Chapter 360: Infighting

Xu Yu scoffed and turned to grab a pale-faced girl of about twelve or thirteen. "Yiyi, if any mutated beasts show up, will you be able to control them?"

The girl, Lin Yiyi, looked a little hesitant. "I’ll try... One or two should be fine, but if there are too many..."

"What do you mean, ’try’? You have to use your full power to control them," Zhuang Jia said, looking at the girl with dissatisfaction.

Ever since Lin Yiyi had joined the team, Zhuang Jia had never treated the girl well.

Especially in such a tense situation, the conversation between Xu Yu and Lin Yiyi sounded like they were just playing around.

Xu Yu frowned at Zhuang Jia. "Why are you being so harsh?"

"Brother Lei," Xu Yu said, tugging on Zhuang Lei’s sleeve, her expression filled with displeasure. "Yiyi is just a kid. Zhuang Jia’s attitude toward her is horrible."

"Was Zhuang Jia wrong?" Luo Yanan, Zhuang Jia’s husband, shot back with a sneer. "Before now, almost all of the team’s Crystal Cores were prioritized for you and Lin Yiyi."

"And what did you say then? You said Lin Yiyi’s special superpower would be a huge help to the Swift Leopard Team, didn’t you?"

"Yes! I said it! So what? Am I wrong?" Luo Yanan’s attitude ignited Xu Yu’s fury.

"Are we supposed to rely on you lot? Lin Yiyi has the Beast Taming Power—a special one at that! If we don’t nurture a unique power like hers, should we be nurturing your common, run-of-the-mill superpowers instead?"

For days, Xu Yu had been putting on airs in front of the common folk in the slums of Golden City Base, acting like a big shot Superpower User.

It was safe to say her ego had long been out of control.

Now that fellow Superpower Users like Luo Yanan and Zhuang Jia were talking back to her, she felt incredibly slighted.

’Who does Luo Yanan think he is? Just some minor Power-type Superpower User.’

’And Zhuang Jia? All she has is a small Space. Whenever I ask her for anything, she’s so damn stingy. A woman like that is a cancer in the Swift Leopard Team.’

Xu Yu had long been urging their leader, Zhuang Lei, not to let Zhuang Jia store the team’s important food and Crystal Cores. She was worried the couple would pocket everything for themselves.

Their relationship had always been terrible. If Zhuang Jia and her husband took all the food and ran, they’d be royally screwed.

"You’d better explain yourself. What do you mean, ’common superpowers’? How are we common? You think your Water Element and her Beast Taming Power are somehow more noble than anyone else’s?"

The muscles in Luo Yanan’s arms bulged as he lunged forward, ready to throw a punch.

Zhuang Lei darted between them, his face grim as he separated Luo Yanan and Xu Yu. "What do you think you’re doing?"

"Big Brother, can’t you see what kind of person Xu Yu is by now? She’s a shit-stirrer! As long as she’s on this team, we’ll never have a moment’s peace."

"Who are you calling a shit-stirrer, Zhuang Jia?" Xu Yu shrieked, flinging a Water Ball in her direction.

The Water Ball went SPLAT, exploding next to Li Dawei and soaking half his arm.

"What the fuck!" Li Dawei erupted, shaking his arm. "What’s wrong with you people? We haven’t even started fighting the zombie horde, and you’re already at each other’s throats like a bunch of lunatics?"

"If you want to fight so badly, go fight the damn zombies!"

Lin Yiyi’s face went pale with fright. Biting her lip, she shrank back and stammered, "I’m sorry... It’s all my fault. Please don’t fight because of me."

Meanwhile, on the southeastern section of the city wall, Lu Wei and his men stared grimly at the dark, swarming tide of zombies up ahead.

"Ready."

"Fire!" A blast of white light erupted among the zombie horde.

But even more zombies surged toward the base of the wall.

As if answering some unseen call, a huge mass of zombies scrambled to the base of the wall and began rapidly piling on top of one another.

The sight was enough to startle even the normally composed Gu Chen.

The mounted guns on the wall raked across the zombie horde. Projectiles from the Electromagnetic Cannons tore through the sky at high speed, crashing into the sea of corpses and erupting in dazzling flashes of light.

The zombie army advanced fearlessly, feeling no pain.

Corpses piled up like mountains below the wall, but more zombies simply scrambled over the bodies of their fallen, relentlessly climbing upward.

Just then, huge, dark flocks of Mutated Birds swarmed in the sky, their shrill cries piercing the night.

Xie Ning shot up in bed, her pitch-black eyes staring vacantly into the oppressive darkness before her.

It was so dark.

She felt as if her eyes hadn’t adjusted to this kind of darkness in a very long time.

The phantom chill in her hands and feet seemed to stir a sliver of... memory, one buried deep in her bones.

She suddenly looked down, her gaze locking onto her hands, which were covered in chilblains and scars.

’These aren’t my hands!’

That was Xie Ning’s first thought.

Her expression numb, she scrambled out of bed and rushed to a cracked and grimy window.

The glass reflected a faint glimmer of light.

It was just enough for her to make out her own gaunt, frail silhouette.

In that instant, it was as if a bolt of lightning struck her mind.

’How did I end up like this?’

’This isn’t me!’

Xie Ning stumbled back a step and looked down again at her hands, which were red, swollen, and as ugly as rotten radishes from the cold.

These hands...

’It’s been so long since I’ve seen them.’

The thought flashed through Xie Ning’s mind, and she quickly checked her Space.

It was like a bolt from the blue. She staggered, unable to keep her balance, and collapsed onto the shabby bed behind her with a THUD.

’My two-cubic-meter space... it’s back?’

There it was again: that narrow 1.2-meter bed, that same jumble of tools.

’My Space shouldn’t be like this,’ Xie Ning thought, her face blank as she looked up.

So...

’Was everything before just a dream?’

’In reality, was she still struggling to survive in this impoverished, starving, apocalyptic world?’

’Was Mom already dead?’

’Grandpa, Grandma, Song Kexin, Song Shijun... were they all gone?’

In an instant, Xie Ning felt her blood run cold. Clutching her head, she let out a guttural scream and bolted for the wooden door.

Outside was still a world of ice and snow.

It was as if she was the only one left in the vast, white emptiness.

She ran howling into the snow, grabbing onto something—anything—and beating it senseless with her fists and feet.

She screamed with every desperate blow, her voice the only sound echoing endlessly in the vast night sky.

Xie Ning thrashed about in the snow, pouncing on and attacking anything she could, grabbing and tearing at whatever she found, cursing and screaming like a madwoman.

The entire world seemed to contain only this single, raving lunatic.

This lunatic rolled and thrashed in the snow, punching at nothing, desperately tearing at the empty air.

Her state was beyond what words like "crazed" or "frenzied" could describe.

Gradually, the madwoman seemed to tire herself out, to beat herself into exhaustion. She slowly collapsed in the snow, her eyes staring blankly at the sky.

She waited silently as one crystal snowflake after another drifted down onto her face.

Icy. Bone-chilling.

Xie Ning slowly sat up.