On the way back to his own residential area with a bountiful harvest, Wei Xuan could see the figures of zombies from T City carrying various pots and pans and moving them to the rooftops of various buildings. Each of them occupied a place and neatly arranged the containers they had brought.
The buildings in T City were not small in size, but correspondingly, there were also many people who had turned into zombies in the early days of the apocalypse. In theory, there shouldn’t have been enough space for everyone. However, with one battle after another between humans and zombies, the zombies gradually died off, and now there were plenty of places to assign.
Wei Xuan walked while observing and couldn’t help but sigh. These zombies had a lot of energy, but of course, this was largely due to the fact that they didn’t have any entertainment activities in their daily lives.
Otherwise, if they were busy all the time, they might not be so enthusiastic about doing these things. Well, it was related to the issue of having enough food to eat. Even people who were busy all the time would make an effort to find time for food-related matters, right?
With a sense of empathy for fellow food lovers, Wei Xuan happily returned to his residential area. The zombies who had been carrying pots and pans with him on the way were also warmly welcomed by the zombies living in the neighborhood. The zombies left behind in the neighborhood were now actively coming out to help carry things and put them in the designated buildings pointed out by Wei Xuan.
Wei Xuan stopped one of the zombies that bounced up to him and asked, “Is there anything going on in the neighborhood these days? Have there been any outsiders… other zombies coming in?”
The zombie shook its head and said, “No, no, chased them away… chased them away…”
Wei Xuan thought for a moment. It seemed to mean that there were no outsiders, and if there were, they were chased away?
After sorting out his emotions a bit, Wei Xuan nodded to the zombie, indicating that it could go and do whatever it wanted. He held Du Hang’s hand and walked towards the building where they lived. He had been out for quite a while this time, so he planned to stay home for a few days. He didn’t have any other pressing matters to attend to at the moment.
As he walked, Wei Xuan suddenly felt something flicker in the corner of his eye. He turned his head and, upon closer inspection, raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Huh? Sprouting?”
Earlier, shortly after the apocalypse had arrived, Wei Xuan had planted potatoes and carrots in the open space of this residential area. Later on, he had also planted some of these plants in the neighborhood after cultivating various golden crops. Furthermore, while he was sleeping, led by Du Hang and coordinated by a group of zombie comrades, they had planted almost all of his collected seeds in every available piece of land in the neighborhood.
What he was seeing now was probably the crops that had managed to survive and grow after enduring the winter, right?
With a hint of joy in his heart, Wei Xuan took a few steps forward and carefully examined the tender and fragile sprouts that had just emerged from the soil not long ago.
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.
“These… don’t really look like the sprouts of potatoes or carrots, do they?” These plants had been growing for a while now, possibly breaking through the soil when Wei Xuan left the neighborhood. However, these plants, which had already grown some leaves, didn’t seem to resemble the leaves of potatoes or carrots at all.
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Besides, hadn’t there been strange snowfall not long ago? These seeds had been planted well before that, and it was probably due to the inadvertent watering by the strange snow water that they had sprouted this spring when the climate was just right.
With the answer in his mind, Wei Xuan’s mood noticeably improved. He quickly stood up and looked around the residential area. Although there weren’t many sprouts that had grown so far, there might be more and more of them in the future, and they might thrive.
As always, Wei Xuan didn’t have to worry about food now, but if he could grow staple crops that tasted better and could replace the previous rice and wheat, he would certainly have no objections and would even welcome it.
The newly sprouted greenery lifted Wei Xuan’s spirits as he returned home. So he decided to treat himself to some delicious food to reward himself for his hard work and several days of traveling.
On a table set up outdoors, there were lamb and chicken, along with a pile of seasonings. Next to the table was a charcoal grill, and Wei Xuan started skewering the lamb and chicken after lighting the charcoal.
The smoke from the charcoal grill wafted through the air, carrying a tantalizing aroma that made one’s mouth water.
The number of zombies wandering around the neighborhood had decreased significantly compared to before. After they had homes to stay in, many zombies had awakened their “homebody” nature.
If Wei Xuan hadn’t noticed this and told them to come out for a walk every day and take turns monitoring the neighborhood’s situation, many zombies would have stayed indoors just like they did during the winter.
The various containers that had been brought back were already put in their proper places. Wei Xuan currently had no time or inclination to replace the pots and pans used specifically for drying snowflakes at home, so he began his blissful and leisurely vacation.
In a world long gone barren, spring winds swept away the yellow sand, making a rustling sound as it blew against people.
Those living in the base rarely ventured outside at this time, even though most of them had started their spring planting for the new year – planting potatoes, planting radishes. Yet almost all the bases had fallen into a simultaneous depression.
The root cause was the cleaning operations that had taken place in many bases during the winter. Many people, even when they were inside the base, were reluctant to step outside during the winter. After all, many had already harvested their own vegetables before winter arrived, and during the winter, they could easily gather a couple of handfuls of snow to make a barely edible meal.
So when the weather turned warmer, and they had to go outside to prepare the small plots of land they could cultivate, they were astonished to find that there were so few people left in the base.
People who left later inquired with those who had been out wandering earlier and learned that since the on-site inspections organized by the base during the winter, many people who were taken away at that time had not returned.
There were rumors circulating that the base had secretly killed these people to save on food, or that these people had all turned into zombies, hiding in the base and feasting on human flesh. Some said that these captured individuals had become materials for human experiments…
Discussions and rumors spread like wildfire within the base, causing unrest and uncertainty. Subsequently, several small-scale bases erupted into internal conflicts, leading to their complete disintegration. Even in large bases, some people took advantage of opportunities while on missions or found temporary places to stay outside.
At the same time, some individuals who had gone out to gather supplies unexpectedly encountered people who had been expelled from the base during the winter…
Private information began to trickle back, and the events of the winter, whether true or false, began to circulate quietly among the lower levels of the base.
In the top-floor rooms of a high-level base in T City, base members were either sitting or standing by a window, pointing outside and discussing.
“What do you think those zombies are doing?”
“…Fetching water? By the way, are those really zombies?”
At this moment, they were looking at the rooftops of shops and houses along the street next to the residential area. Most of the space on the rooftops was now occupied by various pots and containers of different colors, and there were some zombies on the streets carrying or holding containers and wandering around.
“Yeah, this is obviously to collect water in the containers on the rooftops! But why would zombies need water? To drink?” One person scratched their head subconsciously after speaking.
A woman in her forties suddenly laughed, “Could it be they want to take a bath? Haven’t you noticed that it’s been so long into the apocalypse, they probably haven’t had a bath in ages?”
“…Taking a bath makes sense, but do all the zombies need to bathe?”
“I know, I know!” A child around eleven or twelve years old jumped by the window and pointed below, “They dug holes earlier and got themselves all dirty! So now they want to take a bath!”
The adults in the room couldn’t help but laugh, and one of them said, “That’s actually quite possible.”
“But why did they dig holes in the first place?” Another person remembered the strange behavior of the zombies outside during the recent snowfall and couldn’t help muttering.
Lately, the nearby zombies seemed to be acting strangely, often doing inexplicable things. This was not just limited to the zombies roaming the streets but also included their former companions who had been released from their base, which made them all the more bewildered.
“What’s that? Is it a bird?” Suddenly, a girl standing by a window on the opposite side of the balcony pointed to the sky outside and called out.
The people in the room quickly rushed to the balcony, “It’s spring, those strange birds must have come back, right?”
“It’s meat! We have meat!”
“Huh? Why is it so small?”
“That bird doesn’t flap its wings!”
“…No, it’s not a bird! It’s a drone!”
