Carrying My Sugar Daddy Through the Apocalypse – CH57

Chapter 57: Where Are My Supplies?

The next day, as soon as it dawned, the group woke up.

At this point, their backpacks were basically empty. Today’s journey had a sense of desperation.

Lu Weiyi strongly disagreed when he learned that they wanted to clear out a store to find food.

Although their group wasn’t weak in combat, the noise of clearing out a store could attract zombies from the entire street. This would require a large number of people to protect those clearing the inside, and it was obvious that they had too few people.

Clearing buried areas was initially done by larger teams or official base organizations, mobilizing hundreds of people at once, marking off an area, and then proceeding after hunting zombies. After ability users awakened later, it became one or several earth-type ability users leading the way, directly using their abilities to move the collapsed objects. This made the least amount of noise and was more convenient than clearing with tools.

But now they…

“Can your ability attack now?” Lu Weiyi asked Li Zhuang.

Since Lu Weiyi’s reminder, Li Zhuang had been training constantly and had vaguely grasped some of the knack, but he still couldn’t attack. He shook his head. “Can only move it a bit.” As he spoke, he condensed the soil within a few meters around him into a small earth ball and controlled it to tremble a few times.

The process of understanding a new skill was indeed very difficult. Being able to do this in a day was already very good.

“I think it’s best to look elsewhere first. Once we start clearing, we won’t be able to handle the zombies we attract,” Lu Weiyi gestured towards the window to the group. The area downstairs had been partially cleared by them yesterday, but now there were obviously more. “There are at least thirty down there. The initial clearing noise will attract zombies from this street and half of the street around the corner. That’s at least a hundred at the beginning. Later, zombies will keep pouring in, but our strength is limited and not enough to cope.”

“Isn’t that… too exaggerated?” Xiong Jie said.

“It will only be more exaggerated,” Lu Weiyi said, opening the map. In fact, it had been more than half a month since the apocalypse. If they didn’t go out, they would starve to death. Many people had already started looking for safe bases, so the supermarkets around residential areas must have been ransacked. Going there now would definitely mean returning empty-handed.

As for large supermarkets…

Li Zhuang pointed to several nearby places. “Then let’s go look at other places first. We’ll go this way, go around here, and along the way, we’ll pass three large supermarkets, a shopping mall, two cake shops, and a gas station. With so many places, we should be able to find something. If there really isn’t anything, we’ll come back here and clear this place. What do you think?” he asked Xiong Jie.

Xiong Jie considered it and nodded. “Alright.”

Lu Weiyi had rested for two days, and his mobility was fine, but he was still lacking in combat ability. Moreover… he looked at the little green branch on his wrist, still dim and lifeless, and he couldn’t command it. It seemed it hadn’t recovered yet.

It was the same grouping as yesterday, with Lu Weiyi in the car with Li Zhuang and Lin Yimu.

Without the truck to clear the way, they could only try to go around the zombies as much as possible, occasionally running over a few when absolutely necessary, making for a bumpy ride.

Everywhere on the road, there were abandoned vehicles parked at all angles. Some even had people on them who had been eaten, with only half their bodies remaining – oh, they couldn’t be called people anymore. Half their bodies were still infected as zombies, but they couldn’t move, only groaning and watching every living person who passed by.

This was truly hell on earth.

“The supermarket is up ahead, but it looks like a group of zombies has gathered at the front door. We can’t attack head-on,” Lin Yimu said, who had been observing the situation.

“Let’s go around the side and take a look,” Li Zhuang said, glancing at the two cars behind in the rearview mirror. “It would be great if we had a walkie-talkie.”

“I know a few small appliance wholesale markets in Qingyuan City. They definitely have those things. We can go take a look when we get there,” Lin Yimu said.

“That would be great,” Li Zhuang said, turning into the alley next to the supermarket. But the front was blocked, and the two cars behind had already caught up.

“Damn it, back up!” Li Zhuang gestured to the back, and Antonio, who was at the rear, immediately reversed the car.

“This window can be climbed into the supermarket,” Lu Weiyi, who hadn’t spoken for a while, said. He had already scanned the supermarket next to them with his mental power. “But there are living people inside.”

“Do you know how many?” Li Zhuang asked.

“More than a dozen.”

“Let’s try another one,” Li Zhuang said decisively without any hesitation, reversed the car, and immediately headed for the next one.

“Collapsed.” From far away, Lin Yimu could see a place that had collapsed so badly you couldn’t even see the storefront. This supermarket was a large roadside supermarket with only one floor but the height of two. It had a front door, and on both sides of the entrance were small shops of a dozen square meters each, without any windows. Unfortunately, there was an old residential area next to it, and the earthquake had torn apart the building, with a part of it directly collapsing onto the supermarket next door, burying a section.

“Then definitely no one has been here before. Should we look for the ventilation ducts?” Li Zhuang said, glancing outside. The ventilation duct exits wouldn’t be on the street side; they could only be in the back. If they wanted to check, they would have to climb over the collapsed area and then go around to the back to look.

“Can the little friend drive?”

Lu Weiyi nodded. “I’ll go around.”

“Okay,” Li Zhuang knew he understood his meaning. He stopped the car and got out in one smooth motion, and Lu Weiyi immediately slipped from the back seat to the front and drove the car forward.

While the two of them dealt with a few zombies and quickly walked to the supermarket entrance, they honked the horn. The zombies heading towards them were immediately diverted in large numbers.

After driving a short distance, they turned the car onto another street around the corner. Lu Weiyi suddenly accelerated and shook off a group that was following them. Then he turned around again and drove back to the supermarket entrance.

Li Zhuang and Lin Yimu, relying on their good skills, climbed up the collapsed area and found the ventilation duct from the back. After Antonio scouted the way, several people had already gone inside. The remaining few killed the approaching zombies while waiting for Lu Weiyi.

Seeing him arrive safely, Lin Yimu breathed a sigh of relief, and the two of them directly pulled Lu Weiyi up and let him go in first.

Antonio chose the nearest ventilation opening as an exit, and he was inside after only climbing a short distance.

Several flashlights were placed about a person’s height off the ground, arranged in four or five places, brightly illuminating the surroundings. Near the entrance, a part had collapsed, crushing a row of shelves.

A little further away, Xu Sa and Liu Rui each held a flashlight and carried a few bottles of drinks. The other held a few bottles of water and was walking towards them. “We went around, it’s completely sealed off, no zombies.”

Xu Sa handed out the water to a few people. “Drink some water.”

“Cold?” Dean touched a bottle, surprised and pleased, and pressed it against Antonio’s face.

“It seems there’s a generator still working. There’s raw meat in the freezer over there, but it’s only connected to one freezer, not the rest of the place,” Xu Sa said, taking a sip of water and letting out a satisfying “ah.”

“There’s still a generator?” Li Zhuang, who came in last, jumped down from the top, took the water Liu Rui offered, drank two sips, and asked.

“Yeah, but we haven’t found where it is,” Xu Sa replied.

“As long as there’s a place to connect, let’s see if we can hook up a hot plate and eat something cooked.”

As soon as Li Zhuang said this, everyone’s eyes lit up. The last time they had eaten cooked food was the morning before yesterday when Gu Qingyue made it. Most people hadn’t eaten much in the past day and night, let alone anything cooked.

“Then can we get that meat? I haven’t had meat in ages,” Xu Sa swallowed hard just thinking about it.

“Let’s try first,” Li Zhuang said, looking around. “The supplies are quite complete. Let’s split up. Lin Yimu and I will find the wiring to hook up a hot plate. The rest of you divide the area and put all the edible things you want to take in one place.”

Xiong Jie first found a few backpacks with Xi Shi and gave one to each person, handing over the bread and biscuits they had grabbed casually. “Eat something first before we start working.”

Xu Sa gave an OK sign, took a wafer biscuit, and handed it to Liu Rui. “Hold off the hunger first, maybe we can have a feast later.”

The group sat together and had a late breakfast. Li Zhuang and Lin Yimu went to sort out the wiring. Xiong Jie and Antonio had originally wanted to clear out the two shelves of powdered drinks that were crushed underneath, but no matter how they moved things, new bricks and soil kept falling down, so they didn’t waste any more energy.

They had sorted out less than half of the edible items when Li Zhuang got the wiring done and called Gu Qingyue over to cook.

“I can also cook a bit. Can I go over and help?” Among this group, Xiong Jie and Xi Shi were the oldest. Coupled with the hardships of his youth, Xi Shi’s health wasn’t very good, and most of the time he couldn’t help at all. So he tried to minimize his presence to avoid causing trouble for Xiong Jie. He felt a bit embarrassed to speak up at this moment.

“Xi Shi cooks especially delicious food. Over a decade ago, our village would invite him to help with weddings and funerals,” Xiong Jie said, noticing his discomfort and praising him.

As soon as these words came out, several pairs of eyes immediately looked over. Xi Shi was already uneasy, and this made him even more embarrassed. “I was just saying, I…”

“Come, come, we have a master chef! We have a master chef!” Gu Qingyue pulled Xi Shi’s hand and walked him over there. “Finally, someone who knows how to cook! You can’t even imagine that the only two people among this group who can cook are actually me and Brother Mu. I’m just someone who can manage to cook things until they’re done, and Brother Mu revolves around his young master, but most of the dishes the young master likes aren’t even possible to make with what we have. The two of us have to rack our brains to come up with dishes, it’s driving us crazy.”

Hearing this, Xi Shi felt relieved that he wasn’t being nosy. “I can cook. I usually cook for myself at home.”

“That’s really great,” Li Zhuang said.

“Brother Li, didn’t you say a few days ago that you weren’t picky?” Gu Qingyue teased.

“Lin Yimu’s braised chicken with mushrooms and your chicken noodle soup smelled amazing, but…” Li Zhuang recalled the other dishes later, and his face was indescribable.

Gu Qingyue’s cooking skills were limited to simply boiling noodles. Stir-frying and other dishes were purely in the experimental stage. As for Lin Yimu… when he first made braised chicken with mushrooms, everyone thought he was an expert. Who knew that this was the only proper dish he knew how to make? The rest were all soups. In his words, those were the most nourishing. The servants at home wouldn’t dare skimp on their young master’s meals, but they were on the run. Who had the leisure to spend several hours stewing a pot of soup? Stir-frying some dishes was already pretty good.

“Haha, I really have no talent for cooking. It took me several months to learn a few soups,” Lin Yimu said, making way for the hot plate and asking, “Can you make a tomato and beef brisket soup? My young master’s appetite hasn’t been very good these past two days.”