I Can’t Just Watch You Die

Canteens, by and large, all share something in common.

That is, the potato stew with meat has no meat, and the tomato and egg stir-fry has no egg.

Of course, not every canteen is like this, but this type certainly makes up a significant portion, like the one at the Mutual Aid Society.

Ren Anhua stared at the iron tray on the table, feeling a touch irritated.

But this irritation wasn’t strong enough to be called ‘anger’; it was more like a sliver of displeasure, fine as a silk thread, lingering in

her chest, to the point that she felt the annoyance itself was a waste of energy.

This all started when she went to get food from the canteen.

The Mutual Aid Society’s canteen was located on the second floor of the Youth Palace.

Here, food was only supplied twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening.

They didn’t serve a noon meal because many people were out scavenging for resources, and besides, their food supply couldn’t support the expense of three meals a day.

So, whenever it was time to eat, pretty much everyone from the Mutual Aid Society would be present.

As for lunch, those who were well-off and had their own reserves would sort themselves out.

Those who weren’t just had to go hungry.

In the post-apocalyptic world, going hungry was the norm for ordinary people who lacked abilities and were unwilling to go out and scavenge.

In fact, being provided for with two meals a day was already considered exceptionally good treatment.

These were the freeloaders Qian Shen often complained to Chen Shu about, and they made up about thirty to forty percent of the Mutual Aid Society.

Actually, Qian Shen was one of them, but she didn’t see herself as a freeloader in the slightest.

In her mind, she had fed Chen Shu quite a few meals when he was a child, so it was only right that he repay her kindness with gushing gratitude now.

But if Chen Shu were to repay others with the same gushing gratitude, that would be utterly despicable.

She and Chen Shu were neighbors, practically family—what right did anyone else have to the same treatment?

So, at Qian Shen’s insistence, she finally got the authority to manage the food supply.

On one hand, it was convenient for her to whip up a private meal for herself at noon.

On the other hand, whenever one of those freeloaders came to get food, she wouldn’t give them a single piece of meat.

Sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes—these things that grew underground were cheap and plentiful, the staple food they deserved.

As for vegetables, there were none.

Edible vegetables that grew above ground were just too hard to find.

These days, they were rarer than meat, and not many could afford them.

When it was Ren Anhua’s turn to get food, Qian Shen recognized the eye-catching pink-haired girl at a glance.

She scooped up a ladle of potato stew with meat, deliberately shook it for a good while to make all the meat fall out, and then slapped the rest onto Ren Anhua’s tray with a clatter.

“Hurry up, next!” Qian Shen deliberately shouted in front of Ren Anhua, as if she had won some kind of victory.

‘You’re telling me to hurry up now? Then what the hell were you shaking your ladle for all that time?’

Ren Anhua’s lips twitched, an inexplicable displeasure rising within her.

But the people behind her were pushing and shoving, all in a rush to get their food, and Qian Shen’s shout only made them urge Ren Anhua to move along.

Since Ren Anhua was accustomed to solving problems with her fists, her verbal sparring skills were not particularly good, especially when facing this type of person, which she found exhausting.

She could only silently mutter to herself that petty people were a pain and left with her tray.

In fact, when Shi Mu went to get his food, he received much the same treatment.

But the monk’s state of mind was remarkably stable, or perhaps he was just used to vegetarian meals, for he showed none of Ren Anhua’s dissatisfaction.

The Mutual Aid Society’s canteen only served one dish per meal, purely to accompany the rice, and it was made quite crudely.

Ren Anhua ate her potato stew with potatoes, feeling that the stuff was completely flavorless; they probably skimped on the seasoning too.

She felt there was no need to come back to this place in the future.

Putting down her chopsticks, Ren Anhua decided not to eat anymore.

After all, she could go three days with only one meal and still not feel hungry, so why force herself?

‘The RV team’s food is much better,’ Ren Anhua thought to herself.

Actually, even if it wasn’t as good as the RV team’s, back when she was in the East Suburbs, her subordinates would occasionally take down a mutated beast.

Everyone would just set up a rack, start a fire, and the sound of sizzling barbecue would fill the air.

A little sprinkle of salt was all it took to make it delicious.

It was nothing like the Mutual Aid Society, where they treated a bit of meat like it was some precious treasure.

In the post-apocalyptic world, there were countless mutated beasts; all they had to do was kill a few.

Seeing Ren Anhua put down her chopsticks, Liu Shi thought she was angry about the incident with Qian Shen.

She picked up a piece of meat from her own plate to give to her, only to have her chopsticks collide with another pair mid-air.

Liu Shi looked at Chen Yi, who was also holding a piece of meat.

The two exchanged a smile and placed the meat from their plates into Ren Anhua’s bowl together.

“Qian Shen is always like that; we don’t like her either. Xiao An, don’t be too angry. I’ll make you something delicious when we get back later.”

Although food was a precious resource in the apocalypse, Liu Shi felt that feeding such an adorable little thing was worth it.

“I still have some snacks. I can give you some too.”

Chen Yi had always treasured her few bags of potato chips, reluctant to eat them.

Those things were genuinely a finite resource; with every bag eaten, there was one less in the world, as no one was producing them in the apocalypse.

For a girl her age, snacks were particularly precious, but she was equally willing to give her treasure to this cute, pink-haired girl.

Tang Yunxuan watched his two teammates’ behavior and was struck by a sense of injustice.

They had been teammates since the early days of the apocalypse, so how come he had never received such good treatment?

Faced with the kindness of the two ladies, Ren Anhua felt too embarrassed to keep her chopsticks down.

Although she really didn’t need to eat this meal, she could still manage it if she had to.

The Sukumizu Bio-Suit had already penetrated deep into her body, completely controlling her digestive system.

Extremely fine tentacles occupied her small intestine and extended into her stomach, taking over her digestive functions.

Although Ren Anhua wasn’t used to the foreign sensation from behind at first, she had more or less grown accustomed to it now, and it had even started to feel strangely comfortable.

It was just that whenever she sat down, she always felt something shift inside her body, which made her a little shy, but thankfully it wasn’t enough to trigger the change in her pupils.

The food she ate would be completely broken down and converted into pure, high-density nutrients for storage.

When her body needed it, pure, easily absorbable nutrients would be released from the tentacles deep within her small intestine.

The storage capacity was quite high, so Ren Anhua rarely felt hungry or full.

It was just that this meal tasted truly awful, but Ren Anhua didn’t have high standards in the apocalypse, and besides, she wasn’t a picky eater.

“There’s no need for a special meal or snacks. I just don’t need to eat that much.”

‘Don’t need to eat that much’ meant about one meal every three days, Ren Anhua added silently in her head.

Seeing the pink-haired girl pick up her chopsticks again, Liu Shi and Chen Yi were relieved.

“You don’t have to be so polite with me. You’re at an age where you’re still growing.”

Liu Shi said as she took the opportunity to pat the little one’s head as she ate.

Growing was impossible.

Ke Xingmei had explained some things about her body.

After the Biological Transformation, her body had already deviated from the scope of a regular human and would no longer undergo normal physical development.

Becoming an Awakened already drastically slowed the aging process, and with this Biological Transformation on top of it, this pink-haired girl would likely look like this for the rest of her life.

But from another perspective, it could be considered eternal youth, albeit a youth that was a little too youthful.

Ke Xingmei was currently researching partial transformation abilities in order to apply the advantages of these transformed creatures to the members of the RV team.

Now that Ren Anhua had taken Ke Xiaoshan’s healing ability, Ke Xingmei, in her new role as the team’s healer, would surely have plenty of opportunities for experiments.

As Ren Anhua was eating, a commotion erupted behind her, followed by the sound of an iron tray hitting a wooden table.

Chen Shu had sat down next to her.

He was finally here.

The only reason Ren Anhua came to this terrible canteen was because she was waiting for Chen Shu, the ‘leader’ of the Mutual Aid Society.

According to Tang Yunxuan, the fake camp was in the industrial district, but the industrial district was huge, and he didn’t know the exact location.

The people from the Mutual Aid Society were too busy hiding from them to risk their lives scouting for information.

So, not many people in the Mutual Aid Society knew the camp’s specific location, but it wasn’t none either.

At the very least, Chen Shu was one of them.

Ren Anhua had thought Chen Shu would follow Shi Mu, but instead, he had taken a few people to clear out the group of zombies Chen

Yi had lured into the alley.

It took him a while to get here for his meal.

If he had been any later, there probably would have been nothing left to eat.

The root cause was that very few people were willing to go with him to clear out zombies—only two.

No one wanted to take unnecessary risks.

Even if Doctor Liu could neutralize the zombie virus, it was only effective a certain percentage of the time.

Besides, if a zombie bit you to death on the spot, there would be no chance for rescue at all.

People were afraid of death, and they were afraid of pain.

With Chen Shu willing to risk death and pain for them, they were naturally unwilling to take that risk themselves.

Especially at dinnertime, no one wanted to skip a meal to go clear out zombies.

Finding two people was already pretty good.

After hearing about this from Chen Yi, Ren Anhua felt even more strongly that the Mutual Aid Society was a quagmire.

Chen Yi had wanted to help, but Chen Shu had refused.

He said that the steel rods used to kill zombies from atop the walls were too heavy for a little girl like her to wield, making it too risky.

On his way back, Chen Shu had been comforting those two individuals, mostly saying things like “safety first” and “what if someone gets bitten if we don’t clear them out in time?”

But the two men clearly hadn’t paid much attention.

They were just a rare few who had been moved by Chen Shu’s selfless kindness and happened to be confident in their own skills, so they had foolishly run off with him to clear out zombies.

But the terrifying experience with the zombie horde had clearly made them regret it.

It was hard to say if they would make the same decision again if something like this happened in the future.

The horror of standing on a wall and looking down at nothing but zombies was hard to understand without experiencing it firsthand.

The thought of what would happen if they slipped and fell sent a cold sweat down their backs.

Halfway through the job, their arms grew weaker and weaker as they wielded the sharpened steel rods, and in the end, Chen Shu had to deal with most of the zombies himself.

Chen Shu still carried the stench of zombies, which made Ren Anhua, who was eating, feel a bit nauseous.

But Chen Shu seemed to have long grown accustomed to the smell, and he ate ravenously.

“The location of the Survivor Camp, where exactly is it? Tell me.”

Ren Anhua got straight to the point, not bothering to beat around the bush.

Chen Shu froze at her words, swallowing a large mouthful of white rice drenched in stew sauce.

“Why are you asking about this?”

Such a sensitive question aroused his suspicion.

“To be honest, I plan to wipe them all out. They’re at odds with your Mutual Aid Society anyway, right? I’ll just take care of them for you, no need to thank me.”

“No!” Chen Shu refused flatly.

“Huh?”

Ren Anhua had considered all sorts of answers from Chen Shu, but this was the one she had never expected.

“That’s too dangerous, don’t do anything stupid. They only robbed you once, right? Besides, we rescued you, so it’s not like you have a deep-seated grudge.”

Chen Shu began to persuade Ren Anhua.

“Really, they’re very dangerous. Don’t act recklessly.”

Ren Anhua really wanted to tell Chen Shu that he had actually saved those thugs.

“I have my ways, so why do you care so much? Just tell me.”

Ren Anhua felt a bit helpless.

She didn’t want to reveal that she was an Awakened, but she hadn’t expected it to become such a huge obstacle to getting information.

“No, I can’t just watch you go to your death.”

Chen Shu’s attitude was resolute, and he refused to say a word no matter what.

This left Ren Anhua feeling utterly helpless, and in the end, they could only part on bad terms.

She would have to find another opportunity.