Chapter 20

“There are people here!”

“Save us!”

“Over here, over here!”

“…”

It wasn’t just them. Other survivors in the residential complex also heard the commotion. Many people trapped in their homes, who had managed to stay alive, opened their windows and shouted at the helicopters in the sky.

But the helicopters didn’t pause for a moment; they flew directly over the complex.

“There are living people here!”

“Why aren’t they saving us?”

“Why did they leave!”

Today was the fourth day of this unknown disaster. Clearly, the vast majority of people hadn’t stockpiled sufficient water and food in advance like Su Xing and Wen Ruyao. Even hiding at home could prevent discovery by those monsters, but they couldn’t hold out for long before starving to death. Seeing the helicopters right there, only to watch them fly away just like that, people’s emotions broke down.

On the balcony of the same floor as Su Xing’s apartment, in the building opposite, a young man in his twenties stood leaning on the window sill, his lips cracked from days without water. He had hung a bedsheet outside his window, painted with large, bright-red letters spelling “SOS.” As the planes passed, he desperately waved the sheet and shouted, until he watched the helicopters fly away without any reaction. Exhausting his last bit of strength, his hand slipped, and the snow-white bedsheet fell from the fifteenth floor.

“Fuck!” The young man cursed, leaning on the sill to look down at his fallen “distress signal.”

Just as he was looking down, staring at the ground, he suddenly felt a tap on the top of his head. The young man froze. He was alone at home, and his head was sticking out the window… Instantly, his whole body stiffened.

After a two-second pause, he suddenly recoiled to retreat back inside and close the window. His vision went dark, and the last image he saw was a gaping maw full of sharp teeth.

The headless male corpse plummeted straight to the ground. On the wall beside where the man had been standing, a bizarre creature with four palms, hanging upside down on the outer wall like a gecko, clung to the wall. It chased the corpse, quickly crawling down from the fifteenth floor along the wall. Those who had just opened their windows to call out witnessed this horrifying scene and quickly shut their windows to hide.

Su Xing immediately drew the curtains.

She had originally thought staying on a high floor would be a bit safer. Now she saw flying giant insects, and monsters that could climb walls like geckos. In such a world, as humans with no combat ability, there was no safe place to hide.

Su Xing curled up in a corner on the rug at the foot of the sofa, hugging her knees. She swallowed hard. After a long silence, she asked quietly, “Can we still wait for rescue?”

Wen Ruyao was sitting on the sofa next to her, legs drawn up, her expression also not good. “Perhaps those helicopters weren’t here for rescue in the first place.”

Su Xing blinked. The direction those helicopters had taken was indeed very definite.

Could it be they were scouting those strange fog pillars?

“Boom—”

Suddenly, the floor beneath them… no, the entire room began to shake violently. The chandelier overhead and the window glass trembled fiercely. Su Xing reflexively tried to get up, but the massive roar made her entire brain buzz, dizzy and disoriented, unable to muster strength.

An earthquake?

The thought hadn’t even left her mind when a deafening explosion followed.

An unending barrage of bombardment and gunfire erupted abruptly. The sound seemed distant, yet also as if it were right nearby. All the glass in the room produced a high-frequency, clattering brittle sound, especially the windows, as if they might shatter into powder the next moment.

The immense explosions triggered instinctive fear. Su Xing hugged her head tightly, shrinking into the corner, her mind blank. After an unknown amount of time, the overwhelming bombardment gradually ceased.

She opened her eyes and slowly raised her head. On the low table in front of her was a glass cup, its transparent surface covered with long cracks. With a “crash,” it shattered.

That bombardment… Coming back to her senses, Su Xing and Wen Ruyao simultaneously looked toward the window.

Thick black smoke rolled around the base of those towering fog pillars, the glow of fire faintly visible below. Many fighter jets hovered in mid-air. It seemed the earlier bombardment had been targeting these things.

The scene in the distance seemed frozen. After the firepower attack ended, aside from the rolling smoke rising from the ground, those grayish-white fog pillars appeared unchanged.

What exactly was inside them?

Su Xing focused her gaze. The next second, she watched countless slender “branches” of indiscernible color shoot out from the mist like lightning, instantly sweeping up all the nearby fighter jets. With a series of blinding flashes, every single one was effortlessly destroyed.

The few remaining helicopters further away immediately turned and retreated. After striking down the surrounding fighters, those “branches” did not pursue further, slowly retracting back into the mist.

“…”

Su Xing retracted her gaze in disbelief and exchanged a look with Wen Ruyao, who had witnessed everything beside her. No one could explain what they’d just seen.

After the failed attack, half a day passed until the afternoon. There was no more movement in the sky. In the distance, on the city streets, faint, indistinct gunfire could occasionally be heard.

Su Xing and Wen Ruyao remained inside the room. Food and water were still enough to last the two of them for a long time. After the fog dispersed, they occasionally saw people from downstairs who couldn’t hold out any longer venturing out to find supplies. But not everyone returned alive.

As long as they made no noise, staying indoors was the safest option for now. However, the bombardment earlier had shattered the window of one of their guest rooms.

The bulletproof glass Wen Ruyao had installed was still useful—only one window broke. In contrast, many surrounding apartments had windows that were almost universally destroyed, all smashed to powder by the shockwave.

But in the current situation, even having just one shattered window was extremely dangerous.

The two of them moved a cabinet to block the broken window, then locked the door to that guest room. They piled all the movable heavy furniture against the door to barricade it further. Only after doing all this did they feel a slight sense of relief.

At two in the afternoon, they sat at the table for lunch. They didn’t know how long this state would last, and their food supply was limited, so they only ate two meals a day now—one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Barricading the door this morning had taken time, so this was their first meal.

Su Xing was already starving. Picking up her chopsticks, she immediately dug in. Wen Ruyao didn’t eat much to begin with, and the current hyperoxic state didn’t agree with her, so she occasionally still needed the respirator mask, making her appetite even worse. She held a slender spoon in her hand, leisurely scooping corn kernels from a can, spending more time staring at her phone on the table.

“Look at this map,” Wen Ruyao pushed the black device containing the map of S City with its special markings to the center of the table. Raising her eyes, she saw Su Xing wolfing down food across from her and her gaze paused.

“Huh?” Su Xing stopped her chopsticks mid-bite, looked up somewhat blankly, a bit of ham residue still stuck to the corner of her mouth.

“…” Wen Ruyao smiled at her, the corner of her lips curving slightly. “You’ve always had such a good appetite?”

“Uh…” Su Xing choked, coughing dryly twice. “Ahaha, when I get nervous… I just can’t suppress my appetite.”

If it weren’t for the side effects of adding points to Strength, she definitely wouldn’t be eating this much, alright?

Su Xing couldn’t help but glance at Wen Ruyao’s lunch—one can of corn, one pack of compressed biscuits, and a bottle of water. Then she looked at her own side: three cans of luncheon meat, three packs of compressed biscuits, and one bottle of water. Almost three times the amount.

Actually, seeing Su Xing’s “larger build” earlier, Wen Ruyao had given her portions twice the size of her own. Today, probably because Su Xing had done the most work moving furniture this morning, she’d given her even more at noon.

Honestly, Su Xing felt quite bad about freeloading so much of Wen Ruyao’s food. But… there was no helping it. She didn’t want to eat like a starving ghost every meal either.

She would just… have to help her more with tasks later to make up for it.

Wen Ruyao chuckled softly, her gaze drifting over Su Xing’s shoulders. “Is that so… That’s good too.”

“…”

Su Xing put down her chopsticks and hunched her shoulders slightly. She felt Wen Ruyao’s look at her held a subtle, indescribable quality.

“This is what Qin Mo gave me on the subway. She…” Wen Ruyao paused. “Her work is rather special. You should have gathered something about it by now. Given the current situation, what she gave us will certainly be beneficial.”

So that childhood friend was called Qin Mo.

Su Xing gossipingly mused to herself, but didn’t pry further. She silently leaned in to look at the map on the screen of the black device that resembled a phone. She had noticed it was a map of S City on the subway; now looking closely, it was indeed correct.

“Look at the markings above. Although they aren’t labeled, the meaning of these icons is quite obvious.”

Su Xing looked at where her finger pointed: icons of knives and forks, water droplets, even a cross-shaped medical kit… My god, anyone who had played a few video games should recognize the meaning at a glance.

Aside from some more unique symbols, many markings looked like storage locations for supplies!

“Look here, near Myriad Prosperity Square. It’s not very far from here.”

Wen Ruyao zoomed the map in slightly and tapped her fingertip on it. Su Xing looked over and saw she was pointing at a gun-shaped marker, instantly taken aback.

“We don’t lack food or water right now, but if we want to leave here alive, we need powerful weapons for self-protection,” Wen Ruyao said unhurriedly.

“You mean we’re preparing to leave this place?” Su Xing asked.

Actually, she hadn’t considered this a long-term shelter either. Not to mention the guest room window was broken—if any mutated species broke in, that flimsy door wouldn’t withstand a single blow. Even intact doors and windows were like rotten wood against those monsters.

But charging out would also expose them to many unknown dangers. They might lose their lives before even finding where the weapons were stored.

Wen Ruyao shook her head. “No. For now, the safest option is still to wait here for military rescue. But if an unexpected event occurs, we need a backup plan ready to execute immediately.”

Probably feeling unwell again, Wen Ruyao picked up the respirator mask beside her and put it on. She said slowly, “There’s another issue to consider. Beyond making the body uncomfortable, rising oxygen levels also act as a combustion accelerant. If the ratio gets too high, fires can easily start. We’re on the fifteenth floor. If a fire breaks out…”

She didn’t finish, but Su Xing was already shuddering. It was said that research indicated one of the causes of the Carboniferous mass extinction was related to the excessively high oxygen content in the atmosphere, leading to unstoppable forest fires.

“Let’s hope there will still be a rescue.”

Seeing those fog-wrapped things in the sky, immune to thermal weapons and easily destroying so many fighter jets, Su Xing felt a little uneasy.

“We can wait two more days.” Wen Ruyao picked up her phone to check it, frowning. “But the signal has been getting worse and worse lately. I’m afraid the electricity won’t last much longer…” As she spoke, the look in her eyes, fixed on the screen, visibly changed.

“What is it?” Su Xing noticed her expression shift and asked.

“…A new message came in.”

Su Xing paused. Then she heard faint noises from outside the window in the distance, sounding like a broadcast amplified through the air. Her eyes widened, and she hurried close to the window to hear more clearly—

“S City… survivors… assemble at the stadium… escort… evacuation…”