Back to the Peak

Chapter 62: Natural Rad-Energy

Shi Qingyang didn’t expect Cheng Ran to be injured right before his eyes.

If he himself had been bitten by a male ant beast, as long as he wasn’t injured to the the bone, he would think it was just a minor wound. But Cheng Ran was different. Cheng Ran had a rejection reaction radiation energy, so an attack would directly hurt him. If the wound was exposed to strong radiation, and the radiation protection suit was torn, it might kill him!

Shi Qingyang didn’t even know where he was and what to do for a moment. Now he had only one thing in his mind: kill the male ant beast in front of him!

When people were in despair, they would always show far more than usual strength. Shi Qingyang’s eyes were red. He threw the ant eggs behind him, and wind blades soared towards the male ant beast one after another, all accurately hitting its joints. Finally, the male ant beast was sliced in two and fell down.

Right at this moment, other ant beasts surrounded Shi Qingyang.

Shi Qingyang’s hands moved quickly, scattering wind blades. Anger and despair even made him forget how to defend. He only knew to attack.

He liked Cheng Ran, and he had no doubts about this. In his last life, he already had a good impression of Cheng Ran. After two years of getting along in this life, Cheng Ran had even become his most important person. Was it possible that he would lose Cheng Ran like he had lost his parents?

He liked Cheng Ran, but he had always felt that he wasn’t strong enough. Although he promised to date Cheng Ran, he didn’t take the initiative. By contrast, Cheng Ran had been very proactive.

He always felt that he could protect Cheng Ran at school, he could make Cheng Ran cheerful, and in the future, he wouldn’t let Cheng Ran die. Just with that, he had felt that he would have done a good enough job.

He wanted to wait until he was stronger to tell the world he would be with Cheng Ran, but now, he couldn’t even protect Cheng Ran!

If something happened to Cheng Ran, how could he forgive himself?

Shi Qingyang couldn’t tell what kind of mood rolled in his chest, but now he chose to vent all these feelings on these ant beasts in front of him.

With his back against the rock at the entrance of the cave, Shi Qingyang clung to the entrance to prevent himself from falling. Shi Qingyang’s hands moved fast, but no matter how fast he moved, he seemed to be drowning in the ocean of ant beasts. One of the ant beasts that had been cut in two by him still firmly bit his legs.

“Qingyang!” A voice sounded, and at the same time, a hand grabbed Shi Qingyang’s shoulder.

Shi Qingyang suddenly woke up, now realizing he still had a lot of things to do. He condensed the radiation around him, pushed out the ant beasts, then darted into the cave, and quickly filling up the hole with stones.

“Qingyang, are you all right?” Cheng Ran’s voice rang out. Shi Qingyang subconsciously stood up, wanting to see Cheng Ran’s situation; but once his head hit the rock ceiling with a bang, only then did he completely calm down.

“Ranran, it’s okay, you’ll be fine. I’ll go out and find someone to save you…” Shi Qingyang hugged Cheng Ran tightly. Although he would encounter many ant beasts when he left the cave and climbed up, and there were countless ant beasts on the mountain outside, he absolutely had to go right away!

“Qingyang, I’m fine.” Cheng Ran’s face was all red. The movement just now had awakened Gu Changjin, who was looking at them with the light of the contact terminal, but Shi Qingyang held him tightly and didn’t let go.

He and Shi Qingyang had known each other for more than a year, nearly two years. In front of Gu Changjin, Shi Qingyang had never been too close to him, but this time…

“Let me see your wound.” Shi Qingyang let go of Cheng Ran and quickly grabbed Cheng Ran’s hand. When he was about to touch it, he eased and slowed down his movements again.

Cheng Ran was wearing a bulletproof vest, but only had the radiation suit over his arm. Ordinary ant beasts might not be able to bite through the radiation suit, but male ant beasts that were two or three times larger than ordinary ant beasts could.

When he turned over the left arm, he saw a wound with exposed flesh and blood. Shi Qingyang had many such wounds on his body after falling into the nest because his radiation protection suit had long been broken, and he had been bitten a lot just now. He didn’t care about his own body at all, but seeing a wound on Cheng Ran was different.

Shi Qingyang trembled and searched through the luggage next to him, only to remember that Cheng Ran seemed unable to use medicine… He carefully held Cheng Ran’s hand in his own, frozen in place.

“Qingyang, I’m fine, I’m really fine,” Cheng Ran repeated. When he was injured just now, he was extremely afraid. But he wasn’t afraid of dying. After all, when he was being hunted down, he had been ready to die. He was just afraid for how Shi Qingyang and Gu Changjin would feel.

But in the end, he felt completely alright.

Yes, his wound was extremely painful now, but he was fine. He wasn’t about to die because his anti-radiation suit was torn open and his body was exposed to radiation. Just now, Shi Qingyang had hugged him. Shi Qingyang was so worried about him now, that he felt that these bursts of pain were nothing.

On the contrary, it was Shi Qingyang whose state was off. Shi Qingyang’s reaction was more severe than he thought it would be. Just now, it seemed that he almost done something stupid… Cheng Ran couldn’t help but be afraid for a while. He had really been afraid that Shi Qingyang would fall.

“Ranran…” Shi Qingyang stretched out his tongue and licked the wound on Cheng Ran’s arm. He didn’t know what to do now, so he just wanted to lick off all the radioactive substances on it.

Although there was radiant energy in the body of a rad-warrior, there would be no radioactive substances in the saliva. Many people did this when there was no water or medicine to clean the wounds in the wild.

Cheng Ran shivered, all his attention focused on his wound. It seemed that he could no longer feel the pain from the injury. Vaguely, he also felt that some kind of energy was expelling the radiation on his wound…

This energy, seemed like it was about to win…

“Qingyang, I’m fine. It seems like I have radiation energy.” Cheng Ran suddenly broke free from that mysterious state.

“What?” Shi Qingyang looked at Cheng Ran in a daze.

“I really seem to have radiation energy. I’m not injured by radiation at all, you see.” Cheng Ran stretched out his hand. Shi Qingyang found that although the wound on Cheng Ran’s arm was as black as all the wounds injured by radiation, the surrounding skin was not affected.

Only people with radiation would display such a situation. If it were an ordinary people, then unfortunately for them, their whole arm would turn black and the skin instantly destroyed…

Shi Qingyang suddenly hugged Cheng Ran and kissed him. He was very excited, but he bumped his head against Cheng Ran’s mask, and his teeth hit his lips, with Cheng Ran being shaken by him.

I’ve really lost my mind… Shi Qingyang was annoyed, and then found that Gu Changjin has been coughing the entire time.

Gu Changjin had never coughed even once these past few days. Now he was clearly reminding them. Gu Changjin had even turned on the flashlight on the contact terminal. In the dark, there were some strong lights shining on him and Cheng Ran.

But he didn’t realize any of this just now!

Shi Qingyang was embarrassed. He knew he should let go of Cheng Ran, but the mood of nearly losing Cheng Ran only to have him back made him reluctant to let go at all. He couldn’t kiss Cheng Ran’s face, so he carefully kissed Cheng Ran near the wound on his arm. He finally determined that Cheng Ran was really okay.

The instant ecstasy even made Shi Qingyang’s eyes tear up.

Cheng Ran got close and saw Shi Qingyang’s expression clearly. Shi Qingyang was smiling, but his eyes were glittering with tears. He had always liked Shi Qingyang. Shi Qingyang was his first friend and the first person to come into his life besides Gu Changjin. But before, he had been somewhat worried and wavering back and forth, for fear that Shi Qingyang didn’t like him. That was, until this moment, when something seemed to have struck his heart, and sweetness felt like it overflowed from the chest.

They were all right. It was really wonderful.

Gu Changjin finally stopped coughing. He suddenly felt that he didn’t need to be wielding a stick to beat the mandarin ducks, separating the lovers like this.

At the critical moment of life and death, people always took care of themselves, but Shi Qingyang had not given up on them even now… It was obvious that Cheng Ran was more likely to be injured as an ordinary person, but when he escaped into the ant nest with Shi Qingyang, he didn’t have a single wound on his body. On the contrary, Shi Qingyang was injured all over, and his combat clothes were almost falling apart. One could see from this just how much importance he attached to Cheng Ran.

Cheng Ran didn’t know Gu Changjin’s thoughts. After a moment of sweetness, he finally remembered one thing: “Qingyang, your injuries, your wounds haven’t been treated, you… Don’t you feel any pain?” Shi Qingyang now had even more wounds on his body. Not to mention he still had an ant beast head with its jaws clamped on his leg. He actually wouldn’t even say a word about this, no matter what it was?

Shi Qingyang relaxed, then felt that he was in pain everywhere. At least he didn’t hurt his head when he hit himself hard on the cave wall

Suddenly, he realized that Gu Changjin’s contact terminal was still on, and the light over the whole cave was bright. Shi Qingyang simply took a few hard breaths and pretended to lean weakly against the rock wall: “I seem to hurt badly everywhere, really!” Although he said so, the corners of his mouth could not help but rise.

Cheng Ran had already prepared the medicine, and immediately took it out to treat Shi Qingyang. Of course, before that, he had to pull off the head of the ant beast still hanging on Shi Qingyang’s leg.

“Ranran, do you really have rad-energy?” Shi Qingyang treated several wounds on his body and couldn’t help asking. Everything in front of him made him feel unreal, but it made him very happy –if Cheng Ran had radiant energy, he would become a very powerful pharmacist in the future…

In addition to Feng Yunhong of the Feng Family, there was another powerhouse in this country who was able to reach level-9. One of the big reasons behind her successful rise to level-9 was that she had married the most powerful pharmacist in the country.

If Cheng Ran became the strongest pharmacist in the future…

“I feel an energy in my body, which is now expelling the radiation on my arm. Is it radiation energy?” Cheng Ran stretched out his hand, and then found that there had been a ferocious wound on it just earlier, but now it had shrunk.

Cheng Ran discovered this, and Shi Qingyang also realized it. He didn’t give Cheng Ran medicine, but Cheng Ran’s wound was actually healing… Radiant energy was a violent force, which would make a person stronger and not afraid of pain, but if they didn’t use any medicine, the wound would never heal by itself.

“The wound is getting smaller. What’s going on?” Cheng Ran was surprised. Although he was not a rad-energy warrior, his theoretical knowledge in this area was extremely solid. He ranked first in his exams every time, so of course he realized that the energy in his body seemed to be different from radiation energy.

“Ranran, maybe it’s that your energy is different from ours. However, I suspect it’s related to the ant beast eggs that we ate. Didn’t you say that you would feel comfortable when you touched these ant eggs?” Shi Qingyang finally remembered those ant eggs that he had hung on his waist and brought into the nest: “These ant eggs should be good things. We have to eat more.”

In the battle just now, three ant eggs had been broken, and the rest were safe because of Shi Qingyang’s subconscious protection. Seeing this, Shi Qingyang hurriedly picked a complete and well-looking ant egg and put it in front of Cheng Ran: “Eat it quickly, Ranran, it’s good for you.”

After giving it to Cheng Ran, Shi Qingyang cleaned up the three broken ones again. The relatively intact one was placed next to him. As long as the rest was edible, they were all stuffed into his mouth, and then he dragged his injured leg to Gu Changjin’s side: “Grandpa Gu, you also eat a little. This ant egg is good for people.” Although Gu Changjin’s situation was very bad now, since this ant egg could let Shi Qingyang reach level-8 and let Cheng Ran gain radiant energy, it might also make Gu Changjin receive some benefits.

However, the ant beasts here were no different from those elsewhere. How could the ant eggs here have such an effect?

If ant eggs really had such powers, why hadn’t anyone discovered this for so many years?

Humans had been researching mutant beasts, so it was impossible for there to be no reaction after the discover of such an incredible thing. Moreover… Shi Qingyang looked at Gu Changjin’s situation, and then observed  the situation in his own body. Suddenly, he found that although Cheng Ran had received great benefits, he and Gu Changjin didn’t feel much change.

In his past life, he also didn’t seem to have had much of a reaction, only that he discovered his rad-energy had become much stabler once he’d gotten out…

Was it because he had eaten too little ant eggs? Back then, he ate ants and ant eggs for more than a month. At first, there were more ant eggs in the hole than this time, and he ate them all by himself. Now he let Cheng Ran and Gu Changjin eat them first, and he ate at most one-third of them.

When he grew stronger, he must take a lot of ant eggs back to eat! Shi Qingyang even began to consider whether to keep the queen ant in the nest and let her lay eggs for him.

He remembered that close to Central City, someone made a mechanical version of worker ant beasts to take care of the queen ant, then raised the queen ant to lay eggs to supply food for hotels…

On that note, the queen ant! Shi Qingyang suddenly remembered that in his past life, after he had finally killed the queen ant with great difficulty, he had been able to savor the meat of the queen ant.

There were a lot of ant beasts in this nest. They could travel far when looking for food. It was likely that they would also go to the safety zone. Many people must have caught ants before, but none of them had discovered anything unusual. Maybe the issue lay in the ant eggs and the queen ant. Perhaps especially the queen ant…

If these ant eggs were only borne from the queen ant, wouldn’t it be that the queen ant of this nest had experienced a mutation?

Shi Qingyang thought about this a lot, then suppressed his thoughts. He couldn’t move the queen ant for the time being. The only thing he could do seemed to be eating ant eggs, or watching Cheng Ran eat ant eggs.

Cheng Ran held the ant eggs in his hand. At first, he planned to eat them as usual. Suddenly, it occurred to him that he was not afraid of radiation now. After thinking about it, he finally opened his mask.

He could clearly feel the uncomfortable radiation outside, but it didn’t hurt him at all… The smile on his face grew bigger and bigger, and Cheng Ran suddenly realized that he would be more and more useful. He could follow Shi Qingyang out of the city, and he wouldn’t drag others down.

He thought of Shi Qingyang, Gu Changjin, and Cheng Xuze. On the contrary, Cheng Hong, who had urged him to grow stronger ever since he was a child, was only a flash in his mind.

“Ranran, now that you’re like this, we don’t have to worry about anything even if we stay outside of the city for a long time,” Shi Qingyang said.

“Well, things are good now. They’d be even better if you didn’t get hurt.” Cheng Ran nodded. Although life was inconvenient and the food tasted bad, after knowing that it was ant eggs that gave him radiant energy, he wasn’t picky about them at all. He could still live even if he didn’t have radiation energy, but who wouldn’t want to have rad-energy?

Moreover, Shi Qingyang and Gu Changjin were the people he cared about the most. As long as they were here, he didn’t care about anything else.

“I will be careful in the future, and I won’t get hurt!” Shi Qingyang said . Now the biggest problem had been solved. He could spend time among these ant beasts like he did in his previous life.

“Good.” Cheng Ran smiled, and the two dimples on his face were extremely clear.

Shi Qingyang suddenly thought that if he wanted to really kiss him, now was the time. It was a shame to just kiss the mask like he did before…

Unable to restrain himself, he coughed a few times to interrupt his thoughts. Shi Qingyang shifted his attention: “We’ve been missing for seven days now. Who knows what’s going on out there.”

“It should be quite the mess…” Gu Changjin sighed.

As Gu Changjin had predicted, outside was facing a great upheaval.