Chapter 45: Head Chef

Because of Gu Ping and Luo Hui, Chen Mu could somewhat understand He Ying's feelings; this girl initially had a mindset and approach similar to Dong Junwei's, seeming also to be a strong-willed person.

Sigh. But unfortunately, her luck was obviously not as good as Dong Junwei's.

"Later, whenever we went out we would be extra careful, usually choosing nighttime, because they didn't dare to send anyone to guard the faucet, so getting water wasn't a worry."

"It seems drinking tap water directly is fine too." Tang Jing nodded.

"What could be the problem?"

"Nothing." Tang Jing shook her head, without further explanation.

"Don't you have another water source?" He Ying asked curiously.

"We were lucky and found a case of bottled water."

He Ying: "……"

"But looking at it now, there indeed is a mysterious force forcibly altering certain rules to let humanity survive."

"Why say that?"

"If it were normal circumstances, after our bodies shrank, many organs' functions couldn't cope with the current environment—drinking water, air, food, corresponding to our kidneys, respiratory tract, digestive system; logically we couldn't continue to maintain the same physiological functions as before……"

Tang Jing said this, seeing everyone's bewildered faces, she stopped explaining further and smiled: "But since even Special Abilities have appeared, these things aren't hard to understand."

He Ying continued: "After solving the water problem, food became our difficulty; fortunately, at this time a few more people awakened abilities, which, though not very useful, could still help a bit, so we entered the cafeteria again, hoping to find a safe base inside to make later food foraging easier."

"But unexpectedly, at this time Yi Zhong's people have already taken over this place."

"When was that?" Chen Mu suddenly asked.

"About the third day after the disaster."

"That is to say, Yi Zhong's people spent three days moving from the playground to the cafeteria." Chen Mu pondered.

"Maybe less than three days." He Ying said.

"Huh?"

"When we entered the cafeteria the second time, we discovered they had built several bastion-like structures out of stainless steel basins in the front hall, and their division of labor was clear, order well maintained."

"How did they do it?"

"It seems they just inverted the basins and placed them on the ground."

Tang Jing shook her head: "Probably not just that; if they were merely inverted on the ground, any random mouse could destroy them completely, and they dare to build fortifications in the open front hall of the cafeteria, so they must have some reliance."

"I don't know that." He Ying said: "I relied on my agility to scout from afar a few times, but I also didn't dare get too close."

"How many people do they have in total?" Chen Mu asked.

"I estimate at least over a hundred."

Everyone looked at each other.

"No wonder Yi Zhong dares to station themselves in the cafeteria; even if half awakened, that would be fifty Special Ability users, with various strange abilities, indeed possibly enough to sustain their daily activities."

"Did you later have any further clashes with them?"

"Yes, at first I thought the cafeteria was so big that even with many people, if we hid a bit we wouldn't necessarily run into them, so I boldly went in with a few classmates who had awakened abilities to look for food."

He Ying said this, sighing: "Unfortunately, I don't know if it's bad luck or something, but we ran into them twice in a row; I initially wanted to negotiate, but they ignored us and attacked outright—we were no match, and several of us died consecutively."

"Since then, I've never dared to enter the cafeteria again; I can only scavenge trash on the outskirts to eat."

Everyone felt heartbroken listening.

Chen Mu then asked: "Do you know if anyone else from our school survived?"

"Yes!" He Ying said firmly.

Chen Mu was startled, not expecting her to be so certain.

He Ying continued: "We once encountered a fellow schoolmate named Li Xu; according to him, most of the first- and second-year students survived on the playground side, and he himself had been sent out to gather our school's students, but he went too far and lost contact with the group."

"The playground? How did they survive?"

"I don't know; Li Xu wouldn't say, but from his demeanor he seems quite proud—I guess the Yi Zhong people were originally driven out by them, forcing them to flee to the cafeteria, so they harbor hostility toward everyone at Ziwei High School."

"That could also be possible."

Chen Mu, recalling the inexplicable hostility of those Yi Zhong people, found this guess plausible, and asked: "Is that Li Xu also an ability user?"

"Yes, and his ability is quite special—he can perform mental control on non-human animals." He Ying spoke, yet sighed.

"Holy shit, that's way too strong."

Everyone burst into praise and envy.

"It does sound impressive," He Ying said, though with no longing, helplessly: "But actually its effect is very limited."

"How so?" Everyone puzzled.

"Actually you should also know that a person's ability type is just one aspect; mastery level and what you call mental power are the most crucial."

"So the animals he can control are actually quite limited?" Chen Mu roughly understood her meaning.

He Ying sighed: "Not only limited—according to Li Xu himself, when he first awakened, controlling even a normal ant was difficult; after a few days of practice he could only have some influence on flies of that size, still merely influence, far from actual control, and the duration is very short."

"Looking at it this way, it really isn't useful."

"But it's not completely useless; there have been a few times he could control an ant to scout a dangerous spot—though the distance can't be too far and the time only lasts about five minutes—but at least it helped us avoid some dangers."

"What happened to him later?" Chen Mu recalled He Ying saying that among their remaining five people, only Sun Yuan and she herself were ability users; obviously, that Li Xu either died or left.

"Li Xu kept saying he wanted to take us to the playground's base camp, but unfortunately the journey was far and his ability insufficient to bring us back safely, so he temporarily stayed with us, hoping for a chance to return together; unfortunately, in one clash with Yi Zhong, he also……"

He Ying said this, inevitably feeling sad: "Because of Li Xu, I've always regarded going to the playground's base camp as the ultimate goal, but unfortunately the school is now too large for us; even if we reached the playground, we'd likely find no one."

"Didn't you ask Li Xu for the specific location?"

Long-time novel reading 9DuXs. coM "I asked him; he seemed to want to say something, but in the end he didn't say it, and I didn't want to pressure him—who would have thought he would soon meet misfortune."

"That's about all I know; do you have any other questions?"

……

Chen Mu, Tang Jing, and Dong Junwei exchanged glances; each had some thoughts, but at this moment, with He Ying present, it wasn't appropriate to discuss directly.

After calculating the time, it's already noon.

Tang Jing smiled: "Let's talk about the rest later; everyone's probably hungry, and we do have good food today—let's drink today and get drunk today, first eat our fill, then talk."

Long-time novel reading 9duxs. com "However, we might still need Chen Mu to personally take charge of the cooking." Dong Junwei laughed.

He Ying wondered: "Isn't Du Jia Jia the head chef?"

Dong Junwei laughed: "Our head chef has only just learned to cook for three days and can only make a single pancake; so we can only let the head chef's teacher, Comrade Chen Mu, come out of retirement."