A chance to grow stronger, Gluttonous Feast

The edge of the Safe Zone was an extremely backward area.

It lagged behind in every respect, not just its streets and the people who gathered there.

Education, for instance, which the United Government valued above all else.

A day of senior-year classes at [Ju'an School] consisted entirely of tedious accounts of humanity's ancient glory and outdated scientific theories.

Before the Apocalypse arrived, this knowledge had been the key to further education and employment.

But now that the Apocalypse was here, it had become utterly meaningless.

There was only one way to turn your life around.

Awaken a Sequence Ability.

Only a Sequence Ability could change everything.

Yet this backward school on the edge of the Safe Zone offered no classes related to Sequence Abilities at all.

In the impoverished outskirts of the Safe Zone, Sequence Ability Users were almost impossible to find.

The teachers were ordinary people too. They had never had a chance to receive that kind of education, so how could they teach it to their students?

Although Qin Siyang had never looked into it, he believed that the Safe Zone had been established for ten years, and Sequence Ability Users had been awakening for five.

The United Government surely offered courses about Sequence Users. They simply had yet to reach [Ju'an School].

This lack of knowledge about how the current world worked left Qin Siyang unable to see any future here.

Courses about Sequence Ability Users did not have to be offered solely to help people awaken Sequence Abilities. They could be offered to ordinary people as well.

After all, the emergence of Sequence Ability Users would inevitably give rise to numerous industries and create plenty of jobs.

After studying those subjects, ordinary people would have a much wider range of employment options upon graduation.

[Ju'an School] had the worst opportunities and resources in the Safe Zone, leaving its students with painfully few paths to take.

They could either compete in the Gaokao for those pitifully few places.

Or get astronomically lucky, awaken a Sequence Ability, and become a Sequence Ability User.

But over the past five years, no such luck had blessed the students of [Ju'an School].

The only hope for the students sitting in that classroom was to enter an academy the United Government had established specifically for ordinary people, then take a clerical position with the United Government after graduating.

But judging by the school's past results, Qin Siyang, who currently ranked around one hundredth in his year, was nowhere near qualifying for an academy.

His previous life as a wage slave had taught Qin Siyang one thing: don't waste your effort. Slack off when you should, and don't make life harder for yourself.

Qin Siyang was only waiting for lunch and dinner, when he could get a few extra portions from the cafeteria to eat over the weekend.

Having done none of his homework, he was scolded by the teachers of every subject.

Li Jingwen and her girlfriends were scolded too.

Li Jingwen's girlfriends had always copied her homework, while Qin Siyang had always done hers.

By cutting off his services as a devoted doormat, Qin Siyang had brought an entire supply chain crashing down.

Throughout the day, Li Jingwen kept shooting Qin Siyang wounded looks, which he ignored.

Meanwhile, the girlfriends close to Li Jingwen were all offering her ideas.

With Qin Siyang fawning over Li Jingwen, they had benefited too.

If they asked Qin Siyang to buy things or get food for them, for example, he never refused.

Now that Qin Siyang had stopped fawning over her, their interests had suffered as well.

"Jingwen, don't worry. Something probably happened to Qin Siyang all of a sudden and put him in a bad mood."

"Right. Look at how he keeps spacing out. Maybe something upset him."

Li Jingwen looked worried. "Then what should I do?"

"When I checked homework answers with Zhou Yang today, I said I'd been sick and hadn't had time to do it, but he said I didn't look sick.

"You all know what my grades are like... doing my own homework is way too hard."

"Zhou Yang's uncle awakened a Sequence Ability a few days ago. If I can get together with Zhou Yang, I'll be able to help you girls out a lot too!"

Her girlfriends' expressions changed. "For the sake of your happiness, we have to think of something!"

Their attitude gave Li Jingwen a sense of satisfaction. She had been the first to learn that Zhou Yang's uncle had awakened a Sequence Ability. That convinced her that she and Zhou Yang were already very close.

But now, the unexpected change in Qin Siyang was irritating her.

After Li Jingwen said that, her girlfriends became even more eager to offer suggestions.

They believed that once Li Jingwen married up, they would benefit at least a little too.

"Jingwen, here's what you do. When school lets out, stop him and tell him..."

When school ended, Qin Siyang left all his books on his desk.

His schoolbag was full of food.

He had been especially shameless in the cafeteria today and taken plenty of extra food. Auntie Zhang, who worked there, had not scolded him either. She had given him as much as he asked for.

His three meals a day and late-night snacks for the weekend were all taken care of.

He had already decided to take his food-filled schoolbag with him over the weekend and sleep near a Safe Zone exit.

Whenever Sequence Ability Users returned from hunting gods, he would go up and try his luck.

He would grow stronger in secret, build himself up slowly, and eventually find a chance to leave this hellhole at the edge of the Safe Zone!

Just as he was heading home in high spirits, Li Jingwen suddenly appeared and blocked his path.

Qin Siyang frowned at her, his face full of confusion.

Li Jingwen put on a sweet expression. "Qin Siyang, I reflected on myself again today and searched my heart. The truth is, I do have feelings for you. It's just that we're still young..."

"Get lost."

Before Li Jingwen could finish, Qin Siyang coldly threw those words at her.

Then he walked around her with disgust, as though avoiding a pile of dog shit.

Li Jingwen was left standing there in a daze.

She had never expected this to be the result of swallowing her pride!

Had Qin Siyang really changed?

She stood stunned for a long time before leaving alone, dejected.

Qin Siyang went home, took a cold shower, and went to bed.

He had originally planned to stake out the Safe Zone exit that very night.

But he had not slept well the night before and was feeling tired, so he changed his mind.

He would rest up at home tonight and head out first thing tomorrow.

Time to sleep!

Early the next morning, his alarm woke him.

Saturday had arrived.

He pulled open the curtains. Although it was still pitch-black outside, it really was seven in the morning.

Qin Siyang hurried through breakfast and prepared to leave.

He glanced at the calendar.

[Earth era, January 2, 2010]

[Western Calendar, Saturday.]

[Xia calendar, Jichou year, eleventh month, eighteenth day. Auspicious for burials.]

"Auspicious for burials? Looks like today's Xia calendar has nothing to do with me."

Without the sun, temperatures outside the Safe Zone kept dropping, making it bitterly cold.

Qin Siyang put on several extra layers of thick clothing and headed out with his food-filled schoolbag on his back.

There were many exits from the Safe Zone. The nearest was only a ten-minute walk from Qin Siyang's home.

However, that exit was small, and there were few gods outside it, so several days usually passed without a single God-Hunting Team setting out from the Safe Zone.

Fewer teams meant fewer opportunities for him.

Qin Siyang decided to go to the largest Safe Zone exit near his home-the Exit of Safe Zone 114514.

Within the Safe Zone, only the larger exits were numbered, making it easier for Sequence Ability Users to communicate and identify locations when forming teams for hunting missions.

The smaller an exit's number, the more gods there were outside it.

That meant more teams of Sequence Ability Users gathered at those exits too.

The Exit of Safe Zone 114514 seemed rather far down the list.

But that was still better than having no number at all.

Sequence Ability Users would gather there.

Neither school nor his textbooks had taught him any of this. Qin Siyang had read it in informational posts on the [Godslayer Camp] forum during his half hour online yesterday.

He smiled with a hint of mockery. "The Apocalypse really is different. Going online beats going to school."

"Still, internet access is too expensive, and it doesn't feed you. School is free and provides two meals."

"If only I could combine the advantages of school and an internet café."

Qin Siyang thought for a moment, then added, "Forget it. Ultimately, I should thank the United Government for its policy of free tuition and meals."

Reaching Exit 114514 would take him over two hours on foot, but he was full of energy.

He was brimming with anticipation for his future.

That Safe Zone exit held his hope of escaping his current fate.

As he followed the road, all he saw were dilapidated houses, most of which had already collapsed. With no one maintaining it, the road was covered in rubble, dust, and sand.

To get through the collapsed buildings and rocks, he often had to clamber up and down, leaving him panting with exhaustion.

It was a long journey, but Qin Siyang saw few living souls. The occasional passerby looked hurried and was clearly not a resident.

Four years ago, several panes of the Blast-Resistant Glass here had suddenly shattered for unknown reasons. The Blast-Resistant Glass was the barrier that kept gods out of the Safe Zone. Once it shattered, the residents here lost their only protection.

Many gods seized the opportunity to surge in and attack the Safe Zone.

To keep the situation from escalating, the United Government urgently deployed an army of Sequence Ability Users to eliminate or drive out all the invading gods, then had an engineering crew repair the Blast-Resistant Glass here at top speed.

Fortunately, the United Government acted in time, and no large gods entered the Safe Zone. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

But the incident still caused heavy losses. The original residents either died in the attack or moved away.

The United Government repaired the Safe Zone's defenses here, but never rebuilt the streets or houses.

Once such a disaster occurred, people would never trust this place to be safe again.

Even if the infrastructure were rebuilt, no one would want to move here.

The United Government simply decided not to waste the effort.

The lack of people actually put Qin Siyang at ease. At least he did not have to worry about someone stealing the food in his schoolbag.

Most graduates of [Ju'an School] could not find a job that would put food on the table, which also contributed to the area's poor public safety.

For Qin Siyang, having no one around was far more reassuring than having people nearby.

At last, Qin Siyang spotted a blue sign twice a person's height, with [Exit of Safe Zone 114514] painted across it in large white letters.

"Finally here."

Upon reaching Exit 114514, he had intended to go over and take a look, only to find that, for some reason, it was surrounded by an impenetrable crowd.

To see what was happening inside, he had to find a slightly elevated dirt slope and observe carefully.

The first thing he saw was the exit's protective gate.

This was his first visit to a numbered Safe Zone exit, and his first time seeing one of their gates.

The gate was seven or eight meters wide and three or four meters tall. It appeared to be made of some special alloy and looked extremely thick and heavy.

There were so many layers of protective glass on the gate that he could not even see clearly through them to the area outside.

In front of the protective gate stood a dozen or so people wearing transparent helmets and orange-and-white-striped Cold-Proof Suits.

A single Cold-Proof Suit cost more than two silver coins, an astronomical sum in Qin Siyang's world. Only Sequence Ability Users could afford one.

Since the United Government's establishment, currencies were no longer issued by individual countries. Instead, they had been replaced by copper, silver, and gold coins issued uniformly by the United Government.

Although they were called copper, silver, and gold coins, they were not made entirely of those metals, since they had to support large-scale use throughout the world's Safe Zones. Strictly speaking, they were various alloys.

Copper coins were worth the least, since they were not only cheaper to produce but also mixed with many different base metals.

Generally speaking, ten thousand copper coins were worth one silver coin, and one thousand silver coins were worth one gold coin.

However, because copper coins were cheap to produce and different mints added different proportions of other metals, exchanging them for a silver coin usually required as many as twelve thousand.

To Qin Siyang now, silver coins were as unattainable as a fortune of tens of millions had been in his previous life.

It seemed these were the Sequence Ability Users who had gathered at this exit.

Only a small minority wore Cold-Proof Suits. Besides those dozen or so people, over a thousand ordinary people were gathered here, all bundled up tightly just like Qin Siyang.

Qin Siyang was puzzled. What exactly were these people doing?

Wasn't it only Sequence Ability Users who gathered at the exits?

Just then, two Sequence Ability Users in Cold-Proof Suits removed their helmets. They seemed to have finished a hunting mission and were preparing to leave.

Hundreds of ordinary people around them immediately swarmed over.

"Officers, would you like to relax for a bit? We offer excellent foot baths!"

"Officers, I have some exquisite dishes for you!"

"I have an upscale apartment you two officers can stay in for free! All you have to do is take a few pictures with me!"

"Officer, my daughter isn't married yet! The moment she saw how heroic you looked, she decided she wouldn't marry anyone but you!"

"Officer, do you want a wife? If you already have one, I can be your mistress. I don't even need an official title!"

The crowd surged forward wildly, yet tacitly kept more than a meter away from the two Sequence Ability Users.

The two Sequence Ability Users seemed accustomed to such scenes and did not linger. In the end, they simply chose a classy restaurant and a comfortable hotel, then left.

The two business owners they had chosen flushed with excitement.

Watching everyone's reactions, Qin Siyang was dumbstruck.

He knew that Sequence Ability Users were highly sought after in this world, but he had never imagined a scene like this.

Ordinary people hoped to attach themselves to a Sequence Ability User, escape their miserable circumstances, and live somewhere more comfortable.

They were all striving to move up in the world. Unfortunately, they might never manage it in their entire lives.

At that thought, Qin Siyang felt grateful to fate, and his resolve hardened once again.

"Heaven has already given me a chance. I have to make the most of it."

He tried to push through the crowd and approach the dozen or so remaining Sequence Ability Users, but was immediately shoved aside.

"Get to the back of the line, you little brat! What are you pushing forward for?"

Qin Siyang said, "I'm not here for the Sequence Ability Users. I won't steal your business."

He only wanted to see whether any God Remains had been left behind up front. He had no interest in the Sequence Ability Users.

But the others weren't about to believe him.

Everyone around Qin Siyang laughed when they heard him.

"Who are you trying to fool? Everyone trying to push to the front says that."

Qin Siyang had no choice but to wait at the outer edge of the crowd.

The reinforced gate at the Safe Zone's exit opened again and again as Sequence Ability Users came and went, and the crowd of ordinary people gradually thinned.

By evening, Qin Siyang finally secured a spot near the front.

Unlike the others, though, whenever Sequence Ability Users returned from outside the Safe Zone, he paid no attention to them. Instead, he watched where the God Remains in their hands went.

They took out the remains for the Inspectors to examine. For some reason Qin Siyang couldn't understand, all these remains were round.

In the end, the Inspectors standing nearby took away every last piece of the round God Remains. He hadn't managed to pick up a single one.

Just as Qin Siyang thought he would come away empty-handed today, another team returned from outside the Safe Zone. One of the Sequence Ability Users checked his haul and finally tossed an ear crawling with worms onto the ground beside him.

"It probably fell into my backpack during the fight. Got my bag dirty," he grumbled.

Qin Siyang's eyes lit up at the sight of the worm-covered ear, and he prepared to collect it when no one was looking.

But a cleaner swept the ear into his dustpan, then turned and left.

What the hell?! A cleaner had actually snatched his meal away?!

Unwilling to give up, he immediately followed the cleaner away from the Safe Zone's exit.

The cleaner had no idea anyone would be so interested in the trash in his dustpan. He walked to a street corner, dumped the ear straight into a filthy trash can, then turned and left.

Qin Siyang watched from the shadows until the cleaner disappeared into the distance. Once the cleaner was gone, Qin Siyang approached, intending to retrieve the ear from the trash can.

But just as he was about to draw closer, he spotted what appeared to be a uniformed official approaching. The official glanced at the God Remains in the trash can, then took out a notebook and made a record.

Qin Siyang frowned. "Even God Remains in a trash can get recorded? Is this trash or not?"

But the Administration Bureau official paid little further attention to it and walked away after finishing his notes.

As soon as the official left, Qin Siyang ran over. He opened the trash can's lid, and a thick stench of blood hit his nose.

But when he saw what was inside, he froze.

There were actually loads of God Corpses in there!!

Qin Siyang's eyes widened, his heart pounding.

"Is this... a Gluttonous Feast?!!"