Chapter 8 - Fireworks

Chapter 8: Fireworks

Zhang Zhiyin followed the army all the way to Base No. 1 in Mulin City.

Mulin City could be regarded as the first main city in <Tomorrow>. By the middle and later stages of the game, the Cloud Sky Alliance forces belonging to the players and the Justice Force NPC would grow stronger, and the justice forces devoted to human renaissances, such as Base No. 1, would unite under the banner of the Cloud Sky Alliance to fight the evil organization where Dr. Y was located.

However, the plot was still early from the establishment of the Cloud Sky Alliance. The main task of Base No. 1 was just to appease panicked people and try to make more people survive.

Zhang Zhiyin was tired and fell asleep by the time all the troops in Lihua Shopping Mall and the “individual travelers” who survived with them had undergone security checks and settled down.

Maybe it was due to him experiencing an important plot, this time his stay in the world took a relatively short time.

Zhang Zhiyin was woken up by the alarm clock. When he sat at his desk, he realized that he had come back to reality.

He forgot to say good morning to boss.

When he got home from work and finished the rest of his work, Zhang Zhiyin went in the game while opening the official website of the game.

Previously, he only paid attention to Dr. Y. He didn’t care much about the background stories of other characters, but after experiencing that “dream”, he began to wonder about the stories behind Yu Huo in the early days of the apocalypse. When he fled the city, he watched the people in the car throw Yu Huo out as bait to keep their lives. What kind of experience made him turn to Dr. Y? That he became the aggressive boss in the later stage?

He opened the introduction of the characters, only to see this was written in the column of Yu Huo——

Y?

Zhang Zhiyin was stunned for a moment. If what he saw was the so-called “cause” of his blackening, then it meant… Y might have been very close to him at that time…

Unfortunately, he didn’t meet him.

Strangely, Zhang Zhiyin did not feel much regret. On the contrary, it was accompanied by a slightly unrealistic dreamlike feeling that he really coexisted with Y in a world and had the chance to be close to him.

After entering the game, Zhang Zhiyin bought a gift for Boss as usual. This time it was a firework.

Such was the exotic world of keyboard and online games. Clearly, it was an indoor scene but fireworks could still be set off in it.

The abandoned laboratory environment was set to be dark. Zhang Zhiyin sat quietly at Y’s feet, opened the package and lit props and fireworks one after another.

The room was full of splendor.

“Do you like it? If you like it, I’ll put more for you next time.” Zhang Zhiyin typed.

Then he commanded the little man to stand up, close his eyes, and gently gave Boss a hug.

Zhang Zhiyin looked at the little man with the word “Zhiyin” on his head and quietly embraced the virtual character half a head taller than himself. He smiled and struck out the remaining words——

“Y, we are in the same world.”

————————

Before going to bed, Zhang Zhiyin was prepared to appear in the world of and things were not what he expected.

Base No. 1 accommodated nearly 100,000 people, and this number was still continuously increasing. One month after the apocalypse, Base No. 1 recovered some of its production capacity and was the largest and safest base in the Northeast at the starting phase of the apocalypse.

A kind of communal-like organization form was implemented here. Both the ordinary people and the ability users could get contribution points by contributing to the construction of the base, and the contribution points were exchanged for living necessities. Different jobs get different contribution points. The contribution points of working in the base’s factories were far lower than those of hunting zombies or defending the bases. At the same time, the zombie nuclei obtained by the hunting team could also be divided within the team. In Base No. 1, the role of zombie nuclei in ability upgrading had been recognized.

As those ability users who participate in the hunting team faced more dangers, they relatively obtained more generous rewards.

At the same time, there was a free market for free trade within the base, where people could exchange what they needed, where people with the skills of forging weapons, making clothes, refining drugs and so on could sell their items. This equipment or drugs often had better attributes than those exchanged from base supply points.

These situations might seem strange in reality, but looking at how this world’s settings were born out of a game, all of this could be convincing – players had life skills, could forge, or obtain equipment and weapons dropped by zombies and monsters that were often better than those purchased in the system store.

But no matter in the world of or in the game of , ordinary zombies would not drop equipment. The only objects that they drop were the crystal nucleus, while boss-level monsters often had advanced equipment or items. In this world, humans had an understanding that the locations where high-level zombies were located had a relatively denser elements mutation, resulting in the emergence of special forces contained within ordinary objects.

People in the former Lihua Shopping Mall had been separated. Zhang Zhiyin had been assigned to the seventh team of District F. The captain was a middle-aged uncle with mutated strength. Although the uncle only had a common mutation, he had a relatively deep experience and belonged to the first group of beneficiaries of nucleus upgrading. Moreover, the initial upgrade of the common mutation was relatively easy. Therefore, he was now a rare third-level mutator, while most people such as Zhang Zhiyin are only primary or first-level mutators.

This was the first time Zhang Zhiyin entered a team. After sweeping his eyes around, he met a familiar person. It was inappropriate to say that he was familiar; he knew the person but the person didn’t know him.

The man was the leader of the famous captain of the Cloud Mist Team of Cloud Sky Alliance in the future, Li Shuifeng. Because he was young and handsome, holding the dual abilities of water and precision. Together with his gentle personality and great abilities, he was the backbone of the righteous camp. He was a rather popular NPC in the game. At this point, however, it seemed that he only had one ordinary enhancement ability.

This time, the team had joined many new people. Some of the experienced old people in the original team had also been arranged to lead the newly-formed team. It could be said that the team had been reshuffled. The captain uncle first introduced himself and arranged for the members to introduce themselves to each other.

“My name is Zhang Zhiyin, from M City, first level of precision mutation.” Zhang Zhiyin said this because when he entered the base to register his ability, Brother Fei and Uncle Yun registered the precision mutation to him. The base No. 1 was of a mix of dragon and snake and at this time exposing himself was to grow a new branch out of a knot. In order to hide his ice ability, Zhang Zhiyin went to the mall and bought an item to conceal his ability attributes. This item was only useful in several specific dungeon instances and tasks of the game, so the price was cheaper, but now it helped Zhang Zhiyin a lot. After using the item, no one would find out that he had dual abilities unless he actively used his ice skills.

Li Shuifeng gave him a silent glance when he heard about his precision mutation.

When it was Li Shuifeng’s turn, he said, “Li Shuifeng of City N, first-level precision mutation.”

Was he hiding? Or was it like himself?

Out of curiosity, Zhang Zhiyin bought an ability identifier from the mall for 50 cents. This identifier in the game was used to identify boss or the ability of the players so that players could develop appropriate tactical strategies. He thought that it could now also be used to identify the real ability of Li Shuifeng.

The result showed that Li Shuifeng was telling the truth. He really had only level one of precision ability.

For no reason, this realistic version of Li Shuifeng made him feel uncomfortable.

Was it because Brother Shuifeng’s sense of justice was too strong that he, as a boss lover, could not stand it? Zhang Zhiyin teased himself secretly in his heart but didn’t put much thought into it.

Footnotes:

• Mix of Dragon and Snake: Mix of good people and scumbag
• Grow a new branch out of a knot: Side issues keep arising

Other than Dead People(Zombies), there is also Monsters = Mutated Animals and Plants