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Chapter 348: Chapter 348: An Unexpected Name

"Didn’t you search her?" Chen Xuan was slightly surprised.

"How could I not? Of course, I did," Honglian frowned, "Hey, don’t be impulsive."

The two of them appeared calm because Chen Xuan had already scanned them. Both the man and the woman were ordinary people without any abilities.

"What’s going on?" The people gathered around the stove heard the commotion.

Despair flashed across the woman’s face.

In her view, the possibility of escape would be minuscule if more enemies were alerted.

Chen Xuan sighed and simply whispered, "Stop."

If further misunderstandings led her to pull the trigger, it would be difficult to settle things peacefully.

The woman suddenly froze, unable to even bend her fingers.

Only then did Chen Xuan step forward to pry open her hand and take the gun. Surprisingly, a cable was attached to the grip, extending beneath the woman’s wrist skin.

With one hand pinching the wire and the other gripping the gun, Chen Xuan gave a slight tug and the wire snapped.

Upon examining the internal structure, it seemed to be composed of tiny electrical wires. Following the wire to her arm, he discovered the inside was hollow, just enough to accommodate the folded gun.

But to call it a prosthetic, its workmanship felt inexplicably crude.

By now, everyone had gathered around.

"Hey, she’s awake," Little Pigeon happily assessed the woman, "Does the wound still hurt?"

"What kind of posture is this?" Wang Baihu asked while slurping his noodles.

The woman also looked surprised.

Though unable to turn her head, her eyes scanned back and forth among Little Pigeon and the others, a guttural sound emanating from her throat.

Chen Xuan snapped his fingers upward, interrupting the Truth-Telling Technique.

Once released from stasis, she lunged forward too forcefully, falling face-first to the ground. If not for the blanket cushioning her, she might have sported a large bump on her forehead. Honglian eventually helped her back into a sitting position.

By now, it was obvious even to a fool that they bore no malice.

"Who...are you really?" the woman asked in disbelief.

...

Zhuang Yu greedily devoured her noodles, her chopsticks barely pausing. The steaming instant noodles disappeared into her mouth as if without chewing at all.

"Eat more slowly...careful not to burn yourself," Little Pigeon cautioned.

After finishing with the noodles, she drank all the soup from the bowl, then savored it by licking her lips.

"If you’re still hungry, I can cook you another pack."

"No...no, one pack is enough," Zhuang Yu showed some hesitation at first but quickly refused the offer, "If I eat more, others will eat less."

"Where are the others?"

"How many survivors are in this city altogether?"

Everyone asked at once.

Zhuang Yu bit her lip, seemingly unsure whether to speak out.

Honglian gently coughed, signaling everyone to quiet down, then clasped Zhuang Yu’s hand in her palm, "Since you were willing to tell us your name, it means you’ve already started to trust us. As we continue to communicate, the barriers will naturally fall away. You can also voice your concerns... For example, who is the group that you don’t want to join? That way, we can help you distinguish friend from foe. Of course, if you really don’t want to talk, we won’t force you."

This honest and relaxed tone made the woman slightly lower her eyes.

"Sorry...at first, I mistook you for Evangelicals," Zhuang Yu paused for a moment, "Have you really never heard of the Evangelical Association?"

Evangelical Association?

Chen Xuan glanced instinctively at Honglian.

But her expression remained flawless, as if she had never heard the name, "We really don’t know," she replied, "We’ve traveled a long way and passed through many regions to get here."

"Oh my..." Zhuang Yu marveled, "I don’t know if it’s sheer luck or misfortune for you."

"Why?"

"Because this city is isolated by a giant nano-living body; no one can leave," she explained, "As for the Evangelical Association...they’re a cult that betrayed humanity. Between the nano-living bodies and humans, they chose the former, claiming it to be a higher-tier life form. Only by being accepted by it can one ascend."

By now, Chen Xuan was no longer surprised by the word ascension.

"Do we really look like cultists?" he half-jokingly asked.

Unexpectedly, she earnestly nodded, "Yes. You dare to wander outside without protective gear; that’s something only Evangelicals would do. Normal people would attract nano-living bodies, almost a form of seeking death."

Chen Xuan’s heart skipped a beat, "Do nano-living bodies actively seek out living humans?"

Zhuang Yu’s skepticism grew, "Sir, isn’t that common knowledge? It’s a living entity that needs to consume us to replenish its energy...people are no different from pigs or sheep in their eyes."

Could this be why his Heart Method scan failed? he secretly wondered. No wonder that even when she was so close, her surroundings appeared pitch black, affecting Honglian when near her as well.

However, Honglian patted her chest confidently, "We honestly didn’t know. Because any nano-living body that dared to approach us ended up in pieces."

"I see...you’re Ability Users," Zhuang Yu sighed with relief, "Actually, that’s also a major trait of the Evangelicals since they were an organization collecting Ability Users long ago."

It fits.

Chen Xuan’s expression turned grim; the two Evangelical Associations were likely not coincidentally named the same—it was probably the illegal Ability User organization from the previous century!

The problem was Lin Qing had scarcely mentioned the Evangelical Association.

She claimed there was a time when Ability User organizations were as numerous as cattle but mostly vanished quickly, until cybernetics became mainstream and Ability Users disappeared from the stage of history.

Unquestionably, this was another result of history being altered—the Evangelical Association hadn’t disappeared; it had persisted all along.

"Then how did you rule out we were from them?" Wang Baihu curiously asked.

"The Evangelicals don’t include children or the elderly," Zhuang Yu’s gaze settled on Little Pigeon, "They use them as sacrifices to nano-living bodies."

Little Pigeon was briefly tongue-tied, "Well...I’m actually an adult..."

Sadly, no one cared.

She then turned to look at Guagua, "And this dinosaur...I remember now, just before losing consciousness, it saved me from falling debris."

"Quack," Guagua cried at her, seemingly quite proud.

"Unbelievable..." Zhuang Yu offered a wry smile, "A group with both young and old living harmoniously with a dinosaur—such a warm scene I haven’t seen in a long time. It could never happen among the mad, murderous Evangelicals. I’m sorry...I shouldn’t have doubted you all."

Honglian smiled, "No worries, I can understand how you feel. You and your partner risked coming here to find survival supplies, right?"

"Yes, we’re Searchers from Sha River station, intending to find food and water resources in this area, but then we encountered a nano-living body."

Zhuang Yu, now less guarded, slowly began to share her story.

They spent several days draining the water in the tunnel to enter this undeveloped storage area. Luckily, it held many supplies from food to clothing; unluckily, during their exploration up the ventilation shaft, they encountered a nano-living body mimicking a fan. They fought and retreated, with Zhou Zhixuan seriously injured, leaving Zhuang Yu to drag her partner along...until the building collapsed on them, falling two floors deep into a storage room.

The fall was severe, rendering them immobile, and the collapse continued, threatening to bury them under rubble, when Guagua appeared in time to save their lives.

As for why the building collapsed, Chen Xuan had already deduced the answer.

It was the massive creature they attracted which toppled this long-abandoned commercial market, affecting the supply storage area as collateral.