Chapter 35: Chapter 35: I Came Alone, No Need to Be Nervous

The space was now almost the size of a large stadium, and Chi Wan found herself growing more and more excited about what it might become.

The patch of land where she had previously kept potted plants was in one corner, and it had already expanded to nearly a hundred square meters.

The kitchen Li Xingye had mentioned was set up on an empty patch of ground on the other side.

Staring at the somewhat distant spot, Chi Wan thought with a hint of frustration, ’If this space keeps getting bigger, I’ll spend half my day just running errands. And that’s not even mentioning that my legs are only half their original length now. I can’t imagine how many extra steps that will be.’

’If only I could just fly over there.’

The very next moment after this thought crossed her mind, Chi Wan actually started flying!

Seeing herself flying toward the kitchen, her first reaction wasn’t fear.

Who hasn’t dreamed of being able to fly as a child? It was just that her dreams lately seemed to come true so unexpectedly, which was a pleasant surprise.

She landed steadily in front of the kitchen Li Xingye had built. Seeing the simple yet elegant setup, Chi Wan couldn’t help but be surprised.

The interior was spacious, and it was fully equipped with all sorts of facilities—he had even prepared a gas stove and a range hood for her!

But... she looked for a long time and couldn’t find a power cord for the range hood or a gas line for the stove. ’How am I supposed to use these...’

Chi Wan instinctively turned the knob on the gas stove, and to her astonishment, a flame flickered to life!

’Hasn’t this been hooked up to the gas yet? Could it have a small built-in gas canister?’

With that in mind, she tried the switch for the range hood. A familiar fan noise started up. Chi Wan was speechless. ’It can’t be connected to some small power source, can it?’

She looked at the familiar yet strange kitchen appliances, feeling that Li Xingye might have another surprise in store for her.

*

While Chi Wan was marveling at her new kitchen, Li Xingye had just arrived at Frenzy Base.

This time, he hadn’t brought Qiangzi and the others; he had come alone.

As the largest base in the Central China region, Frenzy’s gate security was naturally extremely tight.

Not only did they have superpower users maintaining a Gravity Field to prevent infiltration by those with stealth-related superpowers, but they had also dug over a dozen deep trenches filled with sharp wooden stakes to defend against zombie hordes.

Li Xingye ignored the Gravity that grew stronger the closer he got to the base, strolling casually right up to Frenzy’s gate.

The tightly shut gate suddenly swung open, and a bald man nearly two meters tall walked out, laughing.

His tattoos snaked all the way to the top of his head, and his massive frame alone was enough to exude an intense pressure.

Despite his fierce appearance, he squeezed out what could be described as an amiable smile when he looked at Li Xingye. "Brother Li, what brings you here?"

Li Xingye smiled, his tone flat. "I thought you already knew."

The bald man’s smile stiffened slightly before quickly recovering. He rubbed his bare scalp. "Now, what’s that supposed to mean? While everyone’s heard of your great name, we don’t really know much about you. Why don’t you stay at our base for a few days? We can get to know each other better."

As he spoke, without any obvious signal, nearly thirty superpower users instantly emerged from the base. The weakest among them was at least Sixth Rank.

Even surrounded by a crowd of superpower users, Li Xingye showed no signs of tension. Instead, he tilted his head as if puzzled. "Where’s Ding Yao? Since he loves to spy on our base, he should have told you I came alone. No need to be so tense."

Baldy narrowed his eyes. Only after one of the men surrounding Li Xingye gave a slight nod did he drop the forced, amiable smile from his lips. He sized up Li Xingye without hiding his intentions, his gaze like that of a vulture.

"That kid Ding Yao said you had a lucky break, that you managed to get your hands on food from somewhere."

Now seemingly certain that Li Xingye had indeed come alone, Baldy’s eyes, though still wary, took on a sharp, predatory glint. "I could let it slide that you got bored after a full meal and wiped out Blondie’s Wildfire Base. But to come to my doorstep all by yourself, are you trying to get yourself killed? Do you really think you’re invincible?!"

Li Xingye didn’t speak.

But his expression remained calm, as if these people couldn’t affect his mood in the slightest.

It was precisely this fearless confidence that made Baldy hesitate to drop all pretenses—even though Ding Yao had sworn that Li Xingye had not only found food but had also rescued the group of "meat-people" imprisoned by Wildfire Base.

But Li Xingye’s reputation preceded him.

Although he usually kept to his own base and rarely made a move against outsiders.

Two years ago, during a zombie horde, he had single-handedly slayed the apocalypse’s only Sixth-tier Zombie and escaped unscathed. More recently, he had swiftly and decisively destroyed Wildfire Base. Feats like these made it impossible for anyone to underestimate his power.

For a long time, people had speculated that Li Xingye’s power had already reached the pinnacle of what was humanly possible.

It sounded like an exaggeration, but Baldy was well aware of the strength of Blondie’s group. After all, with the exception of an anomaly like Li Xingye, the other bases had some degree of communication with one another.

Wildfire Base’s overall strength wasn’t considered top-tier, but its leader was a Sixth-Rank superpower user. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to support even a small base.

But Ding Yao claimed that from the moment Li Xingye entered Wildfire Base to the point where the entire group was wiped out, no more than ten minutes had passed.

That was terrifying.

Baldy believed Li Xingye was powerful, but he also suspected that Ding Yao was deliberately exaggerating to prove his own value.

What Baldy didn’t know was that Ding Yao had indeed lied—but he hadn’t shortened the time. He had extended it.

After all, who would believe that Li Xingye, all by himself, had taken down Wildfire Base in less than three minutes!

The moment he discovered Li Xingye was not dead and that Blondie and his crew had been completely annihilated, Ding Yao had rushed to Wildfire Base.

But he didn’t warn Wildfire’s leader. Instead, he secretly planted a camera developed by Frenzy.

He wanted to know why everything was different from what he had "seen," and more importantly, why Li Xingye hadn’t died on his food-scavenging trip.

Unfortunately, from the moment Li Xingye arrived at Wildfire Base to the camera being destroyed along with everyone inside, it had been no more than three minutes.

Ding Yao knew Baldy was arrogant and feared he wouldn’t believe the truth, which is why he had stretched the timeline.

Unfortunately, even with the ten-minute figure, Baldy still felt Ding Yao was exaggerating Li Xingye’s strength.

After all, he himself had long since reached Seventh Rank as a superpower user and was now on the verge of touching the boundary of Level 8.

He told himself that if he had been the one to face the Sixth-tier Zombie horde back then, he could have killed that Sixth-tier Zombie too.

Over the years, he had weathered plenty of zombie hordes, big and small, and had a handful of Fifth-Rank Zombie Crystal Cores to show for it.

As far as he knew, the only difference between a Sixth-tier and Fifth-Rank Zombie was a bit more intelligence. But how smart could a zombie get, even with a little extra brainpower?

Now, Frenzy’s top fighting force was gathered here.

And Li Xingye was all alone.