Chapter 10: You Call This Social Anxiety?

"Excuse me, could you open the door? The company is delivering supplies!"

Bang, bang, bang!

A middle-aged man outside shouted loudly.

Had this man not joined the group chat? Did he not know that the company responsible for this place had already been swept away by the landslide?

Su Miao was filled with terror; she only wanted to hide. But she seemed to have forgotten about Xia Xiao'an, until her fearful, hopeful eyes met Xia Xiao'an's, both seeking protection.

Xia Xiao'an remembered how brave Su Miao had been, risking torrential rain and landslides to rescue her. Though Su Miao was quiet, Xia Xiao'an never imagined she suffered from such severe social anxiety.

Social anxiety—Xia Xiao'an had not known the term until a close friend, with whom she spent her summer holidays, dropped out of school and introduced her to it.

Now Xia Xiao'an’s mind froze as well.

"If you don't open the door, I'll just swipe in with my card."

Receiving no response, the man outside licked his lips, sneered, and took an administrator’s access card from his pocket, swiping it to unlock the door.

His luck had been good; he had "happened upon" the corpse of the villa community’s administrator and taken the card from him.

(In truth, after the landslide, the administrator had braved the storm to check each villa. The middle-aged man caught him using the emergency card to open an unoccupied villa. Knowing the apocalyptic state beyond, the man was seized by malice and slit the administrator’s throat with a fruit knife he carried.)

Beep, beep.

The door opened!

The middle-aged man shoved hard, only to be blocked by the safety chain.

Such a chain was no obstacle for him. A single twist and pull, and it was dealt with.

He had only recently been released from prison. He had planned to use the money his buddies had given him to enjoy life here, never expecting something like this to happen.

Through online videos, he’d learned that the world outside was even more chaotic than the resort, with countless dead.

At such a time, a dark fire burned within him. He knew only the wealthy could rent villas, and the daughters of the rich were especially well cared for.

With the administrator’s card in hand, if he couldn’t find any rich girls, surely he could at least get something valuable.

The roads out were blocked by landslides and floods, torrential rain continued to fall, and even the villa district had been swept by debris—wasn’t this the perfect place for crime?

No matter what happened, all he’d have to do was throw the bodies into the landslide or the flood; no one would ever know what he’d done.

He felt his luck was excellent. The first target he picked had two beautiful girls inside.

Bang!

The burly man threw back his raincoat’s hood, pushed the door open forcefully, and grinned: "Company delivery! Billions in supplies!"

But in the next instant, he froze.

Several crossbow bolts whistled toward him, thudding into his burly frame and turning him into a human pincushion.

"Damn it, a repeating crossbow..."

His huge body collapsed backward, stiff and lifeless.

The steel pipe in his hand clanged to the floor, rolled down the steps, and was swept away by the rainwater.

Xia Xiao'an stood petrified, staring at the corpse and then at Su Miao, who was shrinking into the cabinet.

She remembered clearly that Su Miao had nothing in her hands just before. Yet the moment the man opened the door, a small repeating crossbow had somehow appeared in Su Miao’s grip.

Where did Su Miao get such a weapon?

Xia Xiao'an had no idea.

Though she was still frightened by the corpse, her heartbeat gradually slowed and steadied.

In truth, Su Miao was even more terrified. She had just planned to pretend not to hear, to wait for the person to leave. She hadn’t expected the burly man to force his way in.

Overwhelmed by fear, she had drawn her custom-made crossbow.

One pull of the trigger, and the brute was turned into a porcupine.

"Su-jie, he’s dead," Xia Xiao'an said.

"Yes," Su Miao replied with a trembling nod.

She had been thoroughly shaken.

After a while, Su Miao cautiously approached the body, and unexpectedly spotted the villa administrator’s access card lying beside it.

She picked it up and set it aside, then began trying to retrieve the crossbow bolts from the corpse.

The bolts, all custom-made, came out easily.

But each time one was pulled free, blood gushed forth like a spring.

Xia Xiao'an watched in stunned silence. Just moments ago, Su-jie had been shaking with fear, yet now she was so adept at extracting bolts from a corpse.

Su Miao was afraid too, but corpses couldn’t speak, so there was less to fear.

A few minutes later, all but one bolt had been removed.

Su Miao decided not to force the last, and simply shoved the body down the steps, where it was swiftly swept away by the rushing rainwater and soon disappeared into the landslide to the east.

Now she felt at ease.

Turning, bloodied bolts in hand, Su Miao noticed Xia Xiao'an watching her.

"It’s all right now, it’s all right..."

She turned and ran into the side room, washed the bolts in the sink until they were clean, and stowed them away into her magic space.

Afterward, she returned to the living room, saw the door still open, and quickly closed it.

Fortunately, the way the man had fallen left no blood inside the house.

As for the blood outside, the rain would wash it all away.

Realizing that one chain couldn’t stop someone like that man, she took out several more and secured the locks.

"Let’s continue with the hot pot," she said, returning to the table and handing Xia Xiao'an a clean pair of chopsticks.

She was deeply uneasy, worried Xia Xiao'an might misunderstand.

But explaining such a thing was nearly impossible.

"Thank you, Su-jie!" Xia Xiao'an said. "That man was a bad person. You saved me again."

Su Miao smiled at the sweet girl. As long as she wasn’t misunderstood, it was enough. "Let’s eat hot pot."

She had thought such an incident wouldn’t happen for some time yet, but it had come so much faster than expected. If not for her preparations, it could have been disastrous.

Thinking of her preparations, Su Miao remembered the post she had made on BiHu asking for help.

She opened BiHu to see if any survival experts had replied with advice.

But upon opening it, she froze.

Her post had vanished. Checking her system notifications, she found: "Your post [26 Days Until the End of the World—What Should I Prepare?] has been deleted for violating regulations. Please comply with community guidelines..."

Eh?

Why had her post been deleted?

Could it be that the world was truly ending?

As she puzzled over this, a deafening boom came from outside, as if something had exploded.

What was happening?

"Xia Xiao'an, stay here. Don’t be afraid."

Su Miao immediately put down her chopsticks, grabbed her phone, and ran up to the third floor to look out over the distance.

Even through the torrential rain, she could see thick smoke and fire rising from the direction of the restaurant.

Was it a gas explosion?

What on earth had happened at the restaurant?