Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Hundred-Person Squad

Wang Jie took a deep breath—and laughed.

If exercises could heal injuries, then what was the point of calamity materials?

His wounds had been so severe that even Hibiscus Tears only offered a twenty percent chance of recovery. And yet one round of that routine had made him noticeably better.

What would happen if he kept doing it?

He stopped trying to remove the wrist guard.

Fine.

It was agony, but it worked.

The only problem was the timing. He had no idea when the next routine would trigger. If it happened in the middle of a fight…

He could already picture it—people staring, calling him insane.

—

Deep in the starry void, a handsome young man stared at a suit of golden battle armor laid out before him.

A single wrist guard was missing.

His brows drew together, thoughtful.

—

It was past midnight, but Wang Jie’s mind was sharp, his energy strangely high.

Maybe that was another effect.

He took out two calamity materials—both confirmed by Doctor Si Yan to be useless for healing—and absorbed the imprint power inside to refill his reserves.

Normally, his imprint power consumption was low enough that the ambient imprint power in the air could replenish him. But these past days had been nothing but fighting, and the drain had piled up.

When the calamity materials dulled into ordinary junk, he crushed them to dust and left no trace.

Sleep was impossible now.

So he went to retrieve the egg.

Jin Ling Base enforced a curfew. In the apocalypse, it wasn’t just mutated plants and beasts you had to fear. Humans were often worse.

There were always scum in the dark.

But Wang Jie knew the base like he knew his own hands. He slipped out without climbing the walls, using a route few people even remembered.

By the time he returned with the hawk egg and reached No. 18, dawn was bleeding into the eastern sky.

Si Yan—looking like a washed-up drifter with a doctor’s hands—took the egg and practically trembled with excitement. “This heartbeat, this feeling… it really is a hawk egg. You actually brought it.”

“I can feel it,” Si Yan muttered, eyes bright. “This can heal your injuries.”

“No,” Wang Jie said. “Use it for a brain injury. Someone in a coma. Is it possible?”

Si Yan frowned. “Who’s worth that? Besides Old Five and Old Nine, who else are you trying to save?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Kid,” Si Yan snapped, “I’m telling you—only when you’re healed can you do what you want.”

“I understand,” Wang Jie said. “Don’t worry.”

Si Yan glared at him. When he realized Wang Jie wouldn’t budge, he gave up arguing. He grabbed a glass bottle from his cluttered table and tossed it over. Wang Jie caught it.

“Give that to Old Five,” Si Yan said. “Tell him to stop coughing. He keeps waking me up.”

Wang Jie swallowed the tightness in his throat. “Thank you.”

He returned to No. 17 and yanked Old Five upright from sleep.

Old Five blinked, about to protest—

Wang Jie shoved the bottle to his mouth. “Healing medicine. Drink.”

Old Five stared, offended. “Are you trying to heal me or interrogate me?”

He swallowed anyway. Wang Jie released him.

Old Five coughed hard, scowling. “Old Boss, you’re too rough. Couldn’t you be gentler? You’ll choke me to death before you fix—”

He froze.

Then he doubled over.

It looked like invisible needles were ripping through his lungs. He coughed violently, each spasm worse than the last, until dark blood splattered the ground.

Not red.

Black.

Pitch-black.

Wang Jie’s hands clenched.

Old Five kept coughing for a full minute before he finally sucked in air. His face was pale, his body limp.

“How is it?” Wang Jie asked, voice tight.

Old Five blinked through the haze, drew a careful breath, and exhaled slowly. “I… think I can recover now.”

Wang Jie’s shoulders loosened.

He’d considered teaching Old Five the routine, but it was impossible. Without that linked heat current, a body would be torn apart long before it learned anything.

“Rest,” Wang Jie said.

Old Five watched him turn away and smiled, voice hoarse. “Thanks, Old Boss.”

Then he looked toward the other side of the courtyard—toward Old Nine’s closed door.

News swept through the base like wildfire: they were forming a hundred-person squad to encircle and kill the Moon Plant.

Jin Ling Base erupted. People argued in the streets. Rumors multiplied faster than bullets.

Wang Jie pushed Old Nine around the courtyard, wheels crunching gravel.

“Hong Jian has hunted the Moon Plant more than once,” Old Nine said. “Every time he came back empty-handed. If he’s organizing this, he must be confident.”

Wang Jie’s expression darkened. “Maybe it isn’t his decision.”

Old Nine glanced back. “What do you mean?”

Wang Jie told him what Feng Yu had revealed.

Old Nine’s eyes widened. “So that’s what’s happening… If it’s true, then the hunt might be for calamity materials. The Moon Plant is the strongest mutated plant around Jin Ling Base.”

Wang Jie nodded. “That’s what I think.”

Yan Si’s arrival meant Jin Ling Base would never be stable again. Hong Jian could no longer decide everything alone.

But regardless of politics, killing the Moon Plant would always be good.

A voice carried through the inner wall that connected No. 17 and No. 18.

“Kid,” Si Yan called, irritated. “Something’s happening.”

Wang Jie straightened. “Where?”

“Northwest corner. The sand field.”

Wang Jie moved fast. He avoided crowds, kept to the shadows, and reached the sand field without drawing eyes.

Feng Yu was there.

She stood with her head slightly bowed. Behind her was a man wearing an outer coat that tried—and failed—to hide the expensive robe beneath. The posture. The weapon. The arrogance.

A trialist.

“He’s not here yet?” the man snapped.

He ripped off the coat in disgust and dusted his hands as if the fabric had offended him.

Feng Yu replied respectfully, “He’ll arrive soon. Avoiding the base patrols is… troublesome.”

“Hmph.” The man’s mouth twisted. “If you ask me, kill them all. Why avoid anything?”

A flicker of contempt flashed through Feng Yu’s eyes, then vanished.

Not long after, Yan Si arrived.

The trialist’s expression brightened. He smiled wide. “So it really is you. Funny how fate works. We were taken into the outer court together. Ran errands together. Entered the martial hall together. This first batch—eighty people scattered across Blue Star—and we still end up meeting here.”

Yan Si smiled back, strolling closer as if this were a reunion instead of a slaughterhouse. “Didn’t expect to see you in Jin Ling Base either. How is it?”

He leaned in slightly, voice lowering with conspiratorial excitement. “If you and I work together, brother—crush the others, break through before the second batch arrives—we might survive.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” the man said, nodding.

Wang Jie watched from the shadows, his chest sinking.

First batch. Second batch.

So more trial disciples were coming—and the second batch would be stronger.

No wonder they were collecting calamity materials. They needed to break through just to stay alive.

Then everything flipped.

Feng Yu moved.

A dart flashed into the trialist’s body.

Poison.

Yan Si attacked in the same breath.

The man roared and tried to fight back, but the poison locked him down, turning his limbs to lead. He couldn’t even flee before he was cut down under their joint assault.

Yan Si stepped on the corpse, sneering. “Trash. You wanted to team up with me?”

He looked at Feng Yu. “You did well. What do you want?”

Feng Yu lowered her gaze. “Being able to help my lord is enough. I wouldn’t dare ask for more.”

Yan Si laughed, stepped closer, and wrapped an arm around her waist with casual possession. “When this trial ends, I’ll take you back to Yan Nation. The universe is far bigger than you can imagine. This Blue Star isn’t even a corner of it.”

Feng Yu’s eyes softened, bright with hope—and something else. “Thank you, my lord.”

They left together.

Wang Jie emerged only after the corpse had been burned to ash.

A trial from the Jia Yi Sect.

It was worse than he’d imagined.

He’d assumed it would be trialists against mutated beasts and plants, trialists against the people of Blue Star.

He hadn’t expected the bloodiest fights would be between the trialists themselves.

No wonder Si Yan’s mechanical eyes were everywhere.

That man’s true specialty wasn’t medicine—it was machinery. He could plant eyes around Jin Ling Base and no one noticed.

Recruitment for the hundred-person squad intensified. Rewards were promised. Names were posted. Volunteers poured in—only to be eliminated if they weren’t strong enough.

Wang Jie had no intention of joining. There were too many familiar faces.

Leaving the sand field, he saw the roster being updated again.

One name jumped out at him.

Lian Fei.

The entire South Base hunting squad had joined.

When did they even arrive? Had they stopped chasing Hu Guan?

The deadline to finalize the hundred-person squad was tomorrow. It was rushed. Desperate.

Then another piece of news set Jin Ling Base ablaze: Shou Qing Group was coming.

Shou Qing Group was the largest consortium after the apocalypse. They transported supplies between the five major bases and countless smaller ones. Rumor claimed nearly half of the Three Gods and Five Peaks had benefited from them.

Even the founding of the five major bases hadn’t been possible without Shou Qing Group’s support.

Every few months, Shou Qing Group arrived with supplies. Every arrival triggered a buying frenzy—people hoarded, people gambled. Those who smoked and drank waited for this day like a holiday, pulling out precious cigarettes they normally wouldn’t dare light.

Wang Jie’s gaze turned complicated.

Shou Qing Group…

He didn’t notice the eyes on him until it was too late.

Between the Clean Zone and the Wastewater Zone, Wang Jie didn’t hesitate. He went straight home.

Someone was watching him.

Who?

Feng Yu?

Madam Zhao?

People from South Base?

He reached his room, shut the door, and peered through a crack in the window.

The stench outside was worse than usual. Hot weather made everything rot faster.

Not long after, a group arrived—Hui Zhua among them.

Madam Zhao’s people.

Wang Jie opened the door when the knocking came.

An older man stood in front, studying him with a gaze that made Wang Jie’s skin crawl.

“You’re Wild Grass?” the man asked.

“That’s right.”

“Why did Madam Zhao’s entire group die?”

Wang Jie frowned. “They happened to camp where the Moon Plant surfaced.”

The man shoved past Wang Jie into the room. Several people followed, Hui Zhua included.

Hui Zhua gave Wang Jie an apologetic look, helpless.

The older man searched the room, clearly disgusted by the smell. Then he turned back to Wang Jie, eyes narrowing. “You’re a guide. How could you ‘happen’ to camp exactly where the Moon Plant appeared?”

Wang Jie’s voice hardened. “The Moon Plant’s location is random. Even the base can’t predict it. You think I can?”

“Maybe,” the man said, calm and cold.

Wang Jie pointed at Hui Zhua with a humorless smile. “If I had that ability, do you think he’d have come back alive?”

Hui Zhua’s face went white. He remembered that night—how close he’d come to dying.

The man kept pressing, his suspicion sharp and relentless.

Wang Jie gave the same answer every time.

He hadn’t noticed.

He hadn’t seen how Madam Zhao’s Young Master died. He hadn’t seen how Uncle Ling died.

At last, the man stopped. His face darkened, and the stench seemed to irritate him further.

He walked out without looking back. “Take him. He’s joining the hundred-person squad to hunt the Moon Plant.”

Wang Jie’s eyes flashed. “I’m not going.”

The man didn’t even pause. “You don’t get to choose. The Young Master died in the Moon Plant’s mouth. Why do you get to live? Go keep him company.”

His voice sharpened. “And take Hui Zhua, too.”

Hui Zhua looked like he’d just been sentenced.