Chapter 20: Abandoning the Plan

Chapter 20: Abandoning the Plan

The large dining hall was still slowly draining, leaving the floor damp and the air thick with the smell of chicken blood and the foul stench of the zombie.

Zhou Yun waded through the water, mask on and latex gloves covering his hands, carrying a steak knife. He walked up to the zombie’s corpse, grabbed its head, and deftly sliced open the zombie’s brain.

He carefully probed inside with the knife and extracted a tiny, dark red core—a fire psychic core. No wonder the zombie hated water.

The core was so small that it hadn’t been damaged by the steel arrows and remained intact, though it was only the size of a fingernail.

This was quite a surprise. In the early days, most zombies had gray, unattributed cores. This security guard must have had a strong constitution, but even that couldn’t save him from the red mist.

However, the fire psychic core wasn’t useful to them at the moment. He had a dual affinity for wood and water psychic powers, and although Guan Yuanfeng had awakened fire psychic abilities in his previous life, he had severe rejection reactions to it. So the fire psychic core was out of the question... Comet, though, should be tested.

Zhou Yun picked up the core, put it in a sealed bag, and stuffed it into his pocket. Frowning, he used a garbage bag to pack up the corpse and dragged it to the viewing balcony on the side of the restaurant.

The sun was setting behind the distant mountains, and the green hills stood unchanged, as if the apocalypse hadn’t happened at all. The strong gusts of wind quickly dispersed the rotting smell of the zombie.

Zhou Yun threw the zombie’s corpse down, watching it fall to the ground below with a heavy "thud," as a horde of zombies swarmed over it.

They greedily gnawed on the rotting limbs of their own kind. Even from the vantage point of the 20th floor, the sight of those densely packed zombies was unsettling.

After disposing of the zombie corpse, Zhou Yun removed his gloves and began to inspect the spoils of the restaurant.

It had indeed been a good decision to secure the restaurant first. There were still plenty of seafood, various vegetables, fruits, and food supplies inside. There were freezers, warehouses, some cashier computers, ledgers, printing paper, notebooks, and even a backup diesel generator, likely to prevent power outages that could spoil the ingredients.

He picked a radish from the pile, washed it, and took a bite. Fresh, crisp, and sweet, it was really nice.

He circled the room, jotting down notes on the usable equipment and snapping photos of the inventory. Then he approached the wall of active fish tanks.

In the blue seawater tanks, the ozone machine was still running. The fish inside, unaware of the impending apocalypse, swam leisurely.

But Zhou Yun knew that soon, the power and water supply outside would be cut off. Although the restaurant had a backup power source, it wouldn’t last long without external support.

However, once his psychic powers leveled up and he gained offensive abilities, he could consider collecting gasoline from the remaining vehicles in the neighborhood.

His wood and water psychic powers had almost no offensive capability in the early stages. It would be nearly impossible to eliminate the zombies in the neighborhood, so for now, he could only hunker down on the top floor.

Therefore, the seafood here couldn’t be kept for long. He would need to try and preserve the mutated fish for as long as possible and maintain a seawater environment.

Fortunately, mutated animals had incredibly strong survival abilities. He only needed to keep the mutated sea fish and gradually consume the non-mutated seafood over the next few days.

He reached out and only touched the especially lively and fierce fish. With just a bit of water energy, he could sense the power resonance and determine whether it was a mutated fish. Sure enough, he quickly identified eighteen mutated fish, including fish, shrimp, crabs, and shellfish, of various sizes.

Indeed, marine life was more prone to mutation.

Saltwater fish were hard to maintain, especially in the apocalypse, where changing the tank water would be nearly impossible.

But mutated saltwater fish were a different story. They had far greater survival abilities than regular fish.

Zhou Yun scooped out a mutated crab and sliced it open with a small knife. Animal mutation cores were sometimes found in the brain, and sometimes in the heart.

The sea crab wasn’t very large and was easily cut open.

Zhou Yun raised his eyebrows and pushed aside the rich crab roe. Inside, he saw a crystal-clear blue core, very small but just right for someone who had recently awakened wood and water psychic powers.

He held the core in his palm, closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened his hand again. The core had been completely absorbed, vanishing without a trace.

The core in his lower abdomen felt like it had grown slightly.

In the early days, psychics used cores to enhance their abilities with very noticeable effects, which sparked a minor trend of hunting zombies.

However, after reaching the third tier, the improvements from cores became minimal and ineffective.

At the time, people believed that individual physical condition influenced their ability ceiling.

Yet, he believed it was related to the resilience of the body's meridians. If one didn’t pay attention to expanding the meridians at the beginning but instead blindly used cores for enhancement, their psychic abilities would quickly reach their limit. The body could no longer accommodate more psychic power, making it impossible to further enhance their abilities.

Because he had studied traditional medicine, he was very familiar with the human body's meridians and acupoints. After gaining his psychic powers, he tried to improve his meridian resilience through acupuncture, massage, adjusting breathing, and practicing qi in meditation. By steadily strengthening his meridians and with the complementary support of his dual affinity for wood and water psychic powers, he was able to successfully advance to become a fifth-tier wood and water dual psychic.

However, in his past life, he focused on developing a zombie antidote and crop enhancers, so his understanding of psychic activation was self-explored.

This method couldn't be verified as universally applicable, so he originally planned to recruit some volunteers and students to conduct clinical trials and systematically summarize the theory.

In the end, he didn’t have time to organize his findings before being falsely accused and imprisoned. Fortunately, he didn’t write it down, or else those people would have benefited from it.

Satisfied, he grabbed another plastic bag, picked a mutated shrimp, and put it in the bag. Then he returned to his rooftop and threw the mutated shrimp into the electric eel pool. The once lively and fierce shrimp, with its sharp claws, was immediately stunned on the water surface by a shock from the electric eel.

The eel seemed to know that it was something different from the usual fish food. It swam over, opened its mouth to swallow the shrimp, and then slowly retreated into the shady area of the rockery, where it remained motionless.

Zhou Yun knew it would take some time to absorb the core, and the time required would be even longer for different attributes, so he planned to feed it one a day, nurturing it slowly.

The core inside this electric eel would grow rapidly in the short term. The growth of mutated animals was more direct and faster than that of humans.

Satisfied, he watched the motionless eel suspended in the water. He then prepared the bucket of crabs for dinner, steaming four large ones and pan-frying the mutated crab after cleaning it, then stir-frying it with chili and fermented soybeans for a crispy and fragrant dish.

Food made from mutated plants and animals was greatly beneficial to the body.

Zhou Yun contentedly made a radish and shellfish soup and went to check on Guan Yuanfeng to see if he was feeling better.

Since the zombie infestation at the front door, they had been using the rooftop for access. He brought his acupuncture kit, intending to check on Guan Yuanfeng and give him a few needles if he was still unwell.

As he descended from the rooftop and reached the door, Comet walked over and affectionately circled around his legs. He overheard Guan Yuanfeng on the phone, “Thank you, you will always be my old captain, but boarding the ship is out of the question. I am a cripple now, and it’s not worth wasting precious spots and resources on me.”

Upon hearing the word “captain” in his conversation, Zhou Yun stopped in his tracks. In Guan Yuanfeng’s past life, his teammates had come to find him, so it seemed that his teammates had contacted him this time.

“Boarding the ship” referred to the Mars Ark project. The construction of human survival bases on Mars had been ongoing for over a hundred years, and there had been successful breakthroughs in solving issues like fresh water, oxygen shields, and biological cultivation in Martian soil.

When the apocalypse hit Blue Star, and the zombie outbreak occurred, psychic abilities had not yet been widely discovered. Various countries quickly implemented strategies to organize the surviving humans to evacuate Blue Star and head to Mars bases.

Leading nations took the initiative and successively organized five giant spaceships to carry survivors to the Mars bases. The remaining population on Blue Star rapidly decreased and perished amidst the zombie hordes.

The humans left on Blue Star quickly fell to their deaths if they were weak, and the good-hearted struggled to survive. The corrupt drove out the virtuous.

Culture was lost, technology regressed, industry stagnated, society fragmented, and civilization collapsed. Former national governments, social order, laws, and moral standards all disintegrated, leaving nothing but the primal law of the jungle.

As psychics were gradually discovered, they began to team up to kill zombies and seek ways to become stronger, gathering at safe points and building survival bases.

Scattered and isolated survival bases became the places where people clung together for survival on Blue Star.

In Zhou Yun’s past life, until his death, there had been no news from the Mars bases. Of course, it was also possible that their technological level had regressed too much to receive any messages from Mars or to explore the universe.

Since the apocalypse began, the humans on Blue Star had embarked on a different evolutionary path—the psychics.

It turned out that Guan Yuanfeng was also eligible to board the ship?

It was evident that his contributions were significant... In his past life, he obviously gave up, which was very much in line with his character.

But later, his remaining teammates who hadn’t left came to rescue him, knowing he was in danger.

"Is it possible to transfer my spot? I have a doctor friend who has helped me a lot. He has excellent medical skills and a specialty in acupuncture. He would definitely contribute if he were to go on the ship. I can transfer my spot to him."

Zhou Yun raised an eyebrow, but Guan Yuanfeng didn’t say anything more. He was probably explaining the situation.

Guan Yuanfeng repeated in a low voice, "I understand. Since the spots are limited and can't be transferred, I'll give up my place for someone who needs it more. It's okay, I understand."

"I'm very safe now, and I have food and water, as well as reliable partners. Please don't worry; there’s no need for them to risk coming here."

"Getting a signal is difficult, and we may never speak again. I’ll always be grateful for everything you’ve taught me and the care you’ve shown. I wish you a safe journey and hope you find a new future for humanity."

By the end of his words, Guan Yuanfeng’s voice cracked with emotion. Zhou Yun watched from the doorway as Guan Yuanfeng wiped his eyes and said, "Goodbye, old captain. You’ll always be my captain, and I’ll never forget the time we spent together."

Guan Yuanfeng hung up the phone and looked out the window at the orange-red sunset. His usually straight back now curved slightly, and his figure seemed smaller and lonelier against the setting sun.