The body of the queen ant was still there, and because the weather was cold now, it hadn’t started to decay. Shi Qingyang simply brought the entire body along this time. That’s when he discovered that his strength was much greater than before.
He used to exercise hard to make himself run faster and have more strength. He had only just eaten some meat just now, but he’d unexpectedly reaped so many benefits.
Tying the queen ant’s body to his back with a cloth strip, Shi Qingyang took Cheng Ran to climb up. Then he found that Cheng Ran didn’t know how to climb at all. He had never done anything like this before, and he couldn’t climb up by himself right now.
With Cheng Ran looking like this, Shi Qingyang didn’t know how he climbed down from above to find him… He asked Cheng Ran to go up first, followed him below, and held Cheng Ran from time to time. The two climbed up a little bit, and Cheng Ran’s feet slipped down several times, only to fall into Shi Qingyang’s arms.
It took a lot of effort to climb up. As soon as they reached the top, they pulled away the stone blocking the hole, and Shi Qingyang found Gu Changjin lying by the entrance.
Although Gu Changjin’s life was no longer in danger, he had been weak. For over ten days, he had been lying down without much movement. This time, he climbed all the way to the nest entrance, and who knew how long it took him to do this.
“You’re all right…” Seeing Shi Qingyang and Cheng Ran, Gu Changjin smiled, though he couldn’t even lift his head at this time.
“Grandpa Gu, we’re fine. I’ll give you something to eat!” Cheng Ran and Shi Qingyang turned Gu Changjin over and took out the Queen’s meat. Gu Changjin now even had difficulty chewing, so he cut out thin slices with a knife and slowly fed it to him.
Gu Changjin still wanted to ask them questions, but seeing that Cheng Ran was in such a hurry, it wasn’t easy to refuse. He immediately ate a few mouthfuls. Cheng Ran didn’t even care to clean up his body, and while feeding Gu Changjin, he explained what happened below: “Grandpa Gu, after I ate this meat, my body’s radiant energy increased a lot. After Qingyang ate it, his body condition improved. When you eat it, you’ll be able to recover your radiant energy in the future.”
“Alright.” Gu Changjin laughed when he heard Cheng Ran’s words. His body now was like a broken sack. It was impossible for him to recover. Although he became better after eating ant eggs before, he didn’t feel much. Naturally, he didn’t take these words seriously this time.
Shi Qingyang was stunned when he heard this. Cheng Ran thought he had been injured before and became better after eating the meat, but in fact, that wasn’t the case at all. It was only after eating this meat that he suffered so much pain…
Not only that, he couldn’t bear the pain at that time, yet Cheng Ran even fed him more meat.
Thinking of this, Shi Qingyang ate another piece of meat, but this time, he didn’t have any special reaction at all.
Instead, Gu Changjin suddenly covered his stomach, and his whole person curled up in pain like Shi Qingyang did before.
“Grandpa Gu, what’s the matter with you?” Cheng Ran panicked and hugged Gu Changjin: “Grandpa Gu, are you okay?”
Gu Changjin was in too much pain to speak at this time. At this time, a sudden movement came from outside: “Is anyone there ? Is there anyone here?”
This was Cheng Xuze’s voice!
Cheng Xuze searched for clues in the woods the entire way because some mutant beasts could also destroy the surrounding plants in the environment, and those people had disguised some things. After finding some clues, he spent a lot of time follow the path here.
He searched carefully in this place, saw the traces left by explosions, found the bombed mole cricket nest, and even found a discarded water bottle inside.
Although these hadn’t necessarily been left by Cheng Ran and the others, there were at least some traces here! Because of this, Cheng Xuze got out a loudspeaker and searched the area nearby. Finally, he found this hill with many holes in it.
This place should be an ant nest, but he didn’t know why there are no ant beasts… Cheng Xuze shouted outside while dressed in his combat suit. He was about to leave, but he didn’t expect to hear a voice: “Grandpa! Grandpa!”
“Shi Qingyang!” Hearing this sound, Cheng Xuze exclaimed in surprise and some worry. Shi Qingyang was very smart and experienced. It wasn’t out of expectations for him to survive in the wild for more than 20 days, but Cheng Ran…
Cheng Xuze quickly ran to the place he heard the sound: “Shi Qingyang, where are you?”
“Grandpa, we’re down there!” Shi Qingyang responded, and while responding, he put the combat suit belonging to Gu Changjin on Cheng Ran, and put a helmet on Cheng Ran to protect him tightly.
“What happened? Where is Gu Changjin?” Cheng Xuze had reached the cave entrance, and he could lift himself up using his radiant energy behind him. He took Wang Qing and jumped down.
“They’re here, too. Grandpa Gu is in poor condition!” Shi Qingyang said, and along the way, he pushed Cheng Ran flat, “Ranran is also very uncomfortable now, Grandpa…”
Although Cheng Xuze could be trusted, Cheng Xuze had the Cheng family behind him. Even if Cheng Ran was his grandson, he had other grandsons and granddaughters. Therefore, Shi Qingyang didn’t want Cheng Xuze to discover the differences in Cheng Ran so soon.
“Great!” Cheng Xuze couldn’t help but say. He had felt that the Cheng family had caused Cheng Ran to be in this danger. Now that he knew Cheng Ran was alright, and he was finally relieved.
“Grandpa!” Shi Qingyang crawled out of the cave. After eating the queen ant’s meat before, blood oozed from every pore of his body. Now his whole body was fully stained with blood. This blood condensed on him, making him look desperate. Cheng Xuze almost couldn’t recognize him at first glance. Then tears gathered in his eyes: “Things weren’t easy for you.”
“Grandpa, I’m fine. It’s mainly Grandpa Gu and Ranran.” Shi Qingyang hurriedly said. The nest entrance was very small. Finally, he had to first remove the comatose Gu Changjin from inside, and then pull out Cheng Ran next.
Perhaps because Gu Changjin had eaten less meat, his condition was slightly better than that of Shi Qingyang’s before, but with his body the way it was, he looked to be in a terrible state in others’ eyes, with his life on the line. As for Cheng Ran, Cheng Ran was covered up by the anti radiation suit, which had many blood stains from Shi Qingyang on it. His whole body gave off the same impression as Shi Qingyang, looking equally terrible.
However, both of them were still breathing in the end.
Cheng Xuze knew that with Gu Changjin and Cheng Ran like this, it must have been difficult for them to survive in the wild. Seeing Shi Qingyang’s ragged clothes, he naturally knew that it was because of Shi Qingyang that they survived. At that moment, Cheng Xuze looked at him gratefully: “Child, you have my thanks this time.”
At that moment, Shi Qingyang had just pulled out the body of the queen ant from inside and carried it on his back. He was embarrassed to hear this and said, “Grandpa, let’s go up first!” What had happened, in the final analysis, was still because of his actions. No matter what he had to do, it was his responsibility.
“Alright.” Cheng Xuze held Cheng Ran in one hand and Gu Changjin in the other hand, and circulated the radiant energy under his feet to float upward. Wang Qing saw Shi Qingyang’s bad state, and then took the queen ant’s body from Shi Qingyang’s back and climbed up with Shi Qingyang.
When he climbed out of the ant nest, Shi Qingyang had the feeling of finally seeing the sun again. At this time, Cheng Xuze had already brought Cheng Ran and Gu Changjin to the mobile town. He was so anxious that he didn’t even remove the radiation-filled clothes from Cheng Ran and Gu Changjin.
“Grandpa, give Ranran to me. Take grandpa Gu to have a look.” In Shi Qingyang’s previous life, the best research institute had studied him, but couldn’t find the reason behind his changes. Cheng Xuze wouldn’t be able to find out Gu Changjin’s situation in this place where there wasn’t much medical equipment.
Cheng Xuze had also found that although his grandson still had no radiation energy, he didn’t seem to have any problems. In contrast, Gu Changjin’s ailments were more serious.
Gu Changjin helped the Cheng family take care of Cheng Ran for such a long time without credit for his hard work. Now he was in such serious condition, so of course he needed more urgent care first, and Shi Qingyang took good care of Cheng Ran. He was relieved to leave Cheng Ran to Shi Qingyang’s care.
On Cheng Xuze’s mobile fortress, in addition to him and Wang Qing, there were only three low-level radiant warriors responsible for operating the mobile fortress, as well as cooking and cleaning. Cheng Xuze found one of them to take Shi Qingyang to his room, and immediately took Gu Changjin to the treatment cabin. Wang Qing put down the queen ant body in his hand and followed him.
“This queen ant’s body, send it to my room,” Shi Qingyang said. As far as he knew, there must be special freezing boxes in every room in the fortress to hold the corpses of mutant beasts.
“Yes,” the guide answered, not caring too much. He just thought that Shi Qingyang was so nervous because he had hunted such a high-level beast for the first time.
When he arrived in the room, Shi Qingyang immediately found a freezer that could store mutant beasts, then cut and stuffed the queen ant’s body into it. At this time, Cheng Ran also pulled off his clothes.
“Qingyang, do I have to hide my radiant energy from others?” Cheng Ran thought of what just happened and asked.
“Yes, it’s best to hide it. If others know about it, I’m afraid many people will have intentions for you,” Shi Qingyang said. He had discovered that the radiant energy in his body was very calm. Now everyone generally inferred a person’s radiant energy level based on the momentum they showed, so even if he had reached level-4, it was likely that he was between level-2 and level-3 in others’ eyes.
Although such achievements were very good, they were not obvious. Now, both he and Cheng Ran needed to keep a low profile.
“Then I shouldn’t let others know.” Cheng Ran smiled and looked at the bathroom next to him. “Qingyang, let’s take a shower quickly! There’s water here!”
Nowadays, purified water without radiation was expensive. Cheng Xuze’s bathroom with purified water here was also a big deal. Of course, Shi Qingyang didn’t care about this. In contrast, Cheng Ran’s “us” made him react more.
Did he want to take a bath together? While Shi Qingyang was thinking about it, Cheng Ran had sprayed detergent on his body: “This stuff isn’t washing out. Qingyang, you also spray a little, I’ll wash this first.”
Cheng Ran had been wearing an anti-radiation suit before, and although his body was dirty, it was limited. In contrast, Shi Qingyang’s hair was full of dried blood, which was really filthy.
After looking at his situation, Shi Qingyang restrained the beauty of “bathing together” in his heart, sprayed a lot of detergent on himself quickly, and put his and Cheng Ran’s clothes into the washing machine. At this time, the dirt on his body had softened.
Previously, in Spark City, after this step, it was enough to scrub with a cleaner, but this time, Shi Qingyang was also more willing to rinse with water. After all, he was too dirty.
Cheng Ran cleaned quickly and came out soon. Seeing him coming out, Shi Qingyang was stunned, not because the bathrobe Cheng Ran was wearing was too tempting, but because there were two bruises on Cheng Ran’s face.
“Ranran…”
“I’m fine, I just bumped into something.” Cheng Ran was a little embarrassed. Originally, he wanted to hide it, but the injury on his face was too obvious. Shi Qingyang would still see it.
When Shi Qingyang thought about it, he knew that Cheng Ran likely fell when he climbed down to find him. Cheng Ran didn’t know how to climb down at all. He might even have directly fallen onto the rock walls.
Before, with all the blood staining Cheng Ran’s body, the bruises couldn’t be seen, but now the blood stains were cleaned, and now they all became very visible.
Even his face was hurt, then he likely would have even more wounds on his body.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Qingyang. I’m just a little bruised.” Cheng Ran said. He could have healed himself with radiant energy, but his radiant energy was all used on Shi Qingyang, and he was overdrawn… So even now, the wounds were still obvious.
Shi Qingyang looked at the dirt on his body and quickly entered the bathroom: “You take some medicine first, and I’ll help you later.”
He washed the dirt off his body as quickly as possible. When Shi Qingyang went outside again, he saw that Cheng Ran had applied medicine to the wounds on his face and was dealing with the wounds on his hand.
Shi Qingyang didn’t say anything, and slowly applied the medicine to Cheng Ran: “Ranran, I’m sorry.”
“I should be the one saying sorry,” Cheng Ran said.
“No, this time, it’s all my fault. I clearly know that the Yin Family’s people had bad intentions and still hadn’t been on guard…” Shi Qingyang was extremely upset.
“Yin Family?” After thinking carefully, Cheng Ran thought of Yin Tiancheng: “Was this caused by the Yin Family?”
“It should be them, but there might be someone behind them,” Shi Qingyang said.
At this time, the door opened, and Cheng Xuze came in from the outside: “Is what you said true?” He had been in a rush to check on Cheng Ran’s situation, but hadn’t expected to overhear this.
“Grandpa, that’s right. Those people who’d been hunting us hadn’t intended to keep us alive.” Shi Qingyang explained the situation at that time as well as his guess.
The anger in Cheng Xuze’s face grew fiercer and fiercer: “How audacious, such a small family…”
“Grandpa, we have to get to the bottom of this!” Shi Qingyang said. They couldn’t just let the people of the Yin family get away free this time.
“We must find the truth!” Cheng Xuze gritted his teeth and said. When he slid his eyes on Cheng Ran, his gaze turned into chagrin: “Xiao Ran, it’s grandpa who came late, and even hurt you.” Cheng Xuze could see that Cheng Ran’s bruises were all caused by collision. He must have fallen in his combat suit. Even Cheng Ran was in a state like this.The other… Cheng Xuze glanced again. Because Shi Qingyang was tall, Cheng Ran’s knee-length bathrobe didn’t even cover his knees, revealing a lot of his injured skin, making Cheng Xuze sigh.
“Grandpa, we’re fine.” Cheng Ran smiled.
“Alright… Xiao Ran, Grandpa Gu is in poor health and wants to go to Anhang City for treatment. Are you going with us? For the competition you participated in, now that this is over, you can still catch up. Do you still wish to participate to participate?” Cheng Xuze added. He had always hoped that Cheng Ran could show off and let his son have a good look at what he’d missed out on.
“Can I still participate in the competition?” Cheng Ran asked curiously.
“Of course,” Gu Changjin opened his mouth. Spark Academy had set out almost a month in advance with the idea of letting students see the world, so they had returned just in time to catch up with the competition.
“Then we’ll go right away,” Cheng Ran immediately said.
“Can you wait for me for an hour first? I’m going to remove all the ant eggs left in the ant nest,” Shi Qingyang said. There were still many ant eggs left in the ant nest, and the mobile fortress had enough freezers for mutant beasts that they could take them all away.
“Do as you please. Gu Changjin’s situation has stabilized. By the way, that there should be an ant nest? You fell in and still survived?”
“Grandpa, there were few ant beasts there.” Shi Qingyang was outright lying with his eyes open, but most of the ant beasts’ bodies were eaten by their own kind, so no one else would know.
“You’re lucky.” Cheng Xuze sighed.
Shi Qingyang soon left the mobile fortress, collected all the ant eggs in the cave, and brought them back. Although Cheng Xuze didn’t understand why he cared so much about these things, he had heard from Cheng Ran that those eggs were what had sustained them through their recent days. After hearing that, he felt relieved..
The two children narrowly escaped death, so it was normal for them to have some feelings for that food.
After collecting the ant eggs, the mobile fortress traveled to Anhang City. It was at this time that Cheng Hong encountered great trouble in that city.