After Song Yongfeng, the "outsider," left, the atmosphere between them became less serious than before.
Although the last time they had met was when the original owner had just come out of the High Wall, and they'd only caught a brief glimpse of each other without even saying hello, Cheng Ye somehow felt a sense of familiarity with Luo Xiaoxue.
If he had to describe it, she was like a female version of Brother B.
She was completely at ease, and seemed open and straightforward in the way she spoke, acted, and treated others.
After exchanging a few pleasantries, Cheng Ye promptly changed the subject.
"Sister Luo, when did Brother B leave?"
"He left not long after I finished talking to you on the phone. Those people from the Inner City are nothing like us in the Buffer Zone. They do everything as if an Infected were chasing them."
"I don't know much about the Hydroelectric Station. Brother B—"
"Don't worry about him. He and your dad have taken that road to the Hydroelectric Station at least a hundred times. They could walk it with their eyes closed. As for the Infected..."
As she spoke, Luo Xiaoxue took a palm-sized booklet from her bag.
"The Hydroelectric Station is Xingfu City's most important asset. Two Security Team units of five hundred people are stationed there, so you don't need to worry about its safety at all. Put it this way: even an Infected Tide powerful enough to break through our Buffer Zone defenses would probably struggle to get anywhere near the station. He'll just have to stay there for a while, so he won't be able to come back."
"You're the one I'm worried about. With the heavy rain continuing lately, the number of Hydrophilic Infected will definitely rise sharply. I put this booklet together. It covers ways to deal with the common Hydrophilic Infected. It might not be as comprehensive as the one your Brother B compiled, but you can compare it with the inspector lessons and learn from both."
"Sorry for the trouble, Sister Luo. You've gone to so much trouble for me!"
Cheng Ye quickly took the booklet, thanking her repeatedly.
Liu Bi was naturally better at fighting, but when it came to compiling information, Luo Xiaoxue was clearly being modest.
Earlier, while he was resting after training, Liu Bi had mentioned it in passing.
Eight years ago, the Checkpoint didn't have nearly as much authority as it did now. Back then, the Buffer Zone was jointly managed by the Checkpoint and the Public Security Bureau.
The former was responsible for guard duty, while the latter dealt with the Infected and protected the area.
At the time, Luo Xiaoxue had been an instructor with the Public Security Bureau. She was responsible for training newcomers in her daily work, but whenever an Infected Tide appeared, she would rush to the front lines and fight the Infected herself.
Later, after several reorganizations of the Buffer Zone, the Public Security Bureau was disbanded by Xingfu City's High Level, and all its authority and personnel were absorbed into the Checkpoint.
Luo Xiaoxue happened to be pregnant then, so she simply chose to leave and become a "full-time housewife."
Many years passed in the blink of an eye.
Cheng Ye opened the booklet and glanced through it, then sighed. "Sister Luo, you're still as impressive as ever. After I finish reading this, I should be able to call myself your student, right?"
"Hey, you little smooth talker!"
Luo Xiaoxue froze for a moment, then couldn't help rolling her eyes at Cheng Ye. Her smile grew brighter.
Liu Bi had been talking about him quite a bit lately, so she'd already formed a rough impression of Cheng Ye.
Smart, hardworking, diligent, and exceptionally talented—he could easily be called a young version of Cheng Long.
But it wasn't until the two of them met today that she realized the real Cheng Ye was practically a different person from the one Liu Bi had described!
Cheng Long was such an honest man that even if he spent his whole life trying, he probably couldn't have come up with a line like that.
"I'm not being smooth. I'm just telling the truth."
Cheng Ye blinked. "But... are there really that many Hydrophilic Infected roaming around Shi Province?"
At a quick glance, the booklet listed at least sixty different Infection Sources.
Each one had different abilities, and if they appeared at the same time, dealing with them would be far more difficult than simply adding one and one together.
"A lot!"
Luo Xiaoxue nodded emphatically. "Shi Province, where we live, has an extensive network of waterways, which constantly attracts all kinds of Hydrophilic Infected. Now that the rain belt has shifted south, there's no telling whether they'll migrate along with it. And the ones I listed aren't even all of them—just the ones that have appeared around Xingfu City in the past ten years."
"Memorizing these will be enough to keep you from panicking when you encounter a common Infected ambush. As for those who retain some awareness after being infected... Liu Bi told me you dealt with a Death Whisper Tentacle Infected two days ago?"
"Yeah. He was probably possessed by a Death Whisper Tentacle after drowning. He held on all the way to Xingfu City through sheer obsession."
"Mm. Those are the ones you need to be most wary of! Ordinary Infected hide in the dark and ambush you. As long as you're careful and know their special abilities, it's hard to get caught off guard when you have the Checkpoint behind you.
"But Infected who retain their awareness are different. They can disguise themselves and mislead your judgment. Some can even fool the detectors. You have to use a carefully planned Verbal Trap to spot the flaws."
"Since we're on the subject, let me tell you about a few typical cases. Brother B and I encountered every one of them ourselves."
Afraid Cheng Ye might let his guard down, Luo Xiaoxue explained everything in great detail. Her account was far more thorough than the Trainee Inspector training Cheng Ye had attended before.
In particular, these experiences weren't the Showy Moves taught in trainee training. They were Combat Experience that only people who had encountered the Infected firsthand could have gathered.
With his life on the line, Cheng Ye listened with exceptional focus, occasionally interrupting to ask questions.
Though it was their first time talking, they got along astonishingly well.
Ding-dong.
By the time the bank closed at eight-thirty and its employees came out the door, the two were still sitting by the entrance, chatting animatedly.
"Come on. Since your Brother B isn't home today, there's an empty bed. Let's go home and keep talking!"
One spoke, and the other listened.
One asked, and the other answered.
The questions were sharp, and the answers thoughtful.
Luo Xiaoxue patted the arm of the bench. She no longer looked at Cheng Ye as an outstanding junior, but as an uncut jade waiting to be polished!
She had been an instructor for nearly six years and had met plenty of geniuses, but none had ever come close to Cheng Ye.
That instinct for drawing inferences from one example, that ability to grasp things so quickly—Luo Xiaoxue had only encountered such traits in books describing humans from the Old Era.
It was said that people in that era didn't have to worry about survival or pursue physical strength. Their brains were highly developed, and they learned and absorbed new things several times faster than people in the Wasteland.
"Uh, isn't that a little inappropriate?"
Cheng Ye scratched his head. "I happen to have one more day off, and I don't have to report for duty until the day after tomorrow. How about tomorrow..."
"What tomorrow? Right now! Tonight!"
No wonder Liu Bi and Luo Xiaoxue got along so well. Their personalities were a perfect match.
Seeing that, Cheng Ye didn't feel he could refuse, so he followed her onto a bus bound for the outskirts.
"Come by whenever you have time from now on. You live alone now, right?"
"Yeah..."
Ah, why did this feel more and more wrong?
It felt almost like being around an academic advisor!
Cheng Ye couldn't help remembering that after he'd gotten into graduate school, his assigned advisor had said the same thing. At the time, he'd naively thought he would learn everything his advisor knew, and maybe even continue on to a PhD.
But he soon discovered that the advisor said the same thing to everyone in his group. Once they'd all been called over, he hadn't taught them anything—he'd just put them to work for free. Plenty of people in the neighboring groups had laughed at them, calling them slaves.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Oh, I was thinking that I really should come by more often to learn from you, Instructor Luo."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk."
Luo Xiaoxue clicked her tongue. Liu Bi hadn't learned this talent for talking nonsense without thinking, and neither had Cheng Long. Many inspectors she'd met couldn't do it either, yet somehow Cheng Ye had picked it up on his own.
"At first, I thought you'd be able to become a Trainee Inspector in two months because you'd benefited from the connections Brother Long left behind."
"I don't need those connections right now, and I couldn't make use of them even if I did."
"That's true."
The bus rattled along. By the time it reached the later stops, only the two of them were left.
The Chemical Plant Staff Dormitory was really out of the way. No matter how spacious it was, Cheng Ye would never choose to live there.
Otherwise, it would take at least half an hour on the bus just to get to the Central Checkpoint every day, not to mention going to the library to read or heading to South Station on the other side of the Buffer Zone. It would be just like commuting through rush-hour traffic back in the modern world.
Once they entered the dormitory complex, they found Liu Bi's place on the fifth floor of Building Four.
Before Luo Xiaoxue could even take out her key, the front door opened from the inside, revealing a little head with its hair tied in a ponytail.
"Ah, Mom, why did you take so—"
Before she could finish, she saw Cheng Ye standing behind Luo Xiaoxue. Her little head immediately ducked back, leaving only a pair of bright, wary eyes peeking through the gap in the door.
There was a sly, clever spark about her that made Cheng Ye's lips curl up into a warm, indulgent smile.
"Yiyi, this is your Brother Cheng Ye, Uncle Cheng's son. He's the one your dad talks about all the time."
"B-Brother Cheng Ye?"
Her voice still had a childish lilt, completely at odds with the Wasteland's grim tone. Yet it eased the tension Cheng Ye had been carrying around for so long.
Sure enough, the hope of new life was the strongest weapon against fear!
Before you continue