Chapter 98 — Thieves
The wall-building team ignored the crowd of onlookers outside and focused on their work. Before long, the two ability users who had gone to help at the factory returned by vehicle and rejoined the wall repairs. It wasn’t until the noon break, when everyone sat down to eat, that they finally had time to chat.
“…They’ve converted the nearby banks and large shopping malls into factories, and they’ve hauled in a ton of equipment too! They say they’ll start recruiting and begin production before long!” Xiao Li said as he shoveled food into his mouth.
“What kind of factories are they?” the others asked curiously.
“Seems like there are textile machines?”
“I heard there are machines for making instant noodles too!”
“I only recognize textile machines. They’re not recruiting yet, though…”
Luo Xun suddenly asked in confusion, “Textile machines… do we even have raw materials for making cloth in the base right now?”
Everyone fell silent. They exchanged uncertain looks before someone said, “Maybe they collected some from the city?” At present, the farmland was all planted with grain crops. Even after this harvest, they would plant something else edible rather than cotton or other non-food crops. Quite a few of the soldiers came from farming families, and with a little thought, they all understood the issue Luo Xun had raised.
Luo Xun knew that in the base, the textile factory hadn’t been fully reorganized until around the third year after the apocalypse. He hadn’t heard anything about it before that.
“Heh, they can just bring the equipment back and store it for now, then use it once there’s material to make cloth,” Captain Guo laughed. “They scavenged plenty of stuff from the city before—warehouses are packed full of things that can’t be used for production yet. These machines are the same. Better to bring them back and keep them. Otherwise, when we really need them, who knows where we’d find such equipment? And even if we did find it then, who knows whether it would still work or be broken?”
So that was it. Factories without raw materials probably wouldn’t be able to start operating anytime soon…
Indeed, factories without materials couldn’t begin production in the short term—but those that did have materials could.
After being set up, several factories inside the base officially opened recruitment to base residents. In addition to the factories, the agricultural planting base also began recruiting workers.
The push for private vegetable growing had suffered a major setback inside the base last month. It wasn’t just that some households watered their plants with ordinary water out of convenience, causing mutations. Some teams had leased plots of land and used water produced by water-type ability users to irrigate their crops, only to have rival factions secretly water those plants with ordinary tap water at night, deliberately causing mutations. Others, after failing to compete for the same plot of land, deliberately sabotaged their rivals once they learned that tap water could cause plant mutations…
Several such incidents had already broken out last month. When some acts of sabotage were exposed, conflicts erupted on the spot. These clashes then escalated into open fights within the base, with both sides brawling fiercely. The incident Luo Xun and the others had seen earlier—people fighting all the way from inside a residential compound out onto the street—had been caused by exactly this.
As a result, the base had no choice but to suspend the promotion of vegetable growing. Of course, some households could still plant things on their own balconies, as long as they could ensure the plants wouldn’t mutate into those clawed, aggressive types that could injure people. Fortunately, plants that actively attacked were easy to identify at a glance—they usually emitted a gray mist and were either vividly red or bright green, making them highly recognizable.
So the military simply cleared out an area specifically for vegetable cultivation. The planting site was a fairly spacious shopping mall. Like Luo Xun’s home, it adopted a closed-management approach, using specially treated water or water produced by water-type ability users.
Although the cost was higher, it was better than having nothing at all. And while the vegetables certainly wouldn’t be enough to feed the entire base, supplying the military wouldn’t be a problem.
Luo Xun glanced at a vegetable-planting recruitment flyer and handed it to Yan Fei beside him—he had worked there for over half a year in his previous life. He then rubbed his temples as he looked at the still-crowded street ahead. “If I’d known, we wouldn’t have taken this road today.”
In recent days, many new people had arrived at the base. Both the inner and outer bases were gradually being packed full, and previously empty apartments were now all being occupied. Only now did Luo Xun understand why, in his previous life, the only option for living alone had been a basement…
“That road’s under military control now—we can’t get through anyway,” Yan Fei said with a smile, dispelling Luo Xun’s idea and earning him a resentful little look from his partner.
The other route ran alongside the farmland. With so many newcomers lately and the base becoming a mixed bag of people, some had even sneaked into the fields at night to steal grain or seeds. As a result, that entire stretch of road had been placed under martial law.
“Today we still need to deal with another batch of mushrooms. I wonder if the ones we didn’t use last month are still usable,” Luo Xun said. When they had gone out at the end of the month before last, those mushroom bombs had already shown devastating effectiveness against level-two zombies—even Li Tie and the others could take one down with five or six shots, let alone Luo Xun.
“Won’t we find out in a few days? At least when we checked the freezer two days ago, there didn’t seem to be any problems,” Yan Fei said unconcernedly. Those things were frozen, so they shouldn’t spoil that easily. And even if they couldn’t be used anymore, how many new ones had grown on the wood at home over the past month? More than enough for them to wreak havoc freely.
The two chatted as they slowly made their way home. A trip that usually took ten minutes dragged on for over half an hour today. When they finally arrived, they found… a crowd gathered watching… ahem, a live, in-person PvP fight.
Luo Xun got out of the car, his eyes widening in shock as he looked up into the air. He reflexively raised the hand crossbow he had been carrying with him the entire way—during the apocalypse, even when walking inside the base, it was best to carry a weapon for protection. And now was exactly the time to use it.
“Sister Xu! What’s going on?!” Luo Xun shouted. The circle of onlookers standing below all froze for a moment and hurriedly turned to look at the newly arrived vehicle.
On the sixteenth floor where Luo Xun and the others lived, two people were hanging in midair. One was clearly a wind-type ability user; the other was farther away and hadn’t activated any ability yet, so it was hard to tell. These two were suspended outside, facing off against Xu Mei and Song Lingling, who had opened the windows and were hurling fireballs outward.
Hearing Luo Xun’s voice, Song Lingling immediately shouted down, “Thieves! They were trying to saw through our windows!!”
Apparently, the group had assumed that no one would be home on the fifteenth and sixteenth floors during the day, and so they’d boldly come to steal. The solar panels hanging outside Luo Xun’s windows weren’t very conspicuous, but if someone paid close attention—or used binoculars—they could still be identified, especially now that the base was vigorously promoting solar-powered equipment.
After all, hadn’t even the solar panels on the newly installed streetlights along the main roads been stolen clean? Let alone the ones hanging outside Luo Xun’s windows?
Seeing the wind-type ability user—clearly already level two—using the airflow to adjust his position in midair and avoid Xu Mei’s attacks, as well as the ice-type ability user hanging beside him on a rope who, upon realizing the household had companions returning, panicked and began hurling ice blades at Xu Mei and Song Lingling, Luo Xun was so angry he laughed.
“Sister Xu, don’t hold back. If they die, they deserve it!”
Before his words had even finished, the crossbow in his hand shot upward. Despite the distance of sixteen floors, the bolt showed no sign of losing speed as it flew, slamming straight into the ice-type ability user who had just fired ice blades and shattered the glass of room 1503.
“Aaagh—!”
The scream startled the wind-type ability user beside him. In his panic, he forgot to use his wind ability to stabilize them, and the inertia of the rope swung both of them toward Xu Mei’s position.
“Boom! Boom!”
Two huge fireballs shot toward them. Xu Mei had indeed been holding back earlier, since it was a busy time of day and she worried that killing someone might cause trouble for everyone. But now that Luo Xun had said it was fine—kill them if needed—why should she hold back any longer?
Thup, thup. Two more bolts flew out, accurately severing the ropes suspending the two men. Engulfed in flames, screaming, they plunged toward the ground.
Yan Fei calmly took out his phone and dialed a number.
“Second Lieutenant Ding? We ran into two thieves on our way back… Yes, at Hongjing Residential Compound. They smashed our team’s windows trying to steal things and scared our two female teammates badly… You could say they’ve been caught. They were hanging outside the windows—rope didn’t seem very sturdy. Right, they’ve already fallen. Both of them… uh, might still have a breath left. Please send someone to deal with it.”
Several people standing nearby subconsciously took a couple of steps back after hearing his casual tone. Killing two ability users was one thing—and killing people inside the base wasn’t considered a big deal these days—but killing them and then calmly calling someone to “deal with it”… That wasn’t a reaction any normal person would have.
Luo Xun’s face still showed clear anger. Seeing that the wind-type ability user had managed, at the last moment, to use his ability and avoid dying outright, Luo Xun stepped forward, raised his crossbow, and aimed it at the man.
“Which team are you from? Where are your accomplices?”
The flames on the wind-type ability user had already gone out. Though he’d reacted in time and avoided instant death, everything below his tailbone was numb—very likely crippled. His companion lay unconscious nearby, burned and battered, life or death unknown. Now, facing a crossbow with its bolt aimed straight at him, the man rolled his eyes repeatedly, wishing he could just pass out too—at least it might spare him some suffering.
After hanging up, Yan Fei stepped forward and lifted his hand. Metal he normally kept attached to the car for convenience twisted in midair, forming arrow after arrow—one by one—driving viciously into the man’s arms and thighs.
“Ah! Don’t! I’ll talk, I’ll talk!”
His whole body trembled, eyes bloodshot. Amid the pain, he turned his head and saw his companion lying nearby, burned and smashed almost beyond recognition, completely motionless. Wailing, he spilled everything—where he and the others lived, how many accomplices there were, how many had abilities, and so on.
Luo Xun raised an eyebrow slightly. He hadn’t recognized the man at first, but looking closely now, he seemed familiar from his previous life. Shortly after Luo Xun had moved here back then, these ability users had all relocated away from the area, joining an up-and-coming group formed by ability users that only recruited others like them.
Luo Xun didn’t have a deep impression of him—only that around the time he arrived, this man had been a small-time leader collecting “protection fees” on a stretch of street near the gate, before later joining a larger ability-user group. And now…
“What’s going on here?”
A vehicle stopped nearby, and Second Lieutenant Ding ran over with several soldiers responsible for patrols in the area. Seeing the blood all over the ground and the two men burned and smashed half to death, the corners of his mouth twitched.
Yan Fei pointed at the one still alive. “They tied themselves to a rope and tried to saw through the bars on our windows. When we got home, we happened to see them fall.”
“…Then who burned them?” Second Lieutenant Ding asked, struggling to keep his expression neutral as he looked at them helplessly. They already had someone like Zhang Su in their area—was there now another hot-tempered fire-type ability user?
At that moment, Xu Mei and Song Lingling came down the stairs. They hadn’t brought the little girl with them, afraid such a gruesome scene might traumatize a child.
“I did!” Xu Mei strode forward. Her beautiful features were filled with killing intent, eyes practically shooting flames as she glared at Second Lieutenant Ding. “Lingling and I were at home changing clothes! We looked up and saw these two perverts hanging outside the window! What—if someone peeps on me, I’m not allowed to set them on fire?!”
Second Lieutenant Ding took half a step back, forcing a stiff smile. “Allowed, allowed…” He quickly gestured to a few armed soldiers. “Go up and take a look—find the ropes and tools they used.”
Then he hurriedly turned to comfort the two “traumatized” women.
To be honest, ever since the apocalypse and the establishment of the safe zone, on what day hadn’t those responsible for security found corpses inside the base? Shootouts and fights were nothing new now, especially in this era where ability users were everywhere. Almost every time they heard that ability users had clashed somewhere, by the time these overworked soldiers arrived, there would already be several bodies on the ground.
If they arrested everyone, the base’s prisons would have long since overflowed. So in many cases, if no one pursued the matter and the dead party had been in the wrong, things were simply dropped—especially when the evidence was clear. That was the law of the apocalypse.
Before long, the soldiers who had gone upstairs came back down, bringing with them the ends of the ropes the two men had used to suspend themselves. As for accomplices… even if there had been any, they’d probably fled by now.
After Second Lieutenant Ding had his men load the two half-dead men into a special vehicle and take them away, Luo Xun exchanged a glance with Xu Mei. He and Yan Fei then turned and got back into the car.
Song Lingling followed Xu Mei back into the stairwell, climbing upstairs with her, and asked in a low voice, “Why did Brother Luo and the others leave?”
“The window of 1503 was smashed by those people,” Xu Mei guessed their intention and explained quietly.
“They’re going to find glass?”
Xu Mei shot her an exasperated look and poked her forehead. “They’re going to collect compensation for emotional distress!” If it were her, she’d go to those people’s lair to settle the score too. Even if she wasn’t sure how many people were there or how many had abilities, if your home got targeted once and you didn’t thoroughly strike back, anyone who came later might try stealing too—figuring they could just be careful and get away if caught. Especially the instigators hiding behind the scenes; they’d lose nothing at all.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Yan Fei looked at the flow of people outside. “Those people probably haven’t been in the base very long.”
Luo Xun nodded slightly. “But there’s no need to worry. Even though the two earlier were ability users, if there were a major power backing them, they wouldn’t have just watched while those two got stuck hanging in midair without stepping in.”
That was precisely why Luo Xun dared to go with Yan Fei. First, he’d seen that wind-type ability user before, and he had some impression of the people and location the man had just revealed. He roughly knew that several of them had indeed been part of the same group in his previous life—after all, Luo Xun himself had once been forced to pay protection fees, so he knew a bit about them.
Second, the reason those two dared to pry open windows and steal in broad daylight was partly because Luo Xun’s apartment was somewhat secluded—at the very back of the compound, with no buildings to the south. Another reason was that there were many people around now, making it easier to escape if discovered. During the day, the ambient noise was also louder; once they’d confirmed no one was home, the sound of sawing metal wouldn’t attract much attention.
People tended to react this way: if someone pried open a door and stole things late at night, even the slightest noise would draw everyone’s attention. But if the same thing happened during the day—especially now, when there were no patrols in the compound—even people inside might not pay much attention.
This group truly hadn’t been at the base long, yet in that short time they’d already stolen from several households—proof of just how “skilled” they were at this line of work.
—
Hidden among the crowd, someone watched as the half-dead wind-type ability user blurted out the location of their hideout. Then the two men turned around, got back into their car, and left the residential complex. One person panicked, ran to a corner, and hurriedly made a phone call:
“B-Boss… yes. Old Liu isn’t dead, but that new kid who uses ice is probably dead—either smashed to death outright… or maybe burned first and then smashed to death! Their captain seems to be bringing people over to our place right now!!”
—
The two of them drove into the target residential compound, parked the car, and headed straight in.
After climbing up to the third floor, they saw that the door to the target apartment was actually wooden. Luo Xun flashed Yan Fei a smug grin and raised his eyebrows, then took out a few bits of wire and tools that he’d had in his pocket for who knew how long—things that were almost useless by now. With a few quick moves, he deftly pried the door open.
Yan Fei watched him with a smile and entered the apartment together with the mass of metal floating behind him. He could actually open this kind of door himself, but since his lover wanted to show off, it was better not to expose him.
This was an old residential complex—a six-story slab building. There were quite a few people going up and down the stairs at the time. When they saw two young men entering the stairwell with a pile of metal materials floating around them, their faces turned pale. Those who had been about to go upstairs or downstairs all retreated instead. They didn’t recognize these two men, and as for the apartment they were entering… the residents who lived here naturally knew what sort of people lived nearby. Under those circumstances, no one dared to meddle.
The two entered cautiously, only to see a scene of utter chaos… yes, real chaos. Chairs and stools that couldn’t be moved easily had been knocked over, all kinds of bags were strewn everywhere, and aside from a few heavier pieces of furniture, almost everything lay scattered in disarray.
Luo Xun closed his mouth and turned to Yan Fei beside him, rather speechlessly. “We… only came over with two people, right?”
Yan Fei glanced back… uh, he’d brought a bit too much metal. It blocked the doorway so completely that the two of them couldn’t see outside at all, let alone judge whether those people had temporarily moved to another apartment or had truly fled.
“Let’s see if there’s anything useful left,” Yan Fei said helplessly, patting the crown of Luo Xun’s head. On the way here, both of them had mentally prepared themselves for a fierce fight, a full-on PK, even destroying the evidence afterward. But after arriving, all they found was an empty apartment. The feeling was really hard to put into words.
They had guessed that there were probably other accomplices present at the time, but only Luo Xun and Yan Fei had come here. Logically speaking, there should have been more people on the other side than just the two of them. And according to what the wind-type ability user had said, there were even a few other ability users here—so why run?
What Luo Xun and Yan Fei didn’t know was that although there were other ability users in that group, the two who went out to steal were the higher-level ones. Moreover, the person who had called back to warn them hadn’t explained things clearly. He’d only said, “The other side’s captain is bringing people to kill us!”—without mentioning that the captain had brought only one person with him… so why wouldn’t they run?
Luo Xun took a deep breath but still didn’t lower the crossbow in his hand. He quietly stepped into the wide-open bedroom—sure enough, there was still no one there.
About ten minutes later, Yan Fei was still directing the pile of metal he’d brought up, while Luo Xun carried several windowpanes he’d just removed. The glass in their own apartment, Room 1503, had been smashed by these people, and there was nowhere to replace it—so of course they were taking these with them!
Holding the panes, Luo Xun complained irritably, “The glass in this apartment isn’t the same size as the windows in our building!”
Yan Fei comforted him, “It’s fine. Take them back first. If worst comes to worst, we can piece something together. I remember we still have some glass adhesive at home.”
Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉
