Read Novel Full Chapter 153 - Banana Flavored Boss Gong (13)
Chapter 153 - Banana Flavored Boss Gong (13)
Hi Guys! I am extremely sorry for not updating for so long. I didn’t pass the competitive exam, so I was depressed for a while. Now I have joined a coaching class for my second attempt. Hopefully, I will score well this time. I can’t promise that I will update on schedule, but I will try to give occasional updates. Anyway, feels nice to be back! 
After reporting his ten-day results to General Yao, Major General Shi very considerately granted his hard-working teammates a day off.
However, Yu Sen and the others did not appreciate this kindness one bit.
The day was still early, and the six of them, known for their diligence, unanimously decided to squeeze in some extra hours hunting mutant beasts before starting their break.
Worried that their captain and Teacher Tang might get too absorbed in treatment—or too caught up in intimate contact to respond in time should danger strike—the group discussed and decided to leave two members behind on guard duty.
Qin Bei, who lost the game of rock-paper-scissors, looked a little glum as he gazed toward the armored vehicle parked a kilometer away. Turning to the silently standing Jiang Ren beside him, he said, “I heard that back in the day, when rich young masters snatched innocent girls, there was always a lackey keeping watch. You think we look the part?”
Jiang Ren glanced in that direction, and unusually took the initiative to ask, “So… is the one being snatched our Teacher Tang, or our captain?”
Qin Bei: “…”
Good question—hard to say.
Inside the armored vehicle, the two mutual abductors were stumbling over each other, calf bumping thigh, as they rushed toward the bed. Shi Buyu bent down to kiss Gou Liang and didn’t release him until they had tumbled onto the bed.
“Xiao Keng’er, wait for me a moment.”
He gently stroked Gou Liang’s face and got up to take a shower.
“No waiting.”
Gou Liang grabbed him, desperately tugging at his clothes. In his rush, there was a sharp ripping sound—he had torn Shi Buyu’s protective clothing, made from the silk of a type of mutant silkworm beast, in half.
He paused, face flushed red, and glanced up at Shi Buyu, who was looking at him with a smile but no sign of leaving. Emboldened, he casually reached out and touched Shi Buyu’s chest muscles. The firm, resilient feel made his knees go weak. He couldn’t resist pressing his face against it, rubbing slightly like in reverence, then kissed him experimentally.
The taste was even better than the feel, and Gou Liang kissed him more eagerly.
Shi Buyu cooperatively took off the torn shirt, picked up Gou Liang, who was nearly his height standing on the bed, and lifted him by the butt to readjust his grip. Gazing down at Gou Liang’s complete obsession with his chest, he laughed and said, “No rush. Take your time.”
Gou Liang wrapped his arms and legs tightly around him, still biting at his muscles, mumbling in agreement.
Shi Buyu didn’t catch what he said. He carried him into the bathroom and set him down before asking again.
Gou Liang looked up and said, “I said, I am in a rush.”
Shi Buyu was caught off guard by the tease, and his hand slipped as he turned on the shower. What was supposed to be warm water blasted them both with cold, making them shiver.
He quickly raised an arm to shield Gou Liang’s head from the spray and adjusted the temperature with the other hand. Once the warm water was flowing properly, he turned back around.
Gou Liang’s slightly overgrown hair was plastered to his pale face. As water streamed down his cheeks, he blinked repeatedly but kept his eyes locked on Shi Buyu, unwilling to look away.
“Xiao Keng’er…”
Shi Buyu’s heart pounded. He leaned down and kissed Gou Liang’s eyes, then pushed his wet hair back to reveal his exquisite face. He kissed him again and again, and without hesitation, started removing Gou Liang’s drenched clothes. His hot hands warmed the areas that were cold from the earlier spray. After kissing his dimples, Shi Buyu picked him up with one arm and, while removing his own pants, whispered, “Me too.”
Gou Liang smiled. His misty peach blossom eyes in the steamy air were utterly intoxicating.
Shi Buyu kissed down his neck and reached for the disinfecting liquid, but in doing so, knocked over the neatly arranged bath items.
“I’ll help.”
Gou Liang squirted a generous amount of antibacterial shower gel into his palms and started washing Shi Buyu’s hair. Usually, Shi Buyu just buzzed it short with a razor, but now the excessive amount of shampoo created a froth of bubbles everywhere.
Shi Buyu, kissing every bit of Gou Liang’s reachable skin, ended up with a mouthful of foam—but still refused to stop.
Gou Liang laughed more and more freely, insisting on washing him thoroughly. His soapy hands roamed greedily over Shi Buyu’s skin and eventually settled on the most crucial part.
Shi Buyu was pinned in the cramped shower stall. With both of them inside, the space felt overwhelmingly tight…
[Ding, Target Affection Update: Current Affection +100!]
[Ding, Mission Progress Update: Current Progress: 25%!]
*
When Major Shi’s leave cycle was adjusted from once every ten days to once every five days, Gou Liang and the others—Yu Sen’s six-man team—had successfully broken through to Level 3 in their abilities.
Shi Buyu, who had been stuck at Level 3, also finally broke through with the help of an improved version of the Hundred Beast Pill and became a Level 4 ability user.
The increasingly confident team even voluntarily gave up their “dog food holiday” (a break to avoid public displays of affection between Shi Buyu and Gou Liang) and continued fighting mutant beasts while Gou Liang monopolized all of Shi Buyu’s healing time 24/7.
Shi Buyu’s dedication to his work was indeed impressive. In just six months, he had mapped almost all the mutant beasts across the death zones on the Chinese mainland—close to 900 species. Though a few may have slipped through the cracks, the total number of variants was expected to remain under a thousand.
And unlike human ability users, whose abilities varied widely, the mutant beasts primarily exhibited extreme or heavily mutated versions of the five elemental types: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
Based on the energy content within the beast cores, Gou Liang established a classification system for the mutant beasts.
Beasts without any abilities were classified as Level 1—the most common type. Above them, there were five distinct levels of ability, each more powerful than the last, and correspondingly rarer in number.
In other words, Shi Buyu once engaged in a fierce battle with a Level 6 mutant beast—after consuming several dozen Level 2 Hundred Beast Pills to replenish his energy, he had to unleash his ultimate “Thunderstrike” technique five times in a row to finally kill the opponent.
A few days ago, Shi Buyu visited the coast.
When the apocalypse first broke out, he had chosen to continue executing a classified mission and headed to the southeastern seas where the first winged sea dragon mutant had appeared. But reality proved his expectations too naive.
The situation at sea was far more brutal than on land!
The oceans had become a full domain of the mutant beasts, now occupied by three main types: marine beasts, amphibious beasts (land-sea), and aerial-aquatic beasts. While deploying a mutant beast detection device, Shi Buyu witnessed dense swarms of Level 5+ mutants—it was enough to make even his scalp tingle. Even armed with his Thunderstrike technique, there was no way to take on the entire ocean. Sensibly, he retreated.
Once Gou Liang learned of the situation at sea, he immediately forbade Shi Buyu from undertaking any sea missions before advancing to Level 6.
Shi Buyu understood that haste leads to failure. Besides, these high-level mutant beasts hadn’t shown signs of heading northward and thus didn’t pose an immediate threat to the safety of the Jiuzhou Base. So he didn’t press the matter.
For the time being, he shifted his focus toward combat training for Yu Sen and the others, and to hunting Level 3 and 4 mutant beasts to collect their cores in preparation for the team’s next phase of ability upgrades.
After two months of intensive training, Shi Buyu was confident enough to allow Yu Sen’s team of five to independently fight Level 2 mutant beasts.
Shi Buyu took full responsibility for energy replenishment among the seven team members. The Level 2 beast cores they hunted were all handed over to Jiuzhou Base.
Currently, Jiuzhou had used this batch of cores to cultivate a squad of one hundred Level 2 ability users.
However, Yu Sen and the others had limited energy. Even working around the clock to supply beast cores for Jiuzhou, they could barely scratch the surface of the demand—there was simply not enough supply for Jiuzhou’s three million survivors.
Since consumption of beast cores was inherently limited by quantity and priority, most people could accept this disparity. In the post-apocalyptic world, merely surviving another day and having something to eat was already enough.
But there were always some who valued ambition over life itself.
“Why does he get a Level 2 beast core and I don’t?” Jia Nanzhu demanded, his eyes bloodshot.
It was obviously unwise to question one’s commanding officer so directly. Normally, Jia Nanzhu would’ve swallowed his pride. But when he saw that even Bao Zi had received a core allocation, he couldn’t hold back any longer.
In Jiuzhou’s ability user team, Jia Nanzhu only recognized Bao Zi.
Before the apocalypse, Bao Zi was just a pitiful hanger-on at the Tang family, always overly polite in front of him.
But now, thanks to special privileges from the team leaders, Bao Zi’s abilities had surpassed his own, and he no longer even gave Jia Nanzhu the time of day.
Proud as ever, Jia Nanzhu couldn’t stand this reversal of status—especially when the other person wasn’t even trying to compete with him and still came out ahead.
“In what way am I inferior to him? In training? In combat? I’ve never lost to him! So why does he get the upgrade allocation before me? This is unfair!”
As his team leader remained silent, Jia Nanzhu raised his voice even more.
The team leader thought: That guy’s got the backing of the top brass. And you? You’ve got a suspicious connection to Ju Bei, the number one name on Jiuzhou’s blacklist. Besides, those Level 2 beast cores were earned by Bao Zi’s cousin and cousin-in-law—why should they go to you?
But of course, none of that could be said out loud.
Listening to Jia Nanzhu’s repeated complaints, the team leader simply furrowed his brow and replied, “The early-upgrade recipients in this batch all awakened offensive-type abilities. Bao Zi’s fire ability is exactly what we need most right now. These are extraordinary times, and every decision we make is based on the greater needs of the base—not on personal interests.”
After that veiled criticism and warning, the team leader sighed and said earnestly, “Xiao Jia, your talent hasn’t gone unnoticed. The base won’t shortchange anyone who contributes. Let’s look at the long game—once our ability users are stronger overall, we’ll have plenty of beast cores. Keep up the good work, and don’t let your emotions get the better of you. What if someone sees you like this?”
Jia Nanzhu replied respectfully on the surface, but he returned to his dorm fuming.
“What’s wrong, Brother Zhu?” asked Ju Bei, who was sewing clothes nearby.
Jia Nanzhu saw the patch-covered fabric and felt irritated, but when he met Ju Bei’s concerned eyes, his heart softened a bit and he muttered that it was nothing.
Little did he know that the higher-ups’ subtle cold-shouldering of him had started all because Ju Bei had casually leaked a few careless remarks. But Jia Nanzhu never spoke of his frustrations. Even though Ju Bei and Ji Guangyuan had stood by him at Jiuzhou, he would never expose his failures to them.
Still, even without words, Ju Bei could guess what was going on.
Due to the plentiful beast core supply, nearly half of Jiuzhou’s three million survivors had successfully become Level 1 ability users. In this environment, Jia Nanzhu’s earth-based ability no longer stood out.
In Jiuzhou, he was nothing more than an ordinary, unremarkable support-type ability user. However, in Chronicles of the Apocalypse, by now Jia Nanzhu had already gathered a gang of underlings and was close to becoming a Level 2 ability user.
Although staying in Jiuzhou kept them safe, it also meant they were missing out on many opportunities.
Watching Jia Nanzhu wallow in frustration, Ju Bei grew anxious as well—but what worried him even more was how many things were diverging from the original story: the appearance of ability-type mutant beasts that had never shown up in the novel, and that infuriating Bao Zi who constantly rubbed Jia Nanzhu the wrong way.
He racked his memory over and over again, certain that such a character had never existed in the original—yet now he turned out to be that fat guy’s cousin…
What exactly had that person done? Was he truly the one who had upended this world?
Ju Bei found himself asking this question again.
Meanwhile, the very person he was obsessing over—Gou Liang—was currently enjoying a solo concert by a mermaid mutant beast.
Yu Sen and the others had progressed from solo battles against Level 2 ability-type beasts to coordinated team fights against Level 3 mutants.
They were now Level 3 ability users and had the means to protect themselves against such foes. But Level 3 beasts were massive, with thick hides and vast stamina—fighting one alone was akin to a deathmatch. Shi Buyu naturally wouldn’t let them take that kind of reckless risk. However, Yu Sen’s team had strong combat instincts and excellent teamwork, and could hold their own in such coordinated encounters.
Today, while driving past a lake, their scanner detected a Level 3 ability presence—this mutant became their training target for the day.
For safety, Shi Buyu oversaw the operation, Gou Liang gathered data, and it was Qin Bei’s turn to guard Gou Liang.
The fighters were the Yu Sen brothers, Zhou Gao, and Jiang Ren.
With their strength, no one hesitated. But no one expected that the mermaid mutant beast would open with a sonic strike the moment it surfaced.
It was the first time they had encountered this type of beast. Gou Liang named it “mermaid” not because it had any human-like features, but because it could “walk upright.”
This Level 3 amphibious beast had a split tail resembling a swallow’s, which could support its body and allow it to walk on land.
It moved slowly on land, but speed and strength weren’t its weapons—its power came from its special sonic ability.
It let out piercing, high-pitched wails from its gaping mouth. These emitted visible soundwaves that rippled through the air like shockwaves—everything in their path collapsed, except for the beast itself!
—Before Yu Sen’s team could even counter, they were knocked to the ground by the blast and couldn’t move an inch.
Had Shi Buyu not reacted fast enough, they would have already been dragged into the lake as future meals.
At that moment, Shi Buyu was carrying all four on his shoulders, dodging the soundwaves with precision thanks to Gou Liang’s remote guidance and his ability to see the paths of energy attacks.
Just as he was about to exit the mermaid beast’s sonic range, its voice suddenly swelled in intensity—followed by more and more mermaid beasts rising from the lake. The power of their combined “chorus” was unimaginable. Gou Liang saw, with sharp eyes, that every mutant beast within ten li, even Level 3 ones, fled in panic.
Even Shi Buyu, a Level 4 user, stumbled, his pace slowing.
Yu Sen’s team groaned in pain, ears bleeding. Shi Buyu’s face darkened as he prepared to unleash a Thunderstrike to wipe out the increasingly ecstatic mermaid choir—when Gou Liang’s excited voice came through the Bluetooth earpiece:
“Shi Xiaoyu, don’t kill them! Their soundwaves can repel ability-type mutant beasts!”
Gou Liang’s voice was full of glee at this unexpected discovery.
Shi Buyu glanced back at the slowly advancing group of mermaid beasts wriggling ashore, narrowed his eyes, and struck the leading one with a lightning bolt from the sky.
Now that his ability had reached Level 4, Shi Buyu no longer needed his hands to channel lightning. After that one strike, he didn’t linger. He hoisted the four team members and prepared to leave.
He had only meant to buy enough time to retreat—but to his surprise, the entire choir of mermaid beasts let out a collective shriek in the same pitch. Frightened by the lightning, they immediately flopped to the ground, wildly thrashing their tails—like any fish out of water—and fled as fast as they could back into the lake.
In the blink of an eye, they had all vanished beneath the surface.
The once overwhelming sonic waves vanished. The surroundings were so quiet, it was as if those arrogant mutant beasts had never existed.
Shi Buyu, still in a sprinting pose, hadn’t even lifted his foot yet: “…”
Gou Liang: “…”
After carrying Yu Sen’s team back to the armored vehicle, Jiang Ren began medical scans. Though nothing was visibly wrong, no one relaxed until they each took two Level 2 beast cores and began to recover.
“How are you feeling?” Shi Buyu asked, helping them sit up.
Yu Lin said, “Damn it! That thing’s voice was way too weird. The moment we heard it, we couldn’t move or use our abilities—but we stayed completely conscious the whole time.”
The others quickly agreed.
Zhou Gao was the most unlucky—he had fallen face-first. Now holding his bruised cheek, he cursed, “What the hell was that thing? Too damn shady! If someone got eaten alive by it, even if it didn’t hurt, they’d die of fright!”