At this point in his previous life, there had been more ordinary people. Jia Lunxu’s group had not been there, and many of the people who were now Lei Shi’s subordinates had only met him at the church and joined his team afterward. They had not, like now, already been members of Lei Shi’s team from the beginning.
Some parts of his memories overlapped with what was happening now, while other parts had changed. Those changes gradually brought Quan Xiaoyu, who had been in a daze, back to his senses.
“No one is stepping forward? Then fighting alone is absolutely not going to work! What we need is mutual trust and dependence. Therefore, I hope that all of us can stand on the same side, join our team, and help one another.
“Of course, there may be people who are dissatisfied and ask, ‘Why should we join your team and follow your rules?’
“I know many of you are thinking exactly that, aren’t you?”
Lei Shi posed the question, then answered it himself.
“Perhaps everyone has noticed that after the apocalypse, some people have awakened supernatural abilities. I believe that supernatural ability users are the ones who must shoulder the great responsibility of rebuilding humanity! The number and abilities of supernatural ability users determine a team’s strength.
“Let me introduce the Leijia Squad first. Perhaps some of you here already know something about us.”
See? After all that talking, this was the main event.
Xiao Ziran and Chu Tian exchanged a glance.
Chu Tian leaned toward Xiao Ziran and whispered, “Look at him. Learn from the man.”
Xiao Ziran was extremely disdainful. “Something this hypocritical should be done by you.”
Chu Tian shrugged indifferently.
Then, after thinking about it, he went over to the corner and dragged Quan Xiaoyu out.
He really dragged him.
He simply grabbed him and pulled him out without caring about anything else.
Quan Xiaoyu looked utterly bewildered. With his current abilities, shaking Chu Tian off would have been easy, but he didn’t do it. Instead, he let Chu Tian pull him over and stand behind Xiao Ziran.
And then—
Then Chu Tian shamelessly—utterly shamelessly—hooked an arm around his neck from behind and leaned his entire body against him!
“You—” Quan Xiaoyu’s cheeks began burning again.
“That guy talks too much. I’m exhausted from standing. Let me lean on you for a while.” Chu Tian said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Quan Xiaoyu was momentarily speechless. For some inexplicable reason, he suddenly didn’t dare move either, leaving his entire body stiff as a board.
Chu Tian was slightly displeased.
What kind of reaction was this?
As if he’d seen a ghost.
Feeling unhappy, he rested his chin on Quan Xiaoyu’s shoulder and brought his mouth close to his ear.
“I want to take back what I said yesterday.”
Quan Xiaoyu’s body trembled.
A strange sense of disappointment suddenly rose in his heart.
But Chu Tian continued, “I shouldn’t have told you to think about it yourself. With your personality, you could spend a whole year thinking about it. We don’t even know whether we’ll still be alive a year from now.
“Forget it. I’ve decided unilaterally that we’re getting together today. I don’t care what you think. If you don’t agree, I’ll use my mental power to influence you.”
Faced with this overwhelming dominance and threat, Quan Xiaoyu was utterly dumbfounded.
He really wanted to turn around and take a good look at Chu Tian’s face, then ask him:
Are you still the Chu Tian I know?
But he didn’t move.
Somewhere deep in his subconscious, he seemed to be tacitly accepting Chu Tian’s behavior, and his body seemed to relax slightly as well.
Only then was Chu Tian satisfied, and he stopped acting like a hooligan.
At that moment, a gaze firmly locked onto the two of them.
It came from Jia Lunxu, who was standing not far away.
Chu Tian had sensed it long ago, but disdainfully chose to ignore him.
As for Quan Xiaoyu, his mind was already a tangled mess, and with Chu Tian pressed so closely against his back, he had no attention to spare for anyone else’s gaze.
By this point, Lei Shi’s speech had reached its climax.
He first spoke about the responsibilities survivors should bear, then emphasized the importance of unity. Next, he described the crucial role of supernatural ability users. Finally, he began showing everyone his strength—his own supernatural ability, the ability users within his team, their combined combat power, and, most importantly, the supplies they possessed.
When Wen Tong, following Lei Shi’s signal, suddenly placed enough food to fill an entire room right in the middle of the crowd, almost everyone was stunned.
There was so much food that it looked like a small mountain!
The sight was genuinely shocking.
In the apocalypse, what could possibly be more important than food?
Although Wen Tong was only displaying it and quickly put everything away again, the shock left behind by that brief moment still left many people stunned for a long time.
Lei Shi was extremely pleased with the effect.
He gave another signal, and the young man in the team who possessed a healing-type supernatural ability stepped forward with a grin.
He quickly slashed his own left arm.
A long, narrow wound immediately appeared, and blood began pouring out.
Then he gently placed his right hand over the wound.
A beam of white light instantly appeared.
When he removed his hand, the wound had completely disappeared.
This time, the effect wasn’t as shocking as Wen Tong’s.
The group of students and the nearby residents had already received help from the Leijia Squad, and many of them had already witnessed this kind of ability.
As for space-type abilities, everyone had only ever heard about them.
It was only when a small mountain of supplies suddenly appeared and then vanished that they truly experienced that kind of shock firsthand.
Chu Tian and Xiao Ziran both noticed that when the group of mercenaries saw Wen Tong’s ability, they were only briefly surprised.
Then the man who appeared to be their leader fixed his gaze firmly on Wen Tong, without even giving the supplies a second look.
It seemed those people weren’t lacking supplies at all!
Xiao Ziran and Chu Tian exchanged another glance, silently communicating this information to each other.
When the healing-type ability user appeared, that man naturally noticed him as well.
From then on, his gaze kept moving between Wen Tong and the young healing-type ability user.
At this point, Bai Mingxi curled his lips disdainfully.
What was a tiny little pile of supplies worth?
If he took out the things in his own space, they could drown these people!
Then, acting a little crazy, he crouched down and lowered his voice as much as possible.
“Xiaonan, that guy isn’t as good as you. His light isn’t as bright as yours. You can heal a hole that big!”
As he spoke, he gestured with his hands to indicate the size of the wound Chu Tian had suffered at the time.
But Li Nan’s attention wasn’t on that.
He had noticed the interaction between Chu Tian and Quan Xiaoyu, and it felt strange to him.
He always felt as though Brother Xiaoyu was being bullied.
But Tian-ge didn’t seem like the kind of person who would bully Brother Xiaoyu.
After all, he had saved Brother Xiaoyu’s life just yesterday!
That wound and all that blood had been real!
Still, the more Li Nan looked at the two of them, the stranger they seemed.
He really wanted to go over and ask what was going on, but for some reason, he also felt that perhaps he shouldn’t.
He was terribly conflicted!
Just then, Bai Mingxi spoke to him, so he asked, “Brother Bai, Tian-ge… wouldn’t bully Brother Xiaoyu, would he?”
He sounded worried.
“Oh.” Bai Mingxi glanced at the two awkward people over there.
As Chu Tian’s childhood friend and best buddy, he could more or less see what Chu Tian was thinking.
It was just that he had always thought Chu Tian was merely interested in Quan Xiaoyu.
He had never expected Chu Tian to actually risk his life to save Quan Xiaoyu.
That had scared the hell out of him at the time.
That simply wasn’t something the Chu Tian he knew would do.
So when Chu Tian had done it, Bai Mingxi had already guessed something and begun reassessing just how important Quan Xiaoyu was to him.
Sure enough, once Chu Tian had figured out his own feelings, he immediately acted.
Actually, this was the real Chu Tian.
Things he didn’t care about meant absolutely nothing to him.
But once he cared about something, he had to get it.
He didn’t drag things out, and he never let an opportunity slip away.
That was the real Chu Tian.
“Of course not. When have you ever seen Tian Tian bully anyone? Besides, the two of them have such a good relationship. How could Tian Tian possibly bully Xiaoyu?”
Bai Mingxi lied with a perfectly straight face, not even blushing.
Li Nan looked at him suspiciously.
“But I think they’re acting really strange today…”
“Oh, come on!” Bai Mingxi slapped Li Nan firmly on the shoulder. “They’re fine. Maybe they just had an argument or something. That’s perfectly normal between friends!
“Look, Tian Tian curses me every single day. It’s nothing. Stop worrying about them. Look at Lei Shi. His performance is getting really interesting!
“Kids shouldn’t meddle in adults’ business.”
As he spoke, Bai Mingxi forcibly turned Li Nan’s head away from Quan Xiaoyu and toward Lei Shi.
“But—”
But Brother Xiaoyu never argued with anyone!
“No buts!”
Bai Mingxi seriously raised a finger to his lips in a silencing gesture and motioned for Li Nan to look toward Lei Shi.
Helpless, Li Nan could only temporarily give up investigating what was going on between Quan Xiaoyu and Chu Tian.
Meanwhile, Lei Shi’s speech had essentially reached its conclusion.
“Our Leijia Squad has the spirit of sacrificing ourselves to save others. We have powerful combat-type supernatural ability users, a space-type supernatural ability user who can carry large quantities of supplies, a healing-type supernatural ability user who can save lives, and a water-type supernatural ability user who can provide clean water.
“I ask all of you, which other team can be stronger and more complete than ours?
“Furthermore, we treat ordinary people without supernatural abilities equally, and we provide them with supplies and protection.
“Who among the rest of you can guarantee that you can do the same?”
After saying all this, Lei Shi turned around and looked at Xiao Ziran.
“Are these reasons enough to convince you to join us?”
Before Xiao Ziran could answer, many people from the group of students and temporary residents had already raised their hands and shouted.
“Join! We’re willing to join!”
“I’m willing too!”
“Me too! Me too!”
The people speaking up at this point were basically all ordinary people.
There were also several supernatural ability users among the residents. They exchanged glances, clearly somewhat uncertain about what to do.
Xiao Ziran let out several cold laughs.
He lowered the arms he had kept folded across his chest and began clapping loudly.
“Captain Lei, that was a wonderful speech! And the performances by those few supernatural ability users were truly impressive!
“Ever since the apocalypse began, I haven’t seen such a wonderful performance in a long time. Thank you all.”
Then he abruptly changed direction.
“But what does everything you just said have to do with us?
“Because I honestly don’t see the connection.
“So I thought about it for a long time and only managed to figure out one thing.”
He actually put on a genuinely bewildered expression.
“And that is—what does it have to do with me?”
“You—”
This time, Lei Shi was genuinely furious.
This man didn’t give him even the slightest bit of face!
Ever since the apocalypse, after awakening his lightning ability, he had never encountered anyone who dared to show him absolutely no respect.
Xiao Ziran raised one hand in a stopping gesture, cutting off whatever Lei Shi was about to say.
“Captain Lei, look. So many people want to join you and are eagerly waiting for you to pay attention to them.
“We’re tired too. We’re going to get something to eat.
“How about you come over and have something with us, Captain Lei?”
Xiao Ziran stepped aside and actually made an inviting gesture.
Chu Tian chimed in at that moment.
“Captain Lei might be thirsty. We should go get a couple bottles of water.”
He was clearly mocking Lei Shi for talking too much.
As he spoke, he even raised his chin, signaling for Bai Mingxi to get the water.
Bai Mingxi and Chu Tian had an unparalleled understanding with each other.
He immediately pulled two bottles of water from his backpack and hurried over.
“Don’t!”
Xiao Ziran raised a hand to block him and pushed Bai Mingxi back.
“Is your water even clean? Captain Lei has a water-type ability that can purify water. Do you really think he’d be interested in yours?
“Take it away, take it away!”
Xiao Ziran shooed Bai Mingxi away like he was chasing off a fly.
“Oh!”
Bai Mingxi looked completely innocent and obediently ran back with the water.
In reality, he was already laughing his head off inside.
“You! Fine!”
Lei Shi was furious.
He angrily flicked his sleeve and turned around, leading his people away.
As soon as Lei Shi left, the people who had declared that they wanted to join immediately surrounded him.
Xiao Ziran lazily waved his hand.
“Take care, Captain Lei!”