Boss’s Death Guide

Chapter 63 - Amusement Park

When Qi Weiguo saw Qi Yaoyao pointing to the platform, he was first surprised, then said, “Did your brother awaken to an ability? And get hired as a bodyguard by Nie shao from the capital?”

“Jingchen has a promising future! With Nie shao, he won’t have to worry about food or clothes!” Someone else said.

Qi Yaoyao responded with an ambiguous sound, and wasn’t sure what to say. She knew very well that Nie Yi was the one who was clinging to her brother, but when others saw them together, they might think otherwise, and might even assume that her brother… Even if her brother didn’t care, she didn’t want others to misunderstand her ge.

Qi Weiguo honestly had many things to speak with Qi Yaoyao about, but seeing Qi Yaoyao wearing the same clothes as the other combatants with such a valiant and formidable aura, he was momentarily at a loss for words. He awkwardly rubbed his arms and finally said, “Yaoyao, you’re very busy right? Do you want to go with them?”

“I have to go; where do you guys live, Uncle Weiguo? I’ll look for you later,” Qi Yaoyao said. Even though she wasn’t in close contact with these people before, she still felt more intimacy towards them in an environment like the apocalypse.

“I live in the northern shack in the fifth region. If you want to find me, just ask around,” Qi Weiguo said.

Qi Yaoyao memorised the address before leaving. The moment she departed, Qi Weiguo and Zhang Laoliu were surrounded by the people asking about Qi Yaoyao’s situation.

Just now, they had heard that Qi Yaoyao didn’t have an ability— Since a young girl with no ability could join the team, couldn’t the others do so?

No one had dared to kill zombies. The secure base previously enlisted some people, and in the end, every one of them died… But this team wasn’t the same ah!

They could see that this team had many ability users mixed in, and many weapons, so they could kill many zombies without losing members.

Qi Weiguo had always been an ordinary person that could not be more commonplace, and this was the first time he was surrounded and questioned by a group of people. Aside from feeling embarrassed and being at a complete loss, he felt slight happiness.

Qi Yaoyao returned to the team and followed them back to the residence, then went to look for Qi Jingchen.

Qi Jingchen and Nie Yi returned a little later. Right when they arrived, they heard that Qi Yaoyao had been looking for them and immediately called her. “Yaoyao, did something come up?”

These days, Qi Jingchen more or less had turned back into the brother Qi Yaoyao remembered, but they weren’t as close as they used to be… Well, there was nothing she could do about it. Who made Nie Yi forbid anything aside from plants from touching her ge? He wouldn’t even let her get close! Qi Yaoyao secretly glared at Nie Yi, then told Qi Jingchen about Qi Weiguo.

When he heard the name, Qi Jingchen was somewhat distracted.

After the apocalypse struck in his last life, he had taken the initiative to bring Qi Yaoyao and Guan Jiayu to look for Qi Weiguo and the others, before going with the group back to their hometown.

He had been in a bad state, and Qi Yaoyao and Guan Jiayu were incompetent. In fact, they more or less inconvenienced the others, and the others would make sure they knew. But even so, the three of them weren’t abandoned.

When they temporarily stopped by W County secure base, Guan Jiayu divulged his secret to W County secure base’s people. When they captured him, to avoid leaking information, they had even killed off the informant Guan Jiayu, so naturally Qi Weiguo and the others weren’t let off.

Qi Jingchen knew that while Qi Weiguo and the others weren’t great people, they weren’t bad either. In his last life, they had even died due to associating with him.

“We can bring them along when we leave,” Qi Jingchen said, “We’ll be going back home to take a look.”

When Qi Yaoyao heard the first half of the sentence, she didn’t really react much, but was astonished by the latter. “We’re going home?” She thought that after they solved the problems here, they’d return to B City secure base like before.

Who didn’t want to check back home? But everywhere was overrun with zombies and it was too dangerous, so even if many wanted to go home, they could only wish for it.

“Of course we’ll go back,” Qi Jingchen said. Now that he thought about it, though it was just following his heart, he wanted to go back and bury his foster parents.

Qi Yaoyao smiled widely.

“Yaoyao, let me teach you how to wrap zongzis ba,” Qi Jingchen suddenly said.

Qi Yaoyao blinked, recalling that her mother would wrap zongzis every Qingming Festival. Occasionally, she would wrap some even if there were no special festivities. Qi Yaoyao’s eyes reddened at the rims.

Her mom had wanted to teach her how to wrap zongzis in the past, but she didn’t want to learn. She felt that zongzis could just be store-bought; wrapping them manually was just so troublesome. When her mother said her brother could wrap zongzi, she was angry, wondering why she was being compared to her brother again. She had thrown another tantrum.

Now, the only one who could teach her how to wrap zongzis was her ge…

“Ge, I’ll definitely learn well,” Qi Yaoyao said.

There were many ways to wrap zongzis, and Qi Jingchen only knew the simplest method, which was wrapping the four corners. One leaf was enough to wrap a smaller zongzi, but for a larger one, they had to add a second.

Qi Jingchen took a wrapping leaf, and used his hand that seemed fairer than before to put in some glutinous rice that had been marinated into a shiny black in soy sauce, a piece of pork belly, some more glutinous rice for topping, and finally wrapped it tightly with leaves and tied the bundle with a string.

It had been ages since Qi Jingchen had last wrapped zongzi, and he was out of practice. His first zongzi even came apart right after he wrapped it. He didn’t get angry, pulling it apart to try once more.

This time, it came out better. He demonstrated and slowly wrapped three more.

Mother Ping and the others didn’t know how to wrap zongzis. They were a hassle to wrap, and a hassle to cook. If they really wanted to eat some, it was more convenient to just buy some. However, after seeing Qi Jingchen wrap a few, they all learned too. Of course, they didn’t wrap especially well.

However, the one who learnt the quickest wasn’t Mother Ping who was rather good at cooking, nor was it Qi Yaoyao, who studied the most earnestly. It was Nie Yi.

After Qi Jingchen wrapped one, Nie Yi wrapped one. Though he broke a wrapping leaf once, it was fine if he added a second. After Qi Jingchen wrapped three zongzis, Nie Yi could already wrap them quickly and nicely.

Spiritual strength was just this useful! Of course, Nie Yi thought that it was mainly due to his own strong capabilities.

When Qi Jingchen wanted to wrap the fifth zongzi, Nie Yi stopped him. “I can wrap the zongzis, you shouldn’t hurt your hands.” He took Qi Jingchen’s soy sauce-stained hands and washed them with his water ability.

Could wrapping zongzis hurt one’s hand?

Qi Jingchen smiled. “Okay.”

Nie Yi placed a chair at Qi Jingchen’s side for him to sit, and stuffed a book he pulled out from somewhere into Qi Jingchen’s hands. He then tied together the four zongzis Qi Jingchen had made as a note to show that it was done by Jingchen, even specially placing them at the side.

So many zongzis were wrapped that he and Qi Jingchen definitely wouldn’t be able to finish them, but they wouldn’t taste good after being left for too long… If Qi Jingchen wrapped a lot, wouldn’t he have to distribute them to others? No way!

After the savoury and sweet zongzis were completely wrapped, he lit a coal stove and began to cook them.

The zongzis had to be boiled at a high temperature, then steamed a little longer in low heat. Using a coal stove was suitable, but the best, of course, were the large, iron cooking stoves.

Currently, aside from families in substandard environments or the elderly who were already used to them, people from rural areas generally didn’t like using the old stoves. Qi Jingchen’s foster mother always used natural gas, and back when Qi Jingchen was young, she used a stove to cook rice and boil water. Later, when their family had better conditions, they bought an electric rice cooker and kettle.

She would only use the large iron cooking pot when cooking zongzis or stewing chicken.

As the zongzi was cooking, a fragrant smell soon began to spread.

Naturally, the most fragrant scent came from the meat wrapped in leaves that Ping Shengchao had people cook. The leftover meat from fat pig was cut into pieces the width of two fingers, then wrapped in wrapping leaves and cooked so the meat would retain the fragrant flavour of the leaves. It made the people eating hate that they couldn’t swallow their tongues as well.

Ping Shengchao took the wrapped meats and distributed them to the subordinates. There weren’t enough to split them one per person, but it was possible for everyone to have a taste if they gave two pieces to a squad and had them divide once more.

“Just when I tasted the flavour, it was gone…” someone said.

“Let’s go find those people to complain to later, they’ll definitely kill a pig for us to eat… Actually, the pork is just okay, I especially want to eat pig intestines… Ai, in the past, when my mother washed pig intestines, she was never willing to tear off the fat from the intestines. I always told her that it was too greasy, but now I think the fatter the better!”

“You, youngster, don’t be fooled by their sugar-coated bullets,” someone at the side said.

“Don’t worry; how could I possibly give up on Nie shao and follow that surnamed Su? This secure base is much larger than the western secure base we lived in; there are several thousand ability users, yet they lived like this… tsk tsk.”

They privately discussed it. Back when they stayed in the secure base at the borders of B City, there had been tons of zombies, but they all worked hard to kill them. Who hadn’t been surrounded and trapped by zombies? But the people here…

They discussed for a time and, sure enough, ended up going to ‘complain’. As a result, Su Haisheng killed off ten fat pigs in one breath that night with the excuse of being extremely grateful. Altogether, there was almost 2,000kg of meat, and everyone ate until they were perfectly content.

After eating, they had a feeling of guilt— There were people outside who were starving to death ne…

However, once they wiped out the zombies nearby in two days, the people here could always go out and find ways to survive. As for those who would rather starve than go outside… They couldn’t help them.

Right then, a group of children came to Nie Yi’s side; it was the group that Qi An had previously saved.

Qi An’s ability was very powerful, but he could be easily discovered with his present mastery. Because his spiritual strength was too low, he couldn’t accurately teleport, and couldn’t stay hidden constantly.

Because of this, Qi Jingchen didn’t allow him to investigate dangerous things or gather information. He only allowed him to take care of and protect Xiaomao, as well as bring those children back.

Soon, word spread around the base that the young master from the capital who had been benevolently distributing congee for the past two days had been benevolent once again, taking in a group of children.

By the time the children had been settled, it was already past nine at night and the zongzi that had been steaming could be eaten.

Nie Yi gave Qi An some zongzis to distribute to the children, then took the four zongzis Qi Jingchen had wrapped. He picked a zongzi he had wrapped himself that had a nice, large piece of meat inside, then went to Qi Jingchen’s room.

Qi Jingchen’s appetite had been improving nowadays and it was fine for him to eat a zongzi before sleeping, but…

“Are you that hungry?” Qi Jingchen watched Nie Yi eat slowly but unceasingly. He had already opened a third one and Qi Jingchen couldn’t help asking.

“I didn’t eat dinner,” Nie Yi said. He carefully tasted the flavour of the zongzi. After eating the third one, he ate the fourth…

Qi An appeared in their room while carrying Xiaomao. “Nie Yi! Where are the zongzis Big Brother Qi wrapped? Why aren’t there any?” He had previously asked Nie Yi to save a zongzi Qi Jingchen had wrapped for him, wanting to try his boss’s handicraft. Someone told him that Nie Yi had taken away all four.

“I’ve eaten them all.” Nie Yi shoved the last half of the zongzi into his mouth. He had deliberately saved his stomach to eat the zongzi Qi Jingchen had wrapped!

Thankfully, Qi Jingchen hadn’t wrapped big zongzis, and Nie Yi had a very big appetite. Four was just enough for him to eat without having to share with others!

Qi An’s face darkened. How could he have forgotten Nie Yi’s past conduct?

“I left two zongzis that I wrapped outside for you, quickly go and eat ba,” Nie Yi said with a grin.

Qi An grudgingly went to leave, but Qi Jingchen suddenly called out, “Wait.”

“Big Brother Qi, is something wrong?” Qi An asked.

Qi Jingchen walked over and patted his head. “Next time you want to look for me, you can come as you please, but don’t use teleportation.”

“Okay…” Qi An said. Even though he was somewhat depressed, this wasn’t unexpected. In the past, Qi Jingchen had also forbidden him from teleporting into his room as he wished… Nothing to be done about that, everyone had their privacy!

“Be happier, I’ll bring you to play in two days,” Qi Jingchen said.

Sure enough, Qi An became happy. “Where are we going to play?”

“Of course it’s in an amusement park. Don’t children love going there?” Qi Jingchen smiled.

He wasn’t a child anymore! But he really did want to go to an amusement park…

Were there even any amusement parks to play in now? With a face filled with confusion, the dazed Qi An was sent away by Qi Jingchen.

Nie Yi was even happier; in the future, he wouldn’t have to guard against Qi An popping up in the middle of the night to bother him!

That’s right, now he could ask for some benefits. “Jingchen, I ate too much and my stomach is bloated; can you help me rub it?”

Qi Jingchen reached out and faintly rubbed Nie Yi. Nie Yi’s heart raced from the rubbing…

“Okay, sleep ba.” Qi Jingchen retrieved his hand and went to sleep.

Nie Yi sighed and slowly waited for his body’s reaction to disappear, then resigned himself to sleeping.

In the next two days, Qi Jingchen continued to ask Su Haisheng for things; fruits, vegetables, and meat for himself, and food for the secure base’s civilians.

Su Haisheng couldn’t stand giving away congee everyday, but the others were grateful to Qi Jingchen for this. In the end, he simply followed the document B City secure base had sent, which instructed to build houses for the regular people, and give away two pancakes the size of one’s palm for salary.

Clearly, the people were building houses for themselves, yet wanted him to provide the salary… Su Haisheng felt especially unwell in his heart.

Fortunately, there was good news. Under the massacre of Nie Yi’s men and the fire of artillery, the zombies outside had more or less been wiped out, with only two or three left in hiding. Tomorrow, they could go out and gather supplies.

If he could obtain Nie Yi’s weapons and men, they could definitely find even more supplies!

After the policy of being able to receive food as long as they worked appeared in the secure base, everyone was very happy. They were most afraid of hunger. As long as they could receive food, let alone working, many would even be willing to kill zombies. Unfortunately, Su Haisheng had sealed off the city walls, forbidding anyone from leaving from the start.

Meanwhile, Qi Weiguo was discussing with the others about working tomorrow. Someone outside yelled, “Qi Weiguo, someone’s here for you!”

When Qi Weiguo heard this, he hastily ran out, and as he expected, saw Qi Yaoyao. “Yaoyao!”

“Uncle Weiguo, I’ve told Nie shao about you guys. Nie shao said that they would be going to our hometown, and asked if you were willing to follow,” Qi Yaoyao said.

“Going to our hometown?” Qi Weiguo’s face was filled with surprised delight.

“Yes ah.” Qi Yaoyao nodded and smiled. Nie Yi may not allow her to approach her brother, but he treated him quite well…

“We’re willing, of course we are!” Qi Weiguo quickly said.

“Uncle Weiguo, pack up your things and come with me ba,” Qi Yaoyao said.

“Leaving now? We’ll pack up right away,” Qi Weiguo promptly said.

Qi Yaoyao nodded. Seeing that Qi Weiguo and the others had finished packing, she brought them to their residence. On the way, she also took out a few rice balls and gave one to each person.

The rice balls had already become cold, but Qi Weiguo and the others didn’t mind at all. When they took a bite and discovered salted vegetables and ham sausage inside, they became more delighted, and were even unwilling to eat.

“Uncle Weiguo, quickly eat it up ba,” Qi Yaoyao said. “In the future, we won’t be lacking food.”

“Even if we aren’t lacking, we still need to save up. Since Nie shao is willing to take us in, we must be tactful,” Qi Weiguo said.

While conversing, they soon arrived and Qi Weiguo and the others were assigned a room. In the large shed they previously inhabited, they had casually spread out something on the earthen floor and slept on it. There was nothing great about sleeping like that and now that they had a room to stay in, they slept very well and were grateful to Qi Yaoyao and Qi Jingchen.

The weather for the next day was beautiful and Nie Yi didn’t kill zombies in the afternoon. Instead, he had people clear out the remaining zombies nearby in the morning.

The zombies were wiped out very quickly, and even their corpses were buried by earth ability users. Honestly, the best way to deal with zombie corpses was to burn them, but a fire ability user could only burn one or two. As for using gasoline and matches… Where would they get extra gasoline and matches to use?

Since there were no more zombies outside, the secure base’s gates were opened and the civilians could leave the base at will. Under the protection of many people, Su Haisheng also left the base. At the same time, Qi Jingchen and Nie Yi, who always stayed on the city wall, went out.

“Jingchen, we’re leaving tomorrow and will have to stay in the truck… Do you want to play or eat now?” Nie Yi asked.

When Su Haisheng heard this, his face darkened. Every time this Qi Jingchen asked for something, he had to give away things.

However, he had bribed many of Nie Yi’s men already, and was just waiting for tonight…

“What’s over there?” Qi Jingchen pointed at a towering Ferris wheel in the distance.

“That’s an amusement park. Before the apocalypse, our mountains were also considered a tourist spot and there’s an amusement park and a temple nearby,” Su Haisheng said.

“I want to go play in the amusement park. Let’s go sit in the Ferris wheel,” Qi Jingchen said, seemingly unaware that such a request was unreasonable during the apocalypse.

“Okay okay, I’ll bring you there,” Nie Yi said, then looked at Su Haisheng. “Prepare some electric generators for me. We’ll go there to play.”

“I’ll have someone bring it over immediately,” Su Haisheng said. He was in a good mood for a while. He had previously worried that there would be issues if he took action in the secure base, but the amusement park… It seriously was a good place.

“The orphans are really pitiful. Bring them too, we’ll play together… Chief Su, do you want to come as well?” Qi Jingchen asked.

“I’ll go take a look too.” Su Haisheng had no reason to refuse. Him going would make it convenient to bring more people…

Baobao Notes

Extra Kofi chapter! Thanks to Anon, Mo, and julienrosenthal!