111: Chapter 111: A Bountiful Harvest

Absolute silence. You couldn't even hear the sound of breathing.

Wang Laowu hoisted the bone back onto his shoulder, caught his breath, and wiped the sweat from his face.

Sweat and blood mixed together, dripping down his chin, but there was no exhaustion on his face, only exhilaration.

Luo Xi retracted her halberd, and the pale red light on the blade gradually faded.

Zhou Che was leaning against a lamppost at the entrance of the villa, still chewing on that same stalk of grass.

Seeing the door open, he spat out the grass stalk, brushed the dust off his hands, and strolled inside.

Zhou Che used the system to absorb the five Sequences inside the house.

[Scout Sequence: Tier 2]

[Backpacker Sequence: Tier 1]

[Martial Artist Sequence: Tier 3]

[Botanist Sequence: Tier 1]

[Guardian Sequence: Tier 1]

He gained three new Sequences, but the two he already possessed only gained a little experience and didn't level up.

Furthermore, the Backpacker Sequence actually possessed an independent space, though for now, it could only be used as a warehouse.

"Let's go."

Zhou Che turned and walked toward the villa entrance, patting Wang Laowu on the shoulder as he passed by.

"Is the bone useful?"

"It's great!" Wang Laowu held up the bone. It was stained with a bit of dust, but it was still dazzlingly bright.

"This thing is fucking amazing! Hitting people with it is like using an eraser on pencil marks—you just keep erasing until they're gone!"

"If it's useful, keep it safe. We'll have to process it when we get back," Zhou Che said.

Luo Xi followed behind Zhou Che, glancing back once as she walked out of the villa.

Zhou Che zipped his windbreaker all the way up, tightened the collar, and glanced at the floating car parked at the entrance of the residential complex.

The interior of the car was already piled with supplies; cotton-padded jackets and quilts were stuffed bulgingly, filling half the cabin.

"How's the scavenging going?" he asked Wang Zhiming.

"We've scavenged eighty percent of this street." Wang Zhiming took out a map and made a few marks on it.

"There are two more streets left to search. At our current pace, we can finish everything before dark."

"Then keep searching," Zhou Che said. "We need enough winter supplies for over two hundred people; if we don't have enough, it won't go around."

This trip to Linshui County was definitely worth it.

The floating car convoy lined up under the gray sky and headed toward the camp.

The wind was harsher than when they arrived, hitting the car body like sandpaper grinding against sheet metal.

Zhou Che sat in the lead car, leaning against the window, twisting that stalk of grass back and forth in his hands.

The stalk was already mashed, his fingertips stained with green sap, but he didn't bother to wipe it off.

No one spoke in the cabin. Wang Laowu was snoring against a sack filled with cotton-padded jackets.

Luo Xi sat opposite him, her halberd resting horizontally on her knees, eyes closed, breathing shallowly.

She was recovering her strength. She had contributed the most during the fight back in Linshui County.

Zhou Che glanced at her, then withdrew his gaze and continued to twist the grass stalk.

He had been in a good mood. Two bones, ninety-seven human skin suits, one safe house, five Sequences.

This run to Linshui County was worth it.

But for some reason, the closer they got to the camp, the more unsettled he felt.

He couldn't say what was wrong, but he just felt a tightness in his chest, as if a stone were pressing down on it.

He shook his head, thinking it might just be the aftermath of exhaustion, and didn't pay it any mind.

In the distance, the outline of the camp emerged from the horizon.

The fence was still there, the watchtower was still there, and a few wisps of cooking smoke rose from the camp, only to be scattered by the wind.

Everything looked normal.

But Zhou Che frowned.

It was too quiet.

It wasn't the kind of silence where there was no sound. The wind was blowing, the tent fabric was fluttering, and the campfire was crackling.

It was a different kind of silence—no one was laughing, no one was shouting, no one was talking.

A camp of over two hundred people was as quiet as a graveyard.

"Mr. Zhou?" Captain Liu Ruyan turned her head from the front row; she also sensed that something was wrong.

Zhou Che didn't speak, his eyes fixed on the camp.

A few people were standing at the camp entrance; seeing The Convoy, they ran out.

It wasn't a greeting, nor was it cheering; it was the kind of running that showed they had finally waited for someone and were relieved.

Running at the very front was Lin Wan, with a smile on her face, but that smile was forced, and her eyes were full of anxiety.

"Mr. Zhou! You've returned!" Lin Wan ran to the side of the car, her voice filled with an irrepressible urgency.

"We found the supplies, enough to go around." Zhou Che pushed open the car door and jumped out. "What happened?"

Lin Wan's smile stiffened for a moment.

She looked back at the few Transcendents behind her, and they exchanged glances.

Zhou Che saw it. It wasn't that they didn't want to say it; they were afraid to.

"Speak," Zhou Che said, flicking the mangled grass stalk onto the ground.

Lin Wan gritted her teeth, stepped closer, and lowered her voice.

"Mr. Zhou, two Transcendents have gone missing."

Zhou Che looked at Lin Wan's face for two seconds.

Then he laughed. It wasn't a genuine laugh; it was a laugh of anger.

"Missing?" Zhou Che's voice wasn't loud, but Lin Wan shrank back half a step upon hearing it.

"What did I say before I left? No one is allowed to leave the camp without permission."

"There's food and drink in the camp, so why go out?"

"They didn't go out," Lin Wan shook her head hurriedly.

"They were right here in the camp. They were sleeping in their tents last night, but when we did roll call this morning, they were gone."

The smile on Zhou Che's face vanished.

They vanished right inside the camp. No fighting, no commotion—two Transcendents just disappeared into thin air.

He thought of those human skin suits at Hongfan Plaza.

He thought of those survivors who had vanished into thin air.

Zhou Che didn't ask Lin Wan anything else and directly opened his system panel.

Those two Transcendents weren't missing. They were dead.

Inside the camp, on his own turf, two Transcendents had died without a sound.

He closed the system panel, looked up, and scanned the entire camp.

The campfire was still burning, the tents were still standing, but amidst these familiar things, he felt a chill.

It wasn't a chill from the temperature, but a different kind of cold—gloomy, viscous, burrowing into the marrow of his bones.

It was exactly the same feeling as in the mall at Hongfan Plaza.

Zhou Che closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and activated the Perceiver Sequence.

His perception spread out like a net, covering the entire camp.

Tents, campfires, warehouses, watchtowers—every spot emerged in his mind.

And then he saw it.

The aura of an Anomaly.

The aura of the Anomaly was permeating from all directions.

The entire camp was shrouded in a faint, ethereal aura of the Anomaly.

This aura was very faint, so faint that if one didn't perceive it carefully, it would be impossible to detect.

But it existed, and it was everywhere—in the seams of the tents, beside the campfire, by the well.

Even where Zhou Che was standing, there was a wisp right under his feet.

Zhou Che opened his eyes abruptly, a chill shooting up his spine.

Damn it.

A Domain. The Domain of a Rule-based Supernatural Entity.

He had just crawled out of one Domain at Hongfan Plaza, and upon returning home, he discovered that his home had also been trapped inside a Domain.

This feeling was like escaping from a wolf's mouth, crossing a mountain, only to step into a tiger's den.

Zhou Che stood at the camp entrance, his mind racing.

Should he run? With over two hundred people in tow, where could they run to?

Besides, he didn't want to run.