PSW - Chapter 116
Chapter 116
In the days that followed, Zheng Yi and Yu Yinan returned to a life of leisure. Every day, Zheng Yi would visit the water storage station, fill a few barrels with her ability, and earn some contribution points. Yu Yinan, meanwhile, quietly trained her own ability outside the shelter, preparing for the extreme cold that was to come.
Life… should have continued on this placid, uneventful course until they fulfilled their promise to have New Year's Eve dinner with Zhu Lanyuan and the other women, welcoming the new year with lively celebration. But perhaps the world's consciousness couldn't bear to see Zheng Yi so bored, or maybe it was simply fate's design. In any case… the male and female protagonists, who had deviated from the original novel but not entirely, suddenly appeared in Humanity's Light Shelter.
'What's going on? Was this part of the original story?' Zheng Yi asked. Could it be that Humanity's Light Shelter eventually succumbed to the protagonist's halo and became one of their strongholds?
[The original novel… didn't write about this part.] Zero One sounded a little sheepish and embarrassed. [These details were all included in the "two years later" part~]
[Anyway, two years later, the male and female protagonists have already established their own base~ By then, it's all about the romantic fluff within the base and the various jealous misunderstandings between the protagonists! Plus, the second male lead, second female lead, third male lead, and third female lead all take turns on stage, playing out dramatic scenes of groveling to win back their partners. Famous scenes include, but are not limited to: kabedon, forced kisses, red-rimmed eyes, and the line, "You're playing with fire."]
In a way, the time skip probably saved those two protagonists' lives. Otherwise, Zheng Yi really couldn't imagine how they could have survived for two years.
Perhaps the original author couldn't imagine it either, so they just skipped over it.
'So you're saying they still have to live for another two years?'
[Ah… yes. But the protagonists won't have much of an impact on you. With your strength… uh, the background of the original story and the current plot should be different now, right? The change has already happened.] Zero One chose its words carefully. If it were dealing with its previous hosts, it would have done its best to prevent them from contacting the original protagonists. After all, a protagonist's halo wasn't something an ordinary person could resist.
But its current host was Zheng Yi.
The Zero One of today was completely different from the Zero One of the beginning. It wasn't even sure if the world would collapse or continue to incubate if Zheng Yi really killed the protagonists ahead of schedule. After all, this world consciousness that wanted to incubate didn't seem particularly fond of the protagonists either.
After all this time, their strength, despite their protagonist halos, still hadn't reached the top tier.
Zheng Yi watched the man and woman bickering at the mission center with a blank expression.
Yu Yinan followed Zheng Yi's gaze and also noticed the couple entangled in front of the notice board. They looked… a little familiar?
"Extreme cold, motorcycle," Zheng Yi offered two keywords, and Yu Yinan's memory was instantly jogged! The man was that guy who had opened his big mouth and tried to buy her motorcycle. How… how were they still not broken up?
Yu Yinan looked over and saw the man clutching the girl's hand, refusing to let go, and shouting in an extremely aggrieved and angry tone, "Do you think that pretty boy's ability is stronger and more useful than mine? Do you think my awakened ability is useless in the apocalypse? I saw it! You were talking to him, and you smiled a full two times!"
"I knew it, I knew it! An ability like transforming into a knight is useless! Why did I have to awaken this kind of ability? I knew you wanted to be with a prince, not me! A knight, a knight… sob sob sob…"
Zheng Yi pursed her lips. 'Does the protagonist's halo only protect their lives, not their brains?'
Yu Yinan was utterly stunned by what she was hearing. And she wasn't the only one. The many ability users in the mission hall all cast astonished glances at the male protagonist's loud voice. Under the public's gaze, the female protagonist's face turned bright red, so embarrassed she could have dug a three-bedroom apartment out of the floor on the spot. She frantically raised a hand to cover the man's mouth, but before she could, he let out a loud wail. "You'd cover my mouth for him! Woman, I was wrong about you! Do you know whose love you're trampling on?!"
"Get up, get up, please get up! Let's talk outside. I'll explain when we're outside…" The female protagonist looked like she was about to explode. She kept pulling at the man's clothes, trying to steady him and lead him out of the hall. But the man seemed completely oblivious to the concept of face. A stark contrast to the "wildly domineering and cool" persona he had displayed during their previous encounter, he clung to the female protagonist for dear life, refusing to budge an inch.
"Get up! Let's go outside!" At the end of her rope, the female protagonist finally roared.
"You-you dare to yell at me? You dare to yell at me?! Do you know who I am? You-you haven't called me 'big brother' in a long time, and now you're yelling at me…"
'Were the protagonists always like this?' Zheng Yi couldn't quite remember.
[…] Zero One was silent for a moment, took a deep breath, flipped through the original novel, and revealed a look of despair. […It wasn't like this in the original novel!]
What on earth had the apocalypse done to the protagonists?!
After a dramatic exchange of "Don't you love me anymore?" "No," "Have you fallen for that pretty boy?" "No!" and a series of lines like "I love you," "I really love you," and "I only love you," the male protagonist finally calmed down a little. He blissfully took the female protagonist's hand and pulled the girl, who looked like she had lost the will to live, into his arms. While saying with delighted satisfaction, "I knew you loved me," he shot a furious glare at the onlookers. "What are you looking at? Never seen a couple argue before?" Then, under the female protagonist's frantic pulling, he reluctantly left the mission center.
…That was just bizarre.
Zheng Yi seriously questioned the protagonists' mental state.
Yu Yinan rubbed her face, recalling their previous encounter, and felt that something was still not quite right with those two. "It's fine. They don't remember us. We're leaving after the new year, so we won't have any interaction with them." Even if they did have some impression, it didn't matter; Zheng Yi hadn't revealed anything in front of them before.
Zheng Yi gave a casual nod. Compared to the male protagonist's previous behavior, he was actually more tolerable now that he was acting like an idiot. As for the "pretty boy" he mentioned, that must be the second male lead, right? Zheng Yi didn't dwell on it, treating it as free entertainment. She and Yu Yinan took a look at the mission board, found there were still no logistical tasks worth taking, and left hand in hand.
They never expected that Zhao Haiyue would show up at their door with people in tow that very evening, just after they had finished dinner.
To be honest, Zhao Haiyue hadn't come willingly. Although interacting with Zheng Yi in her normal state was… actually fine, she still felt a certain pressure. Hmm, perhaps it was guilt from what had happened before, or maybe it was the pressure of being completely outmatched in strength.
However, there was news about the meteor fragments that the great Zheng Yi was concerned about, so Zhao Haiyue mustered her courage and took the initiative to visit her at the earliest opportunity. She even brought those two people with her.
[…The world is a wondrous place.] Zero One was certain that even if the original novel had a "two years later" section, what was happening now had definitely deviated from it. Because the ones with news about the meteor fragments were the protagonists. To be precise, it was the female protagonist, but the male protagonist had insisted on accompanying her, refusing to let her come alone.
"Ahem, these two are ability users who just arrived at the shelter not long ago. This is Wan Yinyue. She has some information about the meteor fragments, which she will explain to you in detail later. This is Xie Congdong, Miss Wan's boyfriend, who has come along with her." With outsiders present, Zhao Haiyue was very official and formal. Facing Zheng Yi, she was composed and poised, completely devoid of her previous flustered and guilty demeanor.
"This is Zheng Yi, and this is Yu Yinan. They were the first to provide our shelter with information about the meteor fragments. They also have a certain understanding of them, and the bounty was posted by them." As she said the last sentence, Zhao Haiyue shot Zheng Yi and Yu Yinan a meaningful look. The bounty had, of course, been issued by the shelter's upper management, but these two hadn't reported their information to them yet. Zhao Haiyue had brought them to Zheng Yi first.
For one, Zhao Haiyue wanted to hear what information they had in advance. If it wasn't very valuable, there was no need to report it. And for another… she had promised Zheng Yi she would inform her immediately if there was any news. If their information turned out to be too explosive, it would be much harder to bring them to Zheng Yi later.
"Hello, please come in." Yu Yinan politely opened the door and welcomed them inside.
Zheng Yi condensed some water, and Yu Yinan boiled it. Soon, each of the three guests was served a cup of hot tea.
"Thank you~ You two sisters look a bit familiar. Perhaps we've met before. It must be fate," Wan Yinyue said with a smile, thanking them as she held the warm cup.
The moment she finished speaking, Xie Congdong, beside her, frowned. But before his mouth could open, Wan Yinyue secretly grabbed his hand and pinched the back of it hard, all while maintaining a gentle smile on her face.
The male protagonist's expression shifted several times before he gritted his teeth and endured it. He took a sip of hot water to cover it up, only to be scalded, making him flinch. His pride wouldn't let him spit it out, so he forced himself to swallow, his face turning red, not daring to make a sound.
"A jiejie as beautiful as you, if I had seen you before, I definitely wouldn't have forgotten." Zheng Yi put on an equally sweet and harmless smile and smoothly continued the conversation. "I wonder how much Jiejie knows about these meteor fragments?"
"Nothing at all," Wan Yinyue said decisively, startling Zhao Haiyue, who was slowly blowing on and sipping her hot water, for a moment. But she quickly continued, "But I believe one of the fragments should have fallen near my hometown."
"Oh?" Zheng Yi blinked, looking very interested.
"I don't know what a meteor fragment looks like, and I've never actually seen one. But that night…" Wan Yinyue paused, then said firmly, "I definitely saw a streak of blue meteoric light fall in our direction."
"On the first day of the apocalypse, the large-scale outbreaks in most places happened around noon. But in our area, mutations started occurring in the early morning after the meteor, and even in the latter half of the night. It's just that no one thought it was the apocalypse back then; they just thought someone was having a psychotic episode in the middle of the night…"
"Perhaps the time it takes to turn into a zombie varies from person to person, but-but… I came down with a high fever after the night of the meteor and fell into a coma. I woke up around noon, close to the afternoon. By then, all sorts of places and the internet were already exploding. That was when Xie Congdong couldn't contact me and immediately rushed to my house." Wan Yinyue clasped her hands together, pursed her lips, but continued, "My parents turned into zombies, and I… I awakened a personal storage space ability on the very first day."
"Xie Congdong didn't have an ability at first, but after he came to my house… and saved me, he just rested for one night and came down with a high fever the next day too. He didn't fall unconscious, but he felt awful. After that, he also awakened an ability."
"It was so chaotic…" Wan Yinyue murmured, lost in memory. "It was truly chaotic back then. Everything erupted so quickly and violently, giving people no time to prepare. While people in other cities were frantically hoarding supplies and searching for resources and weapons, our entire area descended directly into chaos. Many people turned into zombies while panic-buying in supermarkets, followed by brutal massacres and a frantic chain of infections."
"You might not fully believe this, since the meteor fragment being there is just speculation, but-but at that time, it was really so different. It was as if the disaster in other cities was accelerated more than ten times over in my city! Ability users, zombies—they appeared so quickly, and the probability was so high."
"There should be very few mutated animals and plants in other cities, right? After Xie Congdong and I escaped from there, we passed through many cities. Even the city right next to ours wasn't as chaotic as ours was. When I met other survivors and told them about the situation, they all suspected I was lying, saying I was exaggerating. And on our journey here, Xie Congdong and I barely encountered any mutated animals! But do you know? When I left that place, the apocalypse had only been going on for a week, yet there was already a terrifying number of mutated animals. Pet cats, pet dogs, even the pothos on my neighbor's windowsill had mutated!"
"The pet mutations were… completely different from the zombies. Xie Congdong and I encountered a dog that could actually breathe fire, and it hadn't turned into a zombie. It even had some intelligence! It would wag its tail at me and protect its owner. It even got startled by the fire it breathed out and would singe its own fur. It was as if… they had awakened abilities too? I saw a cat—I don't know if it was a pet or a stray—but it was so fast. When it ran, it was truly like a black shadow, just a whoosh and it was gone. I thought at the time, if it wanted to kill someone, at that speed, the ability users back then probably wouldn't have been able to stop it." Perhaps because Zheng Yi was acting so gentle, listening so attentively, and even nodding and reacting to her words, Wan Yinyue's desire to talk grew. She couldn't help but share more, going into great detail. "But I don't know about insects, reptiles, and the like. I haven't seen any. But even if they did mutate and awaken, the probability should be very low, right? I can't imagine a mosquito breathing fire or a cockroach teleporting."
"This is probably all the information I can provide. That place is Xuancheng, in the southeast of Ling Country. It was truly too chaotic and terrifying back then, so Xie Congdong and I left the city quickly. After that… I don't know how things developed there or if anyone is still alive." Wan Yinyue sighed and looked at Zheng Yi and Yu Yinan. "I hope this can be of some help to you."
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