Chapter 54: Chapter 54: The Rest of My Life as a Horse or a Cow

When all order collapses, self-preservation becomes the top priority.

During their escape, Ji Xin and his companions had hidden in an armory where they acquired a massive cache of weapons. They used several trucks to haul everything to this farm.

These weapons were the very reason they were able to survive in the chaotic wasteland.

After all, once civilization crumbled, moral constraints and social order vanished with it.

Especially during the years of the great famine, people would kill for a piece of bread, or even end up as someone else’s meal.

This arsenal of weapons and ammunition had kept them alive.

Ji Xin had also modified the basement’s ventilation system to keep the storage area relatively dry, ensuring the weapons were well-preserved over the long term.

Based on Shen Feng’s reading of the date from the farm’s smart control system, it had likely been 150 to 300 years since the nuclear war.

Two hundred years wasn’t a particularly long time for a metal firearm.

Well-preserved firearms from as far back as the Ming, or even the Song and Yuan dynasties, could still be fired in the modern era.

The ammunition, however, was another story and could have some issues.

But as long as it hadn’t been exposed to too much moisture, it wouldn’t be a major problem.

It was just like the two heavy machine guns they had encountered earlier. Despite frequent duds, their firepower was still formidable.

The only real concern was the risk of a gun backfiring and exploding.

A wide grin on his face, Shen Feng began taking the guns down from the wall—pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, heavy machine guns, Shotguns, and more. He laid them on a table and started inspecting them one by one.

Before this, he had downloaded data from the internet into his Silicon-Based Brain, including structural diagrams for all sorts of firearms.

Combined with his month-long career of gunfights during the Stone Statue Apocalypse, he was intimately familiar with firearms. They felt like an extension of his own body.

He had to inspect not only the firearms, paying special attention to the condition of the bolts and firing pins, but also the adjacent crates of ammunition to assess their overall state and check if they would cause a gun to blow up in his hand.

He had no desire to blow his fingers off the first time he pulled the trigger.

Seeing so many guns, Firefly’s eyes went wide. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

The only other firearm she’d ever seen up close was the mayor’s Holy Spear—or as Shen Feng called it, "that busted old hunting rifle"—and she had already considered it incredibly powerful and magical.

Now, hundreds of Holy Spears of all different kinds were laid out before her!

And as for the legendary Holy Bullets, they were stacked in crate after crate, as if they were nothing precious at all.

There were even some round iron lumps, but Shen Feng forbade her from touching them, explaining that "grenade fuses are more unstable than bullets and can easily detonate."

This was... this was just unbelievable!

"We... we’ve struck it rich, haven’t we?" Firefly stammered, staring blankly at the wall of weapons.

"No," Shen Feng said with a completely straight face. "We’ve struck it *filthy* rich!"

"Hahaha, may the Great God Jingwei protect us! We’re rich! We’re filthy rich!"

Firefly cheered, reaching out to touch a few of the guns before quickly snatching her hand back, a delighted expression on her face.

"Easy now. I’ll teach you how to shoot over the next few days," Shen Feng said as he disassembled a Shotgun.

Compared to lightweight pistols and submachine guns, or powerful and precise rifles and heavy machine guns, he still had a soft spot for Shotguns.

This stemmed from his time using a Shotgun during the Stone Statue Apocalypse. Plus, the things packed a punch at close range and were easy to aim—just point and blast.

’In the real world, you’d be embarrassed to just "spray" hate everywhere, but in the apocalypse, I’ll just do it with a shotgun!’

I’ll blast anyone and everyone. What fun!

Bring it on, let’s have a firefight!

For the next few days, Shen Feng and Firefly took up temporary residence at the farm.

An excited Firefly cleaned the farm buildings from top to bottom, getting rid of the musty smell.

Beneath a cover in the farm’s basement, they found a source of uncontaminated deep groundwater.

Paired with the leftover food in Shen Feng’s bag and some edible plants they gathered from lightly contaminated areas outside, the two of them had no immediate worries about food or water.

Shen Feng inspected all the guns and ammunition, and in his spare time, he taught Firefly how to use them.

These were, without a doubt, the happiest days of Firefly’s life.

「One morning, seven days later.」

Several Barbarians were roaming the woods, occasionally pouncing on mutated creatures like rabbits and lizards for a change of diet. They even gathered a few mushrooms and wild berries.

In their chaotic, muddled minds, they felt a deep attachment to this forest, mixed with a healthy dose of fear.

Here, there were others of their "kind," which gave them a sense of communal belonging.

Plus, there was an abundance of food for the taking. While eating too much of it made them sick, it was far better than the barren wastelands and the ceaseless attacks from "normal" people.

The closer they got to the farm at the heart of the forest, the more prey they found.

However, that place was also home to something they feared.

A lizard scurried before them. A hunting party of five Barbarians who were close with one another roared and pounced on it.

One-eyed, three-legged, with swapped limbs, hunched over, suffering from gigantism—these grotesque, misshapen Barbarians drooled at the corners of their mouths, already imagining the delicacy of raw lizard meat.

But just as they passed a thicket, a farm robot standing in the shadows whirred to life. It instantly shot out a metal tentacle, wrapping it around one of the Barbarian’s arms!

The Barbarian was instantly terrified. Though he lacked human intellect and operated on animal instinct, he knew just how horrifying these metal contraptions were.

Anything that went in came out as a pile of ground meat!

The other Barbarians scattered and fled, looking back at their ensnared companion with a shudder of terror.

But as they fled, several more farm robots appeared in their path. They whipped out electrified metal tentacles, ensnaring them and trying to drag them toward their intake hatches!

"AARRRGH—"

The captured Barbarians let out wretched howls, struggling desperately but unable to break free.

The metal rotary blades began to spin, ready to grind bone and flesh to pulp.

Just then, footsteps approached. A man and a woman emerged from a thicket, chatting and laughing. They were armed to the teeth with rifles and sidearms, carried massive packs on their backs, and had bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossing their chests.

It was none other than Shen Feng and Firefly, fresh from their military training crash course!

Shen Feng froze for a moment at the sight, then let out a sigh.

’I can’t believe these farm robots have such advanced hunting protocols. I wonder if they were programmed by the old Mi Company, or if they evolved this way on their own over the years.’

’Still, now that I’ve seen it, I have to intervene.’

’Grinding living people into mincemeat is just too cruel, no matter how you look at it.’

After all, as ferocious and wild as these Barbarians were, they were really just pitiful souls who had suffered severe radiation-induced mutations.

According to Firefly, they were mostly born to the "normal" people of the wasteland, only to be abandoned by their own parents because their mutations were too severe.

Most of these mutated infants died. Only a few, through sheer luck or incredible resilience, managed to survive. They were the abandoned ones who grew up with crazed minds, living like wild animals.

And so they became the Barbarians of wasteland legend. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Just as one of the Barbarians was about to be ground to bits, Shen Feng raised a hand and snapped his fingers. All the active farm robots immediately froze.

Shen Feng had already replaced the farm’s smart control system, becoming its new central hub. Controlling a few farm robots was, of course, a simple matter for him.

The Barbarians froze, scarcely believing they had just been spared.

But instead of leaving, they stood their ground and let out a series of piercing howls.

Soon, a rustling came from the surrounding thickets. More strangely shaped Barbarians emerged, one after another, until over a hundred of them stood there, eyeing Shen Feng like a pack of wolves.

Some were abnormally tall like giants, some were horned and grotesque, others were twisted like vines, and still others were covered in thick scales with mouths full of fangs.

Without exception, all of them possessed burly frames and beast-like musculature.

Shen Feng’s brow furrowed. ’So much for appreciating a kind gesture. They’ve summoned every mutated Barbarian in the whole forest.’

’Their lives might be tragic, but I’m no bleeding-heart saint.’

’Looks like I’ll have to use them for target practice.’

As he thought this, Shen Feng sent out a signal. The five remaining farm robots moved to stand before him and Firefly. They formed a line, their gaping intake hatches opening like bloody maws, rotary blades spinning wildly within.

He rested his finger on the trigger of his Shotgun, ready to fire at any moment.

To his surprise, the Barbarians let out a strange, unified cry. They lowered their hands and bowed their heads, some even prostrating themselves on the ground.

They looked just like obedient cats and dogs.

Shen Feng blinked in surprise, then instantly understood.

’These Barbarians are terrified of the farm robots. They’ve probably been slaughtered by them for a very long time. Now that I can control the robots, they must see me as a god!’

’If these Barbarians are a pack of wolves, fighting amongst themselves for survival, then I’m the new alpha they just accepted!’

Shen Feng couldn’t help but smile.

’Interesting. Whether they’re normal people or these mutated Barbarians, humans truly are social animals...’

"Shen Feng... these... Barbarians... I think they see you as their leader now," Firefly said in astonishment.

"I’d only heard stories that the Barbarians in the Cursed Land deep in the wastes fight to the death to choose the strongest among them as their king. I can’t believe it’s actually true! So, what’s next?"

Shen Feng pumped the slide on his Shotgun, his eyes narrowing. "First," he said, "we go hunt some Crows..."

...

More than twenty meters underground, outside a cell in the Crow Tribe’s prison, several burly women closed the door, talking and laughing as they left.

Inside the cell, the mayor of Nameless Town was chained by his arms and legs to a bed. His clothes were in disarray as he stared blankly at the ceiling.

He had been a captive of the Crow Tribe for a week now.

He had used his last bullet holding off enemies for Shen Feng’s group, so when the Crow Tribe’s iron-clad vehicles returned for him, the mayor offered little pointless resistance.

He’d thought they’d captured him for manual labor. He never expected to be used as a stud.

At first, he didn’t really mind. It had even been a small dream of his back when he was a young man living in the Shelter.

Who knew that when the dream became a full-time job, the feeling would change entirely.

He hadn’t had a proper rest in days.

Maybe it was the novelty, or maybe it was because they saw him as a prime Seed Source, but there had been a constant stream of visitors to his cell.

He was at his breaking point.

On top of that, the women of the Crow Tribe had found a massive needle somewhere and had tried to directly extract his "seed" for research. They’d tried twice, and the pain had nearly killed him.

"If I could do it all over again, I think I would’ve just stayed in the Shelter until I died of old age..."

The mayor murmured to himself, tears sliding from the corners of his eyes as he thought of his reckless youth.

"Am I really going to spend the rest of my life as a stud bull...? What... what’s that sound? Are those gunshots?"