Hell's Handbook

Chapter 140: Key To Immortality

Kano Mai stared at Su Jin with a confused expression on her face, then she looked toward Chu Yi. Chu Yi had pretty much become a zombie already. His eyes were unfocused and his body was convulsing slightly.

“What do you mean?” She still couldn’t figure it out.

Su Jin looked at Chu Yi and felt like laughing, since there were times when Chu Yi went into a daze and looked exactly like this. He explained, “To put it simply, the zombie virus is just a virus. I’ve observed several mutants along the way and they seem to be ever evolving. In other words, the humans who have been infected with the zombie virus aren’t dead. They’re just…”

“They’re just ill?” Kano Mai had figured it out and her face lit up.

Su Jin nodded. “That’s right. This world might not be able to cure anybody of the zombie virus, but that doesn’t mean his situation is hopeless. As long as he can make it out of this Challenge alive, he’ll be fine.”

It was true that Chu Yi was just infected with the virus but he wasn’t dead. As long as he was still alive, his Personal Hell Domain would restore him to what he was before. That was why Su Jin was not worried at all.

Kano Mai let out a long sigh of relief. She looked at Chu Yi again, to see that he had fully become a zombie and was trying to reach for them because he saw them as food now.

Bam! Kano Mai bashed him in the head and made him shrink back instinctively.

“Stupid Chu Yi! If you end up getting into trouble because of a woman like that again, we won’t save you a second time!” Kano Mai was yelling at him, but now that she knew he could be saved, she felt that he was kind of adorable in this state as well.

“Haha! He’s stupid, alright,“Su Jin chimed in to gloat over Chu Yi’s misfortune. Unfortunately, this set Kano Mai off as well.

“And you! If you reach any conclusions, tell me in advance! Don’t leave me in the dark like that! Otherwise…I’ll punch you next!” Kano Mai was very upset that Su Jin hadn’t told her about his plans at all. She had been so upset when she thought Chu Yi was leaving them forever.

Su Jin immediately nodded and apologized as he promised to never do it again. He was just short of making an oath.

Chen Duo was very amused as she watched them bicker. It turned out that the real boss of Team Boning Knife was Kano Mai, but only the three of them knew that. Su Jin did have the final say, but after going through so many tribulations together, each one of them was just as important to each other.

Now that the professor had flown off in one helicopter, the most urgent task at hand was to find a suitable vehicle and gas.

After what happened the last time after he allowed everyone to split up to check the vehicles, he decided not to do that again. The group moved as one to inspect every helicopter but to their dismay, there was really only one other helicopter that was in working order. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough gas for it.

“Do I seriously have to walk all the way to Africa?” Su Jin sighed heavily. He could probably make it, but having to bring along two ladies and one zombie made it impossible.

“Actually, we didn’t check the passenger plane,“Chen Duo piped up.

Su Jin smacked his forehead and went up the plane himself. There were still some more zombies left behind inside, so he had to do a thorough check and clean up. Half an hour later, he was finally done checking through even the tiniest of spaces inside the plane. Once he was certain there were no zombies on board, he allowed the two ladies to board.

The three of them sat in the cockpit and after some time, Chen Duo’s face lit up as she said, “Good news! The passenger plane is working just fine and it doesn’t rely on gas, but solar energy. It’s been parked here for so long, so it’s fully charged.”(depending on what sort of plane it is…seriously solar doesn’t carry you that far without additional battery packs or recharging…)

Su Jin leaned over and stared at the controls for a long time before finally asking, “How…did you deduce any of that?”

“There’s a user manual stored in the controls interface, so I read it!“said Chen Duo with a laugh. She started pressing buttons on the interface and the entire cockpit lit up. They could hear that the plane was beginning to move forward and was ready to take flight.

“Woohoo! I know how to pilot a plane now!” Chen Duo was very excited.

On the contrary, Su Jin wasn’t so optimistic. The runway was still crawling with zombies, so it was going to be difficult for them to take off. They might end up flying to heaven instead.

Su Jin instantly leaped out of the plane with no problems, since he ripped off the cabin door the last time. He ran ahead of the plane and sent everything in the way flying with several punches, then ran back once he was sure there was enough distance for the plane to take off.“

“Is it a problem if the cabin door is gone?” asked Kano Mai worriedly.

Su Jin leaped off the plane again and grabbed the door he had ripped off. The plane was beginning to take off, so he gritted his teeth, ran really hard and leaped high into the sky, landing accurately inside the cabin.

“And how do we put it back?” asked Kano Mai.

He looked at the cabin door, then used his palms to slam the sides so hard that the door was now embedded in the doorframe. There were a few gaps left behind, so he slammed some of the seats onto those places and sealed the doorway shut.

“How’s that?”

“The design looks a little crazy, but it works.” Kano Mai approved of it.

Meanwhile, Chen Duo was still very excited about getting to fly a plane. When Su Jin and Kano Mai returned to the cabin, she grinned at them and said, “I can fly a plane now!”

“Hoho! Congratulations! But that’s not the only thing I know how to drive,” said Su Jin with a naughty smile.

Chen Duo didn’t get the joke but Kano Mai did. Su Jin stared at her in surprise and whispered, “Oh, Mister Driver, won’t you let me ride your car?”

Su Jin got punched in the face immediately.

Actually, it wasn’t really that surprising that Chen Duo could fly the plane, because they quickly discovered that this plane was built such that even a child could fly it. Once the destination was keyed in, the plane would find its best route and fly itself.

“I really don’t get it. All the cars in the city run on gas but the passenger planes are so high tech? This world doesn’t seem to make sense,” grumbled Su Jin. It was so odd to find a passenger plane running on solar energy and using such smart technology.

“Jin, could you come over for a minute?” Kano Mai suddenly called out to Su Jin.

“Miss Chen, I’ll leave this place to you,” Su Jin said to Chen Duo.

After she nodded, Su Jin went over to where Kano Mai was and saw her holding a small box in her hand.

She put it down and opened it to reveal five syringes filled with a colored liquid. He looked at her quizzically, so she pulled out another piece of paper that had the picture of a key on it.

“The Key to Immortality!” Su Jin was shocked to find a box of this stuff on board.

She nodded and said, “I found it inside the safe on board. It was very well hidden and I didn’t expect it to contain these either.”

The Key to Immortality was blamed for causing the zombie frenzy in this Challenge, but after Su Jin put the pieces together, it turned out that this substance wasn’t at fault at all and there was no problem with it. And if that were the case, this remained a precious drug that could grant humans immortality. It was an invaluable substance.

Su Jin took one of them and returned to the cockpit. He said to Chen Duo, “Here, this is yours.”

She looked at him puzzledly and he explained, “This is the Key to Immortality, the drug mentioned at the beginning of the Challenge that gives humans eternal life. I suppose even if it can’t help you to live forever, it can probably extend your lifespan significantly. This one is yours.”

She couldn’t believe how generous Su Jin was. Lifespan was something more precious than anything in the world to humans. Even if she didn’t use this on herself and sold it to some wealthy person, she would have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of her life.

Su Jin could guess what she was thinking about and laughed. “Once you get out of here, you’d realize that money is the least valuable thing to a Handbook owner. I’d advise you to exchange this for points instead. That would be of greater use to you in the future.”

But she was still puzzled. “But…but why would you give such a valuable thing to me?”

“Well, you’ve seen it, so you get one!” said Su Jin with a smile. Actually, this was to thank her for choosing to stick with him. Even though her choice would not have made any difference to his plans, he was still grateful for her faith in him.

He took one of the Keys for himself, saved one for Chu Yi, then gave the last two to Kano Mai. She was the one who found them after all.

The hours after that were calm and quiet, since it was going to take them some time to reach their destination. The three of them took the chance to recover some of their energy so that they would have enough strength for any dangers that might come their way later.

After a long time, Chen Duo called out to the other two, “I think we’re here!”

Su Jin and Kano Mai walked to the cockpit where they could look out of the glass windows to see the situation outside. Chen Duo figured they had arrived because she could see an area that resembled a volcano crater. Tall mountains surrounded it and many humans were within the crater.

“Prepare for landing,” said Su Jin.

Chen Duo hit a few buttons and the plane immediately started scanning the area to find a good landing spot. It quickly found a good spot and was ready for descent in half an hour. But Su Jin took another look outside and said to Chen Duo, “Cancel the landing!”

Chen Duo couldn’t understand why Su Jin wanted her to do this but she did it anyway. He pointed at the ground and said, “Look over there! Don’t you think that looks like the helicopter that Professor Charlemagne and the rest took?”

The two ladies looked in the direction he was pointing in to see a badly damaged helicopter. A giant monster was standing on top of the helicopter and roaring loudly.

The creature looked like it was made from a fusion of innumerable human bodies. Each inch of flesh on its limbs was a body. Its gigantic body was nearly 20 meters tall.

“We can’t land like that. What do we do now?” asked Kano Mai with a frown.

Su Jin laughed and said to them, “Hang on to me, my darlings!”

These words come from 老司机带带我, which is a folksong from Yunnan, China that loosely translates to ‘Mister Driver, bring me along’. It became popular some years ago because while it starts as a song about two women trying to fight over a cab of sorts, it gets raunchy very quickly. The song comes with a dance and the lyrics are usually improvised, so there’s no fixed set. Either way, the ‘Mister Driver’ or literally translated, ‘Old Driver’, has become an internet slang for someone very experienced and familiar with something, since the words for ‘bring me along’ can also mean to lead/teach someone, and it’s mostly referring to anything sex related, including puns like the driver’s going too fast etc.