Chapter 257: Xu’s Mother
At the same time, in the bustling market of the base, Xu Sa was selling seafood with Liu Rui and the two guys who had come to help the previous day.
Compared to yesterday when they had to shout to attract customers, today’s buyers came with a purpose. Most had heard about the stall from people around them, and many had queued up early in the morning.
By the time Xu Sa and the others arrived, a crowd had already gathered at the stall. The four of them worked in pairs—some weighing, some collecting crystal cores.
The customers were practically fighting to buy, hardly anyone haggled, as if afraid they wouldn’t get any.
Xu Sa remained calm at first, but as the number of crystal cores piled up, he couldn’t help but smile. Halfway through, they even had to go back and drop off a load of cores before bringing out more seafood.
By noon, they hadn’t returned home. Xu Sa decided to have a nearby restaurant deliver bowls of hand-pulled noodle soup. It was hearty and satisfying, and the four of them ate with great contentment.
Eventually, only a small portion of the last vehicle’s stock remained, and the crowd began to thin.
Xu Sa sent Liu Rui to buy two cups of iced water to cool them down.
Each large cup was filled with ice, and when the lid was opened, a refreshing chill wafted out.
“This is too much. Lunch was already generous enough. And it’s not like we’re helping for free—we’re getting a subsidy from above. We can’t let you spend more on us,” one of the helpers said, refusing the cup.
“It’s just a drink. You guys have worked hard these past two days under the blazing sun. Can’t let you go without even a drink,” Xu Sa said, shoving the cup into their hands.
The two men exchanged a glance, feeling a bit embarrassed. They were actually on a private assignment—tasked with observing and recording the quantity of seafood Xu Sa’s group brought out, and estimating how many crystal cores they made per day to report back to their superiors.
After two days, not only had they been fed, but Xu Sa had also given them quite a bit when they left. The share they took and sold privately already earned them over half a month’s income. Now, taking anything more made them feel guilty.
Still, in such hot weather, the iced drink was refreshing to the core.
“With this much ice, it must’ve cost a lot of crystal cores, huh?”
“O…o…one crystal core… per cup,” Liu Rui stammered.
“That’s expensive—almost a whole day’s wage,” the younger one said.
“It’s gotten hotter lately. Prices have gone up,” the older man replied, fishing out a chunk of ice to let it melt in his mouth. “If this heat keeps rising, it’s gonna be like last year all over again.”
“Was it hot in the capital last year?” Xu Sa’s ears perked up. He did some mental math based on the current month and asked.
“Hot…” the young man interrupted, “Back then, just the heat alone caused heaps of bodies to die. If left unattended for a day, by the next day they would be so rotten that worms would crawl out.”
He looked visibly shaken, “Water was scarce then, many people literally died of thirst. The people upstairs kept hauling corpses out by the cartloads every day.”
“I even helped carry for a while. Those bodies were so decomposed they were almost melting, and when you touched them, they felt sticky and gooey…” The man’s face turned pale as he spoke and he shuddered involuntarily. “It’s something I never want to think about again for the rest of my life.”
“Hopefully, there won’t be a water shortage this year,” said the older man, then asked Xu Sa about his experience last year.
“We were in Qingyuan City then. It’s near the Long River, so we didn’t really lack water, but the heat was intense,” Xu Sa said, calculating roughly where the base was located now. If the temperature was the same as last year, the chance of water shortage here would be quite high. This made him more determined to urge Lu Weiyi to leave quickly.
“Well, you were lucky then,” the older man said. A few more young people came over to pick shrimp. Xu Sa hurried to help and didn’t forget to add, “Soon the gathering teams will be back. There’ll probably be a lot of buyers then. If you have any stock left at home, get it ready in advance.”
“Okay, I’ll go check,” Xu Sa agreed and actually went back with Liu Rui.
*
At the same time, someone across from the villa waved toward them.
Zhuang Mobai withdrew his gaze and lowered his eyes thoughtfully. After a moment, he suddenly asked, “Mingxu, do you want to have powers?”
“Who wouldn’t?” Having powers meant a better chance of survival.
All the plants and animals around were mutating. As an ordinary person, he couldn’t even freely eat mutated meat. If Lu Weiyi hadn’t stored supplies in advance and separated food for powered people and ordinary people, he might still be struggling just to get enough to eat.
Even Zhuang Mingxu felt this was nature’s way of filtering out weaker humans. Maybe someday they ordinary people would be eliminated.
No wonder some bases called people with powers the “new humans.”
Zhuang Mingxu thought of the photos from earlier and felt more troubled.
Zhuang Mobai silently watched Zhuang Mingxu. When their eyes met, Zhuang Mingxu felt something brush through his mind, like a gentle flick deep in his consciousness.
Then Zhuang Mobai’s voice interrupted his thoughts: “I can give ordinary people powers. Do you want to try?”
Such big news made Zhuang Mingxu unable to hide his surprise. “What did you say?”
He thought he must have misheard.
“I said, I can give you powers,” Zhuang Mobai repeated solemnly.
Zhuang Mingxu felt his heartbeat quicken.
Thump, thump, thump — as if it might burst out of his chest.
He hadn’t felt this kind of excitement for a long time.
“How?” Zhuang Mingxu asked.
“A small surgery,” Zhuang Mobai said as he stood and leaned closer, his cold fingers pressing on Zhuang Mingxu’s forehead. “You know, every powered person has a crystal core inside. If we transplant that core here, plus some medication, gaining powers wouldn’t be difficult.”
An invisible substance radiated from Zhuang Mobai, enveloping Zhuang Mingxu like a cocoon. His thoughts seemed to freeze, only able to follow Zhuang Mobai’s words.
“With powers, you’ll be equal to Lu Weiyi. You can hunt zombies together, carry out missions, build the base, and no longer just wait at home.”
“Think about every time he goes out with teammates, and you just watch him leave, worrying all night if he’ll come back safely, fearing that the world he hasn’t seen might hold someone he likes, someone you don’t know about.”
“When your powers become strong enough, you can even make him the one waiting at home again. You can be like before — he stays with you, and the whole world is just the two of you.”
Zhuang Mobai’s voice was soft and coaxing, slowly whispering into his ear.
Unfortunately, Zhuang Mingxu, as an ordinary person, couldn’t perceive how powers worked on him, especially since Zhuang Mobai publicly claimed he had no powers. While Mingxu was uneasy, Mobai made his move, making it harder for him to notice.
He didn’t even realize Zhuang Mobai’s words had already confirmed that Lu Weiyi had powers.
Seeing the struggle on Zhuang Mingxu’s face fade, Zhuang Mobai finally asked, “Do you want to come with me to the lab? To see other ordinary people who already have powers?”
Zhuang Mingxu licked his lips, seemingly uncontrollable, nodded, and said, “Okay.”
*
As the man expected, soon after Xu Sa returned with a cartload of seafood, groups of people began arriving.
They were dusty and carried the deadly aura of having fought zombies.
Their clothes were stained with a familiar rotten stench, speckled with zombie body fluids, shiny and blackened.
Compared to street vendors, this was something Xu Sa knew all too well.
The groups came in twos and threes, speaking loudly, asking prices, and passing over crystal cores still warm from zombies, with filthy hands.
The quiet marketplace gradually became lively again because of these people, and his business returned to its bustling state.
Just as Xu Sa was estimating the crowd and wondering if he needed to fetch more goods, a gentle female voice, quiet amidst the rough male voices, suddenly called out in confusion:
“Sa-sa?”
Xu Sa froze where he stood.
Even without turning, he knew whose voice it was — a voice that haunted his nightmares over the years, softly calling his name, “Sa-sa…”
Xu Sa felt like he had been transported back to many years ago—the day he had returned home excitedly with his college acceptance letter. That was the day his life had changed forever.
The sense of helplessness that seeped from his very bones made his whole body tremble uncontrollably.
The customer in front of him had already asked about the price twice. Getting no response, the man frowned and looked up at the vendor. Noticing Xu Sa’s strange state, his first instinct was to step back and put some distance between them.
“Hey, don’t tell me he’s been bitten by a zombie?” The moment those words left his mouth, everyone nearby took two steps back and turned their attention to Xu Sa.
Liu Rui, who was in charge of weighing and packing, turned his head and glared at the man, then looked at Xu Sa. Upon closer inspection, he immediately noticed something was wrong.
Grabbing Xu Sa’s shoulders, he gave him a hard shake and called out, “Sa… Brother Sa!”
“Sa Sa, is that you?” The woman’s voice sounded again.
Xu Sa took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down. He patted the worried Liu Rui and rasped, “I’m fine.”
When he turned back, Xu Sa had regained his usual smile, as if nothing had happened. He flashed an apologetic grin at the man who had panicked, “Sorry about that, brother, I spaced out for a moment. You said you wanted 1kg of mantis shrimp, right? Miss, pack 1kg for this gentleman and toss in a mutated crab as a freebie.”
The man, pleased by the bargain, quickly brightened. He no longer mentioned anything about zombies, happily paid with crystal cores, and even apologized, “Don’t take it the wrong way, it’s just with all the zombie trouble outside, everyone’s being extra careful.”
