What village did you say!?

Lin Qi checked the time. It was now three in the morning, and the ads had refreshed, so he simply opened the virtual panel.

A new ad began playing.

The instant he saw its content, Lin Qi frowned almost instinctively.

The ad featured the same female host as always, and she was even holding the Leibi he had seen yesterday.

"What's going on? Can the ads repeat?"

Lin Qi had little interest in Leibi. He was about to close the ad when he noticed that the host's sales pitch seemed to have changed.

[Cool to the core, chilled to the heart!]

[Today, we're recommending this Leibi to you all again.]

[Just keep drinking our Leibi, and you can gain the power of lightning!]

[As everyone knows, lightning is the greatest bane of the uncanny!]

[This opportunity won't last. One hundred ghost notes, first come, first served!]

The host spoke at a leisurely pace, stretching the ad out to a full thirty seconds.

Listening to her introduction, Lin Qi wondered, Leibi can actually grant the power of lightning? Why haven't I felt anything? Is it because I haven't drunk enough?

After a brief hesitation, he chose to buy it.

The Leibi appeared in his hand, heavy and slightly cold.

Lin Qi unscrewed the cap and gulped it down in one go. Rather than savoring its taste, he stared at his hands and pondered, Where's the lightning power?

The very instant that thought arose-

"Bzzzt."

Tiny electrical sparks actually flickered across his palm!

The sparks were tiny, like static electricity. Had he not been watching closely, he might never have noticed them.

Yet Lin Qi's eyes gradually lit up as he watched the sparks.

He had been worrying about his lack of offensive abilities. If he kept drinking Leibi...

The power of lightning! Just thinking about it felt a little outrageous!

He had barely cared about Leibi before, but now he was even hoping its ad would appear again tomorrow!

Lin Qi spent all the remaining predawn hours tinkering with the sparks in his hands, like a child with a new toy, never tiring of it.

His morning of research was not without results.

He discovered that while his sparks could not do much damage to people directly, he could attach them to his machete!

"Now I really am leaving sparks and lightning in my wake."

Lin Qi played with the machete, which gave off a faint blue glow, and pondered, I wonder whether a lightning-infused machete can hurt the uncanny. I'll have to try it when I get the chance...

Lin Qi kept experimenting until the sky began to brighten.

One after another, the survivors woke from their sleep and stared blankly at this apocalyptic world.

Soft music began playing from the heavy truck, as though soothing the survivors' shattered hearts.

"Survivors, the convoy will depart in five minutes. Please be ready!"

Liu Yan's voice came over the loudspeaker. Once she finished, the soft music enveloping the convoy resumed.

"Buddy, have you thought it over overnight? Want to team up?"

Wang Feng's voice came at just the right moment. After what had happened last night, he was even more determined to recruit Lin Qi.

Faced with Wang Feng's persistence, Lin Qi felt utterly helpless. He still declined without much consideration. "Sorry. If I need to, I'll contact you."

"All right, then. Make sure you remember to contact me." Seeing that Lin Qi was as firm as ever, Wang Feng could only accept his answer again.

Watching Wang Feng walk away, Lin Qi had actually weighed the pros and cons.

For him, finding partners would do more harm than good.

Leaving aside everything else, his secrets absolutely could not be exposed. Another person by his side meant another risk of exposure.

He preferred to nip every potential problem in the bud, saving himself from more trouble down the line.

The five minutes passed in a flash.

Liu Yan's voice once again rang out through the convoy's loudspeakers.

"The convoy is about to depart!"

"We'll reach a new supply point at noon. Survivors, please prepare to gather supplies."

"Another new supply point today?"

Lin Qi held the steering wheel with one hand and gripped his faintly sparking machete with the other. "Maybe I'll get to use it today..."

As he was thinking about today's supply run, that persistent voice rang out again. "Buddy!"

Helpless, Lin Qi looked out the window at the sedan driving alongside him.

Sure enough, there was Wang Feng in the passenger seat.

Wang Feng seemed to realize that constantly striking up conversations with Lin Qi was a bit much. With an awkward smile, he raised the walkie-talkie in his hand. "Buddy, I'm here to give you a walkie-talkie. Even if we don't team up, we can still share information with this. Don't worry, it's free."

"Sure, then."

Hearing that it was free, Lin Qi accepted it without hesitation.

Wang Feng was right about one thing: the information channels available to him alone fell far short of those available to Wang Feng's little group.

"Great. Give us a call if anything comes up."

Wang Feng made a phone gesture before signaling his companion at the wheel to pull away from the SUV.

Clearly, he also understood that Lin Qi was finding him a little annoying...

Lin Qi had not expected Wang Feng to be so perceptive. He tucked the machete he had been playing with beneath the passenger seat and fiddled with the walkie-talkie. Several people's voices soon came through it.

Wang Feng's group of six traveled in two sedans, which was why they had looked for walkie-talkies to communicate.

As soon as Lin Qi got the walkie-talkie working, he heard the group shooting the breeze.

The journey was boring, so he simply placed the walkie-talkie beneath the windshield and listened to it like a radio.

"Did you guys hear? Some kid cared more about money than his life last night. He went looking for ghost notes nearby in the middle of the night and never came back."

"No, but I did hear that Niu Wudi only came back very late yesterday, covered in injuries!"

"Niu Wudi? Who's Niu Wudi?" Lin Qi actually already had an answer in mind.

The survivor who had just spoken clearly paused at Lin Qi's question before continuing, "You're the handsome guy in the SUV, right? Niu Wudi is the Giant Bear Extraordinary!"

"As for whether his name really is Niu Wudi, who knows? We only heard it through the grapevine..."

"Oh, right, handsome, I'm Xiao Wu-the handsome guy who came to get you yesterday, hahaha! If you join our team, we can form a Handsome Guys Alliance and make Feng and those other goblins sick with envy!"

Lin Qi: ...

He had not expected survivors to remain so cheerful in the apocalypse. Out of courtesy, he introduced himself. "My surname is Lin. I'd rather not share my given name."

"Sure thing, Brother Lin. If you run into any trouble, just say the word," Xiao Wu replied cheerfully.

Lin Qi said nothing, but Xiao Wu's companions began teasing him. "Oh, so you're in the Handsome Guys Alliance, Xiao Wu? What does that make me? Am I in the Handsome Guys' Dads Alliance? Hahaha!"

Lin Qi did not reply, nor could he join in their banter.

Having lost his parents at a young age, he had mostly remained on the sidelines. Alone, he could do anything, but in front of strangers, he was always at a loss for words.

Gathering his scattered thoughts, he looked toward Wang Feng's sedan ahead.

He had to admit that sharing information over a walkie-talkie was very beneficial to him.

Really, he did not have nearly enough information to offer Wang Feng's group anything. Put plainly, the walkie-talkie was Wang Feng's gesture of goodwill toward him.

Lin Qi had always repaid kindness and avenged wrongs.

Wang Feng had indeed done him a big favor.

Without the walkie-talkie, by the time he managed to gather much of this information himself, it would probably be far too late.

The group kept chatting tirelessly over the walkie-talkie, seemingly with endless topics to discuss, in stark contrast to the solitary Lin Qi.

Lin Qi had long since grown used to being alone and saw nothing wrong with it. Listening to their discussions as an outsider was rather interesting, too.

The voices continued coming through the walkie-talkie.

Lin Qi sifted through them for information useful to him.

Aside from shooting the breeze, Wang Feng's group occasionally let slip a few crucial pieces of information.

Xiao Wu: "Huh, Feng, I think I know where we're gathering supplies today!"

Wang Feng: "Where?"

Xiao Wu: "Have you ever heard the legend of Fengmen Village?!"