Apocalyptic Disaster: I Hoard Billions in Supplies and Kill the Saint

138: Chapter 138 The Gate of the StairsStarting today, all internal members who collaborated with Chu Ping in handling the brass badge are to be fully interrogated.

Seal off related areas, and re-inject the energy cores into the purification array.

Chu Xiong, effective today, you are stripped of your status as a direct relative of the Chu family.

For the crimes of rebellion, defecting to the enemy, and sabotaging the base core... you are sentenced to life imprisonment.

Everyone was shocked.

This wasn’t just a simple ”purge” by Chu Yunting, but a total counter-kill that uprooted everything!

Sun Hao said in a low voice: ”Good heavens... he really had the whole trap set up long ago.”

Zhang Tianjin’s eyes lit up: ”That’s a real old fox for you! Wait for the opponent to expose their trump card, then stomp it into the ground!”

Zhou Cheng looked at Chu Yunting in shock and muttered: ”He’s no dying old man... he’s a tiger king lying in ambush among the ashes.”

At this moment, in Luo Dechuan’s tower thousands of kilometers away.

Luo Dechuan slowly closed the mental perception map, his voice low:

”Chu Xiong has failed.”

”Chu Yunting bit back... Heh, he really dared to gamble.”

”Since that’s the case, it’s our turn to flip the table.”

He reached out and pressed his fingertip against the [Gate of the Stairway] system core.

”...Release the ’second badge’.”

”It’s time for us to act.”

The night in the Chu family base finally returned to a brief moment of peace.

After the turmoil and purging of the day, order had been restored within the base.

Only after Chu Yunting had made proper arrangements did he finally have the energy to handle the living arrangements for Ye Nanxing and her group. He didn’t delegate the task to others, but instead personally led them through the main hall and into the guest floor in the most core area.

That was the highest courtesy he could offer them.

”This is a ’clean zone’ I prepared for distinguished guests back in the day. It has a mental barrier, so you can sleep soundly tonight.”

When he said this with a smile, his voice was weary, but sincere.

Dinner was simple, but rarely warm.

Large pieces of roasted meat, vegetable soup, and freshly steamed black rice cakes—being able to eat a hot meal after the Apocalypse was a rare luxury.

Ye Nanxing sat on the left side of the main seat, with Zhao Wei and Zhang Tianjin on her right. Yan sat quietly by the window, black hair half-draped, eyes as still as a deep well.

”Seriously, it’s been a long time since we ate together,” Sun Hao said, breaking the silence with a smile. ”I’ve almost forgotten what food tastes like.”

Zhang Tianjin mumbled while chewing meat: ”Once we completely smash those ’brass dog tags’, we’ll have a hotpot feast.”

Zhao Wei didn’t laugh, his gaze darkening slightly: ”Smashing one doesn’t matter, there’s still a second, a third... Yan has already been marked by it, we can never go back to the way things were.”

The air suddenly grew heavy.

Yan looked up at Zhao Wei and nodded slowly: ”It’s still there... watching me from afar.”

”But it doesn’t matter. It can find me, and I can find it.”

”It’s just that it will be fiercer later on.”

Chu Yunting put down his wine glass and spoke in a deep voice:

”I know you came this time because of the abnormal fluctuations in my life value.”

”Nanxing... you really don’t owe me anything.”

Ye Nanxing glanced at him lightly and said nothing.

Chu Yunting continued:

”Actually, before you arrived, I was already prepared to self-destruct the energy heart... The original plan was to take the ’brass badge’ to the grave with me.”

”This was my final bottom line, to protect the base.”

”But now, it’s different.”

”It has locked onto ’Yan’... and Yan is your core.”

He looked at Ye Nanxing, his eyes frank: ”I know this has dragged you into a war that shouldn’t belong to you.”

”I’m sorry.”

”You don’t owe me.”

Ye Nanxing finally spoke, her tone as calm as ever: ”Yan being locked onto means that your ’Chu family’ is no longer the opponent’s ultimate goal.”

”Since this type of mental pollution can be transmitted via objects, it can be deployed through more channels.”

”Next time, it might not be you.”

She paused and swept her gaze over everyone:

”It could be Zhao Wei, Sun Hao, or it could be me.”

”Since we can’t escape, we’ll solve it.”

”Not just for you, but for ourselves.”

The complex look on Chu Yunting’s face deepened: ”You’ve changed a lot, Nanxing. You are now more... than before.”

He stopped mid-sentence.

Ye Nanxing said indifferently: ”If I hadn’t changed, I would have died long ago.”

After several rounds of drinks, Chu Yunting opened the base’s strategic terminal, and a hologram filled the space above the dining table.

”The world today is roughly divided into three major factions.”

”First, there is still the remnant government, which controls the most resources, technology, and information networks.”

”Second, there is the Great Base Alliance, like our Chu family, like Changchuan, Linhai, Dongqing... all formed by alliances of powerful people from various places, independent and resistant.”

”Third, there is the emerging mutant faction.”

”Luo Dechuan is one of them.”

”They no longer resist the pollution, but choose to ’adapt’—coexisting with, merging with, and even evolving through mental pollution.”

”—Their ultimate goal is to ’rebuild the world order,’ but clearly, they don’t intend to take us ’old humans’ along.”

”While the government tries to maintain stability, the various major bases are also constantly at war with each other.”

”Not everyone is still acting like humans as we are; some choose annexation for survival, others commit massacres for power.”

”Resources—they are completely insufficient.”

”Every base is like a hungry beast, waiting for a crack to bite and tear everything around it to pieces.”

Ye Nanxing stood by the window, looking at the night shrouded in mist in the distance, and asked softly:

”Then how long do you think we can survive?”

Chu Yunting smiled and asked in return:

”You fought all the way here, wasn’t it just to ’live’?”

Ye Nanxing did not respond.

But at that moment, there was finally a deeper meaning in her eyes.

Not just ”surviving.”

But—

”What to do after surviving.”

The night was deep.

When Ye Nanxing pushed open the door to Chu Yunting’s room, the man was sitting quietly by the window, his trench coat still on, a burnt-out cigarette paper between his fingers.

She walked over and placed the small porcelain bottle in her hand on the table:

”Take another dose before going to sleep.”

Chu Yunting turned his head to look at her, his eyes still weary deep down, but his spirit was much clearer than yesterday.

”Are you planning to make me die more slowly?”

Ye Nanxing chuckled: ”No, I intend for you... to live longer.”

He was silent for a moment, then picked up the spiritual spring water and drank it in one gulp.

The liquid went down his throat like a warm stream of light surging into his limbs and bones, his blood surging, and his heart reignited with the strength to beat.

”Thank you,” he said in a low voice.

”Don’t be so quick to thank me,” Ye Nanxing said, taking back the bottle. ”You haven’t repaid me for my life yet.”

The next morning, Chu Yunting appeared in person at the plaza in the core area.

It wasn’t dawn yet, and the ground was still covered in unmelted frost, but he, draped in a grey robe, walked step by step up the stairs of the base’s main building, and issued an order for reorganization in a steady and powerful voice:

”Starting today, the south wing passage is completely sealed off, and all heads of material warehouses will be investigated. Anyone who leaks information to Chu Ping’s old subordinates must confess within three days.”

”Lin Kui, Zhao Shan, accompany me on an inspection.”

The crowd was shaken.

And when everyone saw with their own eyes Chu Yunting’s gradually recovering vitality and his agile, wind-like stride, the entire base felt as if it had been struck by an invisible thunderclap—

Originally, they thought that even if he hadn’t died, he must have been severely injured; but looking at his complexion and demeanor now...

He didn’t look like someone who had just struggled back from the brink of death at all!

”He recovered too quickly...”

”Could it be... he was prepared all along?”

”I heard Miss Ye brought a special medicine...”

Various whispers circulated in the shadows, but without exception, no one in the entire base questioned Chu Yunting’s control anymore.

And he didn’t give the enemy a chance to catch their breath.

Within three days, all the remaining followers of Chu Xiong were completely purged.