Xu Duoduo was thoroughly engrossed in browsing online. The internet had gone down when the apocalypse began, and it had been ages since she had enjoyed using electronics like this. She went through the posts one by one.
Only when she noticed it was nearly dark outside did she realize she had been squatting on the floor scrolling through the tablet for ages. Being a zombie, her legs never ached; an ordinary person's legs would have gone numb long ago. Only then did she get up and shuffle around.
She looked down at the blood covering her. It had already dried, leaving her pajamas stiff. She turned and ran straight into the bathroom.
She carefully adjusted the water heater's temperature so she wouldn't cook herself.
Thanks to the old monkey king's mutant core, she had regained control of her body. Otherwise, she would only have been able to move freely at night, which would have been miserable.
Xu Duoduo carefully washed herself clean, taking toiletries out of her multifaceted Rubik's Cube Space and turning herself into a sweet-smelling little zombie.
Then she took out a change of clothes and put on another comfortable set of pajamas.
As for the pajamas she had taken off, she soaked them in a washbasin, intending to wash them. Sometimes her brain suddenly stalled and refused to work.
If Xu Duoduo had been thinking normally, she probably would have tossed them into the trash in disgust by now. But little zombie Xu Duoduo's instinct to save money outweighed her reason, so her brain failed to catch up, and she instinctively soaked them in water.
When Qin Luo and Chen Xiaofei knocked on Xu Duoduo's door, she was still scrubbing her clothes, so she ran over to open it with her hands covered in suds.
"Little Class Monitor, look what goodies we brought you! Well, actually, we traded for some... Huh?? What are you doing?"
Chen Xiaofei looked utterly shocked at the suds covering Xu Duoduo's hands.
Qin Luo frowned and leaned in to glance at the bathroom, then took Xu Duoduo by the arm and led her over to wash her hands. "Why are you washing those clothes? They're covered in contaminated fluids. They need to go into a sealed garbage bag, then into the hazardous waste bin downstairs."
Xu Duoduo hadn't expected such strict precautions, but they made perfect sense. Right-the survivor base wasn't home only to ability users. Plenty of ordinary people lived here, too. If they came into contact with the Mutant Monkey Group's contaminated blood, wouldn't that get them killed?
Alarmed, she hurried to fish out the clothes, but Qin Luo stopped her. He pulled a sealable garbage bag from the box beside the sink. "I'll do it. Wash your hands, then go out and eat."
Xu Duoduo was still wondering what he meant by eating. Once she had washed her hands as instructed, she heard Chen Xiaofei calling from outside, "Little Class Monitor, come here!"
Why were these two making themselves so at home?! This was her house!
Couldn't they show a little respect for a corpse?!
Xu Duoduo stormed out indignantly, only to see a transparent box on the table containing three mutant cores: one green and two orange-red.
"Look! To welcome you to our 3A Special Operations Team, Qin Luo spent a fortune buying you three mutant cores!"
"You're one lucky little zombie. You arrived just as the base changed its rules! We don't have to hand over mutant cores anymore! From now on, we can even buy them with Points!"
They were just a little expensive.
Chen Xiaofei looked excited as he urged her to come over and taste them. "And seriously, Little Class Monitor, you're incredible. Ordinary people and ability users would drop dead if they ate mutant cores directly, but you can crunch them like candy. Eat another one so I can see?"
Qin Luo had finished bagging the contaminated clothes and came out after washing his hands. Hearing that, he clicked his tongue. "Are you treating her like a performing monkey?"
By then, Xu Duoduo had already approached the coffee table, her eyes sparkling as she stared at the three mutant cores. The transparent box was probably made of some special material, too. She had to get very close before she could smell their fragrance.
The green mutant core still had that fresh scent, like grass, while the orange-red ones smelled a little like cumin-spiced grilled meat skewers.
They smelled so good.
But she wasn't hungry yet. She rubbed her belly and carefully assessed it. She was about sixty or seventy percent full.
Ding-dong, ding-dong.
The doorbell rang again.
Xu Duoduo turned to look. Qin Luo had already gone to open the door, and Bai Shu and Wang Weihu had arrived, too.
Bai Shu had changed into a white shirt and black dress pants, with rimless glasses, returning to the look Xu Duoduo was more familiar with. He had worn glasses back in middle school.
Wang Weihu was also in casual clothes, holding several unopened sets of combat uniforms in his left hand. "Just got these approved. Size 165 should fit Little Class Monitor. Her ID number came through, too. Pretty unlucky: 13444."
Bai Shu wanted to complain about that as well. "The people at headquarters even said, since Little Class Monitor is already a Mutated Person infected with the zombie virus, why would she be scared of 444 being unlucky? Fuck, do Mutated People not have rights? What rotten luck, getting that number."
Chen Xiaofei blew up the moment he heard it, slapping the table and jumping to his feet. "Seriously? Isn't that screwing her over?"
Even Qin Luo asked, "Didn't you ask headquarters about it? Giving a girl such an unlucky number?"
Bai Shu said, "They made excuses about this being the apocalypse, not peacetime, and said they didn't have time for our petty problems. Told us to make do. All talk. Meanwhile, someone next door with connections is still waiting over there to pick a number! It's blatant favoritism."
Honestly.
If not for the enormous walls still standing outside, and the fact that she still had no heartbeat...
As Xu Duoduo watched the four of them chatting, for a moment she almost felt as though the apocalypse had only been a dream. Unfortunately, the apocalypse was real, and she really was just a corpse with consciousness. So she took out her tablet, tapped away, then held it out for them to read. [It's okay. I don't mind.]
It was only an ID number.
But after reading it, all four fell silent for a moment. Qin Luo turned away to make a call. "No, I'm going to ask. They can at least change it to something luckier. I'd like to know why people with connections can change theirs, but those of us risking our lives on the front lines can't. That makes no sense. They're just bullying us!"
Chen Xiaofei said indignantly, "Exactly! It's the apocalypse, and they're still playing favorites?"
Then he urged Xu Duoduo to eat. "Forget that crap. Go on, Little Class Monitor! Qin Luo pulled a lot of strings to get these mutant cores!"
Bai Shu stared at the three mutant cores, marveling. "Qin Luo even managed to get his hands on these?"
Wang Weihu leaned over to take a look, too. Just thinking about mutant animals gave him a headache. "These things are much harder to deal with than zombies. Even the low-level ones are a pain. If higher-level mutant creatures show up later, life is going to be..."
That topic was a little heavy.
The three of them immediately fell quiet. Bai Shu finally set the nutrient solution and a bag of steamed buns on the table. "Let's eat first. It's only been ten days, and the cafeteria's food supply has already dropped by another eighty percent. Guess how many Points this bag of buns cost?"
Chen Xiaofei deftly unscrewed the cap on a bottle of nutrient solution and asked curiously, "How many?"
Wang Weihu sighed and answered, "Eight buns. Two hundred Points."
Chen Xiaofei sucked in a sharp breath. "How much?! Twenty-five Points for one plain steamed bun?"
His face instantly filled with anguish over the cost.
Xu Duoduo remembered Professor Ji and the others saying at the start that three Points would buy a filling meal. But judging by the current situation, being full definitely didn't mean eating well.
She fell silent, too.
Wang Weihu chewed on a steamed bun as he said, "There are too many rescued survivors now, and the base is short on food. Ordinary people have to get priority. People like us can survive on nutrient solution, so we'll just have to put up with it for now."
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