Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 164: Two Old Schemers

Chen Ye reached out with his mind, attempting to manipulate the dense fog surrounding the vehicles. After a moment, he shook his head and dropped his hand.

His smoke manipulation was, at its core, a supernatural power derived from his Sequence. This suffocating gray mist, however, was clearly just a natural—albeit highly anomalous—weather condition birthed by the apocalypse. It refused to answer his call.

The two men briefly traded stories about their respective escapes from Rong City No. 2 Primary School.

“Captain Chu, who are we going after first?” Chen Ye asked, leaning against the cold metal of his truck.

With several team members still unaccounted for, leaving them to rot in the wasteland wasn’t an option.

A heavy, solemn expression settled onto Chu Che’s face. “We track Iron Lion first. He’s the closest.”

Chen Ye didn’t voice any objections to the decision.

Compared to the sharp-witted Sun Qianqian, Iron Lion was a massive, walking liability. The giant was incredibly dense, and his reaction times to complex, sudden emergencies were often tragically slow. When Chen Ye had yelled for him to cover the rear during the breakout, the absolute moron had actually stayed behind to do it.

Yes, he had his secondary Mad Lion persona, but raw brawn could only solve so much.

Being dumb was one thing, but Iron Lion’s fatal flaw was his bleeding heart. If he didn’t have the rest of the convoy constantly babysitting him, his naive kindness would have gotten him killed months ago. In the old world, compassion was a virtue. In the apocalypse, compassion was a quick way to end up as Anomaly chow.

A thought suddenly struck Chen Ye. He looked at Chu Che, his brow furrowing in surprise. “Wait a minute, Captain Chu. You never mentioned that your Marking ability could track people.”

Previously, Chu Che had only ever explained that his Marking could tag Supplies and inanimate objects. He had conveniently left out the part about it acting as a supernatural GPS for living targets.

Clearly, the captain had kept an ace tucked firmly up his sleeve.

“Ahem… did I not mention it? Must have slipped my mind,” Chu Che coughed awkwardly, refusing to meet Chen Ye’s eyes.

Sensing Chen Ye’s flat, unamused stare, Chu Che knew the jig was up. “Fine. As long as they are within a certain radius, I can sense the exact location of any item I’ve tagged. But for living people, the limit is ten simultaneous targets.”

“That’s a terrifyingly useful ability,” Chen Ye noted, whistling softly. “So, you’re essentially a walking human radar.”

“You could put it that way, yes.”

“And I assume you’ve placed a invisible Marking on all of our heads?”

“Ahem… yes.”

Chen Ye just stared at him in utter silence.

“Wait,” Chen Ye said, reaching into his pocket and holding up one of the glowing stones. “If you can just track our skulls, why the hell did you hand out these rocks?”

Chu Che shook his head. “The tracking has a strict range limit. If you step outside of that radius, your signal goes dark. The stones act as dropped breadcrumbs so I can pick up your trail if you wander too far.”

Chen Ye finally understood.

“Tsk, tsk… Captain Chu, you really are a piece of work,” Chen Ye mocked, clicking his tongue. “You even keep a hidden hand against your own teammates! You really are a scheming old fox.”

Stung by the accusation, Chu Che flushed with embarrassment and shot back, “You have a lot of nerve calling me a schemer! What the hell was that smoke clone you used to decapitate Wu Jianshan? And this new, upgraded mist of yours? You never breathed a word about any of it!”

Chu Che stepped closer, pointing an accusing finger. “If I didn’t have my Marking ability, I never would have found you in this fog! And you dare call me a scheming bastard?! Chen Ye, with that honest-looking face of yours, who would have thought you were so devious?!”

Now it was Chen Ye’s turn to look slightly embarrassed. Anyone would feel a bit awkward having their hypocrisy called out to their face.

“I didn’t intentionally hide it from you,” Chen Ye deflected smoothly. “Wu Jianshan’s Abyssal Control was terrifying. I had to keep my cards hidden just in case he compromised you. Plus, everything happened so fast, there wasn’t time for a debriefing!”

Chu Che wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. “From what I know of the Sequences, every major advancement grants one to four new abilities. You’ve only revealed two.” Chu Che narrowed his eyes, analyzing Chen Ye from head to toe. “As a Sequence 2 Smoke Apostle, you must have at least one more trick hidden away!”

Chen Ye’s face turned a shade of green.

If this keeps up, he’s going to strip all my secrets bare, Chen Ye thought nervously. Whoever Chu Che had been before the apocalypse, his knowledge regarding Sequence Beyonders was alarmingly extensive. Every survivor needed a few trump cards to stay alive.

“Alright, stop! Let’s drop this right now,” Chen Ye said hastily, raising his hands in surrender.

“Fine. Agreed,” Chu Che said.

The two men looked at each other, both seeing the exact same ruthless pragmatism reflected in the other’s eyes.

Chen Ye casually tossed the glowing stone into the snow. As it landed, the glowing characters vanished. Chu Che had remotely revoked the Marking.

“Ahem… anyway, Captain Chu. If we’re going to pull Iron Lion out of the fire, we probably need to move fast,” Chen Ye said, aggressively changing the subject.

Chu Che nodded, his expression turning grim. “My radar is picking him up. He’s roughly sixty miles away.”

“Sixty miles?!”

“Yeah. The idiot probably refused to drop the survivors he’s carrying to act as bait, meaning he’s been running from the horde this entire time. We have to move quickly.”

Chen Ye’s face hardened. Before the world ended, a sixty-mile drive was a casual hour-long commute. In the apocalypse, sixty miles of ruined highways meant navigating a minefield of unimaginable horrors and fatal uncertainties.

But Chu Che’s next sentence made all the blood drain from Chen Ye’s face.

“To reach him in time, we have to take the most direct route,” Chu Che said flatly. “We have to cut straight through Dawu City.”

“Pass through… Dawu City?” Chen Ye repeated, his tongue tying itself into a knot.

Was the captain insane? They were talking about driving through the heart of an entire ruined metropolis. The nightmare they had just barely survived in Rong City still made Chen Ye’s stomach churn, and now Chu Che wanted to willingly plunge them into another urban death trap?

It was absolute suicide!

Chu Che sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s the only way. If we bypass the city limits and detour through the mountains, it will add at least a week to the journey. At the very least. Do you honestly think Iron Lion can survive a continuous, week-long pursuit?”

“Captain, does your Marking ability come with a group chat feature? Can’t you just share our real-time location and let everyone quietly rendezvous on their own?” Chen Ye pleaded.

“No. At least, not yet,” Chu Che shook his head. “But don’t panic, Yezi. Including you, there are only four of us in this immediate convoy. Remember the Anomaly Third Law: The larger the group of humans, the greater the attraction to the horde. Conversely, the fewer people there are, the harder it is for Anomalies to detect them.”

Chen Ye blinked, finding a small sliver of comfort in the logic. “That… makes sense. Why haven’t I ever heard you mention this Anomaly Law before?”

“Because I just made it up to make you feel better.”

Chen Ye: “…”

“Alright, fine,” Chen Ye muttered, rubbing his temples. “Shall we roll out now?”

“Give me a few minutes. Uncle Bao needs to rest. We’ve been driving all night; another five minutes won’t kill us.”

“Uncle Bao? Right, where is he?” Chen Ye asked, peering toward the SUV.

“He’s sick,” Chu Che said quietly.

When Chen Ye stepped up to the window and looked into the backseat, his breath caught in his throat. Uncle Bao, the once commanding and robust logistics chief of the convoy, had been reduced to a literal skeleton. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunken deep into his skull, and his skin was pulled tight over his bones. He looked horrifyingly similar to the emaciated Wu Jianshan.

When Uncle Bao weakly turned his head to look at Chen Ye, even the act of opening his eyelids seemed to require a monumental effort.

It was jarring to see how rapidly the apocalypse could break a man. Xiao Wang was hovering anxiously by a portable camp stove, boiling water to make a hot broth for the dying man.

If it weren’t for Uncle Bao’s critical condition, Chen Ye highly doubted Chu Che would have stopped the convoy at all.

“I don’t know if he’s going to pull through this,” Chu Che murmured, his voice thick with repressed grief.

Chen Ye remained silent. There was nothing comforting to say.

“Forget it. We all have our appointed time,” Chu Che said, his voice hardening as he forced his emotions back down. “For Uncle Bao to reach the end of his road in a warm bed instead of the belly of an Anomaly… that’s a luxury in this world. Our turn will come eventually. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day.”

The captain’s words were brutally stark, but they were the undeniable truth of the wasteland. Perhaps their impending drive through Dawu City would serve as their own unmarked grave.

Frankly, compared to Uncle Bao’s failing health, Chen Ye was far more terrified of Dawu City. Driving into an urban center with just two vehicles was sheer, unadulterated madness.

“Here. Catch.”

Chu Che suddenly reached into his coat and tossed a small, leather-bound notebook at Chen Ye’s chest.

Chen Ye caught it, looking down in confusion. “What is this?”

“Something I wrote. I haven’t come up with a title for it yet,” Chu Che said casually, turning back to his SUV. “Give it a read. It might save your life.”

Chen Ye’s eyes widened, a thrill of excitement shooting through him. “Is this… an Artifact?!”