Chapter 29
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Chapter 29: Ashy, Good for Jiang Wu, Good for Everyone
"They captured many high-level female ability users and power holders!"
"This wasn’t a secret place to save human civilization; it was a dungeon where they forced us to breed for them!"
"Du Yinsui, please help us!"
"In five days, there will be…"
…
In the seventh year of the apocalypse, Central City spent almost half a year gathering metal element ability users to build an extremely strong underground palace under the southern part of the city. It was said to be the key to saving human civilization. To protect secrets, they even used new technology in the palace to block the abilities and space rings of anyone who entered.
Du Yinsui knew nothing about what happened inside the underground palace. She was only the first defense on the top floor, using her smell to check that no dangerous items were brought in.
It was a stable, safe new job.
But Du Yinsui hadn’t worked there for two months before she ruined it for the bosses.
That day, the fully armed vanguard team brought in three people hidden in burlap sacks with covered faces, as usual. Du Yinsui was shocked when angry cries for help flooded her mind.
These weren’t spoken words or rare ventriloquism, but direct mind talk from a high-level psychic ability user.
Du Yinsui was stunned.
She couldn’t help it because in the palace, abilities like metal, wood, water, fire, earth, psychic, and space were all blocked and unusable. Only someone with a body change like her could use their powers.
But she heard them anyway.
The vanguard team had come often over the two months. When Du Yinsui paused a little longer than before, they guarded the three sacks.
The female voice in Du Yinsui’s mind didn’t say much. It only begged her to let them go in five days if she smelled something wrong on the people entering. It went silent without waiting for Du Yinsui’s answer.
That day, Du Yinsui took her first leave from the palace in almost two months on the job.
Unlike the palace with little news, Du Yinsui confirmed in under two hours above ground that Central City was hunting high-level female ability users and mutants. They used threats, bribes, or deals with their bases. Though no clear word said they were captured to bear children, Du Yinsui believed the female voice about fifty to sixty percent.
When Du Yinsui returned to the palace, she found someone had turned into a zombie in just two hours.
There hadn’t been a zombie outbreak in the palace or Central City for almost two years.
It happened deep below in the palace. With the body, they explained that a high-level female ability user accidentally swallowed a zombie crystal core, with no outside wounds to be caught at the city gate checks.
People wondered how she swallowed it by accident and why a high-level user didn’t know how to absorb the core right. Rumors spread among the top workers.
Only Du Yinsui knew the truth.
It wasn’t an accident.
Those who fought zombies and mutants up front knew that when trapped, swallowing a zombie core could boost powers for a short time, even if it led to zombification and death. It gave a small chance for friends to live.
That woman used this way just to say those few words to her.
She didn’t even get to hear a reply.
Over the next five days, Du Yinsui took two more leaves, risking being kicked out of the palace. Her belief rose to ninety percent.
A high official’s son, who acted showy, got back by making the whole base of the kidnapped person vote on her fate. Most people in that base had been saved by her from zombies and beasts, but for Central City’s new vaccine, they chose between the vaccine and her, one by one, in front of her.
The shame lasted for days, so things blew up fast.
Central City’s plan to gather high-level female ability users and mutants for breeding slowly came out and became public.
Aside from everything else, the most crucial point was that the person who had saved many, brought back by that high-ranking official’s son, had also once…saved Du Yinsui.
On the fifth day as foretold by the psychic ability user, Du Yinsui had readied herself to use her strength—capable of taking down several grown men—to make a difference. But when the day came, the scent she detected was not that of a rescue.
Instead, it was the aroma of Thunder Light Ling Fish eggs, Flying Nether Ray, Frost Crystal Silver Pufferfish, and…
Everyone in the apocalypse had memorized "The Book of Culinary Arts," and Du Yinsui was no exception.
The scents of those deep-sea mutant creatures could only combine into one particular recipe.
And that dish…had effects nearly identical to directly ingesting a zombie crystal core.
Ingesting a zombie crystal core allowed ability users and mutants to temporarily unleash greater power, followed by zombification.
Eating that dish caused abilities to skyrocket and keep rising until the body couldn’t endure it any longer, leading to an ability explosion—turning a person into a powerful bomb of abilities; a forbidden dish.
Those were the most painful, difficult seconds of Du Yinsui’s life.
She didn’t know how many people were imprisoned below the underground palace.
But she knew her decision would alter their lives.
Would they become mere tools for breeding, or face death…
Now, lying on the soil of Zhao Kingdom, Du Yinsui still didn’t know if she had made the right choice then.
Was she truly fit to make such a decision, Du Yinsui pondered, gazing at the sky through the broken temple roof, her eyes unable to pierce the sea of stars beyond time and space.
Could she really make such a decision now, Du Yinsui thought, looking down at Jiang Wu’s slightly trembling back beneath the cart. Was she truly ready to change this kind soul? Could she be responsible for the consequences of this change…
The people on the cart once again felt the weight of life.
And beneath the cart, Jiang Wu waited patiently, waited and waited until the rush of heated emotion from moments ago slowly faded, still hearing no response from Du Yinsui.
Away from prying eyes, Jiang Wu’s face grew paler as he closed his eyes.
It had been that earlier outing when they cooperated so well that had relaxed him too much. It was the praise Du Yinsui gave when catching bamboo rats, filling him with such satisfaction.
The pleasant dinner atmosphere, the closeness of their recent conversation, it was…
In short, it was misconduct on his part.
Truthfully speaking, their real conversation had only started the night before. After all, he had once been someone who detested her, hated their connection to the point of attempting suicide twice.
How could he have…
Said something so out of line earlier?
At least he hadn’t uttered those words, "Teach me to love…"
Even if the talk about teaching resentment and hatred overstepped a boundary, Du Yinsui probably wouldn’t be angry, right?
Just unwilling to agree, unwilling to respond, so she pretended to sleep?
Yes…asleep, so she didn’t hear it, and if she didn’t hear it, there’s no need to respond, no awkwardness.
That’s good, that’s good.
Thinking this, Jiang Wu shut his eyes tightly.
He too would sleep and not say anything. Tomorrow would come, and nothing would have happened.
As Jiang Wu’s heart sank into an endless, icy deep sea, he suddenly heard Du Yinsui’s voice.
Some uncertainties lingered, but there was also resolve.
“Let me teach you something else,” Du Yinsui said, rubbing her forehead. “The road ahead is long, and you’ll face situations. Think about them now, so you’re not caught off guard later. Here are some scenarios: if you have only one pancake, and both Sister Chu and Sun Granny say they’re starving, who do you give it to? Or, if you pick two sweet fruits kids love, and your three cousins come out wanting some, what do you do? Or, if your teacher and your uncle both fall into the river, who do you save first?”
Jiang Wu: “…”
“Is it hard?” Du Yinsui lightly tapped the cart, unhappy with the quiet below.
Jiang Wu slowly spoke, answering with a question: “What about you?”
“What?” Du Yinsui didn’t get it right away and blurted, “I’m here, talking to you, aren’t I?”
“I mean, in the scenarios, where are you?” Jiang Wu shifted, crawling out from under the cart to look up at Du Yinsui. “There’s Sister Chu, the teacher, Haoyang, and Ruoyao. Where are you in those?”
Actually, such questions didn’t need to include everyone. Jiang Wu knew that, but hearing them made him uneasy, as if Du Yinsui’s words missed her own place, just like the road felt empty without her.
Even Jiang Wu himself thought his sensitivity was silly, but it wasn’t just in his head.
Du Yinsui froze for a moment at Jiang Wu’s question, then covered it with a dry laugh. “You want more problems? Fine. If it’s just us two, with one pancake, how do we split it?”
With the new question, Jiang Wu suddenly felt his earlier panic was pointless.
“If there’s only one pancake, Sister Chu is truly hungry. Sun Granny… depends on if she has food left…” Jiang Wu answered earnestly.
“Ha.” Du Yinsui cut him off with a cold laugh. “What’s Sun Granny’s food to you? If she has none, will you watch Sister Chu go hungry and give half away? Before, you paid her enough to hire a whole village. Even if you’re even now, on this trip, when Sun Granny ate well, did she share with you? When Sister Chu was starving, did she share?”
Jiang Wu: “…”
Not far off, Chu Xiulan pretended to sleep, though her ears ached from straining. She patted her stomach—it wasn’t growling. Hey, who was growling? A little touched, but not much!
“Answer again,” Du Yinsui insisted.
“Give it all to Sister Chu,” Jiang Wu said, not foolish—he saw Du Yinsui was teaching, not asking.
“Next,” Du Yinsui accepted it grudgingly.
Jiang Wu thought it over and replied, “Give the fruits to Haoyang and Yao Yao.”
Du Yinsui gave a soft hum.
From where the Qin family slept nearby, a child’s giggle sounded, followed by two light smacks, like someone got swatted.
“Save the teacher first; he’s older. Then…” Jiang Wu went on.
“Then go eat dinner. Ask yourself: if you fell in, would your uncle save you? If you think he’d jump in, save him and come back for dinner,” Du Yinsui interrupted.
Jiang Wu: “…” This question felt different—not saving meant death. But… his uncle wouldn’t save him, not now.
“Change it: your uncle falls in the river, and your teacher’s chased by hornets. Do you jump in to save your uncle or run after your teacher?” Du Yinsui said.
Jiang Wu: “…”
“He should call me back to jump in the river and dodge the hornets,” Qin Chongli, after muffling a laugh, spoke up to help Jiang Wu.
“A gentle teacher spoils the student,” Du Yinsui shot back, glaring at Qin Chongli. “Want to answer it yourself?”
Qin Chongli went silent instantly, like he’d never “woken.”
“Fine. Your uncle falls in the river, your teacher’s chased by a herd of wild boars. Choose,” Du Yinsui corrected.
Qin Chongli: “…” Look what his big mouth did—hornets to boars, survival chances dropped!
“Save the teacher,” Jiang Wu answered.
This was Jiang Wu’s first life-or-death choice about people close to him. Picking who to save wasn’t hard; giving up on the other was.
Qin Chongli’s heart warmed—ha, being fake-chased by boars wasn’t so bad.
“If it’s just us with one pancake, I’ll give it to you,” Jiang Wu rushed to answer the next question before Du Yinsui added more life-or-death twists.
“Split it,” Du Yinsui sighed, pretending annoyance. “Two wrong out of four. Penalty: eat two extra mushroom skewers tomorrow. Sleep.”
The meat was claimed, but mushrooms were plenty.
Jiang Wu: “…”
Du Yinsui pulled back into the cart, staring blankly at the big hole overhead.
Ah, she’d ended up prying into others’ lives. People in this world always hope to meet pure, good souls.
But teammates, even temporary ones, feel safer when they’re a bit gray.
Gray is good for Jiang Wu, good for all.
Besides, Jiang Wu’s pain came from loving the world while the world didn’t love him back.
Du Yinsui rubbed her suddenly sore chest. “Sleep. Tomorrow, eat four extra mushroom skewers.”
Hmm, adding two more felt much better.
Jiang Wu, just shutting his eyes, opened them in confusion: “???” Why two more?
