That survival instinct was really something else.
Granny Zhang put away the two intact eggs. She could not bear to throw away the one that had fallen to the ground either. After all, floors 14 to 18 were now within the house’s domain, and whether it was the walls or the floor, they all had self-cleaning and self-repairing abilities, so the floor was not dirty.
Granny Zhang picked up the broken egg, rinsed off the thin outer layer of egg white, then cracked it open and poured the rest into a bowl.
Before the house could clean up the mess on the floor, the plants that had been following Fu Erdie around had already—who knew which one struck first—slurped up and absorbed the egg liquid.
Since the big yellow chicken had such a strong desire to survive, Fu Erdie did not kill it. Instead, she used her ability on it to sense its mutation.
Whether it was an ability user or an intelligent mutated creature like the pothos, under Fu Erdie’s ability, they all had an energy space. Usually, the stronger the ability user or intelligent mutated creature, the larger the energy space.
Conversely, if it was just a piece of ordinary wood with no energy space, Fu Erdie’s ability could not sense a receiver and could not enter or pierce through it.
People and animals nowadays had more or less mutated to some degree. Even ordinary people without abilities would have some kind of mutation, good or bad, from drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated things.
But if the degree of mutation was especially slight, Fu Erdie could not sense it. Even if she carefully sensed it, she could not exert much influence.
This trait allowed Fu Erdie to judge the degree of mutation in a mutated being. She used her ability on the big yellow chicken and immediately determined that it was an ordinary mutated species, somewhat like the dog. Although it had mutated, it had not left the category of an animal in the conventional sense. Even though it was smarter than ordinary mutated plants and could understand its owner’s words to a certain extent, it could not accurately recognise details, nor could it learn to read and write.
But that was already good enough, because under Fu Erdie’s conscious push-and-pull control, it could produce fruit every day like those ordinary mutated crops. Of course, what the big yellow chicken produced was eggs.
While Fu Erdie was using her ability, the big yellow chicken lived up to expectations and laid two more eggs, exhausting its limited energy. After Fu Erdie replenished it, she did not continue “training” it. Instead, she took the two freshly laid, warm eggs to cook.
Building Seven no longer had just the two or three people from before. There were now more than a dozen people.
Fu Erdie and her family made five people in total. The ability-user team from H City had five people. Add Granny Zhang, Sang Wenhao, Cen Xiyang, Han Zhi, and Zhang Guya, and there were fifteen people altogether.
Once there were more people, especially many ability users, the demand for food increased greatly.
The freshly laid eggs were made into tomato egg-drop soup so everyone could have a taste. If they wanted meat, they still had to open luncheon meat tins and sausages.
The supplies they currently had came from Building Seven and the two nearby buildings they had cleared, plus some goods Fu Erdie had detoured to search for when passing food processing factories along the way. Beyond that, there was nothing more.
She was not stingy and took out a box of tins for everyone to eat freely.
Forget Grandma and Auntie; even Fu Erdie herself was eating meat products for the first time since the apocalypse began.
Steam rose from the hotpot on the table, spreading a layer of mist over the winter window.
Amid the drifting mist, the city outside was desolate and lonely. Even though it was a fairly clear afternoon, it still felt gloomy.
Inside the window, the reunited people enjoyed a brief happiness as their appetites were satisfied.
Grandma, Auntie, Mum, and Dad sat together, along with Zhang Guya and Granny Zhang, warm and affectionate. The H City ability-user team sat together, occasionally throwing out topics, talking about the customs and conditions of different places and the situation since the apocalypse, gradually revealing things to each other. Fu Erdie, Sang Wenhao, Cen Xiyang, and Han Zhi sat together, and the conversation among people of the same age was also very lively.
At first, everyone still formed little groups, whether intentionally or not. But Fu Erdie’s parents were the kind of people who often ran businesses and dealt with people. Holding soft drinks as if they were wine, they changed seats from time to time, clinked cups with the five-person ability-user group, and chatted with Sang Wenhao and Han Zhi. Very quickly, they pulled the different groups together and helped everyone become familiar with each other.
After the main meal, Fu Erdie cut watermelon as dessert and handed out crisps and cream puffs. Whoever wanted to eat could eat freely.
Among the three people who returned this time, Grandma and Auntie would live in 16-6. When her cousin returned in the future, he would also live in 16-6. This officially filled the entire sixteenth floor. As for Zhang Guya, she would live with Zhang Dongxuan.
This was decided after Granny Zhang asked Zhang Guya’s opinion.
“We both have the surname Zhang, we’re both from C City, and neither of us has family anymore. Then let’s live together and keep each other company. We can be each other’s family.” Zhang Dongxuan held Zhang Guya’s hand lovingly. “In the future, it’ll also be more convenient for us to work together, take care of the chicks and plants, prepare meals, and do things together. The work will be much easier too.”
Fu Erdie naturally agreed and took the opportunity to clarify everyone’s division of labour.
First was the kitchen. They needed more people to take care of food for fifteen people, so Auntie, Granny Zhang, and Zhang Guya would be responsible. They would not only cook, but also pick the ripe fruits from the ordinary mutated plants on floors 14 to 18 every day, store them properly, record them, and water the plants and feed the chicken.
Her father and mother would handle reception, supply list organisation, daily records of stored grain and consumed grain, and other logistics work.
The technical department had Zhao Shansi, Zhuang Licheng, and Pan Feizhou.
The ability-user team consisted of Fu Erdie as the leader, along with Sang Wenhao, Cen Xiyang, Han Zhi, He Xuan, and Ye Jia — six people in total.
Although everyone had introduced themselves to each other, that had only counted as briefly meeting. Today was the first day they were formally organised together, and there would still be many areas that needed adjustment later.
So after three hours of eating their fill and building relationships, followed by a short afternoon nap, Fu Erdie began making follow-up arrangements.
“Professor Zhao, the small power station in the residential complex mainly relies on thunder-type and wind-type ability users. To build a power station based on this, we may need many people to run experiments and a lot of manpower.” Fu Erdie looked at Zhao Shansi. “You can sort out some lists and give them to me. I’ll negotiate with the D City base. At the beginning, for ease of management, I won’t let too many people come over. We’re not in a hurry. We’ll take it step by step.”
“Second, besides things related to the power station, we also need to build a water pump on the rooftop.”
Before the apocalypse, sending water to high-rise buildings had always been a very important part of water supply and drainage engineering. Generally, booster pumps would be designed and installed according to floor height, forcing water upward level by level.
However, that arrangement was based on pumping water up from the ground. If Fu Erdie wanted to ensure that Building Seven could still use water even when the house was not in Building Seven, they could directly build a water pump on the roof. Usually, they could store water inside it. When the house’s white light had to leave with Fu Erdie, everyone could use the stored water for daily washing, instead of only relying on buckets at home to store water.
Building a water pump involved modifying the water supply and drainage system. They would need to arrange it according to the pipeline drawings from the property management office. If the pipeline drawings were lost or unclear, they would need professionals to locate the water pipes and judge how to modify them.
“The third matter is transplanting ordinary mutated plants.”
In the past, ordinary mutated plants could only be raised within the house’s domain, so the planting space was very limited. Clearly, there was so much space in the residential complex and so many buildings, yet they could only sparsely and leisurely plant the intelligent mutated tomatoes and cucumbers, and whether those produced anything depended on their mood…
If these ordinary mutated crops could also be transplanted outside and fill the residential complex, then their daily grain output would be very impressive.
But the problem now was that without the nourishment of the house’s white light, the activity level of ordinary mutated species would greatly decrease. Also, just like plants before the apocalypse, they needed regular watering and had light requirements. If they wanted to plant them in many places inside buildings where sunlight could not really reach, simply choosing shade-loving crops would not be enough. They also had to prepare lamps to simulate sunlight.
So this returned to Fu Erdie’s earlier requirements for water and electricity in the residential complex. Without water and electricity, the ability users would exhaust themselves going up and down every day to water the plants and provide light.
Professor Zhao clearly understood the connections inside and nodded, recording everything one by one.
“The fourth matter is the combat training plan for us ability users, as well as the plan to lure zombies into the residential complex.”
Everyone immediately perked up when they heard this.
Even the ordinary people, including Granny Zhang, instantly straightened up.
In the apocalypse, infrastructure could make people live better, but the premise of living better was being alive. Only if the ability users in the team were strong enough could everyone’s lives be guaranteed.
“I’ll first talk about a guess regarding myself.” Fu Erdie took out the ability detector and placed her hand on it, showing everyone the completely unmoving value on the display. “I should be an attribute-less ability user.”
She asked Professor Zhao to replace the attribute-less crystal core in the detector with a crystal core of any random attribute.
Fu Erdie placed her hand on it again and input her ability.
The reason an attribute-less crystal core could detect other people’s ability strength was because it could absorb abilities of other attributes.
The red crystal core now being used did not have this ability. But Fu Erdie could actively inject her ability into it, causing fluctuations and triggering changes in the detection device.
This time, a value appeared.
Fourth-rank.
Everyone who knew the current ability-user ranking system sucked in a breath and looked at Fu Erdie with burning eyes.
Fu Erdie raised her hand and pressed it down slightly, signalling for everyone not to get excited.
“Just like an attribute-less zombie can’t beat other zombies and ability users of the same rank, my fourth rank is, at most, really only third rank.”
And she was not even as good as a third-rank. After all, when there was no one nearby for her to assist, she was just an ability user with great strength, probably about the same as a second-rank strength-type.
But the others did not know that. Under Fu Erdie’s guidance, they did not think of her as support. Instead, they saw her as a strong person who had both support abilities and plant-type abilities. Even if her attack power was not strong, she was still extremely powerful.
Fu Erdie did not deliberately expose the truth. Apart from Cen Xiyang, Han Zhi, and Sang Wenhao, who had to coordinate with her in future training battles, the others did not know the details.
“Although I can perfectly absorb crystal cores of every attribute, my demand for crystal cores and other things is also very large,” Fu Erdie said. “For example, the plants I grow with my ability are actually equivalent to individual beings of different attributes. For them to grow, they must absorb enough nutrients. These nutrients include all kinds of rubbish. As long as it isn’t something especially solid like stone, cement, or steel, they can absorb it. The daily cleaning of the building and the residential complex also relies on the plants mutated by me.”
Fu Erdie gave the plant babies watching from the side a look and slowly raised her hand.
The next second, the plants that had been pretending to behave nearby rushed over, fighting to stick close to her. On the surface, it looked like they were being controlled by Fu Erdie to come closer. In reality…
Sang Wenhao, standing beside Fu Erdie, could clearly see roots, branches, leaves, and vines pulling at one another, each trying to drag the others down so it could become the first baby to burrow into Fu Erdie’s palm.
Sang Wenhao: “…”
Fu Erdie also could not help her eyelid twitching. Her speech got stuck for a brief moment.
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