My Cherry Will Explode in the Apocalypse – CH95

Chapter 95: Space Ability

Although the two of them had already made up their minds, they did not immediately go to Commander Jiang. Instead, they first gathered all the team members together. Song Chengshu was Zhan Yun’s close friend; Cheng Qi and Cheng Jiao were his childhood friends; and although Zheng Jiahe and the others had only met after the apocalypse, after spending so much time together they had forged deep, comrades-in-arms bonds. Not to mention that during the battle at the Northwest Base, they had quite literally shared life-and-death experiences. Matters concerning the space ability were something their brothers deserved to know—it would make no sense to let them be the last ones informed.

When Zheng Jiahe and the others were summoned, they were somewhat confused, thinking that another mission might be coming up. As a result, they made some preparations. Cheng Qi and Cheng Jiao, in particular, with their strong military habits, had even packed their bags…

However, once they learned that Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe wanted to talk about Su Ruizhe’s space having upgraded, everyone relaxed. After joining the team, they had already known that Su Ruizhe possessed an extraordinarily large space, one that even had preservation capabilities and stored vast amounts of fresh fruits, vegetables, and all kinds of supplies. According to Zheng Jiahe, they had even emptied out an entire supermarket!

But when they found out that Su Ruizhe’s space could actually grow crops and even raise living animals, the expressions on everyone’s faces went blank. It took them quite a while to recover.

“Xiao Zhe, you’re basically a god!!!” Zheng Jiahe had always thought of Su Ruizhe as an unimaginably thick golden thigh—a walking warehouse plus a mobile armory. But now he realized that this golden thigh had grown several times thicker, practically turning into a golden elephant leg! What he thought was a mobile warehouse had upgraded into a mobile farm and a mobile estate!

As for Su Ruizhe’s intention to openly tell Jiang Xuzhou and the others about the existence of his space, after a brief silence, everyone voiced their support. The apocalypse had arrived—zombies that devoured people were everywhere, the climate and environment had grown increasingly harsh, food had become extremely scarce, and people were dying of hunger every single day. Su Ruizhe’s miraculous space could help countless people. Of course, he could choose to keep it hidden and tell no one, but his conscience would never be at ease.

During this time, the Southern Base had been managed in an orderly and exemplary manner from top to bottom—from Commander Jiang and Battalion Commander Zhang, all the way down to the lowest-ranking soldiers. Every single one of them truly put the people first. Commander Jiang and the others ate every meal in the cafeteria just like ordinary people. From morning till night, they held meetings nonstop, constantly thinking about the base’s future development and construction, and then swiftly and efficiently turned every plan into reality.

Over this period, they had passed through quite a few bases. Setting aside private small bases like Lincity Base, even bases with partial military backgrounds like Wancheng Base were in utter chaos, with disorder running rampant. As zombies continued to grow stronger, the effectiveness of military firearms was increasingly limited, forcing reliance on ability users instead—which in turn fueled the arrogance of some of them. Those ability users, after awakening their powers, believed themselves superior to everyone else. They ran amok within the bases, treated ordinary people as less than human, and committed arson, murder, and looting without restraint, refusing to submit to military command. The military, needing their help to fight zombies, retreated again and again, turning entire bases into cesspools of corruption and lawlessness.

But the Southern Base was different. Its management was humane yet firm in rewards and punishments. It could truly be called a rare haven in the apocalypse—anyone who came here had no desire to leave.

The Southern Base’s ability to develop to its current state was due not only to Jiang Xuzhou’s capable leadership, but also to the quiet, ongoing support of Zhan Yun’s team. The two complemented each other; neither could be missing.

As one of the few people who knew that Su Ruizhe was a reborn individual, Song Chengshu felt both shocked and deeply admiring toward Su Ruizhe’s decision to reveal his space ability. Shocked, because he knew exactly how Su Ruizhe had died miserably in his previous life—he had assumed Su Ruizhe would choose to hide and never expose his uniqueness again. Yet Su Ruizhe had made such a brave decision. How could one not admire that? A young man not yet fully grown, who had suffered betrayal and hardship in his previous life, yet whose inner kindness had never been extinguished.

Song Chengshu chose to support Su Ruizhe’s decision, while at the same time preparing himself to protect him with his life. If anyone dared to do to Su Ruizhe what had been done in his previous life—using him for experiments—he would personally send that person to meet the King of Hell.

Though everyone’s thoughts churned in different ways, their conclusions were largely the same. They all agreed with Su Ruizhe’s decision, and they were all prepared to do everything in their power to protect him, no matter what happened.

With the decision made, they did not delay any further and went straight to find Commander Jiang.

By then, it was already close to midnight. Jiang Xuzhou had long since gone to bed, but upon learning that Zhan Yun’s team was looking for him, he immediately jumped out of bed, quickly got dressed, and went to the conference room to meet them.

Battalion Commander Zhang came as well. Both men looked rushed, with anxiety still on their faces—they had assumed that Zhan Yun’s team coming to see them in the middle of the night meant there was some urgent, life-or-death matter.

What Su Ruizhe was about to say might not have been an emergency of that sort, but it was extremely important. On a larger scale, it could even determine the future of the entire base.

“Is what you’re saying true?!” After listening to Su Ruizhe’s account, Jiang Xuzhou leapt to his feet, eyes wide as copper bells.

Su Ruizhe nodded firmly.

“Y-your space… roughly h-how much grain is there in it?”
Under the intense mix of nervousness and anticipation, even Commander Jiang—usually so calm and composed—was nearly tripping over his words.

“The grain we brought back from outside after the rat infestation actually all came from my space. Now my space has expanded to twice its former size, so the output should be able to double again.”

Jiang Xuzhou and Battalion Commander Zhang both sucked in a sharp breath at the same time. It felt as though they were dreaming, as if a huge meat bun had fallen from the sky and smashed straight into their laps. In truth, the base’s food crisis had never gone away. Although the base had mastered soilless cultivation techniques and set up greenhouses to begin growing crops, the yield was extremely limited—the previous harvest, even counted generously, had been less than two thousand jin. Now, with the sudden drop in temperature, seedling cultivation had already been affected. Dr. Yang estimated that yields would fall even further. As the base’s population continued to grow while food supplies dwindled, they were already worrying themselves sick, their hair nearly turning white, and had just been considering building a few more heated greenhouses to try again—when Zhan Yun’s team delivered this heaven-sent piece of good news.

It was truly a case of someone handing you a pillow just as you were nodding off!

They didn’t dwell on the fact that Su Ruizhe and the others had kept this news hidden for three months. After all, they weren’t fools—no one would casually reveal something this important. When all of the base’s grain had been destroyed, they had even found a pretext to send back a batch of grain to relieve the base’s most urgent crisis. And now they were choosing to be completely open about it. This was undoubtedly a sign of trust and acceptance. They would have to be idiots to push such people away—right now, they practically wanted to enshrine Su Ruizhe, this priceless treasure, on a pedestal!

Without the information Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe had provided on the application of plants, the Southern Base would never have been able to develop new types of bullets and the two medicines. Without the support of Zhan Yun’s team, the Southern Base would never have weathered crisis after crisis. In their eyes, Zhan Yun’s team was nothing short of a lucky star for the Southern Base.

“Rest assured. I, Jiang Xuzhou, swear that I will never betray your trust. However, I think it would be better not to make this matter public. Mr. Su’s ability is simply too special and could easily attract the covetous attention of ill-intentioned people. Here’s what we’ll do: the logistics department is now fully under Battalion Commander Zhang’s authority. From now on, he’ll arrange for you to periodically place some grain into the granary. The guards there will be replaced with people we trust most. Other than myself and Battalion Commander Zhang, no one else will know about this. As for the heated sheds and greenhouses, we’ll continue building them as planned—there’s no such thing as too much grain. That way, the base’s food sources won’t arouse suspicion.”

“Alright.” Smiles appeared on the faces of everyone in Zhan Yun’s group. Jiang Xuzhou had indeed lived up to their expectations.

The two sides talked animatedly, and it wasn’t until dawn the next morning that they finally left the conference room.

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