Chapter 54: The Farmers’ Market
The effect of the LED sunflower lamp was astonishing, but it was also a bit too eye-catching. After some discussion, the group decided to keep this information secret for the time being. The news about the corn bullets and corn grenade heads, however, could be shared with Commander Zhang. Corn was easier to find than peas, so Su Ruizhe could convert more corn bullets to supply the rescue team.
Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe went to see Commander Zhang and informed him that corn could also be weaponized. As expected, Commander Zhang immediately had someone bring over a large bag of corn and asked Su Ruizhe to help convert it.
However, after converting around ten ears of corn, Su Ruizhe began to feel dizzy and lightheaded—it was clearly a case of overconsumption of his ability. Weaponizing corn required far more energy than converting peas.
Commander Zhang counted the converted corn bullets—nearly a thousand in total—as well as ten corn grenade heads. He wasn’t greedy and immediately told Su Ruizhe to go back and rest. These plant weapons would be enough for their operation that night.
At around ten in the morning, the soldiers set up several large pots and began cooking. They had found quite a bit of flour and potatoes, so the meal was shredded potatoes stewed with flatbread. Each survivor could get a flatbread weighing at least three liang (1 liang = 50 grams), which was pretty decent.
Zhan Yun and the others also went to collect a few hot flatbreads to gnaw on. Although there wasn’t much oil, the potatoes were thoroughly fried, and the fragrant, crispy flatbread wrapped around the soft, savory potatoes tasted excellent.
As they ate, the group chatted idly. Cheng Qi was extremely talkative, and through him Su Ruizhe learned many embarrassing stories from Zhan Yun’s childhood. Despite the fact that Zhan Yun was now 1.9 meters tall, handsome, with eight-pack abs and long legs, he had actually been short and chubby as a kid and often bullied. It wasn’t until he shot up in height and slimmed down that he finally turned things around.
Zhan Yun wished he could sew Cheng Qi’s stupid mouth shut—truly a case of choosing friends poorly!
Just as they were eating happily, Cheng Jiao, who had been unconscious for a long time, finally opened her eyes.
Cheng Jiao looked very much like Cheng Qi. The two were fraternal twins, with Cheng Qi being born fifteen minutes earlier. Cheng Qi had a flamboyantly handsome look, while Cheng Jiao was strikingly gorgeous—both siblings were exceptionally good-looking, without question.
Cheng Qi stood at 1.85 meters tall, his build not much inferior to Zhan Yun’s, exuding the air of a typical playboy. Cheng Jiao, at 1.75 meters, was definitely tall for a woman, with curves in all the right places and a slim waist. Her long wavy hair paired with her glamorous features, and the way her eyes flickered made it seem as though she was constantly sending sparks—an absolute otaku goddess, leaving even Zheng Jiahe, the hardcore otaku, rooted to the spot.
However… that was just the surface.
“Damn it, I’m starving to death! What smells so good?!” Her extremely crude words were utterly shocking.
Cheng Qi had only taken a few bites of his potato flatbread while he was busy mocking his childhood friend when Cheng Jiao snatched it away in one swift grab.
“Ah! My flatbread!” Cheng Qi let out a wail and lunged at Cheng Jiao. The handsome man and beautiful woman immediately started grappling with each other over a single flatbread, completely devoid of dignity…
With a twitch at the corner of his mouth, Zhan Yun explained to everyone, “Ahem, the Cheng family is a military and political household. The siblings grew up in army camps… they’re a bit rough.”
A bit rough? This was downright violent, okay?!
Only after the siblings finished fighting and divided up the poor potato flatbread did they finally settle down.
“Brother Zhan!” Upon seeing Zhan Yun, Cheng Jiao immediately broke into a dazzling smile, spread her arms, and pounced toward him, trying to give him a big hug.
“Hey, hey, hey! My wife is right here!” Zhan Yun quickly held her back. Hugging occasionally in the past had been fine—he had always treated Cheng Jiao like a buddy—but now that the person he’d chosen as his lover was right beside him, he couldn’t do anything that might cause misunderstandings.
Only then did Cheng Jiao notice Su Ruizhe standing next to Zhan Yun. Her eyes widened instantly. “Wow! Is this little sister-in-law? So cute!”
As she spoke, she reached out and pinched Su Ruizhe’s slightly baby-fat cheeks, sighing in bliss. “So soft, such smooth skin, so fun to pinch.”
Su Ruizhe: ……
Zhan Yun’s face darkened at once. He quickly peeled her hand off his partner’s face. “Shoo, shoo. Touch him again and I’ll chop off your claws.”
Cheng Jiao pouted. “Why so fierce? Hmph.”
Once the unreliable sibling duo finally quieted down, Zhan Yun at last had the chance to ask Cheng Jiao what kind of ability she had awakened.
“Ability? What’s that? Can you eat it?” Cheng Jiao asked, completely confused.
Before the apocalypse, Zhan Yun had called Cheng Qi and Cheng Jiao, telling them to find a safe place in A City to hide, stockpile food and water, and lie low. The two listened and found a small apartment, then went on a frantic shopping spree at a small supermarket downstairs, buying piles of food and drinks and nearly emptying the place.
After the apocalypse broke out, the two were stunned. Even though they came from a military and political family and had grown up training in army camps, carrying out many missions and seeing blood more than once, this kind of worldwide outbreak of bloody horror was something they had never witnessed before. They tried calling home, but for some reason all mobile signals had vanished, so they could only stay in their apartment and wait for Zhan Yun to come find them.
A few days later, they heard gunshots. Thinking the army had arrived, they went out to check, only to discover it was actually the police.
Those officers were out searching for survivors and gathering supplies. With limited manpower, they couldn’t conduct a citywide rescue and could only save survivors within their jurisdiction. Knowing that the police station had weapons, Cheng Qi and Cheng Jiao decided to go back with them and help the police rescue civilians.
Of the survivors at the police station yesterday, half had been rescued by the brother and sister themselves. However, they had never actually encountered any ability users. Those who had been injured earlier had all failed to escape the fate of infection, so they had no way of knowing about the existence of abilities.
After Zhan Yun’s explanation yesterday, Cheng Qi had already learned that nearly everyone in Zhan Yun’s team was an ability user. Cheng Jiao, however, had only just awakened from her coma and was still completely ignorant about abilities.
Zhan Yun had no choice but to explain to her what an ability was and ask her to try sensing the energy within her body.
Cheng Jiao did as instructed and closed her eyes. In the next moment, threads of cool breeze appeared out of nowhere. The wind quickly grew stronger, until it was whipping everyone’s clothes loudly and even stinging their faces.
“Wind type! It’s a wind-type ability!” Zheng Jiahe shouted excitedly.
Cheng Jiao also looked at her palm in astonishment—she really did have superpowers! Unfortunately, she still didn’t quite know how to control that power inside her.
Zheng Jiahe, having been through this himself, could tell right away from her reaction. He immediately spoke up to remind her, “Try compressing your ability and turning it into wind blades.”
Cheng Jiao followed his advice and tried it. She threw a thin wind blade at the wall, leaving a conspicuous mark on it.
“Wind attacks can actually be very versatile. You can use wind to increase your own speed, and wind blades can be used for cutting. Because they’re invisible, they can achieve a surprise effect when attacking.” Zheng Jiahe’s imagination kicked into gear again.
Hearing this, Cheng Jiao couldn’t help but look at Zheng Jiahe in a new light. She hadn’t expected this young guy to be quite sharp-minded.
Cheng Qi watched from the side, green with envy. He wanted such a flashy ability too!
“Everyone, get some good rest. We still have a mission tonight.”
“Alright.”
In the afternoon, everyone on Zhan Yun’s team slept comfortably for a while. When night fell, they hastily ate something and began making preparations to set out.
The team heading to the farmers’ market consisted of the Eleventh and Twelfth Squads, plus Zhan Yun’s group of auxiliary members—a total of eighty-eight people, including Cheng Qi and Cheng Jiao. Cheng Qi was highly skilled and an excellent shot; give him a gun and he could take down zombies one by one with perfect accuracy. Cheng Jiao possessed an ability, and her injuries had mostly been healed by the LED sunflower lamp. Her combat skills were no worse than Cheng Qi’s, making her a solid addition to their fighting strength.
The other teams entered the city as usual, using life detectors to search for survivors.
They drove three large military trucks, planning to transport back all the vegetables and fruit that hadn’t spoiled.
“Thank you all. I hope this mission goes smoothly as well!” Just before departure, Li Ming came over specially to greet them.
Zhan Yun and the others were a little puzzled at first, but when they later noticed the conspicuous yellow color in the magazines the soldiers were carrying, they immediately understood.
The farmers’ market wasn’t far away, but they encountered quite a few zombies along the way. Even with the corn bullets, clearing them out still took a fair amount of effort.
Inside the farmers’ market itself, however, there were hardly any zombies—probably because the apocalypse had broken out at night, and the market closed early in the evenings. As they searched shop by shop, they really did gather a lot of supplies. Most leafy greens had already rotted, but sturdier vegetables like winter melon, cucumbers, and pumpkins were still well preserved, and there was plenty of fruit as well. In addition, they collected large amounts of flour, glutinous rice, sorghum, and regular rice. The haul was extremely fruitful.
On the return trip, they ran into another horde of zombies. On a whim, Zhan Yun handed a corn grenade head to Li Ming and asked him to try out its power with a grenade launcher.
Unexpectedly, the scene they had imagined—zombies being blown to pieces—did not occur. Instead, the zombies were covered in a yellow, sticky substance, their bodies seemingly frozen in place, completely unable to move. In the end, they still had to mow them down with machine-gun fire to kill them all.
It seemed that the corn grenade head worked much like the corn butter from the game, both having the effect of temporarily immobilizing zombies. When it came to escaping, it could prove extremely useful.
Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉
