Chapter 94 Down-to-earth
Although he said he wasn't hungry, Jiang Ye still took him to the cafeteria.
Bai Chenzhu could sense that most of the people in the canteen were people with superpowers.
In the huge dining hall, the voices quieted down as soon as Jiang Ye appeared, and everyone started whispering to each other, occasionally casting a subtle glance.
Bai Chenzhu knew that Jiang Ye's senses were sharp enough to hear all the gossip, but Jiang Ye was oblivious and naturally invited Bai Chenzhu to join the queue and see what they wanted to eat.
In the apocalypse, the aunt's hands trembled even more violently; the food on the plate was plentiful, but the quantity was pitifully small.
Bai Chenzhu stood to the side with a tray in his hand, waiting for Jiang Ye behind him.
The aunt's hands stopped shaking, and the food piled up into a small mountain on Jiang Ye's plate. The aunt smiled ingratiatingly at Jiang Ye, and Jiang Ye smiled back.
The two found a corner side by side. No one dared to come over, but almost everyone was watching this corner.
Bai Chenzhu felt a little uncomfortable. He ate with his head down, expressionless. Jiang Ye blocked his view and whispered to him about the route they had taken.
"After you and Tang Zhao left, I hijacked Kula onto a flying machine, which is the leader of the alien race. Oh, you know the alien race, right? They're..."
Jiang Ye explained the alien race to him in detail, and then talked about the current situation, "Kula is cunning and escaped halfway. The situation is critical, so I went to Beiming City to get reinforcements. Just then, the alien race attacked Beiming City and came to capture me, so I didn't need to prove anything at all. It's just that the people in Beiming City are not united and are in chaos. They even wanted to hand me over, so I ran away."
Jiang Ye shrugged. "Afterwards, I went to Kangcheng. As you can see, Sister Zhuohua and her father were there. They introduced me to the lord. Kangcheng is a big city with many superhumans. Centered on Kangcheng, we sent signals to the surrounding bases, announcing the existence of the alien race and the peril of Blue Star. Thanks to the existence of the spacecraft, the surrounding bases quickly united and built simple signal towers to share information..."
"Speaking of spreading the news, do you remember the group we rescued in Deer Cry Ancient City? It was Liang Zhi and his group. If they hadn't spread the atrocities committed by the alien races along the way, our journey might not have been so smooth. In just two months..."
Jiang Ye omitted many crucial details, such as how he persuaded the city lord of Kangcheng, how he led his men to ambush and intercept several alien aircraft in a short period of time, and how he persuaded the formation of an alliance...
He wished he could share everything he had with Bai Chenzhu.
But none of that mattered to Bai Chenzhu. Even towards Jiang Ye, he viewed him with a familiar sense of unfamiliarity, neither rejecting nor disliking him, nor being particularly close to him, let alone being intimate enough to care about everything the other had experienced.
Bai Chenzhu listened for a long time, but remained detached, stirring the food with his chopsticks absentmindedly, and even seemed a little distracted. Jiang Ye's words were just background noise to him.
To others, he might have lived here for a long time. But to Bai Chenzhu, he was a newcomer. He listened to these complicated things, but he lacked a sense of participation and felt as if he were in another world.
"What does all this have to do with me?" he thought indifferently.
As if noticing his distraction, Jiang Ye changed the subject, no longer talking about those things, but about Bai Chenzhu.
“After you fell off the cliff and went missing, Tang Zhao, Bai Tao, and I went to the waterfall to look for you, but we couldn’t find any trace of you.” Jiang Ye’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “The first thing I did after the signal tower was built was to abuse my power and issue a missing person notice.”
Bai Chenzhu was slightly taken aback. He looked up and saw Jiang Ye wink his left eye at him.
How can this person talk about abusing power for personal gain so confidently! Bai Chenzhu looked around and whispered, "Stop talking."
Jiang Ye has excellent senses and can hear other people talking; those other ability users are no less capable. Abusing power for personal gain, to put it bluntly, is a kind of leverage.
Jiang Ye was completely oblivious. "What's so shameful about that? It's only shameful to be single!"
Bai Chenzhu picked up a piece of potato and shoved it directly into his mouth.
The silence lasted only five seconds. Jiang Ye chewed for a moment, then asked, "Does this count as an indirect kiss?"
Bai Chenzhu: ...
His expression was somewhat indescribable, but he was gradually getting used to Jiang Ye's outrageous style.
Seeing his lively expression, Jiang Ye couldn't help but laugh and gave him a few bites of meat and vegetables. "It's alright, these are all things from the past, there's nothing you can't hear about."
He smiled and looked around, his eyes sharp and piercing, his warning obvious. Those who met his gaze lowered their heads, except for a middle-aged man with gray hair and a buzz cut. He not only did not avoid him, but also smiled and nodded at him. Jiang Ye also nodded back, which was considered a greeting.
Jiang Ye noticed Bai Chenzhu's curiosity and introduced him, "That's Xie Quan, the lord of Kangcheng Base. Quan means 'to accomplish'. Coincidentally, he came to Kangcheng from the capital a year ago to take up his post. He's a good friend of Uncle Zhou."
Bai Chenzhu had looked at the map and knew that Kangcheng was just north of Beijing, which had been completely wiped out in the early stages of the apocalypse. Being able to escape the zombie outbreak by being transferred away from Beijing was incredibly lucky.
He glanced at Xie Quan, not expecting to be caught red-handed. Xie Quan looked righteous and imposing, but had a pair of smiling, squinty eyes. He nodded at him.
Bai Chenzhu didn't react for a moment, but the other person had already looked away and was listening attentively to what the person at the table was saying.
"Does the city lord really come to the canteen in such a down-to-earth way?" he couldn't help but mutter to himself. In his eyes, the so-called city lord of a base was probably similar to a mayor in the past. But it was different. In the apocalypse where might makes right, the city lord had much more power, almost absolute control.
"Hey!" Jiang Ye tapped his plate, clearly annoyed. "I'm down-to-earth too, okay!"
Bai Chenzhu kept her head down and ate her food, ignoring him.
"Eat more." Jiang Ye picked some vegetables for him. "You look like you've lost a lot of weight, you need to eat more."
As a result, not only was the food transferred, but Bai Chenzhu couldn't even finish her own portion, so she gave the rest to Jiang Ye, who had a particularly good appetite.
——
The title of Commander-in-Chief sounds impressive, but in reality, it simply means that a group of superhumans are needed to fight against the alien race. Various bases have sent teams of superhumans, and these superhumans are under Jiang Ye's management.
They were never very obedient. Jiang Ye complained to him, so what Jiang Ye did most often was beat up the newcomers to teach them to obey...
"How come you have so much free time?" Bai Chenzhu asked Jiang Ye.
After finishing their meal, Jiang Ye took Bai Chenzhu to a spacious stadium filled with superhumans sweating profusely, while the two of them were in the audience.
Superpowered individuals primarily enhance their physical abilities, five senses, and regenerative abilities. For these, sparring is an excellent method.
"On my way to Kangcheng, I heard that people with superpowers were fighting with other races," Bai Chenzhu said, her tone heavy. "But you seem..."
Relaxed? Indifferent? Bai Chenzhu didn't know how to describe it. "I thought you would be more serious and solemn."
At least Jiang Ye's ideas were completely different from his.
“No fight broke out.” Jiang Ye paused slightly, stroked his chin, and then understood. “You misunderstood me. I manage some superhumans, but not all superhumans in the world. On one hand, the apocalypse caused the deaths of many people, and their families now know who the culprits are, so it’s inevitable that they will want revenge. On the other hand, after their identities were exposed, the alien races that were already capturing humans became even more reckless, so conflict was unavoidable. But overall, no real fight broke out.”
“However, I think we’ll need these sooner or later.” Jiang Ye pointed to the superhumans below the field. “So one of my jobs is to oversee their training.”
"What is he doing over there?" Bai Chenzhu saw Tang Zhao inside. He was sparring with someone, surrounded by a group of people cheering.
Jiang Ye explained that after subduing them in the first step, the second step was to reassign squad leaders. The original squad leaders were demoted to vice-squad leaders, and Jiang Ye would appoint new squad leaders.
Whether or not a team can be managed well is the responsibility of the squad leader.
Upon hearing this, Bai Chenzhu silently counted the group surrounding Tang Zhao; there were about fifty or sixty people. There were also dozens of such small groups here, making a total of over a thousand people...
"Tang Zhao is quite capable, but he's too young. He's easily tricked, but fortunately he learns quickly and has recently become close with the group from Fuyun City." Jiang Ye looked on with great satisfaction.
"Let's go see Bai Tao." Jiang Ye thought to himself as he watched Bai Chenzhu nod silently beside him.
Bai Chenzhu watched the people in the gymnasium for a while, and then got a little tired. She followed Jiang Ye to another small room, where a crooked, abandoned sign hung on the door: Dance Studio.
It looks very ordinary.
However, after staring at the sign for a few seconds, Bai Chenzhu sensed something was wrong through the wall.
Behind the wall, there were nearly ten superhumans. Their points of light were particularly noticeable in Bai Chenzhu's mind, more so than the hundreds of superhumans from before.
Jiang Ye looked at his expression and said, "As expected, you're still as perceptive as ever."
As he spoke, he pushed open the door, and the harmonica music inside stopped. Everyone in the dance studio was asleep, except for Bai Tao and a young man who stood in the middle.
Bai Tao was overjoyed to see the two of them. "Brother! You're here!"
I don't know who he was calling "brother".
The man pursed his lips, looking quite displeased. "Commander Jiang, don't you know the basic courtesy of knocking before entering?"
Jiang Ye smiled enigmatically, "If it weren't for the surprise attack, we would never have seen you use your abilities. You always kept them hidden, but it turns out you're quite capable."
Bai Chenzhu looked at this and that, "Bai Tao, what are you doing?"
“They’re training.” Bai Tao pointed to the group of people lying on the ground. “Brother, you must already know, right? They are all psychic ability users. There are less than ten of them who have come to Kangcheng so far.”
At this point, she sighed deeply, "The smallest team of superhumans in the alliance, and their abilities are all sorts of strange and wonderful."
"For example, this Mr. Xie Mengyao, he is my deputy captain. His abilities are the opposite of mine. He can hypnotize people. None of us could last more than half an hour."
Bai Chenzhu thought he had misheard. He looked at the man who was a little shorter than him and asked, "What did you say his name was?"
"Xie Mengyao!" The man's face flushed red as he said aggressively, "Do you have a problem with the name my father gave me because he missed my mother?!"
He had a very bad temper, spoke very harshly, and held his head high like a little rooster.
This kid is really interesting. Bai Chenzhu thought, even when he's angry, he can still give such a stiff explanation.
He shook his head apologetically, "Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. I was just ignorant and curious."
"Hmph! It's one thing for Commander Jiang to come on inspection, but why did he bring along an idle person? Does the training room allow just anyone to come?"
"Why are you shouting like that?" Bai Tao was very dissatisfied with his tone, because she could see Xie Mengyao's subtle contempt.
Xie Mengyao is like a prickly hedgehog. After awakening his superpower, he is arrogant and rarely suffers setbacks at anyone except Jiang Ye and Bai Tao. This leads to his complicated feelings towards the two of them and his displeasure with Bai Chenzhu, who is valued by Jiang Ye and Bai Tao.
Bai Tao scratched her head, put her hands on her hips, and glanced at the teammates lying sprawled on the ground. "Xie Mengyao, don't be so cocky just because you can take down others. If you're so capable, why don't you compete with my brother Bai?"
Suddenly brought up, Bai Chenzhu frowned in confusion. He had been a little distracted. Where were we? The competition?
Jiang Ye scolded, "Bai Tao, he's still not well."
Bai Tao looked at Bai Chenzhu's pale face, covered her mouth, and felt a little regretful.
Interesting. It seems everyone is fully aware of his abilities except for himself. Now that an opportunity has presented itself, Bai Chenzhu became interested and asked, "What kind of competition are you talking about? I'd like to try it."
Jiang Ye panicked and tried to stop him, "A-Zhu, you are still sick. This kind of mental injury is difficult to cure. We can only wait for it to heal itself."
"I want to give it a try." Bai Chenzhu turned to look at him, her clear black eyes fixed on him. She spoke plainly, yet Jiang Ye was completely overwhelmed by her words.
Bai Chenzhu turned to look at Xie Mengyao, took a step forward, and said confidently, "Give it a try."
"I won't compete with patients." Xie Mengyao, the person involved, sensed the subtlety in the situation. He crossed his arms, turned his head away, and snorted coldly, "so that if I win, people will say I bullied the patient."
He even looked down on pale-faced men, believing that those with poor health couldn't possibly have good mental strength either. Xie Mengyao admitted she was envious that someone like that could win the favor of Bai Tao and Jiang Ye.
Bai Chenzhu smiled, seeing through Xie Mengyao's coyness.
This guy has a fiery temper. If you provoke him, he raised his chin and said, "Hey, enough talk, I've got my eye on your position. If you lose, you'll have to give up your vice-captain position."
"What?" Xie Mengyao lowered her arms, her eyes blazing with anger. "What did you say?"
Although he looked down on this damn deputy captain, this sickly guy actually dared to compete with him!
Bai Chenzhu beckoned to him with his index finger, "If you disdain competing with me, then Young Master Xie, why don't you just admit defeat?"
Bai Tao clapped excitedly, adding fuel to the fire, "Yay! Xie Mengyao, you have to admit defeat! I want Brother Bai to come to me!"
Then Jiang Ye grabbed her by the ear, and Bai Tao immediately begged for mercy.
Xie Mengyao looked left and right, exasperated: "You wish!"
Jiang Ye glanced helplessly at Bai Chenzhu, who was full of interest. This was the first time he had seen Bai Chenzhu so lively and energetic since their reunion.
He knew Bai Chenzhu wouldn't change his mind easily, so he could only instruct Bai Tao, "Stop watching the show, clear the area first, wake them up and take them out."
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