“Kill them!” the girl ordered the team of ability users guarding her, her voice filled with hatred.
However, this time, no one stepped forward. They had been ordered to help the young lady “cause trouble,” but they had also received another instruction: “Do not participate in harming the other party.” They knew this was a political game, and they understood perfectly well what they could and could not do.
So although they continued surrounding Chu Tian and the others, they made no further moves.
Chu Tian had expected this all along. After watching the spectacle for quite some time, he finally smiled and spoke. “All right, young lady. You’ve made enough trouble. It’s time to go home.”
Seeing that the people around her remained motionless, the girl flew into a rage and issued another order. “I’m telling you to kill them!”
Chu Tian sneered without saying anything. Sure enough, someone soon approached the girl and whispered a few words into her ear. She seemed to calm down fairly quickly after that.
Nevertheless, the anger and unwillingness on her face remained obvious.
At that moment, the sound of numerous footsteps came from a distance, rapidly approaching them.
The commotion had long since attracted a crowd of onlookers. They stood watching from a distance, and the disturbance had even affected the progress of the auction.
Now, seeing another large group of people approaching, the spectators hurriedly scattered like birds and beasts.
The new arrivals moved quickly. In the brief time it took the girl to fall silent and consider her options, they had already reached the scene.
When the butler saw them, he finally breathed a sigh of relief. His master’s guards had arrived at last.
Sure enough, the apparent leader of the newcomers quickly began conferring with the person who had whispered to the girl earlier.
The other party had already been looking for a way to withdraw. Now that someone had provided a convenient excuse, he immediately ordered his people to retreat.
The girl was clearly still unwilling to give up. Her vicious gaze kept circling back to Li Nan, never leaving him for long. In the end, however, the ability users she had brought with her dragged her away.
“I keep my promises! Those two will definitely be mine!” she shouted threateningly before leaving.
Li Nan watched her depart with a cold, expressionless face.
He still couldn’t understand why there were always people in this world who chose to treat others with the greatest possible malice. But he knew that he had to learn to grow up. He wouldn’t be afraid. He would face all the malice in the world himself.
As he thought this, a warm hand settled on the top of his head. Quan Xiaoyu had placed his palm there and was looking at him with a hint of concern in his eyes.
Li Nan felt warmth spread through his heart and smiled back. “Don’t worry. I’m much stronger than she is. Xiaoyu and Xiaoning wouldn’t like her anyway.”
Meanwhile, the leader of the arriving group conveyed Chief Gu’s message to Chu Tian. The gist was that these were troubled times, and it would be better for them to return to the Gu residence. If they wanted to look around and enjoy themselves, there would be plenty of opportunities in the future.
Chu Tian didn’t insist on staying. His original intention had been to investigate the city, but as the other party had said, there was no need to rush. He nodded and agreed.
The group retraced their steps along the road they had taken earlier, this time accompanied by an even larger procession.
Once the people at the market realized there would be no more excitement to watch, they turned their attention back to the auction. Nevertheless, they had gained plenty of new gossip to discuss over their meals: the mutated lion that had been killed, the young lady who had suffered a humiliating defeat, the beast tamer who owned two mutated tigers, and the group of mysterious strangers whose origins were unknown…
At the same time, news of the commotion at Dawn Base was quietly sent by different people to both the Capital Base and the Qiguang Base.
“Things seem to be getting more and more complicated,” Bai Mingxi said quietly to Chu Tian as they made their way back.
“Indeed.” Chu Tian sighed softly. Two unexpected incidents had now occurred, neither of which fit their original plan to complete the transaction and leave.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of trouble. It was just that, with all this happening, their return to the Capital Base would probably be delayed yet again.
That was what made him sigh.
“I have a feeling the trouble isn’t over yet,” Bai Mingxi said.
Chu Tian shot him a sidelong glance. “I wasn’t aware you’d developed a precognitive ability.”
Mockery! Utter, shameless mockery!
Bai Mingxi hadn’t even had a chance to fire back when, to his surprise, Quan Xiaoyu joined the conversation.
“I feel the same way. Ever since we entered this city, I’ve had a bad feeling.”
At first, he had assumed that the human trafficking he had witnessed was affecting his mood. But when they had just walked out of the school that had been turned into a marketplace, he had felt that there was something more to it.
“Since we’re here, we might as well take things as they come. In this apocalypse, I doubt there are many places left where anyone can live in peace.” Chu Tian sighed.
When they returned to Chief Gu’s residence, the place had already been cleaned up, including the people who had been reveling wildly in the hall earlier that day.
The hall had returned to normal, and the people moving about now looked like ordinary servants.
A banquet had been laid out. It consisted of meat, fruit, and fresh vegetables, all rare commodities in the apocalypse. There were even pastries.
Chief Gu was nowhere to be seen. Presumably, the people at the top were still arguing among themselves over the information Chu Tian had brought them. Although the chief himself hadn’t appeared, he had instructed the butler to entertain their guests properly.
Chu Tian and Bai Mingxi didn’t stand on ceremony. Meat, fruit, and vegetables were nothing special to them; they had plenty of those in their spatial storage. But they hadn’t seen a fresh cream cake like this since the apocalypse began.
The food in their storage consisted mainly of packaged and frozen products. Seeing such an extravagant dessert, even Chu Tian and Bai Mingxi became interested.
Quan Xiaoyu, on the other hand, seemed less enthusiastic about the sumptuous spread. Perhaps the earlier dance party in the hall had left him with a bit of a psychological aversion to the place.
Li Nan, however, was fascinated by the miniature cakes of various flavors that Chu Tian and Bai Mingxi placed in front of him. After all, he was still a child and found it difficult to resist the temptation of sweets. Happily, he sampled one, then took a bite of another.
The butler had even thoughtfully prepared fresh raw meat for Xiaoyu and Xiaoning. The two little ones ate with great enthusiasm.
Poor Xie Mingxuan, though. He didn’t eat human food, and he still had to wear his mask. Seeing how happily the two little ones were eating, he had wanted to join them, but Quan Xiaoyu stopped him and repeatedly warned him not to make a sound. Watching everyone else enjoy themselves, Xie Mingxuan felt deeply aggrieved.
Quan Xiaoyu had no choice. It was easy enough to explain why someone wasn’t eating, but if a human crouched beside a mutated beast and gnawed on fresh, bloody meat, surely no one else was blind enough not to notice!
Fortunately, he wasn’t very hungry himself. So he coaxed Xie Mingxuan while going hungry alongside him.
The attentive butler stood some distance away, maintaining a respectful expression while discreetly observing the group from beneath his lowered eyelids. When he saw them treating food that would make many ordinary ability users drool with disdain, while showing far more interest in the little cakes, he understood that these people probably had no shortage of supplies.
Still, the butler felt a small measure of pride.
His master was a native of S City and had always been accustomed to having dessert after meals. After settling down here, one of the first things he had done was seek out pastry chefs and gather all kinds of equipment for making desserts.
These cakes couldn’t be found anywhere outside the Gu residence. Even the general didn’t have any.
So Chu Tian and his companions enjoying them was, in a way, a gesture of respect toward their host.
As for Xie Mingxuan, Chu Tian had mentioned earlier that the man’s intelligence seemed somewhat impaired and that he wasn’t quite like an ordinary person. The butler therefore paid him little attention.
Everyone enjoyed their dinner, and although the butler might not have possessed many other talents, he was exceptionally skilled at looking after people. Before long, he had arranged accommodations for all of them.
Beyond the main residence, on the other side of the garden, stood a separate little villa. It had its own entrance and was relatively quiet, making it well suited to Chu Tian and his companions.
“No wonder the butler can hold such a high position in this base despite being an ordinary person,” Bai Mingxi remarked thoughtfully. “It must have a lot to do with how accurately he reads his master’s intentions and how he always manages to make people feel comfortable.”
“Anyone who manages to survive has something that helps them do so,” Chu Tian replied.
Chief Gu still hadn’t returned. Chu Tian suspected that the upper echelons of Dawn Base were unusually complicated, with several factions engaged in a struggle for power and influence.
For the time being, however, none of that concerned them.
Chu Tian swept the area with his mental power and found nothing suspicious. Only then did Quan Xiaoyu take the restless Xie Mingxuan and the two little ones into their spatial dimension.
Xie Mingxuan wanted to go inside to eat, while the two cubs wanted to play and keep him company. By now, the revolutionary friendship between the three little ones was unbreakable.
Watching Xie Mingxuan, Chu Tian found himself caught in another dilemma.
“Should I give him Nizi’s crystal core?” he muttered.
Chu Tian was certain that Nizi’s crystal core could help Xie Mingxuan evolve. The more humanlike he became and the higher his intelligence grew, the easier it would be for everyone to act.
But there was another concern: if Xie Mingxuan evolved and regained his intelligence, would he still be the same as he was now?
There were two worst-case scenarios.
First, after regaining his intelligence, he might become aware of the differences between humans and zombies as separate species and take the side of humanity’s enemies.
Second, he might not turn against humanity at all. He might simply become the Xie Mingxuan he had been before…
That possibility was even more terrifying!
That was why Chu Tian had never dared to give Xie Mingxuan Nizi’s crystal core.
“Let’s put it off for now!” Bai Mingxi immediately chimed in when he heard Chu Tian muttering. “What if he turns back into the Xie lawyer he used to be? That would be terrifying! Everything that’s happened here would be enough to make his sense of justice explode! We’d better not take the risk. Why don’t we wait until there’s a safer opportunity?”
Bai Mingxi was absolutely terrified of Xie Mingxuan’s former, relentlessly kindhearted self. The problem was that you couldn’t simply deal with someone like that by cutting him down the way you would an evil person. He would much rather Xie Mingxuan remain exactly as he was now. He was so much more adorable this way!
Chu Tian shared similar concerns. He merely sighed and fell silent.
He had discovered that he had sighed more that day than he had during his entire previous life.
Before long, Quan Xiaoyu returned, but the three little ones didn’t come with him. They were probably still playing inside the spatial dimension.
“Let’s all stay together tonight. We shouldn’t sleep separately. I’ve had a bad feeling this whole time,” Quan Xiaoyu said as soon as he emerged.
Chu Tian swept the entire residence with his mental power once more, but still found nothing unusual. Apart from his lingering unease about the school, he had no other bad feelings for the time being.
However, he didn’t think Quan Xiaoyu was being overly cautious. After all, in the early days of the apocalypse, they had avoided many dangers by relying on Quan Xiaoyu’s premonitions.
“Okay. Let’s take turns resting,” Bai Mingxi suggested. “Why do I feel as though being inside a base is more dangerous than being out in the wilderness?”
In the uninhabited wilderness, the only things they had to worry about were mutated plants, mutated beasts, and zombies. With the three little ones around, the chances of the group being attacked were already very low.
Here, things were different. Human intentions were impossible to predict or calculate.
Anything could happen in a place like this.
Chu Tian understood that perfectly well, but he didn’t say it aloud.
The three of them arranged a watch schedule, called the three little ones out of the spatial dimension, and then settled down to rest fully clothed on the sofas in the living room.
In the middle of the night, when most people were sleeping soundly, it was Li Nan’s turn to stand watch.
He had insisted on taking responsibility for part of the night shift.
Quan Xiaoyu, who had been on watch before him, had just fallen into a deep sleep. The two little ones were snoring loudly as well. Fortunately, Xie Mingxuan, who didn’t need to sleep, was there to keep him company, so Li Nan wasn’t lonely.
In the garden-like courtyard,
a scantily clad young woman approached the guards at the gate, carrying several glasses of wine.
“Stop right there!”
A sharp shout quickly followed. A searchlight swung toward the woman, illuminating her figure.
It was the same woman who had emerged from Chief Gu’s office earlier that day.
The woman giggled flirtatiously and raised the glasses in her hands for the guards to see.
“It’s so boring out here at night. The chief still hasn’t come back, so I thought I’d come out and have a drink with you gentlemen.”
Under the intense light, her fair skin seemed to shimmer. As she spoke and breathed, her breasts bounced beneath the thin, low-cut top, looking as though they might spill out at any moment.
Several guards swallowed hard in unison.
Nevertheless, they hesitated and didn’t allow her to approach any further. They all knew perfectly well that this woman belonged to Chief Gu.
The woman, however, remained completely unruffled. She raised a slender finger and pointed toward the main hall behind her.
“This is all the wine left over from the dance party earlier today. I invited the gentlemen from the patrol team inside to have a drink just now. I thought you must be tired from standing guard at the gate, so I brought some out for you. If you don’t want it, that’s fine. I’ll just go back inside and keep the patrol team company.”
After saying this, she giggled again, her coquettish laughter making the men itch with desire.
Looking up, they could just make out a faint light coming from the hall. The owner of the residence wasn’t home today, and the lights would not normally be switched on. The fact that the hall was illuminated suggested that the woman was telling the truth.
What a shameless woman! The chief had been away for only a day, and she was already causing trouble!
The amber-colored wine in the glasses also stirred their appetites.
Normally, such a luxurious drink was reserved for the upper echelons of the base.
Their desires soon overwhelmed their reason and drowned out what little judgment they had left. They let the woman approach them, step by step.
Little did they know that half an hour earlier, the woman had set off some kind of smoke inside the main residence. Once the people on duty had collapsed and those who were asleep had fallen into an even deeper slumber, she had hurried outside and led the patrol team into the house…