Word count: 1188

Wen Qingling absorbed all the crystal cores he had recently obtained and clearly felt a significant improvement in his strength.

He stood at the door of the clinic, stared at the streets and buildings that looked new, and felt contented.

With the clinic as the epicentre, the surrounding streets had been cleaned up well.

Dilapidated buildings were renovated by hardworking civilized zombies.

Greenery and flower beds were dug up and the space was turned into a vegetable garden for the civilized zombies—though what was planted within were not vegetables, but rather blood anemones.

These blood anemones were all grown from seeds. The civilized zombies would hunt down mutant animals and use their blood to water the blood anemones.

The blood anemones did not require wood-type abilities to mature and ripen—they would grow quickly as long as they were given enough blood.

For the zombies, blood anemones were a rare delicacy.

This area seemed to have become a living space for zombies with their own consciousness.

Zombies with tattered bodies were not allowed to set foot here—they’d ruin the beauty of the area. Only zombies who had recovered their intact bodies and consciousness were allowed to stay.

To this end, they piled all the abandoned vehicles they could find together and formed a circle, marking out their territory.

Wen Zheng stepped out of the clinic with blood anemone tentacle tea1Can’t believe I’d see the phrase “tentacle tea” one day ?. Looking at the wobbling pile of cars that looked one second away from crumbling, he shook his head regretfully.

“The number of civilized zombies is too low. If there were more of them, we’d be able to build a high wall in this area… By the way, didn’t you mention that the outside bases rely on earth-type abilities to build sturdy walls?”

“Why don’t we hire a few earth-type ability users to build walls for us?”

Wen Qingling discovered a new side to his father. His creativity truly had no bounds.

“Why do the city walls have to be made from mud? Aren’t wooden walls beautiful? Aren’t wooden walls sturdy as well?”

Besides, this was the perfect opportunity for Wen Qingling to test how much his strength had increased.

Wen Qingling released his wood-type ability. The flat ground suddenly cracked and four wooden city walls broke through with a loud rumble.

The city walls were ten meters high, twenty meters wide at the bottom, ten meters wide at the top, and approximately seven thousand meters in circumference.

With the design of ancient city walls in mind, Wen Qingling built four wooden Wengcheng2Protuding circular walls that extend from the gates of ancient china cities, used to provide better defence for the gates. Hope my annotation on this image can help xD

, one for each direction for additional defence. If one wished to enter the city, they’d have to pass through the Wengcheng first.

The city walls were made from smooth, uniform wood and additional secrets were hidden beneath. A tangled, intricate web of sturdy roots could be seen crawling on the ground.

These roots were all alive. Over time, the city walls would grow taller on their own.

The civilized zombies in South City were startled. Whoops and cheers followed. Though the zombies could not show their elation on their paralyzed faces, their joy was silently kept in their hearts.

It could be seen through the zombies’ words that they no longer kept to themselves quite as much. Their personalities became a little more extroverted.

In the city of zombies, they had finally found a home for themselves.

Wen Qingling’s father was stunned silly and nearly dropped his teacup in shock. A long while later, he finally made a sound.

“That’s my son!”

Wen Qingling focused on his senses for a while. Even after undertaking such a huge project, his wood-type abilities were still not fully used up.

His ability pool was like a vast ocean. It would probably never run dry.

The city walls made by Wen Qingling were much larger than the shoddy ones created by the civilized zombies by piling cars up.

Now, the zombies could finally concentrate fully on cleaning. This would be their home in the future—their living environment definitely needed to be good.

Civilized zombies headed over to thank Wen Qingling and give gifts. Wen Qingling had received so many pork legs that his hand was going numb.

Feng Tongtong3The little female zombie who was with the white coat zombie ran over, hugged Wen Qingling’s leg and looked up at him.

“Brother, I want to buy a bag of blood anemone seeds.”

Wen Qingling touched her little head and replied, “I think you should call me uncle.”

Feng Tongtong blinked. “Brother doesn’t look old enough to be an uncle.”

Wen Qingling: “You refer to me as ‘brother’, but you call my parents Grandpa and Grandma.4The chinese terms (爺爺，奶奶）can be used to refer to one’s grandpa and grandma. However, younger generations also use this to refer to the elderly. Haven’t you skipped a generation?”

Jiang Lan came out with a bag of blood anemone seeds. “You’re not even a human being and you still care about things like generation? Is that something we can eat?”5Chinese joke, used to refer to something useless/unnecessary

Wen Qingling: “…”

Her words seemed very reasonable. However, not being human did not mean that they could stop pursuing human ideals.

“Thank you, Grandma.”Feng Tongtong handed ten ordinary zombie crystal nuclei to Jiang Lan, took the blood anemone seeds, and ran away happily.

Every civilized zombie transformed with the help of the blood anemone would be registered and managed by Jiang Lan.

To date, 119 people had successfully turned into civilized zombies.

The civilized zombies had their own rules. If they were violated, the zombies would be directly killed without a chance for punishment or exile.

This was to prevent them from harming others after leaving South City, which would in turn also bring disaster to the newly built civilized zombie base.

The first rule was written in a large font and marked out with red:

For such an important thing, even saying it thirty times was not considered too much.

If the civilized zombies were attacked by humans, they were allowed to fight back and even kill their attackers. However, they were forbidden from eating them.

The base would not allow any zombies who had eaten human meat to stay.

The civilized zombies were all people who had already died once and cherished their hard-won lives. Their greatest wish was simply to survive properly in the apocalypse.

The civilized zombie base was built in the middle of a cluster of high-rise buildings and was not easily spotted from afar.

Now that the base had been built, the zombies in South City no longer had as much space to roam about and were forced to wander around outside the city.

The large number of zombies that previously could only be seen in South City could now be seen in its periphery.

In addition, the zombies from South City used to appear in groups to chase after survivors some time ago. As a result, many survivors were now terrified and dared not enter South City.

The danger and bizarreness of South City became more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

The base near South City had already been destroyed.Upon receiving news about how dangerous South City was, survivors in other places stopped coming to South City for their supplies, choosing to head towards the other three directions instead.1Can’t believe I’d see the phrase “tentacle tea” one day ?2

Protuding circular walls that extend from the gates of ancient china cities, used to provide better defence for the gates. Hope my annotation on this image can help xD

The little female zombie who was with the white coat zombie4The chinese terms (爺爺，奶奶）can be used to refer to one’s grandpa and grandma. However, younger generations also use this to refer to the elderly.5Chinese joke, used to refer to something useless/unnecessary