Night of Despair

Chapter 103: Cultivation Technique One

“Li Rushan might not know the news about Ge Shenghao and the others, of course, he might also be pretending not to know, deliberately deceiving me. But the equipment and weapons of the rescue team far exceed the outside world’s, they could achieve their goal by directly attacking us, there’s no way they’d be indifferent…” Yu Hong hung up the communication, speculating in his mind.

The attack by Ge Shenghao and his people was unexpected, and he guessed they didn’t anticipate the rescue team arriving so quickly either.

Anyway, if these people knew the rescue team was coming today, they definitely wouldn’t have any reason to attack him.

Yu Hong exhaled, opened the door, walked out of the cave, and approached Ge Shenghao.

“It seems the people over there don’t know you’re with me,” he said softly.

This sentence was affirmative, treating speculation as certainty, to communicate with the other party. He wanted to determine their reaction to get more accurate feedback.

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“Hehe…” Ge Shenghao was completely limp, pale-faced, lying on the ground, unable to move.

“Only the four of us took action… Were you worried about the rescue team arriving later?” He was a former postman, having undergone similar training, and naturally understood Yu Hong’s concerns.

“Got anything you want to say?” Yu Hong, having been exposed, couldn’t be bothered with small talk and directly asked. “Didn’t you ask about my situation before launching an attack?”

“Who the hell knew you could fend off a Multi-eyed Bird by yourself!?” Ge Shenghao let out a bizarre laugh. “A person like you, it’s my first time seeing… Not even those monsters fully enhanced can compare with you… The victor becomes the king, and the defeated is the villain— just kill me. Being enhanced as much as you are, at most I’ll die a little later than you.”

He leaned back nonchalantly onto a luminous stone, fearlessly watching Yu Hong.

This was actually an avoidable fight, but due to the time difference and Ge Shenghao’s arrogance, it turned into a slaughter.

They blindly trusted their own judgment, and the result was the current situation.

No one could have imagined that someone who lived in the wilds long-term, with irregular food intake and no security, could repel a level four dangerous monster without special weapons.

Food shortage, low-grade weapons and equipment, alone without backup— who could have thought that such a person would be so much stronger than these top-tier elites?

So much so that even now, Ge Shenghao occasionally wondered if he might be dreaming.

“Got anything last to say?” Yu Hong asked.

“…Can you tell me, how exactly are you so strong?” Ge Shenghao paused, then asked.

“Can’t.” Yu Hong shook his head.

“…Then just kill me,” Ge Shenghao laughed casually.

Thud!

Yu Hong struck like lightning, hitting the man’s forehead squarely.

The stick crushed his forehead, blood spilled from his mouth and nose, he died instantly.

Standing in place, Yu Hong picked up the stick, approached the hole in the stone wall, and tapped the obstructing stones.

Thump, thump.

The stones slowly moved aside, revealing the heads of Qiu Yanxi and Wei Shanshan.

They clung to each other, drenched in sweat, not knowing how long they had hidden inside.

“The rescue team has arrived,” Yu Hong informed them.

Upon hearing this, they were first stunned, then their faces burst with joy.

“Quick, quick, quick!” Qiu Yanxi hurriedly urged her daughter, and they both crawled out of the cave.

As they came out, they saw Ge Shenghao, limp on the ground, lifeless, and they fell silent for a moment, but they didn’t say or ask anything, and began to pack up quickly.

Actually, there wasn’t much to pack, they hadn’t brought anything with them when they came over. Even their food had been provided by Yu Hong.

“Excuse me, this, can we take it with us?” Qiu Yanxi asked carefully, holding the talisman array plate.

“You can. It’s not worth much now anyway,” Yu Hong knew that the Joint Forces had already begun mass production.

“There’s one more thing… can I take some of this grass with me to use as a sample? Maybe it can save more people,” Qiu Yanxi asked again. “I can promise that if you agree, we’ll split half the profits from any technological patents we get with you. You can exchange for supplies through the postal channel.”

These days she had observed carefully and confirmed that what had been protecting them all along was this luminous stone grass.

However, broken or uprooted pieces of luminous stone grass were useless, quickly becoming indistinguishable from ordinary wild grass.

Only if it were transplanted with roots intact might they be able to research something.

Yu Hong thought about it, technically speaking luminous stone grass couldn’t be too far from his surroundings; the Black Mark’s enhancements had a range limitation.

But he also wanted to see if there were other ways to get around this limitation.

If something could indeed be researched, it might help with the increasingly deteriorating environment outside.

And if he could get some supplies in return, all the better.

“You can try,” he said casually.

His consent was partly because the utility of luminous stone grass was so limited, it was only good for creating a buffer zone that isolated shadows and safehouses.

This mark function still required detailed research and exploration.

With permission granted, the mother and daughter quickly dug up two luminous stone grass plants, wrapped them in plastic bags, and left the courtyard with Yu Hong, heading towards the post office.

This time, because of Ge Shenghao and also because of their wariness of the rescue team, Yu Hong didn’t get close; he just sent them from afar, watched as they approached the strange car near the post office, were taken inside by people, and then he left.

The rescue team definitely had powerful weapons; otherwise, they could not have safely reached this place.

From this point on, the trade between Yu Hong and Wei Hongye became dominated by Wei Hongye.

From a distance, he saw Li Rushan waving at him and also saw Wei Shanshan frequently looking back towards him.

Qiu Yanxi was speaking cautiously to a mask-wearing woman.

Yu Hong didn’t approach, instead, he slowly backed away, disappearing into the fog.

Based on the intelligence he had gathered earlier, the lock-on capability of the micro-missiles likely couldn’t confirm distant targets, meaning that interference may be strong, and they could only become aware of the monsters once they were close enough to sense them.

So, for his own safety, he stayed hidden in the fog as much as possible.

Standing in the fog, Yu Hong watched as the mother and daughter boarded the beastly vehicle, and the three members of the rescue team exchanged a few words with Li Rushan. The masked woman leading them turned her head to glance in his direction before turning back, patted Li Rushan on the shoulder, and then boarded the vehicle.

The vehicle started, emitting a faint engine noise, then turned the corner, slowly driving down the empty path into the fog. It wasn’t long before it disappeared from sight.

Inside the vehicle.

Qiu Yanxi and Wei Shanshan sat close together, listening to the surrounding cries of overwhelming joy, the low groans of sorrow and pain, the happy and even slightly delirious laughter. For a moment, it felt as if these people might all have some mental issues.

On the contrary, the two of them, amidst such a group of discomposed survivors, were elated but their emotions remained conspicuously stable.

“Mom, did you give dad’s relic?” Wei Shanshan couldn’t help but look up and ask. She was very grateful to Hong, knowing that without him, she and her mother would not only have been violated but might not have survived until the rescue team arrived.

“Yes, I left it at the post office. Since Mr. Yu didn’t want to show himself, I had Mr. Li Rushan pass it on.” Qiu Yanxi nodded, her heart filled with hopes for life.

“I hope Mr. Yu is unharmed,” Wei Shanshan whispered her blessing. Although his rescue wasn’t without cost, in such a deteriorating environment, ensuring a basic fair exchange was already the greatest kindness.

But Qiu Yanxi was thinking further, she gently protected the two luminous stone grasses she had unearthed, full of anticipation that her husband might discover something through them.

Yet in a place she couldn’t see, those two luminous stone grasses began to rapidly turn black after leaving Yu Hong, and in no time, they silently shattered, turning into countless fine ashes.

Yu Hong waited for the rescue team to leave completely, let out a breath, and after waiting a bit longer, he approached the post office.

“Old Li.” He saw Li Rushan sitting in the yard, sorting through a pile of parcels on the ground.

“Where’s the item from Wei Hongye?” Yu Hong didn’t bother with the parcels and asked directly.

“Got it.” Li Rushan tossed him a silver circuit board, “This is the startup mainboard. Find the place, plug it in, and you’ll get what you want. The specific storage location is on the back.”

Yu Hong caught the circuit board and looked at the back.

The back was written in black ink with a line of words.

‘Walk four or five hundred meters south of Anxi Bridge in Lulong County to reach the Anxi Military Isolation Zone, the stuff is in the underground third floor of the isolation zone, in the power room.’

“Where is Lulong County?” Yu Hong pocketed the circuit board and asked.

“Quite far, almost seventy or eighty kilometers from here. He gave you the closest address,” Li Rushan replied, “Alright, pack up and get ready to leave. It’s not safe outside now, those—”

Boom!

Before he could finish, an explosion sounded in the distance, followed by a burst of intense machine-gun fire, accompanied by the incessant screeching of the Multi-eyed Birds.

“Sss… the convoy attracted at least a dozen Multi-eyed Birds over!” After carefully listening to the noise, Li Rushan took in a sharp breath.

Yu Hong’s expression also turned solemn, looking in the direction from where the sounds emanated.

He could handle at most two Multi-eyed Birds, but with more than a dozen of them… apart from hiding, he had no other option.

“Can they win?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“They can win, they have many high-powered weapons, but the key is not to win, but to return to Hope City before they exhaust their weaponry. Multi-eyed Birds are inexhaustible. The most disgusting thing about Blood Tide Monsters is their undying nature; they revive much faster than the shadow.”

Li Rushan sighed, picked up the parcels from the ground, and walked towards the dilapidated stone house.

“Together?” He asked.

Yu Hong shook his head, quickly turned around, and headed back to the safe house.

“Communicator contact.” He dropped a sentence and soon disappeared into the fog.

With the relic in hand, it was time to retrieve his most core energy system.

The outside world was becoming increasingly dangerous. He had to establish a self-sufficient cycle as soon as possible, otherwise, if a day came when the outside was utterly uninhabitable…

Running wildly through the fog, Yu Hong suddenly stopped, spotting Qiu Yanxi in a grey tracksuit standing by a tree to his right, with Wei Shanshan in a white silk short skirt slowly walking out beside her, both women smiling at him but keeping their distance.

Without a second thought, Yu Hong immediately threw out a talisman array.

Pfft!

The talisman array board hit the spot where the two women were, instantly lighting up with white light.

The white light exploded, and the two women disappeared.

‘These shadows are becoming more and more rampant…’ He glanced at the Red Value detector embedded in his collar.

‘27.133.’

This enhanced detector presented an exaggerated environmental value.

Yu Hong’s heart sank. Previously, a regular shadow’s Red Value would be a bit over twenty.

Now, just the environmental Red Value alone had reached 27… This wasn’t the Red Value of a shadow, since the shadow had already been offset by the talisman array; this was the pure environmental Red Value.

He picked up the incompletely consumed talisman array board and ran all the way back to the Luminous Stone Grass courtyard.

He closed the courtyard gate, entered the cave, and the silver talisman array on the back of the door continued to release an extremely faint white glow.