He took five people in there…”
Ji Jin stepped forward to head inside, but Antonio, who had been standing idly at the door, lazily waved his hand. A row of flying knives appeared, all pointed straight at anyone who dared approach. If they moved forward, the knives would unhesitatingly skewer them.
The air went quiet for a moment. Song Li’s team was relieved they hadn’t clashed head-on with the Only Team. Ji Jin, on the other hand, was visibly startled. He quickly turned to shouting and cursing, “Do you know who I am? I’m warning you—”
Before he could finish, bang—he was kicked several steps back and fell to the ground. Antonio casually scratched his ear and calmly retracted his foot.
Now Song Li was fully reassured. After this mess, Lu Weiyi clearly wouldn’t share supplies with Ji Jin. Especially since none of these people seemed easy to deal with, sharing the supplies would likely cause internal dissent.
“Captain…”
“Captain…”
A few people came over to help Ji Jin up. Seeing he wasn’t seriously hurt, they began to worry about the supplies. “You… your brother… he’ll give us our share, right?”
“…” Ji Jin was in intense pain, clutching his stomach and still wanting to yell, but one cold glance from Antonio shut him up.
In less than an hour, Lu Weiyi came out driving a fully loaded truck.
“Lu Weiyi, where are my people? What did you do to them?” Ji Jin demanded.
Since 5 a.m., Lu Weiyi had been the one doing most of the work collecting supplies. Sometimes it rained, and he even had to use his powers to scout. Now he was tired and starving. Hearing Ji Jin’s yelling, he didn’t even respond and headed straight back upstairs.
“Young master is tired and going to rest. You all handle the rest. I’ll go prepare food,” said Lin Yimu coldly, then glanced at the furious Ji Jin. “Don’t let this kind of filth disturb the young master’s rest.”
“Tch,” Antonio chuckled, curling his lip at Ji Jin and cracking his knuckles with loud pops. Ji Jin stepped back a few steps warily and swallowed his words.
“We’ll stay next door tonight. Brother Wu Yue, please take care of us,” Song Li said. Seeing Ji Jin’s humiliation was extremely satisfying. She didn’t bother chatting further and led her team off to find a place to rest.
Ji Jin’s group waited until everyone had left before rushing back into the market to search for their missing people. Over half an hour later, they finally found the five men in a corner, clearly beaten but with only superficial wounds.
That alone was enough to leave Ji Jin fuming. Seeing how the others were beginning to question his leadership, he decisively led them back to the base to ask the old man to step in.
*
Late Night
Those sleeping on the floor in the living room were the first to wake.
“Has the temperature dropped again?” Shen Xing asked, groggily sitting up wrapped in a blanket. He shivered and looked toward the window where Xu Sa and Liu Rui were keeping watch.
“Uh… doesn’t feel like it. It’s been like this lately,” one of them replied. The temperature had been dropping to around freezing at night. Those on night watch always wore down jackets, and being powered individuals, they weren’t too sensitive to temperature changes.
“It has… dropped…” Liu Rui exhaled a puff of white breath and pointed at a low spot outside that had collected water after the rain. “It’s frozen over.”
“It’s only just past one a.m., and the temperature’s already…” Xiong Jie yawned, wrapped his blanket tighter, walked a few steps to the window, sneezed, and shrank back. “Why does it feel like the dead of winter?”
“Well, it’s nearly December, isn’t it? Of course it feels like winter,” Wu Yue said as he got up, having also been woken by the cold. “I’ll check if Lu Weiyi’s awake and grab a few more blankets.”
Their window didn’t have glass, so the cold was immediately noticeable. At the base, things weren’t as easy.
Zhuang Mingxu only realized something was wrong when Lu Xi came knocking for thicker blankets. After being injured, he had a lower body temperature, so Lu Weiyi had always given him the thickest blankets. The cold didn’t affect him as noticeably.
“Is it that cold outside?” Zhuang Mingxu sat on the bed and gestured for Lu Xi to get a thicker blanket from the cabinet.
“It’s freezing. Feels like a person could die out there,” Lu Xi said. He had been woken by Zhuang Ai Yi’s icy skin and only then noticed the drop in temperature.
That cold? Zhuang Mingxu hesitated for a moment, then got dressed and wheeled himself out of the room. The cold air in the hallway was immediately noticeable.
“Brother Mingxu?” Lu Xi asked as she saw him heading for the door. “Do you need something? I can get it.”
“I just want to take a look.” Zhuang Mingxu opened the door, and a wave of icy air hit him, making him cough. He turned around and said, “Wake everyone up. Put on warm clothes. We need to harvest the potatoes and sweet potatoes from the field—immediately.”
“Now?” Lu Xi glanced at the pitch-black sky outside.
“Yes.” Zhuang Mingxu had delayed his leg treatment for these crops—of course he cared. He’d already confirmed that if the temperature got too low, the crops could die. He’d spent nearly three months growing them—he couldn’t let it all go to waste.
They could still be eaten after freezing, but these were meant for seed stock, and they didn’t have much to spare.
“Got it,” Lu Xi said without further questions, and quickly ran off to wake everyone.
At home, there were only Xi Shi, Bai Miao, and Dean, plus Zhuang Ai Yi. After making a round, Lu Xi directly woke up the three adults and brought down the tightly wrapped Zhuang Ai Yi.
As soon as they heard they needed to harvest potatoes overnight, no one complained. Dean drove, and the group hurried to the Greenfield Residential Area. After waking up the ability users and regular people attached to their squad, Zhuang Mingxu even went to the military side to borrow a few earth-type ability users.
With the help of a few earth-type users, the digging sped up by several times. The others just had to pick up the potatoes that had been unearthed and carry them back to the building.
After working until dawn, the group of dozens finally finished transporting everything back. By then, the temperature had already begun to rise.
“Use your powers to test whether the potatoes have been damaged by the frost,” Zhuang Mingxu said. When they had arrived, he had already seen a thin layer of frost on the potato leaves, and now with the ice melting, some tender leaves clearly showed signs of being frostbitten.
Bai Miao nodded and scanned a few potatoes, pressing his lips together before saying, “They’re frost-damaged… a lot of them.” Of the dozen or so he checked, more than half were spoiled—not inedible, but definitely not usable for planting.
“Take some people and inspect them. Carefully pick out the good ones to store, and use the rest for cooking,” Zhuang Mingxu said, pinching the bridge of his nose, a wave of fatigue hitting him.
Failure was nothing new in business—Zhuang Mingxu had experienced it more than once. But this was his first task managing logistics after his leg injury, and he had hoped to use it to secure his position in the team. The sudden and unexpected temperature drop had completely ruined his plans.
With the aid of wood-type users, each acre of potatoes had yielded at least twice as much as usual. Even in such a small plot, they’d harvested over 5,000 kg, now piled in a large heap under the greenhouse.
Bai Miao led a few ability users to inspect the potatoes one by one, with a few regular people following behind carrying baskets, picking out the frostbitten ones.
An hour later, the sorting was done. The amount of damaged potatoes was more than triple the amount of good ones. Looking at the stark contrast between the two piles, Zhuang Mingxu was momentarily speechless.
Back when he planted the potatoes, people had asked about them, and he had clearly stated that they were for seed stock. Now that most people knew what had happened, no one commented—they were just hired workers after all. But a few still acted like they were special.
Yun Lu carried a small basket and picked out some potatoes for cooking, muttering to herself, “So many potatoes are ruined—no way they’ll grow now. If only we’d harvested earlier, this wouldn’t have happened.”
She was stating a fact. Even being one day earlier might have avoided this. Zhuang Mingxu had been focused on what Lu Weiyi said—that the growth cycle only required half the usual time. Wanting to be safe, he decided to leave them in the ground longer. No one expected such a sudden and unforecasted cold snap.
By all logic, this counted as a natural disaster, and no one could be blamed. But when it actually happened, the person in charge was bound to take the fall.
Zhuang Mingxu was mentally drained and didn’t want to say anything. He told Bai Miao to handle it and prepared to leave.
