The Invasion Day – Chapter 59

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 59

Seeing that Liu Peiqi was no longer looking at him with such fierce eyes, Fu Shiwu secretly heaved a sigh of relief. He totally didn’t feel that he had done anything special at all.

He was the type who would usually be a bit unaware of the situation when he talked. Just now, no one spoke a word, yet he bluntly stated his thoughts on how fruitless Liu Peiqi’s effort was.

Then when everyone was feeling at a loss of how to react, Fu Shiwu suddenly changed the topic and started talking about how to enhance the application of Liu Peiqi’s wood-type ability, helping him to figure a clear path to embark on. This had people stunned again. So Fu Shiwu knew exactly what he wanted to say before directly rubbing salt on Liu Peiqi’s wound? Wasn’t this a typical case of ‘boot camp training strategy’1The original idiom used here is 先抑後揚, which literally translates to ‘break you down first before building you up’.?

Only Tang Xuhai knew that Fu Shiwu’s thoughts were definitely not that complicated. He simply spoke whatever was on his mind. His lack of communication skill certainly wouldn’t allow him to engage in such a profound manner of dealing with other people. 

Perhaps it was because of such a personality that many people didn’t take a liking to Fu Shiwu. Probably quite a few of them had taken advantage of him and even used him as a tool to hurt other people.

Thinking of this, Tang Xuhai stretched out his hand to rub Fu Shiwu’s hair, and Fu Shiwu’s snobbish lump of hair at the top immediately poked upward again.

After gleefully welcoming an angry glare from Fu Shiwu, Tang Xuhai leisurely walked to the side of the car and opened the door: “Get in the car, let’s go! We’ve spent quite some time here.” 

He was only half a leg inside the car when Fu Shiwu pulled on his clothes: “You go to the other seat, I’ll drive. You’re injured, just stay still!”

Tang Xuhai looked at his arms full of reddish-purple bruises and sheepishly walked around the car to the passenger seat.

With an icy expression, Fu Shiwu took the driving seat, started the car and stepped on the accelerator. Turning the steering wheel, he felt a slight pain at the spots where his arm was hit, but he was still in a much better state than Tang Xuhai.

Along the journey, Liu Peiqi reamined very excited, but his idea of ​​trying to shoot out corn cobs inside the car was brutally extinguished by everyone else.

The road they drove on was getting bumpier. The provincial road made of cement wasn’t as easy on them as the national highway made of asphalt. In addition, tons of weeds were growing, uncontrollably squeezing to both sides of the road. Some of them were spreading so wildly that huge cracks had completely torn off the roadside, which severely reduced their speed.

Fu Shiwu carefully looked at the road in front of him. They encountered a few scattered aliens on the way but those were all easily taken care of.

Miao Jia leaned over the back of Wen Zhaoming’s seat and said to Fu Shiwu: “Fu ge, can I post what you said at noon on the Internet?”

“On the Internet? What website?” Wen Zhaoming turned his head to look back. Miao Jia’s laptop showed a webpage that seemed to come from an online forum: “What website is still operating at such a time?”

Fu Shiwu also glanced at Miao Jia in the rearview mirror with curiosity: “Which website are you going to post to?”

“It’s the Focus Forum.” Seeing that the others were all intrigued, Miao Jia simply turned the screen towards them.

This was a very serious forum that discussed crucial topics, its layout overflown with many sections and posts.

“Focus Forum? Why haven’t I heard of it?” Wen Zhaoming took a glance; indeed he hadn’t seen it before.

“This is a newly launched forum.” Miao Jia turned the screen back to himself and said to the other three: “This forum was created by the government after many web portals became inactive. Professionals will post important news here, and there are also sections that facilitate conversations among special ability users. Right now, many ability users are speaking and sharing various ways to apply different abilities.”

“Why haven’t you talked about it before?” Tang Xuhai asked.

“This section was newly created and I barely just found it myself.” Miao Jia said ruefully: “I’ve been putting all my attention on the satellite maps and the servers of different governmental departments. We can use this forum to know the latest happenings and follow other people’s popular practices.”

“You mean there are still many places that can still connect to the Internet? How else would there be so many people posting here?” Wen Zhaoming asked.

“Yes, take the military district we are heading to as an example. It’s now renamed as the Survivor Base of H Province.” Miao Jia lowered his head and searched the webpage: “Because they have ample firepower and fighters, the situation there isn’t bad. Although people’s lives are slightly on the difficult side, normal daily operations can be guaranteed. The base uses a local area network and also provides access to the satellite network. Apart from that, there are many surrounding settlements that hold lots of survivors. They rely on the military to turn themselves into a sort of survival base and are given access also to the satellite network. So although there are not as many websites on the Internet now and not as many people online, major governmental departments that can connect to the Internet are all speaking on the Focus Forum. It’s very lively.”

“Oh.” Fu Shiwu nodded affirmatively: “Then you can post it.”

“Great! Thank you Fu ge!” Miao Jia exclaimed with excitement and both his hands started typing dexterously.

“Shiwu, can we just post your thoughts and ideas to others like that?” Wen Zhaoming said with a slightly disapproving tone.

“Why can’t we tell others?” Fu Shiwu gave him a strange look through the rearview mirror.

Tang Xuhai sneered: “What he means is that why would you just give out such information to people you don’t even know? Why don’t you use this for some benefit, else you’re at a complete loss here?”

Fu Shiwu went silent for a moment, then he said: “I didn’t think so much. Besides, at this time, wouldn’t it be better for more people to know how to use wood-type abilities? That way, their chances of surviving against the aliens will be greater. Moreover, I don’t think it’s a particularly difficult thing to figure out. It’s just that people couldn’t yet think of it now, but it doesn’t mean that they won’t figure it out in the future.”

Fu Shiwu really didn’t think what he suggested to Liu Peiqi was such a magnificent discovery, and neither was what he proposed to Huo Enting before. It was completely natural for such thoughts to occur in his mind.

This was the same as the time when the crimson sky phenomenon appeared for the second time. While the aliens appeared in front of humans for the first time and the others were terrified of their invasion, Fu Shiwu’s attention was instead on the possibility of another outbreak. Such a thought was nothing too out of the ordinary, just simply a different way of focusing on things.

Wen Zhaoming never thought his idea was anywhere unethical. Being a businessman, he had always advocated the exchange of interests, and he wasn’t a benevolent man who would do charity in vain either. That said, he wasn’t thinking about making a fortune out of humanity’s current crisis, rather, he reflexively thought that it should be a transaction that benefited both sides.

“Haha! Wen ge, don’t think we’ll be at a loss if I publish this information.” Miao Jia raised his head and smirked: “I’m not that stupid. I won’t just talk about Fu ge’s discovery for free. If Fu ge’s proposal turns out to work well, we’ll earn EXP2Short for ‘experience points’., and the higher the EXP, the higher his ranking on the forum will be. Raising the reputation of his account will grant us more influence in the future!”

The computer expert Miao Jia was the most proficient in playing around a forum, so he obviously realised such a value within seconds. This was the website that held the highest amount of news these days. If they could gain a major reputation here, they would earn lots of advantages in getting crucial news and information.

It was necessary to know that with the prevalence of the Internet, humanity had grown accustomed to getting news through this channel. Not to mention, in such an apocalypse, if you wanted to practise your special ability skills, you couldn’t just head to the library and look for books, right?

Humanity’s special abilities had barely emerged, and only through the Internet could they get the most valuable information. Of course, whether such information was trustworthy or accurate entirely depended on the givers’ generosity as well as the readers’ wisdom.

Now if a respectable account appeared in the forum, later when that person started talking, having one supporter from one hundred men would already count as an impressive number!     

“Oh!” Wen Zhaoming’s eyes lit up, and he immediately became interested: “This is good enough. What username will you use? Did you just register a new ID?”

“Uhm!” Miao Jia nodded: “Since it’s Fu ge’s Idea, let’s use Fu ge’s name.”

“What? I don’t want to!” Fu Shiwu objected at once.

He didn’t like to expose his name so openly, for it seemed no different from being put under everyone’s eyes to wait for judgement. It just made him feel like a thousand nails were poking at his back, constantly sending chills down his spine.

“Okay, we’ll change it a bit.” Miao Jia tilted her head and got an idea: “Then let’s call it ‘Mr. Fu’, how about that?”

“Mr. Fu?” Fu Shiwu swallowed softly, feeling rather satisfactory. He disliked having to think of nicknames, and he also didn’t fancy over-the-top online names either: “That’ll work.” 

“Ok.” Miao Jia quickly registered as ‘Mr. Fu’, then he posted on the Focus Forum under the section of information exchange.

Many people here really knew how to spot the most useful posts. Soon the number of replies to this post rose exponentially, then it was pinned to the top by the moderator. Just like what Miao Jia had hoped, the account’s EXP increased rapidly along with the rise in the number of clicks and replies.

“Hahaha!” Miao Jia laughed delightfully. He very much enjoyed playing this kind of game where whoever had control over the mass would win. If it wasn’t for the fear that the moderator would check the account and find out that it carried neither EXP nor posts, he would’ve directly taken over the administrator’s rights and tampered with the data.

Soon becoming addicted to playing this game, without any delay, Miao Jia made a few posts about their encounters with the special ability giant cow as well as the corn king.

These posts turned out to be even more powerful. Considering that the military was now gathering data to draw a map with the distribution of special ability plants and animals in different places and was offering rewards for information, as soon as Miao Jia’s two posts turned up, the forum moderator immediately transferred his posts then awarded him with an exceedingly high amount of EXP.

The ID ‘Mr. Fu’ registered by Miao Jia immediately levelled up, his username turning from black to purple. 

“We’ve levelled up!” Miao Jia banged the metal table eagerly: “Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Blue and Purple. There’s no Cyan in the middle, which means Red is the highest level. Interesting!”

As Miao Jia muttered to himself, Fu Shiwu and Tang Xuhai glanced at each other and shook their heads helplessly.

That evening, they camped directly on a clear patch of land near a village. Along with the weather that was gradually turning cooler, the night’s temperature dropped further and further. Whether they spent the night in the car or on the ground, it was unbearably cold.

They only had three sleeping bags and they couldn’t keep the air conditioner on all night to sleep, so one of them suggested going to the village to find some quilts.

But the moment they entered the village, they discovered it was different from any village they had passed through before. Everything here had almost been wiped clean.

“Someone was here before us.” Raising his flashlight, Tang Xuhai’s expression turned solemn.

“Someone else is here?” Fu Shiwu reacted quickly. He looked suspiciously at the whole village that was eerily quiet. There was no sound of poultry clucking or dog barking at all.

“They don’t necessarily stay nearby, maybe they just pass by just like us.” Tang Xuhai solemnly said: “Let’s go back first.”

“Uhm.” Nodding his head, Fu Shiwu turned to leave, and so did Ma Dong and Wu Shan who were anxiously following behind.