Chapter 72: Good News, The Core Exchange Platform

The soldiers waited until Liu Meng had beaten the scrawny man enough and both were exhausted before dragging the man away. Although this was a private fight, it was so vicious and had such a bad influence that it looked like the military would have to step in.

Liu Meng, a big man, slumped there in a daze, staring at his unconscious brothers, lost in thought. After a long while, he hoarsely asked Bian Changxi, “Is there any hope?”

Bian Changxi was already packing up to leave. She shook her head at his question. “Ask Dr. Lu.”

Liu Meng sniffed. “Miss Bian, that guy egged me on to give you trouble, but I really don’t know anything about how Zhang Hu died. How can you just go along with one person’s story and make a mess of things? I never had any bad intentions.”

Bian Changxi glanced at him. “If I said Zhang Hu’s death had nothing to do with me, that’d be a lie. But in this world, if you want to bully others, you have to be prepared to be bullied yourself. Zhang Hu wasn’t as skilled as me, so he shouldn’t have tried to mess with me. My conscience is clear—even if you really brought a bunch of people to get revenge, I wouldn’t be afraid.”

Liu Meng fell silent. Bian Changxi said nothing more, helping to lift the wounded onto the vehicle and accompanying them to the medical area at the train station.

After something like this, she didn’t feel like continuing to hunt for crystal cores.

By evening, news had spread like wildfire throughout the new district: a wood-type ability user had died after misusing a white core, his body exploding. It turned out that crystal cores could actually kill people. Panic spread, especially among ability users, who now didn’t dare use the cores at all. In fact, up to this point, very few people even knew how to use crystal cores. When their energy ran out, most ability users just ate and rested to recover. Those who realized the cores had a special use weren’t eager to be the first to try.

Of course, there were a few who had successfully used the cores—luckily picking the right one—but now they were even more frightened, waiting anxiously for the military and researchers to come up with an explanation.

Because both the earlier private fight and the white core incident were somewhat connected to Bian Changxi, she was called in for questioning. Fortunately, she was released without any trouble, since neither incident was really her fault.

Carrying two custard pies and a 200ml bottle of water (the standard ration for low-level medical teams like hers—she hadn’t accepted Yue Fushan’s offer, so she didn’t get any extra care), she returned to her assigned quarters. Wei Xiaodong hadn’t come back yet, so she had the whole room to herself. She locked the door and entered her space.

After a busy day, she was filthy. She bathed in the creek, changed her dirty underclothes, put her usual outfit back on, ate a little, and walked a few laps around her space and the chicken coop. Earlier, she’d secretly pulled some weeds and tossed them in, but the chickens and ducks pecked at them without much interest. There wasn’t much she could do—her grain stores were running low, and it didn’t look like she’d be able to restock anytime soon. She couldn’t feed them rice and meat forever, could she?

She tossed the dozen or so white cores she’d collected that day into the creek, then gazed at her space, imagining its future with a bittersweet sense of longing before leaving.

Once it was fully dark, she tidied up her bed and fell asleep as soon as she lay down.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before someone pounded heavily on her door. She jerked awake, unable to see her hand in front of her face, and turned on her flashlight to open the door. Wei Xiaodong stood outside, hair disheveled.

Her hair was always a mess, but now her expression was especially grim, the darkness behind her making her look even more eerie.

“Sleeping so soundly, huh? Guess killing someone today didn’t bother you at all,” she said in a strange tone, glancing at the bed as she entered.

Bian Changxi frowned. “I didn’t kill him, and I didn’t force him to use the white core. I’ve said this once already—if I have to keep hearing it, I won’t be so patient.” Besides, she’d already warned her not to try it lightly. If she wouldn’t listen, what else could she do? Was she supposed to pour her heart out and teach everyone who asked, or grab a megaphone and broadcast the rules for using crystal cores everywhere?

She’d actually considered spreading the information somehow—not out of kindness, but because she felt that anyone able to use crystal cores before others was likely a capable person, someone willing to take risks. In the apocalypse, these were the backbone of humanity, and the more of them there were, the better off everyone would be.

Besides, the reason she knew the rules was because, in her previous life, countless people had died horribly in failed experiments before the knowledge was gained.

This wasn’t the same as not warning people about poisonous zombies.

But the problem was, she’d noticed that every day since a few days ago, people had died from misusing crystal cores, but the military always arrived in time to cover it up as a fight or an accident. She’d even seen a couple of fresh corpses with Gu Xu, and just like today’s case, it was obvious to anyone that they’d died in a very strange way.

She suddenly realized—the military didn’t want this fact to get out.

And why would they? The military had so many ability users and had collected so many crystal cores even before yesterday—surely they’d figured out the basics by now.

They were probably happy to let civilians take the risks, providing them with plenty of cases and data for their research.

Given that, why should she stick her neck out? Gu Xu had also warned her not to let on that she knew anything.

But today’s “accident” happened right in front of everyone, so the military would have to give a reasonable explanation.

Sure enough, the next day the military issued a public notice, explaining the types and colors of crystal cores and their likely corresponding ability types. They also announced an exchange system. Since some survivors hadn’t handed over the obviously valuable crystal cores after killing zombies, they still had some on hand, but the cores didn’t necessarily match their own abilities. The military set up a platform where anyone could exchange their cores for the type they wanted—the rate was ten white cores for one colored core.

“That’s outrageous! Ten for one? Zombies that drop white cores aren’t any easier to kill than those that drop colored ones—why should it be like that?” Those with some experience started complaining.

“Come on, if you had a colored core, you could trade it for ten white ones. I heard the ratio of colored to white cores is about one to ten anyway. Not much you can do about it.”

“Heh, if you don’t want any cores, you can trade them for supplies. Colored ones are worth ten times as much. Whether you get rich or not is all down to luck.”

Bian Changxi looked at the posters plastered everywhere. Although she felt the ten-to-one rate was hard to swallow—after all, the drop rate from zombies matched that, but the demand for white cores was much higher. In the future, white cores would be the main energy source for human life, so you couldn’t just price them by quantity. Still, overall, she was happy about the platform’s creation.

It meant that even if she couldn’t get a green core herself, she could trade white ones for it. If the military wouldn’t trade, she could always swap privately.

What a blessing—green cores were exactly what she needed most.

She made a round at the train station, completed her medical duties—two more of yesterday’s burn victims had died, and the remaining two were barely hanging on. She gave them a bit of energy, then went to check out the core exchange site. People were already gathering there, so she slung her machete and backpack and headed for Zone B.

She had no choice—for the sake of her space’s development, she’d thrown almost all her white cores into the creek, keeping only five as a backup. She’d need to collect five more to trade for a green core.

Thinking of this, she felt a pang for all those white cores she’d tossed into the creek.

Zone B was getting crowded, almost as busy as when there were group missions. With the exchange platform in place, the military had officially recognized crystal cores as a form of currency. Even if you didn’t need cores, you could trade them for supplies.

A single white core could be exchanged for enough food to feed an adult for a day to a day and a half.

Most people formed small groups to hunt zombies together. If they were lucky and capable, each person could get a core in half a day, but if something went wrong, the price was often a life.

Sure enough, not long after Bian Changxi arrived, she heard screams from several directions.

Someone noticed she was alone and whispered, “Who’s that girl, coming here by herself?”

“Oh, I know her—she’s that wood-type ability user.”

“That’s her? Is she really that tough?”

Bian Changxi ignored them, keeping away from other people. Still, she didn’t dare venture too deep into Zone B alone. The outer areas had been cleared several times, so zombies were scarce, but there were still plenty deeper in.

Yesterday, she’d hidden in a safe spot, letting her human scent slowly lure zombies over. But today, she didn’t plan to do that. She needed to get five white cores as quickly as possible. Green cores were rare, and she’d already seen over a dozen wood-type users the other night—if she was too slow, there might not be any left for her.

She walked quietly down a street, and as she passed a small restaurant, she heard the sound of rodents gnawing inside. She crept in—the light was dim, so she waited for her eyes to adjust before weaving through the overturned tables and chairs.

This place was different from the four-story building she’d stayed in before. It was clear people had lived here during the apocalypse—being close to Zone A, it might have even stayed open for a while. There were still chopsticks, soup spoons, and little bottles for soy sauce and vinegar on the tables.

She stopped outside the kitchen curtain. The gnawing sounds inside suddenly ceased, as if something was tensed and waiting. She drew her machete, picked up a porcelain spoon, and tossed it in. Instantly, there were squeaks and the sound of scurrying.

Mutant rats—and not just a few.

She stepped back, and two rats the size of buckets, pitch black and filthy, with bristly fur, shot out.

They were even bigger than before, like two mini tanks charging at her.

Bian Changxi leapt onto a table. Although she’d used up a lot of energy healing people the night before, she’d noticed her physical strength had improved dramatically—maybe the energy flowing through her body during healing was also nourishing her own body.

The two rats slammed into the table legs, tipping the table. Bian Changxi jumped down, bringing her machete down almost vertically at the neck of one mutant rat. But the blade slid off and only left a shallow cut.

She frowned. The hide was thick.

The mutant beast squealed in pain, its pointed head whipping around to bite at Bian Changxi’s ankle.

Thanks to 彼岸の花殤 and 棋開 for the safety charms!"