Chapter 3: Searching for Food at the Supermarket, a Crystal Hidden in a Sangshi Brain

The little shop was a mess inside — shelves toppled over, emptied out — clearly looted long ago.

Chen Yusheng did a quick sweep and found nothing edible, but in a gap between the shelves he fished out a 300-milliliter bottle of mineral water; the bottle wasn't broken, and the water looked clear, so it probably hadn't gone bad.

He twisted off the cap, tilted his head back, and gulped it down in a few swallows; the cold water slid down his throat, and the hunger in his stomach eased a little, but that hollow, aching feeling was still there.

"Need to keep looking."

Chen Yusheng tossed the empty bottle aside and pushed the door open to step out of the little shop.

The Sangshi at the door saw him come out and immediately roared, swarming toward him, but once they got within five meters, the aura of the Exorcism Talisman forced them to retreat again and again — trailing behind him like that, impossible to shake off.

He gripped the Exorcism Talisman as he walked down the street, searching every little shop along the way.

But after checking more than a dozen in a row, every one had been looted clean — not even a crumb left.

Meanwhile, the Sangshi behind him only grew more numerous, swelling from a little over thirty to more than two hundred; their roars were maddeningly loud, yet none of them dared cross that line by even half a step.

He had combed through more than a dozen little shops and small supermarkets along the way — either there was nothing at all, or everything had rotted beyond eating.

It wasn't until a large supermarket appeared ahead that a light came back into Chen Yusheng's eyes, and he stepped right in.

The supermarket had lost power; inside it was pitch-black, with only a little light filtering in through the entrance, and from deep within came wave after wave of Sangshi roars.

The moment he stepped inside, a dozen or so Sangshi charged out of the darkness, but once they reached five meters away, just like the ones outside, they scrambled backward in panic.

Chen Yusheng paid the Sangshi no mind at all, using the faint light to search quickly through the supermarket.

The place had been looted pretty thoroughly too, but there were always some that slipped through the net.

He fished out several bottles of mineral water from under the shelves.

After rummaging for a long while, he actually found a two-kilogram vacuum-packed bag of rice inside an overturned pressure cooker.

Presumably someone had hidden it here before, which was why it hadn't been discovered.

"Not bad luck."

Pleased, Chen Yusheng simply picked up the pressure cooker along with it, then found a big bag and packed all the dozen-plus bottles of water inside.

He also grabbed a few lighters by the cash register and stuffed them all away.

Coming out of the supermarket, he found a seven-story building and went in, picking a room with a security door on the third floor. He pushed the door open, checked the place over, confirmed there were no Sangshi inside, then stuck the Sangshi-skin Exorcism Talisman on the door panel to block the Sangshi outside.

The room was in terrible shape too; he tore apart a rotten wooden bed, lit a fire with the wood, and set the pressure cooker on top to cook rice.

The flames licked at the bottom of the pot, and before long the aroma of rice drifted out, overpowering the mustiness and stench of rot in the room.

Half an hour later, Chen Yusheng served himself a full bowl of rice and ate it in big bites with the mineral water.

Only after eating his way through nearly half a pressure cooker's worth of rice did the hunger in his stomach finally vanish completely.

This one meal had burned through almost half a bag of rice; at this rate, what was left would last at most one more meal.

After eating his fill, Chen Yusheng immediately sat cross-legged and began cultivating.

Only by refining more Yuan Qi could he last a few more days in this apocalypse, and the corpse poison in his body also needed more Yuan Qi to keep suppressed.

Time flew by — from nightfall to dawn, a full day and night — Chen Yusheng spent it all wholeheartedly refining Qi.

When he finished his work, eleven strands of Yuan Qi had actually condensed in his dantian.

He clearly felt that after eating his fill, the conversion of material energy in his body was much faster.

When he was hungry, it took four or five hours to refine a single strand; now he could cultivate one in just two hours — the difference was more than a little.

Then he mobilized two strands of Yuan Qi to firmly suppress the corpse poison stirring restlessly in his meridians, leaving the remaining nine in his meridians, ready to be used at any moment.

He glanced up at the Exorcism Talisman on the door; the talisman lines had already faded — it probably had only one or two hours of effect left.

Chen Yusheng put away the talisman paper, picked up the fire axe, pushed the door open, and walked out of the room.

The moment he stepped out, he saw the stairwell packed densely with Sangshi — the very group that had been following him yesterday.

The Sangshi saw him come out and immediately roared furiously, but were again terrified by the Warding Off Evil Talisman and scrambled backward like mad.

But the stairwell was just that narrow, and there were so many Sangshi — jammed together, they couldn't retreat at all.

Chen Yusheng's gaze hardened; without hesitation, he immediately mobilized the Yuan Qi in his dantian to gather at his fingertips, and his right hand swiftly drew a talisman in midair.

In less than ten seconds, a Soul-Suppressing Talisman had condensed; with a casual flick, the Talisman flew straight toward the Zombie Group.

With a soft bang, the Talisman exploded; a pale-golden shockwave spread out, and the Sangshi at the stairwell instantly collapsed in a heap — stiff and motionless, only faint guttural sounds coming from their throats.

The Soul-Suppressing Talisman only lasted two minutes; Chen Yusheng dared not delay. Gripping the fire axe, he charged forward quickly, chopping at the Sangshi's necks — one axe per head.

He discovered that the Sangshi's heads were extremely hard; only by chopping at the neck could he finish them in one strike, saving a lot of effort.

The Sangshi not affected by the Soul-Suppression were scared into retreating again and again, quickly squeezed into the stairwell corner, only daring to roar, not daring to advance.

In less than two minutes, Chen Yusheng had chopped down more than forty Sangshi; black blood splashed all over him, but he paid it no mind.

He glanced down toward the lower floors and saw plenty more Sangshi blocking the way, so he immediately mobilized his Yuan Qi again and drew a talisman in midair.

One Soul-Suppressing Talisman after another was sent out in succession; Chen Yusheng used the Talisman's suppression to push his way down step by step, axe rising and falling without pause.

By the time he had cleared all the Sangshi from the stairwell, seven of the nine strands of Yuan Qi in his dantian had been used up — only two remained usable.

After killing the Sangshi, Chen Yusheng's arms were so sore and numb he couldn't lift them, and his chest heaved violently as he gasped for breath.

In this bout of fighting, he had actually slaughtered more than two hundred Sangshi.

Chen Yusheng leaned on the fire axe, walked over to a Sangshi corpse, and suddenly grew curious — with Sangshi heads this hard, how many axe strikes would it take to crack one open?

He gripped the fire axe tight, summoned all his strength, and brought it down hard on the Sangshi's head.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

After five full-powered chops in a row, a sharp crack was finally heard — the Sangshi's head split open, black blood and brain matter splattering across the ground.

"Hm? What's this?"

Chen Yusheng's gaze was suddenly drawn to a thumb-sized white crystal.

The crystal was pure white all over, faintly glowing.

Chen Yusheng was greatly surprised; he stepped forward quickly and picked up the crystal. The instant his fingertip touched it, he felt an especially strong, pure energy hidden within.

"This energy... it seems to be the same as the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi in the air!"

Moreover, the Spiritual Qi within these crystals was several times purer than that outside, and the energy density was terrifyingly high.

"Good stuff!" he couldn't help but mutter in a low voice, his eyes full of pleasant surprise.

One Sangshi yields one, so over two hundred Sangshi means over two hundred?

Chen Yusheng immediately set to work, enduring his exhaustion, splitting open each Sangshi's head one by one, and picking out the white crystals inside.

Two hours later, his cloth sack already held over two hundred and thirty glistening white crystals, each one brimming with dense Spiritual Qi.

Carrying the cloth sack back to the third floor, he cooked another pot of plain rice and ate it clean.

Then he sat cross-legged on the ground, gazing at the white crystal in his hand, when a bold thought suddenly sprang to mind.

"This place has such abundant Spiritual Qi, and such pure Zombie Crystals too — could I perhaps try cultivating the Golden Core Great Dao?"

The Golden Core Great Dao was an Immortal Cultivation method of the ancient Qi Refining practitioners, and also the orthodox cultivation art of Earth's ancient Daoist forebears.

Unfortunately, Spiritual Qi later vanished from Earth, no one could continue cultivating, and the ancient Qi Refining practitioners simply died out.

It was not until a Daoist genius created the Yuanqi Cultivation Method, which squeezed the material energy within the body for cultivation, that the Daoist lineage was able to be passed down.

In the Daoist canon, the Yuanqi Cultivation Method and the Golden Core Great Dao were transmitted together.

In his previous life, he was a Purple Robe Heavenly Master of Maoshan, with the authority to access the Golden Core Great Dao scriptures, and he had even devoted himself to studying them for a long time — but because there was no Spiritual Qi, he had never been able to begin.

And now, this world was saturated with dense Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy; perhaps he could try cultivating the Golden Core Great Dao.

Chen Yusheng tightened his grip on the Crystal Core in his hand, his eyes full of resolve,

Cultivate — he must cultivate, he had to give it a try.