Meanwhile, at the other end of Apricot Blossom Town.
Hualian Supermarket.
Bzzzt-
The overhead lights blazed on, illuminating the eleven people trembling inside the supermarket.
Three hours earlier, Brother Dao and the others had followed the lead car into Apricot Blossom Town in their private vehicles.
Once they entered the town.
With the lead car nowhere in sight, they could only keep speeding ahead.
Just as they were about to reach the agreed meeting point.
Their worst fear came true.
A ghost loop.
After trying again and again to escape.
Hu Yaya finally noticed the mannequin beside the road.
It kept muttering like a broken record.
"Go to Hualian Supermarket and purchase a travel pass. One pass per person."
"Only then may you leave."
After several more attempts.
They reluctantly entered Hualian Supermarket.
At the entrance, a plastic mannequin in a red vest turned its head with a series of clicks.
It revealed an eerie smile smeared with cheap blush.
"Welcome. I am your gold-medal shopping assistant, Li Xia."
"Travel passes. Unit price: one human head."
"Doors closing and locking. Enjoy your shopping."
As the cold electronic voice faded, the roller shutter slammed shut.
Trapped with no way out, their humanity crumbled.
Brother Dao and his thugs sprang into action.
They lunged at the four other survivors who had no one to back them up.
Blood and screams filled the supermarket.
Hu Yaya instinctively shielded her best friend, Li Shiqi.
They hid behind the tall shelves.
The slaughter ended quickly.
Brother Dao wiped the blood from his face, looked at the four bodies on the floor, and spoke to his heavily made-up wife.
"Four heads. We need one more."
His wife extended a hand with red-painted nails.
She pointed deeper into the shelves.
Hu Yaya heard the footsteps drawing closer.
She tightened her grip on her fruit knife.
She was ready to fight for her life at any moment.
Suddenly!
A tremendous shove struck her from behind!
Caught completely off guard, Hu Yaya was pushed out from behind the shelves.
She fell in front of Brother Dao and his men.
Hu Yaya turned back in disbelief.
She stared at Li Shiqi, who stood in the shadows.
"Yaya... I'm sorry... I don't want to die..."
Tears streamed down Li Shiqi's face.
She shook her head over and over.
Brother Dao and Yellow-Hair grinned viciously.
They slowly approached Hu Yaya as she lay on the floor.
Hu Yaya's voice trembled as she stared fixedly at the face she had once trusted so completely.
"I shared half my food with you."
"Whenever there was danger, I stood in front of you."
"To get medicine for you, I almost got eaten by an anomaly in Wugui Village! Li Shiqi! Why!"
"I thought of you as my best friend, the only family I had left in the apocalypse."
"Why!"
She knelt there in a daze, the fruit knife slipping from her hand onto the floor.
She had already prepared herself to charge out and fight to the death.
She had never expected betrayal to come first.
This best friend she had protected ever since college, all the way into the apocalypse.
Had pushed her into the abyss with her own hands.
Li Shiqi only kept shaking her head, not daring to meet her eyes.
By then, Yellow-Hair and Brother Dao had reached Hu Yaya.
Just as Yellow-Hair raised his steel pipe.
"Honey."
Brother Dao's wife suddenly spoke.
Brother Dao paused, then waved Yellow-Hair to a halt.
A trace of cold murderous intent gathered among the folds of fat on his face.
"I think so too."
He spun around and lunged toward the still-sobbing Li Shiqi.
"I've lived in the underworld. People like you are the ones I hate most."
"No..."
Squelch!
The Mountain-Cleaving Blade sliced cleanly across her neck, cutting her sobs short.
Expressionless, Brother Dao cut off her head, shook the blood from his blade, and tossed the head to his wife.
Zhang Meili reached out with her red-painted nails, then wiped her high heels in disgust.
"A disloyal bitch like that would only cause trouble if we kept her around."
Brother Dao turned back for one last look at the devastated Hu Yaya.
"Consider that me avenging you in advance. In your next life, take a better look at who you trust."
With that, he led his men toward the supermarket entrance without looking back.
Shopping assistant Li Xia's electronic voice rang out, and five yellow talismans fluttered down.
"Five customers. Merchandise verified. Five travel passes."
The closed roller shutter slowly rose.
Light streamed through the doorway.
The plastic head turned again with a series of clicks, fixing on Hu Yaya as she stood there alone.
It revealed an eerie, deathly pale smile.
"Hello, dear customer. What would you like to purchase?"
The operating room at Apricot Blossom Clinic.
Chen Mo's head felt as though it would split apart.
He lay on the floor, convulsing nonstop.
As Red Hare guided the eerie energy into Chen Mo's brain.
An enormous mass of venomous energy forced its way into his mind.
Countless images began flashing before his eyes.
He saw Wen Li in his prime, a key doctor at a top-tier provincial hospital.
He saw his despair after being transferred to a lesser post over a fabricated "medical dispute."
He saw the frustration he endured day after day in this little clinic.
The images finally froze on a rainy night.
Wen Li's final operation.
"None of you follow the rules!"
"You're all lying!"
"Why! I'm not a quack! I did nothing wrong!"
Scenes of the patient's family harassing him kept swirling through Chen Mo's mind.
As he lay on the floor, his eyes slowly began rolling upward.
"Fuck! Hold on to your mind! Do you want to become an idiot?"
Red Hare's furious roar exploded in his ears.
Chen Mo regained a sliver of clarity and bit down hard on the tip of his tongue.
The intense pain brought a brief moment of lucidity.
No!
I finally managed to escape!
I finally got a chance to take control of my own fate!
How can I die here!
Images flashed through Chen Mo's mind again.
Being hit by Brother Dao's car and humiliated after the apocalypse.
Being abandoned by Lin Lu like a lizard's severed tail.
Having the anomaly he had risked his life to kill casually demanded from him.
I will control my own fate!
Chen Mo clutched his head and let out one agonized roar after another.
"What does your suffering have to do with me?"
"You were framed. You were demoted. That was your own incompetence."
"The perfect closed loop you built was nothing but a cage you made for yourself!"
"You want me to understand you, empathize with you, and then be devoured by you?"
"Why should I!"
"Get... out of my head!"
Chen Mo clutched his head, roaring again and again.
After an unknown stretch of time, his body suddenly shuddered.
The soul-rending pain vanished.
In its place came a sense of control unlike anything he had ever felt.
He could see the Tide Cry energy drifting through the air.
He could see the resentment slowly dissipating from Doctor Wen's corpse.
More than that, he could see inside his own body.
An entirely new, stable energy circulation system was slowly taking shape.
[Sequence awakened] [Sequence name: Blade Wielder] [Sequence tier: First Tier] [Ability one: Gain Blade Specialization. Damage dealt with bladed weapons is doubled.] [Ability two: Coup de Grâce. Description: None]
Chen Mo slowly opened his eyes.
He looked at his right hand, which was missing two fingers.
I... succeeded?
He tried flexing his hand, and transcendent power flowed slowly through it.
Even with two fingers missing, it remained steady and strong.
The donkey beside him was chewing on something.
Wen Li's white coat lay on the floor.
Seeing Chen Mo wake up, the donkey belched and hopped down from the operating table.
It picked its teeth with a scalpel, then tossed it to Chen Mo.
"Awake?"
"Here. A welcoming gift."
Chen Mo reached out and caught the scalpel.
Information appeared before his eyes.
[Wen Li's Scalpel] Wondrous item ranking: 88220 Effect: Attack speed and precision increased significantly when using the scalpel. Description: The scalpel Wen Li used in his final surgery before his death. It carried all his resentment and bitterness. Using it could allow that resentment to corrode the brain.
The donkey impatiently kicked Chen Mo.
"Come on, your majesty."
"That bear's about to catch up."
Before you continue