Gu Ning was strangely strong, but this man seemed to be even stronger than she was, pinning her leg that she was trying to lift, yet his body was subtly separated from her. Gu Ning’s heart trembled slightly then she reduced the strength from her legs and obediently leaned against the wall, expressing her will of not resisting. The man seemed a little surprised and hesitated for a brief moment before releasing the hand the was covering Gu Ning’s mouth.
The man was so tall that Gu Ning raised her eyes and all she could see was his smoothly defined jaw. In her ears, she could hear the sound of chaotic and hurried footsteps heading toward this way. After a short pause, she could hear a man asking sharply: “Where is he? Where’s he gone? How come he’s gone in the blink of an eye!” A few garbled replies and then the burst of footsteps passed by them and headed forward.
Gu Ning glanced at those men with long knives in their hands through her side gazes and immediately frowned.
As she heard those voices had drifted away. Gu Ning suddenly reacted, and the elbow that was released by the man was slammed towards the man’s abdomen! The man didn’t expect Gu Ning’s sudden attack and he was a bit shocked but his reaction was extremely fast! He reached out and blocked Gu Ning’s elbow with a grip while saying with a bit of annoyance: “Little girl, you are so unreasonable.”
Gu Ning coldly replied: “You borrow me to hide away from your enemies. If your enemies find out, they will surely think that I’m with you. Then I would be dragged into the mess by you, hacked to death with those knives, and that’s being reasonable?”
The man, however, froze for a moment, then smiled dumbly: “Makes sense.” The alley was dimly lit and it was impossible to see how the girl looked like at that moment. Yet there was a thin note of anger in that voice, and by the sound of it, she was very young so he suddenly had the urge to see how she looked like.
At this moment, Gu Ning noticed that this man’s strength and skills were much stronger than hers. Also, she couldn’t use her psychic powers to deal with him, so she had no choice but to suppress her anger and negotiate: “I can’t beat you. Please make way, I’m leaving.”
The man didn’t expect Gu Ning to take it so well, and after being stunned, he raised his hand and took a few steps backward, and replied helplessly: “Please.”
Gu Ning only felt very unlucky and didn’t even have any interest to look at him as she directly turned around and headed deeper into the alley.
The man watched her walk away in the darkness and was slightly startled to see her short, dazzling blonde hair when she stepped out into the lighted part of the alleyway.
Gu Ning walked all the way to the meeting location, where Chen Gen was already squatting there with a bottle of mineral water as if he had waited for a long time. Zhang XiaoBai and Zhong Xu arrived twenty minutes later in a hurry, carrying several large bags, apparently, they had done a big shopping. They apologized to the two of them repeatedly.
Then they drove back together.
It was around 9:00 pm when they returned. Zhang XiaoBai and Zhong Xu were inevitably caught and scolded by Brother San. Chen Gen returned to his first company.
Gu Ning bid goodbye to Zhang XiaoBai and Zhong Xu before heading back to the family building. Zhang XiaoBai instantly caught up with her and shoved a paper bag into Gu Ning’s arms, instructing: “Go back then open up, alright!”
Gu Ning really followed the instruction and waited until she got to her room before opening up the paper bag. Inside was actually a white dress, Gu Ning held up the dress for a moment and then smiled faintly.
The first thing she did when she returned to the space was, of course, to check the waterline.
The line she had drawn was still there, but the level of the water had shrunk almost half a meter lower from the line again. That was because the psychic power that was consumed for healing Mother Gu’s heart was very frightening. Gu Ning’s brow furrowed than unfolded. With a thought in mind, she returned to the post-apocalyptic world.
It was already eight o’clock in the morning and the sky had just turned bright, so many people were still lazy and asleep at this time.
Gu Ning gently pushed the door open to the room and took a look, Father Gu and Mother Gu were still asleep. She was about to enter in when she suddenly heard a deliberately muffled argument coming from the front yard, and with a glance and a slight pause, she closed the door behind her and headed for the front yard instead.
Gu Ning didn’t push open the front door either but just stood at the window and glanced outside. Huang MengYao was talking to a girl who seems a bit familiar.
The girl was holding Huang MengYao’s hand with one hand while another hand was holding onto a bag of bread: “MengYao, now that you don’t have to worry about food and water by following them, and you have even developed psychic powers, can’t you just help me to talk to them? Let me follow you guys too ah, I can help with many things too.”
Huang MengYao had a difficult look on her face: “It’s not going to work……”
“Why not?! Are you worried that I’ll take over your place when I get in?” The girl frowned furiously, then after seeing Huang MengYao’s expression change slightly, she softened her voice again and begged: “YaoYao, the two of us are best friends and have been depending on each other ever since we had escaped from the school together. Are you willing to watch me freeze and starve to death?”
Only when Gu Ning heard this, then she recognise that the girl was Xiao YunYun who was with Huang MengYao when she first met Cheng Ming and the others. She had chosen to be on the other side herself when they were trapped in the small courtyard by that zombie dog. Thus, after entering the colony, they were assigned to the classroom accommodation. She didn’t expect Huang MengYao to still be in contact with her. It seems that this was not the first time Huang MengYao had privately given Xiao YunYun supplies, and Xiao YunYun was clearly no longer satisfied with Huang MengYao’s support.
Huang MengYao’s expression became more awkward: “We have rules, we can’t just bring in people. And you haven’t even killed a single zombie yet.” She had personally asked Cheng Ming for help, but he also said that it wouldn’t work as Xiao YunYun was just too weak and hadn’t killed a single zombie so far. If she hadn’t taken over Gu Ning’s knife and killed the zombies, Gu Ning wouldn’t be bringing her along too. Giving supplies to Xiao YunYun was the best she could do.
Xiao YunYun exclaimed agitatedly: “What about Cheng Ming? Can you ask Cheng Ming to help me ah? You, Cheng Ming, and Xie YuHong can help me to plead too! Although I don’t know how to kill zombies, there’s a lot of other things I can do!” She suddenly grabbed Huang MengYao’s hand and her gaze became very strange and asked: “Did you sleep with them?”
Huang MengYao finally got angry: “What nonsense are you babbling about?!”
Seeing that Huang MengYao seemed to be really furious, Xiao YunYun hurriedly explained again: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, and I was just …… too sad.”
Huang MengYao, however, was still in a state of residual anger and glared at Xiao YunYun and stated impatiently: “If there’s nothing else, I’ll go in first.”
“Go ahead.” Xiao YunYun raised the bread in her hand: “Thank you for the bread, YaoYao.”
Huang MengYao sighed then she turned around and went back in, only to see Gu Ning who was standing by the window looking at her. She had no idea how long Gu Ning had been standing there but she must have seen her giving bread to Xiao YunYun and was a little bit embarrassed: “Gu Ning.”
“I just saw her cursing you.” Gu Ning said to Huang MengYao: “When you turned around, she called you a b*tch, I saw that.”
Huang MengYao froze for a moment before her expression became more embarrassed.
Looking at Huang MengYao in this state, Gu Ning inevitably thought of the time when she was on the bus, and when she saw the trace of pity in Huang MengYao’s eyes, she couldn’t help but tell her: “Some people are not worthy of you being nice to them.” With those words, she stopped talking, turned, and walked away.
Huang MengYao froze for a long time then turned around to look out of the window. Watching Xiao YunYun’s back view as she carefully hid the bread under her clothes and walked away, Huang MengYao’s gaze clouded with a layer of gloominess.
Gu Ning was slightly disappointed to learn from Father Gu that Zhuang Chen had already left with Bai Lang.
Yesterday the whole day, for those who went out to hunt for crystal cores, five or six out of ten lucky people would come back alive, while those who were unlucky would probably all be sacrificed. Only one or two out of a hundred people alive may have picked up the crystal cores. Yet that one person may not even succeed in developing the ability. Yesterday, there were at least five or six hundred young adults went out but only one person managed to develop the special ability.
It was a probability that made one felt hopeful and desperate at the same time. However, today, those who did not develop their powers all glanced at the person who had successfully developed. Some chose to give up, while others still walked out of the gate of the colony without any hesitation. It was impossible to decide choice was the right one, except one could say that those who walked out of the gates of the colony were very brave.
In the morning at breakfast, Gu Ning talked about her inability to replenish her powers at the dining table. Her tone was very flat as if she was just discussing what to eat for her next meal.
So bland that it led many to think they had misunderstood Gu Ning’s meaning, Zhang XiaoBai asked after swallowing nervously: “What does it mean that you can’t replenish?”
Gu Ning’s tone remained flat, she had already accepted this fact, so she was able to explain it in such a flat tone: “It means if I use my power, it will get lesser and when it’s finished, it’s gone.”
There was a silence at the table, as they all understood what the inability to replenish their powers meant.
When they went out hunting yesterday, they had seen the powerful combat power brought by Gu Ning’s huge psychic power, which gave them an infinite sense of security. Yet, today Gu Ning told them that her psychic energy could not be regenerated.
Gu Ning continued: “So in the future, I will not be using much of my psychic power if possible. Don’t count on my healing ability unless there are serious injuries.” After all, the healing power consumption of psychic energy was several times greater than her plant ability.
“Ever tried to replenish your energy with the transparent crystal core?” Xiang Xu asked.
Gu Ning replied: “Tried it. It didn’t work.”
The crowd was disappointed once again, but when they thought about how bummed they all were, Gu Ning might even have a harder time accepting the fact.
Fang Fa took a sip of the porridge then said: “It’s fine, it’s better than having no powers. And your powers are so unbelievable if there isn’t any restriction on them, then you’ll be the bug in the post-apocalyptic time. The rest of us don’t need to live anymore.”
There was a rush of agreement from the crowd.
Thus, Gu Ning was removed from the list of zombies hunting today. After Gu Ning told Brother San about the worries of the zombie swarm, they decided to reduce the number of people in the daily crystal hunting activities. In addition to Gu Ning, there were ten other special abilities users in their team. With five of them going out for the hunt, the other five stayed behind. Gu Ning became the key figure for protection, and all of sudden from being in-charge of the main attack in the team to being in-charge of the logistics.
Two days passed quietly in the post-apocalyptic world.
Gu Ning went out from the space and appeared in her room in the family building. Looking at her refreshed self in the mirror after changing into her military uniform, she let out a confident smile.
It’s a must for her to get into this Five Stars Brigade.