Chapter 90: First Day in Zombie World (1) Returning Home
Yu Luowei slowly closed his eyes as he reminisced. After waking up, he first checked the supplies in his space and then chose a time to teleport back: the ninth month of the zombie outbreak, when the patrol team would conduct their second search of the surrounding cities.
She chose this time because she could use the time to search for survivors to explore the surrounding area for the source. She could also use this opportunity to acquire a plane, just in case the source turned out to be in another country! At that time, because they would later be dropping bombs elsewhere, almost everyone on the patrol team had learned a little about flying. Yu Luowei was no exception, and she was even the best at it.
Unfortunately, even before the zombie outbreak outside the base, her space couldn't accommodate a plane. But now, with her space ability upgraded to SSS-level, it's more than enough to accommodate a plane. However, because it's the early stages of the zombie outbreak, her abilities and magic have been suppressed, now only at the equivalent of a B-level. Only the size of her space and its purification capabilities remain unaffected, to prevent Yu Luowei from becoming too powerful and causing a greater impact.
Speaking of transportation, she had no shortage of fuel. Last night, she'd exchanged a good amount of gasoline and diesel at the points mall, storing them in her space. She'd already stockpiled enough for use. She waited in the shelter until eight o'clock. A flash of light marked the beginning of the survivors' final trial, and Yu Luowei traveled back to the original zombie world.
When she opened her eyes, this time, Yu Luowei saw the extremely familiar transparent tarpaulin. She knew that she had returned to the familiar gymnasium.
The house, constructed of blue steel plates, was small, only about four square meters. Yu Luowei lay on what was essentially a bed, a quilt draped over a wooden plank. Next to the bed was a locked metal cabinet that served both as a storage space and a table. At the foot of the bed, her mother squatted over a small stove, cooking porridge.
Seeing that Yu Luowei had woken up, her mother handed her the cooked porridge and fried eggs.
Looking at the familiar breakfast and her mother's face, Yu Luowei's nose sank and tears flowed down. She rushed forward and gave her mother a big hug.
Her mother thought she had a nightmare at night because she had been on missions and killing zombies recently, so she patted her back to comfort her.
After calming down and trying his best to return to the state he was in then so that his mother wouldn't notice anything unusual, Yu Luowei had breakfast with his mother and then reported to the patrol team.
The patrol team randomly assigns teams of 15 people each day, depending on their destination. They use various transportation options, including minibuses and airplanes. These vehicles have been professionally modified by psychics, and their defenses are significantly increased compared to regular transportation tools, effectively protecting them from ordinary zombies. This is also a key reason why Yu Luowei wants to obtain a plane from this place.
Besides this purpose, she also wanted to learn about another base nearby. Currently, all bases were official, typically one per province. Private bases wouldn't appear until the buildings were constructed by psychics. Therefore, the patrol's search would only be within this province.
Of course, despite the large number of zombies, the population base was still there, and there were still many survivors. This gymnasium was far from enough to accommodate all the survivors in the entire province. Therefore, the surrounding tent area was getting larger and larger. The main task of the psychics who joined the official team and other official soldiers was to go out and search for psychics and patrol inside and around the shelter.
Yu Luowei wanted to know about the future merger of this base. She wasn't sure if the zombie wave that could destroy this base would resurface after she eliminated the four sources, but for her mother's safety, it was best to move ahead. She could also use her supernatural powers to accumulate more contribution points now, so that her mother could live a better life after she left.
The official attitude towards people with special abilities is quite good. If you join the official team, the salary is relatively high, and if you don't join the official team, you will also receive some subsidies. As long as you don't do anything illegal, it's fine. It's just that moving to another shelter is relatively troublesome. You need a letter of introduction from the superior of the base, which is also to prevent people with special abilities from committing crimes here and escaping to the other side. However, Yu Luowei has also thought of this excuse: when the time comes, she will say that she has found news about her father and wants to go and see him. At this stage, her special abilities are not the strongest, so with this excuse, it is relatively easy for her to leave.
Pulling back from his memories, he realized the person in charge of the psychics had already sorted the teams. Because Yu Luowei's reported psychic abilities were quite unique, extremely useful in searching for survivors and supplies, she was usually assigned to the outbound team, and this time was no exception, having been assigned to a neighboring city.
While their teammates' faces were familiar, they weren't close enough to say acquaintance, so they simply exchanged greetings. Because the journey was long, even with the renovated, high-speed bus they were assigned, the round trip would still take at least five days. The captain gave them some time to pack their belongings and say goodbye to their families.
For the past few months, Yu Luowei had been sharing her crystal core with her mother. Her mother's current ability level was not low, and no one in the base dared to mess with her. Yu Luowei confidently took out food and fresh fruit from the space and handed them to her mother, saying that she had just received and exchanged them, and that she was about to go on a business trip, so she wanted to improve her mother's meals.
The food they'd previously saved had long since been consumed, and now they relied on their wages to buy it at the official supermarket, or to trade it with Wood and Water Element psychics. Yu Luowei would occasionally secretly save some while on missions, but the percentage wasn't high. As for the official food sources, they were largely composed of psychic production and foraging. As supplies found outside dwindled, the authorities would gradually restore some factories to produce compressed biscuits and the like.
Therefore, when the mother saw so many fresh foods, especially fruits, she widened her eyes and did not accept them. Fearing that someone might have heard them, she whispered to Yu Luowei about wasting money. The price of fresh fruits now is not comparable to that before the zombies came.
Yu Luowei assured her mother, saying that the mission she was about to undertake would not only take a long time but would also pay a relatively high salary, so she would buy so much at one time. She might be able to find a lot of useful supplies on this trip and earn back the money in one go.
After a while of persuasion, her mother finally put the things in a box under the bed. Then she started nagging, telling her to be careful and safe. Yu Luowei listened carefully. The nagging that she usually found annoying now sounded like the sound of nature.
The time to gather was approaching. Yu Luowei finally reminded her mother not to be reluctant to eat, and then went to meet up with her teammates.
Yu Luowei was the second to last person to arrive, and the bus departed once the last person arrived. Because every mission was a life-or-death struggle, not everyone could return, so no one spoke on the bus, and the atmosphere was somewhat solemn.
Yu Luowei had no intention of speaking. She lay in her seat, pretending to close her eyes and rest, but in fact she was taking this time to recall the mission.
Everything that happened now was not much different from her memory. The city she was going to was rich in supplies, but it was irrelevant to her purpose. The reason why she did not take the initiative to change the task was that after returning alive from this five-day task, she would have two days of vacation and she could move freely; secondly, there was no other better task this time. After all, this was her second time, and she was more familiar with the people.
Currently, there were very few people with spatial abilities, and even fewer who had joined the official group. Therefore, they relied primarily on buses to bring back supplies. As she thought about this, she actually fell asleep. When she woke up again, it was afternoon, and they had already arrived. The captain divided them into groups of three. One group stayed behind to watch the bus while they set up a makeshift camp to meet the rest of the team and the survivors that night. The others searched in different directions for survivors and supplies.
This group was the same as in his memory, with a female Water-type psychic and the team leader, a Gold-type psychic. As a support psychic, Yu Luowei's main tasks were to provide early warnings, identify traps, and check for people or objects in collapsed areas.
Even the route was the same this time. Yu Luowei didn't even need to use his mental power to know the traps and supplies in the places they passed along the way. He even dealt with some zombies in advance, greatly reducing the pressure on his teammates.
On the way, they passed a large shopping mall. The basement housed a large supermarket, and the top floor housed a food court. Needless to say, the mall was well-stocked with supplies, but it was National Day, and the place was incredibly crowded. Once the zombie outbreak occurred, escape was difficult, and the mall quickly fell, becoming a zombie stronghold. Four months prior, when the city's officials had managed to seal the gates, the zombies had probably evolved considerably by then.
Based on their previous experience, the three of them had simply skipped the mall; after all, they weren't looking for death. But this time, Yu Luowei had a plan—if she went in, she could contribute to the shelter, and secondly, she'd have an excuse to get supplies to her mother later. During the search, the captain usually turned a blind eye to the esper's attempts to steal and hide supplies, and since they weren't spatial esper, they couldn't take much. Furthermore, if they found more supplies, the base would also offer rewards, so by then, Yu Luowei's supplies would be safe.
She first used her mental power to clear out some zombies. These early, less evolved zombies were a piece of cake for Luo Wei. She stopped the captain who was about to leave and told him her idea. The captain was hesitant at first, but when he thought about the increasing number of people at the base and the steady decline in supplies, and heard Yu Luo Wei say that the number of zombies inside was not too great, he contacted another three-person team and decided to give it a try. Regardless of the supplies, the crystal cores were also a treasure.
After another group brought the survivors they found to the temporary camp, the six of them discussed a strategy and decided to enter from the north gate, which Yu Luowei said had the least zombies. The captain and another earth-type mutant would lead the way, while the others would help clear the zombies and search for supplies.
After the discussion, before it got dark, the earth-type mutant erected a wall to block out the sounds outside and prevent the zombies from coming in. The captain took the opportunity to use his supernatural powers to destroy the north gate and entered the mall.
In order to conform to common sense, Yu Luowei left behind a lot of zombies. When they heard the noise, they ran over. The captain and the earth-type mutant hurriedly erected super-large shields of different materials. Yu Luowei took this opportunity to kill the zombies in front and around.
The first floor of the mall housed a bakery, a tea shop, an electronics store, a bike shop, and a few clothing stores. Their plan was to search the first floor first, then the basement, and then upstairs when they had time, aiming to evacuate their temporary camp by 10 p.m.
While blocking the stairs and clearing the zombies on the first floor, they quickly completed the mission. While the captain was lost in thought about how his powers had become so strong, Yu Luowei and the other team members had already completed their search. Besides the bakery and clothing store, there wasn't much else worth searching on the first floor.
Looking at the large bags of flour and clothes, salt, sugar, several barrels of mineral water and a large pile of winter and summer clothes that were found, the captain suggested leaving one person here to watch the things and register, while the others went to the basement.
Yu Luowei offered her own idea: they could call the others over and use this place as a campsite. After destroying the gate, there would be plenty of room for the bus to get in, and the others could help them completely eliminate the zombies in the mall tonight. The mall was in the city center, close to everything else. They'd just found a working prototype car, plenty of supplies, an open area, and a ready-made toilet, so they wouldn't have to move their base again.
The captain thought about it and agreed. It seemed that what he said was true. Moreover, his ability seemed to have improved. He was much faster in killing zombies and his safety was guaranteed. He contacted the others, explained the situation, and asked them to rush over here. He also asked Yu Luowei to make a simple drawing of the distribution of zombies in the basement, and then left her and the earth-type ability user to take over, while the others went to the basement to clean up the zombies.
Thanks to Yu Luowei's trickery, no one was injured until the others arrived with the bus and the captain returned from the basement. Besides the fifteen members, there were still a dozen survivors.
After listening to the captain and Yu Luowei's description, everyone's sleepiness disappeared completely. They all wanted to take advantage of this moment to clear out the zombies in one go so that they could go and rob, oh no, look for supplies without any worries.
The captain thought so too, so he left three psychics who had just consumed too much energy in the basement (Yu Luowei still left some for them to kill) to watch over them, and the others went to eliminate the zombies upstairs together.
For the next four days, they used the mall as their base and searched other areas. Thanks to Yu Luowei's help, they found a lot of supplies. By the time they finally returned, all 15 members were still there. Compared to the last time when there were only 8 left, it could be said to be a happy ending.
Because they found three or four new, still operable trams and had lightning-type psychics to help recharge them, they were able to bring back significantly more supplies and survivors. With a wave of their hand, not only were they rewarded with a ton of supplies and contribution points, but their vacation was also extended to four days. The captain and the other psychics were a bit confused: how could they have absorbed so many crystal cores during the mission, only to have their powers regress after returning?
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