Xu Song looked at Yue Zheng in confusion, then glanced at the piece of stone.
Yue Zheng raised his other hand, forming it like a knife, his eyes fixed on the stone. With intense concentration, he swiftly brought his hand down like a blade. Xu Song felt a twist in the air, and to his surprise, the stone was silently sliced in half!
Wide-eyed, Xu Song stared at the smooth and perfect cut on the stone, without any signs of fragmentation. Then, he dumbfoundedly looked at Yue Zheng, who raised an eyebrow at him.
“Why don’t you give it a try?” Yue Zheng suggested.
“Try what?” Xu Song repeated, finally understanding what he meant. His eyes lit up, and he eagerly looked at him.
“How did you do it?! What should I do?”
“Concentrate your mind and give it a try,” Yue Zheng replied. He paused for a moment, then reminded Xu Song, “Like last night.”
Recalling the harrowing scene from last night, Xu Song took a deep breath and raised his right hand towards an empty space, thinking of “fire” in his mind.
No response…
Try again!
In his outstretched palm, there was nothing but the scars and dust from yesterday.
Keep going!
Xu Song tried three or four times, and just when he was starting to think that last night’s fire might have been spontaneous combustion, a “puff” sound came from his hand, and a burst of fire emerged from his palm, shooting forward towards the empty space. The fire was red, casting a crimson glow on the nearby stone walls.
“It worked!” Excitement surged within him. An ability, a superpower, or some kind of extraordinary talent! Whatever it was, it meant that he possessed superhuman abilities!
After unleashing it once, Xu Song wanted to continue and practice several more times. He raised his hand again, exerting all his effort to generate another fireball.
Yue Zheng quickly interjected, “Don’t try it again for now. Using it too much can make you dizzy.” He had woken up earlier than Xu Song and had spent some time investigating the strange ability they witnessed last night.
Yue Zheng was certain that the fireball had nothing to do with him, but that knife strike seemed like his own doing, although its range exceeded his expectations.
He could confirm that he didn’t possess such power before yesterday, and Xu Song was likely an ordinary person as well. So, after experimenting with his abilities until he felt dizzy, Yue Zheng waited for Xu Song to wake up to confirm his suspicion.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“I don’t think I did… Are you suggesting that the abilities we possess are related to the explosion last night?”
Yue Zheng nodded silently.
Xu Song fell into contemplation, and after a moment, he spoke again, “It’s not just the two of us; those corpses from last night were the same. I remember that during the earthquake yesterday, my body felt a sharp pain as if someone were poking needles into me.”
As Yue Zheng nodded in agreement, Xu Song finally relaxed, “I’m afraid these phenomena are indeed related to the explosion.”
While speaking, Xu Song picked up a crystal shard between his two fingers, and his brow suddenly furrowed.
“I hope this thing doesn’t emit any radiation. Or maybe, what was originally contained inside it isn’t some kind of demon lord?”
Xu Song’s leaps of thought caused Yue Zheng’s eyebrows to twitch involuntarily.
“What field did you study?” he asked. “Your imagination is incredibly rich and unconventional. Are you in the arts, design, or creative field?”
“Ahem, mechanical engineering, specifically in mechanical design, manufacturing, and automation.”
“…I would never have guessed. Your imagination is inversely proportional to your field.”
Yue Zheng’s comment made Xu Song blush, and he quickly explained, “Actually, our field also requires a lot of imagination. You see, once we graduate and go to work, we need to think creatively about how to optimize and design things… But…” Xu Song’s eyebrows furrowed involuntarily.
“What is it?”
“I don’t seem to have such a clear mind before.” Xu Song understood his own situation. Previously, in his studies, he was neither outstanding nor failing. Except for a few courses that interested him, he managed to pass most of his subjects with minimal effort.
However, these past two days had been completely different. No matter what he contemplated, he felt an unusual clear-headedness, even noticing details he used to overlook. “Could it be that the things inside have an effect that sharpens the mind?”
Yue Zheng shrugged, “I haven’t felt anything like that.”
“Our abilities are different, so the effects may vary,” Xu Song said, seeking Yue Zheng’s agreement with a pleasing smile.
“Um, brother Yue.”
“Hmm?” Yue Zheng’s face, resembling a patchwork of black and gray, had no clean spots. When Xu Song suddenly grinned, revealing his gleaming white teeth, it created quite a contrasting effect.
Yue Zheng found it rare to see an African influence on an East Asian face.
Completely unaware of the impact of his smile, accompanied by the dirt on his face, Xu Song continued flashing his bright teeth.
“Well, you see, what happened to us yesterday can be considered unfortunate, right? But no matter what, it indirectly helped the country get rid of a group of treacherous tomb raiders. We don’t seek any rewards or bonuses or anything like that, but, um… I just hope that the fact we have these slightly abnormal abilities… won’t be known to others. It’s enough to keep it hidden a9 we won’t be treated like lab rats…”
Being a superhero isn’t that easy, and even Ultraman gets tired of fighting monsters every day. Xu Song was just an ordinary college student, and although it was convenient to show off his superpowers, his abilities were a bit too conspicuous compared to Yue Zheng’s.
While he had fantasized about a life admired by thousands, he believed that a simple and ordinary life was what he wanted most. Therefore, he would rather let his powers gather dust than be locked up in a cage, enduring constant blood tests and experiments.
Yue Zheng looked at him, seemingly smiling. He curved his lips. “You don’t want to sacrifice yourself for the country, shedding blood and sweat?”
“No job is more or less honorable. My dream is to be a screw in society! I’m following in the footsteps of Uncle Lei Feng!” Xu Song slapped his chest with a loud “thump,” but his strength was excessive, causing pain in his hand and chest.
“Your ambition is truly grand,” Yue Zheng nodded. He had used his abilities in front of Xu Song earlier to suggest the idea of forming an alliance of offense and defense. Now that Xu Song brought it up on his own, he naturally wouldn’t refuse.
“I won’t talk about your situation, and I hope you can keep my situation confidential as well.”
Both of them weren’t foolish. Regardless of the potential impact of this incident or whether they were the only ones to acquire superhuman abilities, it was best not to mention such matters. Being treated as lab rats would, at best, result in a loss of personal freedom, but if others or certain forces had other intentions, their lives might be in danger.
“Alright, since we’ve agreed, let’s not bring up these matters again in the future.”
Yue Zheng stood up and looked at the stone platform below. “I’ll go down again and collect those crystal shards.”
He had initially planned to collect only a few, enough to take back to the city for experiments. However, he now suspected that these crystals might have other uses, so he intended to collect as many as possible.
As Xu Song looked at the stone platform in the pit, his thoughts drifted back to his previous speculations. If whatever affected them and those corpses affected the rest of humanity, would everyone become superhuman?
Setting aside the possibility of turning into zombies due to the corpse’s poison, the fact that corpses could come back to life alone was enough to send shivers down one’s spine. After all, not everyone possessed Yue Zheng’s combat skills.
“Brother Yue, I’ll go with you.” The thought of his parents still being in Y City and his phone being broken by the tomb raiders made Xu Song unable to sit still. He wanted to leave the mountain, leave Zhao Village, and find his parents in Y City as soon as possible.
Yue Zheng thought for a moment and nodded in agreement without saying a word. He took the rope he had tied earlier in the morning and climbed down first.
Xu Song put the shard that had entered his body earlier into his pocket separately, while the rest of the pieces went into another pocket. He wanted to secretly keep one piece as a memento.
After experiencing a life-and-death battle last night and discovering his superpowers, the crystal that came out of his body held a special significance. For some inexplicable reason, Xu Song subconsciously didn’t want to hand over that specific shard.
Unbeknownst to him, Yue Zheng also kept his shard separately in his pocket and didn’t mix it with the others.
As Yue Zheng had mentioned, there were no living or undead corpses like the ones they encountered last night at the bottom of the pit. But there was a lot of rotten flesh and crushed bodies.
Enduring their disgust and avoiding looking at the red and white things splattered on the walls, Xu Song and Yue Zheng collected the fragments together.
These crystals seemed to possess a unique magic. Even covered in dust and at a distance, as long as there was a little light, the radiant glow on their surfaces could be easily seen.
“Is this what they mean by shining with just a bit of sunlight?” Holding a piece about the size of an adult’s thumb sandwiched between his fingers, Xu Song looked at the dazzling light emitted by the fragment under the overhead illumination.
Yue Zheng curved his lips and straightened his body. “That should be enough. Let’s go up.”
“Aren’t we going to search a bit more?” Xu Song asked, confused.
“Just collect what’s visible on the surface. It’s better to leave the mountain as soon as possible,” Yue Zheng replied, glancing at Xu Song.
“How many graves are there on this mountain?”
Xu Song’s face turned pale, and he quickly put the collected crystals from his pocket into Yue Zheng’s bag. How many? Too many! The ancestral graves of Zhao Village’s generations were all here. What if they encountered those things again?!
Although the government promoted cremation in recent years, in mountain villages like Zhao Village, most people still practice traditional burials. The older generation believed in resting on the earth, thinking that once a body was cremated, there was nothing left.
Moreover, there was no crematorium in the village. If they wanted cremation, they would have to take the bodies to the county town and then figure out a way to bring the ashes back to bury in the mountains. Therefore, even Xu Song’s grandfather was buried traditionally!
The thought of that vast expanse of graves made Xu Song wish he could sprout wings and fly down the mountain.
Without saying another word, the two of them climbed up one after the other using the rope.
Behind them, in the lowest level of the pit, among the stones and corners that they hadn’t disturbed, dark mist clusters quietly writhed together…
Thank you for the chapter!❤️❤️❤️♥️❤️❤️❤️
The mist 👀👀👀👀
“African influence on an East-Asian face.” Not the unintentional black face 😭😭😂💀
I believe it was a reference to the striking contrast between white teeth and a dark skin tone, which is quite beautiful and can’t be achieved normally by those with pale skin tones. It could just as well have been an ‘Aborigine influence’ or ‘South Asian influence’, among other options, though less distinctly than ‘African influence’.