Chapter 99: The 099

Jixiang Jiayuan was currently relying on Youth Apartments for help—one could even say it was dependent on them—yet it had sneakily snatched the pharmacy out from under Youth Apartments first. It certainly looked rather bad.

That wasn’t how one behaved when asking for someone’s help.

Zhou Wang hurriedly changed the subject. Looking at Jiang Cheng’s group, he asked, “Why are you still carrying forks?”

Several people in the group were holding U-shaped forks.

These things could only serve as auxiliary tools; they couldn’t kill zombies. To kill zombies, one either needed blunt weapons, such as steel pipes or spiked clubs, to smash their heads, or sharp weapons, such as kitchen knives, watermelon knives, machetes, or the very handsome ethnic-style steel saber Song Jingshuo carried, to sever their necks.

A U-shaped fork could only pin a zombie down and keep it from coming over.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t keeping anything to herself. Eliminating the zombies was a common challenge for all humanity, and everyone had to face it together.

She told Zhou Wang, “We’re planning to study the effects of superpowers on zombies.”

“Huh?” Zhou Wang was surprised. “Are they useful? They don’t seem to work very well to me.”

“They can be improved. You have to practice repeatedly. It’s the same principle as working out.”

So far, there were only enough superpowered people in Jixiang Jiayuan to count on one hand.

There was Zhou Wang, who had a wind-based ability.

A young, strong man with a fire-based ability.

Two elderly women with wood-based abilities.

That was it.

The situation was bleak.

Zhou Wang casually asked, “What kind of superpower do you have?”

Jiang Cheng only replied, “A support-type ability.”

She didn’t elaborate.

Zhou Wang tactfully refrained from asking more.

Someone in the group suddenly said to the person beside him, “Look, it’s Jiang Cheng’s cat.”

Everyone turned toward the voice, but all they saw was a black shadow disappearing into the distance.

Mo Li never took the ordinary route. He ran along the residential compound’s railing, leaping from one concrete pillar to the next. He moved incredibly fast; by the time everyone turned to look, he had already vanished.

Judging by the direction he had gone, he seemed to be heading toward Mai Duoduo.

Someone worriedly asked, “Is he going to be all right?”

After thinking for a moment, someone else said, “There’ve been zombies rampaging around for so long already, and Black Civet has always been allowed to roam freely. If something were going to happen, it would’ve happened by now. Cats are fast. Don’t worry.”

Someone else said, “Mo Li looks like—”

“Huh? Isn’t he black?”

Jiang Cheng knew that Mo Li had gone to Mai Duoduo first. She wasn’t worried. The little black cat had fully recovered long ago, and when she hadn’t been looking, he had even transformed and killed four or five zombies in one breath. That was proof enough of his strength.

Zhou Wang, on the other hand...

Jiang Cheng thought about it for a moment. Superpowers had appeared alongside the zombies, so they definitely couldn’t be useless. She was now devoted to discovering the uses of every superpower.

“Brother Zhou,” Jiang Cheng suggested, “why don’t you go scout out Mai Duoduo first?”

Zhou Wang fell silent.

He pointed at himself with his index finger, seeking confirmation.

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said. “I was just thinking about what your wind-based superpower could do. It can’t only be used to run away—that would be such a waste. The supermarket is spacious. Even with one or two hundred people inside, the density is low enough for you to run around. And your speed is clearly faster than that of a second-generation zombie. I estimate the zombies won’t be able to catch you.”

The speed of second- and third-generation zombies had been enhanced. They could run extremely fast.

When Jiang Cheng and Shen Wei had fought for their lives inside the house, Jiang Cheng had kept her eyes shut and swung the baseball bat directly at the empty space in front of her. She had taken advantage of the second-generation zombies’ lack of thought and their tendency to attack in a straight line. Every swing had landed.

Otherwise, fighting a second-generation zombie alone would have been quite dangerous. They were simply too fast.

Jiang Cheng’s eyes were full of encouragement. “Brother Zhou, why not give it a try?”

Several people nearby turned to look at him.

The corners of Zhou Wang’s mouth twitched. After thinking it over, he gritted his teeth and agreed. “All right. I’ll give it a try.”

Since the heavens had bestowed him with the ability to run fast, he might as well test it out. He was wearing protective armor anyway. Once he knew what he could do, he would have a better idea of his limits in the future.

Zhou Wang started running and disappeared in a flash.

Everyone let out cries of amazement.

Someone stretched out a hand and lamented, “I’ve had a headache this whole time. Why hasn’t my superpower appeared yet? Come on, hurry up and show yourself!”

It had now been basically confirmed that headaches were a precursor to the awakening of superpowers. Aside from Aunt Pan, another three people had awakened their abilities that morning and afternoon.

One of them had awakened a fire-based ability and immediately produced a huge ball of flame, completely overpowering Wu Jiancheng’s tiny flame.

His name was Cao Jiacai. He was a security guard at Youth Apartments, in his thirties and approaching forty. Among the security guards, he was considered the oldest. Little Fang was the youngest, only nineteen.

He had also been issued a suit of protective armor and followed the others toward Mai Duoduo.

This time, every superpowered person had gone out, even those whose combat abilities were not particularly strong. The main reason was that they all wanted to test their powers.

As the saying went, “Within three steps, there must be an antidote.”

Everyone now felt that calling it the zombie virus was perhaps not entirely accurate, but they would continue using the term for the time being. In any case, the zombie virus had given zombies powerful, incorruptible bodies, while it had also granted humanity superpowers that science could not explain.

Could these superpowers be the antidote to the zombies’ deadly poison?

Everyone had spent the entire day discussing it, and they all felt that it was very possible.

Cao Jiacai’s fire-based superpower was simply too eye-catching. Many people who had touched everything they could think of without awakening a superpower refused to give up and went around touching fire instead. Several people ended up with burns.

As Zhou Wang ran, he spotted the black cat.

The cat was famous. People in several nearby residential compounds knew it—the cat belonging to the young woman from Youth Apartments.

The image of the black cat perched on the girl’s left shoulder was simply too striking to forget.

As Mo Li ran, he suddenly sensed something. He turned his head sharply and saw that Zhou Wang was catching up.

Without a word, Mo Li suddenly accelerated.

Zhou Wang was astonished. He had never kept a cat and had no idea cats could run this fast. He sped up as well. The man and cat soon ran side by side, and neither could gain an advantage over the other.

Before long, they reached the supermarket. The black cat darted away and vanished.

Zhou Wang couldn’t stop for the sake of one cat, so he could only continue running, puzzled about where it had gone.

Humans had their paths, and cats had theirs.

As Mo Li ran, he suddenly sprang into the air, kicked off a tree trunk, rebounded, twisted around, and slipped into a ventilation duct in the building.

He and Zhou Wang were taking completely different routes.

The entire process happened as fast as lightning. Zhou Wang merely blinked, and Mo Li was already nowhere to be seen.

Zhou Wang had no choice but to continue running on his own.

The supermarket’s doors stood open, and the air curtain had been whirring away for two days and one night and was still working.

The instant Zhou Wang passed through the air curtain, he gained a new insight into controlling the airflow. As he ran, he pondered what he had felt, and sure enough, his running speed increased again.

Just as Jiang Cheng had said, superpowers could indeed be improved!

Zhou Wang ran into the supermarket. Before he even entered the shopping area, he saw zombies—security guards, customers, cleaners, and cashiers.

Some of them were even familiar faces.

Although Zhou Wang was fast, this was still his first time charging alone into a crowd of zombies, and he felt somewhat nervous. He held his breath, exerted himself with all his strength, and increased his speed once more.

Feeling the airflow from the air curtain just now had improved his skill at controlling air currents without increasing the strain on his brain.

But now, holding his breath and forcing himself to move faster clearly placed additional pressure on his brain. Fortunately, it was still within what he could endure.

Zhou Wang charged into the supermarket.

Just as Jiang Cheng had said, one or two hundred people was a very small number for such a large supermarket.

While facing one or two hundred zombies alone was indeed rather nerve-racking, the supermarket itself was spacious enough. There was plenty of distance between the zombies—enough for Zhou Wang to run back and forth several times before two of them might even manage to converge.

After running a few steps, Zhou Wang’s fear diminished greatly, replaced by wild exhilaration. With this superpower, what was there to fear? If he couldn’t beat them, he could just run!

He might not be invincible, but staying alive definitely wouldn’t be a problem.

He ran so fast that by the time the original zombies reacted to him, he was already far away. Having lost their target, the original zombies returned to their aimless, shuffling state.

The second-generation zombies gave chase, but they couldn’t catch him. He used the shelves as cover, making quick sharp turns, and the second-generation zombies lost sight of him as well.

Zhou Wang’s confidence soared. He couldn’t help feeling eager to give it a try.

And so he did.

Zhou Wang’s weapon was a rolling pin.

But it was no ordinary rolling pin. It was made of ebony.

Once men hit middle age, they seemed to awaken some innate urge to collect and polish wood. But woodworking was expensive, and his wife wouldn’t allow it.

So Zhou Wang had come up with a little scheme. He bought his wife an ebony rolling pin, hard and heavy. His wife found it too heavy to use and didn’t like it, so it became a hand-held piece for him to fiddle with.

After the zombie outbreak, Zhou Wang gave his wife the kitchen knife for protection and kept the rolling pin for himself.

After all, blunt weapons and sharp weapons could both kill zombies.

Zhou Wang figured that he could use his speed to kill zombies. In theory, momentum could be converted into impact force.

The theory was right. One blow really did smash a zombie’s head apart. But Zhou Wang had forgotten that every force had an equal and opposite reaction. The hand gripping the rolling pin had to bear that force as well.

He could control airflow; it wasn’t as if his muscles and strength had been enhanced. The moment he smashed the zombie’s skull, the rolling pin flew from his hand.

Zhou Wang sprinted after it, trying to catch the ebony rolling pin in midair. If they had been in an open space like a plaza, he could certainly have done it at his speed. But this was a supermarket.

Zhou Wang could only watch as his ebony rolling pin landed on top of a shelf. Unfortunately, the goods piled up there were soft, and the wooden pin sank into them instead of bouncing back out.

Zombies surrounded him, so Zhou Wang didn’t dare linger. He raced over to the kitchenware aisle, grabbed a rolling pin at random, and swiftly retreated from the supermarket.

The group outside had deliberately slowed down and stayed away from the supermarket, waiting for him.

When Zhou Wang ran back, he finally stopped, bending over with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. Running itself was easy enough, but constantly pumping his legs was still tiring. Middle-aged men just weren’t built for that anymore.

Li Jiangbing was observant. He spotted it at once and asked curiously, “Why’d you come back with a different stick?”

Even the color was different.

Jiang Cheng noticed something else. “Did you get faster?”

Zhou Wang straightened up, planted his hands on his hips, and grimaced as he took two breaths to steady himself. “Yeah. The moment I passed through that downward-blowing airflow at the entrance, I suddenly got a feel for the air currents. My control improved too.”

That was valuable experience.

Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan reminded each other, “Write that down! Write that down!”