Chapter 11: Shen Jinwen
The woman with the high ponytail quickly changed her clothes. When she came out, her gaze fell on the water cup. Upon noticing that Xu Zhi hadn’t drunk the water, she didn’t find it surprising. After all, if it were her, she wouldn’t drink the cup of water either, even though she hadn’t added anything to it.
There was also some bloodstains in her hair, but it was clear there wasn’t time to wash it now. She just let her hair down and wiped it with a towel before sitting down opposite Xu Zhi. She forced herself not to look at the snake at Xu Zhi’s feet and stiffly asked, “What kind of information do you want to exchange?”
Xu Zhi didn’t immediately answer her question. Instead, she tried to ease the atmosphere a little, “Sister, why don’t we exchange some basic information first? It would be good to get to know each other. After all, we’re both living in this building now. We might meet often.”
The woman didn’t mind this suggestion and nodded, “My name is Shen Jinwen, a local from Cloud City. I just graduated from university and returned home. For some reasons, I didn’t leave in time. I’ve been interested in cold weapons since I was young, learned a few techniques, but never thought I’d actually need to use them one day.”
Shen Jinwen spoke in a general manner, but for two people who had just met, this level of information was enough.
After that, she looked at Xu Zhi and asked, “What about you?”
Xu Zhi first said her name, then replied calmly, “I haven’t studied much, and my health isn’t great, so I ended up staying here.”
Shen Jinwen’s eyes showed a bit of surprise. She had guessed that Xu Zhi was likely staying in the city due to her health when they first met. What surprised her was Xu Zhi’s overly calm attitude.
Xu Zhi didn’t mind the look. She glanced at the black snake at her feet and said, “This is my pet, or you can say it’s my ability. It awakened not long ago. What about you, sister? Do you have any abilities? When did yours awaken?”
Since the other party had already been honest about her ability, Shen Jinwen naturally didn’t hide hers. She nodded, “Yes, my ability awakened about two days after the city was sealed off. I guess it’s related to my knife.”
“Oh? That’s quite a coincidence.”
Xu Zhi said it was a coincidence, but she didn’t think it was just a simple one.
The brief exchange of basic information ended there. Xu Zhi decided to get to the main topic. The question-and-answer method was too inefficient. Less than half a month had passed since the disaster started, and lone individuals wouldn’t have gathered much information. So she directly said, “Let’s exchange some useful information. Each of us will share one piece. You can question the value of what the other says, but it must be reasonable. We’ll keep exchanging until one of us feels there’s no need to continue.”
“Oh, and if the information is too trivial, I’m not interested, and I won’t give any cheap or useless information. If it’s okay, sister, you can start.”
Her tone sounded negotiable, but her words were somewhat domineering. After all, she was the one with power now, and this wasn’t an excessive act.
Sitting opposite Xu Zhi, Shen Jinwen, with her hair loosely hanging, looked a bit milder than when they met in the hallway. Xu Zhi observed her closely and noticed she was casually wearing a short-sleeve shirt. Her exposed arms had well-defined muscles, not overly exaggerated, but they looked strong.
Xu Zhi couldn’t help but feel a bit sad when thinking of her own frail body, which felt like it could snap at any moment. She didn’t particularly like exaggerated muscles, but she did have some complaints about her own physique.
Shen Jinwen’s face was at best plain. Her eyebrows were well-shaped, somewhat sharp, and her jawline was more defined than most girls. Even when sitting quietly, she carried an air of sharpness.
Her voice was crisp and decisive when she answered Xu Zhi’s question: “I don’t know much. But the most valuable information I have is this:
“Currently, only a few people in the city can resist the mist and maintain their sanity. Most of those who can’t resist either died immediately, or became insane. The insane ones are highly aggressive towards humans who still retain their sanity. They’re hunting normal humans, especially those who have awakened abilities. Most of the insane ones have very low intelligence, but their bodies are becoming monstrous. A small portion retains some intelligence, but their worldview is entirely different from that of humans. Their bodies don’t grow stronger, but they acquire some abilities.”
“In short, there seem to be two branches of the insane people now. The few who retain intelligence are more dangerous. They lead the mindless ones, and their awakened abilities are very strange. I haven’t found any weaknesses yet.”
At this point, Shen Jinwen’s tone became slightly frustrated. After she finished speaking, she looked at Xu Zhi, signaling that her round of information exchange was over.
This was useful information. It seemed that Shen Jinwen often went out, and she knew more than Xu Zhi, who had been staying indoors.
However, Xu Zhi also had information that others couldn’t easily access at the moment.
She mentally categorized what she knew and picked out a piece: “All abilities, whether human, alien creatures, or animals in the process of mutation, have attributes. Perhaps the way to counter those insane people lies in the attributes.”
Xu Zhi said no more, thinking that this was enough.
Before this, even though abilities had emerged for about a year, no one had ever mentioned the concept of attributes. This was groundbreaking information, and Xu Zhi felt she had practically given Shen Jinwen a bargain.
Now, Cloud City had become a dead city completely cut off from the outside world. The outside world might have realized the existence of attributes, but it wasn’t certain if the people inside Cloud City knew about it.
Xu Zhi wasn’t going to stay in the dark with such information.
“Are you serious?”
Shen Jinwen frowned slightly and couldn’t help but question. Xu Zhi understood her doubt and simply nodded in response, “Just because it wasn’t there before doesn’t mean it isn’t now. There wasn’t this mist before either. I don’t have any reason to lie to you about this.”
In fact, based on the subtle hints from the game narration, Xu Zhi suspected that the attributes might be related to the arrival of the mist.
But she certainly wouldn’t tell Shen Jinwen that.
Shen Jinwen had already believed about seventy percent of what Xu Zhi said. The reason she believed so quickly was that she had a reason for it.
She took something out of her pocket and held it in her hand, looking at Xu Zhi. “Do you recognize this?”
Her hand slowly opened, revealing an object lying in her palm, something Xu Zhi was very familiar with, though slightly unfamiliar.
A pale blue attribute core.
