Chapter 32: Triple Kill, Black Pig Yuhime

The system dove into the North Star Base and didn’t emerge again for a full half hour. Qiao Jia didn’t ask what it had been up to, nor did the system volunteer the information; the two of them shared a tacit understanding. She was certain the system had gone in to scatter flyers around the base. This system really had a wicked streak.

Without looking back, Qiao Jia and the system hurried away from the North Star Base and set about their next arrangements elsewhere. The next morning, when the survivors in the North Star Base woke up, they were greeted by a deluge of flyers promoting Jia Jia Town—covering every inch of the place!

The base leader was still deep in sleep when his subordinates burst into his quarters, urgently rousing him. Before he could even get furious and demand to know why they’d dared to intrude, a single sentence from his subordinate snuffed out his anger entirely, replacing it with a secret, gnawing fear.

“Sir, something’s wrong! The entire base is littered with flyers for Jia Jia Town—even the outer walls are plastered with them! Please, look!” His subordinate thrust a stack of flyers in front of him; there wasn’t even time to destroy them all. Now, the whole base was abuzz with talk of Jia Jia Town. Some survivor teams had already packed up and slipped away before the base leader had even gotten out of bed!

If his personal guard hadn’t taken over base security, even more would have fled. The base leader had an arsenal at his disposal—a whole armory of guns and artillery. Even if it was just firearms and a few cannons, it was enough to intimidate the survivors.

Glaring at the flyers laid out before him, the base leader’s face darkened. “Jia Jia Town’s latest resident benefits—exclusive access to the Waste Pill Mystery Box?” “Those survivor teams must be after the Waste Pill Mystery Boxes,” his subordinate quickly explained.

Though the boxes were expensive and the odds low, they could really yield cultivation pills! The base had been brainwashing the lower-tier survivors, telling them Qiao Jia’s mystery boxes were a scam, but they couldn’t deceive the more experienced survivor teams. After all, Xie Jinghan’s group had already left!

The base leader deeply regretted letting Xie Jinghan go. He’d only wanted to suppress him, to bring him under his control, not really drive him away. But now, Xie Jinghan and his people were thriving outside, making the other survivor teams restless for more.

“Jia Jia Town—Qiao Jia!!” The base leader clenched the flyers tightly. Coexistence with Qiao Jia was impossible. His ambitions were vast; the only way he could tolerate Qiao Jia was if she served him. He had been prepared to turn on her, but hadn’t expected Qiao Jia to strike first—and in such a humiliating way!

It was utterly unacceptable. His expression shifted through a spectrum of emotions, while his subordinates hardly dared to breathe.

While the base leader seethed, Qiao Jia and the system had already set up a stall near the North Star Base. Her mystery boxes were a hot commodity there. The distance between the base and Jia Jia Town was significant and fraught with danger. Ordinary survivors dared not make the journey; survivor teams might risk it, but still harbored some fear of the base leader’s firepower.

But the appearance of Waste Pill Mystery Boxes from Qiao Jia’s town dispelled much of their hesitation. If cultivation pills could be found, who’s to say there wouldn’t be other magical items, like spiritual root boxes, in the future? Coupled with Qiao Jia’s new resident benefits, the offer was irresistible.

Now, the base only allowed people in, not out, trying to prevent further escapes. But before the flyers were discovered, some players had already left the base. So, there was quite a crowd around Qiao Jia’s stall, all eager to see if the flyers’ promises were true.

For most survivors, safety was paramount. The stronger ones often had families—elderly parents or children—and their greatest concern, while hunting zombies or monsters, was their loved ones’ safety. If Qiao Jia’s promises held up, relocating to Jia Jia Town would be the best choice.

“Seeing is believing,” Qiao Jia told the skeptical survivors. “No matter how much I say, you’ll have doubts. Why not go see for yourselves? Jia Jia Town turns no survivor away, nor does it bar anyone from leaving.”

She was deliberately contrasting herself with the North Star Base. She’d thought the base leader would have some bottom line, but to stop survivors from leaving, he simply locked down the base. Qiao Jia would never stoop to that. Their paths were fundamentally different.

After answering their questions and selling out her mystery boxes, Qiao Jia packed up to leave.

“Town Chief Qiao Jia, you just arrived at the North Star Base—why are you leaving so soon?” A righteous male voice called out from ahead. Judging by the survivors’ reactions, it was the base leader himself.

“I’m done here,” Qiao Jia replied, giving him a glance and turning to go. She had much better things to do than waste time with him.

Bang!

A bullet tore through Song Yu’s arm. Qiao Jia’s expression remained unchanged; she glanced down at the fresh bullet hole, sighing almost imperceptibly. What a bother to patch up a hole like that.

“Liuzi, what are you doing?!” the base leader shouted in feigned outrage at the young man who’d fired, then turned to Qiao Jia with mock apology. “So sorry, Town Chief Qiao Jia. My lack of discipline. Here, a hundred crystal cores as compensation.”

He tossed a second-tier crystal core at her feet. Qiao Jia’s dark eyes fixed on the base leader; her gaze, lifeless as the dead, made his subordinates shiver.

“Boss, I have a bad feeling about this woman,” one whispered nervously.

“What’s there to be afraid of? Haven’t we killed enough monsters?” Liuzi sneered. “She’s just a stronger monster, that’s all.” He’d managed to hit her—she wasn’t as fearsome as rumored, after all. She was still vulnerable, couldn’t even dodge bullets. What was there to fear?

“But… she’s not bleeding,” the survivor replied, trembling. Something about Qiao Jia right now felt truly dangerous.

“Haven’t you ever heard? All fear comes from insufficient firepower!” Liuzi grinned savagely and turned to shoot again.

But as he spun, he found himself face to face with Qiao Jia.

!!!

Liuzi’s eyes widened as, in the next instant, he saw his own body standing there. Why could he see his own body? Oh, his head had flown off.

After killing Liuzi, Qiao Jia turned her gaze to the base leader. He had barely opened his mouth when, just like Liuzi, he saw his own body collapse.

Qiao Jia might not dodge bullets, but they couldn’t dodge her slaughterhouse blade either—a blade she’d scavenged just last night from a nearby slaughterhouse. Twelve of them, in fact. Along with a five-hundred-pound live pig.

“Spare me, hero!” The survivor who’d been frightened by Qiao Jia’s gaze dropped to his knees before her.

“Mm. I won’t kill you,” she replied.

“Let’s go,” Qiao Jia called out, and a filthy black pig came snorting out of the underbrush. To the survivors, it sounded like ordinary pig noises, but Qiao Jia and the system could understand it perfectly.

“Qiao Jia, you’re so slow,” the black pig, Yuhime, complained.

Yuhime was the name she’d given herself—she’d come up with it while watching TV with the slaughterhouse workers. When Qiao Jia and the system found her, she’d been strung up with a hemp rope, marked for slaughter by a boss who wanted to eat her because she was different and clever. She was the only living creature left in the slaughterhouse; if Qiao Jia hadn’t arrived, she’d have starved, been killed by zombies, or eaten by survivors.

Luckily, it was Qiao Jia who came—Qiao Jia, who couldn’t eat.

“Sorry. Let’s go.” Qiao Jia and the system each climbed aboard—one on Yuhime’s back, the other atop her head.

Since Qiao Jia’s body was a corpse, walking such distances every day took its toll. She needed a ride. She’d hoped for a car, but before she found one, she and the system met Yuhime—a long-legged, clever pig. The system said she had some kind of aura, though it wasn’t sure exactly what.

So Qiao Jia struck a deal: she’d care for Yuhime, feed her well, and have someone tend to her every day; in return, Yuhime would serve as mount and bodyguard. Despite weighing five hundred pounds, Yuhime was faster and stronger than most survivors.

One person, one pig, and one system left the North Star Base behind, after dispatching the base leader and his top enforcer, Liuzi, leaving the survivors staring at one another in shock.

Xie Jinghan had expected Qiao Jia to play a game of wits with the base leader, probing and sparring. Instead, she’d simply overturned the table.

Qiao Jia: Why bother with schemes? Killing solves everything.

“The… the base leader is dead?” the survivors asked in disbelief.

“It seems so.”

“Then… should we choose a new leader?”

As soon as the question was asked, those who had accompanied the base leader exchanged meaningful glances. With him gone, the next base leader would surely be one of them.

With Qiao Jia’s swift and decisive action, the North Star Base would likely be too busy—and too fearful—to trouble her for a long while.

Yuhime ran with astonishing speed. What had taken Qiao Jia and the system half the night to traverse, she covered in less than two hours. When they reached the town gates, both Qiao Jia and the system were amazed, circling Yuhime in admiration.

“Yuhime, you’re so fast!”

“You really don’t seem like a pig at all.”

“Of course,” Yuhime snorted, holding her head high and strutting daintily to the riverbank, glancing sidelong at the astonished survivors.

“Is she asking us to bathe her?” one survivor wondered aloud. Was it possible to read those words on a pig’s face? Incredible!

“I think so!” others nodded. Bathing a pig was a novel experience, and since this was the town chief’s pig, plenty of survivors eagerly volunteered. Soon, the filthy Yuhime was sparkling clean, lying contentedly as they scrubbed her. If anyone was too rough, she’d nudge them in protest.

“System, could Yuhime be a protagonist’s cheat?” Qiao Jia asked. If she wasn’t the main character but had an aura, maybe she was someone’s golden finger.

“That’s possible. I’ll ask the senior systems,” the system replied, uncertain itself. The script of this world was too chaotic—anything was possible.

“Let’s go home,” Qiao Jia said. Whatever made Yuhime special, she was hers now.

Yuhime, freshly washed, shook off the water, splattering the survivors before following Qiao Jia with her head held high.

“No wonder she’s the town chief—even her pet is extraordinary.”

“That pig is so smart, I want one myself.”

The townsfolk watched Qiao Jia’s departing figure in admiration.

Back in her cabin, Qiao Jia set to work building a nest for Yuhime. Yuhime wanted a two-story cottage lined with straw, a big mud bath, and a hot spring, plus a vegetable garden and fresh produce always available on the second floor. She was a vegetarian pig, with quite the list of demands.

If her own cabin had been suitable, Qiao Jia would have given it up for Yuhime.

“System, are there any mystery boxes in the shop for this?” she asked as she gathered her tools. The two-story straw cottage was doable, and the mud bath wasn’t a problem, but the hot spring and second-story veggies…

“Yes, but they’re spread out among many boxes. Wait, I think there’s a Piggy Paradise box that includes them,” the system replied. The box was a bit useless, though—its contents were only suitable for pigs.

Searching the system shop, Qiao Jia found the Piggy Paradise box—activation cost just ten thousand points, and a level one box was only a hundred. It could produce all sorts of pig-appropriate items, mainly buildings.

“…Yuhime,” Qiao Jia called.