Chapter 21: Rapid Deterioration
After Yi finished dealing with his side, Xu Zhi switched the screen over to Gouzi. If the situation on Yi’s side was brutal, then Gouzi’s side was slightly better.
Although it was injured too, the wounds weren’t serious. The real trouble was that the number of enemies far exceeded what Shen Jinwen and Gouzi could handle, and Xu Zhi had ordered that even if they had to run, they needed to lure the enemies with them, not allow them to give up due to falling behind.
Naturally, this meant taking some hits. Thanks to Gouzi’s physical toughness, it could tank a fair amount of damage, but Shen Jinwen looked much worse off. Though she hadn’t been seriously injured thanks to Gouzi’s protection, she appeared completely drained.
Yi would only take a few minutes to arrive. Once Gouzi sensed Yi approaching, it knew it was time to regroup. Carrying the exhausted Shen Jinwen on its back, it ran toward Yi’s direction. Though its speed far exceeded that of the crazed attackers, it deliberately slowed down so they would continue chasing.
As a result, the experience for Shen Jinwen—being carried on Gouzi’s back—felt like a roller coaster: one moment she could feel claws about to catch her, the next Gouzi would suddenly leap forward.
Even in the pixelated graphics of the game, Shen Jinwen’s usually calm expression was broken. Her panic was rendered with such exaggerated cuteness that it created a surprising contrast to her normal demeanor.
With Gouzi taking the initiative to move closer, it only took under three minutes for Yi to meet them. Shen Jinwen, barely holding on, struggled to stay on Gouzi’s back and now could only stand to the side, doing her best not to become a burden.
Working together, Yi and Gouzi quickly wiped out the fewer than ten remaining enemies. Yi retrieved three more red cores from their corpses.
In total, this operation not only eliminated the immediate threat but also yielded eleven identical attribute cores, which made Xu Zhi quite satisfied.
Unfortunately, for now, the only use for these cores seemed to be feeding them to the spiritual body.
Each core provided five minutes of spiritual activity. Even with all eleven, that only added up to fifty-five minutes—plus the one [Heart] attribute core, it barely made a full hour.
Of course, Xu Zhi had no intention of dumping them all in at once.
Tomorrow morning, she planned to draw a random 20-minute spiritual body and try again.
Because Yi had killed so many crazed people, it had gained enough experience to level up again. Notably, the bespectacled man had given three times as many evolution points as others. Gouzi, on the other hand, had fewer kills and still needed more points.
When Shen Jinwen returned, she didn’t immediately come to claim her promised reward from Xu Zhi—she was simply too exhausted, her brain barely functioning. All she wanted was to lie down and rest, so she agreed to meet again tomorrow.
Yi was quite seriously injured, but fortunately, leveling up healed it. Gouzi also needed time to rest and recover.
By the time both had recovered, it was almost 7 p.m.—still a while before midnight. Xu Zhi decided to go check out the cafeteria now.
After all, the worst thing during operations was hesitation. If something unexpected occurred, it might be too late to react.
Though Xu Zhi no longer needed to sit in a wheelchair all the time, walking 40 minutes was still a bit much. So after thinking it over, she had Yi bring the wheelchair downstairs. It was still much faster than walking herself!
Even after years of being confined to a wheelchair, Xu Zhi held no particular obsession with “walking.” In fact, she hated anything that made her feel tired or drained.
Perhaps because she had previously cleared out mutated creatures along this path, she encountered almost no resistance this time. Within half an hour, she arrived at the gate of the affiliated high school.
Unexpectedly, she saw a man wandering and hesitating at the school entrance.
The moment she saw him, Gouzi lowered its body into a hunting stance, while Yi silently approached the man.
The sound of the wheelchair alerted him. When the man turned around and saw Xu Zhi, his expression showed a flicker of joy.
“Little girl, are you here looking for the survivor base too?”
The middle-aged man was scruffy, with a long-unshaven beard, sallow face, and heavy dark circles under his eyes. He looked haggard—clearly worn down by the sudden apocalypse.
Xu Zhi subtly moved her finger, and Yi quietly stayed hidden by the man’s side.
“Uncle, there’s no survivor base here. You should go,” Xu Zhi said calmly, her tone more like a passing comment than a warning. Without another word, she turned and headed into the school.
This clearly upset the man. If there’s no base, why is a wheelchair-bound girl heading inside?
“What are you trying to hide from me? Afraid I’ll steal your food or something?” he muttered in annoyance. Still, he didn’t dare act rashly—especially with the big dog eyeing him beside her.
“…What kind of dog is that? Looks more like a wolf.”
Xu Zhi ignored him. Even when he followed at a distance behind her into the school, she didn’t speak again.
After all, she had only given a casual warning. If he listened, great—if not, that was his problem.
Not long after she entered the cafeteria, she heard the man behind her scream in horror and vomit.
When she turned around, she witnessed a bizarre sight.
The man’s previously clear eyes were rapidly filling with black threads. Within a minute, they would be completely overtaken by darkness.
Xu Zhi was surprised. The man, trying to hold back his nausea, looked up at her with terror.
“Was… was this your doing?!”
Xu Zhi frowned. It seemed the man’s rapid descent into madness was triggered by something in the cafeteria.
But why was she unaffected?
No… that wasn’t right.
Xu Zhi picked up the game console and turned off the screen, using it as a mirror. After checking that her eyes were completely normal, she finally let out a breath.
“…I really didn’t expect this.”
Even though Yi hadn’t reacted at all to this place, a regular person seemed to suffer rapid mental deterioration just from seeing it?
