It was raining heavily outside, and thunder was rumbling overhead. Fu Erdie felt this was not a good place to talk.
Coincidentally, there was a small two-storey house about five hundred metres from the expressway, so Fu Erdie suggested they go inside to talk.
To display their strength, and to make things easier for both sides, Fu Erdie held Sang Wenhao’s hand and activated her ability. The two-ton electric car rose steadily into the air and landed on the other side of the expressway guardrail.
Fu Erdie looked toward the group, signalling that if they needed help, she could help move their vehicle too.
The nine-person team drove a fifteen-seat minibus. They had already heard the long-haired woman explain what had happened and knew this was their chance to survive. They all said there was no need for the two big shots to act; they could lift the minibus over themselves.
There were three strength-type ability users in the group. One lifted the front, one lifted the back, and one lifted the middle. First, they carried the minibus over the guardrail between the opposite lanes, pushed it for some distance, then had to lift it over the guardrail at the edge of the expressway.
The minibus itself was heavy, and with all the supplies inside, Fu Erdie suspected it weighed over ten tons. Even the strength-type ability users seemed to struggle.
Fu Erdie used her ability on Sang Wenhao. Sang Wenhao understood and directly helped support the minibus upward.
The three strength-type ability users instantly felt the pressure on their hands and shoulders lessen. They exchanged glances and quickly moved the minibus over.
The nine people got into the vehicle and followed the electric car ahead toward the two-storey building.
There was a courtyard in front of the small building, enough to park two vehicles. A few zombies wandered nearby. The short-haired woman who had spoken with Fu Erdie earlier sent out several wind blades and killed them all.
Fu Erdie got out of the car, opened the window of the box-car on top of the electric car, and several dandelion fluffs staggered through the wind and rain toward the zombie corpses.
The short-haired woman and the others did not understand, but they did not dare ask.
Potato Seedling climbed out of the box-car in an extremely human-like manner and cheerfully followed Fu Erdie into the house.
It “walked” rather slowly, so by the time Fu Erdie had been standing inside for quite a while, it finally entered and began familiarly cleaning the room’s tables, chairs, and benches so Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao would have somewhere to sit.
Fu Erdie was already used to this.
The room was pitch-dark. Outside, black clouds pressed low, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled, leaving almost no light. Fu Erdie turned on the rechargeable desk lamp she had brought to illuminate everyone, revealing a roomful of dazed faces.
This was the apocalypse… How long had it been since they had seen a desk lamp?
Even at the base, the little electricity from fuel generators had to be used sparingly for higher-ups and technical staff. Others, whether ability users or ordinary people, had no way to use electricity.
As for them, even the bit of electricity used to charge their walkie-talkies was already the limit of what the lightning-type ability user in their team could control.
Potato finished cleaning the tables and chairs. There happened to be one small square table and four long benches. Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao sat on the bench facing the door and invited the others to sit too.
The others: “…”
Looking at Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao’s clean clothing, then at their own refugee-like appearance, did they even deserve to sit together?
The long-haired woman was clearly the leader among them. She pulled the three benches away and placed them three or four metres from the table, telling the others to either sit on the ground or on the benches.
Once everyone was more or less seated, the long-haired woman began laying everything out.
“My name is He Xuan. For now, I’m the one managing things among the nine of us. My ability is a good-luck buff. My teammates recognised me as the person in charge because of that.”
Among the other eight people, three were strength-type ability users and one was speed-type, all relatively ordinary and not outstanding abilities.
The short-haired woman’s wind blades were the most offensive ability among them.
Professor Zhao had no ability. She was a professor across multiple disciplines. Her undergraduate, master’s, PhD, and postdoctoral majors and research directions had all been different. She was a big shot spanning biology, mechanical-electrical engineering, communications, and several other fields. Apparently, she was extremely impressive, the sort of person a base would recruit for her technical skills even without an ability.
Zhuang Licheng was an electrical engineer. His ability was electricity, but it had more attack power than control. Asking him to charge equipment was worse than asking him to fight a hundred zombies. So this combination of ability and profession could only be used on large power generation and conversion stations, and for now, it could not be used for small-scale daily household appliances. However, currently there were no large power stations for him to use.
The last person was also a metal-type ability user. But under the same elemental ability, different people evolved in different directions. Sang Wenhao could fly. The metal-type ability user they had encountered before had been heavy and slow but very powerful in attack. This metal-type was somewhat special: he could extract different metal elements from an alloy material. It was an extremely niche ability.
In theory, he could attack, such as by decomposing a metal weapon. But in reality, by the time he finished decomposing someone’s hammer, he would already have been beaten half to death. So he was also part of the technical department. The only problem was that he was a sports student and knew absolutely nothing about metal extraction.
After listening to the introductions, Fu Erdie felt that whether it was metal extraction, lightning ability, or the multidisciplinary professor, all of them were incredibly useful. After roughly thinking it over, she had already formed many plans for building up the residential complex.
For example, her residential complex was good in every way, but electricity was indeed a problem. The house could use power strips to drive electricity to floors beyond its domain. But the house’s electricity was not endless. Especially when outputting electricity or water beyond its domain, the consumption was like a person exerting strength; there would be a lot of drain.
And this lightning ability user was an electrical engineer himself. Whether it was thermal power, wind power, or hydropower, when electricity was first generated, it was violent and irregular. It had to pass through various equipment and circuits for filtering and stabilisation before becoming stable electricity that everyone could use.
She did not understand anything more professional than that. Sang Wenhao, an engineering student, only knew a little about it too. But an electrical engineer would definitely understand. Presumably, what he lacked at the base was only some materials and equipment, as well as a healthy body.
The metal-extraction ability user was similar. He was a sports student and needed deep theoretical study before he could use his ability properly. But in the chaos of the apocalypse, he had followed the electrical engineer and Professor Zhao, learning a little here and a little there. Before he had managed to play any real role, he had been abandoned by the base.
But if he came to the residential complex, Fu Erdie had the environment for him to study. If, under the training of the professor and the engineer, he could extract various metals, then fuse them into required metal alloys according to certain ratios under their arrangement, and then cooperate with Sang Wenhao’s metal shaping…
Fu Erdie felt that the infrastructure of her residential complex finally had a direction.
However, all of this was currently just Fu Erdie’s own imagination. Professional matters had to be left to professionals, and those professionals had to truly be of use to her before they could function.
Although she had not interacted with those large bases, technical talent must be scarce everywhere. If she brought these people back, helped them recover, and they learned everything they needed to learn, what if they patted their behinds and left without doing anything?
Fu Erdie tapped her chin.
Should she use strong methods to control several technical personnel? Or negotiate conditions through other means?
No matter what, right now she occupied the first-mover advantage. She did not need to heal all their illnesses at once. She could release signs of healing while testing their character, understanding them more deeply, and deciding future countermeasures based on their personalities. There was no rush.
In fact, aside from these technical people, Fu Erdie did not care much about the strength types, speed type, or even the wind type. Including this person who claimed to have a good-luck buff, she did not care much either.
Luck was part of strength, but He Xuan’s strength clearly was not much. Otherwise, how could this whole group have ended up in such a miserable state?
Fu Erdie felt her luck was not the kind that could defy fate. It could only let her encounter Fu Erdie, her house and potatoes that could heal them, and clean water when they were about to die.
After thinking for a moment, Fu Erdie made her decision. “We’ll first take He Xuan with us to find my relatives. As for here, I’ll leave some clean water and potatoes that can be eaten for a long time without spoiling. About ten days’ worth.”
“During these ten days, I’ll go find my family. I may also come back early.”
“Whether you leave or follow me is your own decision. If you follow me, I can slowly treat your injuries and give you stable food and water.”
“But if you go to my residential complex and your injuries are healed, and only then say you want to leave, you must make a certain contribution first. Especially the three technical members. I have a target: you must build a system in my residential complex that can continuously generate electricity using lightning ability, wind ability, or fire ability before you can leave.”
“As for the other members besides the technical staff, if you want to leave, I won’t stop you, but you must gather supplies with us for at least thirty days. If you try to run away before completing the task…” Fu Erdie smiled. “Believe me, you won’t make it twenty metres. Long-range metal spikes have eyes.”
“And because my residential complex temporarily doesn’t need people besides technical personnel, if you go, you’ll only be doing odd jobs. Your living arrangements won’t be the best. I can only guarantee basic food, clothing, and shelter. Technical personnel can stay in rooms with electricity, air conditioning, and water every day.”
“I won’t make any other grand promises. Think about the rest yourselves.”
It was now eight in the morning. Fu Erdie’s schedule for the day had only just begun, and they still had to continue travelling.
He Xuan followed Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao onto the electric car. After flying over the expressway guardrail, they returned to the proper route.
With He Xuan’s help, whether it was reading the map or grasping road conditions, everything became much easier for Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao. After all, He Xuan had come from the opposite direction. She knew very clearly which roads were blocked, which tunnels had pile-ups that could not be passed, where landslides had collapsed the road, and so on.
Comparing this with Fu Erdie’s route on the tablet, He Xuan adjusted and avoided several obstructed sections. The journey became exceptionally smooth.
Fu Erdie originally did not feel that this Miss He Xuan had any particular good luck, until He Xuan pointed out that there was a section where both the expressway and the nearby side roads were basically blocked. Only a small mountain road their convoy had once passed through remained. After Fu Erdie changed the route and quickly passed through it, the whole mountain suffered a landslide, collapsing onto the very road the electric car had just crossed…
Fu Erdie’s back went cold, and she looked at He Xuan with some admiration.
He Xuan nodded to her. Beneath her serious, rough-looking hair, there was a faint trace of helplessness. “This is my ability. I can’t stop landslides or raging floods, but I can bring good fortune through coincidence and let you avoid some disasters.”
Fu Erdie understood.
He Xuan could not control the lesions caused by water problems, but through a perfectly timed coincidence, she could encounter Fu Erdie, who had come to ask about the road ahead and the flood situation.
“So that’s how it is.” Fu Erdie leaned back in the passenger seat and relaxed slightly, closing her eyes. “If we find my parents, I’ll directly heal your injuries and illness. Whether you want to leave with us or go your own way, I’ll respect that. I’ll also give you a year’s worth of food and drink as payment.”
Hearing Fu Erdie casually say “a year’s worth,” He Xuan’s eyes flickered slightly.
If this little girl could casually give out that much food and water, why the hell would she leave? Only an idiot wouldn’t shamelessly cling to her!
Ah, hopefully that group of teammates of hers could think clearly.
At the temporary stop in the two-storey building, the eight-person ability-user team left behind was still crazily gnawing potatoes while drinking water.
They did not have any question of whether they could think clearly.
They only wanted the two big shots to quickly find her parents, then, in a good mood, quickly take them home.
Yes, they had already started using the word “home” this quickly!
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