Chapter Six: Prohibition

Lu Yuanming forcefully kicked the monster's corpse out of the hole, then he carefully crawled out of it.

The surroundings were quiet. Apart from some distant, chaotic sounds, the rooftop and the floors below this building were silent.

Clearly, more than ten days had passed, and the monster horde had moved on.

The monster he had killed had already begun to rot. Its hindquarters were gnawed with many gaps, revealing dark internal organs and bones in many places. The entire monster looked even more bizarre and terrifying, with a pungent stench of decay filling the room.

Lu Yuanming quickly left the room, simultaneously checking his body as he walked.

His body, which had been clearly incomplete and nearly critically injured, had already fully recovered. His legs and arms were unharmed, and even the scratches from the rebar piercing his body had completely healed.

"Is it because I returned to my physical body?"

Lu Yuanming murmured softly, unsure if it was the recovery from transmigration or the physical body healing the soul.

But no matter what, this was his great fortune.

Next, Lu Yuanming explored this floor very carefully and cautiously, also deliberately avoiding damaged walls, open windows, and similar areas in the building to prevent himself from being seen by the outside.

Those monsters had extremely keen eyesight. They had spotted the three people on the rooftop from the ground floor back then. Lu Yuanming didn't know how many monsters there were in this Afterlife, nor if these monsters could see him from extremely far away. To avoid any accidents, he could only choose to expose himself as little as possible.

When he first arrived in the Afterlife, he was chased by monsters on the rooftop, so he hadn't explored the floors of this building at all. Now, as Lu Yuanming explored downwards, he discovered that this building was originally an office building. The damaged papers on the ground vaguely showed some business charts and the like, which were of little value.

There were also some damaged pieces of furniture. Lu Yuanming found a pen, a phone power bank, a nail clipper, cosmetics, and some miscellaneous small items among them. Most of these small items were broken. The more technologically advanced they were, the more severely they were damaged. For example, a phone power bank was basically completely broken, whereas items like a nail clipper could still be used.

Peeking out cautiously through the windows and broken walls, Lu Yuanming spotted some landmark buildings in New York City. However, judging by their appearance, they were all severely damaged, looking as if they had been through a war. Buildings were collapsed, others were incomplete, and there were basically no intact structures.

Why was the Afterlife a damaged and ruined New York City?

Who built this city in the Afterlife?

Was it a perfect replica of the world of the living?

And why was it damaged? Did a war really happen?

These questions left Lu Yuanming very confused.

During his exploration, Lu Yuanming confirmed repeatedly that he had indeed become stronger.

Judging by the strength he could unleash with his hands and his running speed, he had become stronger, with greater power and faster speed. Although it hadn't reached an extremely exaggerated level, his strength and speed had indeed improved significantly. In just over ten days, he had gone from being a weak chicken addict to the level of a strong man who exercised regularly.

After several tests, Lu Yuanming was very sure that his soul becoming stronger was not an illusion.

This meant that the white Light Particles from killing monsters could indeed enhance his soul strength!

But this also meant that he had to attack monsters and kill them to obtain more white Light Particles, which was inherently a life-or-death gamble.

As time passed, after more than ten hours, Lu Yuanming reached the middle floors of the building. Because he feared there might be monsters hidden in the building, he explored each floor extremely cautiously, which naturally slowed down his progress. Then, on these middle floors, he discovered the Remains of Black and White Two Fools.

The two corpses were already unrecognizable. Whether it was flesh and blood, internal organs, or bones, they had basically been devoured and gnawed clean by the monsters. Only a small amount of bloodstains and bone fragments proved that these were originally two humans.

When Lu Yuanming saw the remains of Black and White Two Fools, he felt no satisfaction of revenge, only fear, trembling all over, and the urge to vomit.

After a long while, Lu Yuanming managed to overcome the nausea and fear in his heart. He cautiously explored this floor, especially around the two remains. As expected, he found the police officer's pistol!

Upon finding the pistol, Lu Yuanming felt a dizzying sensation of his heart racing. He clutched the pistol tightly, and after a long while, he seemed to remember something. He carefully aimed the pistol forward and began to examine the pistol's magazine.

This was the first time Lu Yuanming had ever held a firearm. The firearms during military training didn't count, as one couldn't play with them. They were just placed on the ground for you to crawl over and fire once. He didn't know how to load or unload bullets, nor how to load or unload the magazine.

This was the first time Lu Yuanming had held a firearm since he was a child. He imitated the actions of the White Police Officer he had seen loading and unloading the magazine from memory. He checked the grip at the rear of the gun and, as expected, managed to remove the pistol's magazine.

"Please, just one or two bullets left. Just one or two..."

As Lu Yuanming muttered softly, he looked at the magazine. Upon seeing it, he was stunned.

Only three bullets were missing from the magazine!

How could this be!?

Lu Yuanming fell into deep thought.

This was something difficult for him to comprehend.

At this moment, Lu Yuanming even forgot the fear he felt upon seeing the two remains. He began to survey the situation on this floor.

The remains of Black and White Two Fools were completely torn apart, but based on their distribution, one could roughly determine where they were killed. It was in the central hall of this floor, which was spacious with excellent visibility, making it unlikely for monsters to ambush from the sides.

According to Lu Yuanming's memory of these monsters' running speed, the White Police Officer could have fired all the bullets in his pistol in a short period if he had spotted the monsters. During this time, the monsters' speed would not have been enough to get close to the White Police Officer.

But why were only three bullets used?

Lu Yuanming couldn't figure it out. He even simulated the White Police Officer's actions in the central hall at that time.

Seeing the monsters, raising the pistol, pulling the trigger, bang, one bullet, bang, the second bullet, bang, the third bullet...

Wrong!

Lu Yuanming suddenly snapped back to reality. According to his current simulation, the White Police Officer would definitely have emptied the magazine. Something else must have happened at the time, which caused the White Police Officer to only fire three bullets. Could it be that the Black Homeless Man betrayed him again?

That didn't seem right either. According to Lu Yuanming's understanding of the United States, racial tensions between white and black people were very serious, so much so that they tore American society apart, just as gender conflict did. A white police officer, upon seeing the Black Homeless Man betray him, would not have let his guard down. This could be seen from the positions of the two remains, with the Black Homeless Man's remains being at least five meters away from the White Police Officer.

Therefore, Lu Yuanming guessed that something else must have happened, causing the White Police Officer to only pull the trigger three times and then give up shooting further...

"Pistol ineffective!?"

Lu Yuanming reached this conclusion.

In the scenario he simulated, it was only when shooting the pistol that the bullets couldn't be fired, or rather, had no power, that the White Police Officer would be surprised. So he shot a second time, the situation was still the same, then he shot a third time, and the situation was still the same. After that, his reaction would be to run frantically, not to stand still and continue shooting. If it happened three times in a row, anyone would not attempt a fourth time in a life-or-death situation.

Lu Yuanming had guessed this possibility, and his heart instantly turned ice cold.

Firearms were humanity's strongest firearms, setting aside vehicles and strategic weapons. Firearms were the most universal individual weapons for humans at this stage, and they were also a symbol of humanity's superiority over all creatures on Earth.

If firearms were ineffective, whether they couldn't cause damage or couldn't even fire bullets, humanity's military strength would directly regress by several hundred years, returning from the Firearm Era to the Cold Weapon Era. This would be the greatest bad news for people facing hordes of monsters in the Afterlife.

Lu Yuanming did not dare to delay. He immediately took a bullet from the magazine and, imitating the way he had seen in TV shows and movies, carefully used a stone chip to press against the bullet's shell ejection groove, then forcefully pried open the rim, revealing the gunpowder inside the bullet.

Then Lu Yuanming was stunned.

After the bullet was opened, the gunpowder poured out quickly turned into grit in Lu Yuanming's eyes. That's right, the kind of grit and stone chips all over the ground. And Lu Yuanming dared to swear that this was a transformation. It was still gunpowder the moment it was poured out, but as he observed it, the gunpowder turned into grit.

The bullets were ineffective!

Firearms were banned!

This Afterlife finally revealed its bizarre side to Lu Yuanming.

A bizarre and absurd reality beyond science!