Chapter 1 The Test

Mingmei decided to test the Zhen brothers' "deception" herself. The next morning, Mingmei finally "happened" to meet Zhen Hu during his shift change at the cafeteria.

"Mingmei?"

Zhen Hu was somewhat surprised to see Mingmei. Mingmei also pretended to be surprised and walked up to him, then said, "Zhen Hu? Ah, did you prepare the cafeteria breakfast?"

"Ah... yes."

Zhen Hu subconsciously looked behind Mingmei. Hmm, Mu Chen wasn't there?

"That's a coincidence, I'm preparing lunch."

Mingmei chuckled, explaining the reason for their meeting here in one sentence. Then, Mingmei smiled slightly and asked casually, "By the way, did you and Zhen Po come to the city together?"

"Yeah."

"That's great, Lu Xiaoyao was talking about you to me yesterday."

"Ah? Lu Xiaoyao also came to the city?"

If she didn't know that the Zhen brothers weren't the smartest, Mingmei would have directly questioned him with a fierce look.

Was it so surprising that Lu Xiaoyao came to the city?

Em, well, for a moment, Mingmei also thought it might be a little surprising.

However, Lu Xiaoyao herself said that she met a kind person who took her in, and then she met the rescue team. In short, she had good luck.

Perhaps Mingmei's eyes were too obvious, Zhen Hu also noticed that he had misspoke, and quickly explained that he didn't mean that.

Mingmei didn't intend to pursue it, and only said, "Yes, besides Lu Xiaoyao, Bai Xiao also came to the city, but I've been too busy these past few days and haven't had time to walk around the base. I don't know if any other classmates have come to the city."

"Ah, there are also a few players next door to my residence, but they are not from our school. We only came the day before yesterday. Yesterday, A-Po said that he saw many familiar faces. Many players should be arriving at the base one after another these days."

"Ah, that's pretty good."

Because there didn't seem to be any competition in this game, Mingmei felt that cooperation and mutual help among players was the key to getting through the days ahead.

The theme of this game was probably "unity."

"I'll take Lu Xiaoyao and the others to see you in a few days. Speaking of which, your ability exchange was really worth it. I heard that you have a yard because of your lightning ability. Including the NPCs you brought, there are four of you."

"No way, no way, just a coincidence." Zhen Hu humbly said, but the unnatural look that flashed across his face made Jin Ni, who was watching the live broadcast, slap her forehead.

She dared to say that the girl in front of her had already seen that her student had a problem.

"Hey~ Is it really true that the higher the mental strength, the smarter you are?" Jin Ni was starting to doubt her life.

Her student's acting skills were so bad when he communicated with people!

...

"Okay, anyway, you work here. Make an appointment and tell me in advance, and I'll push back the task that day." She agreed with Mingmei that when she and Lu Xiaoyao were free, they would go to his place.

"Task?" Mingmei frowned, remembering what her colleagues had chatted about yesterday, "Besides the cafeteria, are there any dangerous tasks you're taking now?"

"The danger isn't too high. Compared to them going out to search and rescue, I'm much better off here," Zhen Hu said truthfully. "Recently, the base has formed a team to clear the zombies outside the base. I heard that they will be kept for cultivating the land."

"Outside the base? What if there are zombies..."

Mingmei couldn't believe it. She could understand clearing the surrounding zombies, but planting outside the city?

Mingmei naturally knew the distribution of the bases, which were divided into inner and outer cities.

The outer city was mainly for land cultivation, some manufacturing workshops, and residential areas near the inner city.

In addition to the residential areas, the inner city also had special research and soilless cultivation areas. Why did they still need to do it outside?

Was food really so scarce?

"This... I don't know. That's what they said."

Zhen Hu didn't understand. He scratched his head, not knowing why Mingmei cared so much about these things. Mingmei's eyes darkened slightly, and she greeted Zhen Hu before leaving to attend to her own affairs.

Now, because of the shift system, Mingmei didn't have to work until midnight like before. She left the cafeteria before the sun went down.

By the way, she took a dinner that had just been prepared in the back kitchen, fresh out of the oven.

A bowl of millet sweet potato porridge, two coarse grain cornbread, and two transparent, cloudy stones—crystal cores—that she received for handing in lunch boxes.

This should be the thing in the zombies' heads that everyone was talking about, right?

She put the crystal cores in her pocket, Mingmei returned to the dormitory, finished her dinner, looked at the time on the clock, and then went out.

As soon as she went downstairs, she saw Mu Chen standing not far from the dormitory building, waiting for her.

"You're back?"

"Yeah, I came back in the afternoon and rested for a while."

Hearing Mu Chen's words, Mingmei didn't feel too displeased or dissatisfied that he had only come now. Yesterday morning, before he went out on a mission, he had told her that he might have to spend the night outside. Sure enough, he only came back this afternoon.

"Have you eaten?"

"Yes."

"How was it outside these past two days?"

"The mission was a bit far this time, but we rescued a lot of people, including Lu Gui, Qi Hai Kui, and Li Yuan."

"Those three together?"

They were all classmates. It was too much of a coincidence that Mu Chen had rescued them all in this mission, right?

"Yes." Mu Chen nodded, then suddenly laughed as if he couldn't help it. Before Mingmei could ask him what he found so funny, Mu Chen started telling Mingmei about it himself.

The main reason was that they found these three in a situation that was too bizarre.

And the source of this bizarre situation had to start with the initial encounter between Qi Hai Kui and Li Yuan.

Li Yuan was also a unique character. In the previous game, although he lived a long time, the main reason was that he was cautious enough, so he didn't have many points.

In this game, he considered it for a long time and spent all his points to exchange for an ability that suited him best—invisibility.

As for Qi Hai Kui, he had decent points, mainly because he had wasted some of his lunch boxes in the previous game. However, adhering to the idea that "more skills mean more lives," he finally gave up choosing his place of birth and barely exchanged for two abilities—speed and strength.

Then he and Li Yuan appeared in the same place. The two immediately decided to cooperate, exchanged their abilities, and Qi Hai Kui decided to carry Li Yuan and run away.

Carrying Li Yuan on his back was like wearing an invisible vest!

Although Li Yuan had some objections to this, Qi Hai Kui said that he didn't mind being someone's "mount," so what objections could Li Yuan, who was being carried, have?

He didn't even mind that his limbs and head were "exposed," so what was there to be afraid of if someone invisible was seen?

So, in the beginning, wild survivors were often frightened by this "person" without a torso.

There were even rumors that zombies could "live" even without a body.

Lu Gui exchanged his points purely because he was bold. He also firmly believed that as long as he was skilled, he could survive anywhere. So, he directly exchanged for two abilities, wind and water: one for attack and one to ensure that he always had a clean source of water to drink. After spending all his points, he randomly chose his place of birth.

According to his idea, even if he was thrown into a zombie pile, it would be a good way to train himself.

Perhaps the game heard Lu Gui's thoughts. Lu Gui was not only thrown the furthest away from the base, but he also entered a zombie nest as he wished—a closed university town.

And the encounter between these three was also very accidental.

When Lu Gui met Qi Hai Kui and the others, Lu Gui had just killed his way out of the university town alone, covered in the flesh and blood of zombies, and hadn't had time to clean himself up.

It was at this time that someone invisible, who was being carried by Qi Hai Kui and was dozing off, drowsily saw a "zombie" standing not far away, and it was a "skinned" zombie!

And Lu Gui, who was extremely sensitive to gazes, naturally looked over in the direction of the gaze—

Lu Gui: o.o?!!

Was he seeing things?

Why did he see a "zombie" without a torso but with well-preserved limbs and head rushing towards him?

"Holy crap!"

"Wow!!!"

Both sides couldn't help but scream at the same time, then their faces changed and they turned around and ran!