Shen Yi hadn't been idle these past few days.
While the internet still worked, he searched for nearby group chats, applied to join them, then posted ads every so often offering to take in beautiful women...
In three words: cast a wide net!
The system had high standards for the women he took in, so this needle-in-a-haystack approach was his only option.
If he cast his net wide enough, he was bound to catch a few good ones!
After all, he had no ability to protect himself right now. He couldn't go out looking for outstanding women in person; he had to find them online.
Shen Yi had a feeling this disaster wouldn't end so easily.
It might even become the end of humanity!
If the black fog only made people hungry and thirsty, it wouldn't really count as an apocalyptic disaster. At worst, food and water would become scarce.
But the plants in the black fog seemed to be mutating...
And five days had passed since the black fog appeared, yet official rescue had still not arrived.
The authorities had only sent online alerts telling everyone to stay indoors, put their pets outside, and so on.
There were also instructions on how to tell whether food and water had been contaminated...
The authorities had started sending those alerts four or five hours after the black fog descended.
But
at first, nobody had taken them seriously.
Most people hadn't even stored much in the way of supplies.
Now the black fog was growing thicker, and most food and water had spoiled after contamination by unknown bacteria. It was too late to stock up.
Besides,
most people didn't dare go outside!
Deadly dangers lurked in the black fog!!
Over the past few days, screams had often come from within it. Who knew how many people had died...
Shen Yi was drinking water and chatting with a girl he had recently added when a WeChat message suddenly popped up.
Jin Rui (dorm leader): "Shen Yi, you've got water, right? Bring me a bottle. I'm on the eighth floor of the teaching building. Hurry!"
Shen Yi: "Fuck you! Moron! Get lost!"
After sending that, he deleted Jin Rui from his contacts.
Fuck. Those idiot roommates had bullied him before the apocalypse. Now that it was here, why should he keep putting up with them?
People online said college roommates were brothers who'd risk their lives for each other. Maybe some people really had roommates like that, but Shen Yi had been unlucky enough to end up with a rich kid whose family had some money.
And
that guy loved ordering people around and bullying anyone weaker than him.
Naturally, Shen Yi hadn't been willing to take orders, so he'd fought Jin Rui a few times. But his other two bastard roommates always sided with Jin Rui. Three against one—Shen Yi never stood a chance.
Shen Yi had considered risking his life to kill him, but his grandmother had raised him, and he still hadn't repaid her. He couldn't bring himself to throw his life away.
"I wonder how Grandma and my little sister are doing today..." Shen Yi called his grandmother again.
They'd spoken just yesterday. At the time, his grandmother and little sister had been hiding in the cellar. Rural cellars usually held plenty of grain and vegetables, so they had enough to eat and drink.
But they didn't dare leave the cellar. Apparently, a neighbor's dog was eating people! It was terrifying!
His little sister hadn't been able to explain exactly what had happened, but Shen Yi guessed the animals might have mutated too...
Otherwise, a pet dog would never eat its owner.
Meanwhile,
elsewhere,
in a classroom on the eighth floor of the teaching building,
Jin Rui stared at Shen Yi's message, so furious he nearly smashed his phone.
"Fuck! That bastard Shen Yi actually dared to curse me out!"
"Just you wait! Once I get back to the dorm, I'll make you pay!"
Shen Yi had fought him before, but he'd never dared insult him like this.
Jin Rui had been a bully since childhood. How could he swallow this?
If he hadn't known the black fog was dangerous, he would have gone straight back to the dorm and taught Shen Yi a brutal lesson.
He certainly didn't dare kill him. No one knew when government rescuers might arrive, and murder would have consequences.
But he did dare beat Shen Yi badly enough to break an arm.
At worst, he'd pay some compensation.
"Jin, don't be angry. That idiot isn't worth it."
"So Shen Yi has a few bottles of water. Does he really think the apocalypse will last forever? Once it's over, we'll teach him a lesson! We'll make him kneel and apologize to you!"
The two bootlicking roommates beside him tried to calm him down.
They had seen Shen Yi's posts in the group chat too, which was why they had asked him for water.
Who would have thought Shen Yi had grown so bold?
They were furious too, but for now, they needed to stay on Jin Rui's good side.
Jin Rui's family had money and connections. Maybe his father would send someone to rescue him, and they could leave with the rescue team.
There was a reason behind every bit of bootlicking!
Dawn gradually broke.
Over at Xu Wanting's dorm,
she had made it through another night.
An entire night without a drop of water.
It wasn't that she didn't want to drink. There wasn't a drop left.
She was so dehydrated she couldn't even urinate...
She had run out of water yesterday morning.
Since then, she had called the emergency rescue line countless times and tried her parents just as often, but no one had answered...
Xu Wanting was growing desperate.
If she kept waiting, she really would die of thirst.
Few people could endure the feeling of slowly dying from thirst.
Xu Wanting, a young woman, certainly couldn't.
So she swallowed her pride, stood on the balcony, and begged Shen Yi to toss her a bottle of water.
But no matter how long she called, Shen Yi ignored her.
Unless she came to the men's dorm, it seemed there was nothing to discuss.
Xu Wanting spent hours cursing Shen Yi under her breath. She even used swear words she had never uttered before.
But cursing wouldn't solve anything, and it wouldn't quench her thirst.
So,
after agonizing over it, Xu Wanting finally decided to go to the men's dorm.
The choice itself was simple enough. Compared with dying of thirst, sacrificing her body didn't seem like much...
Only someone who had suffered that kind of thirst could understand.
What had kept Xu Wanting from making up her mind was the last shred of hope she still held for a government rescue.
What if she gave in and traded her body for water, only for the rescue team to arrive right afterward? She would have lost out terribly!
She really didn't want to give her first time to an ordinary guy like Shen Yi...
On a normal day, she wouldn't have given someone like Shen Yi a second glance. She could barely be bothered to speak to him, let alone date him or sleep with him.
There was another reason Xu Wanting had hesitated: earlier, she had heard a girl screaming from a floor far below hers. Even at that distance, something about the scream had sounded wrong.
Xu Wanting suspected there might be monsters in the black fog...
It wasn't a baseless guess. Students had posted videos in the campus group chat showing what looked like mutated plants and animals.
Even geckos that had once fit in the palm of a hand had grown several times larger, to about the size of an adult dog. They were frightening to look at!
That was why Xu Wanting hadn't dared open her dorm room door. She hadn't even dared make much noise.
But now,
rather than die of thirst in her dorm, she had to take a chance!
"Damn you, Shen Yi!"
"Couldn't you just toss me a bottle of water? You have to make me go out and risk my life..."
Xu Wanting cursed Shen Yi as she put on white stockings, then a pair of sneakers.
Once dressed, she packed the last few bags of snacks into her pink backpack. They were all the food she had left. If she had water, she could probably last another three or four days, maybe even five or six.
But without water, she couldn't...
She wouldn't last another day.
She looked at the fruit knife on the table and hesitated for a moment before tucking it inside her clothes.
Then she took out her phone, found one of Shen Yi's posts in the group chat, and sent him a friend request.
But
he still hadn't accepted it.
Xu Wanting waited a while, then spent some time looking toward Shen Yi's dorm building from the balcony. She couldn't see much. With no other choice, she headed out while it was light.
I hope I make it there safely...
Meanwhile, Shen Yi's side.
As the disaster dragged on,
more and more people sent him friend requests.
More men than women!
But Shen Yi only accepted women.
In just a few days, more than two hundred women had added him on their own!
That was the advantage of casting a wide net!
And among those two hundred women, he had found another one who met the system's standards...
Before you continue