Apocalypse Escape: Day One of Survival

”It must be below zero by now.” Beichen shivered, unaccustomed to the cold outside.

The temperature had plummeted fifty or sixty degrees in just half a day. There was no telling how many people would freeze to death, both inside and outside the base.

Even Xie Ning’s heart was heavy.

Xie Ning took out the thermometer from the living room and stared at the falling numbers. ”It’s two degrees below zero.”

”It’ll probably drop even more tonight.” She put away the thermometer, her gaze sweeping over the vast ruins before her as she took a deep breath.

”Looks like our only choice is to walk for a stretch and test our luck.”

”The human body can’t withstand such a drastic drop in temperature,” Beichen said lightly. ”Especially not for ordinary people.”

”And yet, you don’t seem the least bit worried about your family.”

’She wasn’t particularly worried. Although her maternal grandparents were old, they were still in good health. Plus, thanks to their recent and consistent exercise, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they were hale and hearty.’

’Even though the temperature had plummeted, Ji Erhuo and Yu Tianfeng had plenty of cold-proof supplies in their Spaces.’

’Compared to the hardships others were facing, her family’s safety was the least of her worries.’

’Besides, the temperature difference between indoors and outdoors had to be at least ten degrees. It was cold inside, sure, but didn’t they have Song Kexin, their little mobile furnace?’

”Instead of worrying about others,” Xie Ning said, pulling two long-handled axes from her Farmhouse Space and handing one to Beichen. ”You should be more worried about yourself!”

She lopped off a withered claw emerging from a snowdrift with a swing of her axe, then turned to Beichen with an amused grin. ”You didn’t actually think the zombies would be frozen solid and unable to come out, did you?”

Beichen’s expression flickered, and he instinctively tightened his grip on the axe.

”Zhu Zihao may have collected a lot of firearms and ammunition, but that stuff makes way too much noise.” Xie Ning cleared the path with her axe, a smile on her face. ”If you don’t want to be swarmed by zombies again, you’d better be careful.”

Beichen remained silent.

’He knew better than anyone.’

’The moment danger appeared, this woman would probably throw him to the zombies and run off by herself.’

”My Healing System ability has reached the Fourth Rank.”

Xie Ning’s movements paused, a hint of astonishment on her face.

’So I really did underestimate this boy!’

’A Fourth Rank Healing Ability User! In any base, they’d be worshipped like a Buddha.’

But Xie Ning had no intention of spoiling him. ”I treated you to soup dumplings for lunch and even gave you extra pressed duck for dinner. You’ll have to pay all that back!”

”Even though you’re a pretty good Healing System user...” Xie Ning swung her axe down with a CLANG, flattening a sharp, protruding steel bar, ”...if you’re too weak yourself, you’ll probably be the first one taken out in a fight.”

Young Beichen silently used his axe to chop off an exposed ice spike, then looked up at the sky.

Snowflakes were still drifting down endlessly, and a thick layer of snow already covered the ground.

Collapsed buildings lay strewn about in twisted heaps, creating a rugged, uneven landscape. Many of the jutting steel bars were coated in a thin layer of ice, glinting with a cold, sharp, white light in the darkness.

As for why Xie Ning didn’t just tuck the young Healing System user into her Farmhouse Space to carry him along—that was completely out of the question.

’They barely knew each other. Why would Xie Ning leave such an unstable element alone inside her personal Space?’

’She wasn’t some old nanny, breaking her back out here fighting for their lives and trying to find a path, just so the young Healing System user could stay in her Space eating, drinking, and sleeping well?’

’Hmph!’

’She’d have to be an idiot to do something so strenuous and thankless.’

’Thinking about how good Hong Peiling had been to him, and how tragically it had ended, made Xie Ning want to avoid getting too involved with this little psycho.’

The two of them walked in fits and starts, also having to deal with the one or two remaining zombies that occasionally darted out from the ruins.

But they soon discovered that these zombies... how to put it? They really had been crippled by the sudden drop in temperature.

Their movements were stiff. Forget running—even walking was a shaky, clumsy affair. It was as if they had momentarily reverted to how they were in the early days of the apocalypse.

But Xie Ning couldn’t bring herself to relax in the slightest.

’Her intuition told her things weren’t that simple.’

Young Beichen lopped off the head of a stiff zombie with his axe, then turned to glance at her. ”What’s wrong?”

”Do you think the ice and snow will just freeze them to death?”

’If that happened, would it mean the end of the apocalypse?’

Xie Ning shot him a look, her tone flat. ”Will it end?”

Even with gloves on, she could still feel the bones in her axe-wielding hand growing stiff.

Xie Ning glanced at the pulsing text on her Satellite Bracelet, gritted her teeth, and pulled off her glove to quickly send a message.

Pinching a small, crystal-clear ice pellet between her fingers, Xie Ning took a deep breath and looked up at the dark, heavy sky. ”It’s going to hail.”

...

”Based on past experience, anything can happen during extreme weather. Think about last time. It was the acid rain that made all the zombies grow stronger overnight. This time, with the hail and frost, who knows if it’ll give the zombies a different kind of experience.”

The heat in the room was on full blast, and the temperature display was fixed at 24°.

Because of the sudden, rapid cooling in the afternoon, Song Youzhi had decisively turned on the heating. Now, everyone—including Song Kexin’s group, who had rushed back before the roads were blocked by ice—was huddled in the main house, listening to Yu Tianfeng analyze the situation outside.

When Lu Wei and Gu Chen entered, eighteen pairs of eyes in the room turned to look at them.

It had to be said, although the main house’s living room was large, it was still quite crowded with twenty people squeezed together.

Many people were leaning against the corners, having found a random cotton cushion to sit on, doing their best to make themselves inconspicuous.

Because Ningning wasn’t in the room, a heavy weight seemed to press on everyone’s heart, like a giant stone.

Song You’ai didn’t say anything, but everyone knew she was actually extremely worried.

”Don’t turn off the heating tonight,” Gu Chen said with a serious expression. ”It’s started hailing outside. According to a professional meteorologist’s forecast, the temperature tonight will likely drop another ten to fifteen degrees.”

Everyone’s eyes widened in shock.

Song Kexin hugged her little throw pillow even tighter, unwilling to let go.

”Tai Xian, are there enough storage batteries?”

Ji Taixian quickly nodded his head. ”If the heating runs twenty-four hours a day, it’ll drain three batteries. I have thirty or forty batteries we can rotate through. Bro, if you recharge them for us once every three or four days, it should be enough.”

Song Yaoguo shook his head, his expression serious. ”We can’t live with the heating on like this long-term. Just running it for eight hours at night should be enough, and the temperature shouldn’t be set too high.”

”If the temperature outside is twenty or thirty degrees below zero, setting our indoor temperature to sixteen degrees will be sufficient.”

”That’s right. Even though Xiao Gu can charge the batteries now, we can’t live with the heating on all the time. During the day, we still need to go out and acclimatize to the current environment.”

Gu Chen felt that the two elders had a point, so he agreed.

”Aunt Song, I just received a message from Ningning. Don’t worry, she’s fine.”

Song You’ai’s tense expression softened.