Chapter 14

Karen felt she'd been a bit naive.

Lin Tu's so-called zombie farming—Karen didn't understand what it really meant until she experienced it firsthand. She didn't avoid zombies at all; she went straight for them! For instance, when Karen warned—

"Watch your left rear flank."

Upon hearing this, Lin Tu not only failed to watch her flank, but instead turned around with even more excitement, completely disregarding the danger right at her doorstep. She brushed past two zombies' jaws, one wrong move away from being scratched or killed, but her eyes held only one thing—killing the zombies. Even the pain of slamming hard onto the ground couldn't stop her from raising her gun and aiming at the zombie about to ambush her.

She's absolutely insane, Karen thought, her heart in her throat. Such a...

When she sized Lin Tu up again, she suddenly noticed that at some point she'd taken off her gold-rimmed glasses, no longer looking like the refined person she'd first met. Initially, Karen had thought Lin Tu was some highly educated intellectual.

Karen hadn't had much schooling, and she'd always been fond of such people. That's why she'd thrown down her gun and led Lin Tu into her hiding spot—she didn't think Lin Tu was the type to rob someone in distress.

Now, looking at her again, she was covered in filthy blood and gore, even on her face. Her life was dangling off a cliff, yet she'd occasionally break into a smile, as if she was absolutely delighted.

What was even crazier was that Karen noticed Lin Tu's movements were gradually improving. She wasn't the type to fight, and her aim was terribly unprofessional, like a kid playing make-believe. But with every zombie encounter, she kept adjusting her stance and force, as if she were using the zombies to hone her skills. She was a complete madwoman!

Karen hugged the flowerpot, thinking to herself, wondering who exactly had lost their mind—her or Lin Tu.

"Come help me carry some stuff!" This was the edge of town, and there weren't too many zombies. Lin Tu quickly cleared out the zombies near a general store. She didn't want to reveal her Single-Use Backpack in front of a non-player, so she used the pickup truck as cover for taking items.

The store had some slippers, hangers, water cups, and other daily necessities. Lin Tu already had plenty at home, so she only took a few; but she loaded up a big pile of towels and blankets—she'd been exercising a lot lately and sweating plenty, so she'd need them for wiping off sweat and washing her face. There were also some underwear, scarves, umbrellas, and cups on the shelves; anything usable, Lin Tu tossed into her backpack.

Finally, the most critical part—on the shelves were some unopened seasonings, chocolates, cigarettes, alcohol, and sausages. Lin Tu took them all without hesitation. Her daily exercise burned so many calories that she was hungry enough to eat a whole cow; anything related to food, she never let go.

It was a shame about the onions, potatoes, apples, and carrots that had been smashed on the ground—some were rotting, some were dried out, in a state that was absolutely inedible.

Just as Lin Tu was thinking about that, she saw Karen crouching over the potatoes, trying to dig one up.

Lin Tu: "...?"

"What are you doing?" she asked slowly.

"This is still edible!" Karen replied. That potato was soft and squished into the ground, looking nothing like something you could eat. But after Karen dug it up and flipped it over, she saw a small sprout of green growing on the other side.

She patted the sprout happily. "Good boy, we'll take it home and plant it. It'll sprout up in no time."

Lin Tu was a bit surprised. "You know how to farm?"

Karen smiled. "Every kid around here knows how to farm. We all grew up on farms." She could tell from Lin Tu's accent that she wasn't from around here.

Lin Tu quickly asked her to take a look at the corn sprout. Seeing how precious it was to Lin Tu, Karen chose her words carefully. "We don't really grow corn around here. The temperature's too low—corn's a crop that's afraid of the cold."

"I'm not asking it to grow big. Just let it survive," Lin Tu said like an irresponsible parent.

Karen said, "Then you need to plant it deeper. That way it won't freeze as easily. Most importantly, make sure it gets plenty of sun."

Lin Tu immediately washed her hands and, under Karen's guidance, dug up the corn sprout, replanted it two centimeters deeper, and covered it back up.

When she checked her phone, the withering probability had indeed dropped from 65.9% to 59.9%. With a bit more photosynthesis, it might drop even more. Rounding up, that's 50%.

Farming was truly a skill. Lin Tu felt she still had a lot to learn. Grateful, she stuffed all the sausages and chocolates into Karen's hands. "Thank you!"

"Th-this won't do!" Karen hurriedly refused. These were Lin Tu's spoils from killing zombies—she'd risked her life to gather these supplies, and Karen had done nothing to earn them. How could she accept?

"I don't want them, so I'll just leave them here," Lin Tu said, not giving her a chance to refuse. She walked out of the general store with the corn sprout. "Feel free to take whatever's left."

Karen froze for two seconds, only snapping out of it after Lin Tu had walked out the door. She realized Lin Tu was giving her supplies this way. She immediately chased after her and shouted, "Hey! Thank you!"

"No thanks. The patient needs to eat more protein."

Lin Tu held the flowerpot and tilted her head slightly toward her. Under the gloomy sky, the plant grow light in her arms was like a sun in the wasteland, and a sudden warmth surged in Karen's chest. She was instantly filled with energy and, at top speed, loaded everything from the general store onto the truck.

Lin Tu was already waiting. The moment she got in, she revved the engine and sped off to the next destination.

The scarcest resource in the apocalypse was undoubtedly food, and the most heartbreaking thing was discovering food that had gone stale or spoiled because it wasn't properly stored.

So when Lin Tu planned her farming route, she prioritized places where food was likely to be found.

Over the next two days, the two of them hit two convenience stores, a hardware shop, and a few residential houses. To be precise, Lin Tu did the farming, while Karen held the flowerpot and kept watch.

Lin Tu would leave about a third of her haul to Karen each time, so Karen grew increasingly adept at holding the flowerpot, even starting to lean toward treating Lin Tu as her boss.

Really, you couldn't blame her. Food, clothes, even pots and pans—their standard of living had shot up dramatically. Lin Tu was simply giving too much.

On the morning of the third day, Lin Tu was farming as usual.

Suddenly, Karen shouted, "Left! Watch out!" Lin Tu paused her movement and looked left, but there wasn't a single zombie.

Lin Tu turned around and saw a few familiar faces getting out of a car on the right side of the road.

"Don't come any closer!" Karen shouted sternly, facing them off.

"Sister Huadan?" Lin Tu took out the two zombies in front of her, retreated out of the neighborhood, and shut the gate behind her, blocking the zombies that were charging at her. "It's fine, we know each other. Let's go!"

More zombies were still gathering inside and outside the neighborhood, attracted by the gunfire. This wasn't the place to talk, so everyone got in their cars and quickly drove away.

Back near Combatants, the area was almost completely devoid of zombies since Lin Tu had already cleared it.

The group, who had just come from a pile of zombies, felt a strange sense of surrealism. They turned to look at Lin Tu, who was wiping the grime off her face with a towel.

Lin, the culprit, was tidying herself up with proper decorum. Her crossed legs swayed slightly like she was used to sitting in an office, and finally, she elegantly pulled out her thin gold-rimmed glasses and put them on.

Because of her, this place was so quiet it felt like the nearby residents had just gone off to work, everything still a scene of the apocalypse. It was a bit bizarre, but it also somehow gave a strange sense of security, didn't it?

"Sister Huadan, I thought you'd already headed north," Lin Tu said.

After she said that, Karen looked at her in surprise, realizing she was actually a foreigner.

Suppressing the strange feeling in her heart, Dong Huadan shook her head. "Something happened. Xiao Luo has a fever. We were going to wait until he got better before leaving. But two days passed, and after taking medicine, the fever got even worse. Today he suddenly spiked to 40 degrees and had convulsions. His condition is really bad."

"We only have medicine from the stores, and you know, those are all generic..."

At that point, Dong Huadan didn't continue. She glanced briefly at Karen.

By then, seeing that the two sides knew each other, Karen had naturally followed Lin Tu into the car. She had the look of a local, with sharp eyes, thick calluses on her hands, and a sturdy build—clearly someone used to manual labor. This made the players quite wary.

If it weren't for the potted sprout she was holding... the way she constantly had a grow light and power bank attached to it made it hard not to guess that it was the plant item Lin Tu had just obtained—the one from Infinite Calamity that would die if even one of its required soil, sunlight, or water was missing.

Speaking of that corn sprout, Dong Huadan couldn't help but interject with an off-topic comment. "So you're just going to keep holding it like that?"

"Yep," Lin Tu said matter-of-factly. "The sun's been out a lot lately, so I'm letting it get some sun."

"And the grow light..."

"I'm worried the sun isn't strong enough, so I'm giving it some extra light." The grow light didn't use much power, and Lin Tu had stockpiled plenty of power banks. Why not?

The others thought it made some sense. Dong Huadan, having more exposure to such things, couldn't help but look both puzzled and understanding. On one hand, Lin Tu clearly cared about the sprout, yet she used such crude equipment to raise it—with her strength, she could easily buy better gear from the shop. On the other hand, she clearly didn't care that much, yet she specifically brought the sprout out for sunlight and kept giving it light all the time.

However, all of this was beyond the scope of the amateur Dong Huadan. She didn't understand such things and didn't dare voice an opinion.

"We wanted to ask you to help us get some medicine." Finally, Dong Huadan got to the point.

She pulled out a map that covered not just the town but also the neighboring city.

Dong Huadan pointed at the town center. "There's a hospital here. We need to find some intravenous sedatives and fever reducers. The wound where he got injured is too deep. I'm worried that if we delay any longer, it could develop into an intracranial infection, and then it'll really be bad."

"Could you step outside for a moment, miss?" Zhang Zisheng said in the local dialect.

Karen glanced at them hesitantly, and only after Lin Tu nodded did she step out of the car.

"We're willing to each contribute 25 points, 100 points total, hoping Ms. Lin can take us to the hospital to get the medicine," Zhang Zisheng said. "If there's any item loss, injury, or anything along the way, we'll cover it."

One hundred points—that was almost the income from a D-level disaster. Hiring someone to carry you through a clearance only cost a few dozen more points. This was just to help get medicine, and giving this many points showed they really considered Lin Tu's strength.

Lin Tu was a bit hesitant, mainly because she felt these people seemed to have some misunderstanding about her—she was still a total newbie!

"I'm willing to offer an item, sister. You might be interested." Dong Huadan pulled out a coupon and handed it to Lin Tu.

[Beginner Plant Affinity Coupon: In a certain plant-mutated calamity world, a person who could communicate with plants appeared. After the disaster, the reconstruction lab extracted their ability.

Now, you can initially sense the emotions of plants, and when you're near your plant, the chance of it dying is slightly reduced.]