Chapter 14: Suspicion and beetle meat

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Hu Zhu who was standing guard was idly standing still.

Her unreadable face is always apparent, unchanging even in battle, some would think she is a robot in human skin by her abnormality.

"Student Hu Zhu! The sun is almost setting, we need to group up and camp" One of the teachers approached Hu Zhu.

Hu Zhu glanced at the setting sun and nodded following the teacher's lead, she arrived at the camp based in one of the few buildings that survived the blazing beetle's rampage.

All the survivors were sleeping on the second floor while the soul evolvers were sleeping on the first floor, blocking the stairs up.

She scanned everyone on the first floor checking their condition before approaching Shangguan Bing Xue, conversing with Chen He.

Both of them noticed Hu Zhu approaching and greeted her.

"Good evening Hu Zhu, what can I do for you" Chen He with his usual smile greeted.

"Shangguan Bing Xue, how do you plan to preserve the meat" Hu Zhu went straight to the point, referring to the Blazing Beetle meat.

Shangguan Bing Xue organized her thoughts quickly and answered "After we cut up the meat it quickly lost heat so I ordered some survivors to find a container that can store temperature".

Hu Zhu instantly knew her intention, with her ice magic she could create ice and preserve the meat in the container, she nodded before turning around to find a corner to sleep but Shangguan Bing Xue stopped her.

"Before you go, I have a question".

"What is it?".

"Who are you" Shangguan Bing Xue's eyes sharpened as she asked her question.

"I am Hu Zhu, no more, no less".

"No, who truly are you" A glint of suspicion flashed, even though she knew Hu Zhu before the apocalypse, she heard a couple of rumors about her, but those rumors did not match the image of Hu Zhu standing in front of her.

Dull red eyes contrast the rumors of glowing ruby eyes and indifference to the things around her.

"Shangguan Bing Xue, you have your fair share of secrets, is it quite hypocritical to think you can pry on mine?" Hu Zhu's voice contained a warning not to push further, she too is weary to everyone, and revealing facts about her is a fool's choice.

Chen He noticed the tension between them and tried to calm them down.

"Bing Xue, Hu Zhu, this is not the time for internal affairs" After that reminder both of them calmed down, Chen He was right they have a lot on their plate, protecting, fighting, and managing the survivor group, conflict between the soul survivors will cause a major rift and distrust.

Hu Zhu quickly parted with the both of them and rested for the day.

~~

The next day the survivors went back to harvesting the Blazing Beetle, but due to the beetle's hard shell, it was getting harder to extract more meat.

Near the beetle corpse, a group of people were in a circle discussing something.

"So who is going to be the first to eat it" Bai Zemin held a plate and a slice of meat was on top of it, cooked over an open fire, it was the Blazing Beetle meat.

All of the survivors were unsure, it was not like they were disgusted by it being a slice of beetle meat, but it was the first time they tried to eat something procured by a monster after the apocalypse started, they were afraid it had unknown side effects.

"I'll do it" Wu Yijun raised her hand with a determined face, she always wanted to help her friend Shangguan Bing Xue in battle and repay the favor of being saved by Hu Zhu.

"Are you sure Yijun?" Shangguan Bing Xue asked with a serious tone, she was worried about her friend's decision.

Wu Yijun nodded, looking at the determined face Shangguan Bing Xue let go trying to convince her friend to back down.

Wu Yijun went forward to Bai Zemin took the plate and after a little hesitation ate the meat.

A survivor who had a Lesser healing was standing by if something went wrong

He was one of the survivors who killed zombies with the help of Bai Zemin and received a scroll that contained active skill Lesser healing.

After seconds of silence, Wu Yijun received a notification and read it out loud.

"It says I received 1+ strength" Such revelation was astounding to the whole group.

This means you could become strong just by eating, with such implication they don't need to be in danger to get stronger.

With this fact, the survivors were more eager to harvest more meat out of the Beetle that is the size of an elephant and work has become more efficient.

After hours of painstaking work, almost all the ice containers were filled with raw meat and all who participated in helping to harvest the meat got their own cut of meat, and the one who lazed around got nothing despite their cry of complaint.

Shangguan Bing Xue and Chen He was discussing the probability of trying to grab along the shell as well but it was impossible as the weight is almost the same as gold and the toughness makes it hard to cut apart, if they wanted to bring it along they would need a vehicle to transport them and several days to cut up the shell into several small pieces to make them usable.

Giving up on the idea all of them finally moved forward to their original goal the University's restaurant.