Apocalypse: I Can See Health Bars

Chapter 98: Chapter 97: Two Fates

The four of them sat together in the living room of Room 302. Only a small, charging night light sat on the table.

Chu Zhaozhao’s health bar hadn’t finished its transformation, but it had already begun to regenerate normally. It was slower than Su Qing’s, recovering about one point every ten minutes.

So, Lin Fan didn’t put her on an IV again. At this rate of recovery, she would probably wake up by morning.

Looking at the health bars of the three people before him, he hesitated. He decided not to tell the other two about the results of his experiment, instead addressing them all equally.

"Even though you’ve drunk my blood, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be able to resist the zombie virus. You still need to take precautions. You must be careful..."

"We know, Brother Lin..."

The two of them replied while eating their chive pockets.

Su Qing, sitting to the side, didn’t know what had happened. But from Lin Fan’s words, she could guess the gist of it. She didn’t say anything. The fact that Chu Zhaozhao’s condition had stabilized allowed her to relax considerably, and she joked,

"That Liu Bin is pretty resourceful, finding so many chives at a time like this..."

"Yeah, they only had about thirty pockets in total, and they gave me more than half... They’re pretty tasty, too. Tastes like something from a restaurant," Lin Fan said as he ate.

He was so used to Su Qing’s cooking that this outside flavor felt a bit strange.

"Yeah..."

Su Qing smiled. She got up, went back to the bedroom for a look, and then came out again.

"Little Brother, when do you think Zhaozhao will wake up..."

"I don’t know. Sometime in the next day or two..."

Lin Fan kept his answer vague, giving only a rough estimate.

"She’ll wake up that soon?" Chu Zhaotian suddenly chimed in.

"Yeah, maybe even sooner. She might wake up as early as tomorrow..."

Lin Fan looked at the yellow [64/100] floating above his head. A complex emotion welled up inside him, and he found himself giving an even earlier estimate for when Chu Zhaozhao would wake up.

Whether it was Su Qing, Chu Zhaozhao, or even Lin Fan himself—if a full health bar was the definition of healthy, then as long as an injury wasn’t fatal and the bleeding was stopped, they could likely return to their normal state within two days...

As this thought crossed his mind, he turned to glance at Xu Qian.

[67/105]...

As his own blood took effect within Xu Qian’s body, the gap between their health regeneration rates began to widen.

At this rate, Xu Qian’s health would be full by morning, while Chu Zhaotian might not have fully recovered even after three more days...

Based on Lin Fan’s observations, none of the yellow health bars in Liu Bin’s group ever reached their maximum value. The highest hovered around 90.

In other words, even in a safe environment with ample food, this Life Value would probably never regenerate to its maximum naturally.

Lin Fan had only seen three types of Life Value that could regenerate to full: his own, Su Qing’s with her green health bar, and Su Qing’s with her purple-bordered green health bar.

If he were to collectively call them Awakened Ones, then in terms of sheer life force, Awakened Ones and non-Awakened Ones had already diverged into two completely different species...

If Lin Fan’s blood had been effective on everyone, then having experienced the loneliness of clearing out the building’s Mutated Zombies all by himself, he would have gladly given his blood without a second thought to raise most people’s Life Value to 105.

Regardless of their combat ability, at least their recovery speed would be fast and they wouldn’t have to fear injury. Only then could humanity have a fighting chance in a world teeming with zombies and mutated monsters.

Unfortunately, it was useless.

At least, that was the case with Chu Zhaotian...

’What exactly are you missing?’

...

As evening fell, Su Qing volunteered to stay and look after Chu Zhaozhao.

After all, it was more appropriate for another woman to care for her, which would be inconvenient even for Chu Zhaotian.

And so, the two men said their goodbyes, preparing to head upstairs for an early night.

"Brother Lin, we’re going to head up now. I’ll keep the walkie-talkie on, so just call us if anything happens..." Chu Zhaotian said to Lin Fan before turning to leave the room.

Xu Qian followed behind and was just about to leave as well.

Lin Fan’s gaze swept over Chu Zhaotian’s back. He then gently patted Xu Qian on the shoulder and slipped a round crystal into his mouth.

As naturally as breathing, Xu Qian swallowed it with a GULP. Then, as if he had already forgotten the incident, he turned and followed Chu Zhaotian upstairs.

It wasn’t that Lin Fan was intentionally hiding this from Chu Zhaotian; he had already shown the crystal to him privately when Xu Qian wasn’t there.

But he’d had no reaction to it, assuming it was something one could only eat after being infected.

If Xu Qian were to eat the crystal in front of him now, Chu Zhaotian would realize he was the odd one out. This would not only crush his morale but could also breed resentment. It was better for him not to know at all.

But Su Qing had seen it all. She remained silent, and after the two men left, she gently closed the door.

"Little Brother, that was..."

"It’s the same kind of crystal you two ate..."

"Xu Qian? Why not Chu Zhaotian?"

"Do you remember? When you ate it, it was a complete instinct, as natural as breathing..."

"Of course I remember..."

"Then do you remember what Zhaozhao did..."

"Her head turned to follow your hand even while she was unconscious... Honestly, you! What a time to be playing games!" Su Qing said, giving Lin Fan’s shoulder a light punch.

"I wasn’t playing, I was experimenting. How else am I supposed to figure out the secrets of this stuff..."

"And have you figured it out now?"

"Nope..."

"..."

Su Qing turned, went back to the sofa, and placed the small night light on the coffee table.

Lin Fan went to the bathroom to quickly wash up. When he came out, he sat down beside her and gently stroked her hand.

"Why Xu Qian?" Su Qing asked, puzzled.

"I don’t know, either. Chu Zhaotian has no instinct to eat the crystal, but Xu Qian does. You saw it yourself... As for the difference between them, I have a way to verify it, so don’t worry..."

"Sigh... Does that mean Chu Zhaotian is the only one who won’t receive this power...?"

"You can feel it?"

"Mhm..."

As she spoke, Su Qing lifted her right hand and stroked the spot where the Mutant Dog had scratched her that day. Now, only a faint red mark remained.

"Now I know why you told Zhaozhao to let me kill as many zombies as possible...

I didn’t feel anything at first, but after killing a few, I could clearly feel my stamina and strength increasing..."

Lin Fan rubbed her arm as he said,

"Yeah. If we say your original physical condition was a 100, then for every zombie you kill now, you add one point. In the future, when you become stronger and kill even tougher zombies, you’ll gain even more..."

Su Qing’s eyes widened, surprised that Lin Fan had such a thorough understanding of this method of getting stronger. Then a thought struck her, as if she had just put something together.

"You... You too?"

"Of course. I’m your source, so the same applies to me... It’s just that killing zombies is useless for me now. I’m already much stronger than they are. Water doesn’t flow uphill..." Lin Fan said, kicking off his shoes and lying down on the sofa with his head in Su Qing’s lap, his eyes closed.

"So in the future, Zhaozhao, Xu Qian... they’ll all be the same?" Su Qing asked as she gently massaged Lin Fan’s forehead.

"Probably. I still need to run more tests..."

He must have been truly exhausted. The moment Lin Fan lay down, a wave of drowsiness washed over him, and his words became mumbled and indistinct...

"And Zhaotian... when he finds out in the future... Sigh..."

Su Qing now understood why Lin Fan had said what he did at the dinner table.

"The future... If he can’t become like the rest of you, what kind of future can he even have...? I’m tired... I don’t want to think about it anymore..."

As Lin Fan spoke, a soft snore escaped his nose, and just like that, he was asleep.

She didn’t know whether she should let Chu Zhaotian know about this.

But she knew Lin Fan had lied to them; she herself was clearly immune to the virus.

Perhaps he did it to avoid crushing Chu Zhaotian, but she still sensed a divide.

This divide wasn’t just between the two of them and Chu Zhaotian, but between them and all the "normal people" of this world. It was an invisible, yet undeniably real, abyss.

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