allonlinenovel Chapter 100 Cell Recombination
Chapter 100 Cell Recombination
While chatting in the convenience store, Lu Yuan didn't forget to observe his surroundings. He noticed that the store was only stocking the same items as yesterday, and each time the stock was replenished, the amount of money in the box in front of Grandpa Wang would decrease. It seemed that these items weren't free; they required cash exchange. Lu Yuan wondered if they only accepted Chinese currency.
By the time those people came for the tenth time, Grandpa Wang had packed up all his belongings, put on thick clothes, and was ready to leave the convenience store with everyone.
After thinking about it, Lu Yuan decided to help them put all the useful things they couldn't carry into his space and take them with him. Since he didn't have to carry them himself, and it was an easy favor, why not?
With everyone's help, the elderly man was helped onto the snow and put on the sled they had prepared. The group then headed back in the blizzard.
Once inside the building, Lu Yuan and Qin Yuan discovered that there were over a hundred survivors. They had converted the floors below the fifth floor into warehouses, and every apartment was filled with supplies. Wei Cheng explained that these supplies were generated by the convenience store before the snowfall and generously told Lu Yuan to take whatever he needed without hesitation.
The apartment on the fifth floor, which Lu Yuan and the others had observed several times from across the street, was bought for Wei Cheng by his parents. He initially opted for a simple industrial-style renovation, and the apartment was quite spacious with a good view from the large floor-to-ceiling windows. Later, it was transformed into a common activity area, canteen, and food storage area for everyone.
Lu Yuan saw that they had converted a fireplace into a traditional fireplace in the middle of the living room. The fireplace was burning firewood, making the whole room very warm. He also noticed that they had installed a flue pipe on the fireplace. Wei Cheng explained that this was done by one of their interior designers, who was famous in N City.
The other renovated rooms in the building were assigned as dormitories. There were no strict requirements; they all lived with people they were close to, and it seemed like everyone was getting along well.
Lu Yuan took out all the things he had helped bring back from his spatial storage and put them in Wei Cheng's house. Then, he and Qin Yuan followed Wei Cheng and the doctor from their group to visit the two survivors who had fallen into a coma due to fever.
The two survivors are both young women. According to the doctor, they suddenly developed a fever five days ago and fell into a coma shortly afterward. They have had intermittent fevers and have not woken up since.
Although there was a doctor here, there was no medical equipment. They had been relying on the doctor to feed them liquid food to keep them alive. Hearing this, Lu Yuan suddenly realized that they had never fed Gu Nanfeng.
Lu Yuan left them some medicine, nutritional fluids, and infusion equipment. Thinking about the solar power system on their rooftop that they hadn't finished setting up yet, and with snow falling every day, it wouldn't be of much use even if it were completed. So he left them some generators and fuel. Finally, he gave them two walkie-talkies and then politely declined Wei Cheng's invitation again. He and Qin Yuan returned to their building from the underground parking lot.
As soon as they entered, Lu Yuan quickly took out nutrient solution and IV equipment from his spatial storage and rushed into the guest room where Gu Nanfeng was lying. However, when he got to Gu Nanfeng, he stopped; he had no idea how to administer an IV.
Du Wenqing had been wondering why Lu Yuan rushed to see Gu Nanfeng as soon as he returned, but after Qin Yuan's explanation, he realized that they hadn't fed Gu Nanfeng any food or water for over four days. He and Qin Yuan followed him into the guest room, and the three grown men were immediately at a loss.
Qin Yuan thought for a moment and prepared to go from the underground parking garage to the building across the street to find the doctor for help. Just as he was about to leave, Lu Yuan stopped him. As expected of a high-tech product, Lu Yuan circled the medical machine for a long time and poked at the monitor several times before finally finding the relevant function and opening the medicine dispenser on the medical machine.
Following the instructions on the medical machine's screen, he added nutrient solution, and the medical machine miraculously started working again, trapping Gu Nanfeng inside. The screen began loading again.
However, this time the countdown was much shorter than last time, only eight hours. Lu Yuan checked the time; they had been lingering in the building across the street for a long time, and it was almost 10 p.m. The three of them ate something and then went to rest, hoping that when they woke up tomorrow morning, Gu Nanfeng would also wake up.
Gu Nanfeng, who had been lying in the medical machine for several days, seemed to be having an extremely long and drawn-out dream.
In his dream, he felt as if he had been mercilessly thrown into a blazing furnace, suffering intense heat. His thoughts became chaotic in the extreme torment, and his heart was filled with fear and pain.
He felt as if the cells in his body were boiling and reorganizing. He could feel his original cells breaking down one by one, and then his body rapidly replacing them with new cells. The feeling was indescribable; his entire body was filled with unbearable heat and pain.
This torment continued until he vaguely saw someone slowly approaching him. As the person drew closer, a chilling aura swept over him like a tide, instantly neutralizing the unbearable heat on his body.
After these two diametrically opposed forces collided repeatedly within his body, they miraculously began to merge.
Finally, he felt his tightly gripped chest gradually relax, and then he felt a cool, trickling sensation flowing through his veins, slowly reaching every corner of his body and spreading throughout his entire being.
DAY106
When Lu Yuan woke up, it was not yet six o'clock. He glanced at the medical machine; the hatch, which had been closed again last night, had not yet reopened, but the progress bar was nearing its end. He took advantage of this time to wash up.
When they returned to the guest room, Du Wenqing and Qin Yuan also got up. They sat on the edge of the bed in the guest room, still half asleep, watching the progress bar on the medical machine slowly move.
Right now, all three of them were in a lot of pain. They were worried that once the progress bar was finished, Gu Nanfeng would still not wake up, just like last time.
Before the medical machine's progress bar had reached its end, Gu Nanfeng suddenly let out a heavy sigh inside the cabin, and instantly the cabin was filled with hot air. Although Lu Yuan had kept the temperature in the guest room at around 20°C, the observation window of the medical cabin still fogged up with a thin layer of mist due to the temperature difference between the inside and outside.
At the same time, the medical machine sounded an alarm, and Lu Yuan and the other two were at a loss. They could only watch as Gu Nanfeng's breathing became faster and faster inside the cabin, and the alarm of the medical machine became louder and louder.
Ten minutes later, the alarm on the medical machine stopped, the heart monitor started beeping rhythmically, and Gu Nanfeng's breathing returned to normal.
Lu Yuan and Qin Yuan finally relaxed and let out a long breath, while Du Wenqing finally loosened his clenched fist. The moisture in the medical pod gradually dissipated, revealing that Gu Nanfeng's complexion was much better than it had been in the previous few days, finally looking somewhat healthy again.
The three of them kept watch for another half hour, and finally the hatch of the medical machine slowly opened. Although Gu Nanfeng was not fully awake yet, Lu Yuan could see that his eyelashes were trembling slightly and his fingers were also showing a slight reaction.
Du Wenqing relaxed his shoulders, stood up from the single sofa by the window, and slowly said, "It should be fine now."
Although Gu Nanfeng was still unable to open his eyes at this moment, his consciousness was fully awake. He felt that his consciousness was like countless fibers, filling the entire environment in which he was. Even without opening his eyes, he could "see" the bedroom he was in, the medical machine he was lying on, Lu Yuan who was standing anxiously beside him, and Du Wenqing who looked slightly tired and Qin Yuan who seemed to be still asleep as they walked out of the room.
He tried hard to open his mouth and tell Lu Yuan beside him that he was alright, but he still seemed unable to fully control his body. Contrary to his complete loss of physical control and inability to move, his mental state became extremely active.
Although he didn't feel Lu Yuan speaking, he seemed to be able to clearly "see" what Lu Yuan was thinking at this moment. He seemed to be saying, "Why isn't he awake yet? Is this damn medical machine even useful?"
Gu Nanfeng also vaguely "saw" Lu Yuan's space for the first time. His spiritual body was in front of Lu Yuan's face, presenting him with the so-called "space panel" that he had only heard Lu Yuan talk about, but he could not find out what was displayed on it.
"Could this be my special ability?" Gu Nanfeng wondered to himself. He was well aware of his changes and quickly adapted to them. He tried to expand his consciousness, extending it further and covering a wider area.
He could "see" Qin Yuan washing up in the bathroom; his body was a fiery red, which Gu Nanfeng guessed represented Qin Yuan's fire-based superpower. However, Gu Nanfeng didn't see any color representing a superpower on Du Wenqing, who was preparing breakfast in the kitchen, and he couldn't understand why. This feeling was very strange, very peculiar.
He continued to expand his consciousness. He could feel that he was in a residential building. It was snowing outside, and the snow was very thick. He couldn't see too far away, but not far away, he saw a green light. It was a very bright green, very similar to the red on Qin Yuan's body.
Lu Yuan searched through his space several times, but couldn't find anything more advanced than the medical machine in front of him. This time, he carefully looked through it and realized that there were very few things in his space that were obviously high-end and not products of modern society, such as spaceships and this medical machine. He only had this one machine.
Unable to find anything else that could help, Lu Yuan had no choice but to give up. He looked at Gu Nanfeng lying in the medical machine, completely unaware that this still unconscious "patient" had already used his consciousness to explore the entire area within a fifty-meter radius.
"Lu Xiaoyuan, did you feel anything?" Lu Yuan was about to go out for breakfast when he saw Qin Yuan push open the guest room door and walk in. He scanned the entire room and then turned to Du Wenqing, who was still in the kitchen, and asked, "Old Du, you really didn't feel anything?"
"What do you feel? It's cold again?" Lu Yuan was also taken aback by Qin Yuan's question. However, it did feel colder today. Yesterday, he and Qin Yuan had measured the outdoor temperature on their way to the convenience store, and it was already below minus thirty degrees Celsius. Today, it felt like the temperature had dropped by more than one or two degrees.
"No, I feel like something is watching me." Qin Yuan looked around the room again. "That thing came out of this room."
"Captain Qin, don't make it sound like there's a ghost in the house." Lu Yuan has been afraid of these things since he was a child. He looked around, and with the temperature dropping today, he felt a chill run down his spine.
"You're not afraid of zombies anymore, so why are you afraid of ghosts?" Qin Yuan looked at it several times but couldn't find the source of his discomfort. He could only put his arm around Lu Yuan and go back to the restaurant with him to eat.
“Physical monsters and ethereal monsters are not the same.” Lu Yuan shrank his neck and looked back at the guest room. He didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but he felt that the room was gloomy.
"Let's have breakfast." Du Wenqing casually cooked three bowls of noodles. The noodles would clump together if left for too long, so he urged the two to eat quickly. He didn't feel anything strange at all, assuming that Qin Yuan was just teasing Lu Yuan out of boredom, and even gave Qin Yuan a serious lecture.
"No, I really felt it," Qin Yuan still tried to "argue," but he couldn't describe what it felt like at all. It was as if he was completely naked and had been seen through by others.
“But we don’t feel anything,” Lu Yuan said, looking around as he ate his noodles. “I just feel like the room got colder after you spoke.”
"Buzz buzz buzz," the three of them were eating noodles when they heard the walkie-talkie in the living room ring. Yesterday, Lu Yuan and Qin Yuan left two walkie-talkies for Wei Cheng, mainly in case that if there was extremely cold weather and everyone could not go out, they could communicate through the walkie-talkie if anything happened.
"...thing? Brother Qin, is there something strange on your end?" Qin Yuan picked up the walkie-talkie, but before he could speak, Wei Cheng's voice came from the other end. He must have said it for the second time.
"Hmm? Did you feel anything?" Upon hearing Wei Cheng's words, Qin Yuan glanced at Du Wenqing and Lu Yuan with an expression that said, "See, I wasn't lying."
"Yes, Da Hua and I both felt it. It felt like it was coming from your direction. Have more zombies appeared over there?" Among the survivors on Wei Cheng's side, besides him who has superpowers, there is also a girl that Lu Yuan saw last time who could carry a lot of rice by herself. She also has superpowers, but they are different from Wei Cheng's. Her superpower is not manipulating vines, but manipulating flower petals. Both of them should belong to the wood-type superpowers.
"I have the same feeling, but I haven't found any zombies. Don't worry, I'll keep observing." The zombies had all left the neighborhood the day before, so it's hard to say whether this strange feeling means that evolved zombies have appeared nearby. At first, it could be said that Qin Yuan was just being sensitive, but now that the two ability users in the building across the street have the same feeling, they have to be extremely careful.