CH 11

Cooperation with Southwest Base

“Qingjia…”

Zhu Ai’s palm is warm and soft, her eyes are as deep and clear as the late autumn sky. Under such a gaze, probably no one will not indulge. Shen Qingjia flushed unconsciously, her heartbeat accelerated, she stared blankly at Zhu Ai. Her body froze in place, not daring to say another word.

It seems like…something big is about to happen…

At this moment, Shen Qingjia’s ears moved, her eyes became sharp, she pulled Zhu Ai behind her, raised her hand to shoot a flame in a certain direction immediately.

“Bang!!!”

There was a huge explosion, followed by a flurried footsteps.

“Ladies [1], there seems to be a misunderstanding. Our Southwest Base came here to seek cooperation.”

When the smoke and dust dissipated, more than ten humans appeared. The leader was a young man in his twenties. He is handsome and looks familiar. He seemed to be a high-level executive of the Southwest Base in his previous life.

Shen Qingjia’s eyes were still alert, however, before she had time to say anything, she saw more than a dozen people on the opposite side change their expression. Shen Qingjia turned back and saw Zhu Ai’s eyes were sharp like knives, the air turn cold [2], filled with murderous intent!

Zhu Ai raised her right hand, the air became humid and dozens of sharp water arrows appeared in the air, with fierce murderous intent, it flying toward those people.

The young man said quickly: “Lady, this is really a misunderstanding… a misunderstanding!!”

Zhu Ai’s face became even colder, she waved her hand again and more water arrows appeared in the air…

“So you are from Southwest Base and you plan to cooperate with us to explore your newly discovered secret realm.” [3] Shen Qingjia asked after some misunderstandings, battles and reconciliation.

Xu Zhiyi is recruiting powerful ability users that did not belong to any base. The cooperation to eliminate zombies and other things since the end of the world between base and wanderer ability users is not rare. Later in the future, a free organisation similar to the mercenary alliance will be founded. Although Shen Qingjia and Co feels the request is a bit sudden, it is not surprising.

The leader of the Southwest Base wiped the cold sweat on his head, forced himself to calm down and stretched out his hand, “I’m Xu Yaonan, the third deputy head of the Southwest Base [4], hello.”

Shen Qingjia smiled and held out her hand, “Shen Qingjia.”

She seemed gentle and polite, but Xu Yaonan felt that the girl just stretched out two fingers to lightly touch him and then quickly retracted it. He almost felt that he hadn’t touched the girl in front of him.

“Yesterday, the team members from our Southwest Base saw you two fighting during the zombie wave and reported to our Chief. [5] The leader ordered it, so I have no choice but to bother you two.”

Xu Yaonan carefully observed the two girls in front of him, the two young girls were around16 or 17 years old, both with excellent looks and temperament. For Shen Qingjia, between her eyebrows she still looks immature, but her body is slender like a pine willow and her face is as delicate as a white jade carving. Her beauty was not compromised by her young age but instead became more clear and transparent. Her hair is long and soft, and she often wears a gentle smile on her face, like some kind of harmless pet with soft fur and a small body, which makes people feel good at first sight.

As for the unknown girl next to her, she currently turned her face to the horizon, her expressionless face showed no emotion. Even if he tried to restrain his eyes, Xu Yaonan couldn’t resist looking at her.

For the girl named Shen Qingjia, the best word that can be used to describe her face is “beautiful” in most people’s minds. But the beauty of this unknown girl is beyond the understanding of human beings. Not only is it visually destructive, it’s noble and pure, dazzling and shining like a fairy, even if all the adjectives about beauty are piled up on her, it’s still not enough.

Ordinary people can’t resist to set their eyes on her, but they will feel ashamed and filthy…

Noticing Xu Yaonan’s gaze, the unknown girl turned her head to look at him. Her expressionless face was full of icy coldness and even her eyes seemed to have ice debris, which made his face hurt.

It was clearly the first time they met, but Xu Yaonan felt that the girl hated him very much.

I have lived for twenty-four years without knowing that I have a face that attracts ridicule and hatred! Xu Yaonan’s heart is filled with orz…[6]

“This is Xiao Ai.” Shen Qingjia took Zhu Ai’s hand and said with a smile, “She doesn’t like to talk, but she is very nice.” Probably…

The Zhu family is powerful, Shen Qingjia deliberately omitted Zhu Ai’s surname out of fear of being entangled with the Zhu family.

Shen Qingjia glanced at Zhu Ai, saw her nodding, and said, “We are interested in the secret realm you mentioned earlier.”

Xu Yaonan felt that there must be something wrong with the 5.0 eyesight that he used to be proud of. Otherwise, how could, when Shen Qingjia holding the girl’s hand and calling her Xiao Ai, he saw the girl who looked like humanoid Ice Age blushed slightly before quickly turning her head sideways.

I must see it wrong, right?!

Even though there were almost no traces of zombies here, Xu Yaonan and his party did not relax their vigilance and a dozen people spread out to investigate in the distance.

The so-called secret realms often have treasures. Usually powerful zombies or mutant animals or mutated plants that discovered natural material from heaven and earth that produced after the end of the world will take it for themselves to improve their strength and expel the creatures that did not obey them. Secret realms are generally in relatively secret and quiet places. Although there won’t be too many zombies and mutant animals and mutated plants inside, they are often very powerful and are much more difficult to deal with than creatures outside the secret realm.

In fact, the place where Shen Qingjia found the meteorite crystals more than a month ago can be regarded as a small secret realm, it was just at that time the apocalypse had just begun, so the mutant animals haven’t absorbed much crystal power. If they entered a month later, the two would probably be killed.

“Since you two are interested in the secret realm, then you must know about the secret realm.”

Shen Qingjia nodded. As for Zhu Ai, she didn’t say a word. She took out a cotton cloth and quietly wiped her long sword. This is the booty that Shen Qingjia harvested half a month ago and then gave it to her. This long sword has a beautiful style and a sharp edge, which is very suitable for her method of attacking. These days, she takes it out to wipe and maintain it whenever she has free time.

She didn’t want to know about the secret realm at all. What she wanted to do was to turn all the enemies close to Shen Qingjia into ashes!

Xu Yaonan handed a stack of materials to Shen Qingjia, “This secret realm was discovered by our base a few days ago. The zombies and mutant animals inside were too strong. At that time, a dozen first level ability users and three second level ability users were killed. I originally wanted to wait another month for the water ability users in our base to break through to Level 3, but now that there are you two, there is no need to wait.”

Although the killing power of the water ability user against humans is no better to that of other abilities on the same level, against zombies or mutant animals and mutated plants it is still better than other abilities. In the future battle against zombies, the role of water ability users is as critical as a nuclear bomb, not to mention currently there are only two or three third level ability users in a base.

Shen Qingjia took the information and carefully looked at the location of the secret realm, the smile in her eyes deepened a lot.

Sure enough, it was the secret realm that the Southwest Base raided in the previous life.

In the previous life, the Southwest Base chose to explore the secret realm after a month because of the lack of powerful combat power. It is said that what they got was treasures that could enable users with abilities below the fourth level to upgrade one level without hindrance, which can be considered valuable.

Although Shen Qingjia is jealous of this thing, she also knows that she has no strength to rob the treasure. Her goal is the crystal nucleus of high-level mutant animals inside the secret realm. There are people from the Southwest Base that can act as cannon fodder, she thinks the harvest this time will not be too small.

The Southwest Base is a big base, its reputation has always been good. It should be unlikely to do dirty things like black eat black. [7] Of course, Shen Qingjia didn’t let her guard down, inside Zhu Ai’s personal space, there were guns and ammunition she had collected over the past month, she was not a pushover.

Everyone likes mutual benefit and soon after discussing profit distribution, Xu Yaonan said goodbye.

Shen Qingjia happily shook Zhu Ai’s hands, “There must be fourth level zombies in that secret realm. I hope you can rise to the fourth level this time.”

After some venting just now, there is still some depression in Zhu Ai’s heart. As if there was something important left unsaid. Now that the moment had passed, that strange feeling retreated to the depths of her body and even she herself didn’t know what she was trying to say.

Shen Qingjia looked at her eagerly, like a child waiting for praise from her parents. Zhu Ai couldn’t help laughing and touched the head of the girl beside her.

Forget it, no matter whether it is glory, suffering, happiness, distress, friends or sisters, she will always be by Shen Qingjia’s side. Anyway, they still have a long, long time to spend together.

At this time, Zhu Ai still doesn’t know that one day… The two will be separated in life and death, they will be far apart and overwhelmed by grief. [8]

Translator notes :

[1] 两位姑娘; So this said these two girls but I think ladies sounds better

[2] 寒气逼人; the cold air is threatening [idiom]

[3] 秘境; alright so if it is me I will use uncharted territory, however, this apparently means secret realm? … Guess the previous translator was right by saying this novel feels like a xianxia novel…Anyway I am reading as I translate so I might get this wrong, comment is greatly appreciated!

[4] 西南基地的第三副团长; alright I have no idea how the rank works so I don’t know if I got this right but dictionary [more than one] gives me 3rd Deputy Head so that is it

[5] 汉英大词典; so yeah this is regimental commander but I think Chief sounds ok? I mean I remember some Apocalypse novels I read using Chief. Anyway please comment if you think this is wrong.

[6] The orz is on the raw

[7] 黑吃黑; illegal activities such as coercion and force to oppress the other party

[8] 天南地北肝肠寸断; this sentence is ominous! Ominous! Argh! Why my translation speed is so slow I am dying and at the same time afraid to read more QAQ

Especially this 肝肠寸断; in so much pain that it feels like your liver and intestines are cut into pieces…