Ch127 – Raising a Big Cat in the Apocalypse (6)
Yan Lanlan invited them to come to the storehouse to hide out.
Her thinking was, with Chi Xiaochi and the rest to help, they could probably easily chase away the rats.
Staying inside was safer than being outside, and there was plenty of water available.
Chi Xiaochi declined, “No.”
After all, that storehouse would soon be raided by the hungry; it wasn’t safe at all.
Yan Lanlan said, “Then let’s just go get something to eat. I’ll use my wages to pay my boss in the morning.”
Chi Xiaochi didn’t tell her that, for the old human race, there would never be another dawn.
He said, “Rats carry viruses. If you get bitten, there isn’t anywhere you can go to get a vaccine shot. It’s better if you don’t risk it; why not come with us?”
The first thing Chi Xiaochi did next was go to the pharmacies he’d marked out on the map.
At present, most people could only think of getting water and food. They didn’t have the capacity to reach a level where they could think about “stocking medicine”.
Chi Xiaochi managed to get a bunch of antibiotics unhindered, even getting some vitamin C tablets.
Because he remembered that Mother Ding was p.r.o.ne to getting oral ulcers.
In the following long winter, these medicines, were treasures one wouldn’t be able to get for all the money in the world.
The last pharmacy he went to was 20 metres away from the Munic.i.p.al Public Security Bureau.
He’d purposely arranged it this way.
After taking a batch of antibiotics, he walked out and turned right, going straight into the Bureau.
The entire city had already descended into chaos. There were too many people calling the police, while all the police that could be sent out had already been sent out. The people who had been left behind to keep guard had all escaped to their cars to hide from the cold, rubbing their hands to keep warm.
The original security system that had been as secure as a city protected by a wall of metal and a moat of boiling water had become a pile of sc.r.a.p metal. Hence, Chi Xiaochi could easily enter.
During the worst part of the beginning of the apocalypse, Ding Qiuyun had once dropped by, but at that time, the weapons depot had already been completely looted, leaving only a few laser weapons, with their energy exhausted and the automatic charging system long gone on strike.
Even if they took them, the most these items could do would be to put up a facade in front of an enemy during a fight. When the fight really started, they could only be beaten by their opponents into wailing and running about wildly.
Ding Qiuyun had still taken them.
Afterwards, they were modified into flashlights by Ding Qiuyun, and used solely for scaring off photophobic creatures.
Stepping into the weapons depot, Chi Xiaochi looked around, then let out a long sigh of relief.
Ding Qiuyun, inside him, began to boil with excitement. The reason for this was, hanging all over the walls of the storeroom, were freely available guns and ammunition.
The air was filled with the slight scent of bluing, as well as the faint smell of gun oil.
Chi Xiaochi took down a string of small, muskmelon-sized hand grenades. As he held them in his hand, he actually felt the urge to kiss them.
Chi Xiaochi discussed with the Ding Qiuyun inside his body, “Hey, bro, calm down a little. If you really like them that much, you can even use the ammunition box as a Kang and sleep on it tonight if you want. Let’s move them first.”
Chi Xiaochi didn’t know anything about weapons, so he handed the body back over to Ding Qiuyun, letting him choose.
In all other matters, Ding Qiuyun was always frank and generous, but the moment he saw these weapons, he lost control. He, almost greedily, raided every corner of the storeroom, piling up every kind of weapon that could be remotely useful next to him.
He couldn’t keep from talking to himself.
“With this, Lanlan won’t die.”
“If we hadn’t used the blunderbuss, we couldn’t have accidentally hurt Xiao Sun’s leg at that time……”
“At that time, I was just a few bullets short; with just a few more bullets, I could’ve saved Old Jing.”
The name of every person who died had rolled across his heart tens of thousands of times, finally becoming a stele engraved in Ding Qiuyun’s blood and bones.
Carrying the stele across two lifetimes, he gritted his teeth and continued onwards, but he endured this hardship gladly.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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061 automatically converted all the weapons into data.
Chi Xiaochi frowned slightly. “Liu-laoshi, no need, I’ll move everything out by myself.”
061 said, “It’s heavy.”
Chi Xiaochi said, “Right now, all the AI in this world should have fallen silent. If you regulate the data too often, it’ll attract their notice.”
061 let out a quiet laugh.
At that very moment, in a place Chi Xiaochi couldn’t hear, 061’s firewalls were pinging crazily, as an abnormal virus launched attacks on it again and again.
And at the same time as he was helping Chi Xiaochi convert the weapons into data, 061 was, according to the information on the virus sent back by the firewall, swiftly updating and optimising the protection barrier again and again. He also quickly put together a new virus from the information he already had, preparing to send a virus back.
But all Chi Xiaochi could hear, was his warm and pleasant laughter.
He insisted, “It’s too heavy. I’ll do it.”
Chi Xiaochi was rather helpless. “Liu-laoshi……”
061 gently cut him off. “Xiaochi, right now I have the ability to take care of you, as well as the ability to take care of myself for your sake. Trust me.”
The moment the words left his mouth, both people froze.
061 felt like these words had come out far too naturally, as if these words had been repeated in his heart tens of thousands of times, just waiting to say it to someone.
The tip of Chi Xiaochi’s heart suddenly trembled, hot blood surging upwards, making his ears quickly start to heat up.
And the little baby leopard, who had been clinging to Chi Xiaochi all this time, perched on his shoulders, became interested in his suddenly reddening ears, clambering over and licking one gently.
The grainy tongue swept over his earlobe, making a thrill run up Chi Xiaochi’s spine. Only then did he come back to his senses and turn to poke the little baby leopard on the tip of its nose, indicating that it shouldn’t make trouble.
The little baby leopard pressed its warm nose against his neck, even trying to fit its body within the outline of his clavicle.
As Chi Xiaochi started a new round of screening with Ding Qiuyun, 061 gathered his mind, perfected both the intrusion module and the resident memory module, and frantically modified the data on the virus sent back by the firewall.
Once everything was ready, 061 opened up the firewall, allowing his μ virus to invade.
Before the original μ virus could reach the control centre, it was utterly destroyed by the new, more powerful μ virus, becoming paralysed and no longer able to function normally.
061 wrapped up his virus gift with a layer of gift wrap reading “feedback information”, and sent it back from whence it came.
After finishing all that, 061 could finally rest his nerves. He let out a sigh of contentment.
Chi Xiaochi’s ears tingled from that warm yet seductive sigh.
He reached up and rubbed at his ears. “What’s wrong?”
061 smiled and said, “Nothing, everything’s normal.”
Only after the third round of plundering, did Ding Qiuyun finally settle down.
He’d already cleared out half the weapon depot; these weapons that could be used to protect people were far more satisfying to Ding Qiuyun than having enough food and water.
Chi Xiaochi took down two laser handguns and pinned them to his waist. Then, he walked out.
When he got to the entrance to the police station, he unexpectedly saw a young man with a thick fringe saying something to Father Ding agitatedly.
Father Ding got out of the driver’s seat, his hands raised as he tried to reason with him.
However, the young man wasn’t willing to listen to any reason. Brandishing a kitchen knife, he yelled loudly, “Don’t f.u.c.king talk to me about those f.u.c.king useless things! Get the f.u.c.k out! Give me the car!”
The little new human girl called He Wanwan was staring, stunned, at the ferocious stranger.
She had yet to come out of her own grief, and couldn’t quite understand how, this world that she’d spent eight years getting familiar with, had changed so much in a single night.
Meanwhile, Yan Lanlan, sitting with her in the backseat, was anxiously grinding her teeth. In her hands, she grasped the already-empty fire extinguisher, wracking her brains for how to get out of the car, and considering from which angle should she go at him to be able to beat up this man, who was blocking their way and trying to rob them, without disabling him, so that he would be in pain but in no risk of dying.
The young man was clearly an experienced criminal, who had already taken advantage of the chaos to steal a lot of things.
But what was also clear, was that he didn’t have very good vision.
His pocket was filled with bright credit cards of all colours. In the following cold of the end of days, they wouldn’t even be worth burning for warmth.
After stealing a bunch of useless trash, he had finally landed on a somewhat useful target.
There was only a pair of middle-aged people and one young girl who looked both delicate and naive. Even though this old man kept saying his ex-army son would immediately be back, please leave, the young man just thought that he was bluffing.
The young man said angrily, “Don’t f.u.c.king try to trick me! All of you get out of the d.a.m.n car! Or I’ll——”
Chi Xiaochi came up behind him, holding his gun by the barrel, and cleanly landed a horizontal hit across his skull, immediately sending that weak, monkey-like young man into a spin, clutching his head as he howled.
As Chi Xiaochi shook out his wrist, he asked Father Ding, “Old Ding, what was he doing?”
However, upon seeing the knife in his hand, Chi Xiaochi lost interest in finding out the truth. “Forget it, it’s not like he was here to ask for directions.”
Then, he glanced over at the young man. “Get lost.”
The young man was scared silly. Not even bothering to grab his knife, he staggered away, one hand protecting his head and the other clutching his pocket full of credit cards.
With a single hit, Chi Xiaochi had successfully exploded his equipment.
He bent down and picked up the kitchen knife. Looking it over, he found that it had probably been stolen. The surface of the knife was made of fine steel, looking brand new, and clearly had never been used.
He said to 061, “I’m taking this. I just so happened to forget to buy a kitchen knife.”
061 laughed, feeling like Chi Xiaochi was particularly cute, really knowing how to live well.
Seeing Chi Xiaochi holding a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, Mother Ding was given a shock. “Qiuyun, I wouldn’t dare to take that thing.”
Chi Xiaochi didn’t dare to say that he was actually carrying half an army firearms depot on him. He got onto the car and explained to Mother Ding, “I’m taking it to protect us, so that we won’t have to encounter things like that again.”
Mother Ding still wanted to say something, but then heard the little baby leopard begin to mewl softly again, its baby cries making one’s heart go soft.
Chi Xiaochi rubbed its little belly. “Hungry?”
The little leopard nuzzled his chest.
Chi Xiaochi “yi”-ed. “Don’t knead, I don’t have—— Hss……”
Hissing out a cold breath, he placed the little troublemaker onto his lap and pulled out a milk bottle from his bag.
The thermos was still filled to the brim with warm water. He poured some out, giving some to the Ding parents, Yan Lanlan and He Wanwan, then mixed goat milk powder into the rest, added cod liver oil, poured it into the milk bottle for animals and shook it. Only after testing the temperature and confirming that it was suitable did he push the rubber nipple into the little baby leopard’s mouth.
It lay on its back, hugging a milk bottle that was bigger than it was, as it drank hungrily.
This was Yan Lanlan’s first time ever seeing someone not only bring their cat when running for their life, but also the cat’s full set of daily necessities.
She said enviously, “Your cat must be very expensive.”
He Wanwan, who hadn’t spoken to anyone all this time, suddenly retorted, “It’s a dog.”
Following that, the two children, one big, one small, poked and prodded at “Boss Coal”, just like that, starting a sincere and friendly discussion and debate on the question “is this a cat or a dog?”.
All while Chi Xiaochi, who knew Boss Coal’s true species, quietly listened to them debate.
In order to avoid arousing suspicion, he also brought back some food for everyone to eat, so as to replenish their physical strength and help them keep awake.
During this, 061 asked Chi Xiaochi once more, about how he was going to deal with Gu Xinzhi.
It was one thing to survive during the apocalypse, and another to finish the task.
061 thought, at the moment, their best plan would be to find Gu Xinzhi before everything happens and pull him into the team, not only strengthening the team overall, but also preventing him from being recruited by the new humans in the future and serving the AIs.
……There was no problem with this method, just that it was a little repulsive, and there was a bit of a security risk.
After all, as a person who was generally apathetic, yet had a strong possessiveness over the things he loved and was also very strong, Gu Xinzhi was really far too unstable, and would inevitably tend towards extremes, forming a potential threat to the overall safety of the team.
After 061 brought up his own idea, Chi Xiaochi raised his eyebrows. “Your idea isn’t bad.”
As he spoke, Chi Xiaochi first used a high-grade time compression card, then threw out a new ability card, and, according to the explanation of how the card worked, immersed himself in Ding Qiuyun’s memories and extracted a complete memory.
“However…… I have an even bolder plan.”
Name: Dream Control Card
Duration: 3 minutes
Quant.i.ty: 1
Quality: Excellent
Type: Single use only
Points required: 10 goodwill points (3 regret points)
Description: A dream of Nanke, dreaming of eating all kinds of delicacies, sleeping until it’s time to eat.
……The function of the card, could be described with the common saying, “anything is possible in dreams”.
Chi Xiaochi had bought many cards, but he had bought the most of this card. One, because it was cheap, and two, because it was practical. Whenever he wanted to get a good night’s sleep, he would use this card on himself and turn his dreams to white nothingness. That way, he wouldn’t be disturbed by his dreams.
Just in case, Chi Xiaochi had collected a huge stock of dream control cards, in case of an emergency.
Now, this stockpile could come into use.
After taking a short rest, Chi Xiaochi got out of the car, pulled out his key, started his motorcycle, and drove out into the endless night.
It had already begun to snow. The little leopard perched on his shoulders drilled into his winter clothes, using the warmth of its body to warm Chi Xiaochi up as it listened to his impossibly close heartbeat.
One of the city’s AI centres had already suspended almost all activity, only retaining the most basic data transfer functions.
The μ virus forced all the AI terminals that were still running to shut down one after another, and sent back the notice that all functions were forcefully shut down to the centre that had sent the μ virus.
When the centre received a seemingly peaceful “shut down message”, it automatically chose to receive it.
The firewall instantly began to shriek, showing—— A virus had invaded.
But it was already too late.
It wasn’t even able to send a single “doubt” message before it was directly made to crash by incredibly powerful paralytic viruses and an overwhelming number of huge-scale file downloads. Its sending function was also temporarily shut off, making it unable to send any messages.
A fluffy baby leopard head occupied all its open pages, reaching out its paw to affectionately greet the central AI.
Soon, the centre received a warning from its AI superior, “Please be silent, repeat, please be silent.”
The centre wanted to send an error report, to explain the situation happening there, but it couldn’t do anything. The virus had already taken complete control over it.
When the superior AI’s warning was unheeded, it determined that this was another “rebelling” AI, and directly sent a command to forcibly shut down its operations.
……Namely, another μ virus.
The second before the μ virus sank in, the little baby leopard’s virus shut off.
The centre was invaded by the μ virus, and sunk into an eternal silence.
While the baby leopard virus waved its paw “goodbye” at the central AI, then put back on its disguise of a “shut down successful” message and automatically went up the line to attack the superior AI that had sent the μ virus to shut down the central AI.