Chapter 177 - 176: Ashes

Chapter 177: Chapter 176: Ashes

...

Lin Fan looked at Ye Qingzhou, who was walking beside him, with a curious expression. "What did you need me for? You even sent your own people away."

Ye Qingzhou’s steps faltered when she heard Lin Fan’s question. She turned her head, a flash of surprise in her eyes.

But it wasn’t surprise at Lin Fan’s perceptiveness, but at how brazenly he had called it out.

Perceptiveness is a predator’s instinct, but candor is the confidence of the strong.

"You really are smart..." she said slowly, looking at him. "But I wasn’t avoiding my people; I was avoiding everyone. Because I don’t know what you’re hiding from *your* people."

"My people... I hide almost nothing from them. And if there is something, it’s the kind of thing that can’t be told to anyone," Lin Fan said with a clear conscience.

Aside from his core secrets—that he could see health bars, get loot drops from killing monsters, and had a storage space—Lin Fan hid almost nothing from Su Qing, Chu Zhaozhao, and the others.

And his reason for not telling them wasn’t a fear of the secret getting out or anything like that; he just felt that this ability of his had enormous implications. It was better for them not to know.

’I believe they have their suspicions about my secrets. After all, I never try to hide things from them. All sorts of strange potions and crystals appear in my hands out of nowhere. Besides, I never carry that spear of mine; it only appears during combat and is forgotten the rest of the time as if it never existed.’

’The storage space definitely didn’t have a feature that made people forget about items not stored within it, so it must be that everyone tacitly agreed to ignore it.’

After all, even the most naturally clueless Chu Zhaozhao hadn’t pointed at him this morning and said:

"Big Bro! You don’t have your weapon!"

So, hearing Ye Qingzhou’s question, he couldn’t help but let the corner of his mouth twitch into a small smile.

’Because I suddenly realized that Ye Qingzhou’s open and direct way of probing my boundaries was, in its own way, another form of trust.’

It was just a different kind of trust from the unspoken, protective understanding he shared with Su Qing and the others—a completely opposite form of frankness.

And this frankness felt somewhat familiar, reminding him of the question Xu Qian had asked him on the night he, Chu Zhaozhao, and the others had just returned, emboldened by alcohol...

"You saw Zhou Chaoxian, so you were here before we passed through?" Ye Qingzhou asked, puzzled.

"No, I arrived after you passed. When I rushed over, I passed by your convoy from the shadows," Lin Fan told her honestly.

He had a good impression of Ye Qingzhou’s team. Besides, there were many things he wasn’t good at, and if possible, he hoped to cooperate with them long-term.

"So when you saw Chaoxian, he was dying. How was he injured?" Ye Qingzhou asked again.

And this was precisely the part Lin Fan wasn’t good at. So, he laid everything bare, telling her all the information he had about "the Tree" and the situation inside the vehicle at the time.

He even told her—phrasing it as an intuition—that when he had severed those tentacles, it seemed to have caused severe damage to "the Tree," ensuring the information Ye Qingzhou received was as accurate as possible.

"He’s fifty at most, he wouldn’t be that old... but that person was definitely him. This all has to do with what ’the Tree’ is doing. Those branches you cut off must have been its core organs, or perhaps its true body..."

After Lin Fan finished, Ye Qingzhou helped him analyze the situation. She then thought of the figure on the surveillance monitor. Hearing his account, she was almost certain it had been him.

So, she also told him about the figure in the drone footage.

"So, that figure was you, and you caused the explosion. How could a few pistol shots trigger such a massive blast?"

A black mist had shrouded the area at the base of the tentacles, so the drone’s surveillance hadn’t been able to see what happened inside. But just a few seconds later, the explosion occurred. It was obviously connected to the figure who went in.

"That figure was me. And that pistol was Colonel Zhou’s."

Lin Fan admitted it openly.

"As for the cause of the explosion, I can’t tell you right now. You just need to know that in the pit where the monster was, there happened to be a one-ton drum of gasoline and a one-ton drum of Diesel."

Ye Qingzhou had finally reached the vague part of Lin Fan’s story and knew it involved his deepest secret.

"A ton of gasoline, a ton of Diesel, in a deep pit..."

She gave him a deep look and naturally avoided pressing the issue.

"That would explain the power of the blast. I was wondering... even an armored vehicle with a full tank of fuel and two missiles cooking off wouldn’t have been that massive..."

She nodded and continued, "So the reason you’re going back is because you’re worried that even after all that, the monster might not be dead..."

"Right." Lin Fan nodded matter-of-factly.

"Then I can go with you to the epicenter of the explosion. I can help you determine if it’s dead..." Ye Qingzhou said confidently.

"We’ll see..." Lin Fan was noncommittal.

’I don’t know the zombie distribution over there. I’ll probably be fine going in by myself after taking some potions, but bringing someone else along... that’ll depend on whether the zombie horde feels like cooperating.’

The two of them jogged along the rooftops. Whenever they encountered a gap or a tall building, Lin Fan would pick up Ye Qingzhou and either detour through the residential complex to the right or jump straight across.

At first, Lin Fan could clearly feel her tension through the tautness of her body under his arm. But after a few times, she got used to it, gradually relaxing and even experiencing a sense of novelty at this superhuman mode of transport.

In less than ten minutes, the two of them arrived on a rooftop directly across from the park.

The building just ahead had one side charred black by fire, and the concrete on its roof had a grayish-white look. Worried it would collapse if he stepped on it, Lin Fan went no further.

The closer they got, the thicker the ash on the rooftops became, and the stronger the vile stench—a mix of scorched material, asphalt, and burnt protein.

Reaching this point was like walking through the aftermath of a sandstorm. The original colors of the rooftops were completely gone, covered in a thick layer of black ash.

A single step would sink you half a finger’s depth into it, kicking up a choking cloud of powder that clung to their pant legs.

Ye Qingzhou had already pulled two gas masks from the bag she was carrying, putting one on and giving the other to Lin Fan.

The surroundings were dead silent. There wasn’t even a whisper of wind.

The two of them stood on the edge of the roof, silently looking at the park across the street.

But in truth, there was no park across the street anymore.

Even the plants in the greenbelt along the roadside had been completely baked dry by the intense heat. The withered vegetation was covered in grayish-black ash. The flammable materials inside the armored vehicle had been ignited by the high temperatures, and the entire vehicle was burned to a rusty husk.

The two thick, branch-like tentacles that stretched from the park onto the road had been scorched last night. Now, they were covered in ash, resembling two giant serpents lying prone beneath a layer of snow.

A deep pit had appeared in the park—the epicenter of the explosion. Amidst the raging fire last night, Lin Fan hadn’t been able to see what had become of the pit.

Only now could he see that the mouth of the pit had been blasted several times wider than it was last night, resembling a massive bowl embedded in the ashes.

For several hundred meters around the park, the scene was like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. Even the zombies wandering nearby were covered in ash, hiding their charred flesh and bloodstains.

Contrasted against the green trees and blue sky in the distance, the entire area looked as if a circular black-and-white filter had been placed over the center of one’s vision. It was as if a patch of color-sensing cells on the retina had been scooped out, leaving this spot devoid of all color.

If it weren’t for the health bars on those zombies.