Published: February 5, 2025
“Brother Deng, I’ve brought back thirty-five more this time. It should be enough, right?”
Ali ran in excitedly, holding a spear and casually closing the door of the hotel room they had cleared of zombies. In his large hand, he was clutching a magic crystal stained with blood.
The strong man was changing the bandage for the child. Even as an evolver, it wasn’t easy to heal a wound pierced by a spear. The three of them had put in a lot of effort to get these bandages, even clashing with other survivors, which had cost them lives in the process.
Lives of others!
Brother Deng shot a glare at the noisy Ali, wanting to scold him for making such a loud noise, but seeing Ali's disfigured face, he swallowed his words again.
Wounds can heal, but broken bones cannot. If this were peacetime, a trip to the hospital for surgery would have fixed Ali's cheekbone, which Wang Ding had shattered with a single blow, and after some time, he would be fine. But now, in the apocalypse, finding a doctor was impossible, so he had to stay in this state. After a few days, the pain in his face had lessened, but the shattered bones had started to knit together because of the good health of an evolver!
In the future, this originally handsome young man would likely live with a face that was neither human nor ghostly, and Brother Deng felt pity for Ali.
“How many of these crystals do we have in total?” After bandaging the child's wound, Brother Deng squatted down, picked up a cigarette butt he had just discarded, lit it, and asked.
Ali stuck his spear aside, dumped the magic crystals from a bag onto the ground, counted them, and said, “We have over three hundred now. That should be enough.”
Brother Deng shook his head. “Did you forget how we failed last time? We wasted the two hundred sixty magic crystals we got for those stolen silver shoes!”
Hearing this, Ali felt the sting too. “Who knew it would take more and more magic crystals to spin that thing?”
“There’s no point in complaining. It’s our luck to have encountered that roulette. Otherwise, all three of us might have been dead by now,” the child slowly sat up. The wound still hurt a lot, but it was much better than the past couple of days. He estimated that in another four or five days, it wouldn’t be a significant issue.
“It’s a pity we didn’t catch up with the team that stole the three treasures. If we had, we could have traded them for magic crystals and given the child a profession.”
Brother Deng grunted but didn’t respond, thinking that it wasn’t a loss at all. He was strong and was a warrior class, but his mind was the most meticulous among the three; otherwise, he wouldn’t have become their leader. He knew that although they gave up on pursuing that small team, it was not regrettable. That team had three evolvers, one of whom was a formidable woman. Not only did she have a powerful gun, but her skills were exceptional. Going against her alone would be a disadvantage for both himself and Ali, and the child, who had no profession, wouldn’t stand a chance at all. If they kept on her tail, by the time the comatose man they were carrying woke up, things could get troublesome.
Moreover, with the formidable Wang Ding around, even if the three of them managed to gain some advantage, they would ultimately end up being used by others. Why bother to provoke such bad luck?
But Brother Deng didn’t make such thoughts clear; it was important for Ali to maintain a bit of spirit in his heart. Otherwise, that kid would spend all day staring at his ruined face, which wouldn’t be good.
“Damn it, while we were gone, Chen Jun and his group occupied the roulette. Today when I ran into them, both Chen Jun and his brother had become evolvers. They acted so arrogantly; I really wanted to kill them.”
“We’ve already obtained the best things from that roulette. Let them occupy it if they want,” Brother Deng said, glancing at the child. The best item on that roulette was the skill scroll for Light Blade, which had disappeared after they drew it.