Chapter 71: Care
It was a completely ordinary question, but Wan Youzhi couldn’t help but stiffen all over.
“Stand back,” he ordered quietly. “Let them pass first.”
“Why?” Lin Han wasn’t having it. The opposing convoy only consisted of eight or nine cars, while they had dozens on their side. Even a dying camel was bigger than a horse!
Lin Han shoved his car door open, stepped out, and barked fiercely, “Back up and let us through first!”
The woman leading the other group slowly stepped out of her vehicle. She leaned back against the hood, looking at Lin Han with an amused, mocking glint in her eyes. Feeling thoroughly insulted, Lin Han’s expression turned even uglier.
“Alright, after you,” the woman said with a casual gesture, indicating that Lin Han’s convoy could take the right of way.
“Hmph.” Lin Han shot her a look of pure contempt. “Smart move.”
The woman kept smiling. The exact moment Lin Han turned his back to walk away, she tapped twice on her car window. A dark-skinned man leaned his head out of the cabin and instantly shot a pressurized stream of pitch-black water right at Lin Han’s back.
Caught completely off guard, Lin Han was drenched from head to toe in the foul liquid.
Zhang Lei moved to get out of the car to assist, but Wan Youzhi locked his hand around his arm. “Don’t make it worse. I’ll handle this.”
Ah Hu, entirely unaware of Wan Youzhi’s calculation, rushed forward to protect Lin Han. He threw his hands out, unleashing a roaring dragon of fire straight at the woman. “You dare ambush us? You asked for it!”
The woman sneered. She gently pushed her palms forward, and a massive wall of fire erupted out of thin air, surging toward the sky. With terrifying speed, the flames swept forward, engulfing Lin Han’s entire convoy.
The scorching heat indiscriminately battered Lin Han, Wan Youzhi, Ruan Fanfan, Zhang Lei, and every other psychic trapped in the Base No. 27 line. Although the reinforced hulls of the modified cars blocked the worst of the direct impact, the metal cabins rapidly turned into giant ovens, baking anyone trapped inside.
Unable to bear the suffocating heat, several people kicked their doors open to escape. The instant they stepped outside, the ambient fire caught them, reducing their eyebrows and hair to ash in a flash. Desperate cries for help erupted down the line.
Ruan Fanfan didn’t waste a second worrying about the others; her own survival came first. She pushed Conghui out the window, and the moment the parrot expanded into its massive form, she dragged Zhang Lei out of the cabin with her. Braving the roaring inferno, they scrambled onto Conghui’s back and launched into the air, bursting through the canopy of fire.
The moment their car door had swung open, an even greater wave of heat had rushed into the vehicle. Wan Youzhi watched Ruan Fanfan and Zhang Lei abandon them, gritting his teeth in silent fury.
“Relax, I’m not a murderer,” the woman said, giving a quick nod to the black-skinned man in her passenger seat.
Understanding the cue, the man stepped out of the vehicle, focused his internal energy, and unleashed a torrential downpour of black water evenly across the blazing zone. The good news was that no one died in the fire. The bad news, however, was that every single psychic from Base 27 instantly felt their internal energy pathways lock up, their powers completely suppressed.
Lin Han was a charred, pathetic mess—half his body singed by fire and the other half dripping with the sticky black residue.
“Cough! Cough, cough…” He hacked violently, his lungs feeling as though they were lined with soot. Terror gripped him as he tightly clutched Ah Hu, who looked equally battered and humiliated.
“Nice to meet you. The name’s Zhang Yimiao, from Base Zero.” The woman tossed her vibrant red hair over her shoulder. “I controlled the core temperature of those flames just now. It won’t kill you—at worst, it’s just a good scare.”
In reality, she had exerted every ounce of her strength in that opening salvo. Her fire attribute possessed a minor defect: it was intensely volatile on the outside but lacked true density on the inside. If Lin Han and his crew had held out in the heat just a little longer, they would have realized the flames weren’t actually lethal.
“You’re Lin Han, right? And that one over there is Wan Youzhi?” Zhang Yimiao walked toward them with light, airy steps. “And the two who just flew off on the big-headed bird—that was Ruan Fanfan and Zhang Lei, I take it?”
“Who are you? How do you know our names?” Lin Han demanded, dragging Ah Hu back with him. For every step Zhang Yimiao took forward, he took a frantic step back.
“Miss Zhang, we have no history of bad blood between us,” Wan Youzhi said, wiping a clump of singed hair from his shoulder as he stepped out of the vehicle. “Why are you deliberately targeting us?”
Zhang Yimiao raised her eyebrows, a smug smile playing on her lips. “Take a wild guess.”
Naturally, neither Wan Youzhi nor Lin Han could have ever guessed that Zhang Yimiao’s entire convoy had traveled all the way from Base Zero specifically to visit the God’s Supermarket.
Before running into them at the crossroads, Zhang Yimiao had received a detailed brief from Nanjiao regarding the failed siege on Base 35. Nanjiao had even attached a few candid snapshots of Lin Han’s inner circle, politely requesting that if Zhang Yimiao happened to cross paths with these clowns on the road, she should “take real good care of them.”
Zhang Yimiao had no intention of letting them in on the joke. She preferred to let them stew in their own paranoia.
Wan Youzhi and Lin Han exchanged a tense, bewildered look. Lin Han’s brow was furrowed deep in confusion, while Wan Youzhi gave a slow, helpless shake of his head. This sudden ambush had completely bypassed his precognitive radar.
Back at the God’s Supermarket, Song Yuqing slowly blinked her eyes open in her bedroom. Gaha had been the one to gently carry her into the room after she collapsed, and Little Meat Bun had even considerately tucked her in under a heavy quilt.
She pulled out her phone to check the time, only to find a string of text messages waiting from an unrecognized number.
[Unknown]: It’s Nanjiao. You can use this number to reach me from now on.
[Unknown]: Xie Hao, Shen She, Xie Zetian, and I have officially left Base 35 to head toward our next destination. Those middle-aged guys who tagged along with Shen She from Base 27 were too lazy to travel anymore, so they ended up staying behind at Base 35.
[Unknown]: Just giving you a heads-up to prepare the shop. A major convoy from Base Zero has already mobilized and is heading your way to check out the store.
[Unknown]: Also, there’s a solid chance Lin Han and his remaining crew will run into the Base Zero vanguard on their retreat. Keep an eye out—Lin Han is about to have a very, very miserable day.
[Unknown]: Hahaha, this is pure gold. Check it out. [Link]
Just as Song Yuqing was about to click the link to watch the footage, a rhythmic tapping sounded at her door.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock, knock-knock-knock… Little Meat Bun was using his paws to beat out a steady, coordinated beat against the wood.
“Song Yuqing! Get your butt out of bed and eat something, then you can go right back to sleep!” Liu Xiaona’s voice called out from the hallway.
Song Yuqing executed a massive stretch and dragged herself out of bed with great effort.
Liu Xiaona had whipped up a massive spread of four dishes and a soup today: a rich beef broth, satay beef, and a fragrant tomato beef brisket stew.
“To help you recover,” Liu Xiaona said the moment Song Yuqing walked out, immediately placing a pair of chopsticks and a spoon into her hands.
“Gaha…” Gaha hovered nearby, looking thoroughly worried that her boss was still unwell, her eyelids drooping with exhaustion.
“Don’t worry, I’m perfectly fine,” Song Yuqing said with a warm smile, ladling a generous spoonful of the savory beef soup into her bowl. “Master Fu wouldn’t let anything happen to me anyway. Though next time, could we try a different flavor profile? Like a nice barbecue spread?”
Liu Xiaona pouted. Still picky even when she’s exhausted, huh?
“Oh, by the way, while you were completely knocked out, another massive wave of orders came through from Base No. 35,” Liu Xiaona reported, catching her boss up on the numbers between bites.
During the ten-plus hours Song Yuqing had been asleep, Liu Xiaona had successfully cleared and processed over a hundred individual orders. The supermarket’s total corporate account now held a staggering balance of 2,700 zombie souls.
Song Yuqing chewed her beef quietly, listening to Liu Xiaona’s cheerful chatter, but her eyelids began to droop heavily once more.
“Gaha…” Gaha blinked quickly, swiftly reaching out a hand to catch Song Yuqing’s forehead just before it slammed straight into her rice bowl.
“What’s going on with her?” Liu Xiaona asked, her expression shifting back to concern.
“Achoo!” Song Yuqing sneezed abruptly, the sudden jolt snapping her right back to full consciousness. “Is it just me, or is it getting a little cold in here?”
Liu Xiaona placed her hands firmly on her hips, staring her down. “Song Yuqing, your immune system is seriously slacking lately!”
