The next day.
The sun hung high, bathing the entire world in scorching heat.
Chu Sheng held the steering wheel with one hand and shaded his forehead with the other.
His scarlet eyes looked just as bewitching and uncanny in the sunlight.
The convoy had not stopped since last night. It was not just Chu Sheng; everyone else in the convoy was exhausted too.
Especially those without cars. They had been walking from last night until noon today, carrying backpacks and luggage, and had already reached their limits.
But they were afraid of falling behind and being abandoned, so they could only force themselves to keep pace with the convoy.
Fortunately, the convoy was not moving fast. Walking a little more briskly was enough to keep up.
Chu Sheng yawned and wiped away the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes from drowsiness, deciding he needed to find himself a driver sometime soon.
Since he was planning to put on a new persona, staying on his own would not quite fit.
He considered it silently, but he was in no hurry.
At the very least, he needed to arrange a safeguard first.
Though he intended to change his persona, he still did not trust anyone else.
He had met a Sequence Adept when the apocalypse first began.
She had been his neighbor, a beautiful young woman around twenty-two or twenty-three. Her family seemed fairly well-off, and she had been raised with sound values and a good education.
She seemed to believe that with great power came great responsibility, so when the apocalypse first began, she saved several people in their section of the apartment building.
Although Chu Sheng did not know which Sequence she had awakened, he had personally seen her kill two Anomalies with her fists at the very start of the apocalypse.
Alone and barehanded, she had fought two at once and killed them both when the apocalypse had only just begun.
No matter how he looked at it, hers could not have been an ordinary Sequence.
Being her neighbor had worked in his favor. They had run into each other and exchanged greetings a few times before the apocalypse, so afterward, when his food was running out, she even brought him a few packets of instant noodles.
At the time, Chu Sheng had thought there was still genuine kindness in the apocalypse, and that it was not full of evil people the way novels portrayed it.
But he soon changed his mind.
Seven days into the apocalypse, they learned through the communication networks, which had yet to collapse, that Anomalies could sense life force, and that cities held the greatest concentrations of them.
So, with the young woman's help, everyone in their section of the building fled together, trying to escape the city.
With her helping them along the way, their escape went fairly smoothly, despite some casualties.
Yet just after they escaped the city and reached an isolated, abandoned factory beyond the suburbs, Chu Sheng watched the people she had protected ambush and kill her.
Until then, he had thought that once they escaped the city, things would keep getting better under her protection.
But no sooner had they left the city than several people silently stabbed her from behind.
Three or four people attacked without warning, every strike aimed to kill.
By the time Chu Sheng reacted, she was already lying in a pool of blood.
Her neck, back, heart, shoulder, chest.
Wounds everywhere, piercing clean through.
She had not died when the apocalypse struck, nor at the hands of the Anomalies, but at the hands of the people she had protected.
At the time, he had felt as though the sky had fallen.
Anomalies had appeared in the apocalypse, and here was a kindhearted person with supernatural powers willing to protect ordinary people. Instead of being grateful, they had actually killed her.
Only after they were absolutely certain she was dead did Chu Sheng learn something from them.
If they ate someone who had awakened supernatural powers, they could awaken those extraordinary abilities too.
Then Chu Sheng watched them try that method.
The ones who had attacked her ate the meat, while the others, who had known nothing about it, drank the soup.
Chu Sheng had also been given a bowl for the soup.
But he did not touch it. That was also when he lost all hope in so-called humanity.
An inherent vileness.
People never understood kindness, nor did they understand protection.
Much less gratitude.
They only ever thought of themselves. Kindness, help-all of it meant nothing.
After that, Chu Sheng parted ways with those people and encountered several convoys along the way. Fortunately, the first convoy he joined did not practice slavery. Although he had to hand over part of the supplies he found, at least he was free to come and go.
After moving from one group to another, he eventually ended up in his current convoy.
He trusted neither humanity nor feelings. He did not even dare trust self-interest.
As Chu Sheng recalled everything that had happened since the apocalypse began, his grip on the steering wheel tightened. His scarlet eyes shifted, his thoughts twisting and turning.
"Until I have a Sacrificial Item that can keep people in check or take them down with me, I'd better not recruit any subordinates."
Chu Sheng muttered under his breath, then half closed his eyes.
Bang!
The sound of a collision rang out. Chu Sheng's berserk truck rammed into an SUV, and the slight jolt made him instinctively floor the accelerator. An engine roar followed.
Vroom!
The berserk truck forcibly shoved the SUV forward, pushing it all the way into Brother Hui's vehicle at the front before Chu Sheng finally reacted and hit the brakes.
The moment they stopped, An Xi jumped furiously out of the SUV's passenger seat. "Chu Sheng!"
"Are you out of your mind?!"
"Everyone stopped, and you hit the accelerator?!"
An Xi angrily yanked open his door, looking positively ferocious.
Chu Sheng gave a light cough. Remembering his persona, he said pleasantly, "An Xi, I'm sorry."
"I was lost in thought just now. When I hit your car, I panicked a little and instinctively stepped on the accelerator. I'm really sorry."
At his words, An Xi looked as though she had seen a ghost. Her eyes widened, and she pointed at him incredulously before looking him up and down.
"Are you really Chu Sheng?"
The Chu Sheng she knew was nothing like this.
If this had been him before, he would definitely have argued back and talked circles around her, even making her apologize to him.
Seeing her reaction, Chu Sheng shook his head. "Of course it's me."
"I've thought things through lately. Even if this is the apocalypse, I'm still human. I should embrace the sunshine."
"I was too dark-minded before."
At that, An Xi gave him several more incredulous looks, then scampered away.
Back in her own car, An Xi patted her flat chest, looking thoroughly shaken.
"A Xin, do you think Anomalies can possess people?"
"You mean like on TV, where they stand on tiptoe behind someone and control them?" A Xin was confused. Hadn't An Xi said she was going to give him trouble?
Why had she come back looking frightened?
She did not understand, but still ventured an answer. "Probably."
"A lot of those vile things are practically ghosts. Even zombies have appeared, so there must be Anomalies that can possess people too."
"That makes sense!" An Xi looked utterly convinced.
"I'm telling you, I suspect Chu Sheng has been possessed by an Anomalies."
As she spoke, she opened the door again. "A Xin, be careful. I'm going to get that charlatan of a captain to do a divination."
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