Cooking Gourmet Meals in the Apocalypse

Chapter 162: Chapter 159: She Has a Numbered Tag in Her Body Too?

Their house was three buildings down from Chen Xing’s.

The area around the house looked like it had been through a catastrophe; everything was destroyed.

A large tree in front had been uprooted and lay on the ground. Stones that had fallen to the ground were all shattered into many pieces.

The house itself, however, was unscathed. The doors and windows were completely intact.

Without knocking, Chen Xing yanked the door open and walked inside.

Hearing the noise, 00002 looked up at her, a dazed expression on his face.

But where was any trace of 00001 in the room?

Looking under the now-empty bed, she saw a pool of blood. The bedding was also stained red.

Chen Xing: "..."

’Looks like, just like that girl who melted into blood, 00001 has also turned into a pool of blood?’

’Does that mean he used his power last night?’

’Logically, that shouldn’t have happened!’

She had seen 00001’s anxiety. She knew he was terrified and didn’t dare use any of his body’s abilities.

"Where’s my brother..." 00002 was bewildered when he saw the bed beside him was empty.

He was a very light sleeper. If someone had gotten up, he would have known.

"Did my brother go out?" He had grown quite dependent on 00001.

Even though they had just met, their shared experience had made him place a great deal of trust in 00001.

"I don’t know!" Chen Xing didn’t tell him the truth.

Seeing 00002’s simple-minded look, she figured he might be scared to death if he knew how 00001 had died.

She believed that 00001 must have been terrified of using his own power, so much so that he couldn’t even sleep soundly.

Sometimes, the more you fear something, the more likely it is to happen. He must have used his body’s power in his sleep, which caused him to melt into a pool of blood.

As for his power... judging by the devastation outside, he was probably able to control surrounding objects and lift them into the air.

As for why the house and 00002, who was closest to him, were unharmed, she had no idea.

was distraught.

He scrambled out of bed and ran out of the house, shouting for his brother.

But... it would be a miracle if anyone answered.

In that moment, Chen Xing picked up the number tag that had fallen on the bedding.

Number 10983!

’It seems every test subject from the Research Institute has a number tag inside their body.’

’Does that mean I have a number tag inside my body too?’

’This is so infuriating!’

The thought of having such a thing inside her made Chen Xing extremely uncomfortable.

It might seem harmless, but who knew if this thing had a tracking system?

She immediately closed her eyes, trying to sense every part of her body.

But she didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary.

Just as she put the number tag away, Xiao Nan ran in.

Seeing the bed and the pool of blood on the floor, he instantly understood what had happened. "He turned into a pool of blood too?"

He was more than a little unnerved.

A living person, just vanished like that...

’Thank god, thank god, I’m not one of the escapees from that place.’

Seeing 00002 shouting nonstop, Xiao Nan glanced at Chen Xing and went outside. "Stop shouting! Your brother left!"

"Where did he go? Doesn’t he want to be with me anymore?" 00002 looked like he wanted to follow him.

They had agreed yesterday. Since none of them had memories, they would help each other and stick together from now on.

Xiao Nan was about to tell the truth when Chen Xing, who had followed him out, stopped him. "He has his own two feet. We don’t know where he went!"

She shot him a look, and Xiao Nan understood. "Right. He just said he was leaving, nothing else!"

was clearly upset. He sat down on a shattered rock nearby. "What am I supposed to do?"

He was all alone, with no memories, no family, and no friends. What was he going to do?

Xiao Nan walked over and patted his back. "Stick with us from now on. As long as we have food to eat, you’ll have a share!"

Chen Xing’s attention wasn’t on the two of them. Instead, she was looking at the stones on the ground, which were broken into many pieces.

At a glance, there was nothing strange about the stones. But upon closer inspection, every single piece was the same size, and all of them were smooth as if they’d been polished.

Then she looked at the decades-old tree.

It had been uprooted, so the roots should have been jagged and uneven, yet the base was perfectly flat.

Looking around, everything else was also perfectly flat.

If 00001’s power was controlling objects, then when these things were lifted and dropped, they should have shattered into random shapes and sizes.

From the looks of it now, it was more like they had been precisely cut.

Last night was windy and rainy, with thunder and lightning, but if there had been a fight, it’s impossible that she wouldn’t have heard it.

Her mind was full of questions, but she had no one to ask.

And so, 00001’s death became a mystery.

As if on a whim, Chen Xing picked up a piece of stone and walked back to her own place.

Neither 00002 nor Xiao Nan suspected anything.

They simply assumed the uprooted tree on the ground had been blown over by last night’s strong winds.

After entering her room, Chen Xing examined the stone carefully. No matter how she looked at it, it seemed to have been cut.

Unable to figure out anything more, she could only toss it aside and ignore it.

Of the few people who came out of the Research Institute, only 00002 was left now.

’I hope he doesn’t die so quickly. I also hope I can discover something from him.’

Today, she planned to go back to the Research Institute to have another look. Perhaps there were other survivors, or maybe she’d find some new clues.

It was too much of a coincidence that just after she entered the Research Institute and started investigating, someone wanted to bomb Hualai City.

Thinking of this, she picked up the phone.

It rang twice before the call connected. "Your timing is perfect!"

Song Yiguo told her about Nightingale’s escape from the National Capital Prison. "The inmate in the cell next to him said that Nightingale was obsessed with finding 00007. He also mentioned your name many times! I’m thinking, now that he’s out, he might come looking for you."

"Mm," Chen Xing replied. She couldn’t wait for him to come find her.

Last time, after drawing fire in the North Sea, Nightingale escaped, only to be captured less than two days later by another one of Song Yiguo’s Superpower Teams.

Chen Xing didn’t know what methods they used.

Nightingale was so vicious and cunning. If they failed to recapture him, who knows how many people would die by his hand.

If he came for her, at least she had ways to deal with him.

"You need to be careful. That Nightingale is truly formidable! The prison was so secure, there were no loopholes, yet he still managed to escape!" Because of this, he had to re-evaluate the entire prison system.

He even fired a wave of the prison’s management staff.

Chen Xing, however, found this quite surprising.

’It’s the apocalypse, people can’t even get enough to eat, and they’re running a prison and feeding inmates?’

’If it were up to me, I’d just kill any criminal on the spot to avoid wasting food.’

’If they accidentally escape, you have to waste energy recapturing them.’

’And they could pose a threat to ordinary people.’

Of course, that was just her way of thinking. "I’ll be careful!"

"If Nightingale comes after you and you manage to capture him, could you hand him over to me?" Song Yiguo still had a fixation on Nightingale.

Besides, he was convinced that if Nightingale ran into Chen Xing, he wouldn’t have much of a chance to escape.

Chen Xing pursed her lips.

’Hand him over to you, just to give him another chance to escape?’

She had already made up her mind. If she caught Nightingale again, she would torture him first. If he was of no further use, she’d kill him directly to prevent him from harming anyone else.

When Chen Xing didn’t answer, Song Yiguo guessed her thoughts. "Nightingale is as resilient as a cockroach, so... keeping him alive still has its uses! Especially if we can research his constitution, it would be a huge help to humanity!"

"Before that happens, who knows how many more people will die by his hand. In comparison, I don’t think he should be kept alive!"

Song Yiguo didn’t press the matter.

’Who could possibly control what a person like Chen Xing decides to do?’

’Forget it, forget it!’

’Besides, my people have been studying him for so long and have come up with absolutely nothing.’

"Who wants to bomb Hualai City? The Lu Family?"