Chapter 195: Cold and Distant—Who’s Really Uncomfortable? (First Update)

As expected, Shadow said, “That was quite fruitful.”

He glanced at the two people in the distance. “I have an idea. I’m going to try something.” With that, he walked away.

Wu Dalang scratched the back of his head. Bian Changxi often did this too—suddenly coming up with an idea and immediately throwing herself into testing it out.

People with that kind of drive to dig into things…

As for him, with his strong limbs and simple mind, he’d better just stick to piling up dirt honestly.

Meanwhile, as soon as Bian Changxi sat down, she realized she might have gone too far earlier. It seemed like she’d lost her temper at Gu Xu…

Did that count as losing her temper? Maybe just a little. Had she gotten carried away because he indulged her, forgetting her own place? Besides, Milk was his pet—wasn’t she basically interfering in someone else’s family business?

But looking at the pitiful, half-dead Milk in her arms, she couldn’t help but feel resentful and frustrated. She’d only taken her eyes off it for a moment—how did things end up like this? When Milk was with her, she couldn’t even bear to let it go a little hungry.

“Poor thing.” She poured energy into Milk and wrapped its wounds, muttering softly, “Stuck with such a heartless owner.”

Gu Xu happened to overhear this, and couldn’t help but laugh and shake his head as he leaned against a tree, looking down at the pair—one big, one small. “It’s just a superficial wound. It’s not that delicate.”

It’s just good at pretending.

He smiled, his sharp eyes meeting Milk’s droopy, listless ones. Milk was so startled it quickly shut its eyes and burrowed deeper into Bian Changxi’s arms.

Sensing its fear, Bian Changxi couldn’t help but defend it. “No, I checked—the injury’s actually pretty bad.” The little thing was chubby and soft, about the size of a cat, but its bones were still thin and hadn’t fully developed.

If Gu Xu knew what she was thinking, he’d definitely sigh—once it’s fully grown, you won’t be able to bend it back.

He’d noticed that while Milk fought fiercely and was very alert, it mostly relied on its natural intimidation over other animals.

But when it faced that wolfdog, the opponent wasn’t afraid of it at all, leaving Milk at a loss.

Its dodging wasn’t fast enough, its jumps weren’t high enough, and its bite wasn’t strong enough.

It was full of weaknesses—only Bian Changxi would think it was already impressive. In Gu Xu’s hands, he could snap its neck in countless ways without even using his powers.

And there were already people in the base eyeing this little creature.

Most importantly, it was supposed to be a natural-born hunter, but its temperament was becoming lazier and duller, like a blade that should be razor-sharp but was growing blunt.

He sighed. “Changxi, don’t spoil it too much.”

“I’m not…” Bian Changxi remembered she’d resolved earlier to let Gu Xu train Milk. She looked at the soft little beast in her arms, frowned, struggled for a moment, then gave up with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll stay out of it.”

Why did she suddenly feel like a mother who ruins her child with too much love?

Milk immediately started to struggle, pawing at her chest and whimpering, its big wet eyes shimmering with tears, its blood-stained white fur hanging in tatters—truly pitiful.

Bian Changxi felt a headache coming on.

Gu Xu’s face darkened.

He unceremoniously grabbed Milk, lifting it into the air and turning to leave, saying in a deep voice, “I’ll go wash it clean.”

Maybe his expression was too serious and stern, because Bian Changxi, who’d wanted to say she had water, swallowed her words and just watched as Gu Xu carried Milk over to a water-type user and actually gave it a bath. She wondered if the wounds would hurt when they touched the water, but it seemed fine—she’d already healed them, and Milk didn’t make a sound, so it probably didn’t hurt.

She glanced over a few times, then relaxed and went back to her healing work.

The break only lasted five minutes before the group moved on. After winding through the forest, they found another wild boar nest and went on another hunt. This time, everyone worked together much more smoothly, and there were no more random mutant beasts causing chaos. However, this time they were deep in the woods, where there were more bugs and snakes, so everyone had to watch their step.

Bian Changxi volunteered to clear away some of the poisonous bugs on the ground, using her powers to manipulate the grass and leaves to grab up the insects and snakes.

She got so focused that she didn’t notice a giant boar breaking through the line and charging straight at her. She was almost sent flying, her stomach suddenly feeling like it wasn’t hers anymore, and she was so nauseous she nearly threw up, wracked with pain.

She had to thank her new outfit for that—it actually dispersed the impact force, so the boar’s charge was spread out. Otherwise, she’d have broken a few ribs for sure.

She noticed Gu Xu’s expression had grown even more serious, and Milk was working harder too—by the end of the round, it had picked up new, even worse injuries.

To make things trickier, the dense vegetation brought its own problems. They ran into a weird plant that liked to tangle people up, tripping and wrapping them, not to eat or harm, but just to shake its leaves and make a rustling sound, as if calling its friends over for a feast.

Seeing this, everyone hurried to finish off the wild boars as quickly as possible—herding them together and letting the lightning-type user strike them down.

The downside was that the boars were reduced to ashes—no meat, no hides, no tusks or bones left, just the crystal cores, so the haul was much smaller.

There were three boar dens on this hill. They moved from one to the next, occasionally helping other teams they met along the way. By the time they’d collected all the wild boars, the sun was already sinking behind the mountain.

The afternoon forest was getting chilly. They found a sunny spot to eat some dry rations, then strolled down the mountain, hunting whatever wild animals they came across.

Since they’d agreed to regroup at the base at three in the afternoon, they still had an hour or two to kill, so no one was in a hurry. When they reached halfway down the mountain, Gu Xu saw everyone itching for more action and sent the fifty-person hunting squad off to form their own teams and explore.

Standing on the mountainside, Bian Changxi spotted people picking something in a valley below.

“Is that cotton? Does cotton ripen at this time of year? And did all that rain recently affect it?”

Gu Xu said, “Any creature that survived the apocalypse has evolved its own adaptation system.”

Bian Changxi thought that made sense.

Besides the cotton pickers, there were actually people chopping firewood at the foot of the mountain. With trees everywhere, it made sense to choose the safer lower slopes. They were going after the thickest trees, with space-users running back and forth collecting the wood, the whole scene bustling as if they were racing against time.

There were also people digging for medicinal herbs.

As a wood-type user and a woman, Bian Changxi was very interested in this. Once down the mountain, she joined in, though she didn’t know much about herbs, so she followed a middle-aged Chinese medicine doctor around. For common herbs, they just picked the tops; for rarer or more valuable ones, or those that needed to be transplanted, they dug up the whole plant.

At first, she just copied whatever the doctor dug up, but soon realized it was tiring for both of them, so the doctor would just find the herbs and let her do the digging.

She could easily sense how deep the roots were and how they spread, then use her energy to help dig them up quickly and neatly with her shovel, much to the doctor’s delight.

Bian Changxi had wanted to collect some valuable and useful herbs to plant in the farm—ginseng, notoginseng, fo-ti, and so on—but this wasn’t a forest or herbal garden before the apocalypse, so the selection was limited. Ginseng was out of the question, but she still managed to dig up some astragalus, atractylodes, angelica, and the like to plant in her farm later.

They worked until three o’clock, when everyone regrouped. As expected, no one had died, though there were plenty of injuries. After some quick treatment, they piled into the vehicles and rumbled away, leaving behind a thoroughly looted mountain.

An hour’s bumpy ride brought them back to the base, where a commotion was going on at the gate.

Bian Changxi sat in the car for a while and quickly figured it out: it was another newbie. When they’d left the base, they’d brought along bags and bags of supplies, following the rule of always keeping their resources close—even driving out a whole truckload. Now, trying to return, the gatekeepers were demanding the usual entry fee.

This happened every day. For some reason, those who’d been in the base for a while rarely warned newcomers about this, so almost every day, newbies would lose a chunk of their assets when they tried to bring everything back in.

People were upset, but what could they do? If you didn’t follow the base’s rules, you could always leave—no one would stop you.

So everyone just put up with it. At least you only fell for it once.

But this time was different.

The ones being fleeced were a group who’d arrived two days ago. They looked like they had some background, but these days, anyone who could form a group had some skills or connections. No matter how impressive you were, once you got inside, you still had to keep your head down.

But these people clearly weren’t having it, and were making a scene.

Two rural women were rolling on the ground, cursing the base for being a scam and making dirty money, demanding their supplies back. The men stood by the truck, smoking in silent support, hands and belts bristling with real knives and guns. If a fight broke out, things could get ugly.

With their group blocking the gate, no one else could get in, so the crowd outside the base kept growing. By the time Gu Xu’s group of over a thousand people returned, the tension had reached its peak.

Gu Xu’s expression was cold as he tapped his fingers on the car window. The others didn’t understand what was going on, but he saw right through it.

He’d originally planned to open the water plant at exactly five in the afternoon.

Five o’clock was when people got off work, went home, or returned from outside the base. The auction house street (a nickname for the area around the Jiangcheng Auction House) was ideally located and had become a main thoroughfare, so there would be a huge flow of people at that time. Plus, everyone would be heading home to cook, do laundry, and bathe, so they’d naturally want to pick up water on the way. The base’s water plant had also been shut for a day.

It was the perfect time to open for business, even though no one had ever thought to open in the evening before.