The entrance of the cave that the mysterious person found was well-concealed. It was located deep in a steep mountain hollow. If one didn't follow the hollow all the way through, the average person wouldn't be able to see the cave entrance.
Due to his injuries, Cheng Duo took some time to climb out of the mountain hollow. Then, following his usual habit, he walked along the mountain ridge, hoping to reach an open area and observe where exactly he was.
When he escaped, he ran without choosing a specific path and entered the woods. Eventually, he was pushed off a cliff, and he couldn't even remember the direction he had taken.
Espers had excellent eyesight. Cheng Duo stood atop a small slope and noticed several people tilling the land below. The ground was hard yellow clay, and most of the people didn't even use oxen; they relied solely on manpower, struggling to pull wooden plows forward.
T/N: Espers are people in apocalyptic time that gain superpowers.
What surprised Cheng Duo even more was their attire. Whether it was short jackets or outer skirts made of animal skins, they resembled ancient styles. Some people even had cloths or animal skins wrapped around their heads, revealing a bun on top. Not even the children playing in the fields had short hair.
Cheng Duo observed the mountain for a long time and it seemed that there were no zombies or mutant beasts here. Far in the distance, green vegetation alternated with yellow soil, and the distant mountains exuded a deep and mysterious atmosphere.
Cheng Duo started to doubt. Could there really be such a hidden place near Base C City? It seemed highly unlikely.
He didn't approach the villagers recklessly. He hobbled back along the mountain path he had come from, intending to wait for the mysterious person to return and inquire about the situation.
However, Cheng Duo soon realized he was overthinking. The reason the mysterious person had rambled on before leaving was that he had no intention of coming back.
Cheng Duo recalled the instructions he had received. He searched the cave and found a small amount of pine nuts, peanuts, chestnuts, and other dried fruits. The kernels were all small, as if they were collected locally from the forest. There was also a small bag of black beans and a small pottery jar… coarse flour? And some kind of biscuit that he didn't recognize, as hard as a rock.
Cheng Duo started by eating the dried fruits, then chose the coarse flour from the black beans and flour. But he quickly realized he had made the wrong choice. The reason the flour was coarse was that the person grinding it hadn't removed the husks from the wheat; they had directly ground the bran into the flour.
Fortunately, Cheng Duo had come from the post-apocalyptic world. He swallowed a bowl of dough dumpling soup with just salt, even though he accidentally burnt it because he didn't know how to use the pottery jar, but he drank it without changing his expression.
Three days had passed, and the medicine was already finished. Cheng Duo's injuries had also improved significantly. After all, he was an esper, and combined with the several days he spent in a coma, it wasn't surprising that his injuries had healed to this extent.
What concerned Cheng Duo was the crystal nucleus he had swallowed earlier. Apart from initially feeling disoriented, his body didn't seem to have any problems.
Cheng Duo didn't like having a sword hanging over his head, but there were no medical institutions here where he could get it checked. Even if there were, he didn't want to expose his abnormality. Fortunately, his life was also something he had obtained by chance, so if he couldn't figure it out, he simply wouldn't dwell on it.
In fact, he hadn't been idle during these three days. He had been establishing simple defenses around the cave and secretly observing the nearby villagers.
As time went by, Cheng Duo gradually had an unbelievable thought: he seemed to have… traveled through time.
Cheng Duo's mood was complex. Although he disliked zombies and the sunless post-apocalyptic world, that world was still the one he was familiar with. He knew how to survive there.
Furthermore, he had always persevered to stay alive with the obsession of being able to go back and see Cheng Zhao and the others' outcome. If they were living well, he wanted to take revenge with his own hands.
But given the current situation, revenge was no longer possible, and Cheng Duo didn't know what else he could do. In the past, he had fought hard against zombies to support his family, but now it seemed like he had lost his purpose. Being alive was merely an instinct.
If it were someone else, they would probably be delighted to showcase their skills in the new world. However, Cheng Duo was quite pessimistic. The past ten years, a whole decade, meant more to him than just a number! Every time he closed his eyes, he would dream of himself still trapped in the laboratory, helpless and despairing, being dissected by others…
Cheng Duo was aware that his thinking was problematic, but he didn't want to correct anything. Who would dare claim to have a sound mind after surviving in the apocalypse for ten years? Just bringing up one person randomly, their level of brutality would far exceed certain murderers in peacetime.
Fortunately, Cheng Duo didn't have any sadistic or violent thoughts; he was just pessimistic.
Before finishing the last few black beans, Cheng Duo learned how to hunt. He used a piece of broken iron left by the mysterious person in the cave to fashion a wooden spear, and with it, he hunted a wild chicken.
The tremendous force pierced through the chicken's wings, pinning it firmly to a tree. Watching the struggling chicken, Cheng Duo raised an eyebrow in slight surprise. He wasn't accustomed to using a spear; his most commonly used weapon for killing zombies in the past was an alloy machete. However, thanks to his enhanced hearing and powerful physical abilities as an esper, he gradually grasped the technique after a few attempts.
But now that he had caught his prey, how to eat it became a problem: firstly, Cheng Duo's culinary skills had never been developed; secondly, and most importantly, the salt left behind by the mysterious person had already been used up…
Eating the tasteless chicken soup and soaked biscuits, Cheng Duo began to consider going to live in the village. After all, humans are social animals. He couldn't possibly live in a cave forever and be a wild man for the rest of his life, even if he could exchange the meat for necessities from the villagers. But wouldn't he go insane from prolonged isolation from the outside world?
There were past news stories of people hiding in the deep mountains for a dozen or twenty years, their language skills regressing because they had no one to converse with. Cheng Duo didn't want to become like that.
However, he had no identity or wealth. It seemed that the only way to settle in the village was through hunting.
So, Cheng Duo spent three days and hunted five wild chickens and a scrawny wild goat, intending to go to the nearest village to inquire about the situation.
Cheng Duo had thought that he might be rejected by the villagers, but he never expected the situation to be this severe. As soon as those villagers caught sight of him from a distance, they would run away. Some even abandoned their farming tools, as if they had seen something deadly, sprinting away faster than rabbits.
Cheng Duo lowered his head and looked at himself. He did look a bit strange, and he had cut his hair short, but did the villagers really need to react that way?
As for what they were shouting and yelling, Cheng Duo couldn't make it out clearly due to their heavy accents.
However, seeing the villagers behave like this, he felt like turning back. But as he thought about how
hunting for food wasn't easy (in reality, he didn't want to eat tasteless and gamey food without salt), Cheng Duo gritted his teeth and continued walking towards the village.
When he reached halfway, a large yellow bull suddenly charged out of a field by the roadside. The bull had two horns on its head and crimson eyes. Upon seeing Cheng Duo standing in the middle of the road, covered in the scent of blood… The bull suddenly lowered its head, accelerated on its four hooves, and charged towards Cheng Duo.
Behind the bull, two men—one tall and one short—were chasing after it. The short teenager shouted at the sight, "Get out of the way, my big yellow is agitated!"
"What do you mean agitated? It's clearly gone mad!"
Cheng Duo had witnessed the madness of mutated beasts before, and the current bull was just like them. It had clearly locked onto Cheng Duo, and even if he tried to evade, it would relentlessly pursue him. Although the short teenager had good intentions in his reminder, his choice of words was harmful!
Cheng Duo quickly analyzed the situation in less than half a second. Then he decisively threw the prey in his hands behind him, freeing up his hands. He turned around and caught the heavy bull horns that were charging towards him. Due to the tremendous force of impact, the soil beneath his feet was pushed back half an inch—
The man and the bull confronted each other for a few moments. Just as the bull was about to turn and shake off this "abnormal" person, Cheng Duo suddenly shouted loudly. His arm muscles bulged, and with a great effort, he forcefully brought down the massive yellow bull, creating a thunderous noise.
"Moo—"
The teenager behind him, who had been screaming, suddenly fell silent at Cheng Duo's actions.
The villagers who had come to help were also shocked and stood in place, unsure of what to do. Cheng Duo stepped on the struggling bull under his foot and was about to call them over for assistance when a plump woman suddenly emerged from the crowd behind the onlookers. Upon seeing Cheng Duo ruthlessly trampling her own bull, the woman became furious. "My bull—"
"Who are you? How dare you beat my bull!"
Cheng Duo had encountered people like this, who didn't care about right or wrong and were just looking for trouble, a few years ago. But in the years after the apocalypse, everyone had learned to be sensible because those who weren't sensible had already been taught a lesson.
Being taught a lesson in the apocalypse was not a good thing because the tuition fee was often paid with one's life.
He didn't want to waste his time with this woman, so he grabbed her hands that were hitting him and pushed her back. Unexpectedly, the woman lost her balance and ended up sitting on the ground, then she started wailing and making a scene. "Murder! There's a murderer! This hooligan from an outside village stole my bull and even injured people. They're bullying our village in broad daylight—"
She wiped her eyes and scolded the tall young man who was there earlier. "Changsheng, you useless fool! Your own mother was beaten, and you just stood there like an idiot?"
The tall young man looked embarrassed. He had been hesitating before, but when he saw his two big and strong younger cousins rushing forward without a second thought, he had to grit his teeth and follow.
Actually, the tall young man misunderstood the situation. His two cousins arrived late and didn't see Cheng Duo single-handedly bringing down the several hundred pounds heavy yellow bull. They also noticed that the bull was exhaling heavily and had shallow breaths, so they thought Cheng Duo only stepped on it after it fell to the ground. That's why they charged forward without hesitation.
Cheng Duo was irritated by the woman's shrill voice, and his temples throbbed. People who had been in the apocalypse for a long time were highly sensitive to noise. Moreover, this woman was distorting the truth, and the three brothers were incited by her, ready to attack—
Cheng Duo sneered, lifted his foot, and kicked the first man who charged at him dozens of yards away.
He grabbed the other man by his collar, originally planning to bend his knee and break it. However, he suddenly realized that it wasn't the apocalypse anymore, and injuring someone would likely get him arrested. So, he changed his mind and threw the man away like tossing a sack. The same happened to the tall young man… effortlessly, the whole process took less than five seconds.
His other foot was still stepping on the bull, and he hadn't moved a single step throughout.
The village head, Third Uncle Li, who had come with a group of villagers to drive away the bandits, was dumbfounded. This thief was as strong as an ox… no, everyone glanced at the struggling bull under his foot and then heard the explanation from the villager who witnessed Cheng Duo bringing down the mad bull… This wasn't just as strong as an ox; this person had strength even greater than an ox! If the two ruffians who attacked Li Wang approached him together, could they really win?
Don't provoke the bandits, or the whole village will be massacred! Thinking of the miserable state of the Niu family in Niuji Village, Village Head Li felt a shiver run down his spine.