Apocalypse Escape: Day One of Survival

By 4:00 PM, Xie Ning had led Yu Tianfeng and Cres to empty the entire cold storage for fresh produce. They then proceeded to clear out more than half of the second floor, stripping the aisles for daily necessities, stationery, toys, toiletries, clothes, shoes, and kitchen utensils.

She finally, impassively, stopped working, much to the astonishment of her two teammates.

She pulled out a small bottle of Energy Water, chugged about half of it, and felt her Space Ability Energy begin to rapidly replenish.

Xie Ning was delighted.

’So my theory was right. Drinking about half a small bottle of this Energy Water every hour restores twenty percent of my superpower energy.’

She was more than satisfied with this result.

After all, it was a well-known fact that Superpower Users recovered their energy very slowly.

Without her special ”Ningning brand” Energy Water, it was debatable whether a person could even recover a fifth of their superpower energy in four hours.

She sent her spiritual power to sweep through her personal Space. Seeing it packed to the brim with supplies, Xie Ning felt her life was that much more complete...

The supplies did much to soothe her survival anxiety.

As Xie Ning, Yu Tianfeng, and Cres emerged from the supermarket entrance, the time on the foreigners’ stopwatch had just run out.

The first thing Xie Ning saw was the thunderous, soot-black expression on the face of Wang Gangfei, captain of the team from Country A.

In the face of outsiders, the people of Jiuzhou had once again demonstrated their finest traditions and fighting spirit.

It didn’t matter how fiercely the three hundred-plus people had fought amongst themselves for supplies earlier. When faced with foreigners, they all displayed a spirit of absolute unity against a common foe.

In just half an hour, they had essentially picked the two-story supermarket clean.

The elderly folks of Jiuzhou went for the food first—eggs, duck eggs, cookies, instant noodles. They were all seasoned pros at snatching supplies; anything that could be grabbed, was grabbed...

After grabbing food, they moved on to daily necessities and household goods. Toilet paper, napkins, toothpaste, toothbrushes—anywhere the crowd passed was left a barren wasteland...

So when the people from Country A, who had been watching the clock, finally entered the supermarket, they were utterly dumbfounded.

Standing at the entrance, Xie Ning struggled to hold back her laughter as she watched the expression on Wang Gangfei’s face—a mixture of distress and shock so profound it was almost comical.

Zuo Li and the others were laughing so hard they were about to burst. Several of the Superpower Captains had to turn away, their shoulders trembling.

’It suddenly occurred to them that from the start of the apocalypse until this very day...’

’...the only things weighing on their hearts had been the crisis of survival, the crisis of food and water—crises of every kind.’

’And yet, today had somehow become the most joyful and relaxing day they’d had.’

Reflected in Wang Gangfei’s pale blue eyes were the utterly empty metal shelves of the supermarket’s first floor.

Even the wilted, drooping fruits and vegetables had been completely cleared away by the people of Jiuzhou, who operated on the principle of ”if you chop off the bad parts, it’s still edible.”

All that remained on the shelves were a few empty baskets swaying in the draft, while the floor was a mess of trampled footprints.

It looked like a conquering army had just swept through...

A few foreigners from the Country A Superpower Team rushed down from the second floor, roaring in fury, ”Captain, there’s nothing up there but a few plastic buckets!”

Just then, an old man from Country C came walking down the stairs. He had four or five plastic buckets hanging from one arm and another looped around his neck. He and the fuming members of the Country A team stared at each other, momentarily speechless.

Several members of Zuo Li’s team couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out laughing with a loud ”PFFT!”

In an instant, the whole crowd erupted in laughter.

The old man quickly scurried down the rest of the stairs and ran back to his group, completely ignoring the burning glares the foreigners were directing at his back.

Wang Gangfei was speechless. He really wanted to ask just what kind of bizarre creatures these people of Jiuzhou were.

With a grim expression, he and a few of his teammates walked up to Zuo Li. ”Captain Zuo, that was a low blow.”

Zuo Li was struggling painfully to keep from laughing, but she managed to maintain a serious, placid expression. ”A bet’s a bet. Surely you haven’t forgotten the terms of our wager, Captain Wang Gangfei?”

”Since the winners got a one-hour head start, what does it matter to you how much we moved?”

”As long as we have the ability to take it, it’s perfectly normal for us to do so. Wouldn’t you agree, Captain Wang Gangfei?”

”That’s right,” Xiao Qi Zi chimed in with a nod. ”Captain Wang Gangfei, if you had won and gotten to go in first for an hour, with your capabilities, would you have left even a couple of vegetable leaves for us?”

”Like hell they would!” an old woman from Country C in the front row declared smugly. ”If you lot had gone in first, you’d be the ones who cleared out the whole supermarket!”

”Exactly! Captain Zuo, let’s not waste our time on them. There are plenty of other stores in this mall. Let’s go check them out!”

”That’s right! As long as we’re passing through, we shouldn’t miss out!”

Zuo Li nodded. Her opinion of this group of survivors improved immensely in that moment.

’So it wasn’t that the people of Jiuzhou lacked unity. They could fight each other to the death when no outsiders were around, but when facing a foreign threat, they were absolutely united...’

Wang Gangfei’s face, however, was as black as thunder. ”Are all you people from Country C a bunch of locusts?”

’And that whole ”don’t miss out while you’re passing by” crap... just hearing it was a pain in the ass.’

”Pah!” the old woman shot back, enraged. ”You’re the shameless locust, you foreigner! Don’t you forget where you’re standing! This isn’t Country A!”

”That’s right! Go back to your own Country A and go sweep up all the hamburgers and sausages you like. You wouldn’t be able to stomach our Country C rice, flour, and vegetables anyway!”

The members of the Country A Superpower Team clutched their machine guns, wishing they could just mow down these incessantly chattering people from Country C.

Unfortunately, they had used up a considerable amount of ammunition while dealing with the waves of zombies earlier.

Besides, with so many Country C Superpower Users watching them, they didn’t dare to so brazenly open fire on a bunch of old men and women.

The Country C people had strength in numbers. They couldn’t afford to provoke them. ’Damn it,’ he thought, ’can’t we just go somewhere else?’

”Let’s go!” Wang Gangfei waved his hand in frustration, ready to lead his team to other parts of the mall. They would just have to take whatever they could find.

’He would remember this. He would settle the score with Zuo Li!’

’It’s just a looting contest, right? We’ll see who’s better at it!’

Seeing them leave, Zuo Li quickly called out to her people and directed them in the opposite direction.

”Everyone, form an orderly line and follow me! Don’t rush, and don’t push or trample your teammates!”

”There are a lot of us, so we’ll split into ten teams. Each team will follow a Superpower Captain to gather supplies. In forty-five minutes, whether you’re done searching or not, everyone reassembles here.”

Everyone shouted their agreement, then followed their respective Superpower Captains, running off to nearby stores to continue scavenging.

It didn’t matter how much they were already carrying in their hands or on their backs. No one’s waist was sore, no one’s legs ached. As long as there were more supplies to be had, nobody would complain, no matter how heavy the load.

Xie Ning didn’t join the commotion. She decided to take Yu Tianfeng and Cres and leave ahead of the others.

’She was confident the other survivors wouldn’t let her down. They would surely strip the rest of the place clean...’