Ch 91: The Farmer Ger in the Apocalypse

As they traveled, fighting off zombies along the way, Song Kaiji also took the opportunity to teach Shen Qing many things. Now that everything had been openly discussed, there was a new benefit—whenever Shen Qing encountered something he didn’t understand, instead of blindly guessing and keeping his confusion to himself, he could simply ask Song Kaiji. And Song Kaiji was happy to explain everything in detail.

There was a vast difference between learning from someone and figuring things out alone. Moreover, Song Kaiji’s knowledge was far more advanced than Shen Qing’s. In just one or two days, Shen Qing had gained a much deeper understanding of this world.

What was industrialization? What was an open economy? How did this world transition from ancient times to modern society? How did small-scale farming evolve into a fully developed market economy? These were concepts that spanned a thousand years of progress beyond what Shen Qing had ever known. Listening to Song Kaiji, his eyes grew wider with amazement, and he eagerly pressed for more details.

However, when Song Kaiji listed the ancient dynasties of his world, Shen Qing found none that matched the history he knew. This led to a discussion about parallel worlds, which he didn’t understand. Song Kaiji patiently explained everything, enjoying his impromptu role as a teacher—a job he had never taken on during his university days but was now fully experiencing.

The two of them spent all their free time together, often stepping away from the others. To the rest of the group, they looked every bit like a pair of inseparable lovers.

They traveled for three days, stopping occasionally, before finally reaching the location where Song Kaiji’s parents had been ambushed.

This place was past the Zizhou toll station, dozens of kilometers from the city. The road was flanked by farmland on both sides.

Li Liang had been unusually silent the past few days. Chen Jiaxi had practiced her abilities on him a few times—not enough to injure him, but certainly enough to strip him of any privacy. Every shady thing he had done, especially those related to Song Kaiji’s parents, had been laid bare by Chen Jiaxi like spilling beans from a bamboo tube. Even how he had moved into Song Kaiji’s home and greedily consumed his mother’s nutritional supplements had been exposed.

Li Liang had already figured out his fate. Song Kaiji was never going to let him go, so he simply refused to cooperate. Now that they had reached their destination, he kept his eyes shut, pretending to be dead. If he was going to die, he might as well make it as difficult as possible for everyone else.

In contrast, Li Li had been obedient the entire journey. After witnessing Li Liang’s behavior, she had long abandoned any concern for him and focused entirely on gaining favor with Song Kaiji’s group.

What a joke—when Li Liang had angered Song Kaiji, he hadn’t spared a single thought for her safety. Why should she now risk her life for him?

“We were in this area,” Li Li said. “There’s a service station up ahead. We had just rested there when my brother and I got into someone else’s car. But as soon as we drove out, we were ambushed by a huge number of zombies—some even came crawling out of the fields.”

As she spoke, her despair deepened. In the distance, she had already spotted a familiar overturned vehicle on the roadside. It looked just like her second uncle’s car.

Song Kaiji’s heart sank. He knew that car well. Had he traveled all the way from Red City Base just to confirm the worst?

“Don’t scare yourself,” Shen Qing reassured him, patting his hand. “Didn’t they say that Wang Zheng was the one who slashed the tires? Even if your parents were unharmed and managed to escape safely, they wouldn’t have been able to drive the car away. It had to be left behind. That doesn’t mean anything bad happened to them.”

Song Kaiji nodded. Shen Qing had a point, but he still couldn’t relax. “I’m going to check it out.”

“We’ll go together,” Tang Wenjie said. The area was densely packed with zombies. If they didn’t clear them out first, even their own vehicle would end up trapped.

They pulled over and opened the car doors just enough to deploy the metal wire cage. Song Kaiji set it up while Tang Wenjie used his abilities to adjust its shape and positioning. Before the zombies could swarm them, the cage had already blocked them off at a two-meter distance.

But this time, Song Kaiji didn’t immediately start killing zombies. Instead, he carefully scanned their faces, searching for any familiar ones. Only after confirming that his parents were not among them did he signal for the others to attack.

The situation here was vastly different from Red City Base. The farther they traveled from the base, the denser the zombie hordes became. It took them over two hours of continuous fighting before they finally cleared the area. While the others set to work extracting crystal cores, Song Kaiji rushed to his family’s car.

The vehicle was empty. There were no bloodstains inside. The windows and doors were intact.

Most of the decorative items inside were gone, and even the pair of flat shoes his mother usually kept in the car had disappeared.

For the first time in days, a hint of relief settled in Song Kaiji’s chest—this meant there was a high probability that his parents were still alive.

It was possible that scavengers had taken everything, but his mother’s worn-down shoes? No looter would have any reason to take those.

Li Li stumbled forward, still bound by vines, and threw herself against the car. Seeing the state of the interior, she laughed and cried at the same time. “They’re fine! They must be fine! They’re still alive… If only we had come back to check sooner, we wouldn’t have been separated for so long…”

Back then, the number of zombies had been overwhelming. She and Li Liang hadn’t even dared to entertain the idea of returning. But now, her biggest relief was that if her uncle and aunt were alive, Song Kaiji wouldn’t have to go to extremes.

“Let me go, cousin. I won’t run. I want to find my parents too,” she pleaded. “Once we reunite with them, I won’t say a word about anything that happened these past few days. We can pretend none of this ever happened and go back to being a family.”

She meant it.

It wasn’t that she didn’t hold resentment—it was that she couldn’t afford to. She had no choice. Song Kaiji was clearly backed by this wealthy Boss Shen now. Once she reunited with her parents, she would still need to rely on Song Kaiji to take them back to Red City Base.

Song Kaiji looked at Li Li for a moment but neither responded nor untied her. His tone, however, softened slightly. “You’ve been here before and know the area. If they managed to escape, where do you think they would go?”

The fact that Song Kaiji was willing to speak with her properly was already a good sign. Li Li immediately responded enthusiastically, “They’d probably head for the service station over there. There were already people gathering and living there. If not, then they might have tried to return home to Zizhou.”

Song Kaiji glanced into the distance. “Then let’s check the service station first.”

He stored the car in his space—after all, it was his family’s vehicle, and keeping it was at least something to hold onto. The others had just about finished extracting crystal cores from the slain zombies and were washing them with water.

Qu Weiwei’s expression was grim as she called Shen Qing and Song Kaiji over. “We’ve pulled out a lot of crystal cores that aren’t transparent.”

While they hadn’t noticed anything unusual among the zombies during the fight—none had displayed signs of advanced mutation like the evolved zombie they had previously encountered—the evidence was right in front of them now.

The crystal cores were noticeably larger than usual. They weren’t as vibrant as the orange-red core they had found before, but their surfaces shimmered with different hues. There were over twenty of them.

“Does this mean a lot of the zombies in Zizhou are evolving?” Shen Qing picked up one of the cores and held it up to the light. It had a faint green tint, barely noticeable unless viewed in direct sunlight.

Qu Weiwei took the core from him. “I feel a strong pull toward this color, like an instinct telling me to absorb it immediately.”

Sun Cheng examined one with a reddish glow. “Same here.”

Could zombies truly be evolving in different directions, just like human ability users?

Song Kaiji’s expression darkened. This new discovery cast an even heavier shadow over their journey to Zizhou.

A few kilometers away, at the foot of a mountain, stood an abandoned factory. The building had been out of use since the late 80s. Being tucked away at the base of the mountain, it had never been a priority for demolition. No one wanted to waste the money tearing it down, so it was simply left to decay.

Now, after decades of abandonment, the factory—looking every bit like a haunted ruin—was filled with the sounds of human voices.

An elderly woman with a limp carried a tin bucket and unlocked a door. Inside, six or seven young women sat on the floor, their clothes tattered and their expressions hollow. The smell of food made a few of them stir slightly, their vacant eyes moving for the first time in a while.

But the contents of the bucket could barely be called food. The dark, murky sludge inside was filled with unidentifiable leaves and scraps. The old woman ladled the mixture into bowls and passed them to the girls, speaking in a low voice.

“Today, it’s Xiao Zhang, Xiao Yang, and Lele.”

The three named girls flinched, a soft whimper escaping them.

They didn’t dare cry out loud. A psychic ability user controlled the factory, and his favorite pastime was scanning every corner of the place with his mental power. If someone displeased him, mere punishment wasn’t enough to describe what followed.

One of the girls, tears streaming down her face, whispered, “Aunt Zhang… it was me yesterday. Why is it me again today…?”

Zhang Sujuan didn’t know how to answer. Did the girl think she had any control over this?

She kept her head down, silently finishing the food distribution before limping out with the empty bucket.

Her husband, Li Aiguo, was in the kitchen, cooking with two other men. Half of his left ear was missing, though it had already scabbed over and no longer bled.

The couple exchanged a look but didn’t dare say a word.

Not until nightfall, when everyone lay down to rest, did Zhang Sujuan finally reach for her husband’s hand. Under the cover of her sleeve, she traced the words in his palm.

Let’s run.

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