Daily Life of Being Turned Gay by the Male Lead After Transmigrating into an Apocalypse – CH78

Chapter 78: Scavenging

Descending to the ground floor, the sight before them made everyone’s chest tighten, even though they had braced themselves for the worst.

The once spacious entrance and shopping lobby were almost completely buried beneath a gruesome blanket of zombie remains, piled layer upon layer. Severed limbs and shattered bones were strewn in every direction, and the floor was soaked in a viscous, dark crimson sludge that made a sickening squelch with every step.

Near the main entrance, the corpses had piled into a small hill, completely choking the doorway.

Only four or five stragglers remained wandering the floor, scattered sparsely in the distant gloom or along the perimeter of the heaps. Some dragged their broken limbs aimlessly across the tiles, while others crouched over the dead, mindlessly gnawing on scraps of flesh.

“Good grief… isn’t this a bit too brutal?” Wang Qiang gasped under his breath, instinctively tightening his grip on his knife.

“Brutal, my foot! This is a gold mine!” Lin Xiao’s eyes lit up with excitement. Shouting in a hushed, eager voice, all disgust vanished from his mind. He dropped down immediately, drew the hunting dagger from his waist, and began expertly slicing open the skull of a nearby zombie to search for its crystal core.

Little Yu’s small silhouette flickered and vanished from sight. Cloaked in complete invisibility, he slipped like a ghost into the deeper sections of the corpse mound. His short blade drove with practiced precision into a fallen creature’s temple, twisted smoothly, and pulled free—crystal core secured in seconds, his movements light and efficient.

Jiang Jue’s gaze swept across the expansive hall without a second’s pause, catching sight of several roaming zombies lumbering toward them, drawn by the sound of footsteps.

Without the slightest hesitation, his eyes hardened as he raised his right hand, long fingers splayed wide.

A heartbeat later, several thin arcs of blue-white lightning cracked through the air, striking the approaching monsters squarely in their foreheads.

The zombies collapsed before they could even groan, their bodies spasming violently once before crashing to the floor in utter silence.

Having eliminated the immediate threats, Jiang Jue knelt down as well, systematically harvesting the surrounding cores.

Wang Qiang and Li Yu wasted no time joining the ranks of the scavengers.

Wang Qiang used his blade to lever open the heavy skull bones, while Li Yu, holding back her revulsion, matched his pace with steady hands. Every now and then, she channeled her Water Ability to summon a small, clear sphere of water in her palm, quickly rinsing the foul dark blood from the extracted stones before slipping them into her pouch.

Lin Xiao harvested away in high spirits, counting his haul under his breath: “Hey, the drop rate here is amazing! It feels way higher than before—nearly every other corpse has a crystal core inside!”

Just as the squad was deeply absorbed in their bountiful harvest, Jiang Jue’s hands froze. His sharp gaze snapped toward the shattered entrance leading out onto the street.

Stopping what he was doing, he smoothly pocketed the freshly cleaned core, rose to his feet in total silence, and fixed a cold, piercing stare on the distant figures approaching through the twilight.

Almost simultaneously, Lin Xiao picked up on the disturbance. Halting his blade mid-strike, he turned toward the doorway with a fierce frown, cursing under his breath: “Damn it, scavengers actually showed up.”

Wang Qiang and Li Yu were slightly slower on the uptake, but seeing Jiang Jue and Lin Xiao react with such sudden, synchronized hostility, their hearts skipped a beat.

Both of them dropped what they were doing and scrambled closer to their companions, fixing their eyes on the newcomers with equally unfriendly stares.

Outside the department store, an armed survivor squad of seven or eight people had been drawn by the mountain of corpses at the threshold and was inching forward with cautious curiosity.

The slaughterhouse that met their eyes was clearly beyond anything they had anticipated. Stunned by the carnage, they slowed their pace, their faces painted with disbelief and unmasked greed.

“H-holy crap! Boss, just how many of these things were taken down here? This is… absolutely insane, right?” A young man in his early twenties swallowed hard, clicking his tongue in awe.

His name was Hou San, the most impatient and hot-headed member of the squad. Staring at the sea of dead bodies carpeting the ground, his eyes were practically glued to the gore.

“Look at this mess… whatever happened here must have made an ungodly racket. The fight must have been brutal,” muttered Zhao Tiezhu, a broad-shouldered, stocky man carrying a heavy rucksack, his voice muffled behind a cloth scarf.

A short-haired woman with a sharp, capable demeanor—dressed in a fitted black leather jacket with a pair of short blades strapped to her hips—analyzed the scene with cool detachment. Her name was Zhou Qian.

“The number of kills doesn’t matter,” Zhou Qian said calmly. “What matters is… whether the crystal cores have already been stripped.”

“With a mountain of bodies this large, even an elite squad wouldn’t have had the time to clear them all out in a hurry. There are bound to be leftovers.” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it reached the ears of every person in her group, instantly setting off sparks of greedy excitement.

“Sister Zhou is spot on!” Hou San exclaimed eagerly, rubbing his palms together as raw avarice spread across his features. “Even a mosquito’s leg is meat! And this isn’t a mosquito’s leg—this is a whole damn roast pig! If we can scavenge whatever they missed, even a tenth of this haul would be pure profit! It’d keep us well-fed for weeks!”

“Exactly! There’s bound to be plenty left behind!”

“With this many corpses, scraping up the scraps will be more than enough for us to live comfortably!”

The three or four men trailing behind them piped up as well, whispering among themselves with hungry eyes, clearly itching to rush the entrance.

The leader of the group was a man in his early thirties with a rugged, composed face and sharp, calculating eyes named Chen Feng.

Unlike his subordinates, he was far from impulsive.

First, he carefully surveyed the dim interior of the mall and the barricade of bodies blocking the threshold. Finally, his gaze penetrated into the murky depths of the lobby, where he vaguely caught the outlines of figures moving—more than one.

Chen Feng’s heart sank slightly, and his expression hardened into serious vigilance.

Lifting his hand, he made a sharp cutting gesture, pressing his palm downward to demand complete silence.

The excited chatter behind him cut off instantly. Everyone held their breath, turning their eyes to their leader.

Chen Feng lowered his voice, speaking with grim authority: “Keep your heads on straight and stay alert. There are people inside. We’ll head closer to assess the situation. If there are only a couple of them, or if they’re just weak survivors with no real bite…”

He trailed off, but the veterans in the squad understood his unspoken meaning perfectly: if they’re easy pickings, we take everything.

To forge a crew in the wasteland and keep them alive this long, Chen Feng had relied not just on raw martial strength, but on his keen eye for reading danger and his total lack of hesitation to strike first.

“Understood, Boss!” Though greedy, Hou San knew better than to disobey. He puffed out his chest, tightening his grip on his heavy machete.

The rest of the group reined in their excitement, adopting guarded stances as they followed Chen Feng, stepping warily toward the department store entrance with their weapons drawn.

Within moments, the two squads locked eyes across the blood-soaked floor and the dim evening light.

Jiang Jue stood motionless at the forefront, his face an unreadable mask, his dark eyes freezing cold. He made no aggressive stance, nor did he fully draw his blade; he simply stood there in silence, yet he radiated an overwhelming, suffocating pressure that filled the entire room.

Lin Xiao and Wang Qiang flanked him on the left and right, glaring at the uninvited guests with hostile expressions, their knuckles white around their weapons, ready to strike at the first sign of trouble.

Meanwhile, Little Yu had erased his presence entirely, slipping silently through the shadows behind the intruders, poised to strike from the dark at a moment’s notice.

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