Trip to Wei City, Superfunction Consumed

The provincial capital wasn't far from Lingjiang City. Before the doomsday, it was only more than an hour's drive. But as the doomsday came, highways were mostly shut down. Without electricity, high-speed trains were out of operation, either. As estimated, stations and trains could be crowded with zombies. Old highways were the most available.

After much deliberation, the route was at last determined. As they were in a great need of steel and the space superfunction was always limited, they had to go with more helpers. Anyway, Yun Che couldn't tell anyone that he had an incredibly large space. In the end, a team of ten people would go, including Yun Che, Xing Feng, Chu Haoling who also had space superfunction, Yu Wenqing with ice superfunction, Shen Rui with gold superfunction and Yang Huaien with fire superfunction.

For this trip there were two destinations, Wei City and the provincial capital. To arrive in the provincial capital, they had to pass through Wei City. As scheduled, Wei City would be their first stop. The steel factory was built in the suburbs of Wei City, which could save much trouble.

They were scheduled to leave the next morning. And the night before, Yun Yao made them meals for three days and kept them in thermo lunch boxes. Chu Haoling was the first to put them into his own space.

"Che, be careful on your way and come back early," exhorted Yun Yao, holding her brother's hand tightly when the team was going to leave at daybreak next morning.

"Mm, it'll be okay," replied Yun Che with a placatory smile, and he then looked up at Gu Mingxuan. "Gu, please take care of my sister and my nephew."

Gu Mingxuan, who turned out to have psychological superfunction, had to stay home.

"No problem," replied he, "Come back early."

"Mm."

After brief communication, Yun Che and Xing Feng nodded. All at once there was an eight-seat Toyota Land Cruiser in front of them. They got into the cruiser one by one. Shen Rui took the driver's seat and Zhan Yafei, as the only woman among them, took the front passenger's seat. The rest of the team climbed into the back rows. Famous for its large space, the Land Cruiser was solid and durable. Four men collapsed in each three-seat row and that wasn't too crowded.

Ten minutes later, the Land Cruiser reached the gate of the base. Knowing Xing Feng was inside the Cruiser, the guarding soldiers let them out even without asking. Well, there was a deadly order from superiors. None of the guards dared to mess up with the mad Xing Feng again.

"Zombies around the base have mostly been wiped out. We can extend the base," said Yun Che, as he looked out at the base through the window. He barely had a chance to come out before. Within hundreds of meters, only a few zombies walked scattered. It was almost time to build the second wall.

"Mm," replied Xing Feng, "Superiors have a plan for that. Around the base are farmlands. They want to grow vegetables and fruits after enclosing the base."

Honestly, it was already on the agenda. It wasn't complemented only because the four major forces hadn't reached an agreement yet.

"Grow? Hmm…" sneered Yun Che at Xing Feng's reply, "Grow vegetables? Funny! So many zombies were killed on the ground and so much zombie virus had penetrated into the soil. The sprouting of seeds could even be considered a miracle."

"How do superiors think the earth resource and water resource became polluted?" Yun Che thought. As far as he knew, almost everything on the earth had been polluted, except deep-sea creatures while nobody knew why. In the world a few years later, people would manage to invent many practical things. The living space, however, became increasingly smaller. All lands would be barren, where even soilless culture failed.

"That's why Wenyang first proposed to enclose lands, finding unpolluted lands and protecting them. Houses shall be built on other lands. But Wang Wei and his men don't think so. They believe the base is big enough and food is the priority. Well,their thoughts made sense." explained Xing Feng, "How long can we survive with the only reservation before the doomsday? Five years? Ten years? Maybe twenty? If we can't regenerate resources, humans will die sooner or later. But under current circumstances, they're anxious to achieve quick success. The base construction is far from perfection."

It had been less than one month since the beginning of the doomsday. The base was open to public for only a dozen days. Every day, a large number of survivors would flood into the base. The current size and facilities of the area was far from enough. If the base was closed for being too crowded to accept more survivors one day, what would people think? Since even the current problem couldn't be solved, why bother about the future?

Anyway, it was a problem that superiors of the base should concern themselves with. Telling Mo Wenyang about it was the best Xing Feng would do. Never would he interfere with the internal affairs in the base unless he was asked to.

"That's the defect when several forces take power, just like a few nations existing in the ancient time. Looks like everything is in peace. But in fact, danger can be detected at all times," said Yun Che, turning his gaze and leaning back. He then closed his eyes and dozed, conserving his energy for the coming barriers.

Instead of disturbing him, Xing Feng took out a thick English book and began to read. Every now and then, the Cruiser bumped against some zombies. No one inside the Cruiser could truly set their mind at ease and rest. As they drove far from the base, road conditions got worse. Zombies were hot on their heels.

"Almost there," said Yun Che, "Those with gold superfunction, climb up to the roof of the car. When I wrap the Cruiser with air superfunction, condense steel bars to fend off zombies in front so that we can ride faster."

Hardly had his voice faded away, zombies behind them lost the target. The back of the Cruiser was enveloped in silence again. In the meantime, Xing Feng, Shen Rui and Lu Haixuan opened the windows and jumped onto the roof swiftly. Yun Che expanded the air membrane right away, wrapping them inside it. Next second, a thumb-size steel bar appeared on each side of the Cruise, except the back. The bars, piercing through the air membrane, pushed aside all zombies in the way.

Zombies, who couldn't see anything, caught the prey with keen senses of hearing and smelling. The air membrane, as nicely as possible, hindered the team's breaths and voices. When the steel bars touched the zombies, they moved away obediently as if tamed.

"What the fuck! The air superfunction is super awesome!" whispered Chu Haoling, who had been restraining himself from talking all the way. His partners rolled eyes at him, though. Chu Haoling stuck out his tongue cutely and gave a gesture of zipping his mouth. The Cruiser fell silent again.

"Some cars block the way and we can't make it through," said the driver.

Nearly half an hour later, they were no longer far from the destination city. The Cruiser, which had been advancing steadily, slowed down. The team looked out of the windows and saw several cars crashed. The road was blocked. They had to either walk through or try to remove the cars.

"Zeyu, get onto the roof of the Cruiser. When we get near the cars, use your air superfunction to roll them up and push down off the cliff," said Yun Che after carefully thinking about it. Having consumed too much energy, he took a bottle of water and drank several mouthfuls to regain some strength.

"Mm," knowing the severity, Zhou Zeyu replied, instead of teasing him. Grabbing the window backhanded, he climbed up the Cruiser quickly. Within less than one month since the doomsday, everyone had practiced their skills and powers. When the doomsday ended, maybe they could join Hollywood action movies.

"Shen, drive slowly. Zeyu only has level-2 superfunction. He isn't accurate or durable enough."

"No problem," replied the driver who didn't even look back. The Cruiser slowed down to a speed that a flameout might come at any time. Zhan Yafei, in the front passenger's seat, saw Yun Che's face bathed in sweat from the rear-view mirror. Obviously, Yun Che was struggling. She bunched her hand into a fist, holding back her impulse to blather. Yun Che didn't like such cold comfort and she knew that.

"Would you like a cigarette?" asked Leng Yehan all of a sudden.

He was staring at Yun Che, too. But none of them could help. Offering a cigarette was a deal Yun Che mad with them, because he wanted to break his own limits in this way, promoting his superfunction to level-3.

"Yes!" replied Yun Che, gnashing his teeth. He, with his shaky hand, took up the mineral water and poured it into his throat. Snap! The empty bottle fell to the ground! Meanwhile, Leng Yehan stuck a cigarette in Yun Che's mouth, leaned over and lit up a little flame to light it.

Yun Che took a deep drag on the cigarette. Seemed his spirits freshened a little.

BANG!

There suddenly came a loud crash. Having tried a few times, Zhou Zeyu finally rolled up the blocking rubbish cars and pushed them off the cliff, with his air superfunction. The loud crash came from the falling of the huge "rubbish". When obstacles were all gone, the Cruiser travelled faster again.

Shen Rui, in the driver's seat, knew Yun Che couldn't last the air membrane for too long. When meeting only a few zombies, he no longer slowed down or waited for them to push away the zombies. Instead, he stepped on the gas and bumped the zombies away!

Another thirty minutes passed, and the number of zombies was growing. Greenbelts on both sides of the road looked better. They had come inside Wei City.

"According to the map, turn left in five hundred meters and we won't be far from the steel factory. Let's pull up at somewhere for a while and let Che replenish himself before we drive all the way to the factory," said Yang Huaien, who didn't even look up from the map he was carefully reading.

"Mm."

Fining a country lane which was wide enough for the Cruiser, Shen Rui decisively turned the steering wheel and drove in. After a few minutes' drive, they saw large fields, around which only a small number of zombies wandered.

"Here we are," said Shen Rui, stepping on the brake as they arrived at the embankment of a grain-basking field. For a spilt second, the air membrane around the Cruiser disappeared. Yun Che collapsed into the seat, exhausted. His partners, without wasting any time, pushed the door open and jumped out of the Cruiser to deal with the zombies rushing at them.

"How do you feel?" asked Xing Feng, who used to save trouble for himself. He got back to the Cruiser and wrapped his arms around Yun Che. In the depth of his eyes, there was a great deal of care when his heart was wrenched.

"Hmm, barely alive," replied Yun Che, "Let me have a rest."

Giving a weak smile, Yun Che closed his eyes and lay in Xing Feng's arms. The latter cautiously moved to the window on the other side and rested Yun Che's head on his leg so that Yun Che could rest as cozily as possible.

"Boss, I see a village out there where there are a lot of zombies, I'm afraid. Shall we go and kill them?" asked Lu Haixuan, through the window.

Except Lu Haixuan, all the other guys had level-2 superfunction. Within minutes, zombies were cleared out. When others were opening the zombies' head for crystal nuclei, Yang Huaien came back alone to ask Xing Feng for instruction. Yun Che was so exhausted that he needed at least one or two hours to recover. If zombies ran out of the village, they would also have trouble killing them all.

"Not now," replied Xing Feng, "Ask them to have a rest where they are and keep a careful watch. After Che recovers, we'll leave right away for the steel factory."

Taking a glance at the faraway village, Xing Feng shook his head and kept his voice down deliberately. The priority was to make Yun Che regain strength, instead of killing zombies.

"Mm."

Yang Huaien nodded and left without argument. The rest of the team, who finished collecting crystal nuclei, didn't go back to the Cruiser in case of disturbing them. Instead, they gathered on the grain-basking field and sat cross-legged, enjoying the food and water. They must replenish themselves as far as they could. Anyway, none of them knew what was waiting in the steel factory. Maybe they were going to fight a fierce battle or maybe nothing would happen. They got used to having a plan B and that was their way to survive.