Reborn One Week Before the Apocalypse

Chapter 382: Chapter 372: Cleaning Up the Battlefield

”Mommy, Mommy, don’t cry.”

Yiyi reached out and wiped away the tears that still glistened on Qiao Xin’s face.

Yiyi might be a child with developmental disabilities, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel love.

Love is a magical thing. Sometimes, it doesn’t need words or sentences.

As long as you show your true heart, the other person can feel it—whether they’re a normal person, someone with a disability, or even someone deaf and mute who can neither hear nor speak.

Even animals can feel love. ”Mommy, don’t cry, don’t cry. As long as Yiyi is with you, Mommy won’t cry anymore.”

Once again, Qiao Xin hugged Yiyi tightly in her arms, as if holding the most precious treasure in the world.

Yiyi had been successfully rescued, but now the battlefield needed to be cleaned up.

Zhang Li was as dead as could be, lying in a pool of his own blood. The two men behind him had been taken down by Tang Mo, their conditions unknown, while Wang Yan sat on the floor, looking as if her soul had left her body.

Just moments ago, Qiao Xin’s mind had been completely out of control. She hadn’t even noticed how the two men behind Zhang Li had fallen.

After regaining her senses, she only saw Tang Mo kicking them a few times. ’It was probably Qiao Jin,’ she thought.

”What now?” Tang Mo asked Qiao Xin. She wanted to see how this woman would clean up the battlefield now that she had calmed down.

In truth, Qiao Xin had no idea what to do. She didn’t even know why she had killed someone, or where she had found the courage in that moment. But right now, besides herself, there were only the two children, Qiao Jin and Yiyi. And Qiao Jin’s question made Qiao Xin think her niece must be scared.

’That’s right, Qiao Jin is just a kid, still in school. How could she not be scared?’ ”Don’t be afraid. I’ll handle it.”

Qiao Xin forced herself to pull it together. She picked up the blood-stained dagger from the floor and walked over to the two men whose fates were still uncertain.

”Qiao Jin, help me cover Yiyi’s eyes.” Before cleaning up the scene, Qiao Xin remembered this time not to let Yiyi see such dark things.

Tang Mo naturally did as she was told. Yiyi was also very obedient, as if she knew her mother was about to do something important. She dutifully turned around and closed her eyes on her own.

With the experience from before, killing this time didn’t seem to pose as much of a psychological barrier for Qiao Xin. She went to each of the two men and delivered several more stabs to their necks.

They were Zhang Li’s men, people who had witnessed everything that happened here. Qiao Xin couldn’t let them go back alive. Mercy toward the enemy was cruelty to her own. Besides the few women and children, Zhang Li’s group still had five or six able-bodied men. How could Qiao Xin, Yiyi, and Qiao Jin—three females—possibly be a match for them?

With the two unconscious men taken care of, the only one of Zhang Li’s people left here was Wang Yan.

Unlike the two men who were already unconscious on the ground, Wang Yan was wide awake.

”Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I didn’t see anything! I’ll give you back everything I took from you, and I’ll give you more. I have a lot of food, I’ll give it all to you!” Wang Yan was in a complete panic now. ’This woman, Qiao Xin, she’s really crazy! She just killed three people without her expression even changing. She’s definitely going to kill me!’

At this moment, Wang Yan was filled with regret. Why on earth did she have to provoke these maniacs? They were even more brutal and terrifying than Zhang Li. But what was the use of regret now?

Qiao Xin felt no softness for Wang Yan. By now, what wasn’t there to understand? In this whole setup, Wang Yan was the most wicked person besides Zhang Li.

No, she was even worse than Zhang Li. If Zhang Li acted out of his own selfish desires, then Wang Yan was just purely malicious. They were both women, both pitiful people in this world, yet she had tried to drive them to their deaths for no reason at all.

The thought of what would have happened to Yiyi if she had been any later made Qiao Xin tremble with rage. Looking at Wang Yan’s crocodile tears now, she couldn’t muster a shred of pity, only bone-deep hatred.

Even after killing three people, the dagger was still incredibly sharp. It plunged straight into Wang Yan’s vital spot. With just one stab, Wang Yan collapsed to the ground, her eyes wide open. Qiao Xin followed up with several more strikes, each one hitting a vital point. Wang Yan stopped breathing almost immediately.

Qiao Xin’s fluid series of actions made even Tang Mo feel a sense of admiration. ’This doesn’t look like someone killing for the first time,’ she thought. ’She has a real Talent for it.’

With all four of them dead, the next steps were much simpler. Below the building swarmed the red-eyed, open-mouthed Meat Dragons. All they had to do was throw the four corpses out the window, and within minutes, not even bone fragments would be left.

Tang Mo helped Qiao Xin throw the four bodies out the window. The two of them watched as the corpses were instantly swarmed by the Meat Dragons, devoured until nothing was left.

It was hard to know what either of them was thinking. For Tang Mo, watching mutant beasts devour humans was a commonplace, minor scene. But for Qiao Xin, everything that had happened today was a major turning point in her life.

Life held more than one possibility. The hunted, by simply picking up a dagger, could also become the hunter. A person at the very bottom of the food chain, if ruthless enough, could also stand at the top. Even Tang Mo hadn’t expected that today’s events would have such a massive impact on Qiao Xin’s future, setting her on a completely different path.

The bodies were disposed of, and with that, the battlefield was considered clean. As for the messy aftermath of the fight and the bloodstains in the room—once the door was shut, who would see it?

In other words, even if someone did see it, so what? In times like these, who would be foolish enough to meddle in other people’s business? And even if they wanted to, how could they? Who would they report it to?

Qiao Xin took Yiyi’s hand, and Tang Mo followed the mother and daughter out of the room. With a THUD, the door was shut, and everything that had happened inside no longer had anything to do with them.

But Zhang Li and his group hadn’t finished paying their debt. The three of them went straight to Wang Yan’s room to take back what was theirs.

Wang Yan didn’t live with everyone else. Over time, she had amassed quite a personal stash, and her fear of her assets being exposed had completely overcome her fear of living alone. The fact that Wang Yan had her own room made things very convenient for Qiao Xin’s group of three. They entered Wang Yan’s room without any trouble, and Qiao Xin’s backpack—the one Wang Yan had taken—was sitting right in the corner.

Qiao Xin rummaged through her backpack. Hmm, nothing was missing. She slung it back on. The two large, heavy backpacks were a burden, but they gave her a profound sense of security.