Apocalypse Escape: Day One of Survival

Xie Ning curved her lips into a smile at him, a bright yet shallow smile. ”Do your best to stay alive. Welcome to hell on earth.”

The lackey trembled, feeling the young woman’s gaze pierce his heart like a poisoned dagger.

Xie Ning, carrying the rather heavy yellow cloth bag, had just walked over to Lu Wei and the others.

Just then, Chen Jiajia and Xu Yu rushed over, pointing at her in a mad fury. ”You clearly saw us just now, didn’t you? How could you just ignore us?”

”Are you even human? Are you?!”

”Even an animal has more of a conscience than you!”

Lu Wei was about to step in and stop them, but then he saw the girl lash out with a kick that sent Chen Jiajia tumbling head over heels. It was almost too much to watch...

”I’m not trying to be your stepmom, so why would I go out of my way to suck up to you and save you? What are you, anyway? You think the whole world is your damn mother?”

As Xie Ning’s words fell, Li Shasha, who was standing nearby, curled into a ball and shrank into Mrs. Li’s arms, whimpering and sobbing.

Xu Yu’s face was flushed with anger. ”You vicious little girl! How can you speak like that? Don’t you know that a single kind word can keep you warm all winter, but a harsh one cuts cold even in June? You’re a child with no manners, clearly your parents never taught you. So today, I’ll teach you how to behave.”

The moment Xu Yu rushed up and raised her hand, the girl viciously grabbed her arm and began to bend it back, back, back.

”AHHHH, AH!” Xu Yu’s face twisted in pain as she begged for mercy, ”Let go, let go, let go! Let go of my hand!”

”You should speak kindly to people, of course. But for cockroaches, flies, and bloodsucking mosquitoes, this is the only language they understand.” Xie Ning’s eyes turned ice-cold as she twisted Xu Yu’s arm, squeezing it for all she was worth. ”Even livestock can provide people with needed meat. But you? You’re worse than livestock. What’s the point of you being alive?”

”How about I do you a favor and send you on your way?”

”Don’t, don’t, don’t, please don’t!!” Xu Yu’s face was a mask of agony as she burst into tears.

Lu Wei raised a hand, then quietly lowered it again. He turned to see his brother striding quickly toward them.

Gu Chen gave the order, ”Pick out the good stuff and load it into the vehicles.”

Xie Ning reached out and gently tapped Xu Yu’s cheek twice. ”Xu Yu, from now on, when you see me, you take a detour. Got it?”

Xu Yu gritted her teeth and nodded, tears streaming down her face. It was from the pain!

Xie Ning gave her a hard shove backward.

Xu Yu cradled her arm and staggered back, the defiance in her eyes crushed by her inner terror.

Chen Chong helped his daughter up from the ground. Seeing that Xie Ning was backed by a large group, he was furious but didn’t dare say a word.

”Grab what you can! Let’s go!” Chen Chong shouted. His group descended like a pack of wolves on a flock of sheep, snatching up anything and everything they could see.

The young comrades of Team A didn’t compete with them. When they saw the crowd rush to grab watermelons, they went for the oranges and apples. When the others snatched cherries, they picked up some of the cheaper fruits that had been cast aside.

Xie Ning found this irritating. As one of the ”masses,” she decided she had to grab some more for herself.

’Even if my little Space can’t hold it all, that’s fine. I can just stuff it in the car later!’

If others were grabbing, she would grab too. After all, everyone was just an ordinary person trying to get by. If you were too polite, you’d be the one to lose out...

The girl was incredibly fast at looting. She still had five or six large yellow cloth bags, and she stuffed them with choice honeydews, cantaloupes, and small watermelons.

She grabbed two large durians. Cherries? Grab ’em! Cherry tomatoes? Grab those too!

The crowd grabbed whatever they saw, eventually pushing the group of shy young comrades to the side, leaving them hesitant and afraid to take anything.

”Hurry up and move these!” Xie Ning pointed to the large bags at her side, urging them on impatiently. ”Load them onto the vehicle. Just give me the bags back later.”

’This is a job for my mom,’ Xie Ning thought.

’With her ’early morning-scrambling-for-cheap-eggs’ plaza-dancing-auntie energy, she could definitely clear out this entire mini-mart.’

「Forty-five minutes later」

The mini-mart had been picked clean, down to the last two vegetable leaves. The floor was a mess of footprints.

Vegetable crates and baskets were overturned, completely empty.

Even a swarm of locusts wouldn’t have been this thorough...

Gu Chen’s lips twitched. He turned to look at the little sister standing by the small pickup truck, directing everyone as they moved the goods, and couldn’t help but smile.

’The girl probably used every last ounce of her strength for that looting spree...’

Then again, the little sister had helped them out once more.

On the way back, Xie Ning sat in the passenger seat, hugging a throw pillow and staring blankly at the desolate, tragic scenery outside.

”Was I scary when I was killing people earlier?”

’Did I really kill that many people today?’

’But I killed even more in my past life, so I feel nothing at all.’

Gu Chen glanced at her, then suddenly reached out and patted the spiky-haired girl’s head. ”She was the one who attacked first.”

If he hadn’t arrived in time to knock Wang Qingyao’s shot off course, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

”If you were an ordinary person, getting shot in an environment with such a lack of medical care would mean immense pain and suffering.”

Xie Ning hugged the pillow tighter. ”Thank you.”

”Besides, that woman is no simple character.” Gu Chen took a pistol from the glove compartment to show Xie Ning. ”This is an M1911, a United States design. They basically stopped producing them after World War II. This one’s a copy. The craftsmanship is a bit unusual, and the magazine capacity has been modified. I have no idea where she got it.”

Xie Ning took the gun and looked it over. ”It’s nice.”

”Do you know how to use a gun?” Gu Chen asked suddenly.

”A little.” Xie Ning gave a small nod, her expression blank. ”I practiced once or twice during military training.”

Gu Chen: ...

Lu Wei: ...

’She says that with so much confidence!’

’Seeing how calm she was, I thought she was some kind of expert marksman. But her answer is just... unexpectedly hilarious.’

”I can use it.” The young girl calmly chambered a round.

Lu Wei, in the back seat, put a hand over his face. ”That’s a semi-automatic. The manual safety is a little lower down.”

Gu Chen had the sudden urge to snatch the gun back from the girl’s hands.

Xie Ning sensed his intention and quietly tossed the gun into her large yellow cloth bag.

’It’s good for scaring people, anyway. In a dangerous situation like today, pulling out a gun would make me look fierce and cool.’

Gu Chen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ”That gun has been modified. It can hold 12 rounds, and its effective range is probably around 70 meters. But the recoil is pretty strong. You can keep it to scare people, but it’s best not to use it if you don’t have to.”

Xie Ning hummed.

’I’ll just use it to scare people. This thing is super loud!’

「Later that evening」

Wu Meng drove her little Jinbei van to her doorstep, gave her a wide grin, and ran off with a wave.

Xie Ning saw that the Jinbei was loaded with fruit and vegetables. She could only move them into the dining room for now, piling them on the round table with the two large bags of fruit she had grabbed from the supermarket herself.

There was no other choice. If left out, the fresh produce would rot in a couple of days. She had to store it properly to avoid waste.

Xie Ning took a deep breath and stepped inside her house, where, as expected, she was ambushed by her family and subjected to an exhaustive lecture on the pros and cons of her actions...

After finally surviving the lecture and escaping upstairs, Xie Ning got busy stuffing the six wardrobes, four storage chests, and two large metal trunks—all of which her family had already packed—into the living room of the villa.

She then crammed various home appliances and their backup batteries into the villa’s living room as well, filling it up so completely that there was barely any room to stand.

In one go, busy as a bee, she flew down to the cellar. With a great wave of her hand, she collected all the food that everyone had already packed and inventoried, moving it all into the dining room.

All the freshly made rice balls, meat-filled zongzi, boxed meals, steamed buns, and so on were placed in plastic crates, which were then stacked next to a wall of bottled water that was as tall as a person.

By the time she finished all this, it was almost six-thirty. From the small courtyard, she heard Song Kexin calling for her sister to come and eat.

”A lot of new people came to our village today,” Song Kexin said, holding her rice bowl. ”There’s a small group with some ’Young Master Zhong.’ They’re super rich. He took off his watch—they said it was a ’Role-ache’ or something, worth two or three hundred thousand—and offered to trade it for a villa to stay in temporarily!”

Both Xie Ning’s and Song Shijun’s lips twitched.

’A ”Role-ache,” really... being uncultured is a scary thing...’