Chapter 4
by LhaoziChapter 4: The Price of Rebirth
Qin Xi never expected that Qin Song had come back too!
Although reuniting with her Da Ge[^1] was wonderful news, did this also mean that in that apocalyptic timeline, he really had been harmed by Zhao Yuhao and his group?
Inside a black Land Rover parked in the lot:
Qin Song looked at the young woman beside him—her eyes were bloodshot and she was gripping his wrist tightly—yet he actually smiled in a surprisingly bright mood.
Turning his palm to grasp her icy hand, he met her gaze:
“It’s all over, Xi Xi.”
He stared at Qin Xi, enunciating word by word:
“I blew up the base walls. Chen Liang was crushed underneath. I dragged Zhao Yuhao and Jiang Yaoyao into the center of the horde. Wu Dashan served as the bait that triggered the zombie tide. Your brother got revenge for you!”
The tears held back in Qin Xi’s eyes finally overflowed:
“But you died too…”
Hearing this, Qin Song let out a light laugh, his narrow eyes completely indifferent:
“It doesn’t matter. If I hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have met Xi Xi again anyway. Getting bitten by zombies doesn’t even hurt… it’s nothing compared to the pain I felt when I knew something had happened to you.”
He reached out to pat the crown of Qin Xi’s head, a streak of gloom[^2] flashing across his ink-black eyes.
The lies those people like Zhao Yuhao brought back were riddled with holes[^3].
There was no way he would believe that if even Qin Xi’s mental superpower had been exhausted, that group could still come back alive!
He spent two months secretly investigating and laying out his strategy. Ultimately, the moment he uncovered the truth, he simply destroyed the entire survival base outright.
Didn’t those people want the base?
Then naturally, letting everything crumble right when it was within their grasp would bring even greater despair.
As for the survivors in the base, they had treated Zhao Yuhao as their savior just because he promised to turn two daily meals into three.
Yet no one bothered to think: where could the base possibly get that much food supply?
They forced him to step down, so he stepped down.
However, that base was built because Qin Xi insisted on establishing it back then. What right did those traitors have to enjoy the fruits left behind by Xi Xi?
Therefore, he detonated the perimeter walls of the base!
He just hadn’t expected that he would actually be reborn too!
The moment he opened his eyes, his Xi Xi had returned to his arms!
At this thought, Qin Song’s stern, cold features softened slightly.
The car drove out of the parking lot and, twenty minutes later, pulled up smoothly beneath their home from their previous life.
On the way, Qin Xi shared the changes in her space superpower and the appearance of the system with Qin Song.
Subsequently, she learned that Qin Song’s superpower had also regressed to Level 2.
It seemed this was the price of rebirth?
If so, Qin Xi felt it was well worth it!
After stepping out of the car, Qin Xi looked at the familiar yet strange building entrance in front of her, feeling a swirl of complex emotions.
Not until her hanging hand was grasped by a broad palm did Qin Song’s gentle voice ring beside her ear:
“Let’s go. Let’s head up and see our home.”
Qin Xi nodded and followed closely behind Qin Song.
On the twenty-fourth floor, the apartment was clean yet filled with the warmth of daily life.
At this time in her past life, Qin Song would still come home every day.
The instant she got home, Qin Xi opened a food delivery app and ordered a lavish lunch.
From deluxe spicy hot pot to tom-ahawk steaks, and from spicy crayfish to premium sushi sets—
Along with milk tea and fruit juices, she greeted over a dozen delivery drivers one after another.
When the first bite of braised pork hit her tongue, she could barely suppress her physiological tears from spilling out.
She had never imagined she could live like this again—it was simply marvelous!
Qin Song, on the other hand, only took a few quick bites before laying down his chopsticks.
He calculated the liquid funds currently at his disposal.
In their previous life, it began raining on the second day of the apocalypse.
The downpour lasted for a full week.
That week was a period of rapid evolution for zombies, as well as a time when resources across many cities were contaminated.
Almost all ground-floor supermarkets were submerged in floodwaters, leaving their goods soaked and rendered unusable.
This time, since they had a second chance, he was determined that everything his Xi Xi ate, wore, and used must be the cleanest possible!
His own current funds totaled over 17 million yuan.
Real estate, stock shares, and vehicles could not be liquidated within three days, so none of those could be counted on.
But it didn’t matter.
In his past life, he had no interest in building a base to begin with; it was only because Qin Xi was soft-hearted.
In this life, Qin Xi no longer held any desire to establish a base or play the benefactor[^4].
With just the two of them, they wouldn’t need an astronomical quantity of supplies anyway, so their current funds were practically sufficient.
After finishing the meal, Qin Xi was so stuffed that she lay sprawled on the sofa, unwilling to budge.
Qin Song put down his pen and paper, standing up to clean the dining table.
Qin Xi picked up the paper Qin Song had used for calculations, glanced over it, and looked up at him:
“Da Ge, my space is too small right now. Do we need to rent a warehouse first?”
Standing by the table, Qin Song looked down as he cleared the dishes:
“Mm. I’ll check if there’s a suitable location shortly. You look into what we need to buy first and draft a list.”
Hearing this, Qin Xi immediately perked up.
She sat up straight, grabbed a pen and paper, and began contemplating the required supplies.
Among basic necessities—clothing, food, shelter, and transport—water and food were naturally top priorities.
Post-apocalyptic water resources would be contaminated by acid rain and remain undrinkable for a long time.
Without a water-element superpower user nearby, surviving would prove extremely difficult.
Fortunately, inside Qin Xi’s system, there was currently a usable water well.
Still, to guard against the possibility of the system well malfunctioning someday, Qin Xi wrote down twenty truckloads of bottled mineral water as a backup.
She listed several common low-end brands.
Such a massive quantity of water could not be bought from a single brand or supplier.
Even though there were only three days left before order collapsed, Qin Xi was still wary of drawing unwanted attention.
In the event they were hauled in for questioning or investigation, it would waste their precious stockpiling time!
Then, she began calculating food staples.
Fifty-pound bags of rice and flour—she requested seven hundred bags of each.
If she and Qin Song consumed one bag of rice a month, that would be twelve bags a year, a hundred and twenty bags in ten years, and twelve hundred bags in a century.
Moreover, it was impossible for her and Qin Song to eat freshly cooked meals every single day; they would buy other foods, and they might not necessarily live past a hundred years old anyway.
She had even added extra buffer to these figures—it was more than enough to last a lifetime!
Next, she began listing coarse grains.
Millet, sorghum, corn, purple rice, red rice, and so forth—fifty bags of each.
Neither she nor Qin Song particularly cared for these, and some varieties they wouldn’t even touch once a year, so she kept the quantities lower.
Then came red beans, mung beans, black beans, and the like—she wrote down thirty bags for each type of legume.
She allocated a larger portion for soybeans.
Her Da Ge, Qin Song, loved drinking soy milk.
In their previous life before the base was built, when electricity was non-existent, he had even used his thunder-element superpower to power a soy milk maker!
Fearing he wouldn’t have enough, Qin Xi straight up put down three hundred bags. Even if they couldn’t finish them, they could still sprout them into bean sprouts later.
In addition, she listed various dried goods:
Tremella fungus, wood ear mushrooms, glass noodles, dried bean curd skin, chili peppers, mushrooms, and so on.
Once these were finalized, she moved on to fresh vegetables and fruits, but simply wrote down the four words: “vegetables and fruits.”
There were too many varieties of produce, so she didn’t intend to itemize them one by one.
Her plan was to head directly to agricultural wholesale markets and nearby rural villages, purchasing whatever caught her eye.
Coupled with snacks, beverages, and seasonings, she was resolved never to live such a miserable, poverty-stricken life in this apocalypse again!
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