Apocalypse: I Can See Health Bars

As the pieces of scrap metal in Lin Fan’s vision merged into the mass, the ball of energy gradually reformed into the solid shape of a pot lid.

But immediately after, the pot lid began to slowly deform. Its edges contracted inward, its center thickened and bulged slightly outward, and it gradually transformed into a slightly oval shield.

The originally smooth and flowing top edge then slowly indented, and a U-shaped notch appeared at the top.

The edges of the shield were slightly beveled inward to prevent the user from accidentally cutting themselves.

On the shield’s inner side, two handles slowly formed, gradually taking on a comfortable shape that was easy to grip. It could either be held by hand or strapped to the forearm.

Finally, some uneven patterns slowly formed on the shield’s face, adding to its stress structure.

"How’s it look?"

Lin Fan mimicked Chu Zhaozhao, placing his hands on his hips and asking Su Qing.

"This... How did you do this?"

Su Qing only snapped out of her shock when she heard Lin Fan’s voice, her face a mask of disbelief.

"Controlling metal... isn’t that Zhaozhao’s ability? No, even Zhaozhao can’t control metal like this..."

"Hmph! Never you mind that. What do you think of the shield? Does it meet your expectations?"

"It’s more than perfect!"

Su Qing slowly circled the shield, which was suspended in mid-air, observing it. From time to time, she reached out a finger to gently tap it, but she could only create ripples on the surface of the energy layer, unable to touch the shield itself.

"This notch... is it for bracing a spear to thrust with?"

Although she had never used one before, she still guessed its purpose correctly.

"Smart."

Lin Fan snapped his fingers.

"See if there’s anything else you want to change. I can still modify it now..."

"How much does it weigh?"

Su Qing’s voice was a little hoarse as she asked.

"Twenty-two pounds, exactly."

Lin Fan answered matter-of-factly. This was also the maximum weight the interface module could handle.

This weight might be a bit heavy for Su Qing now, but before long, once her health points were a bit higher, she’d be able to wield it easily.

"There’s nothing to change. It’s already perfect as it is..."

"Alright then."

Lin Fan reached out and plucked the shield from the void, handing it to Su Qing with both hands.

Seeing the shield truly appear in her hands was like watching Lin Fan pull an object out of a painting...

It was heavy, yet perfectly balanced.

She tightened her grip on the handles and tried moving it. It fit her arm perfectly, and its center of gravity was stable.

She looked up at Lin Fan again.

The curiosity in her eyes had completely vanished, replaced by a look that mingled shock, awe, and even a hint of unfamiliarity.

She suddenly understood.

Why Lin Fan had so many identical spears.

"Little Brother..."

She took a deep breath, suppressing all her shock and questions deep in her heart. She gently hugged Lin Fan, pulling him into her embrace.

And her lips uttered only the most sincere and weighty words,

"Thank you."

This wasn’t just for the shield, but for his trust.

He had revealed this power to her, and she knew it might be his biggest secret.

"Big Brother—Sister Qing—are you coming to eat or what?"

Chu Zhaozhao’s voice came from the doorway. For some reason, she didn’t seem as rash as usual. Lin Fan heard her call out and was a little surprised that she actually announced herself instead of just barging in.

"Okay, you have your shield now. Let’s go eat..."

He finished speaking, gave Su Qing a kiss on the cheek, and squeezed her arm.

...

"Whoa, what a beautiful shield!"

The moment the two of them stepped out of the clinic, Chu Zhaozhao, with a corner of a flatbread dangling from her mouth, came up to them. She bent down to look at the small round shield on Su Qing’s left arm, tapping it with her finger while her suspicious gaze darted back and forth between Lin Fan’s face and the shield.

"When did you make this?"

"I made it before I met you,"

Lin Fan reached out and tapped her on the head, deftly snatching the piece of flatbread from her mouth and popping it into his own. He spoke as he chewed.

"You should eat less. I feel like you’ve gained weight these past few days..."

"I just lost weight at the gas station!"

Her food stolen, Chu Zhaozhao immediately pouted, put on a woeful face, and scurried behind Su Qing to complain, though her eyes remained fixed on the round shield on Su Qing’s arm.

"Sister Qing, Big Brother is bullying me again..."

Su Qing patted Chu Zhaozhao’s hair, took off the small shield to let her play with it, and turned to Lin Fan, saying:

"Oh, you two, stop fooling around. Hurry up and eat. I’ll go upstairs and get some sausages or something..."

But before she could finish, Chu Zhaotian, who was eating flatbread nearby, quickly opened the car door and said:

"No need, Sister Qing! We have some in the car. Just take ours..."

With that, he rummaged inside and pulled out several packs of corn sausages, placing them all on the table and passing them around. Even Liu Bin and Wu Haitao each took one and started eating.

For a moment, the small table beside the RV was filled with a long-lost, lively warmth.

The wheaty aroma of the flatbread, the savory smell of the corn sausages, and the sound of everyone’s chatter and laughter mingled together, managing to disperse some of the apocalyptic gloom.

"Brother Lin, I haven’t reported to you about the situation in the residential complex today... Maybe we should talk after we finish eating."

Liu Bin, while eating his corn sausage, suddenly remembered that he had come with Wu Haitao specifically to report this. With all the commotion and then eating, he had forgotten. Seizing the free moment, he quickly spoke up.

"It’s fine, it’s fine. Just give me the gist. You guys can handle the details."

Lin Fan wasn’t all that interested. A few more or fewer people didn’t matter much to him. In any case, if something had happened that he absolutely needed to know, Xu Qian and Chu Zhaotian would have told him when they returned.

"Right, okay. Let me see..."

Liu Bin swallowed the corn sausage in his mouth, wiped his hands on his clothes, pulled a small notebook out of his pocket, and flipped through it as he spoke:

"Today, everyone split up and opened all the building entrances in the complex. There are 22 buildings in total, but..."

As he spoke, Liu Bin’s eyelids drooped, a clear sign he was thinking of something unpleasant.

"...but the number of survivors isn’t high..."

The eight buildings in the complex that face the street have forty entrances between them. On the day Lin Fan returned from the gas station, there were over sixty living people, and Liu Bin later tallied over fifty.

But some of these people had only managed to stay alive because Lin Fan had lured the zombies away, allowing them to come out and find food.

Otherwise, if they’d been trapped in their homes until today, maybe not even half would have been left.

The low number of survivors within the complex was actually within Lin Fan’s expectations. After all, judging by his own building entrance—twelve households, and only he and Su Qing had survived.

But strictly speaking, neither of them should have been on that list. Su Qing only survived her family’s food running out because of Lin Fan, and Lin Fan only survived his infection because of sheer dumb luck.

Lin Fan had never deliberately calculated it, but the true death rate of this disaster was terrifyingly high.

That was why he had previously guessed that it would be difficult to find even fifty survivors in the other twenty buildings of the complex...

"A total of 54 people. And that’s including the 9 people Brother Wang managed to protect in his building. The ones rescued from the other buildings were all people who responded when we knocked and could open the door themselves. Of course, we can’t rule out that some people were unconscious and didn’t make a sound.

"But because some Mutated Zombies are also quiet, the search teams didn’t dare to just pry open doors..."

"Being cautious is the right call. It’s not worth sacrificing the people we have now just to search for potential survivors. The cost would be too high..."

Although this number was within his expectations, hearing it out loud still made his heart feel heavy.

He had lived here for over twenty years and had been running his shop here for over a year.

Every day, he saw living, breathing people. Even if he sometimes found certain people and their dogs annoying, or felt that the people doing noisy renovations every day truly deserved to die.

He had no family and few friends. The playmates he knew as a child had mostly moved away. This old, rundown complex was mostly home to either retired elderly people or working-class renters. Other than some of the pet owners, he had no real connection to any of them.

But hearing that only a hundred or so people were left in the entire complex still stirred an unexplainable emotion that tightened his chest, leaving him feeling frustrated and sullen.

"30 men, 24 women. 6 are under 18, and two of those are 13 years old..."

As Liu Bin read on, he suddenly felt the atmosphere grow heavy. Looking up, he saw that everyone had put down their food. The two young men were sitting on the steps with their heads down, and Lin Fan was staring blankly at the piece of flatbread in his hand.

"Brother Lin?"

he asked tentatively.

"Ah... Oh."

Lin Fan finally broke free from that emotion. He glanced around and saw that it wasn’t just Chu Zhaotian and Xu Qian; even Su Qing and Chu Zhaozhao were now just silently nibbling their flatbread, lost in thought.

"For now, arrange for these people to live in the front few buildings. Centralize the management of their food and water. You take care of it..."