Chapter 83: Set Out for the Shelter!

"These are several nearby shelters. You may choose one when the time comes."

Qin Longzhang addressed the representatives of the disaster victims present. "If you intend to remain in the resort area, then you must prepare for a blizzard and extreme cold one month from now. The blizzard, like the rain now, will last a very long time."

"Starting in May next year, it will shift again into scorching heat. The highest temperature may exceed sixty degrees..."

In the room, silence fell so complete that one could have heard a pin drop.

Although this torrential flood had been terrifying, and many people had been whispering that the end of the world had arrived, there was still hope in the hearts of the survivors. They believed that once they endured the present hardship, everything would be fine.

Who could have imagined that this was only the beginning of disaster?

Tang Ke stood up and asked, "Instructor Qin, has this been confirmed by the meteorological department?"

Qin Longzhang nodded. "It has been jointly confirmed by the meteorological, astronomical, geological, and other departments. There will be many more disasters in the future."

"I am telling you this today so that you may have a clear understanding."

"Whether or not you choose to go to a shelter, only by standing together in unity will there be any hope of surviving these calamities."

"Later, we will also announce the locations of the shelters to the disaster victims outside, so they may choose freely."

One of the village representatives stood up, his voice trembling. "Instructor Qin, may I ask whether you can take us to the shelter?"

Qin Longzhang shook his head. "I'm sorry. We are on assignment and cannot take you there. At most, we can escort you out of the resort area."

"However, judging by the situation outside, the mutated creatures near the resort should be nearly all dead within the next few days. Aside from flash floods, collapses, and landslides, there will be no other danger on the way out."

Flash floods, collapses, and landslides did not count as danger?

The representatives exchanged glances.

It was simply that Qin Longzhang's news had been too shocking.

A middle-aged man stood and asked, "Instructor Qin, if we choose the nearby shelter, when will you leave this place? We'd like to go with you."

Qin Longzhang said, "We will depart tomorrow morning."

So soon?

The representatives were shocked once more.

With Qin Longzhang and the soldiers here, they felt safe. They had not expected these soldiers to remain for so short a time.

More than ten minutes later, the meeting ended.

Qin Longzhang left the room, leaving the remaining representatives deep in thought.

"Old Song, what do you think we should do?" Chang Jieming asked.

Song Yourang pondered for a moment. "That should be for you to decide. I'm a lone bachelor; I can go anywhere."

Chang Jieming fell silent.

Yes, Old Song was unmarried, but that did not mean the brothers in the security team were all alone. They all had families.

Staying in the resort might mean never seeing their loved ones again.

Going to a shelter, if they were lucky, might allow them to reunite with their families.

After some thought, Chang Jieming made up his mind. "All right. We'll go to the shelter first. If there are family members there, we'll let them go home and reunite."

"If not, we'll go to the next one. In any case, we must keep the guns in our hands."

Song Yourang nodded. "Got it!"

Chang Jieming said, "Tomorrow, let's meet Su Miao and thank her properly."

In truth, Chang Jieming had another thought as well: he wanted to ask whether they might be able to leave with Su Miao.

The road ahead might be very dangerous, but instinct told him that if they succeeded, the reward would be immense.

...

Su Miao opened her eyes.

She glanced at the time. It was 5 a.m. She had not expected to sleep for twelve hours.

The sky outside was dark, and though dawn was still some way off, the noise of the disaster victims was loud and chaotic. Something had surely happened again.

On the bed, Xia Xiaoan was still asleep.

From her complexion, Xia Xiaoan already seemed much better.

As if she had heard Su Miao's thoughts, or perhaps because the noise outside was too clamorous, Xia Xiaoan woke a few minutes later.

"Big sister..."

Seeing that Su Miao was still in the room, Xia Xiaoan let out a breath of relief.

"Eat something first."

Su Miao handed her a packet of compressed biscuits.

Beside the biscuits were two bottles of water.

These had all been prepared for them by Qin Longzhang and the soldiers.

Because of the flash floods and mudslides, there was almost no clean water left outside, so these bottles were extremely precious.

Thus, Su Miao took out two cups and dropped two tiny magical water spheres into them.

They could just drink the magic water.

A few minutes later, Su Miao and Xia Xiaoan finished the compressed biscuits and made do with that as breakfast.

Su Miao put the cups back into her magical space.

It was all right to reveal a little of her magic.

At most, people would think it was some special ability awakened under the influence of the apocalypse.

But as for using magical storage, she did not yet want to expose that to the outside world.

Because she was still too weak, and her magical space contained a great deal of supplies. It would be better to keep some abilities hidden.

Su Miao walked to the door and opened it. The soldier outside saluted her. "Su Miao, you're awake? I'll go inform the instructor."

Huh?

Su Miao froze, her expression stiff, not knowing how to respond.

Soon after, Qin Longzhang arrived. "Su Miao, good morning! We will set out at seven this morning. Is there anything you need to prepare?"

Su Miao shook her head. "No."

Qin Longzhang handed her two backpacks. "Food and water are in these."

Su Miao took them. "Thank you."

Close to six-thirty, Song Yourang and Chang Jieming came by.

After stating their purpose, the soldier guarding the door was about to knock, but Chang Jieming stopped him.

"Miss Su Miao, we're here to thank you!"

Chang Jieming called from outside. "After today, we're planning to go to the shelter. There may not be another chance to see you again."

"We brought some dried mutant catnip and a packet of mutant catnip seeds. Please don't dislike them."

Song Yourang said, "Miss Su Miao, I'm Song Yourang. Thank you again for saving my life! Old Song here will kowtow to you."

???

Su Miao stayed in the room and heard what Chang Jieming and Song Yourang were saying outside.

She opened the door and happened to see Song Yourang bowing his head to the ground.

"You, get up."

Su Miao held her expression steady, speechless.

After two seconds of silence, she said, "I'll take the catnip."

Chang Jieming hurriedly helped Song Yourang up, thanked her repeatedly, and then left quickly.

After this period of contact, they had gained some understanding of Su Miao. Her social anxiety was genuine, but so was her ability to be overwhelmed by it.

For Su Miao to open the door and meet them was already an immense favor.

Thus, they did not linger long.

Looking at the mutant catnip and the seeds in her hand, Su Miao blinked and put everything into her backpack.

This mutant catnip was truly useful; it could ward off giant mutant rats in the wild.

Suddenly, Su Miao thought of a serious problem.

Could the Persian cat and the lynx that had previously sneaked into her villa have been attracted by this mutant catnip?

At that thought, Su Miao said to the soldier guarding the door, "Hello, please tell the people who just left that their mutant catnip may attract terrifying giant mutant cats."

The soldier immediately said, "Understood!"

Watching the soldier leave, Su Miao closed the door, rubbed her face, and let out a sigh.

She felt that she had used up an entire month's worth of speaking-to-humans quota today.

A few minutes later, after learning of the danger the mutant catnip might bring, Chang Jieming, Song Yourang, and the others changed color.

They had previously lived in a wooden hut in the mountains, and at first they had thought the large snakes and big cats were drawn by the dried mutant rat meat they had stored.

Looking back now, perhaps it had been something entirely different.

"Miss Su Miao saved our lives again."

Chang Jieming broke out in a cold sweat.

"Yes."

Song Yourang nodded hastily.

It was fortunate they had gone to thank Su Miao and given away the mutant catnip they had treasured so highly. Without her warning, they would sooner or later have died in the jaws of some mutated giant cat.

...

At 7 a.m. on October 30, 2123, after receiving notice from the soldier at the door, Su Miao slung her backpack over her shoulder, took her custom silver umbrella, put on a transparent plastic raincoat, and walked out of the room with Xia Xiaoan.

It was time to leave.

As soon as she stepped outside, Su Miao saw the disaster victims crowding the temporary safe zone.

After yesterday's meeting, most of the victims decided to leave the resort with the army and head to the nearby shelters.

In the end, only a small number resolved to remain.

They believed that the mutant animals in the resort had already been killed off in large part. With only a few people left, they would no longer have to worry about supplies. Heavy rain could be used to avoid floods, blizzards would provide endless firewood, mountain springs would never run dry, and heat waves could be escaped by seeking shade.

As for the possible insect plagues and beast tides, they said they would gather some mutant animal corpses to use as a source of poison.

As long as they endured one wave of attacks, they could simply watch the charging insect plague and beast tide die in heaps.

The future looked very bright.

But if they followed the others to the shelter, there would be so many people there that no one could be sure of getting enough resources.

In that case, it would be better to stay.

No one tried to persuade these people; there was no time.

Besides, the shelters were not infinitely large and could not accept disaster victims without limit.

Thus, with Qin Longzhang and the other soldiers leading the way, the migrating group of more than eight hundred people set out, trampling over the corpses of mutated creatures.

Su Miao and Xia Xiaoan walked in the middle of the soldiers' formation, protected very well.

When they passed the parking lot...

They saw that at some point a small mountain had risen here, piled from the corpses of mutated animals.

The mound was more than thirty meters high and over two hundred meters across, filled with every kind of corpse imaginable.

A single glance was enough to deliver an unimaginable visual shock.

Many people could not help vomiting.

These mutated creatures had all come for the bait of the Devil Company.

But when they fought over it, they tore at one another and repeatedly spread the deadly poison Su Miao had released, until they all died here one by one.

If these corpses were not dealt with before long, the stench and poisonous fumes they gave off might well suffocate both humans and mutant animals to death.

"Terrifying..."

"Too terrifying. What kind of poison is this, exactly?"

"You should think about it from another angle. Without Su Miao poisoning these monsters, could we have survived?"

"It was Su Miao who saved us. She saved us at least three times."

"Teacher, is this the apocalypse?"

"I don't know."

"..."

Stepping over the corpses of the mutated creatures, the group left the resort and trampled a road through the muddy mountain path.

As before, the ones guiding the way were Xiong Hui and Lu Xuechuan. It was not that they had chosen not to take the highway, but that the highway had been washed out in many sections by flash floods and landslides. Forcing their way through there would still have meant taking a detour in the end.

Some in the migration group complained, wanting to know why.

But when they looked at the soldiers leading the way, no one asked why anymore.

After walking for nearly an hour out of the resort, they could still occasionally see the corpses of poisoned mutated creatures along the road, though not many remained. There were also a few mutated animals that looked poisoned yet were still barely able to move.

To avoid accidents, some soldiers shot these scattered mutated animals dead.

For some unknown reason, by around noon they discovered that the number of dead mutated creatures along the way had increased again.

Could it be that certain mutated animals had gone hunting in the resort, then dragged the corpses here to become a source of poison?

Su Miao tightened her grip on the silver umbrella, feeling a little afraid.

She sensed more and more gazes gathering on her, curious and fearful, and the pressure made her increasingly tense.

In theory, the highly toxic hallucination potion she had made should not have been this terrifying.

After another hour of walking, close to one in the afternoon, Qin Longzhang decided to let the group take a temporary rest at a highway rest area they had found ahead.

Upon entering the rest area, they saw something horrifying.

"Big sister, look!"

Xia Xiaoan pointed ahead.

At the entrance to what had once been the cafeteria of the rest area lay the corpses of several giant mutant rats.

Besides the giant mutant rats, there were mountain cats, jackals, wild dogs, and the like.

Some of them still had human legs clenched in their jaws.

They had all been poisoned to death.

"It's Fei Chengqiang and the others."

Song Yourang was the first to recognize the identities of the corpses.

He looked at Fei Chengqiang's body with clenched teeth.

That beast deserved it. Good riddance!

"They seem to have been poisoned to death."

Chang Jieming hurriedly warned, "Don't touch their things. Be careful not to get poisoned."

The corpses lay strewn across the ground. On closer look, the area where they had been seated had a hot pot set out.

Beside the pot were several overturned bottles and jars, including salt and seasoning powder.

Someone approached, intending to pick up the seasoning jars and see what was inside.

Xiong Hui quickly said, "Don't touch them! They're poisonous! It's the poison Miss Su Miao gave. The people from Devil Company were poisoned to death after eating this salt and seasoning powder."

At those words, the person reaching for the jars went pale.

He had nearly lost his life.

Qin Longzhang looked at the seasoning jars thoughtfully.

He called over one of the soldiers beside him and invited Su Miao to come. When Su Miao saw Fei Chengqiang's corpse and the seasoning jars she had given to Xiong Hui and Lu Xuechuan, she understood everything.

"Su Miao, can we collect these things?" Qin Longzhang asked.

Su Miao nodded. "Yes, just don't let them touch your skin."

Qin Longzhang told the soldiers to gather up all the remaining seasonings and mark them for future use.

Standing among so many people, Su Miao felt under immense pressure.

She turned back, found a corner, and stood with Xia Xiaoan.

After resting for about thirty minutes, the group continued along the highway. This time the road was much easier to travel.

But then the rain fell again.

Su Miao opened her silver umbrella and looked toward the misty distance, hoping they could safely reach the shelter.