The Male Leads Who Are Becoming Stranger and Stranger [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The next day, She Yi packed his things and left the residential complex on foot with Jian Yan; they abandoned the car they had driven the day before.

Both of them carried ample supplies, so they didn’t need to risk their lives snatching items from under the noses of zombies. Their goal was to find a sturdy vehicle that Jian Yan found acceptable.

After all, there was still a long way to go to S City, and owning a resilient vehicle was crucial.

City A was large. Sun Haiman’s base was co-founded by her and her subordinates from before the apocalypse. Currently, the lucky survivors might know of such a power, but it hadn’t truly begun to take in the masses of survivors yet.

However, it probably wasn’t far from becoming a true apocalypse survivor base; Sun Haiman had always been a clever woman.

But regardless of the future, the present was still in a state of tense chaos.

Blocking Jian Yan and She Yi’s path were three emaciated young men, clearly having gone hungry for at least two days.

“Leave the food.”

Their greedy gazes were practically glued to the backpacks the two held.

She Yi tightened his grip on the backpack in his arms.

Seeing that neither of them spoke, the three men opposite them shouted impatiently again:

“Hand over all your food!”

They pulled out several knives, waving them threateningly.

The light reflected from the tips of the knives under the sun was somewhat piercing. She Yi lowered his head slightly, his body shrinking back as if in fear, taking a small step backward.

This movement seemed to bolster the other party’s bravado, and the way they looked at She Yi changed somewhat.

“Hey, you… you wouldn’t happen to be a girl dressed as a guy, would you?”

Seeing them targeting him, She Yi lowered his head even further, his face turning somewhat pale.

The gazes the three cast over grew increasingly explicit.

In the next moment, She Yi felt a shadow loom over him. He raised his head slightly to find Jian Yan standing in front of him. When Jian Yan turned his head to look at him, his eyes were deep and unfathomable.

“Don’t forget that you are Awakened.”

She Yi froze. Before he could process those words, the other had already turned back. Facing the three men holding sharp weapons, his expression remained unperturbed.

“Kid, want to be a hero? I advise you to hand over the food obediently and then crawl out of here, otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?”

Suddenly, Jian Yan lunged toward one of them. Before the man could react, a fist slammed hard into his stomach. Jian Yan then kicked the man, who was doubled over in pain, toward the other two.

While they were flustered by Jian Yan’s sudden outburst, Jian Yan closed in again, beating them down until they couldn’t get back up in just a few moves.

He patted the dust off his trousers and cast a sharp gaze toward a nearby corner. Two people had appeared there at some unknown point, two young men.

“Hi, don’t get excited, we have no ill intent.”

One of the boys raised his hands, showing a harmless attitude.

“Your moves just now were seriously cool. Have you trained?”

As they approached, She Yi noticed they looked clean and full of energy, clearly having lived quite well during this period of the apocalypse. This kind of person either had ability or a background.

After confirming the other party truly had no hostility, Jian Yan withdrew his sharp gaze and said indifferently:

“I haven’t trained. I’ve just been in a lot of fights.”

“Oh, I’m Yang Yang, and he’s Tang Yu.”

The boy named Yang Yang introduced them with great familiarity, then looked toward Jian Yan and She Yi with a brilliant smile.

“And you?”

The former glanced at him silently: “Jian Yan.”

“Hello, I’m She Yi.”

Perhaps the words Jian Yan had said to him earlier had taken effect; She Yi’s demeanor was a bit more cheerful now, at least without any lingering traces of fear.

Jian Yan, observing him in secret, nodded imperceptibly.

That timid appearance simply had no place to survive in this cruel apocalypse.

[Protagonist’s Current Favorability: 25]

“Where are you heading? Leaving this city?” Yang Yang asked curiously, noticing the things they were carrying.

“S City. We plan to head to S City.”

There was nothing to hide about their next destination. As soon as Jian Yan finished speaking, the other party said impatiently:

“Tang Yu and I were planning to go to S City too! How about we go together? We can look out for each other!”

As if afraid Jian Yan wouldn’t agree, he added another bargaining chip:

“Both Tang Yu and I are Awakened. You don’t have to worry about us being a burden!”

“Awakened?”

“Yeah! I’m Strength-type, and Tang Yu is Wind-type!”

The young man named Tang Yu, who hadn’t spoken from beginning to end, seemed to want to stop Yang Yang, but he was a step too late. He shifted his gaze to the silent Jian Yan and said:

“His parents went to S City for a trip before the apocalypse, and their fate is unknown. I’m accompanying him to find them… I have no relatives.”

Looking at his still-silent best friend, She Yi couldn’t help but tug at his sleeve. He also believed that having more people meant better support, especially since they were Awakened.

“Xiao Yan…”

“Okay.”

Jian Yan, emerging from his silence, gave a small smile and reached out his hand to the two, re-introducing himself:

“Jian Yan, Fire-type Awakened.”

She Yi followed suit:

“She Yi, Water-type Awakened.”

…

They were two when they arrived, but four when they left.

After a dangerous journey of over a month, by the time they reached S City, the original four-man team had expanded to thirty-six people, twenty-two of whom were actually Awakened.

They vaguely followed Jian Yan as their leader, becoming a strong and powerful team.

Why did this happen?

Actually, it was all indirectly caused by She Yi.

When they were leaving City A, they encountered a scene where a dozen zombies were besieging a supermarket. Through the glass window, She Yi saw a young girl huddled in a corner inside.

Dirty, disheveled, and pale with fear, yet the girl’s pitifully moving beauty could not be hidden.

She was wearing a uniform, likely an employee of the supermarket, and had hidden inside when the apocalypse struck. With water and food, she wouldn’t have starved.

But somehow, the zombies caught the scent of a living person, drawing all the nearby zombies over.

She Yi noticed the main door was completely deformed under the zombies’ attacks; it was only a matter of time before it was broken down. The key reason She Yi paid extra attention to this scene was that the girl trapped inside was a member of the protagonist’s harem.

Yang Yang and Tang Yu in the back obviously saw this as well. The former let out a gasp of sympathy, while the latter took one look and ignored it.

They weren’t “Holy Mothers”; there was no need to risk their lives to save someone under the siege of a dozen zombies.

She Yi shifted his gaze to Jian Yan in the driver’s seat, only to find that Jian Yan wasn’t paying any attention to that side at all, his eyes extremely cold.

Possessing memories of a previous life, it was impossible for him not to have noticed the girl inside, and impossible not to recognize her.

Although he found the protagonist’s deviation strange, thinking of the original host’s “White Lotus” personality, She Yi clearly couldn’t remain indifferent to this scene. But just as his worried gaze landed on Jian Yan, the car suddenly accelerated and sped away instantly.

In the rearview mirror, She Yi saw the supermarket door finally give way, followed by the girl’s tragic scream.

One of the harem members was thus “cannon-fodder.”

She Yi: “…”

This made him inevitably think about the feasibility of helping the protagonist hook up with girls to farm favorability; now it seemed that method could be crossed out.

Subsequently, She Yi shifted his focus to helping the protagonist recruit subordinates.

Thus, it led to the current scene.

The original team of four had become thirty-six people, twenty-two of whom were Awakened, absolutely a terrifying force in the apocalypse.

Of course, this excluded those army-like units with hundreds or thousands of people.

But now that the world was in chaos and 60% of people had turned into zombies, so-called “armies” probably didn’t exist anymore.

By now, nearly two months had passed since the onset of the apocalypse, enough time to completely overturn the rules of a peaceful world.

The apocalypse: survival of the fittest, where strength is revered!

S City was a choice piece of meat. Jian Yan saw its value, and so did Bai Mu. However, compared to the previous life where Jian Yan was caught off guard by the sudden apocalypse and reacted too late, Bai Mu, as the next head of the Bai family, was much more stable.

After the initial moment of shock, he fixed his gaze on the nation’s strongest military base—S City. Considering the future of the world, his thinking was clear and decisive.

Bai Mu and the protagonist one was the heir to a great family, the other an orphan with no relatives; this dictated the gap in their initial reactions when the apocalypse arrived, which led to Jian Yan losing the head start.

Even though he later established a solid status and possessed immense power, that “piece of meat” grew increasingly impregnable as he matured, eventually ranking as one of the two strongest bases in the apocalypse alongside him.

Collaborating yet competing.

She Yi had read the script of the previous life; in “She Yi’s” betrayal, Bai Mu had played the role of a catalyst.

One casual conversation had cemented “She Yi’s” resolve to betray.

To be the protagonist’s nemesis, Bai Mu was also a considerably dangerous character.

But now, She Yi saw usable value in him.

The current situation appeared identical to the protagonist’s previous life being beaten to the punch by Bai Mu but at its core, things were different.

She Yi turned to look at the protagonist. Jian Yan’s ink-colored eyes reflected a depth that was hard to see through; his facial features were cold and resilient. This was a lion that was dangerous yet knew how to bide its time.

Currently, Bai Mu had arrived only a few short days before them. It was absolutely impossible for him to have completely overtaken S City.

Until the very end, it was still unknown who would win and who would lose.

Catching sight of S City’s walls in the distance, as the car gradually approached, She Yi curled his lips slightly.

A good show was about to begin.