Ch 70: The Farmer Ger in the Apocalypse

As the car drove two kilometers out of the base, scattered zombies began appearing on the road. Shen Qing leaned against the window, watching intently. He noticed that as the car passed by, the zombies barely reacted. Occasionally, one would pause and glance in the direction of the vehicle, as if trying to distinguish something, but as the car moved further away, they quickly resumed their aimless wandering.

This was very different from the relentless pursuit he had witnessed before.

Feeling puzzled, Shen Qing then heard Qu Weiwei suggest, “Should we stop and do a practice run?”

After all, they had never tested the metal net strategy in real combat. With only a few zombies around, this was an ideal opportunity for a trial run.

“Sounds good!” Tang Wenjie was eager to try. “Let’s pull over at that intersection ahead!”

“In the car or coming with us?” Song Kaiji asked Xing Ye.

Xing Ye waved his hands quickly. “I’ll stay in the car. No need to go down with you guys.”

He didn’t know much about their metal net strategy, and as an ordinary person, survival was his top priority. Song Kaiji was offering a good payment, but without understanding their tactics, he wasn’t ready to take unnecessary risks.

Song Kaiji nodded, fully understanding his decision. Then he turned to Shen Qing. “What about you? Do you want to stay in the car for now while we work on our teamwork? You can join us next time.”

Shen Qing hesitated for a moment. He had initially planned to stick close to Song Kaiji, but with Xing Ye also staying in the car, it provided a cover for the fact that zombies wouldn’t attack him. He wasn’t afraid of fighting zombies, but he was concerned that if he also stepped out, Song Kaiji might be distracted trying to protect him. Since this was their first real test of the strategy, there was some level of risk involved. So Shen Qing nodded. “Alright, you guys be careful.”

Song Kaiji agreed, took a deep breath to steady himself, then told Tang Wenjie, “Lower the window.”

Tang Wenjie pressed the button, and the car window slid down.

In an instant, Shen Qing caught a whiff of a faint, rotten stench in the air. At the same time, the zombies that had previously ignored them suddenly sprang to life, collectively turning their heads and charging at the car!

Shen Qing had been watching from the window. Even though he knew zombies wouldn’t attack him, seeing their grotesque, rotting bodies—some missing limbs—sprinting toward him at full speed, with chunks of decaying flesh dropping as they ran, still made his skin crawl.

At the same moment, Song Kaiji swiftly retrieved the half-finished metal net from his spatial storage, while Tang Wenjie activated his ability, rapidly adjusting the net’s shape to deploy it into action.

“Get out!” Qu Weiwei shouted and was the first to jump out of the car. Tang Wenjie and Song Kaiji followed closely behind. As soon as they exited, they quickly positioned themselves inside the metal net.

Within just a few breaths, the half-finished metal net solidified into a cylindrical cage over ten feet in diameter, resembling a giant birdcage. The three of them hid inside while Tang Wenjie used his ability to control it, keeping the cage suspended just a few inches above the ground as it slowly moved to the side. Meanwhile, Xing Ye quickly shut the car doors and rolled up the windows.

Shen Qing watched as the zombies immediately shifted direction, no longer running toward the car but instead fixating entirely on the massive iron cage. Qu Weiwei tossed out a few seeds and summoned vines to pierce the zombies’ heads. At the same time, Song Kaiji retrieved his crossbow from his spatial ability, and within moments, the already sparse number of zombies around them were completely wiped out.

Only then did the seeds Qu Weiwei had thrown begin to sprout, growing into a web of vines.

“Tch, still a bit slow,” Qu Weiwei muttered in frustration. As she crouched to dig out crystal cores, she reflected, “My ability level is still too low. Xiao Tang, you should make the cage a little bigger. The boss will be coming down soon, and with the current size, I feel like if a zombie stretches its arms, it might just reach me.”

In reality, there was still some distance, but just the thought of it made Qu Weiwei uneasy.

Tang Wenjie looked dejected. “I just realized something! This strategy makes me focus entirely on controlling the cage, leaving me no chance to fight zombies at all!”

He wanted to fight! He needed to fight! His ability was so powerful—how could he not get a chance to use it?

“You can,” Song Kaiji said, trying not to laugh at Tang Wenjie’s frustration. “It’s just that there were too few zombies here, so we finished too quickly. When we get to an area with more zombies, you can lower the cage and free up your hands for combat.”

They chatted and joked while wrapping up. Although their first real test had some minor issues, the overall results were excellent. After collecting over a dozen crystal cores, they returned to the car. Xing Ye was practically buzzing with excitement. “This is genius! How did you guys even come up with this strategy?!”

He had worked as a temporary hire for other teams before and had seen plenty of metal-ability users, but he had never encountered such a safe and efficient strategy. With that iron cage, even an ordinary person wouldn’t have to fear zombies. Initially, Xing Ye had planned to just ride out the mission in the car, but now he was seriously tempted. “Can I join you next time?”

“This was all our boss’s idea,” Qu Weiwei said proudly.

“Wait until we get to the school,” Song Kaiji told him. They first needed to integrate Shen Qing into the combat routine.

Even so, Xing Ye was already satisfied. Not only would he earn Song Kaiji’s payment from this job, but now he could also safely hunt zombies and collect crystal cores. This was like winning the lottery.

What kind of miraculous team was this? He glanced at the somewhat awkward and unpolished group—who would have thought they had such a powerful battle strategy?

As they continued their journey, they repeated the practice three or four more times. By the second run, Shen Qing had joined in. As the number of zombies increased and the fights lasted longer, Qu Weiwei’s vine net finally became effective, and Tang Wenjie was finally able to lower the cage and use his primary weapons to kill zombies.

Shen Qing also gradually realized that the zombies in this world didn’t rely on sight or hearing to detect humans but instead used their sense of smell. Despite the car’s loud engine noise, the zombies had shown little reaction as long as the windows were closed and the “scent of humans” didn’t leak out.

Perhaps this wasn’t so surprising? Shen Qing looked at a zombie in front of him, its face rotting and an eyeball hanging loose from its socket—of course, it couldn’t see anything.

What he didn’t know was that this fact had caused quite a stir at the beginning of the apocalypse. Before the outbreak, many movies and novels had depicted zombies with heightened senses of sight and hearing. A common trope was characters escaping by using a ringing phone or alarm. In the early days of the apocalypse, many people had tried mimicking these tactics, but none had succeeded.

Even now, research institutions had yet to explain why zombies lost all other senses but retained their sense of smell.

At first, Shen Qing’s hands trembled when facing the zombies. They still looked too human—because they had been human. When he had first met Song Kaiji, he had hesitated to attack. But seeing how calmly everyone else dispatched the zombies, he gradually overcame his discomfort. And once he did, his accuracy with the crossbow quickly surpassed Song Kaiji’s, earning him several glances from the other man.

“What are you looking at?” Shen Qing asked, touching his face self-consciously.

“Nothing,” Song Kaiji replied, remembering how Shen Qing hadn’t even had a crossbow when they first met—just some odd cleaver-like knife he had planned to use for a sneak attack on a feasting zombie. “I just didn’t expect you to learn the crossbow so fast. You’re really good with it now.”

Shen Qing lifted his chin proudly. “Of course! I’m smart. I learn everything quickly!”

After a series of stops and fights, they finally arrived at their destination: Red City Ninth Yucai High School.

This school was built as part of a relocation project for a demolished neighborhood and was located in the suburbs. Its academic reputation wasn’t great, and it wasn’t particularly large—only about forty acres. It had two teaching buildings, a dormitory, an office building, and a staff of less than a hundred. At the entrance were two small stationery shops, a bookstore, and a few snack vendors.

Qu Weiwei glanced outside. Compared to their previous stops, the zombie population here was much higher. Though the local government had cleared out some of the school’s staff and students during the early days of the outbreak, wandering zombies had since filled the area again, stumbling around the streets.

The good news was that there probably weren’t many zombies inside the school buildings. Without human scents to attract them, there was no reason for zombies to go upstairs.

She pointed at the bookstore. “Should we check it out first or head straight into the school?”

After several rounds of practice, Qu Weiwei was no longer the same as before—she had fallen in love with zombie hunting! She felt like they were playing a game on cheat mode. They didn’t need to worry about health or energy, just mowing down waves of enemies. By now, they had collected over a hundred crystal cores—about the same amount Qu Weiwei could earn from a full day of selling vegetables.

But the thrill? It was incomparable to selling vegetables. She had completely overcome her disgust toward zombies. In fact, whenever she spotted one in the distance, she felt a rush of excitement.

If necessary, she could always wear a mask to block the smell!

Shen Qing wasn’t willing to miss out on any books. “Let’s check it out!”

This time, Xing Ye also decided to join them. They parked the car in a concealed spot—not because they feared zombie damage, but to prevent other survivor teams from stealing it. At this point, zombies were no longer the biggest threat—other humans were.

Song Kaiji handed Xing Ye a crossbow, and the group disembarked smoothly, just as they had practiced. They deployed the metal cage and began the fight.

Zombies kept coming from different directions, but Qu Weiwei’s vine net blocked them out. Only after clearing out the trapped zombies and collecting their crystal cores would she open a gap to let another batch in. While fighting, she noticed that her vines, being plants, weren’t as resilient as metal. The zombies damaged them quickly, forcing her to frequently regrow them, which drained her energy fast.

After about half an hour of continuous fighting, the zombies still weren’t all cleared, but Qu Weiwei was already exhausted. “I can’t—this is the third wave. I don’t have the energy to keep growing vines.” She glanced at the open bookstore. “Can we rest inside for a bit? I’ll absorb some crystal cores, and then we can continue.”

“You’re too weak,” Tang Wenjie teased as he lifted the cage and guided them toward the bookstore. He grabbed a few crystal cores and absorbed them simultaneously. In seconds, they lost their glow and crumbled into dust. “You still can’t release your ability and absorb crystals at the same time?”

Qu Weiwei was utterly frustrated! Did Tang Wenjie think everyone was a freak like him? It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried absorbing crystal cores while using her ability, but the results weren’t great. If she split her focus, both absorption and ability output would be weakened, making it less efficient than stopping entirely to concentrate on absorbing energy.

The group slowly moved toward the bookstore entrance. There were no zombies left inside—the ones that had been there had long since caught the scent of humans and rushed out, only to be eliminated in the first two waves. Tang Wenjie opened a gap in the metal net, and they entered the bookstore before sealing the entrance again. This way, aside from Qu Weiwei, who sat off to the side absorbing crystal cores, the others could continue using their crossbows to attack zombies through the metal net.

Shen Qing, however, did not focus on hunting zombies this time. Instead, he carefully examined the bookstore.

This small bookstore was strikingly similar to the bookshops in Anping County. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with neatly arranged books, and in the center, several tables had been pushed together to form a large display covered with more books. However, the appearance of these books was vastly different from those in Anping.

In Anping, book covers were usually in a single muted color, mostly stone-blue, and each book was only slightly larger than a palm. But here, the books came in a variety of colors and sizes. Shen Qing picked one up and flipped through it—the text was incredibly small, none of the books were handwritten, nor did they resemble the printed books from Anping’s bookstores.

After killing zombies for a while, Song Kaiji felt his arms getting sore. He turned around and saw Shen Qing engrossed in reading a set of test papers, so he leaned over. “Isn’t your relative’s kid only eight or nine years old? Why are you picking out college entrance exam papers for them?”

Shen Qing calmly set the papers down. “It’s annoying to go through them one by one. Just put all the books away, and we’ll sort them out when we get back.”

Song Kaiji didn’t think much of it. With his spatial ability, this was actually the safest and most efficient approach. So with a wave of his hand, he stored the entire bookstore—books, bookshelves, and all—into his space.

Shen Qing suddenly grew curious. “How big is your space now?”

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