Chapter 80 – Visitors
After everyone exchanged phone numbers — except for Zhang Su, who was still in the hospital and hadn’t been issued a SIM card yet — the daily evening meeting finally came to an end. Everyone then went back to their rooms to rest or sleep.
When Luo Xun and Yan Fei returned home, they didn’t busy themselves with anything else. Once they got into the bedroom, Yan Fei hesitated for three seconds between pushing the man on the bed down or spending some extra time training his ability and absorbing more crystal cores — and promptly made a decisive choice to pounce onto the bed. Eat first, think later.
After all, the busier their days became, the less energy and spirit they had left in the evenings. Since they were still feeling fairly alert tonight, they might as well “eat something good” while they had the chance.
The next morning, the two left earlier than usual — they had already told Li Tie’s group about it. Driving to the police outpost where Lieutenant Ding had been stationed, they soon found him just arriving.
“Vegetables? You grew them yourselves?” Lieutenant Ding asked in surprise, looking the two young men over. No matter how he looked at them… they just didn’t seem like the type who’d know how to farm!
Even though Li Tie’s group had mentioned wanting to grow crops before, Lieutenant Ding hadn’t taken it seriously. He’d only offered them a few encouraging words when he saw their preparations looked somewhat proper, thinking, Well, what if they actually succeed?
But he hadn’t expected that the first ones to contact him wouldn’t be Li Tie’s group — it would be these two, both looking refined and educated, especially Yan Fei, who had “rich young master” practically written on his face. They could farm?
Realizing the reason for the lieutenant’s skepticism, Luo Xun secretly shot Yan Fei a glare and smiled as he explained, “I’m mainly the one growing them. Before the apocalypse, after we bought our apartment, I noticed the lighting was really good. I’ve always liked growing things, so I experimented with planting some vegetables and even stocked up on a few packets of seeds. Lately, we’ve had a bit of an overharvest — more than we can eat. We didn’t want it to spoil, and we thought… since the army’s rations haven’t included any fresh greens for a long time, maybe you could use some.”
Lieutenant Ding knew that everyone living on their floor worked in the military, so Luo Xun’s comment about army rations didn’t surprise him. He chuckled. “I can help pass the word along. As for the price, we’ll have to wait for confirmation. But tell me — can you keep up a stable supply?”
Then he glanced around, lowered his voice, and asked, “When you were growing the vegetables… did anything seem off?”
Luo Xun and Yan Fei exchanged a look, guessing he was referring to mutated plants. Luo Xun leaned in and replied quietly, “Some of them did look strange — odd colors, weird shapes, and a few even gave off gray mist. We got spooked and burned them all as soon as we saw that.”
(Not all of them, of course. The ones that were safe enough to reuse had been carefully transplanted elsewhere — but that was something they couldn’t mention yet.)
Lieutenant Ding breathed a sigh of relief and nodded quickly. “That’s right — if you find anything unusual, deal with it immediately. I’ve heard those things can be quite a problem once they grow. If you’ve got normal crops with no mutations, the army will definitely be interested. Let’s do this — come by again after work this afternoon or tomorrow morning, and I’ll let you know once I’ve got news.”
“We should be able to get here around four in the afternoon,” Luo Xun said.
“Perfect. Come by then — I’ll inform you once I hear back.”
“Oh, right, Lieutenant Ding,” Luo Xun added. “Could you mention to them that, if possible, we’d like to be paid in crystal cores for the vegetables?”
Lieutenant Ding blinked, then quickly remembered that Yan Fei was an ability user. He smiled. “Sure, I’ll tell them.”
After wrapping up the vegetable sale discussion, Luo Xun and Yan Fei drove on to the military base, where another half-day of busy work awaited them.
It wasn’t until their afternoon break that they managed to pull their team captain aside to ask about the solar panels.
“Oh right, you two live outside the base!” Captain Guo slapped his forehead with a grin. “That announcement was actually for the families living near the barracks — but of course, you’re eligible too! Come with me to logistics later… and while we’re there, we can update your records.”
Luo Xun and Yan Fei exchanged another look, both showing a trace of helplessness. They’d originally planned to handle that later — but since the captain had brought it up, they couldn’t exactly refuse.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Yan Fei murmured quietly into Luo Xun’s ear. Worst case, he could just fudge some details. Thankfully, he’d already studied Luo Xun’s personal file and was ready to modify his own to match it if needed. Even if someone noticed, he could claim his ID had been lost and the number was mixed up somewhere. After all, his wonderful parents weren’t exactly dying to find him again.
Following Captain Guo, they soon arrived at a large, bustling building within the base. Several service windows lined the main hall, each with a small queue of soldiers in front of it.
Remembering that they’d also promised to meet Lieutenant Ding later about the vegetable deal, Luo Xun could only pray that this paperwork wouldn’t take too long.
Fortunately, the process wasn’t too complicated, and the line moved quickly — there were plenty of windows open for updating personal information, and the crowd wasn’t too large today. Before long, it was their turn.
Luo Xun went first. As he sat down and started filling out the form, he realized why so many soldiers were here updating their files — some, like him, were just completing their records, but many were here to register missing family members.
There was even a section on the form asking: “Do you have any family members you urgently wish to locate?” followed by fields for their names, last known locations, and other details.
Whether or not the military could actually find those people didn’t really matter. Just having such an option gave these lonely soldiers a bit of comfort — maybe, someday, a mission would take them to where their families were, and they might be able to bring them back.
Luo Xun stared quietly at that line, sighed inwardly, and wrote “None.”
Family… he hadn’t had any for a long time. And friends? After ten long years in his previous life, he could barely even remember his old neighbors’ faces — much less classmates or colleagues from before the end.
Since his parents’ deaths and dropping out of college, Luo Xun had never contacted a single old friend again. And no one had ever tried to contact him, either.
Seeing his subdued expression as he finished filling out the form, Yan Fei didn’t know exactly what had made him sad, but he reached over and gently squeezed Luo Xun’s hand in reassurance before sitting down himself.
When the clerk pulled up his personal data using his phone number and ID tag, he gestured at the screen. “This is your record, right?”
Yan Fei froze for a second, then nodded after a moment. “Yes.”
“Good. Then please fill out this form.”
Taking the form and glancing at the information displayed on the screen, not only Yan Fei but even Luo Xun — who had just filled out his own personal data — felt as if thunder were rumbling in their heads.
After the apocalypse, vast amounts of records were lost, and personal data became a complete mess. Earlier registrations had mostly been done manually, and the ID tags they received after joining the base were filled out by hand with only basic info like name and age. Later, when their tags were replaced, Captain Guo simply handed them numbered ones — no names, no personal details — so they’d never actually known what information those numbers were tied to.
And as for their phone SIM cards? Captain Guo had brought those over too, with no clear details written anywhere. But now, they finally realized just how inaccurate the information inside really was.
For example, Luo Xun’s name, which was Luo Xun, had somehow been entered as Luo Xu, and his age mysteriously changed from twenty-two to twenty — two years younger for no reason at all. So when he saw it, he casually asked the staff to correct it. But after that, when they looked at Yan Fei’s information… the earlier mistakes suddenly seemed trivial!
Yan Fei’s name had turned into Yang Fei, his age was listed as “unknown,” and his birthplace had been randomly filled in as F City — something Captain Guo must have said offhand.
So Yan Fei, ever resourceful, simply went along with it and modified all of his personal information to fit the new identity. He left the age as-is and kept the computer’s version of his name, wrote Luo Xun’s home address as his pre-apocalypse residence, and even based his new ID number on Luo Xun’s — only changing the province-city digits in the middle.
Would someone ever find out this number was fake? Who cared! The old national data system had long since been lost; no one had time to cross-check records anymore. And even if someone did find it someday… well, people were allowed to forget things or lose their IDs in the apocalypse, weren’t they?
After both of them finished filling out the forms and stepped away, Luo Xun immediately pulled a pen and scrap of paper from his pocket and whispered, “Hurry up and write down all the info from just now before you forget it!”
Yan Fei chuckled and pulled out his sturdy, shock-proof phone. “I’ll just save it here — your pen and paper are too conspicuous.”
Luo Xun thought about it and quickly put the paper away but still reminded him, “Then make sure you write it down again at home later, just in case the phone gets lost and you forget everything…”
“Got it. I’ll write it down once we’re back,” Yan Fei said, typing a note with all the details he’d just made up. After that, the two went to find Captain Guo.
When he saw them coming, Captain Guo immediately gestured to the man beside him. “This is Captain Wang — he’s in charge of logistics and external sales. Just tell him how many panels you need.”
Luo Xun and Yan Fei quickly smiled, greeting him warmly and chatting to build rapport. Captain Wang was on the plump side — not quite as round as He Qiankun, but easily one and a half times Luo Xun’s size. Noticing that impressive belly, Yan Fei casually took out half a pack of cigarettes to offer along the way.
Sure enough, the moment Captain Wang saw the cigarettes, his eyes crinkled with delight. He slapped his chest and said cheerfully, “Buy as many as you want! As long as you’ve got enough points, no problem!”
Following him to the logistics department, the two were offered internal prices — 30 points per solar panel and 50 points per storage battery. Those were the smaller-capacity models; larger ones would cost even more. Still, the prices were far lower than what would later be charged to outsiders. Captain Wang explained that once official external sales began, these prices would at least double — for now, the discount was just a perk for internal staff.
Luo Xun and Yan Fei exchanged a glance, both feeling a little pained. Money (or rather, points) never seemed to last long. They hadn’t spent much recently — the points Luo Xun earned earlier, plus what they made repairing the wall, were all still in their pockets. Aside from the few they’d spent on light tubes at the market, they still had about seven or eight hundred points left.
But when they did the math, it turned out that wouldn’t buy them much at all.
They bought a few panels and batteries matching the specs of what they already had at home, and just like that, over five to six hundred points were gone. Heart aching, they loaded everything into the car, sighing heavily as they started the drive back.
Only after they passed the police outpost did they suddenly remember their morning appointment with Lieutenant Ding — and hurriedly turned the car around to head back.
“He’s not here?” Luo Xun froze for a moment to confirm. “He didn’t leave any message?”
“No, nothing. He hasn’t come back this afternoon either,” the soldier on duty replied, clearly just as clueless about Lieutenant Ding’s whereabouts.
Luo Xun returned to the car, turned it around, and headed back home. “Since he didn’t come back at noon either, let’s just go home for now and deal with it tomorrow morning.”
The matter of selling vegetables wasn’t particularly urgent anyway. Although their vegetables at home were growing well, it wasn’t yet time for a large harvest. They still needed a lot of crystal nuclei for Yan Fei’s use, but between what they had left and what they earned daily from working with the military, they’d be able to gather enough in a few more days.
Once home, the two went straight to their room. Yan Fei sat on the sofa, training his ability while absorbing crystal nuclei, while Luo Xun rummaged through boxes looking for parts to improve the distillation setup — the empty bathroom and kitchen next door still hadn’t been properly used, and it would be a waste not to make use of those water pipes.
He placed a large glass jar on the kitchen counter to collect and settle water, assembled a manual distillation unit next to it, and prepared a sealed container to store the distilled water. Once the kitchen setup was done, he was about to make another one for the bathroom when he suddenly heard someone knocking on the door.
Yan Fei, who was still absorbing nuclei, immediately put down the metal he was holding and got up. The two of them quietly approached the partitioned door and peered outside — and heard Lieutenant Ding’s voice.
He actually came here himself?
They quickly opened the door to greet him and found Lieutenant Ding standing in the stairwell with two officers who clearly held some rank.
“Oh, I figured you’d be home around this time,” Lieutenant Ding said with a grin, then introduced the others. “These two are in charge of food safety and canteen procurement. This is Captain Li, and this is Professor Xu.”
From the titles alone, it was easy to tell who handled procurement and who was the food safety expert.
Professor Xu was noticeably older, looking to be around forty or fifty, while Captain Li was a bit younger.
Luo Xun and Yan Fei quickly invited them in. Hearing that they wanted to inspect their crop-growing setup, they led them straight into unit 1603. Of course, Yan Fei walked ahead while Luo Xun deliberately lagged behind a few steps, exchanging a few polite words and casual questions in the hallway before bringing them inside.
Sure enough, the heavy iron door in the living room no longer looked like a door at all — Yan Fei had just finished coating the entire wall with a thin layer of silvery steel, seamlessly covering it. No one would ever guess there was a hidden door there.
As soon as the three guests stepped inside, their attention was immediately drawn to the rows of shelving units in the room; none of them even noticed the disguised wall.
“These are… for planting vegetables, right?” Professor Xu adjusted his glasses, examined one of the racks, and even gave it a light tap. “Not bad — where did you get these? Pretty sturdy.”
Captain Li, meanwhile, had sharp eyes and quickly noticed the half-filled planters near the balcony, where rows of leafy green vegetables were thriving. He hurried over, calling out, “Professor Xu! Come take a look — these are normal, non-mutated plants, aren’t they?!”
In both the logistics department and the farming units within the base, they’d tried planting vegetables before, but the survival and mutation rates were downright depressing. Yet these lush, vibrant greens before them… this was what real food looked like! How long had it been since they’d eaten proper leafy vegetables? Day after day of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams — they were all about to turn into tubers themselves!
Professor Xu hurried over as well, adjusting his glasses to inspect them closely.
Lieutenant Ding, on the other hand, was more curious about something else. “You’re planning to use this entire space for planting?” He knew Luo Xun and Yan Fei usually lived next door, so it looked like they were turning this whole apartment into a greenhouse.
Yan Fei smiled and nodded. “The two of us don’t need such a big place anyway. We even thought about renting it out, but after what happened in the base last time — well, you know — we decided to just use it for growing instead. The crops grow fine, but we’re not sure where to sell them later.”
Lieutenant Ding chuckled and patted his arm. “That shouldn’t be a problem. From the looks of it, your vegetables are perfectly fine. Once the professor confirms it, anything extra you can’t eat yourselves — just send it straight to the military canteen.”
Meanwhile, Professor Xu was practically glowing with excitement as he grabbed Luo Xun’s arm and asked urgently, “What’s the mutation rate? And how do you deal with the mutated ones?”
Luo Xun could only reply helplessly, “If they look too strange, we just burn them. We’re afraid of something going wrong if we eat them. You probably know — some plants come out red or blue, looking downright poisonous. How could we dare keep those? As for the mutation rate… I think it’s pretty good? Out of ten plants, maybe one or two mutate?”
He had barely finished speaking when both men gasped. “That’s impossible!”
Captain Li and Professor Xu exchanged wide-eyed looks. “You mean one or two out of ten mutate — not one or two out of ten survive normally?”
Luo Xun took a half-step back. He was honestly surprised too — their mutation rate was even lower than what he’d seen in his previous life, though he still didn’t understand why. “Yes, only one or two mutate.”
“What kind of water and fertilizer are you using?” Professor Xu pressed urgently.
“Distilled water and some premade soluble fertilizer I bought for growing flowers before the apocalypse…” Luo Xun pointed at a bag of professional-grade fertilizer nearby.
There wasn’t anything special about it. But Professor Xu’s eyes fell on the buckets beside the racks and the small oxygen pump tubes running into them. Something clicked in his mind. “Show me your distillation equipment.”
Thankfully, Luo Xun had just finished assembling the setup in the kitchen, with some freshly filtered water still sitting there — perfect for demonstration, without needing to bring them into their private living quarters next door.
He led the group into the kitchen and explained his distillation process — one extra sedimentation step and one extra round of distillation compared to the usual. Although it lowered efficiency, if this really was the key to reducing mutation rates, then adding more steps was well worth it.
Professor Xu collected water and vegetable samples to take back for testing, then asked, “During planting, have you noticed anything with a particularly high mutation rate?”
Luo Xun suddenly remembered the logs covered in mushrooms in the greenhouse. “Yes! The mushrooms. They’ve never grown normally.”
“Mushrooms? You’re even growing mushrooms?!” Lieutenant Ding choked on his own saliva, coughing for quite a while before catching his breath again.
Luo Xun smiled. “Before the apocalypse, I bought some white shimeji and enoki mushroom spores online to try growing them myself — they were supposed to be cleaner and tastier than store-bought ones. But then the apocalypse hit. Last time I went outside the base, I brought back a few logs to try cultivating them… but, well—”
He trailed off as he led the group into the newly renovated room filled with mushroom logs.
The batch of possibly poisonous mushrooms from last time had already been completely destroyed by Yan Fei. In the past two days, only a few tiny ones had started to poke out again—it really did look like he was just idly cultivating them to observe the situation.
Professor Xu stepped forward, the lenses of his glasses flashing sharply as he leaned closer and plucked two small mushrooms from the log. “I’ll take these back for testing.”
After collecting the samples, everyone exchanged phone numbers, and only then did the visitors leave, looking quite satisfied.
Seeing them off, Luo Xun finally let out a long sigh of relief. “Good thing I worked fast earlier—and even luckier that we finished setting everything up here in time.”
Yan Fei smiled and gently rubbed his soft hair. “Want me to help you with the rest?”
Luo Xun quickly pushed him toward what appeared to be the metal wall. “Go back to your training. If I run into anything I can’t handle, I’ll call you.”
And so, one continued absorbing crystal nuclei, while the other continued crafting various tools.
Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉
