Ch 53: The Farmer Ger in the Apocalypse

So, when Shen Qing returned to the apocalypse again, he immediately sensed that something was off with Song Kaiji. Usually talkative and cheerful, today he was unusually silent. In fact—Shen Qing wasn’t sure if he was imagining it—but it felt like Song Kaiji was avoiding him. Even the task of reporting their progress, which he would normally handle, was pushed onto Qu Weiwei instead.

Shen Qing: ?

They were still meeting in the same small storefront where Shen Qing and Song Kaiji had first encountered each other. Shen Qing liked it this way—since Song Kaiji had spatial abilities, carrying goods was effortless for him. Why should Shen Qing lug everything around when he could have it conveniently stored away? He was even considering moving their meeting point further toward the cave, so Song Kaiji and Qu Weiwei could ride that “iron horse” of theirs all the way—because Shen Qing certainly couldn’t.

Qu Weiwei was feeling a little nervous when she saw that Shen Qing had only brought a single basket this time. She wondered if she had just joined the team at an unfortunate moment—had the boss’s wealth finally run dry?

But when she lifted the cloth covering the basket and saw it packed full of cured meat and dumplings: !!!

This was high-quality, pre-apocalypse cured meat—something that would’ve cost 30 or 40 bucks a pound even before the world ended! It wasn’t the usual, unappetizing mutated beast meat that was common in the markets now. And it was seasoned—which was a luxury in itself, considering that salt had become a rare and highly sought-after commodity in the apocalypse.

Qu Weiwei’s eyes lit up. She could already picture how sought-after this cured meat would be on the black market!

“These dumplings are for you two,” Shen Qing instructed. “Keep a piece of the cured meat for yourselves too. Sell the rest and exchange it for crystal cores.” He then turned to Qu Weiwei and asked with concern, “How’s your hand? Has it healed yet?”

Qu Weiwei really wanted to say it wasn’t fully recovered—just so she could milk a few more days of premium “patient meals.” She’d already enjoyed plenty of eggs over the past five days, even trading some for other tasty treats. But under Song Kaiji’s death glare, she didn’t dare to lie and answered honestly, “It’s already fine! Thanks for checking in, boss!”

She flexed her arm, demonstrating her full range of motion. “I can do everything normally now. The only thing is, my ability is still a little weaker in this hand compared to the other.”

As she spoke, she activated her ability to show Shen Qing. A faint green glow flickered at her fingertips, and from that glow, a vine as thick as a rolling pin rapidly sprouted, extending over ten feet in just a few seconds before whipping against the ceiling.

The moment it struck, the PVC roof of the storefront was punctured, leaving a neat hole from the impact of the vine’s sharp tip.

Qu Weiwei held out both hands to show Shen Qing the details. “The vine that grows from my new hand is thinner and not as tough.”

She found it quite strange. She had always thought abilities were purely related to energy and mental power, but she hadn’t expected them to be affected by physical condition as well. If that was the case, then if Shen Qing hadn’t saved her and she had lost her right hand, would she only be able to summon vines from her left hand from then on?

Shen Qing examined it closely. Sure enough, the vine from Qu Weiwei’s right hand was about one-fifth thinner than the one from her left. This was his first time seeing a wood-type ability in action, and the way a vine could sprout out of thin air fascinated him. “Is this the only kind of vine you can grow? Can you make other plants too?”

“Just this one,” Qu Weiwei replied. All wood-type ability users had the same type of vine, with variations in thickness and hardness. The higher the level, the thicker and tougher the vine. It was said that at high enough levels, the vines could split into multiple branches and attack several zombies at once. But that would require extreme precision in control, which meant a lot of rigorous training.

“Also, they say that once a wood-type user reaches level four, they can find seeds of other vine plants and use their ability to make them grow. Those vines can also attack zombies, but they won’t be as effective as our primary ones.” Qu Weiwei was close to level four, but finding vine seeds was extremely difficult. It was something that could only be chanced upon, unless you had connections with researchers in a lab who could get you some.

What exactly counted as a vine? Shen Qing thought for a moment. Would bean sprouts and loofah vines work? He suddenly remembered that when Qu Weiwei was still unconscious, Song Kaiji had briefly mentioned her past work on a farm. “So, if you had seeds, could you also grow vegetables and grains?”

Qu Weiwei’s eyes lit up. “Of course! Do you have seeds?”

Seeds were rare treasures! If wood-type ability users had access to seeds, why would they have to work on farms for others? They could just stay home, grow crops, and sell them! But since Red City was a newly developed metropolitan area before the apocalypse, it focused on finance, heavy industry, and culture—not agriculture. Wood-type ability users in the city had a hard time getting seeds, so they had no choice but to work as cheap labor on farms.

If Shen Qing could get seeds, she could stay home and grow crops while Song Kaiji handled sales. They wouldn’t even have to leave the base to make a fortune in crystal cores!

That was the dream. Who would willingly face zombies if they had another way to survive? Especially for Qu Weiwei—as a woman, she wasn’t weaker or more cowardly than others, but women often cared more about cleanliness and had a harder time tolerating filth and bloodshed.

Qu Weiwei could fight zombies—her twin vines let her attack from a distance, after all. Even before she awakened her ability, she had already killed zombies. After all, anyone who had managed to reach Red City Base alive must have fought for their survival. Her time on the baseball team had helped a lot—she could swing a metal rod with impressive strength and precision.

But the sight of severely decayed zombies, the overwhelming visual horror, the stench of rotting flesh—it still made her feel nauseous and want to run away. And if zombie remains splattered onto her? That was unbearable.

It was like giant cockroaches in the south. A person could be 5’5” and still struggle with a roach the size of a finger. Logically, humans should have no reason to fear them—after all, what’s a cockroach compared to a person? But in reality… Well, people still screamed when they showed up. If life demanded it, you could kill one, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t gag afterward.

After half a year in the apocalypse, Qu Weiwei still hadn’t fully adjusted. To her, zombies were just human-sized cockroaches… The thought alone made her dry heave.

Shen Qing: ??

What was with everyone today?

“I probably have some seeds. I’ll check.” Shen Qing said casually. Of course, he had seeds—if he needed more, he could trade for them in the village. Every household had a vegetable garden and saved seeds for the next planting season. But he didn’t want Qu Weiwei to think he had everything or that things came too easily, so he kept it vague.

Qu Weiwei stared at him eagerly. Shen Qing didn’t mind. If Qu Weiwei could use her ability to grow food, that would save him a lot of trouble—carrying 100 pounds of grain up the mountain every time was not easy work.

As for whether they actually needed to kill zombies… Shen Qing wasn’t too concerned. As long as they got crystal cores, improved their abilities, and increased their combat power so no one would dare mess with them, how they achieved that didn’t really matter. Maybe in the future, they’d recruit some zombie-hunting enthusiasts who actually enjoyed fighting. Shen Qing respected diversity.

With that thought, Shen Qing glanced at Song Kaiji. From what he knew about him, Song Kaiji probably wasn’t the type who enjoyed facing zombies either.

Qu Weiwei followed his gaze toward Song Kaiji. Ever since realizing how “lowly” his desires were, he had been sulking with a heavy sense of guilt. She sneakily kicked him twice under the table—yet he still hadn’t reported their progress to Shen Qing. With no choice, she forced out a smile and said, “Boss, do you want to take a look at the city? We’ve completed everything you asked. The team is registered, we’ve rented a place, and we exchanged the previous grain for crystal cores.”

Shen Qing nodded. He didn’t know Qu Weiwei well yet, but he completely trusted Song Kaiji to handle things properly. The guy had done well with every task he’d given him before. Technically, he didn’t need to check up on them personally—but this was the first task he had assigned them as their new boss. If he didn’t follow up, they might start slacking in the future. He decided to stop by, offer some praise, and subtly encourage them to keep working hard.

Shen Qing was instinctively learning how to motivate employees without any formal training.

Only then did Song Kaiji finally drag himself forward to put away the basket of cured meat and dumplings. The entire time, he had forced himself not to stare too long at the food basket. He had to restrain his greed for Shen Qing’s wealth! QAQ

Shen Qing couldn’t hold back his curiosity anymore. “What’s wrong with you today? Are you feeling unwell? If you’re sick, you have to tell me—we have money, we can afford to hire a healing-type ability user.”

The weight of guilt in Song Kaiji’s heart grew even heavier.

◦°˚(*❛‿❛)/˚°◦