Chapter 20 – Stationed

The district Nie Yi and the rest had chosen to stay in had small high-rise buildings and villas linked together. He, as well as Ping Shengchao and the rest, weren’t willing to split up. Moreover, those people were even less willing to split up with them. Ultimately, they picked a detached villa in the middle, which had been renovated before, intending to reside there.

“How should this door be opened?” Shao Zhenglan looked at the door of the villa and furrowed her brows as she asked. This villa door was made with substantial stuff, but they planned to stay inside, so forcefully tearing it down was unsuitable.

“I’ll do it,” Nie Yi said. Having lived in the apocalypse for ten years, he had developed some skills, for example, say, pick locking. Of course, to be able to learn these things, was also related to the spiritual strength all the ability users had.

Using his spiritual strength to carefully examine the condition of the lock, Nie Yi then broke off a small sheet of metal from the front of the truck that had become sunken because it had previously driven forward and ‘pushed’ the cars that were blocking the road, causing the front part of the truck to be somewhat sunken.

After that, he used his fire ability to melt that sheet of metal and his spiritual ability to control its transformation into a key; then, he used this key to open the door.

Ping Shengchao and the rest were still calm about it, but when those people who were rescued in these few days saw this, then thought about the scene from before, of Nie Yi using fire to roast the zombies, their gazes on Nie Yi was filled with reverence.

Within their ranks were also people who were quite skilled in dealing with people. Mulling over the fact that he might still need to rely on Nie Yi during the rest of the journey, he promptly started to praise him: “Boss Nie, you’re so amazing. If you weren’t here, we wouldn’t know what to do.”

Before he had finished speaking, Nie Yi had already walked to the large truck once again— at this moment, Qi Jingchen was still sitting in the truck, protected by Nie Yi’s two bodyguards.

The windows of the truck were already gone, and there were even some metal parts that had collapsed in the front. Although it still functioned just fine and could continue to be driven, its appearance was extremely wretched. It made Nie Yi miss the car he had driven in the previous apocalypse terribly, which had been altered by a metal ability user.

Opening the door to the passenger seat, Nie Yi carried Qi Jingchen out from inside, then looked at the two bodyguards. “Bring a few more buckets of water upstairs.”

“Yes.” The two bodyguards responded with a word then immediately went to get the water. Nie Yi entered the house and saw that those people who tagged along were already fighting over for a place, and many had even gone upstairs.

Sweeping his gaze over, he noticed that Xu Nan and the two people he was caring for were all downstairs and felt his mood improve a bit, then he carried Qi Jingchen up the stairs.

This detached villa had three floors. The second floor has two bedrooms and a study, and the third floor was the same. When he went up, many people had already occupied the second floor, but he decided he shouldn’t care. However, there were people on the third floor too. What was even more laughable was that the largest room on the third floor that was facing the south, not only had someone living in it already, that person had even locked the door.

“Come out!” Nie Yi kicked the door, angered yet amused. Almost everyone here was people they were protecting, yet these people still had the gall to occupy the room on the top floor.

However, this sort of situation would always occur during the start of the apocalypse…

“There’s someone inside, I took this room first,” a voice spoke from within the room.

“If you don’t come out, then you don’t have to think about coming out for the rest of your life.” Nie Yi’s face turned cold.

The person inside had probably also perceived that there was something not quite right and opened the door. Only then did Nie Yi realize the one occupying this room was surprisingly that healthy man who had mixed into the family-dependent team!

“I took this room…” This man was still trying to argue.

“If you don’t want to die then fuck off downstairs.” Nie Yi was incredibly sick of this man and straightforwardly kicked his thigh, his kick causing him to stumble and fall onto the ground, yet sustain no injury.

Nie Yi’s imposing manner was genuinely terrifying. That person was terrified, then ran downstairs with wet pants.

At this time, Qi Jingchen still didn’t forget to continue pulling aggro onto himself. “This bed was slept on before, and it’s dirty, I don’t want to lie in it.”

At the present stage, even though everyone could drink water, they didn’t have enough to take a shower, and the man who had just left had sweat and a bad odor that could still be smelled now.

“You go take a shower first, I’ll immediately change the things inside,” Nie Yi said at once.

“Also dinner,” Qi Jingchen said.

“There should be a lot of things to eat around here; I’ll have someone go find some.” Nie Yi was incomparably obedient.

At this time, the bodyguards had already brought over the water. Nie Yi first went to the bathroom connected to the bedroom to pour the water into the bathtub and prepared a set of clothes for Qi Jingchen, only then did he tidy up the bed.

After he cleaned up the bed, he had the two bodyguards go around the vicinity to find something to eat, then went downstairs.

Probably because he previously threatened them, there was practically no one on the top floor, but the second and ground floor was jam-packed with people, and there were even people making a racket about wanting to bicker over a decent place.

“Since you all are following me, you’d best be well-behaved. Adults will sleep in any possible space; children sleep on beds. Bedrooms will all be set aside for the families who have children, the children will sleep on the bed, the adults sleep on the floor,” Nie Yi said, “Whoever feels that sleeping without a bed is uncomfortable, I’ll open the door and send you out. Outside, there are many rooms around that you can choose as you please.”

After Nie Yi said this, no one dared to say a word.

“Furthermore, in the future, no matter where we’re stopping by, we’re the first to pick on where to stay!” Nie Yi said, and when he saw that some people weren’t accepting of it, he continued, “If you feel discontent, Godspeed, I won’t see you out!”

“There’s no discontent, this was originally how it should be.” There was an immediate expression of diplomatic agreement.

Nie Yi then stopped talking and looked at Shao Zhenglan. “Shao Zhenglan, build a perimeter wall outside the house. Qi Yaoyao, tidy up the bedroom on the northern side of the top floor, you’ll be sleeping in there with Shao Zhenglan later.”

“Boss, what about me ne?” Ping Shengchao was taking Xu Nan to move the materials out and asked right then.

“You’ll sleep in the corridor,” Nie Yi laughed. There was still a study room on the top floor, and letting Ping Shengchao, Jiang Huai, and the two bodyguards sleep there made it just right.

As for Yan Zhe… He won’t care for him anymore.

After allocating the areas to sleep, what came after was distributing supplies. Jiang Huai had recorded the information of the people participating in combat long ago, and was now distributing materials in the living room on the ground floor according to the number of people and their performance on the journey today.

The family-dependent all didn’t make any effort, so they wouldn’t get any food, but Jiang Huai opened a box of children’s milk, then gave every child two additional cartons.

This type of children’s milk was just 120ml per carton, but it was still a useful thing during the apocalypse. However, seeing that all the milk was given to children, most of the people weren’t really dissatisfied.

The distributed food was stuff like instant noodles, bread, and biscuits. Xu Nan took his own portion, ate a small amount, then wanted to give it to his wife and daughter, but his wife didn’t eat much either, so in the end, the leftovers were put in their bag.

Their bags still had leftover food from before. In truth, they didn’t lack in food, but they still didn’t eat or drink too much.

However, while some people carefully saved up their food, some people finished their meal all at once…

After everyone had eaten and drank a little, they saw someone walking down the stairs.

The one coming down was a young man in his twenties. His skin was very fair and his hair was dripping wet. He wore a loose T-shirt and a pair of jeans, looking refreshed, yet also bringing an indescribable sense of allure.

Of course, this sense of allure was only perceived by Nie Yi. Other people were sweating all over, and under the circumstances where they didn’t even dare to finish up the distributed water, when they saw this person who had obviously just finished washing up, all they felt was an unspeakable sense of envy.

This person… How could he be so fortunate?

“Jingchen, why did you come down?” Nie Yi promptly asked, at the same time, he stepped forward to support Qi Jingchen.

“I’m hungry.” Qi Jingchen frowned, and his gaze unobtrusively landed on Yan Zhe. Upon noticing that Yan Zhe’s gaze towards him was exceedingly resentful, he lifted his chin. “You go clean up the table.”

On the ground floor of the villa, there was a living room, a kitchen, and what was likely a small bedroom for the housekeeper. Also, the dining hall and the living room were connected, and the table Qi Jingchen was pointing at was naturally the dining table in the dining room. At this time, there were still people sitting on the chairs and eating.

Was this person trying to incite mass anger? Or else, since he clearly could eat alone in his room, why would he adamantly want to appear downstairs? Ping Shengchao looked at Qi Jingchen with a complicated expression, while Nie Yi was looking at those few people sitting at the dining table, then pointed at the empty patch of ground next to it. “You all, go eat over there.”

The people sitting at the table didn’t dare provoke Nie Yi and immediately left. When Nie Yi saw that Qi Jingchen didn’t have the intention of going over, he took a packet of wet wipes from Jiang Huai, then wiped all the tables and chairs without exception.

Only then did Qi Jingchen ‘condescend to the level of the commoners’ and sit down. Meanwhile, the two bodyguards brought back food.

They brought back some duck eggs and a duck, a lot of vegetables, and even some potatoes.

The countryside surrounding the cities all fundamentally didn’t raise pigs anymore, but some people would feed some chickens and ducks at home. This duck was something that they had used an assortment of supplies to exchange for with a farming family who was still living.

“How do you want to eat it?”

“Roasted,” said Qi Jingchen.

Nie Yi lifted the duck and went into the kitchen, then skilfully slaughtered the duck and started to roast the duck, the other food cooking as well. It was also at this time when he had the increasingly vivid sense that his ability became stronger.

Even though his ability got stronger, it still wasn’t particularly strong. After all, some people who had just awakened would be infinitely close to being a second-level ability user, but this speed of ability growth was already fast to the point that it was astonishing…

The green vegetables were boiled, the potatoes were half-boiled, half-roasted, and Nie Yi had even helped slice the roasted duck…

Before the apocalypse, an ordinary family’s meat and vegetable dishes might be even more refined, but now it was the apocalypse.

The surrounding people all swallowed their saliva, but in the end, Qi Jingchen had only eaten a bit then stopped his chopsticks. “I’m full.”

“Eat a bit more,” Nie Yi said.

“I want to drink duck blood soup,” Qi Jingchen said.

“…” Nie Yi hadn’t thought of letting out duck blood. He had directly killed the duck without even releasing blood… “I’ll have them get another duck.”

“No need anymore.” Qi Jingchen stood up and slowly went upstairs.

“Jiang Huai, bring over a jar of chili paste.” Nie Yi then polished off Qi Jingchen’s leftover food, then went upstairs to chase after Qi Jingchen.

Qi Jingchen’s behavior definitely had people wanting to beat him up after seeing it, but he did this because he wanted the boss to throw him away… Ping Shengchao gave a profound sigh.

Those two bodyguards had gone through an exceedingly large amount of trouble to find food, but seeing that most of it ended up being eaten by the young master, their heart was more comforted, and they started to eat their dinner.

Jiang Huai, without any sense of existence, kept the chili paste, then tidied up the supplies. Back when he was Nie Yi’s assistant, he had been in charge of various tasks, and now it was still the same job, as he was in charge of all the logistics.

The others also had their own work to do. Shao Zhenglan went out to build an earthen wall with her ability, while Qi Yaoyao obediently went upstairs to clean up the room.

Now, Qi Yaoyao had already discerned that her brother probably won’t suffer any losses. Seeing the interactions between Nie Yi and her ge, Nie Yi probably didn’t dare do anything to her ge.

But even so, her ge probably wasn’t happy, or else he definitely wouldn’t make trouble without reason like now. She must find a way to get stronger, then leave with her brother!

Qi Yaoyao, who had made a decision, finished cleaning up the room and exercised for a few moments, but very soon, she was unbearably tired. She laid down on the bed, intending to rest for a while, but ended up sleeping just like that…

It was only two hours later when Shao Zhenglan very slowly went upstairs. Her ability had already been squeezed dry, and she fell head-first onto the bed and slept.

Meanwhile, at this time, Nie Yi used the leftover water from Qi Jingchen’s bath to take a bath, then slept near Qi Jingchen. Of course, he didn’t forget to use his spiritual strength to monitor the situation outside.

Even though Yan Zhe felt incensed towards Nie Yi’s heartless behavior of not mentioning him at all, he still went to the third floor, then slept in the corridor.

Previously, because he was familiar with Nie Yi and the rest for a long time, those people downstairs, although they weren’t really good to him, they also didn’t dare to really offend him. If they knew that Nie Yi and the rest had excluded him, he was afraid that there wouldn’t be this kind of advantage.

Qi Jingchen, Qi Jingchen… Yan Zhe closed his eyes, and he repeated this name everywhere in his heart, his hatred towards Qi Jingchen was more and more profound.

On a great summer period, the water distributed to him wasn’t even enough to wash his face, while Qi Jingchen was actually able to take a bath… all of this should’ve obviously been his. Thinking about the week before, when Nie Yi would look for water especially for him to wipe and wash, the previous idea that had flashed by in his mind became impossible to get rid of.

Even though the journey’s advancement speed was very slow due to zombies, if they continued for another two days, they would reach B city’s secure base, and it would be too late by then…

At dawn the next day, Jiang Huai distributed things once more, while Nie Yi really had the two bodyguards exchange for another duck, then made duck blood soup.

It’s just that, in the end, this duck blood soup had mostly gone into his own stomach, while Qi Jingchen only had two mouthfuls…

A night had passed, and a large number of zombies had gathered outside the door. Therefore, for Nie Yi and those that had to participate in battles, their first order of business after eating breakfast was to kill all the zombies.

Yan Zhe killed zombies as well, however, while everyone did their best to avoid even the unmoving corpse of a zombie, he stealthily collected a zombie’s finger.