Chapter 89: Serving the People
Lin Jun thought for a moment and said, “I’ll exchange first. If the cores come back tomorrow, can I exchange the cores back for the supplies?” Before Lu Weiyi could speak, he quickly added, “Still at today’s price.”
“Okay,” Lu Weiyi replied.
Lin Jun nodded deeply. “I hope what others hear is that they exchanged water from you.” Guns should always be used as secret weapons to achieve unexpected results.
Lu Weiyi nodded.
Although the conditions were agreed upon, the price was not small. Lin Jun had no intention of further pleasantries, said “Farewell,” and turned to leave.
“Do you think he believes it?” Li Zhuang said to Lu Weiyi with a helpless expression.
“Whether he believes it or not, he’ll send people to ambush us. If we get back alive, I’ll give each of you several hundred pounds,” Lu Weiyi said, walking inside in a very good mood.
“No need to divide. Just take care of me,” Li Zhuang said with a sly smile, looking like a fox.
“You’re ugly but you think you’re beautiful,” Lu Weiyi quipped, turning back to look at the jade he had just acquired.
The color and quality of this batch of jade were top-notch. The tremor caused by the space was considerable, and the duration was several times longer than before. When the tremor disappeared, Lu Weiyi glanced at it. About half of the original cracks had been repaired, and the size had increased several times. The original supplies looked sparsely placed.
Not knowing when Lin Jun would come to deliver the supplies, and expecting Zhang Xun and Liu Qiang to come as well, Lu Weiyi was discussing with Zhuang Mingxu how to find an excuse to put away some of the supplies at home when Gu Qingyue brought up the topic.
“Weiyi, if Lin Jun and Zhang Xun both exchange things and the supplies are delivered, where should we put them?”
“I’ve been constantly pushing my abilities and upgrading, and I’ve expanded it a bit. I’ll put away a portion first, and then I’ll work harder tonight. I should be able to take almost everything tomorrow.” This was, after all, a lie. After Lu Weiyi finished speaking, without waiting for others to continue asking, he turned to look at the few ability users. “My wood-based ability has upgraded.”
As soon as they heard that his ability had upgraded, everyone’s attention was immediately drawn to it. No one paid attention to the space anymore, and they immediately asked him to demonstrate.
Lu Weiyi manipulated the small green branches to wind around the few people and then retracted them. “For now, I can only sense the change in length. I need to explore the other abilities further. How are your abilities?”
Antonio reached out and swung two eyebrow razor-like blades, quickly circling the few people, then flying a short distance further and falling to the ground. Antonio shrugged, walked a few steps towards the flying knives, reached out and recalled them, saying, “Only this far.”
It was about three meters. Everyone’s ability manifested differently at each level, even for the same type of ability. Lu Weiyi didn’t know what level he had reached and asked, “Do you feel like you’re about to upgrade?”
Antonio shook his head, his rugged face showing some confusion. “What kind of feeling?”
“…It’s…” Lu Weiyi thought for a moment, unable to describe it. “I can’t really explain it, but you’ll know when the time comes.” He turned to look at Li Zhuang.
“Is it… very tight… tight?” Liu Rui frowned, racking his brains to describe it, but he didn’t know how to express it. He held out a fist, constantly trying to open it slightly, as if something was pushing against it.
Lu Weiyi’s eyes lit up, and he nodded. There was a feeling of invisible energy filling his body, making him feel slightly swollen all over, but the feeling would disappear as the energy was used up, and it would repeat as the energy recovered, until the upgrade was complete.
However, having this feeling was still some distance from a true upgrade. It was like a plastic bag of water. If the water wanted to break the plastic bag, it needed to be squeezed constantly, first making the plastic bag thinner before it could rupture.
“Then it’s soon, you still need to keep practicing,” Lu Weiyi said, looking at Li Zhuang and raising his chin.
Li Zhuang shook his head and said, “I can control some earth-based things to move, the distance is about two meters.”
Lu Weiyi looked at Ning Yuan.
Ning Yuan suddenly had the illusion of a primary school student being checked for homework. He took a mineral water bottle, manipulated his ability, and invisible energy entered the bottle, gradually gathering into water until it was about half full. Ning Yuan’s face gradually paled.
“Water-based abilities can turn into ice, like Wang Ning, directly attacking people with ice needles, or directly using a drop of water to accelerate and attack. It can also be turned into an ice shield or water shield for defense, it’s not just for producing water,” Lu Weiyi reminded Ning Yuan.
“Isn’t Wang Ning ice-based?” Ning Yuan had secretly inquired after seeing Wang Ning’s ice needles before, but privately many people said he was an ice-based ability user.
“Isn’t ice water?” Lu Weiyi retorted, “You can change its form, just like he can use a blade or manipulate a dagger, and even pick locks.” He pointed to Antonio, who was whispering with Liu Rui over there.
Ning Yuan thought for a moment and nodded, “I’ll try.”
“Well, from now on, we’ll rely on you for drinking water,” Lu Weiyi gave him a very important task.
“What?” Ning Yuan exclaimed, holding the half-bottle of water. “Rely on this? Weiyi, you didn’t exchange all the water, did you?”
“Not yet,” Lu Weiyi replied, “but you have to be prepared for it, after all, water is a consumable.” After the heavy snow, water-based and wood-based ability users were the most common, and the large bases indeed relied on water-based ability users for water. This also led many water-based ability users to only think they could produce water, without any combat ability.
Leaving Ning Yuan to digest this information, Lu Weiyi quietly put away the things in the living room while everyone’s attention was no longer on him. He had originally wanted to directly take the things in the courtyard, but Zhuang Mingxu said he was worried that someone nearby was watching, so he could only take the things in the living room and have people move the things in the courtyard back.
They had just finished moving when Lin Jun’s things were delivered. The group didn’t even bother to eat and all ran to count the supplies.
Four handguns sounded like several thousand pounds, but in fact, there weren’t that many. What Lin Jun sent was mainly flour, rice, and instant food: three thousand pounds of rice and flour, all in fifty-pound bags, only sixty bags in total; twelve hundred pounds of instant noodles was only one hundred and sixty boxes, and the rest were various flavors of bread and biscuits, totaling fifteen hundred pounds.
There were no odds and ends. In less than ten minutes, the handover was complete. Lu Weiyi readily gave out the handguns. Probably to cover up, Lin Fei walked around the villa before taking his people away.
After the things were moved into the villa, just when they thought they could have a nice meal, Zhang Xun arrived with his people.
This time, he came in person, bringing Zhang Qi and Wang Yuan. All three were in police uniforms, their spirits lifted considerably. As soon as they entered the living room, they immediately greeted Zhuang Mingxu, then looked at Lu Weiyi and said, “This must be Young Master Lu, I’ve heard so much about you. You truly are a young hero.”
Lu Weiyi hadn’t known him before the apocalypse, and now that Brother Xi had already prepared the meal, Zhuang Mingxu needed to hurry up and have his IV drip after eating. Who knew when Liu Qiang’s people from Military Shield would come, and what the situation would be then? He had no intention of exchanging pleasantries with him at this moment.
“Hello,” Lu Weiyi nodded at him and went straight to the point, “You’re here to exchange water?”
Having spent a long time in officialdom, Zhang Xun was used to a bit of small talk before getting down to business. Lu Weiyi’s direct question caught Zhang Xun off guard for a moment, but it was fleeting. He then smiled and said, “Yes, there’s a shortage of water everywhere now. I heard you have some extra here, and I was thinking of exchanging some to leave a reserve for my brothers. I wonder how much water you have on hand?” Zhang Xun glanced around, observing everyone’s expressions.
“How much do you want to exchange?” It seemed that Lu Weiyi was the one in charge. Zhang Xun understood this in his heart, and the following words were directed straight at Lu Weiyi.
“I definitely want all of it,” Zhang Xun said without any politeness, then added righteously, “Our police officers were the first to assist society and the people after the earthquake, sacrificing countless lives to rescue those buried. After the zombie outbreak, we put in a lot of effort to establish this safe base. Wearing this police uniform, we should serve the people. But while being on the front line, I also hope to provide them with the most basic living security.”
These words were enough to win the hearts of any subordinate, especially since Zhang Xun brought up the police serving the people. Similarly, the few people who came from the military had also been educated to serve the people. Zhuang Mingxu knew immediately what his intentions were, but he had no say in this group. He could only signal Lu Weiyi next to him with his eyes not to fall for it.
However, Lu Weiyi didn’t receive his signal at all, nodded seriously, and said, “Yes, that’s right.”
Having gained recognition, Zhang Xun continued with a sorrowful expression, “I want to give them a good life, but building the base took too much manpower, resources, and time. By the time we turned around to search for supplies, the surrounding resources had already been scavenged clean. The supplies in our hands are also…”
Lu Weiyi could already smell the aroma of food, and Zhuang Ai Yi, sitting next to him, had an untimely “guruguru” sound from his stomach. Annoyed that this person wasn’t getting to the point, he interrupted, “Interrupting you, are you going to exchange water or not? We’ve been busy all day and are eager to eat.”
Zhang Xun’s following words had nowhere to go. He turned to look at the others, probably wanting to see if there was any outside help. Unfortunately, everyone was either talking in twos and threes with their heads down, or closing their eyes to rest, or looking up at the ceiling. Even Lin Yimu, who had just shown agreement with his words, had turned to say something to Ning Yuan beside him, looking like he wasn’t paying attention. Zhang Xun knew that no matter how much he set the stage, it would be useless, so he simply said, “Exchange, but I don’t have many supplies on hand, I can…”
“Then exchange less. Maybe there won’t be a shortage of water tomorrow,” Lu Weiyi said, getting up and pulling Zhuang Ai Yi up. He said to Ning Yuan in a flat tone, “You talk to Director Zhang. I’ll take Ai Yi to get something to eat first. Kids get hungry easily.”
“Alright,” Ning Yuan smiled and came over to sit in the seat Lu Weiyi had just vacated, looking at Zhang Xun. “Director Zhang, you absolutely mustn’t listen to him. Water will only become scarcer. Storing more water is definitely not wrong…”
I can kinda understand the police officers since they tried to help people and couldn’t get enough supplies but they should have gone about it differently