Chapter 28

The doll-faced girl was named Yang Xinyu. She could make the sprout in her hand grow two or three meters, transforming a delicate little seedling into a vine.
There happened to be a potted cactus in the room with a tiny bud on top. Lin Tantan handed it to Yang Xinyu and asked her to try to speed its growth. Yang Xinyu was puzzled, but after trying for a while she actually made the bud slowly open, leaving her and the others astonished.
Got it, she’s a planting-type.
Lin Tantan handed her a green wood-type crystal core, then asked the others, “Anyone else developing abilities?”
People exchanged wry smiles. Do you think superpowers are like cabbages? They wanted them too, but there hadn’t been any sign yet.
Lin Tantan told them to relax, maybe someone would awaken any moment. Just as she was about to let people disperse, a few more came to the door.
Everyone recognized them: those graduate students. One could throw fireballs, another could shoot water arrows. They’d awakened earlier, on the second day of the apocalypse, and looked stronger, but they weren’t particularly useful. For example, when clearing the zombie mall and these two buildings, they ran out of energy after killing only two zombies; after expending their power they went weak in the legs, and they ended up killing fewer zombies than those swinging big knives and clubs.
Although they were all ability-users or near-ability-users, the thirteen here didn’t have much contact with those two. Seeing them show up uninvited, everyone knew what they wanted.
Sure enough, they told Lin Tantan they wanted to consult her about superpowers.
While the others seemed a bit wary and exclusive, Lin Tantan welcomed them and told them to sit. “What are you unsure about?”
The two ability-users exchanged a glance, bitterness in their eyes. They had thought being gifted made them special, but on their first day here they were doused with cold water, Ye Xiao hadn’t treated them specially or held them in high regard.
Among ordinary people they drew attention and flattery, but when fighting zombies their powers weren’t very effective, so that respect faded. They were now determined to improve their abilities but didn’t know where to start.
Lin Tantan noticed these two were considerably stronger than the previous five. Take the water-type male grad student: he could fire water spheres and water arrows with real force; the volume he produced was more than ten times that of the earlier water-type girl. The fire-type female grad student’s fireballs could already kill zombies.
They had begun absorbing crystal cores, but the absorption was slow. After absorbing for a while they felt pain and dizziness, which left them very anxious.
Lin Tantan thought to herself that the problem was their energy-flow trajectory.
She couldn’t help them fix that issue right now.
She offered them some advice; the two seemed to gain insight and thanked her repeatedly.
After saying goodbye, Lin Tantan went to the window at the end of the corridor. Ye Xiao and the others had gone to clear the remaining buildings; in that short time Buildings 3 and 4 had already been cleared. She saw many people going in and out, hauling zombies out; once the cleanup finished, they could move in.
She realized the people keeping order there were acquaintances, Jiang Zhongyi and the others, so Lin Tantan went downstairs.
“Sis!” Seeing Lin Tantan, Jiang Zhongyi got excited from far away. He handed the notebook he’d been scribbling in to someone nearby and ran over to her. “You’re finally back. I couldn’t relax not seeing you.”
Lin Tantan was used to his smooth talk and asked, “What are you up to?”
“Well, these people are moving into the building, so I have to register them and keep them from squabbling,” Jiang Zhongyi said. He was proud to have been given that task.
Lin Tantan looked at the tired faces of the men, women and children and asked, “How are the rooms being assigned?”
“That’s been handled over at the office building, Captain Bai organized it. They drew lots to decide. See? Everyone’s holding a slip with their room number. If someone’s unhappy they can swap privately, but fighting isn’t allowed.”
“I noticed everyone had to take something before they went in. What was that?”
“Some food, enough for three meals.” Jiang Zhongyi gestured toward two large cardboard boxes holding the packages. Inside, plastic bags contained single portions: some held two bottles of eight-treasure porridge and two small cakes; others had two cups of instant noodles and two bottles of mineral water; some held a box of dairy, a bag of biscuits and two cold steamed buns.
That’s barely enough for three meals.
“Is that the standard food ration?” Lin asked.
“For those who don’t do any work, yes.” Jiang Zhongyi laughed. “For people like us who can work, it’s different. If you can fight zombies, food is allocated based on how many you kill. There won’t be any shortage of hot meals, every meal will include meat.”
That sounded pretty good. So why had Bai Cheng said at the table that food was scarce?
Jiang Zhongyi went on, “Isn’t there a supermarket under the mall? It’s got a lot of supplies, though not much rice or grain. A lot of the goods aren’t preserved, and with the power out, meat and vegetables will spoil if they aren’t used quickly. So the good meals will only last a few days.”
Lin Tantan thought that must mean Bai Cheng’s space couldn’t hold that much, otherwise they wouldn’t be handing it out so freely.
In any case, everyone’s situation was better than she’d imagined.
By dusk, the zombies in all the buildings of South Garden had been cleared. Everyone from the office building had moved in. Night surveillance was set up around South Garden, guards were posted at the front and back gates to report any anomalies, night watches were assigned in each building, and traps and barricades were set outside, overall it felt reasonably secure.
That evening, back in Room 301 for dinner, Lin Tantan saw a few unfamiliar faces. After introductions she learned two of them were the scientists: the elder named Zheng, the younger named Wu; the others were their assistants.
They brought news: the Academy of Sciences had made progress in studying the zombies and the anomalous powers.
“These supernatural abilities are being called ‘anomalous powers,’” Professor Zheng said, showing them an email. “The thing in the zombies’ brains is called a ‘crystal core.’ Crystal cores mainly fall into ten categories, and the powers correspond: metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, ice, space, poison, plus clairvoyance…”
Everyone merely skimmed it and showed no excitement at the “classified” information.
Professor Zheng looked a little embarrassed, but for the sake of his mission he forced himself on. “There’s more than those findings, there’s in-depth research into the powers. Major General Min said as long as you complete the mission and rescue Xu Meijuan and her daughter, they’ll forward the rest. Also, regarding Cai Chengliang, Old Chen wants to speak with him. You’ve been delaying for days; Old Chen suspects his grandson may have come to harm and is furious, and he said…”
“He said that if anything happens to Cai Chengliang, he won’t send the army to Yang City, right?” Bai Cheng finished his sentence calmly.