Chapter 11

The air suddenly went dead still.

Luo Yongzhi had just swallowed his anti-mutation pill and bandaged his wounds. At those words, his face, already pale from blood loss, nearly froze over.

He suddenly recalled what the zombie had said when it lunged at him: "Xiao Luo, what do you want for dinner? I'm thinking hotpot. You don't have to come along!" Now that he thought about it, that was unmistakably the captain's tone and manner.

All his fond memories were strangled by those words. His former good brother had become... a soulless broadcasting machine.

"My condolences," Dong Huadan said, frowning as she saw his pale, unsteady figure. "Go lie down for a bit, Xiao Luo. Your health comes first. The basement's been cleared; there's no rush on the armory."

He shook his head, insisting on finishing the mission before resting.

This was something the captain had worried over and prepared for a long time. Luo Yongzhi wanted to see it through beautifully, so he could rest in peace.

The basement wasn't large, with only four rooms: a main hall, a rest room, a monitoring room, and a locked storage room. After finding nothing in the other places, everyone was convinced the weapons were in the storage room.

But the storage room was locked. They searched high and low for hours without finding the key. As the sky darkened, stomachs began to rumble one after another.

"Let's have dinner." Dong Huadan glanced unobtrusively at Luo Yongzhi, who was on the verge of collapsing yet still holding on, and sighed. She called out to Lin Tu to join them.

Lin Tu's mind switched back to dinner. To be fair, her lunch of crab leg and pickled cucumber sandwiches had been too small to fill her up—though, of course, she had boiled two extra packs of rice noodles on the side, but that was beside the point. To make up for the meal that had shortchanged her, she'd specially stewed a big pot of tomato beef brisket, using a full two cans of beef. It was probably still warm over the fireplace now.

Oh, right. She'd also greased a clay pot, poured in rice, sliced up half a strip of cured meat and half a sausage, cracked in two salted duck eggs, scooped in a spoonful of beans, and made a pot of claypot rice.

Speaking of which, players had meal coupons, so they must eat even better, right? Not like her, eating canned beef with no chewiness at all.

Lin Tu unconsciously drooled with envy.

Just as she was thinking this, she suddenly saw the others silently raise their flashlights, their faces emotionless as they sat around the table like they were performing some ritual.

Lin Tu: "?" What was this?

Then, she watched as everyone pulled out a nearly identical pitch-black coupon, tore it open with the most expressionless faces possible, and a piece of bread the size of a palm, thick as an arm, pitch-black, stiff, and even emitting a sour stench, appeared in their hands.

Zhang Zisheng, who was facing Lin Tu, lowered her head, as if remembering her captain's death.

Her eyes red, she tore off a tiny piece of bread like a machine, and using her tears, snot, and saliva, shoved it into her mouth piece by piece, chewing slowly and forcefully.

It was as if she was protesting in this way. She was just a weak, ordinary human, unable to change anything in front of her. But she was determined to live.

No matter how difficult things got, no matter how awful the food tasted, nothing could stop her from living. She was determined to rebel against this terrible world, determined to watch as heaven showed its injustice!

Lin Tu, a bit shocked, shifted her gaze to the others. They were all in similar states. Even Dong Huadan had a look of "Life is shit, right? Then I'll eat it with everything I've got!" Lin Tu couldn't help but twitch her mouth.

"Wait, you all..." she finally couldn't help asking. "You're eating this?"

The others looked up as if it were the most natural thing. Lin Tu looked at their faces, which had lost all appetite, and felt her own desire for food waning.

She sighed, remembering that their captain had just died.

Actually, as a madwoman, Lin Tu never thought death was a bad thing. She even wanted to keep an old, quiet one for a lifetime, waiting for death. But her experience told her that others didn't share that view.

"Wait for me a bit. I'll bring something back." With that, Lin Tu strode out of the basement.

She drove all the way back to the house, grabbed some things, and then returned to the Combatants. Of course, it wasn't that Lin Tu wasn't worried they'd run off; her drone was still in the basement, which was some insurance.

Twenty minutes later, Lin Tu was back in the basement.

Everything seemed unchanged. The others, having waited for Lin Tu—though they'd needed the time to force down that bread anyway—were still sitting around the round table like they were worshipping some evil god, staring mournfully at the damn bread and contemplating their damn lives.

Lin Tu unceremoniously placed a large stew pot in the center of the table, then left the basement again.

"What's Miss Lin doing?" Tian Jingjing asked, confused. Compared to their own melancholy over the captain's death, Lin Tu seemed more like the one who'd been triggered.

Suddenly, a warm, sour tomato smell aggressively wafted into her nose, making her stomach rumble and her mouth water uncontrollably.

Tian Jingjing: "?" What was this? Had she grieved so hard she was hallucinating?

Tian Jingjing followed the smell to the stew pot in the center of the table.

At the same time, the others also caught the tomato scent. Just as they were wondering, Lin Tu walked in carrying a desk lamp and another clay pot, which she set next to the stew pot.

Then, with practiced ease, she took out a bowl with two instant noodle cakes and five or six bottles of beer she'd found at the convenience store earlier, placing them all on the table.

"Back home, we have a tradition of offering meat and alcohol to departed loved ones," Lin Tu said, knowing that many worlds existed and unsure if their worlds had similar customs. "I thought if your captain's spirit is watching over you, he wouldn't want you eating poorly. These offerings might not be quite fit for a memorial, but I think he'd be happy to share a bite and a drink with you."

As she spoke, she lifted the lids of both pots.

Suddenly, a wave of steaming heat hit them. Under the lamplight, the tomato beef brisket stew glistened with an enticing golden-red sheen, the beef and tomatoes simmered together into an unheard-of symphony of comfort.

The scent from the clay pot was even more complex: salted duck egg yolks, the rendered fat of sausage and cured meat, the fragrance of beans—all mingling in the glossy, silky rice, baking into a festive, joyful, bustling atmosphere.

The cold basement suddenly shifted, filled with warm, cozy air.

The others were hit by this sudden assault of delicious food, feeling like they were dreaming.

This... who in their right mind ate like this?

They all unconsciously gaped—not from hunger, but from sheer shock.

"We have that custom back home too," Luo Yongzhi said, his voice low. "Today marks exactly one week since the captain went missing. The seventh day is when the spirit is said to return home. If he were here, he'd be more than happy to have a few drinks."

"Thank you, Miss Lin. I've stored up some food too. Let me bring it down to share."

He said this, then, without looking up, used his steel rod as a cane and left the basement. As he turned, his eyes were clearly a little red.

Lin Tu smiled. "That's great then. Just don't blame me for hogging the instant noodles—there are too many of you, and I can't afford to share those."

"No way! No way! We're already so grateful!" Tian Jingjing waved her hands hastily, only to have the sour taste of the bread surge back into her mouth. She hadn't thought much of it before, but seeing those two steaming pots of delicious food, she could no longer tolerate the taste of the bread.

Warm tears welled up in Tian Jingjing's eyes unbidden. Seeing the others looking at her, she said frankly, "I just suddenly feel a bit happy, a bit homesick, and missing my friends. It's a shame my home is gone, and my captain... it's been so long since I've felt this way."

"That's the feeling of being alive—what we're all striving for," Dong Huadan said, patting her back. She turned to Lin Tu. "Thank you, sis. I can't let you foot the bill alone. I brought some food too. Let me bring it down and share."

"I have some too." At that, everyone rose and went to their vehicles to grab their supplies.

Moments later, beside the two big pots, a variety of other treats appeared: opened little cakes, chocolate bars, homemade pickled pig skin, and so on. They were everyone's favorite indulgences. Not much, but for people in a disaster, it was absolutely a feast.

After toasting together in memory of their fallen captain, they ate every bite with reverence.

They didn't throw away the black bread. They broke it into pieces, soaked it in the warm, tangy tomato beef broth until it swelled, and ate it with the meat. It turned out to be an unexpectedly delicious treat.

"Sis Lin, I'm so happy," Zheng Yangyang said, crying as he ate. "If I could eat like this every day, I'd work like a horse for you!"

"Me too!" Tian Jingjing chimed in, raising her hand.

Of course, to Lin Tu, this was just one ordinary meal among many in her daily life.

She was a little puzzled why the players, who could carry coupons, only ate black bread. Fortunately, as they ate, they started chatting. Lin Tu picked up quite a bit about [Infinite Calamity] from the conversation and came to understand the reason.

Players were different from her. After finishing a game, they would return to a place called "Doomsday Town." As the name suggested, it was a town built on a barren stretch of land after the apocalypse.

There, the environment was unable to grow crops or raise livestock. Though the facilities were fairly complete and there was plenty of good food, everything came from the system and had to be purchased with points. Many players chose to scavenge for food in disaster worlds and sell it at the Black Market, where prices were naturally steep.

A side note: the Black Market, unlike the system's store, was a trading market organized by a group of players.

As a result, players were accustomed to eating the simplest, most convenient food—the most common being black bread.

Even though it wasn't tasty, or was even rather unpleasant, it provided the most basic energy and was extremely filling.

That was precisely why, when the others offered to pay Lin Tu points for this meal, she refused without hesitation. For the players, it was a rare delicacy; for her, it just meant a drive to the supermarket or the vegetable market next door.

After a satisfying, happy meal, they all clutched their round bellies and sighed that this was what life was about. But back to reality—they still needed to find the key. Fortunately, for some reason, this time they found it rather quickly.

Holding the key in front of the door, Dong Huadan said, "Let me confirm one last time. Whatever's inside, Miss Lin contributed the most, so she gets half. Next are Xiao Luo and I, who each used one item, so we each take a third of what's left. And the four of you split the remaining third equally. Any objections?"

This was the plan they'd agreed on, distributing the spoils according to contribution. Naturally, no one had any objections.

Seeing this, Dong Huadan clicked the key into the lock and swung open the storage room door.

Flashlight beams swept inside, revealing four racks, each about two meters tall, one meter wide, and four meters long. Each rack had five shelves, and each shelf held six to ten crates.

A few crates were already open, revealing bundles of ammunition wrapped in oil paper, as well as some light-colored nylon bags. Through the open bags, the shapes of guns were faintly visible. With Lin Tu's rudimentary knowledge of firearms, she couldn't identify the models at the moment.

But that didn't stop Lin Tu's eyes from lighting up, her heart relaxing.

What kind of ending was worthy of this journey through the turmoil? Lin Tu thought this ending in front of her wasn't bad at all.

A certain finance whiz immediately started crunching numbers in her head, back in her element, feeling an urge to stay up all night calculating her "personal income."

Tsk. Indeed, she didn't hate work; she just hated working for others.