Nan Muran glanced at the village not far ahead, her gaze sharp. “Wu Ge, we need to get off the vehicle.”

Jia Wu stopped the car, and the three of them—two people, one dog, and one cat—quickly got out.

Da Fu jumped straight onto the back of Tank, and Tank showed no objections.

“To kill a zombie, you can only attack its head, and you must ensure you don’t get injured, or else you will turn into one,” Nan Muran said as she took two baseball bats from her space and handed one to Jia Wu.

“This method is a bit violent,” Jia Wu frowned but took the bat without hesitation.

As he charged forward, ready to blow the head off the nearest zombie, Nan Muran used her psychic ability to control the zombie for a second.

Jia Wu swung the bat, and in an instant, the zombie’s head was smashed open, its dark brain matter splattering everywhere—violent but satisfying.

However, the smell of the brain matter was incredibly overwhelming, one breath of it and it could make you throw up last night’s meal.

After the first one, they proceeded methodically, killing five zombies in total.

Once there were no zombies standing around, Nan Muran took out a dagger from her space and began poking at the zombies’ brain matter.

“What are you looking for?” Jia Wu asked, a little surprised.

“Looking for crystal cores. The crystal cores can help awaken abilities in those with powers. They might even trigger new abilities. I plan to try it when we go back,” Nan Muran explained as she searched seriously, finally finding a white, irregular crystal the size of a fingernail.

Jia Wu took the crystal core she handed him. “Do all zombies have this in their heads?”

“Not necessarily. Some do, some don’t, but if you encounter stronger zombies, they will definitely have one. The color and size of the crystal core vary depending on the zombie’s strength,” Nan Muran explained as she continued her search.

Essentially, the crystal cores start as transparent white, then go red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and black. The deeper the color, the higher the level of the crystal core.

Ability users are also limited by their level when absorbing crystal cores. To level up, they must absorb crystal cores from higher levels, as cores of the same level can only strengthen and replenish, not increase power.

The two of them carefully examined five zombie heads, and in the end, they only found two crystal cores—both small.

“You’re not going to absorb it?” Jia Wu asked, surprised as he saw Nan Muran casually put the crystal cores in her backpack.

“My abilities are still in the early second level. This doesn’t help me much.”

Jia Wu was momentarily stunned, realizing he had overstepped and awkwardly didn’t ask further.

“If you use your powers against Black Ice, how much chance do you think you have of winning?” Jia Wu finally asked, voicing his ongoing concern.

Nan Muran smiled, knowing he was still worried about her. “I didn’t finish my sentence earlier. I’ve not only seen the venomous scorpions, I’ve also killed them all.”

The car screeched to a halt on the winding mountain road.

“With Little Liu’s help, no one can challenge me at this stage. But after that, it’s hard to say,” Nan Muran said to Jia Wu, laying out the situation honestly.

Jia Wu forced himself to calm down and restarted the car.

After driving a few kilometers, they arrived at a village located on the edge of the winding mountain road. The number of zombies had clearly increased, and a few were moving faster than the others.

The two got out of the car, each instinctively splitting up to act separately.

Jia Wu continued using his bat to smash zombie heads, while Nan Muran used her psychic abilities to control zombies, then either smashed their heads or strangled them with willow branches.

Throughout the process, she didn’t let Little Liu help, relying only on her abilities to control the branches.

With the noise and human presence, more and more zombies began to gather.

After killing over twenty zombies, Nan Muran felt a significant exhaustion.

Compared to the time when she could use her abilities with Little Liu to effortlessly kill zombies, being at the early second level felt somewhat inadequate. But it was fine—she just needed to level up faster.

Without her powers, she could only resort to smashing heads. The zombies near the winding mountain road were nearly all wiped out by the two of them.

Afterward, they began searching the brain matter for crystal cores. In the end, they found twenty-one beginner-level crystal cores, and two with slightly red centers.

Tank, who couldn’t sit still, leapt in to tear off the zombies’ heads with his sharp claws.

To their surprise, Da Fu, usually clumsy-looking, was incredibly swift. Every time, it jumped precisely onto a zombie’s head, though despite its sharp claws, it couldn’t sever the head.

After a while, Little Fu saw Nan Muran searching for crystal cores and discovered the new world.

“It’s…” Jia Wu looked at Da Fu in disbelief as it jumped on a zombie’s head to dig out a crystal core.

Nan Muran was also stunned, and without hesitation, she gave a thumbs up to Little Fu. “You’re amazing. Just be careful not to get hurt.” Her current abilities weren’t strong enough to dispel the zombie virus, so she couldn’t prevent mutations.

But whether it was Tank or Da Fu, their behavior seemed strange. Had something happened to them that she didn’t know about?

Although confused, she couldn’t ask directly and could only continue with her uncertainty.

After collecting all the crystal cores, they got back in the car and continued along the winding mountain road. Forty minutes later, they finally arrived at Nan Shan Yun Yuan.

At the entrance of Nan Shan Yun Yuan, several zombies in security uniforms were wandering. Nan Muran got out of the car to deal with them and manually raised the gate.

Once inside the villa area, they occasionally encountered wandering zombies. If they were special, she would kill them and collect crystal cores. If they seemed too clumsy, she wouldn’t waste any effort.

The car drove all the way to the villa where Guo Fei and the others were staying.

“Honey, someone’s here,” Lin Jiajia said nervously, watching the car on the surveillance screen, then shouted inside.

They had been living here for almost three months, going from confusion at the start to relief, and now to nervous unease. The couple, along with their son, had gone through excruciating psychological torment.

It wasn’t until yesterday that they saw zombies wandering outside, which only made them more anxious.

In this state of constant tension and anxiety, the only thing they could be thankful for was that they still had enough food.

The food Nan Muran left for them was very detailed, including dehydrated vegetables, self-heating pots, and concentrated fruit and vegetable juices.

Despite the long-lasting apocalypse, they were still able to maintain a balanced diet.

However, the more they had, the more they feared it might attract the attention of others or that uncontrollable changes would happen outside.

During the continuous heavy rain, they had encountered people trying to break in and steal food more than once. If not for the two guns Nan Muran had left behind, they didn’t know what might have happened.

“That’s Muran,” Guo Fei said, looking at a girl in a gray tracksuit getting out of the car, his voice filled with excitement.