Chapter 487: Chapter 483: Scavenging for a Living

What in the world is going on?

If they hadn’t said they were Superpower Users, Song Kexin would have thought they were just a group of common beggars from some small, rundown base in the middle of nowhere...

"Is your base that poor?" Song Shijun asked, his face full of curiosity. "Don’t you guys normally do missions to earn Contribution Points?"

’It shouldn’t be hard for a Superpower User to make a living in a base!’

"What kind of Superpower Users are you all?"

The young girl raised her hand. "I... I’m a First-rank Fire Ability User. My name is Lang Xiaoye."

"I’m a First-rank Wind Ability User," the middle-aged man added. "My name is Liang Zhongping."

One after another, they introduced themselves. Among the dozen or so people, only Huang Genmei was an Earth Element Second Rank Superpower User; the rest were all First-stage Superpower Users.

Everyone couldn’t help but look at each other in dismay.

"You... your superpowers haven’t leveled up in over a year?" a member of Team A asked. They had thought their own superpower growth was slow enough.

After all, compared to the speed of their sister-in-law’s family’s superpower growth, theirs was as slow as a tortoise.

But they never expected the growth rate of the Superpower Users from Gushang Base to be even slower.

These days, the more powerful zombies outside had already evolved to the Fifth or Sixth Rank.

In the Capital, the average Superpower User was at least a Third Rank.

First and Second Rank superpowers like those from Gushang were indeed almost negligible to a base, making them barely different from ordinary people...

Gu Chen glanced at them curiously. "Is your current base leader Chen Zheng?"

This Chen Zheng was on the Yang Family’s boat before the apocalypse; his post-apocalyptic connections were currently unknown.

Unexpectedly, Sister Huang shook her head repeatedly. "He was replaced long ago, more than half a year now. The Base Chief Chen you’re talking about, young man, kicked the bucket over six months ago. Now it’s his son, Chen Zhaowei, who’s in charge."

At these words, Gu Chen and Lu Wei both narrowed their eyes, suppressing their expressions of utter disbelief.

The two exchanged a look, each reading the same message in the other’s eyes: ’Chen Zheng was dead, yet Chen Zhaowei had kept it a secret and never reported it to the Capital?’

As one of the five major bases on the Kyushu Continent, Gushang Base should not have concealed such crucial information.

’Looks like this mission is a bit more complicated than we thought.’

"What do you usually eat at the base?" ’Why does everyone look so sallow and gaunt, like refugees?’

"We Superpower Users have to go out, kill zombies, and do missions to get a small amount of Contribution Points. The points we get each day are barely enough to exchange for one wild vegetable patty and a bowl of plain congee."

Xie Ning glanced at them, her expression unreadable. "How much does it cost?"

"One hundred Contribution Points!"

Everyone: ...

They originally thought that twenty Contribution Points for a simple meal at their own base was stingy and exploitative enough, but they never expected...

The real exploitation was right here!

"Don’t you have livestock farms?"

"Who could possibly get by on the little bit from the farms! It all just goes to the leaders at the top."

"Besides, the meat from the farmed mutated animals isn’t something we can afford anyway." Sister Huang scrambled up from the sofa, clamoring, "We’d be better off hunting on our own."

"But if our luck is bad, we might not even catch a single mutated animal all day."

"There are zombies everywhere, sure, but you can’t eat zombie meat!"

Everyone: ...

’This woman seems a bit of an airhead.’

’Now that she’s no longer trying to kill herself, and her expression isn’t as contorted as before, she actually looks a bit more pleasant. Ahem.’

Xie Ning’s gaze swept around, finally landing on a few men and women by the door whose clothes were even more tattered than those of the "beggars" Huang Genmei and Lang Xiaoye, making them look even more like actual beggars.

Sensing the superpower fluctuations coming from them, Xie Ning raised a slight eyebrow. "Are you all from the Gold Element?"

The head beggar—ahem, the man who was over forty—nodded, his expression surprisingly steady. "You can sense it? Yes, the four of us are all Gold Ability Users."

Standing not far away, Song Kexin’s jaw dropped. Song You’ai pulled her back a small step, but she couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity, "You... your base is way too poor! How are you...? You don’t look like Superpower Users at all."

"What’s so special about being a Superpower User? The base doesn’t need us anyway. They hire able-bodied ordinary laborers to repair and build the base, only having to pay them a few Contribution Points and provide one lunch."

"But even that’s better than our situation. We spend all day struggling to hunt mutated animals, and we might come back with nothing."

Song You’ai, worried that Song Kexin might get infested by the mutated insects on them, kept trying to pull the girl back. But Kexin, her face filled with curiosity, insisted on inching forward.

"Mister, aren’t you Gold Ability Users? Sell knives! If you make some Metal Knives to sell, wouldn’t you get a ton of Contribution Points?"

Unexpectedly, the man leading the beggars gave Song Kexin a wry smile. "Little girl, you’re thinking too simply."

"For First-rank Gold Ability Users like us, the knives we make are no different from ordinary kitchen cleavers. If we sell them at a high price, no one buys them. If we sell them cheap, it’s not worth it. After all, making knives consumes a lot of our superpower."

"Once our superpower is completely depleted, it recovers very slowly. We’re better off hunting mutated animals. If we’re lucky, we can catch one or two, and the mutated animal meat can be exchanged for a decent amount of Contribution Points."

"Huh? Then what if you hunt... and don’t catch any mutated animals?" Song Kexin was shocked.

Because of her sister, she had always thought that Gold Ability Users were the most badass of all Superpower Users.

Suddenly seeing a group of Gold Ability User beggars felt a bit... anticlimactic.

"We pick through trash!" Behind the forty-something man, a girl about Song Kexin’s age suddenly spoke up. "What else can we do? If we can find some rare metal scrap, we can reshape it into something useful, and people will buy it."

"And it uses up way less superpower than purely creating things like Metal Knives."

Xie Ning: ...

Everyone: ...

’It’s over. They simply couldn’t connect the words "picking through trash" with Gold Ability Users.’

Song Kexin’s jaw hung open, and she couldn’t close it for a long time.

Song Shijun leaned his head toward his sister’s shoulder and said with a look of astonishment, "Mister, Miss, you guys have it way too rough."

Everyone: ...

For some unknown reason, everyone secretly shot a glance at Xie Ning.

Unfortunately, Captain Xie’s face was completely hidden by her mask and scarf; otherwise, they would have been able to see her wonderfully rich micro-expressions...

Song Kexin looked at them with an expression of exasperated disappointment. "You’re all Superpower Users! Ugh, seriously, this is so frustrating! How can you go around picking through trash?"

Huang Genmei had sat up on the sofa by now and casually replied, "What else are we supposed to do if not pick through trash? At least by doing that, we can scrape together a meal."

"Aiya, what a garbage base this is!" Zhai Ruobai suddenly exclaimed. "Let’s go. Come back to the Capital with us."

"First, cooperate with Dr. Yu to get those sand worms on you treated. There will be plenty of good days ahead, so don’t you go dying."

"You’re right, young man!" Huang Genmei immediately agreed. "I stopped wanting to die a long time ago."

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