Chapter 6

The villas were actually spaced pretty far apart. Although the areas where Lin Tantan and the old woman stood happened to be the closest points between houses, they were still over six meters apart, too far for an ordinary person to reach.
Lin Tantan's eyes lit up. She peered at the old woman and into the room beyond the window, no zombies in sight. Bad people, though... she wondered. She looked down at the seven or eight zombies stretching their arms out like starving ghosts, then glanced at the other window where the glass had been webbed with cracks from the zombies' pounding, and made her decision.
She waved to the old woman. "Make some room!"
Then she shot out two green straps, hooked them over the windowsill, and hurtled toward it like a cannonball.
She launched herself through the window. The two green straps had burned out their energy and didn't retract back into her, they simply dissipated.
Her wood-type ability, reduced to little more than retractable ropes, felt more than a little humiliating.
Lin Tantan picked herself up and shook her head. The old woman at the window stared at her in astonishment; several people stood in the doorway with their mouths agape, as if marveling at her dramatic entrance.
She moved to the window. Sure enough, the zombies had turned and were reaching toward them, but two layers of wall and fencing stood between, so they couldn't get through.
Lin Tantan closed the window and drew the curtains; the room was lit and surprisingly bright. She looked at the old woman. "Thank you."
"Oh! My dear, I saw you rush in here alone, that's no small thing." The old woman had caught up now, eyeing her up and down. "You didn't get badly hurt, did you? We have medicine, I'll go fetch it."
She moved toward the interior, and Lin Tantan followed. The people by the door stepped aside, still curious and a little wary, and accompanied them downstairs.
Lin Tantan took them in. Upstairs and downstairs there were mainly elderly men and women, seven or eight of them, plus two middle-aged women, one well dressed and pleasant looking, the other more like a housekeeper, and four children ranging from four or five up to seven or eight years old.
There wasn't a single able-bodied young adult among them. Lin Tantan worried for their safety, but she also felt a genuine, if slight, relief, the tautness in her nerves eased a fraction.
Facing such a defenseless group, she didn't seem like a threat; if anything, the dirty stranger with an axe, her, looked more like the villain.
When they reached the downstairs living room, the elders crowded around her with questions: What was happening outside? Where had she come from?
Lin Tantan told them everything she knew. When she mentioned people eating people and the chaos beyond, the faces of the old and the young alike fell with worry, some fretted over children out in the streets, others over what would become of this group.
She learned their situation: the villa belonged to an elderly couple surnamed Xu. Their son had died years ago; their daughter-in-law had remarried. Only a seven-year-old granddaughter lived with them, along with a housekeeper, just four people in the household.
It was New Year's Day, and many families in the compound had relatives and children visiting. Those houses left unattended felt especially lonely, so people had gathered at the Xus' place. Coincidentally, when the apocalypse hit, these residents initially were fine. As the villa district descended into chaos, the Xus hurriedly shut both gates and stayed inside.
At that point, the old Mr. Xu comforted everyone: "Don't worry. Rescue will arrive tomorrow, we'll find a way."
Lin Tantan was surprised. "Rescue teams are coming?"
Yang City was a middling third-tier city, not given much attention, one of the first to be abandoned. She remembered that it would take more than ten days after the outbreak for the army to arrive to evacuate survivors; in a city of two million, fewer than three hundred thousand made it out alive.
"It's a special forces squad," the old woman who had called Lin over said. When she learned Lin Tantan was a female college student who had come here alone, she admired her courage and ability. "My husband did some service for the country before he retired; my son also sacrificed himself for the nation. Perhaps the higher-ups still remember us and have sent people. When they come, why don't you go with us, child? It's too dangerous to be alone."
Lin Tantan shook her head. "I'm going to the North University Town."
"Ah, that's far."
"It would take over an hour by car."
"Who can drive now? Didn't she say the roads are clogged with cars?"
The elders chattered at once and asked why she wanted to go there. Lin Tantan said she was going to look for someone. They sighed, each of them had children or relatives out there and didn't know how they were or whether they'd ever see them again.
After they met and got acquainted, Mrs. Xu fetched a medical kit for Lin Tantan, set a room for her on the first floor, and even found some clean clothes for her.
Faced with such kindness, Lin Tantan felt a little embarrassed, she wasn't family, and it wasn't easy for them to take her in.
Mrs. Xu sighed: "These are hard times, nobody's doing well. If we don't help each other, what good are we? People like us, old and young together, are just sitting here waiting for someone to come save us; otherwise there's nothing left but to wait to die."
After Mrs. Xu left, Lin Tantan went to the window and drew the curtain aside a little. Outside it was pitch dark. She had looked before coming in: there were no zombies inside the villa's walls, but with so many people gathered here and so much activity, zombies were piling up beyond the fence. Lin Tantan felt a stab of anxiety, luckily they couldn't climb the wall, or it would have been dangerous.
She took a hot shower, changed into clothes that weren't a perfect fit but were clean, sat on the bed, produced the second wood-element crystal core she had gotten, and began to train.
The energy from the previous wood crystal core had been used up; now she felt empty inside.
This core was absorbed in a little over half an hour. Lin Tantan relaxed her hand and let the crystal dust fall into the trash. Her body, bruised and scraped from repeated falls with many open wounds, had now mended considerably.
Then she took out the golden metal-element crystal core.
For a moment she hesitated, unsure whether she should absorb it.
These supernatural abilities follow the five-element cycle of mutual generation and restriction, at least in the world three centuries from now. If she cultivated metal it would suppress wood, which is why she had refrained from touching the crystal earlier.
However, judging from the dangers she'd faced along the way, relying on wood alone, she had no hope of making it to Beida University tomorrow. She wasn't adept at combat with wood, coming up with a retractable strap function in addition to healing was already impressive.
Metal, by contrast, was her strongest ability outside of wood.
In her previous life, as a healer she used wood abilities every day. So even trying to keep the five elements balanced, wood became increasingly dominant. Having one element so far above the rest is dangerous, the only option is to strengthen metal to counterbalance wood to some degree.
So she had spent a lot of time training metal. The other three elements she hadn't had the time or energy to work on, nor was it necessary.
After a moment's hesitation she placed the metal core in her palm and began to cultivate.
A faint golden light radiated from the core and was drawn from her palm into her body, following a completely different trajectory from wood, eventually forming a perfect cycle.
And the mist-like energy in Lin Tantan's mind, the part representing metal, began to turn slowly. It had been white, but it gradually took on a golden hue.
The green wood element continued to rotate slowly on its own; the elements that still showed no movement were fire, yellow earth, and black water. Lin Tantan guessed that later, aside from fire staying the same, earth and water would have to change color, earth turning brown and water turning blue.
This was the difference between now and three hundred years hence. At this early, nascent stage, abilities came in many complex types and forms. Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth were only part of the whole; they did not hold absolute authority.
Lin Tantan absorbed the energy while thinking and experimenting, multitasking casually, when suddenly,
"Hmm?" Tantan realized something: that mist-like energy was very different from an energy core. In the later era, multi-element practitioners had to maintain balance because if one element grew too dominant its corresponding section on the energy core would bulge, making the core unstable. The mist-like energy had no such risk, after all, a wisp of mist can swell any which way without cracking.
In other words, she might not have to adhere strictly to the five-element balance anymore?
That was definitely good news. She could focus on one or two elements and become truly skilled, leaving the rest for later.
The knock came, "knock." Tantan opened her eyes, put away the core, got off the bed, and opened the door.
It was Mrs. Xu: "Young lady, do you want to eat with us?"
At the mention of food Tantan suddenly realized she was starving; she immediately agreed.
Outside the room the living room lights were off; only a small lamp burned in the dining area. The curtains were drawn tight, not daring to let so much as a sliver of light escape.
The meal was indeed ready, but few in the house were in the mood to eat. Listening to the zombies' howls and the sounds of scraping and banging against the fence outside, who could feel like eating? So at the table were only Mr. and Mrs. Xu, their seven-year-old granddaughter, and two other old men.
Lin Tantan scooped rice from the cooker. She had some tact; as an outsider, sharing dishes from the same bowl could make people uncomfortable, so she used clean chopsticks to take a few servings of vegetables, a few of cold tofu salad, and a spoonful of steamed egg custard, then started eating hungrily, leaving the shared dishes alone.
This was Lin Tantan's first meal in this world. The taste was nothing extraordinary, but when you're starving, everything tastes good.
The old couple watching her eat heartily managed a small smile. Mr. Xu murmured, "If you like it, eat more." He let out a small cough, hastily covering his mouth with his hand to stifle it.
Mrs. Xu quickly put down her chopsticks to pat her husband's back. One of the other old men whispered, "Is Old Xu's problem acting up again?"
"Of course," Mrs. Xu said with concern. "I'll get you a towel, cover your mouth and cough a couple times; they won't hear it outside." Their little granddaughter watched her grandfather worriedly.
Mr. Xu waved his hand, but the coughing fit couldn't be suppressed.
Lin Tantan stopped eating and watched for a moment. "Mr. Xu, is that chronic bronchitis?"
"Yes, it flares up every year; medicine doesn't help much," Mrs. Xu said
Lin Tantan thought a moment, then laid her hand on Mr. Xu's back and stroked it. A visible green glow flowed from her palm into his body.
A few of them gaped, while Old Master Xu suddenly stopped coughing; his breath came easier and he looked oddly relieved.