PSW - Chapter 63
Chapter 63
The solid ice scattered, and Zheng Yi finally walked out.
Yu Yinan rushed to her side almost immediately. Zheng Yi had clearly already used her ability to clean herself up. She was spotless from head to toe, and the faint smell of blood clinging to her was quickly carried away by the wind.
"Burn them," Zheng Yi said, accepting the dumplings Yu Yinan handed her. She glanced at the sky. "There's no need to keep the broken-down car they drove here. Siphon the gasoline out and blow it up with the car."
As for the survivor base and general situation in Hangnu, Zheng Yi had already gotten the gist of it. There were no formal shelters in Hangnu; the so-called survivor camps were just various places suitable for people to live and rest, offering little more than a shield from the heavy rain. There was no shelter like the one in Pujie, no cooperation, and squads were formed independently, without any rules or order.
If two groups of ability users met in the wild, the weaker would either be consumed by the stronger, or they'd have to hand over all their resources to beg for their lives.
Almost no one chose to settle down in Hangnu. The five men, for instance, had only been wandering around because they felt it had gotten safer recently, with fewer zombies and mutated beasts, hoping to find some resources others hadn't scavenged.
As for female ability users… according to the five men, it was impossible for a woman to be on her own in Hangnu, regardless of whether she had an ability or not. They couldn't count the number of women who had died at their hands on two hands. They had either banded together to hide or had fled to other cities.
Zheng Yi ate the piping hot dumplings one by one. Yu Yinan must have done something else besides keeping the dumplings warm during that time, because she now looked utterly exhausted and unwell. Zheng Yi could see it took a great deal of effort for her to summon the flames to incinerate the bodies.
Zheng Yi quickly finished the dumplings, then got up to wash and put away the bowl and chopsticks. She went into the dumpling shop, packed up the necessary pots and pans, and stored them in the back of the armored vehicle. After that, she glanced at the remaining resources in the five men's car. She ignored the water and compressed biscuits, concluding that the most valuable thing was, as expected, the fuel in the gas tank.
Flames licked at the small car's seats, and the blaze quickly engulfed it. Paying no mind to the fire that would burn out whenever it pleased, Zheng Yi opened the driver's side door and sat down. The moment Yu Yinan settled into the passenger seat, Zheng Yi tossed her a box of dried fish.
It was a box of twenty small packets of savory dried fish, a snack popular with children.
Yu Yinan clearly didn't understand why Zheng Yi had suddenly given her this, but she held the box in her lap and watched as Zheng Yi started the car and drove toward the zoo.
She leaned against the passenger seat, dazedly watching Zheng Yi's profile. Fatigue and pain pricked at her nerves. Her eyes slowly closed, and with her head swaying slightly, she fell asleep against the seat.
Yu Yinan was jolted awake by the inertia of a sudden stop.
Her eyes flew open to see Zheng Yi, expression unchanged, slowly driving into the zoo as if she hadn't been the one to slam on the brakes just a moment ago.
"…" What could Yu Yinan say? It was nice of Zheng Yi to wake her up this way at all.
She rubbed her face, finally shaking off the drowsiness. An hour or two of sleep had been enough to restore most of her energy; at least the stabbing pain was gone.
So this was the Hangnu Zoo…
It was so… clean.
Not a single monkey could be seen in the monkey exhibit or on monkey mountain. The golden monkey enclosure was also empty. There were no chimpanzees in the chimp house and no bears on bear mountain, though there was a skeleton, picked clean to the bone, not yet fully covered by weeds.
In the Koi Garden's ornamental pond, even the koi were gone. Though if Zheng Yi and she had come a month or two earlier, they might have caught the sight of them floating belly-up.
Zheng Yi drove along the park's route, taking in the sights, while Yu Yinan continuously used her ability to burn away the weeds and branches that had crept onto the road and were blocking their path.
Zheng Yi and Yu Yinan even got out of the car and went inside the penguin enclosure, but they didn't see a single penguin. It was impossible to know if they had died or escaped. The parrot house, the waterfowl wetlands—it was all the same. The birds that could fly had probably all escaped. The glass display windows were shattered all over the ground, and the gilded birdcages that once hung as decorations were now rolling on the floor, crushed and dented by some immense force.
There were no ostriches, golden pheasants, or even swans left in Swan Lake. As the modified vehicle drove along the lakeside path, the once-lively Swan Lake was exceptionally calm, without a single ripple. Even the aquatic plants were thriving. It went without saying that there were no flamingos in Flamingo Valley. Zheng Yi did spot a dusty gray sparrow fly through the valley. With her eyesight, she could clearly tell it was a sparrow, but it was the size of a soccer ball.
"Are flamingos that small?" Yu Yinan hadn't gotten a clear look.
"Flamingos are firebirds. That was a sparrow."
"Are sparrows that big?"
Zheng Yi couldn't help but give Yu Yinan a second look. She suspected that while waiting for her outside, Yu Yinan had accidentally overused her ability, making her already-not-so-sharp brain even duller.
"…" Yu Yinan realized what she had just said. She looked out the window in embarrassment as Zheng Yi drove to the deer enclosure. Although they didn't find any living deer, they found many deer bones of various sizes. One complete skeleton was even tightly bound by numerous green vines.
This zoo was even more boring than they had imagined. She wondered if the animals whose bodies they hadn't seen were still alive, and if they had mutated.
Finally, in the lion and tiger enclosure, they saw a tiger—one with a rotting head and a body swollen like a ball.
This tiger must have been the last one alive, the one that survived the longest. It had eaten its companions, and when the last of the carcasses were gone, it was still trapped in this enclosure. The bars of the fence were covered in dried blood and bits of flesh, a testament to its desperation. It had stared at the world outside until it lost all strength and could no longer move.
Four months wasn't a particularly long or short time. But for these animals trapped in their cages, once their regular food supply was cut off, death was the only thing that awaited them if they couldn't escape.
It made sense. When the apocalypse came, people could barely protect themselves. Who had the time to care for the animals they used to watch for amusement?
"I thought we'd run into a lot of mutated animals…" Yu Yinan couldn't help but say. But on second thought, even if some animals had mutated and survived, they probably wouldn't have stayed here. Mutated animals needed to eat, after all.
In the very end, after touring the entire park, the only animals they found were rabbits that had somehow wandered in. A large warren of black, white, and spotted rabbits had dug numerous holes in the woods and grassy areas. When Zheng Yi went to take a look, she even found a litter of newborn bunnies in one of the holes.
"Don't tell me these rabbits' special ability is super-fertility."
Zheng Yi didn't bother with the rabbits. Making spicy rabbit heads was too much trouble anyway.
If the zoo was like this, the aquarium and amusement park would be even less interesting. But since they were already here, Zheng Yi stuck to the route she had planned the day before. These three pre-apocalypse parks had all practically turned into "botanical gardens" after the apocalypse, which made Zheng Yi wonder if the original botanical garden had become a mutated botanical garden.
As they drove out of the amusement park, which was overgrown with weeds and had vines crawling all over the rides, Yu Yinan sat uneasily in the passenger seat, constantly stealing glances at Zheng Yi's face. From her… limited understanding of Zheng Yi, she had to be feeling extremely bored right now.
"I thought… there would at least be some creatures left in these places." Yu Yinan sighed. The apocalypse had only begun four months ago, yet everything already felt so desolate. It seemed nature could erase the traces of humanity with ease. She wondered how long it would take for these plants to completely swallow the city.
"We were just looking around anyway," Zheng Yi said, glancing at her. "Relax." Besides, the day's entertainment had already delivered itself to their doorstep that morning.
The modified vehicle drove on at a leisurely pace. Yu Yinan gazed at Zheng Yi's profile. Perhaps because she had dealt with those people in the morning, Zheng Yi seemed particularly calm now.
After this street, the Hangnu University campus was just up ahead. Would anyone be living there temporarily?
Before they even reached the south gate, a strange mix of music drifted from ahead. Was someone there?
Playing music out loud during the apocalypse? A midday rave?
The afternoon sun shone down on the campus road. In the distance, two vehicles, one in front and one behind, had blocked the intersection, trapping a small car between them. Eight people formed a circle, each one focused on conjuring their ability, facing off against the two people in the middle… huh? Cosplayers?
Ahem, they were facing off against a robot and a magical girl with blonde hair, golden eyes, and her own golden halo.
If you listened closely, the passionate, blood-pumping battle BGM was coming from the robot, while the energetic and vibrant music, sparkling as if with magic, came from the blonde magical girl.
"Boss, this brother and sister duo seem a little nuts. Why don't we just let them leave the car and go?"
"You think I don't want to? But do they look like they can be reasoned with?"
The people surrounding them whispered amongst themselves.
Finally, one of them couldn't take it anymore. "Turn off your damn BGM! We're not fighting! Leave the car, and you can go now!"
"Hah! I am the Poli Guli Robot! Where there is light, there is hope! Where there is light, there is salvation! Poli Guli!" the robot's mechanical voice boomed with passion, reciting its standard lines with dramatic flair. In the next instant, the sunlight in the sky seemed to converge into a beam, pouring directly into the energy receiver on its body. Amidst a sudden puff of smoke, the robot's form abruptly grew larger, and it threw a heavy punch at the men.
"Light Pretty Cure will never compromise!" A dazzling golden light flared from the magical girl. She waved the magic wand in her hand, channeling more light energy into the robot's receiver. "Go! Poli Guli!"
"[Censored profanity], which one of you sons of bitches just said we should let them finish transforming?!"
Who knew how these two, who were clearly from different genres of transformation shows, ended up together? The problem was, their teamwork was inexplicably in sync!
The battle erupted in an instant! Both of their BGMs switched tracks simultaneously. Though the styles were still different, they had clearly entered combat mode.
"…Should we help?" Yu Yinan asked, looking at Zheng Yi with hesitation. "Saving people in distress should be good for your Saint persona, right?"
The robot was one style, the magical girl was another, and the eight ability users were yet another. Seeing people from three different worlds tangled up in a brawl was truly… a unique "visual feast."
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