Chapter Thirty-Four: Invulnerable to Blades and Spears

“Brother will go ask those adults for help. Stand here and don’t move, wait for me, alright?” The boy himself hadn’t had a full meal in a long time. Every time the base distributed rice porridge, he always made sure his little sister ate first.

“Sir, could you give me these things you don’t want?” the boy asked, staring at the duck skins the fat man had tossed aside, now covered in mud and blood. “I don’t need much, just a little is enough. I can clean them up for you.”

Qian Duoduo glanced at the boy, then at the stripped duck skins. In these times, you couldn’t just scald them in boiling water like before to pluck the feathers; now you had to pull them out one by one when you had free time, which was terribly inefficient.

“Alright, you deal with them. If you do a good job, I’ll give you something as payment,” Qian Duoduo nodded in agreement. Perhaps he admired this big brother, or perhaps he thought of his own struggles in the early days of the apocalypse, leading his own sister forward step by step.

The ordinary people around saw hope and crowded over, offering to help for just a little bit of reward. But there wasn’t much work to go around. Qian Duoduo only picked a few who seemed honest, rejecting the rest. Many still lingered nearby, hoping to pick up some scraps from the ground when no one was looking.

Relieved of much of the burden, Qian Duoduo didn’t leave, but stood with Yu Chuan, watching them carefully to prevent any from hiding away bits for themselves. A few ounces might seem insignificant, but to ordinary people, even a single ounce of meat was precious. Some were willing to risk everything for just a bite to eat.

The cleaned meat, once deboned, was three pounds heavier than expected. After weighing out the required share for the authorities, Qian Duoduo and Li Li made their way into the base’s inner city to exchange it for soul fragments.

The boy was still working. Compared to the others, plucking feathers was more time-consuming and labor-intensive. But when they received some cleaned bones, everyone’s face lit up with joy. Even though there was almost no meat left on the bones, just bringing them home to boil would yield a broth with the taste of meat.

“Brother, I’m so hungry,” the little girl stood by her brother, her dirty hands clutching his clothes tightly.

“Hang in there a bit longer. Soon, I’ll have food for you,” the boy reassured her, biting his lip. He hated his own helplessness. Courage alone wasn’t enough to survive in this world—those terrifying mutant beasts didn’t spare you for being brave; only if you could fight them off.

“Here,” Ma Yi stepped forward and placed a piece of cornbread in the girl’s hand. He’d gotten it from Qian Ying. For low-level evolvers like Qian Duoduo, rice wasn’t exactly a luxury, but being able to trade it for other food and eat a bit more was the best they could hope for. The food was poor, but for them, filling their bellies was already a luxury in the apocalypse.

A pound of rice could be traded for five pounds of cornbread, enough for the four of them for two days.

“Thank you.” Seeing his sister hesitate to take the cornbread from Ma Yi, only staring blankly at him, the boy nodded his thanks to Ma Yi, hurriedly wiped the blood from his hands on his clothes, and took the cornbread with both hands, passing it to his sister.

“Consider this part of my wages,” the boy said to Ma Yi, his stubbornness clear as day.

“Whatever you say,” Ma Yi replied, secretly admiring the boy. Stubborn children like this, as long as luck didn’t desert them, would achieve great things one day. Even though Ma Yi was only a meter tall and looked like a child, his mature mannerisms gave him an oddly old-fashioned air.

“They really are a bunch of bandits, damn it,” Qian Duoduo cursed as he returned.

“What happened?” Yu Chuan asked. This fat man always acted as if the world owed him something, but knowing his personality—cold on the outside, warm on the inside—Yu Chuan knew he wasn’t actually difficult to get along with.

“The guys at the exchange docked five fragments from us, right out in the open, calling it a tax. They’re getting bolder by the day,” Li Li added, her face full of helplessness. Their abilities were far behind others now, so they could only grit their teeth and submit.

“What can we do? We can’t beat them. We’re just the lowest-tier evolvers. When we finally evolve to level two with these fragments, let’s see if they dare to skim off the top,” Yu Chuan nodded. In the past, when they exchanged only small amounts, the officials didn’t bother deducting any. With larger exchanges, they’d usually take just one as a token, but five—five fragments meant fifty pounds of rice, enough to trade for who knows how much cornbread, enough to last them a long time. Or, in the current market, fifty pounds of rice could fetch two beautiful brides of seventeen or eighteen.

Ma Yi stared blankly at the four soul fragments in his hand. The black crystals were about the size of soybeans, not very regular in shape, clearly processed by someone. This was Li Li keeping her promise to give him four fragments.

He grabbed one and popped it straight into his mouth. It tasted slightly bitter, but with some effort, he swallowed it down with saliva. Immediately, Ma Yi felt a warm rush spreading from his stomach to his limbs—an odd, magical sensation. The energy wasn’t much, but given his current state, it was enough to stave off some of the hunger.

“You ate them all?” Qian Ying asked in shock. Was he an idiot? Did he even know what soul fragments were?

“You told me to just swallow them, didn’t you?” Ma Yi replied innocently, only doing as she’d instructed.

“I told you, even if you absorb quickly, you shouldn’t take more than three a day. If you take too many and can’t absorb them, the energy is just wasted!” Qian Ying glared at Ma Yi. This kid was such a handful—he’d just wasted at least two fragments for nothing.

“I absorbed them all!” Ma Yi insisted, hands on his hips, looking both funny and exasperated.

“As if! Who do you think you’re fooling?” Qian Ying didn’t believe for a second that Ma Yi could absorb all the energy so quickly. According to common knowledge, a level-one evolver could only absorb three fragments a day, level-two could absorb six, level-three twelve, and the strongest in the base, Xiang Tianxiao, could absorb twenty-four. And that was only if you fully absorbed them, not just swallowed them.

Dragging Ma Yi by the ear, Qian Ying brought him before Li Li. “Sister Li, you tell him! I’m so mad—he ate all four fragments, one after another, and says he absorbed them all!”

“I really did,” Ma Yi replied earnestly. The energy in those fragments was less than what a couple ounces of beast lord meat held; to him, they were no more than snacks.

“How do you know you absorbed it all?” Li Li, ever experienced, didn’t scold him, but asked directly. She knew from talking with him that he’d never used soul fragments before and only learned how to eat them from Qian Ying, who hadn’t explained what it was supposed to feel like afterward.

“Well, I felt a warm flow in my stomach, and then it spread to every corner of my body. When the warm feeling was gone, that meant it was all absorbed, right?” Ma Yi explained seriously.

“All four, really?” Li Li managed to keep her face calm, but inside she felt as if she’d seen a ghost—he’d described the sensation perfectly.

“Yes, the energy’s so little, it doesn’t take long to absorb,” Ma Yi stated matter-of-factly.

“Little energy?” Li Li had absorbed over a hundred fragments by now. For her, a single fragment’s powerful warmth would take her body hours to fully assimilate. Were they fake? She eyed the fragments in her own pouch suspiciously, took one, tossed it in her mouth, and felt a rolling heat spreading out from her stomach, lasting more than ten minutes with no sign of fading. The fragments were fine—so maybe it was Ma Yi who was different.

“Try one more,” Li Li said, still skeptical, handing Ma Yi a fragment from her own pouch after checking it over.

“It’s warm... and gone,” Ma Yi said, popping it in his mouth, the satisfied look on his face lasting less than ten seconds.

“Really gone?” Li Li studied his expression carefully.

“Really,” Ma Yi replied with a wry smile. Why would he lie about something with so little energy?

“You’re a monster, aren’t you?” Li Li blurted out, then suddenly remembered something. “You’re not one of those legendary big shots, are you? Come to think of it, it’s strange—we found you in the mountains, where there are all sorts of powerful mutant beasts. How did you end up there, passed out from hunger? You said your home was in P City, but there’s no such city within two hundred miles of here. Tell the truth, who are you really?”

“I don’t remember. I lost my memory, otherwise I wouldn’t be so sure I can’t remember my home,” Ma Yi replied with a bitter smile.

“Eek, are you really some ancient monster?” Qian Ying yelped, covering her chest as if to shield herself, making Ma Yi roll his eyes. Yes, he’d slept next to her last night, but with her flat, tablet-like figure, the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“I really don’t remember,” Ma Yi played dumb. With his childlike body and appearance, he could easily pass for a kid.

“No wonder!” Li Li looked Ma Yi over, dazed for a moment, then a faint, strange smile played on her lips.

“If you absorb fragments this fast, you must be pretty powerful,” Li Li continued, as if she’d found a key clue.

“I’m not sure. I seem to remember being invulnerable—knives and guns couldn’t hurt me. I think. Maybe. Possibly.” Ma Yi secretly wiped the sweat from his brow. Since waking up, he hadn’t exerted himself even once. Though he could feel great power within, he wasn’t actually sure about his defenses anymore. He hadn’t used any special abilities since arriving at Changfeng Base. He looked just like a normal human now, without any of those abnormal features.

“I’ll test it,” Qian Ying said, pulling out a dagger from behind her back. As a speed-type evolver, she wasn’t very strong, so she favored such light weapons.

“Go ahead,” Ma Yi replied, looking nervously at his fair, tender skin. Please let it hold up—he’d just made another breakthrough; it’d be embarrassing if she stabbed right through.

Both women stared in surprise at Ma Yi’s white, delicate arm. Qian Ying, still not convinced, picked up a damaged wolf-tooth club her brother had discarded and approached.