"Rebirth in the Apocalypse" - No Rebirth (Chapter 32)...

Unexpectedly, in this apocalyptic world, people have come to understand life better.

Despite it being the dead of winter, the outside was filled with people playing and having fun.

Since there were no options for playing online games in the post-apocalyptic world, people started developing outdoor games.

The water-based ability user had the leisure to develop a large ice rink for the base's residents to play ice hockey in their spare time.

After the apocalypse, due to frequent labor and physical mutations, the survivors became stronger and stronger, with endless energy to expend. Even on snowy days, people would come out to play ball.

On the vast ice rink, a group of people soar like birds, racing for a single puck. It tests both individual physical strength and teamwork, making it everyone's favorite form of entertainment.

The people planting potatoes nearby were envious: "Can't you guys just play quietly?!"

The person playing ball waved his bat in front of them, showing no intention of stopping, and chuckled.

"No, when will you finish planting so we can play together?"

The potato planter glanced at the remaining progress and hurriedly said, "Almost there! Almost there! Just a moment!"

The potatoes were planted in a large open space outside the base. Space inside the base was precious, and the zombies outside wouldn't compete with humans for the potatoes.

Dig a trench and bury the potato sprouts in it, then cover them with clumps of strangler vine stalks that were peeled off the city wall.

After burying it with soil, pour on the zombie water from the moat, which is rich in various nutrients. When the snow falls, the temperature underneath will actually be higher.

We'll see if it grows when the weather thaws next year. If it does, the base will have another food source.

Judging from what the base lacks, there are many tasks that need to be done.

But human resources have their limits. No matter how much we lack in our thinking, we have to take things one step at a time. It's impossible to do everything at once. We divide the tasks into phases year by year, so the tasks done each year are not that many.

The most common tasks this winter are potato tasks, resource tasks, and energy tasks. Everyone takes turns doing them, leaving a lot of free time.

Human creativity flourishes when given free time.

For example, the energy-gathering equipment for training superhumans was developed by some mechanical enthusiasts in their spare time.

Once resources are shared, there are no material rewards, but verbal praise will be given.

The news position at the base is also a publicly recruited position, just like a regular clerical position, with recruitment changing once a year. The new hires are responsible for uncovering the latest happenings at the base throughout the year.

Such a remarkable new invention will definitely be broadcast on loudspeakers on a loop, letting everyone know about the inventor's glorious achievements.

Newspapers were no longer available, and paper was a scarce resource in the apocalypse. For such deeds, only a brief paper record was kept for archiving, and at other times, people relied solely on verbal accounts.

Important paper resources were used to record the blueprints and detailed explanations of inventions.

Thanks to everyone's efforts, the computer's typing function and the printer's printing function have been restored, making recording much easier.

If the inventor has excellent writing and drawing skills, she can organize her own results.

If it's not good, you can find other people who are good at drawing and writing to help her organize it. After the book is completed, write down the names of the assistants.

All resources are shared, and there is no private intellectual property. Books are stored in libraries and available for anyone to borrow. Librarians are public employees who are not hired by the government.

Seeing others create special devices and receive praise can spark an interest in DIY. You can borrow books from the library to learn, and those with exceptional social skills can even find the original creators to ask questions.

You can apply for the materials you need for practice from the supplies department. As long as you apply, the supplies department will allocate them as long as they have them, regardless of what you are doing or whether you are a complete novice or just messing around.

Those with skillful hands can learn it in one go, and happily hand over their finished products to the supplies department. The supplies department will then file the finished products and have the news department publicize the studious creators and inquire whether anyone needs the finished products.

If you're not quick-witted, only have a three-minute attention span, or don't want to bother with it, just send the application to the recycling department.

Resources are precious in the apocalypse, and many used items must be reused.

The recycling department is responsible for sorting used items, and those that are still usable are sent to various departments for cleaning, disinfection, or secondary processing.

Unusable or combustible materials were sent to the boiler room for burning, while swill was dumped into the moat for fish farming or given to the Ministry of Agriculture for composting.

Things that are neither combustible nor biodegradable are too precious to throw away, so a special landfill has been set up for people to pick and choose from.

Let's see if there's a genius who can even find a use for this kind of waste.

Human creativity is boundless. Soon, the entire structure of the Huiyang base was operational, and even waste disposal was put into a cycle.

Throughout this entire cycle, the base's male donors do not participate in any aspect.

Previously, when the Huiyang base required women to focus on childbirth, they were still assigned tasks. However, Ye Xiqing did not allow the men who were raising children to participate in any labor.

It's not that Ye Xiqing is particularly considerate of men, but rather that she feels that women reborn in the apocalypse should get used to not having men, rather than being used to enslaving them.

Given Ye Xiqing's vengeful nature, she wouldn't let hatred go unpunished. She would repay others a thousandfold for any pain they inflicted on her, just as she had done in the ancient world.

The main base is a utopia, while the branch bases engage in bottomless colonial oppression. How can this not be considered in line with the apocalyptic theme and reality?

The most common post-apocalyptic fantasy we see today is this cyberpunk civilization. If others can think like this, why can't she?

No matter how much she oppresses men, she can't oppress them to the point of treating them as reproductive tools.

Even if she enslaved them, she wouldn't let them die, which can be considered very civilized.

But the post-apocalyptic world is ultimately different from the ancient world. The ancient world represents the middle stage of civilization, while the post-apocalyptic world represents the end of civilization. And the end of one civilization is often the beginning of another.

If they were in the middle reaches of the river, Ye Xiqing would definitely create towering waves to crush all passing ships and repay his long-standing anger.

But she is in a special position that is both the end and the beginning. She has to consider the direction the new river will flow. Every action at the source will affect this great river that leads to the future.

This is why Ye Xiqing dislikes being a good person. Being a good person means having to consider everything, looking before and after, and thinking about this and that.

Bad people can do whatever they want, as long as they feel good, they don't care what others think. The fruits of hard work by good people might even be stolen by them.

Under normal circumstances, Ye Xiqing would never choose to be a good person, at least not a good person who is treated like a beast of burden, being beaten and scolded, yet still devoted to serving others.

When individual efforts cannot change the environment, it becomes difficult to distinguish between kindness and foolishness.

She only chooses what is most beneficial to her. If power is beneficial to her, she will choose power; if wealth is beneficial to her, she will choose wealth; saving the world is something she will only consider after she has obtained the world.

If the world doesn't belong to her, why should she lay down her claws in a land of wolves and tigers? Since the world wants to play hardball with her, then of course she should abide by the rules and play even harder.

But now this world truly belongs to her.

She didn't know how it happened that controlling a few thousand people meant controlling an entire world, but that's how it is now.

She has mastered a completely clean source of water, and its future direction depends on her will. So she really can't bear to poison this clear spring.

Slavery, the most deeply rooted poison of human civilization, once someone tastes its sweetness, it will become as ingrained in their blood and genes as a virus.

Repeated oppression, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, may feel good, but digging out the festering sore is more important.

She now wants to eradicate the deep-rooted problems, so that everyone can share the responsibility of building and procreation, and everyone can realize that they are a community with a shared future, and that people can live well without harming others.

They jointly create the resources and share the fruits of their labor, truly embodying a unified set of rights and responsibilities, enjoying both power and accountability.

As for men, they seem to have hijacked the future once again.

It's amazing how they never consider the consequences when they oppress women, whether in ancient times or in the apocalypse.

But when it comes to the reckoning, they always manage to kidnap something, making it impossible for anyone to take action against them. Now, it's a clean future.

Ye Xiqing took a deep breath, releasing the venom that was about to fall from her heart.

She was never good at enduring things; if the venom in her heart couldn't flow out, it would burn her to the core.

Ye Xiqing laid out the experimental equipment that hadn't been used in a long time and prepared to start a new project.

The truth about biological reproduction is the exchange and recombination of genetic information, the exchange of homologous genes, and the accumulation of certain harmful mutations. As this continues from generation to generation, the number of harmful mutations increases, leading to chromosome degeneration.

The reason for the degeneration of the Y chromosome is similar. There is only one Y chromosome with a special shape, and the part that overlaps with the opposite X chromosome is small. Gene recombination is not possible, so harmful mutations accumulate more and more, and eventually the chromosome becomes shorter and shorter.

Therefore, the recombination of genetic information does not depend on sex, but on different origins. As long as we have a rich gene pool for gene exchange and recombination, losing a single classification will not have any impact.

If humanity can only survive through cooperation, then a 50/50 division of labor is necessary for harmony. A 99% and 1% pairing will cause problems in any situation.

Ye Xiqing couldn't understand how there could exist such a group in the world that couldn't be chosen, couldn't complain, couldn't repay, desperately demanded when things were bad, and immediately switched sides when things were good, all with an innocent look on their faces.

Even according to the division of gods in Greek mythology, she would certainly be a god of revenge, a god of trickery, a god of destruction, and so on. Building a harmonious society has nothing to do with her, and it's not like she's here to take on a rescue mission.

It's obvious that the person who posted the task was out of their mind to assign a construction task to someone whose destructive attribute is higher than their construction attribute. What does it have to do with her?

She didn't care about anything else; she wanted to return everything to the Goddess Nuwa!

...

The pharmaceutical department has been continuously improving the second-generation drug. It is actually very simple to make all women gain superpowers: just have each woman give birth to a child. The base now has the resources to support pregnant women and children.

But as life improved and everyone could carry a gun for self-defense, the urgency to gain superpowers decreased, and many people began to obsessively pursue natural awakening.

There's no way around it; people only think "good enough" when the environment is bad. When the environment is good, they want the best.

Humanity's natural reverence for nature has led people to believe that nature is the best, and that naturally awakened supernatural abilities are also the best.

Ye Xiqing doesn't actually oppose this kind of nature worship. It's not that she has any nature beliefs, but she simply feels that nature has a more complete understanding of human data.

She is at most a human body developer, but naturally she is a human body creator. Isn't it obvious who has higher authority?

If you're just doing research, don't try to challenge the official channels; what if you get your account banned again?

If it's not necessary, the rest of the people should just buy official accounts.

The price of buying an official account is slower leveling up, but as time goes by, players figure out the proper leveling-up routine for the game.

By summarizing all past cases of spontaneous awakening, researchers in the superpower research project discovered that the types of superpowers are related to physical characteristics, and the triggers for superpowers are often related to the will to survive.

The types of superpowers are now easy to identify. Qi Ke from the base has awakened the ability to detect spirits, which allows him to more clearly determine which superpowers each person is suited to awaken.

But the test of life and death is more mysterious. Some people have been tricked by their companions before, but if this kind of trick is used too often, they will become psychologically wary.

Previously, people took fake dangers seriously, but now they perceive real dangers as fake, failing to achieve that instantaneous triggering effect.

The people in the Supernatural Abilities Research Department thought about it and created an awakening device: Dream Weaver.

Different people with the same superpower can exhibit different behaviors. For example, while both Luan Anchun and Qi Ke possess mental superpowers, Luan Anchun tends to focus on mind control, Qi Ke on detailed investigation, and Ye Xiqing prefers to combine their abilities with those of other species.

After gaining complete control of the base, Luan Anchun no longer needed to hide her mental abilities. She proposed using hypnosis to deceive people's consciousness, making their brains believe they were in dire straits, thereby stimulating their physical potential.

This idea was both insidious and feasible, and the three psychic ability users all agreed to it.

As for why three psychic ability users need to work together, it's because each person has different strengths.

Luan Anchun excels at intrusion and can quickly break into the target's sea of ​​consciousness, while Qi Ke excels at creation and can enrich the details of dreams.

Although Ye Xiqing was not particularly skilled in dream creation, her experience as a director in her previous life made her adept at screenwriting.

As a psychic, she can insert herself into Luan Anchun and Qi Ke's dream-weaving. In the dream, she can often create a script that makes it easier for the dreamer to break down, based on the psychological characteristics of the person entering the dream.

What a waste of time and effort to be a slave to the person you love, only to have that person treat you like an ATM and use your kindness to love someone else.

He was originally a genius of the sect, showered with love and affection, but one day an old monster suddenly appeared and killed everyone in the sect, leaving him alone to face his enemy.

There are even dreams within dreams, where people think they've gained superpowers after finishing a dream and happily leave, only to find they've entered a double dream.

When the person entering the dream believes they have gained superpowers and enters reality, the real dream begins.

Breaking down defenses is the driving force of human progress; once a person breaks down their defenses, it can trigger all sorts of extreme emotions.

Therefore, those who feel they have reached a bottleneck and come seeking their dreams arrive happily, but leave with their hearts broken.

That dream, a mix of reality and illusion, made up of fleeting illusions, made you realize upon waking that it was all just a dream, yet while you were in it, it felt as if you had truly experienced such a heart-wrenching life.

It must be said that desperate situations can indeed temper one's will. Being in a dream, dominated by real resentment, hatred, fear, pain, anger, and guilt, often allows one to unleash greater potential.

The moment one breaks through the dream, one also breaks through physical limits and gains superpowers.

But thinking about it carefully, why is it so hard to stay alert?

Because of this, fewer people want to awaken naturally. Maybe they'll just have a child and take a shortcut, preferring physical suffering to mental anguish...

Ye Xiqing smiled and shook her head, "No, that won't work."

Willpower is part of strength. If one's will is not firm, even with great power, it's like a child holding a gun. Cultivating the mind and body are simultaneous. In the future, those who have already acquired superpowers should also come to the dream world to refine their minds.

Everyone: ...

Please spare them!

Despite their bodies remaining unharmed, the Dream of Refining the Heart became the most feared thing for the people in the base, as it could strike at any time and was impossible to guard against.

The al-Qaeda inhabitants are protesting, demanding they be given some choice! It's too authoritarian!

The three elders of the dream world said that it was possible, and that they could also counter mental abilities. If your will to refuse was strong enough, then you would not enter the dream. They would ask you in the dream whether you agreed or not, and if you did not refuse, then that would mean you agreed.

Everyone: Huh?

What a perfect excuse! Entering the dream means you agree, and if you don't want to enter the dream, you have to increase your mental strength to resist.

This caused many people to become extremely wary, and some even awakened mental abilities, with some even awakening a second mental ability.

Having gained superpowers for free, it's hard to know whether to congratulate them or not. Anyway, those who have awakened psychic superpowers thought it over for a moment and decided to join the Dream Makers team, a more authoritative organization!

People often don't empathize with their past selves. In increasingly intense mental battles, many people awaken psychic abilities. Or perhaps that's not quite right, since psychic abilities strengthen the body, and physical abilities certainly strengthen the mind as well—both hardware and software are upgraded together.

As humanity evolves at an increasingly rapid pace, the difficulty of dungeons must naturally increase accordingly.

On a peaceful winter day, the people at the Huiyang Base were living their lives as usual when the shadows of zombies appeared outside the base.