The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH142

Chapter 142 — Dog Eyes

The moment he thought the little guy might already have mutated, Luo Xun shot to his feet. “Tonight we’ll turn off all the lights and test it!”

It was still morning, and although some rooms in the house were fairly dim, nowhere was truly pitch black. Better to wait until nighttime. Besides, if the crystal core really had been “eaten,” then it had probably happened quite a while ago already, so waiting one more day to verify the dog’s condition wouldn’t make much difference.

Actually, aside from this method, there was another way to confirm whether the little fellow had mutated: let it use an ordinary level-one crystal core. If it could absorb it, that would prove it had evolved. But if it couldn’t, then the duck crystal core was probably still somewhere out there—they just hadn’t found it yet.

But who knew whether directly swallowing crystal cores could turn people or animals into zombies? Luo Xun didn’t dare gamble on it. The little fellow wasn’t human. If it really swallowed the thing and something went wrong, he wouldn’t even have a place to cry about it.

The duck crystal core was currently missing, and the prime suspect—the little dog—would have to wait until nighttime before being interrogated and investigated.

As for the crystal core from the sheep they’d killed last time, Zhang Su had already “eaten” it. That left only the giant sheepskin to deal with.

Luo Xun and Yan Fei brought their dog out and left it beside little Xinran to play with her. By now Li Tie and the other four had already embarked on their difficult journey to work. There was nothing Luo Xun’s group could do about it. If the roads outside had been even slightly better, they could’ve driven them there. But right now, even Luo Xun and Yan Fei had to travel on foot. Li Tie’s group could only grit their teeth and struggle their way toward the military camp while testing the road conditions as they went.

“Processing the sheepskin? Sure, sure!” Xu Mei and Song Lingling’s eyes lit up immediately after hearing Luo Xun’s proposal.

Although the heating system in the house kept things warm enough indoors, the two women had suffered terribly from the biting cold wind whenever they went outside recently. Sheepskin had excellent insulation properties. Whether used for coats, shoes, or gloves, it would be perfect for keeping warm.

Song Lingling thought of Li Tie’s group, who had left for work before dawn. “Li Tie and the others have to go to work every day lately. We should hurry and make the sheepskin into coats so they’ll at least have something warm to wear!”

Once they decided on it, everyone immediately got to work. They brought in the frozen-solid goat hide to thaw it, washed off the scraps of meat with water, disinfected it with salt, and then…

“It’s so cold outside, and the sheepskin is huge. How are we supposed to dry it…” The two women could only turn helplessly toward Luo Xun.

Luo Xun also frowned at the snowy scene outside. In weather this cold, the hide would probably freeze solid not long after being hung outside. If it were plain leather, they could simply air it out directly. But this thing still had fur attached. Wouldn’t it freeze completely the second it went outdoors?

Just then, the late-rising Zhang Su wandered in lazily. “What are you all doing?”

Luo Xun’s eyes suddenly brightened. “Come, come, come! Beauty, the time for you to make contributions has arrived!”

Zhang Su hadn’t even stepped fully through the door or spoken half a sentence before hearing Luo Xun’s words. He decisively raised a hand, and a sharp wind blade flashed straight toward Luo Xun.

Halfway there, a metal plate suddenly appeared out of nowhere, blocking it with a loud metallic CLANG.

Little Xinran copied Song Lingling by rubbing her tiny ears, then looked at the dark-faced Zhang Su outside the doorway before turning to Yan Fei, who had blocked the attack with metal.

About half an hour later, Zhang Su stood in a relatively empty room with a black expression, repeatedly using his wind ability to blow over the folded sheepskin spread out inside.

That bastard Luo Xun was seriously using him as a hair dryer!

This was absolutely intolerable!

After blowing wind for most of the day, Zhang Su finally managed to barely dry the sheepskin. Although there were still many steps left to process, considering it was winter and everyone might need it at any moment, Luo Xun decided to cut and tailor it first. At the very least, they could make several large capes, oversized coats, or even blankets that people could wrap themselves in to block the cold wind.

After struggling to cut everything apart and painstakingly attach lining piece by piece, the people sewing almost felt like their fingers were about to be stabbed to death. Mainly because the leather was too hard. Every stitch required tremendous force, and even when they didn’t accidentally prick themselves, simply pressing against the back end of the needle made their fingers ache.

By the time night fully fell and the cold northern wind started blowing again outside, there was still no sign of Li Tie’s group returning.

Zhang Su was starving by now, and his face was getting darker and darker. Finally, he directly took out his phone and called Wang Duo.

Fortunately, their phones all still had battery and everyone had brought them along.

After the call connected, Wang Duo explained that they had already left about forty minutes earlier… but were still currently struggling through the snow-covered roads. Judging by the distance, they still had about half the trip left before reaching home.

“Half the road took forty minutes?!” After hanging up, Zhang Su walked to the window and looked out at the snow-covered buildings and streets outside.

Honestly, that sounded entirely possible.

With a dark expression, Zhang Su turned and headed toward the front door.

“Where are you going?” Luo Xun casually asked while brushing the little dog’s fur together with Xinran.

“To bring those idiots back.” Zhang Su tossed out the sentence and prepared to leave.

“Wait a second. They’ve already walked half the way. Even if you go now, you probably won’t help much, right?” Luo Xun hurriedly stood to stop him. He and Yan Fei had gone outside before—they knew exactly how hard the roads were to traverse. Since when had Zhang Su become irrational too?

Zhang Su glanced sideways at him. “I’m a wind-type ability user.” As he spoke, he swept a disdainful gaze over Luo Xun from top to bottom. “I can give teammates buffs.”

So last time when they went out to deliver vegetables, he’d deliberately avoided going with Luo Xun and Yan Fei, hadn’t he?

Definitely. Absolutely.

Yan Fei took several large black sheepskin cloaks from a nearby shelf and tossed them to Zhang Su. “If you’re going, bring these for them. At least they’re warmer than what they’re currently wearing.”

At the moment, the only person truly suited for going out to pick people up seemed to be Zhang Su. If anyone else went, they’d probably freeze half to death before even reaching the point where they could meet Li Tie’s group—assuming they could even make it back alive afterward.

Sure enough, about half an hour later, Zhang Su returned with several people wrapped in sheepskins.

Before they even entered the house, Li Tie’s group had already started complaining.

“Good thing Brother Zhang came to find us! We almost got robbed halfway back!”

“Robbed? Robbed of what?” Xu Mei and Song Lingling asked in shock.

“Our hats, coats—they even tried to steal the sheepskins!” He Qiankun and Wu Xin clenched their fists angrily.

After hearing that, Luo Xun looked at Zhang Su somewhat strangely. “Did those people come out to rob you after you gave them the sheepskins, or before?”

Zhang Su raised an eyebrow and smiled. “After.”

So in reality… those robbers had probably been lured out by the sheepskins in Zhang Su’s hands, right?

Song Lingling quickly asked, “Were any of you hurt? What happened to those people?”

Li Tie and the others hurriedly shook their heads, indicating they were fine. As for the robbers blocking the road—

Zhang Su casually declared, “They became road foundation material.”

…Road foundation material for the highway?

Everyone silently skipped over that horrifying thought that could easily fuel nightmares and waited until Li Tie’s group returned to their room before asking in detail about their workday.

Wang Duo complained darkly, “When we got there today, there were several newcomers already there. They said some technical staff had been brought in to help, but a bunch of them kept hanging around us all day.”

He Qiankun nodded. “I asked them. They all have some computer background, but none of it’s very advanced.”

“But the work they normally have us do isn’t that advanced either,” Han Li poured cold water on everyone’s mood. “As long as you learn some specialized knowledge, you can handle it. A lot of the tasks are just entering data according to procedures once the programs are set up. Unless the program crashes or the system breaks down… and even then, they already have experts for that stuff…”

The five exchanged glances before collectively sighing.

Luo Xun and Yan Fei looked at each other before asking, “They’re planning to replace you?”

Li Tie spread his hands helplessly. “They said they want us to mentor the newcomers. If it weren’t for that phone call earlier today, we’d probably just do it…” Right now they couldn’t help but overthink things. In the message earlier, their superiors had already shown obvious dissatisfaction with the inconvenience caused by them not living near the military camp.

Actually, it wasn’t just this once. During previous times when bad weather forced temporary leave, they’d already heard plenty of complaints from their superiors.

Some of their coworkers had even offered to help them find vacant housing near the military camp. If this had been back in the early days of the apocalypse, Li Tie and the others probably would’ve gladly agreed. Even if they couldn’t live inside the camp itself, just living nearby would’ve given them peace of mind.

But now?

They were members of the Otaku Squad. They’d already developed deep bonds with their teammates. Not to mention all their supplies and belongings were here. How much effort had they invested into this place? How could they possibly bear to abandon it?

Zhang Su had already tossed his frost-covered coat into a corner by the door. Hearing their complaints, he sneered coldly.

“What’s there to mentor? You should just quit and come home already. Save yourselves the suffering.”

The five exchanged glances again, all showing hesitation and unwillingness.

Zhang Su continued mercilessly pouring cold water on them. “Even if you don’t want to quit now, they’ll kick you out sooner or later anyway. Unless you become some irreplaceable programming genius like those senior tech experts over there. But if you really had that level of value, do you think they’d still let you live outside the camp?”

His words were blunt truths, and they struck heavily at everyone’s hearts.

Li Tie lowered his head and thought for a while before saying, “How about… we keep working for now? If they really don’t want to keep us later, then we’ll resign…”

Before the apocalypse, none of them had ever truly held formal long-term jobs. On top of that, they were all honest, straightforward kids at heart. They felt that quitting voluntarily was somehow wrong. Besides, when they first arrived at the base, the military really had treated them quite well—whether in terms of housing or jobs.

So even if resignation was inevitable someday, being fired and resigning voluntarily felt completely different to them psychologically.

Zhang Su rolled his eyes, completely too tired to scold them anymore.

People this spineless… if this had been before the apocalypse, no matter how hard they worked, they’d still have been trampled by scheming coworkers in the workplace. Even after the apocalypse, if they hadn’t been lucky enough to get this job early on and join the Otaku Squad, they probably would’ve ended up being used as cannon fodder by teammates sooner or later.

But at the same time, it was precisely because they had personalities like this that Zhang Su had maintained his current relationship with them and was willing to continue living and surviving alongside them as part of the same team.

“Right! We’re still going to work tomorrow!” Suddenly, He Qiankun jumped to his feet, eyes shining brightly. “Do you know what amazing resources we have access to there? Even if we’re leaving eventually, we should at least grab as much stuff as possible before we go!”

As he spoke, he pointed toward the direction where they usually kept their computers.

“If we copy more movies and TV dramas back here, that alone is already worth it!”

“Right, right! And crosstalk and comedy skits too! Before the snowstorm I saw tons of them in their database. We should copy all of it!”

The group immediately became excited again. From pre-apocalypse movies and television dramas, they moved on to crosstalk and comedy sketches, and then to variety shows…

Basically, any useful materials or information they could access while they still worked there—they considered bringing back as much as possible a huge profit.

Zhang Su rolled his eyes again as he stood up and walked out.

“What a bunch of Ah Q spirits.”

After Li Tie’s group returned to their own place to change clothes and warm up, Luo Xun and Yan Fei brought their dog back home as well. The moment they entered, Luo Xun suddenly remembered something important and hurried over to the wall to switch off the lights.

“Almost forgot! Dog eyes, dog eyes!”

Yan Fei understood what he meant immediately and had also thought of it at the same time. Though honestly, the way Luo Xun said it would leave most people completely confused.

The two turned off the main lights in the room. The curtains had already been drawn, leaving the entire room pitch-black. After their eyes adjusted, they carefully observed the little dog’s eyes—

Why weren’t they glowing like before?

They could still make out the outline of the dog and its eyes because the quail cage still had a light on nearby. Could it only happen in complete darkness?

Thinking of this, the two carried the dog upstairs into the bedroom.

The bedroom itself was already dark. They brought the dog inside directly, only to discover that the little guy’s eyes still weren’t glowing like they had expected.

The two exchanged glances in the darkness. Luo Xun scratched his head in confusion.

“What’s going on?”

“Maybe there was some other reason?”

“What could it be…” Luo Xun thought for a moment before his eyes suddenly brightened. “Maybe if we leave it alone in the dark for a while and come back in later, it’ll work?”

The two shut the dog inside the room. The confused little fellow first stood stupidly behind the door staring at it in puzzlement. After waiting a short while, Luo Xun and Yan Fei opened the door again, only to see the dog happily wagging its tail and panting at them cheerfully—

The idiot thought they were playing a game with it.

“Dogs have very sensitive hearing. Standing outside the door probably won’t fool it,” Yan Fei patted Luo Xun’s shoulder.

So Luo Xun decisively shut the bedroom door again and dragged Yan Fei downstairs. After thinking about it, he still felt uneasy, so they simply left their apartment altogether and climbed all the way up to the fifteenth floor, waiting in the stairwell for a full ten minutes. During that time Xu Mei even discovered them standing there and chatted with them for a bit.

Only then did they return home and climb back upstairs.

Taking a deep breath, Luo Xun twisted the doorknob open—

And immediately saw a pair of shining titanium-alloy dog eyes leap down from the direction of the big bed in the bedroom, bouncing joyfully toward him before crashing directly into his arms.

“Did you see that?! Did you see it?! Its eyes really do glow!!”

To avoid interference factors, they hadn’t even turned on the small hallway lights downstairs or upstairs. Yet even now, they could clearly see the little guy’s eyes glowing in the darkness!

Wait… something about that seemed wrong.

“You actually climbed onto the bed?!”

“So tell me, what kind of ability did you get? Is glowing eyes your only special trait?” Luo Xun squatted on the floor, helplessly kneading the little fellow who kept trying to lick his face.

The glowing dog eyes temporarily convinced him not to punish the little guy for climbing onto the bed—after all, they were the ones who had locked it in the bedroom. Although they had confirmed their dog did seem somewhat unusual, aside from its glowing eyes earlier, there didn’t appear to be anything special about it.

Could it simply have gained night vision?

What kind of useful ability was that?

And did this even count as a real mutation?

The two humans and one dog all mutually felt completely incapable of communicating properly. Nothing was more frustrating at times like this than a language barrier. Especially since the only way for Luo Xun and Yan Fei to confirm whether the little guy truly had abilities was for it to actively demonstrate them—but no matter how the two tried to coax it, they got absolutely nowhere.

Different species really were exhausting.

At this rate, they weren’t even sure whether they could safely bring the dog outside with them next time.

After pondering for quite a while, the two brought the dog back downstairs. Luo Xun silently held out a handful of level-one colorless crystal cores in front of it, feeling conflicted inside.

If it swallowed one whole… what if it became a zombie dog?

Unfortunately, that question couldn’t be answered for now. The little guy merely sniffed Luo Xun’s hand, wagged its tail, then turned around and trotted happily back to its dog bed…

To sleep.

The two fell silent and exchanged speechless looks.

Yan Fei comforted him. “Let’s wait and see for now. Anyway, we’re not leaving the base anytime soon. Since we’re with it every day, if there’s really a problem, we’ll notice eventually.”

Still, if the little guy really could mutate without changing appearance, that would honestly be a good thing for everyone.

Days passed one after another. The little fellow still showed absolutely no signs of abilities. Li Tie’s group continued struggling daily to reach the military camp for work, carrying themselves with the determination to empty out the camp’s entire database before leaving. Of course, nowadays they carried weapons with them every day to avoid getting robbed halfway there.

Although the department had recently gained many newcomers and people were constantly hovering around trying to learn from them, the five somehow still managed to bring back plenty of copied files and hard drives over the past few days. The five brave young men seemed to harbor deep resentment toward the situation. Whenever they got the chance, they secretly copied whatever they could—and amazingly, nobody had discovered them yet.

That alone was practically a miracle.

In late December, before the base had even completely cleared away the previous snowfall, another massive snowstorm struck.

This time the snowfall was nearly as severe as the last one. The northern wind raged nonstop for two entire days. Residents living on higher floors listened to the violent currents whistling through the gaps in the windows and almost felt as though the entire building might be blown apart at any moment.

Fortunately, the high-rise buildings in the Southwest Base had all been newly constructed within recent years and seemed fairly sturdy. Otherwise, under such terrifying winds, buildings might genuinely have collapsed.

The freezing northern wind combined with the endless heavy snow once again buried roads that had only recently been cleared, plunging the base back into snow disaster conditions. Those unfinished buildings underwent another brutal test, and nobody even knew whether the structures that had barely survived the last storm could hold out this time.

Luo Xun sat lazily in his oversized chair, facing the endless sea of white outside the window while leisurely sipping bitter melon tea—made from bitter melons they had harvested and dried themselves in autumn. It was perfect for dispelling internal heat during winter.

The little dog lay at his feet with drooping eyelids, dozing, though its nose twitched occasionally. Yan Fei sat beside him just as relaxed, casually glancing at the weather outside from time to time.

“Having a fully enclosed balcony is wonderful. You can watch snow in winter and rain in summer.” Luo Xun lazily swung his ankle.

In his previous life, when had he ever enjoyed such a peaceful existence? Back then, simply warming himself beside a stove in winter already counted as luxury.

In front of the two sat a barbecue grill filled with glowing charcoal. The grill resembled a large pot, with a metal grate suspended above the burning coals. On top were skewers of cut duck meat, lamb, eggplant, green beans, Chinese chives, and other foods.

Taking advantage of the fierce winds outside, the couple had decided to sit here tonight, enjoying the snowy scenery while eating barbecue.

Having barbecue on a post-apocalyptic balcony—this was something Luo Xun had wanted to do ever since before the apocalypse.

Unfortunately, after realizing the smell of cooking meat might drift outside, the entire Otaku Squad had become much more cautious whenever cooking. Even when preparing meat dishes, they reduced the quantity considerably and tried to use cooking methods that produced less aroma.

Luo Xun and Yan Fei had waited many days for a snowstorm like this so they could freely eat meat without worry.

What an incredibly satisfying day.

Yan Fei turned the skewers of meat and vegetables roasting over the grill, taking the finished ones off and placing them onto a plate while brushing sauce and seasoning onto them for his beloved.

Normally Luo Xun was the one who cooked. Today was a rare chance for Yan Fei to handle things himself. Since he could do it, why make Luo Xun work hard?

“This one’s done. The mushrooms need a little longer.” Yan Fei placed roasted eggplant and Chinese chives onto Luo Xun’s plate before checking the other ingredients on the grill.

“Eat together.” Luo Xun raised a skewer of chives.

After all, chives were supposed to boost stamina… cough cough. With all the exhausting activities at night, didn’t they need to replenish themselves during the day?

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