Chapter 39

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Zhang Youhai was a businessman. On the 18th of May, 2022, he had invited a few clients to eat at Chengnang’s Amazing Aroma Restaurant when a meteor shower suddenly appeared in the sky.

He ran out to watch the meteor shower with the disorderly crowd. At that moment, the broadcast system in the streets blared, telling the citizens to not go out of their houses. Then, a storm raged, and the billboards and small cars on the street were blown into the air. Zhang Youhai and the disorderly crowd hid themselves in Amazing Aroma Restaurant.

They hid there for four or five days, but the storm still showed no signs of stopping. Numerous shattered stones and a lot of rubbish crashed against the buildings and destroyed them.

When they saw that the situation was going downhill, one man led the group into digging a tunnel to Youhui Supermarket, which was next door.

They relied on the stored food there and in the restaurant to stay in the tunnel for a month.

Many of the people in their group died of starvation, illness, or were beaten to death.

Once the storm stopped, Zhang Youhai walked out of the tunnel. His head was spinning from hunger when he saw that the entire city had been reduced to ruins. The familiar Juchao District had been destroyed by the storm.

Along with a handful of survivors, he started searching the streets for anything that could be eaten.

They soon ran into other survivors. Among them were mutants and half-orcs. He learned that while the disaster brought about destruction, it also brought about evolution. The mutants were evolved humans. Some of them had fangs, some grew tails, and some had longer fingernails. Half-orcs were about the same, but they were no longer sane. They attacked survivors and ate raw meat.

The ironfolk also soon became known to them.

The only ironfolk Zhang Youhai met before was a mechanic. He drove a Hummer and took the initiative to chase away the half-orcs on the streets.

The survivors he saved elected him as their leader, and they occupied Juchao District’s Chengnan. Zhang Youhai was one of his people. His job was to search for useful things in the ruins and hand them to the ironfolk—Wang Gen. As for Wang Gen, he was in charge of maintaining order in Chengnan.

After he chased away the half-orcs, he hunted the evolved beasts that occasionally wandered into Chengnan from the village. The evolved beasts were the same as mutants and half-orcs, just that they were evolved animals rather than humans.

The days might have been a little hard, but at least they managed to survive.

But soon, another storm came. Chengnan was submerged, and many survivors died. There was also a crisis brought by the lack of food. Wang Gen, who was originally an amiable man, started asking for an exorbitant amount of protection fees from the survivors. He forced the survivors to hunt fierce mutated fish who swam over from Chaohu.

Once the thunderstorm ended, the flood went away. But soon, another group of people arrived in Chengnan. They were Dragon Slayers, and they came from the main city area across Yuxi River. As for why they came up with that name? Apparently, they saw a dragon before, and their attention was focused solely on killing it.

This group consisted of three mutants. Their leader was Zhang Tianshen, and he was very strong. They fought against Wang Gen and his group a few times before, but they never managed to defeat Wang Gen, so they were chased out of Chengnan. Zhang

Tianshen could not accept his defeat, so he stationed his group at the outskirts of Chengnan and started collecting a “scavenging tax”.

Zhang Youhai had gone around asking before and learned that Zhang Tianshen had actually killed, raped and done all sorts of bad things in Juchao District. It was the reason why his group was chased out by the firefighters who were sent to maintain order in Juchao District.

Soon, another group of mutants arrived, and they called themselves the Secret Organization. Their leader was probably a male otaku who was corrupted by Japanese manga, because he called himself Leader of the Secret Organization, while his real name was unknown. His lackeys, too, referred to him as Leader.

They said that they had come to take revenge for their dead brothers and wished to destroy Dragon Slayers. Since the day they showed up, they had been fighting against Dragon Slayers.

*****

“The amount of food in Chengnan is reducing, but Big Brother Wang Gen is demanding us to hand in our protection tax every day. That’s why we thought about coming out to scavenge for food. Usually, once we hand in the scavenging tax to Zhang Tianshen, he doesn’t cause us trouble,” Zhang Haiyou explained everything to Shen Cong honestly while leaning against the wall of the truck.

Shen Cong stood by the side and quickly absorbed as well as digested the information. Then, he asked, “What’re the origins of the firefighters from Juchao District?”

“I don’t know. There’s a river separating us, and there are people guarding it to prevent anyone from crossing over. We don’t communicate much with the main city area. We just know that they are the regular army who are designated at Hefei.”

“Then how much do you know about Hefei?”

“I heard from others that it’s where the provincial army was stationed. They managed to survive, and when the thunderstorm came, the provincial army zone sent people over to Juchao District to gather most of the mutants and ironfolk. Before they left, they tasked a group of firefighters to be in charge of the public security in Juchao District. After the thunderstorm, they never came into contact with us again.”

Shen Cong then had another question. “Have you never thought about contacting the people outside the area?”

“This should be something for Big Brother Wang Gen, Zhang Tianshen, and the other evolved people to do, right? We can’t even fill our stomachs. Even if we want to do this, we don’t have the ability to do it,” Zhang Youhai answered with a bitter smile.

After he finished speaking, he sighed with a very complicated expression. “The world has come to an end. If you’re not an evolved human, you have to live like a dog— No, your life is even worse than a dog’s.”

Shen Cong ignored his grumbles. Instead, he silently came up with an image of the situation in Juchao District.

Juchao District treated Yuxi River as its border, and it was split into two parts—the main city and Chengnan.

The firefighters were tasked by the provincial army to be in charge of the public security in the main city. As for Chengnan, it was basically Wang Gen’s territory. Then, wandering outside these areas were two groups of mutants—Dragon Slayers and the Secret Organization. Most of the survivors relied on scavenging to survive, but they had to pay protection and scavenging taxes.

Shen Cong also learned the structure of the three forces of Chengnan.

Wang Gen was an ironfolk. He had an accountant named Tao Daqian, who was a mutant, working for him. He also had another mutant named Da Haizi among his people The others were all normal people. They had two submachine guns, a few handguns, a number of crossbows, and a few bonemetal weapons.

“What are bonemetal weapons?” Shen Cong asked in puzzlement.

Zhang Youhai answered straight away. “They’re weapons made from the evolved beasts’ bonemetal… Ah, bonemetal is the metal transformed from the evolved beasts’ bones. Bro, I saw bonemetal on your metal just now… Are you an evolved human as well?”

Bonemetal and Activity core.

Shen Cong immediately understood that they were the same thing, but named differently. Compared to bonemetal though, he felt that it was easier referring to them as Activity cores. Of course, this was not the main point of the entire thing. The main point was that the survivors had already mastered the abilities of the Activity cores and used them to create bonemetal weapons.

3Perhaps the bonemetal weapons created from Activity cores could not compare to modern weapons for the time being, but there was no doubt that bonemetal weapons were stronger than firearms in certain areas.

*****

Wang Gen had the greatest force in Chengnan. Ranked below him were Dragon Slayers and the Secret Organization.

Dragon Slayers’ leader was Zhang Tianshen, a mutant. His second-in-command was Wu Wenjun, another mutant. The third-in-command was also a mutant, and he was known as Wang Dong. They had around ten lackeys under them, a few handguns, and bonemetal weapons.

“Zhang Tianshen… The name sure sounds arrogant.” Shen Cong only gave this compliment after some time had passed.

Zhang Youhai nodded in agreement and said, “That’s his nickname. No one knows his true name.”

In TV series, people with this sort of name or nickname were basically mobs and could not live past even one episode.

Of course, the leader of the Secret Organization from “Konoha Village” [1] had a nickname that was about the same as Zhang Tianshen’s nickname. But according to Zhang Youhai, the leader of the Secret Organization, who was heavily corrupted by Japanese manga, was very strong. He was the only mutant in the Secret Organization, but he was able to continuously cause trouble for Dragon Slayers. Clearly, he was not a useless otaku.

‘Did the evolution from Activity release the desires in their hearts, and it led to one of them calling himself Tianshen and the other anointing himself the leader of the Secret Organization?’

Shen Cong thought about it but found himself unable to agree to that theory. He had trembled in fear and did not dare to relax even in the slightest on his way.

This was perhaps the difference between him and the other evolved humans when it came to their attitude toward the post-apocalyptic world.

When Zhang Youhai noticed Shen Cong’s silence, he could not help but smile in a flattering manner and say, “Bro, I’ve already told you all that I know. Could you let me go? I haven’t picked up enough items to cover my taxes today.”

“Okay.”

Shen Cong had already obtained the information he wanted, so there was no need for him to keep the man around. “I’ll release you, and I’ll also give you some resources. Treat it as the fee for the information. I’ll send you to the street later, and it won’t be too far away from your teammates. Stand there and don’t move. Count to ten in your heart before you shout for help.”

And hence, ten minutes later, the scavenging team who was looking for resources in the area while searching for Zhang Youhai heard his cry for help.

Then, under Old Lee’s lead, the six people ran over to untie Zhang Youhai and remove his blindfold. Old Lee glared at Zhang Youhai in great displeasure.

“Young Zhang, what’s with you? What happened? Who kidnapped you? Did you run into other scavenging teams? We’ve been searching for you for an hour! Huh? What’s that you’re carrying? Is that… meat from an evolved beast?”

“Hush. Say no more. Let’s go back to the camp as soon as possible.” Zhang Youhai tugged at Old Lee’s arm.

Old Lee sensed something and immediately made his team keep quiet. The people instinctively hid the bundle Zhang Youhai carried on his back. They avoided the scavenging teams that might be in the area and returned to the tattered tent located at the north of the town.

It was at that moment that Old Lee and the others started talking at once and demanded answers. “Young Zhang, hurry up and tell us what happened.”

Zhang Youhai took things with stride and flicked off the dust at his sleeves. He grinned smugly. “Everyone, I ran into an important person today!”

As he spoke, he slowly unfolded the bundle he carried in his arms after he removed it from his back.

Immediately, a large piece of meat and a small bag of medicine was revealed before the group.

“That’s a huge piece of meat! And it hasn’t gone bad yet!” one of the female teammates instantly shouted. Then, she remembered herself and quickly covered her mouth.

Old Lee did not look at the meat. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the medicine. “Amoxicillin, ‎cephalosporins, dexamethasone, berberine… Th-These medicine are all life-savers!”