Chapter 88: Let Us Have a Bite!

Su Miao kept walking along the highway.

The rain was lighter today, and the road had become much easier to travel.

The only problem was that she had to keep holding up the silver umbrella, and the hand gripping it felt rather cold.

She did not know when she would find a place where she could survive the blizzard and the biting cold.

At the very least, this was not such a place.

Su Miao glanced at her phone. If there had still been a network signal, perhaps she could have registered an account as a hiking and travel blogger and tried to make a living from it.

But after thinking it over, she decided against it. Whether it was livestreaming or recording videos, she did not want to show her face.

Along the road, Su Miao saw more empty little buildings, inns, and factories.

This time, she was in a hurry to get on, and did not go inside any of them.

She had noticed figures moving inside those places, so they were probably already occupied. After all, the flood had not reached these small buildings or factories.

Along the way, Su Miao also saw a mangy black dog with matted fur.

It stood more than a meter tall, lean and long-bodied, with a narrow, sharp head, looking very much like the hellhounds of the West.

Noticing Su Miao approaching, the black dog stopped and stared at her for a while with a gloomy, unsettling gaze.

Su Miao tightened her expression, her face cold and still, and met the dog’s eyes without flinching.

After about thirty seconds, the black dog left.

Su Miao let out a breath.

Whether that black dog had mutated or not, the pressure it gave off was overwhelming.

When she passed a sign that read something like "Welcome to X Mountain Manor," she saw that several abandoned large vehicles had been parked across the road, leaving only a single entrance blocked by wooden beams.

Beside it was a rain shelter, and five people were sitting inside.

As she drew closer, Su Miao saw a triangular board standing outside the shelter. Written on it were the words: "Toll, five pounds of grain per person."

Noticing her approach, two men in their fifties stood up and stared straight at Su Miao.

They said something to each other, looking quite pleased.

"Miss, where are you coming from?" one of the middle-aged men asked, staring at her. "Been on the road a long time, haven’t you? Why not come into our manor and rest a while?"

The malice in his eyes was obvious.

One person in the shelter even took out a length of rope without bothering to hide it at all.

"If you’re not here to rest, then the toll is five pounds of grain. Prepare it..."

He could not finish.

The man’s eyes went wide as he stared at the crossbow Su Miao had somehow produced.

What was going on?

He had not even finished speaking, and his throat had already been pierced.

The corpse fell.

"Damn it!"

The man beside him cursed, reaching for the steel pipe next to him, only to have a crossbow bolt nail him through the temple.

The remaining three panicked, especially the old man holding the rope, who immediately tossed it aside.

"Miss, let’s talk this through. Don’t be impulsive. Don’t kill people. Killing is wrong..."

"I’ll fight you to the death!"

"..."

Su Miao was terrified.

She fired bolt after bolt, killing the remaining three men.

When they saw her, they had already shown great malice, and one of them had even picked up the rope. Too terrifying.

To prevent any accident, Su Miao simply took advantage of the moment while they were greeting her and killed them all.

She pushed aside the wooden barrier and quickly left.

If the people from the manor came down, there would be even more danger.

Huh?

Su Miao noticed that inside the shelter there was a box filled with biscuits, instant noodles, sausages, and the like.

These must have been left by other travelers passing through.

Leaving them there would be a waste of food.

In the apocalypse, wasting food was an utterly shameful thing.

So Su Miao collected everything into her magical storage space.

About thirty minutes after Su Miao left, someone from the mountain came down to relieve the guards. Seeing the corpses strewn across the ground, he screamed in terror and ran back up the mountain to fetch others.

After leaving the checkpoint, Su Miao worried that someone might pursue her. When she passed a low-lying area, she simply took out her inflatable boat, set the course, and prepared to travel some distance by water first.

She was fortunate that it had only rained lightly today.

If it had been a downpour, Su Miao would never have gone onto the water no matter what.

After traveling by inflatable boat for more than ten kilometers, Su Miao reached Lake City. Looking at the vast floodwaters swallowing the city, her feelings were extremely complicated.

Inside the city, almost all tall buildings under nine stories had been submerged.

Even in low-lying districts, buildings over twenty stories high were flooded as well, forming numerous hidden reefs.

Even so, a considerable number of people still lived in the city and had not left.

A glance across the water showed many people paddling kayaks, wooden skiffs, or driving inflatable boats to search for supplies.

But with fuel scarce and electricity lacking, most moved forward by rowing.

Inflatable boats like Su Miao’s, powered by an electric propeller, were rare.

So when she neared a crowded area, she was immediately noticed.

Su Miao at once changed direction and drove the inflatable boat out of their sight.

Not long after, she spotted a cluster of flooded high-rises ahead, bearing signs for a home furnishings wholesale market and the like.

The ground there was slightly higher, and the shopping complex was only flooded up to the third floor. Su Miao immediately drove the inflatable boat closer.

Once she arrived, she found that the wooden furniture and similar items inside had already been cleared out.

From the remaining pieces, it looked as though they had been dismantled and carried away as firewood.

After all, there was no gas and no electricity now, so firewood had become an essential survival resource.

As a result, integrated stoves, water heaters, air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, and other appliances that required electricity and gas were ignored.

Since she had come all this way, Su Miao collected all of it into her magical storage space.

There was no electricity here and no gas, but there would certainly be some in the shelter.

Two hours later, Su Miao had stripped the flooded floors bare.

She did not even know exactly how much she had gathered.

In any case, it was a lot.

Looking at the time, it was already three in the afternoon. She needed to find a place to camp for the night.

Su Miao took out her map, checked the location, and drove the inflatable boat onward.

Around four in the afternoon, she came ashore beside a quiet stretch of road.

Throughout the journey, Su Miao had avoided passing through the city center.

But to her great surprise, even after avoiding the city center, she had still misjudged things.

Su Miao walked along the highway, and after only a short while, two filthy children, one big and one small, suddenly appeared ahead of her.

They were not afraid of the rain at all. Holding out their hands, they walked toward Su Miao.

"Big sister, I’m hungry. Do you have anything to eat?"

Su Miao immediately stepped back several paces, avoiding the dirty hands reaching toward her.

"Big sister, we’re hungry."

They kept pressing closer.

Gripping her silver umbrella, Su Miao continued to retreat.

Perhaps because she had backed away too far, four men, two women, and an old woman suddenly emerged from both sides of the road. They stared at Su Miao with dark, watchful eyes and moved in.

Had they been lying in ambush all along?

Su Miao was very frightened.

A woman who looked to be in her forties said, "Miss, the child hasn’t eaten for five days. These past few days they’ve been eating bark and gnawing roots. They’re almost starving to death. Please give them something to eat."

"Can’t you see how hungry the child is? Do you have no compassion at all?"

The old woman at the back rushed out and shouted.

The four men approached in silence, their eyes fixed on her.

"Big sister, we’re hungry. Just give us one bite!"

Suddenly, just as Su Miao kept retreating and the distance closed, the boy who was closer somehow produced a fruit knife in his hand and lunged at her like a starving wolf.

Su Miao’s hand trembled, and she drew the umbrella sword in one smooth motion.

The boy’s head fell away.

Perhaps it was an illusion.

Ever since she had used this umbrella sword to kill Chi Wanning last time, it seemed to have become more and more comfortable in her hand, sharper and sharper, as if it were awakening a sword spirit within it.

She thrust again, piercing the throat of the other boy.

He had attacked almost at the same time, trying to hug her around the waist and restrict her movement.

From the way they worked together, they must have done this many times before; otherwise they would not have been so practiced.

Su Miao looked at the remaining people. This time, she could not keep her expression composed, and fear showed plainly on her face.

"Ah, my grandson!"

Seeing her grandson killed, the old woman bared her teeth and claws and lunged at Su Miao.

The two women each drew a kitchen cleaver and rushed forward, shouting, "Pay with your life for my son!"

A family, then?

Su Miao had no intention of engaging them in close combat.

She took out her crossbow and, with a series of quick shots, killed the three charging at the front.

The bolts all struck the center of their brows, allowing them to die swiftly without much pain.

The remaining four men who had been rushing forward froze.

They turned and ran.

Su Miao fired rapidly, and before they had taken more than a few steps, she shot them all dead.

Looking at the bodies scattered across the ground, Su Miao could not help trembling a little. She could not understand why anyone would set an ambush in such a remote place in the rain.

Too frightening.

Next time she camped, she would have to be even more careful.

After a few dozen seconds, Su Miao’s nerves steadied. She walked over and retrieved the bolts.

Suddenly, the sound of a three-wheeled vehicle came from afar. The driver was a young man, and six other young people were seated on the vehicle, seemingly on their way somewhere.

At first, when they saw Su Miao standing alone on the road from a distance, they were thrilled.

Someone even could not help whistling.

"Hey, beautiful, want a ri..."

As the vehicle drew near and slowed, the group happened to see Su Miao crouching down to pull out the bolts, with blood splattered all over her.

Seeing the corpses strewn across the ground, the rest of the sentence was forcibly swallowed back.

"Sorry to bother you!"

The vehicle immediately accelerated to top speed and sped away, terrified that if they lingered even one step longer, they too might die.

Su Miao glanced at the departing tricycle and let out a breath.

Only four bolts left. Once she recovered them, she would leave.

Night was falling.

...

"My God, can anyone tell me what just happened?"

"That scared me to death!"

"But that girl was really beautiful just now!"

"Beautiful my ass! She looked terrified when she saw us, but who’s going to explain the bodies all over the ground?"

"Old martial arts novels always said that when traveling the rivers and lakes, you have to be careful around lone women, children, old people, and monks. The ancients truly did not deceive me."

"Stop spouting nonsense, especially you, you little bastard. If you dare whistle at women like that again next time, don’t blame me if I cut you down first!"

The young man driving the tricycle cursed, and his speed only increased.

When they got back, he absolutely had to tell the brothers guarding the checkpoint at the manor about what they had encountered on the road today, so those fools would not blunder into danger.