RHWHEG – Chapter 73 The Last Teammate

Yu Qunqing said seriously, “I didn’t ask you here for that. I want the shelter’s terrain map.” He needed to confirm whether certain things had changed too much.

“I’ll tell you everything I know,” Li Yuebo replied. He never let others see his true attitude, always appearing tactful and perceptive. Yu Qunqing was already used to this. When dealing with this kind of teammate, the best approach was to ask directly. “Has Dr. Chen arrived at the shelter?”

“No,” Li Yuebo answered. “I didn’t know about this before leaving the shelter. But Dr. Chen’s only close relative is in the Jiangbei City shelter. Maybe Dr. Chen will come back to take a look.”

As he sketched the terrain map, Li Yuebo casually probed, “The shelter restricts residents’ movement. Ordinary residents can only move around the residential area. Why do you think I’d definitely know the terrain so well?”

“Because doctors are omnipotent,” Yu Qunqing said, fully aware of the test. “Your ability, ‘Delayed Vision,’ isn’t just convenient for surgery—it’s also very useful for observing patrol schedules, isn’t it?”

Li Yuebo’s expression froze. Yu Qunqing figured that out too? He was confident he hadn’t exposed more of his ability in front of Yu Qunqing. Ordinary people would be misled into thinking his ability was only suitable as an X-ray detector. Eight hundred scheming thoughts immediately sprang into action as Li Yuebo began reverse-deducing Yu Qunqing’s personality and intentions.

Yu Qunqing knew the other party must be overthinking again, because Li Yuebo was exactly that kind of person… someone with a very busy mind. Even if endless surgical hell occupied 99% of his brain, he still had to squeeze out the remaining 1% to spin conspiracy theories about everyone.

Clearly, all the teammates had arrived at the district much more easily than in the previous life—so why was only the doctor getting busier and busier?

Yu Qunqing spent a second wondering whether he himself was to blame for screwing over his teammate. But internal brawling had always been tradition. Doctors couldn’t fight—turning that into overtime work seemed perfectly reasonable.

Li Yuebo finished drawing the rough terrain map. It differed only slightly from Yu Qunqing’s memories. Li Yuebo continued his probing: “Between the research center and the industrial zone, the guard happens to be Dr. Chen’s grandson. This person is easy to fool and has low combat power. If you want to invade the research center and seize control of the shelter, I’d recommend this route.”

Yu Qunqing: “? Why would I want to control the shelter?”

“Then I misunderstood,” Li Yuebo smoothly corrected himself. “If you want more information about disasters, you could kidnap this person and threaten Dr. Chen. His name is Tang Qianjiang, only LV1, no real combat experience. According to my professional assessment, the success rate of this operation is one hundred percent. Once we obtain other disaster data, unifying the disasters of Jiangbei City will be within reach!”

Yu Qunqing pinched the bridge of his nose. What kind of ambition had the doctor assigned him in his head?

Still, the idea of kidnapping did make his heart stir.

Tang Qianjiang was his last teammate.

In his previous life, Dr. Chen had come to the Jiangbei City shelter to visit Tang Qianjiang and died in an accident. Tang Qianjiang lost his protection and was shoved into Yu Qunqing’s team, which specialized in extremely high-difficulty missions.

At the time, the team consisted of a captain and vice-captain who couldn’t stand each other, the irritable experimental subject Lin Luyi, Dong Changxin—the murderer from the University Town massacre, Li Yuebo with the lowest surgical success rate, Han Shuzhu, a nominal supervisor who rarely appeared, and then Tang Qianjiang. Entering this team was like a little lamb walking into a pack of wolves.

The team’s adjustment period was utter chaos. Yu Qunqing was so exhausted that he put on She Lulang’s clothes by mistake the next morning. Naturally, She Lulang wore his clothes. The two of them swaggered around in each other’s outfits. That day, the teammates were unusually quiet.

It wasn’t until Yu Qunqing defected from the shelter that Tang Qianjiang opened the AI’s backdoor permissions for him, allowing them to escape smoothly. Only then did Tang Qianjiang reveal the truth:

“I suspect… Dr. Chen was poisoned to death by the research center…”

Yu Qunqing had never intended to destroy the shelter. After all, it housed over ten thousand residents. In his previous life, they might have contributed to the encirclement against him—but as time passed, nitpicking every right and wrong, judging guilt and innocence, was simply too exhausting.

However, uprooting the already rotten research center entirely, and kidnapping a few familiar faces to bring them here, was still doable. Let this disaster district become an anomaly in the age of disasters…

Just as Yu Qunqing was about to tell Li Yuebo to go out and practice their ability coordination—after all, fighting the Eight-Legged Frostfall would be a brutal battle—he saw the office door slowly open. Several pairs of reddened eyes stared at Yu Qunqing and Li Yuebo.

“Doctor, you’ve already been resting for half an hour. The next surgery is waiting for you…”

Li Yuebo’s smile didn’t change. “As soon as my conversation with Mr. Yu is over, I can go.”

Those gazes clung to Yu Qunqing almost tangibly. Li Yuebo’s ability was far too useful on the operating table—an invisible safety net. The small clinic needed Doctor Li!

Yu Qunqing: If I suggest that Li Yuebo leave the clinic, it feels a bit inhumane…

…

Yet an hour later, Yu Qunqing still dragged Li Yuebo into the team. She Lulang and the others had been waiting for quite some time.

Because of excessive overtime, Li Yuebo had fainted in the small clinic. And since the doctor refused to rest—wanting to grind out academic papers the moment he stayed in the district—Yu Qunqing had no choice but to take him outside to kick the overtime addiction. As for the clinic, there were no major surgeries left; the other doctors and nurses were capable of handling things.

She Lulang looked at Li Yuebo’s pale, overworked face, then at Lin Luyi in the distance flying queen bees like kites, Sun Min launching a toy plane with him, and Dong Changxin using her ability to see who could throw farther. Suddenly, he felt an urge that maybe this outing wasn’t worth coming on at all.

“I’m honored to join this team,” Li Yuebo introduced himself solemnly. “Let us work together to eradicate disasters and build a harmonious home for disaster-era humanity.”

Yu Qunqing: “That’s right. Exactly.”

She Lulang… fine. She Lulang was used to it by now.

He tossed the equipment to his teammates, signaling that they were about to depart. The weather was bitterly cold, and corrosive toxic gas was evaporating from beneath the ice. Each of them put on special insulated suits made from scraps of cloth, rabbit down, and wood shavings—stiff and hard, wrapped from head to toe. Movement was difficult, but they were suitable for the hellish weather outside. Once worn, everyone looked a full size bigger. They also donned homemade gas masks. The filter material had been replaced with crushed fruit peels. After repeated experiments by the residents, they finally discovered that the crisp fruit peels from the penguin farm had detoxifying properties.

Lin Luyi was responsible for loading supplies—ample water, fire-starting materials, and some medical items. They were only going to the nearby wetland park to look for medical materials, a same-day round trip, so they didn’t need to bring much. Dong Changxin’s personal gear was the heaviest: a box as tall as a person, filled with ammunition. But Sun Min had helped her install four half-meter-high wheels, so it didn’t slow them down.

Yu Qunqing walked at the very front with his repaired bow case. With toxic gas spreading, using abilities at this stage would greatly increase consumption for the vice-captain, so he would open the way himself.

All along the way they only encountered minor monsters. Aside from working up a sweat climbing over the ruins, there were no other dangers. They climbed into a building; since breathing was difficult, they took off their gas masks and switched to lighter masks instead.

Only then could they finally speak to one another. It was like releasing a flock of crows—this small space instantly became lively.

“I remember there’s a medical point here. Maybe there are supplies nearby?” Sun Min took off his mask and gulped in air, pausing to recover. “Could there be animals around?”

Li Yue Bai chose a spot and used delayed viewing. After confirming there were no traces of animals passing through in the past twenty-four hours, he said the probability of living creatures here was very low. Dong Changxin discovered a hole, and the others followed to investigate.

“There’s a small-scale natural disaster here. Watch the surroundings,” Yu Qunqing shone his flashlight upward. “For example, those man-faced flowers.”

The ceiling was densely covered with flowers the size of dinner plates. Their mouths were wide open, clearly starved for a long time. When they fed, the petals would wrinkle into the shape of a human face—hence the name “man-faced flower.” An F-rank natural disaster, rarely mobile.

Yu Qunqing said, “Besides avoiding them, there’s another way to deal with this kind of flower—”

She Lulang cut in, “Pull it out by the roots. It’s quite useful for absorbing toxins. Take it back with us.”

As soon as he finished speaking, She Lulang’s black bird had already severed the man-faced flower’s root. Yu Qunqing reached out to catch the fallen flower head; flipping it over, it could no longer bite him. The two were remarkably in sync—when they picked up each other’s words, it felt as though they formed a world of their own.

With a hint of showing off, Yu Qunqing handed the flower head to She Lulang. Their gazes crossed, eyes brimming with unspoken meaning. Three steps away, the four teammates’ eyes suddenly widened, darting back and forth between the two; eyebrows arched high, expressions flying everywhere.

“I never noticed before,” Dong Changxin muttered. “Feels like if you two teamed up, the world would be three times more dangerous.”

Sun Min laughed. “Haha, that’s pretty good. I used to worry you two didn’t get along.”

Li Yue Bai, as always, said something diplomatic to mask his true thoughts. “A solid foundation of trust is the key to excellent cooperation. Seeing this in the team really puts one at ease. It’s great that the rumors circulating in the community haven’t affected communication between team members.”

Only Lin Luyi focused on something else. “Such a big flower! Can my bees collect nectar from it?”

“Maybe. Be careful of poisoning,” Yu Qunqing said, handing over the large flower head.

She Lulang heard the discussion among the teammates. He swept a glance over their varied expressions and knew they’d all heard the community’s romance rumors. He then glanced at Yu Qunqing, who was still studying whether the queen bee would collect nectar, and felt restless. He said bluntly, “I’m not… dating anyone…”

Yu Qunqing froze for a moment, then remembered the gossip circulating in the community. He might not care, but that didn’t mean the vice-captain didn’t. He helped clarify: “Of course not. Don’t believe everything you hear. If you’re so idle, go cut down the man-faced flowers.”

“Oh—” Lin Luyi suddenly understood. “So you’re not living together because you’re dating.”

“Lin Luyi, you really have nothing better to do, huh,” Yu Qunqing said.

Sun Min dragged Lin Luyi away, and before leaving even declared his loyalty. “I think as long as the relationship is good, any kind of relationship is fine.”

“Well then, I’ll go pick up trash too…” Dong Changxin sighed deeply. “I can’t keep being unemployed.”

Since the people involved had clarified things, the teammates naturally didn’t continue gossiping about companions they trusted. They continued forward, stumbling along, and soon began discussing serious matters. The earlier rumors passed over them like the wind. In the apocalypse, the present was what mattered most.

The ruins were extremely unstable. After walking an S-shaped route, they gradually felt a burning sensation in their throats when breathing, so they added another layer of masks. To train their scouting abilities across different terrains, they took turns leading the way, with those behind evaluating the differences between leaders to better understand each teammate’s capabilities.

After rotating through several positions, they felt this stretch of road was relatively stable, and their trust in one another increased considerably. At this point, Li Yue Bai finally spoke more normally, no longer wrapping his words in endless pleasantries—mainly because oxygen was scarce here, and speaking long sentences caused a suffocating feeling.

To ease the monotony of the journey, they began discussing whether man-faced flowers could be made into a dish. When people were hungry, they’d do anything—so why not try eating a natural disaster?

Yu Qunqing felt his teammates were all particularly childish. He lagged a few steps behind and walked alongside She Lulang. The world seemed much quieter.

Looking at She Lulang in his mass-produced black robe, Yu Qunqing couldn’t help asking, “When you walk, do you usually transform part of your body to reduce your weight?”

She Lulang replied, “You wouldn’t lose anything by not asking such a childish question.”

“Given how long we’ve known each other, give me a little hint,” Yu Qunqing leaned closer and said softly. “I’ve been thinking about this since my last life…”

In their previous life, he and the vice-captain had traded barbs the moment they met; this life, their opening had been much gentler. The vice-captain showed him boundless patience, and he, in turn, treated She Lulang with complete seriousness. After laying everything bare, their relationship was like two colors blended together—treasure mixed with greater ease. Just like now: looking at the vice-captain who refused him, he subconsciously tested She Lulang’s limits, endlessly amused as he waited for his reaction.

Sure enough, She Lulang shot him a glance full of speechless exasperation. He was just about to speak—

The next second, Yu Qunqing stepped into thin air. It was only a small, insignificant half-meter pit, but She Lulang instinctively grabbed him. Several feathers flew out from his sleeve—Yu Qunqing had guessed right: She Lulang was indeed accustomed to transforming parts of his body into birds while walking to reduce weight. At that moment, however, She Lulang retracted his ability to pull Yu Qunqing back, and with the sudden increase in weight and inertia, he toppled sideways.

Yu Qunqing had already regained his footing and reached out to steady She Lulang, but he watched helplessly as She Lulang fell closer and closer, his mind going blank. Unable to brake in time, She Lulang lightly and swiftly—like a feather touching water—kissed Yu Qunqing on the cheek. The two immediately separated.

Everything happened too fast; Yu Qunqing’s expression was still frozen in shock. Something seemed to have just happened, yet when he tried to think it through, he couldn’t recall anything clearly. He distinctly remembered talking to Dong Changxin a minute ago, worrying about the team’s chaos ten minutes ago, playing a game three hours ago… Only the past dozen seconds replayed repeatedly in his mind, yet he couldn’t determine the meaning of those images.

It seemed like… just an accident—faint, barely there, something that could happen to anyone—normal, nothing to be overly surprised about, even something that would become a comedic moment if placed in a novel… mere physical contact?

With normal emotional intelligence, Yu Qunqing’s best approach might have been to crack a joke and brush it off. But for some reason, he didn’t want to resolve it so lightly. He felt it deserved more seriousness, yet didn’t know what to do, so he fell silent.

Fortunately, no one noticed that his silence carried something unusual. Even She Lulang beside him acted as usual, as if tacitly agreeing to turn the page.

In reality, She Lulang had first been tense like storm clouds before a downpour, mistakenly thinking a tempest was about to break loose. But in those few seconds of silence, his feelings turned into a faint dejection: not even a reaction to this…

He hid the heavy sigh in his heart.

The two continued walking side by side, yet it was as if they were moving along two separate timelines.

…

By evening, they returned with some medical supplies and some soil that might prove useful. The medical supplies were sent to the Crocodile Property Office to exchange for building materials. Though for Yu Qunqing it was essentially moving things from his left hand to his right, appearances still had to be maintained.

The community was as lively as a marketplace. With the cold seeming endless, everyone did their best to stockpile supplies for winter. Materials scavenged from outside were piled up in stacks in open areas like heaps of trash, then sorted and cleaned by designated personnel before being sent to various departments or the trading center.

The community’s agricultural research lab was attempting secondary cultivation of crops from the Penguin Farm, collecting many seeds to test whether they could be successfully grown outside farm environments. At first, there was naturally no yield. They then tried changing their approach, categorizing different soils for experiments—progress was slow for now.

The light industry research lab, however, reaped considerable gains. New gas masks and new thermal clothing were their achievements. They’d also introduced a safe-type stove based on the fireplace in the reading hut, in case they needed timely heating during a second low-temperature explosion.

The electronics research lab had previously struggled with communications, but after the communications department was established, that problem eased significantly. They expanded the broadcast range. Now their main focus was repairing machines scavenged from outside. With no manuals, they started practicing on the most battered ones; their recent success was fixing a compressor, making their thermal clothing even lighter.

The community’s food variety also increased. Meat now included rabbits and ducks; other meats were unavailable. However, many members of the Fourth Ring Chamber of Commerce hoarded snacks, which flowed into the trading center and added new flavors to the community’s menu.

The future of low temperatures and toxic gas sounded terrifying, but when everyone worked toward it together, their hearts felt steadier.

Moreover, now that everyone knew the true form of the community was itself a natural disaster, after some hesitation they developed a sense of belonging to it instead. They worked even harder to feed it disaster stones, hoping the community would grow larger.

System: Burp. I’ve eaten so many snacks lately…

Everyone focused intently on striving for the future. Only Yu Qunqing couldn’t help thinking of other things.

Feeding cats in the small grove, he muttered to the Klein Bottle, “Would something like this happen between you and your friends?”

“Friends?” The Klein Bottle lifted its tail. “Why won’t you bring my friends to me, meow!” It was referring to the flock of sheep it had brought back before.

Yu Qunqing said, “Your friends are safer staying in the zoo. Bringing them back would just turn them into hotpot.”

“Without me, they must be very lonely.” The Klein Bottle pawed at the dirt. “I want to bring them new friends.”

“Ding-dong! The Klein Bottle from Traveling Meow Meow has gathered enough cat-ear grass and decided to head out. Please choose its direction of travel~”