You damned old hag, trying to make me die in your place?

Yang Yong remained crouched, his legs beginning to go numb and the backpack on his back as heavy as a mountain.

He looked at the people around him.

A young couple clung tightly to each other, the woman shedding silent tears;

an old man had his eyes closed, muttering under his breath;

and a mother clamped her hand over the mouth of the child in her arms so tightly that the child's face had turned purple.

Then Yang Yong saw the old woman.

She was hiding beneath a shelf diagonally across from him. She looked sixty or seventy, with graying hair and a small, thin frame, seemingly too frail to withstand a breeze.

But Yang Yong noticed her eyes. They were too calm.

Unlike the others, whose eyes were filled with fear, she was watching, calculating.

Their eyes met for an instant.

The old woman quickly looked away, lowered her head, and went back to trembling.

Something's wrong.

The thought had barely crossed Yang Yong's mind when he felt someone shove him from behind.

The shove wasn't strong, but it came at a tricky angle.

His legs were already numb. He immediately lost his balance and crashed into the shelf beside him.

Crash-

Soy sauce bottles fell from the shelf and shattered on the tiled floor.

The piercing sound rang throughout the supermarket.

Every gaze instantly focused on Yang Yong.

Including the Slit-Mouthed Woman's. She abandoned Sister Ying, whom she was about to corner, turned around, and fixed her pitch-black eyes on Yang Yong.

"Found... you..."

Her voice carried delight.

Yang Yong turned his head and saw the old woman looking at him with an "apologetic" expression, yet the corners of her mouth curled upward almost imperceptibly.

"Fuck!"

Yang Yong instantly understood that he had been set up.

This old hag wanted to use him to draw the Eerie away and give herself a chance to escape!

The Slit-Mouthed Woman was already floating toward him, slowly but with an overwhelming sense of pressure.

She raised her sharp nails, pointing them at Yang Yong's heart.

Am I going to die?

I transmigrated into this damned world three months ago and lived so cautiously, only to end up unable to escape anyway?

No.

The vicious streak deep in Yang Yong's bones surged up.

He grabbed another bottle from the shelf, a glass jar of chili sauce, and hurled it at the Slit-Mouthed Woman with all his strength.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman raised a hand and caught it effortlessly.

The jar burst in her hand, splattering chili sauce all over her, but she paid it no mind.

"You damned old hag, trying to make me die in your place?"

Yang Yong suddenly sprang into action, charging not toward the exit but toward the old woman!

Everyone was stunned.

Including the old woman herself. She clearly hadn't expected Yang Yong to do this.

Yang Yong rushed up to her and seized her collar.

The old woman screamed, struggling with astonishing strength that was nothing like an elderly person's!

"I knew something was wrong with you!"

Even more certain now, Yang Yong mustered all his strength, lifted the old woman bodily, and shoved her toward the Slit-Mouthed Woman...

"No! Please, no!"

The old woman's screams turned into shrill wails.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman's nails were already upon her.

Just as they were about to pierce the old woman's body...

Whoosh!

A white flash of blade slashed over like lightning!

Sister Ying finally arrived, her long blade cutting toward the Slit-Mouthed Woman's neck with a piercing shriek as it tore through the air.

The red glow on the blade now blazed like blood, lighting up the entire shelving area.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman had no choice but to turn back and defend herself.

Her nails struck the blade, throwing off a shower of sparks.

"Run! Everyone! Now!" Sister Ying roared.

As though a switch had been flipped, everyone in hiding moved at once.

They rushed toward the doors, toward the sunlight, toward survival.

Yang Yong didn't run immediately.

He glanced at the old woman.

The old hag was already scrambling toward the doors, moving as fast as an athlete.

He glanced at Sister Ying again.

Sister Ying was locked in combat with the Slit-Mouthed Woman, flashes of her blade crisscrossing, but she was clearly struggling.

There was a wound on her left arm, and blood dripped from her fingertips.

Meanwhile, the Slit-Mouthed Woman grew fiercer as she fought. Her red clothes billowed without wind, and her mouth split wider and wider, almost reaching the back of her head.

Zheng Xiaofeng charged over, Stone Armor covering his entire body, and slammed into the Slit-Mouthed Woman like a human tank.

"Sister Ying! Go!"

The impact sent the Slit-Mouthed Woman stumbling.

Sister Ying seized the chance to retreat, shouting at Yang Yong, "What are you standing there for? Go!"

Yang Yong took one last look into the depths of the supermarket, then turned and rushed toward the sunlight.

When he stepped through the supermarket doors and into the sunlight, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion.

The others rushed out one after another, all deathly pale and panting.

Some collapsed to the ground the moment they emerged, some clutched their heads and sobbed, and others frantically checked their backpacks.

In the chaos just now, quite a few people had lost their supplies.

"Where are Sister Ying and Zheng Xiaofeng?" someone asked.

No sooner had the words left their mouth than the two rushed out.

Sister Ying was covered in blood, and only half of her long blade remained.

Most of Zheng Xiaofeng's Stone Armor had shattered, and a wound on his left shoulder was deep enough to expose bone.

"Drive! Now!" Sister Ying roared hoarsely.

The convoy's engines roared.

The three off-road vehicles moved first, with the school bus close behind, while everyone else scrambled onto their own means of transport.

Yang Yong mounted his mountain bike and pedaled desperately.

After traveling several hundred meters, he looked back at the Benefit All Families supermarket.

Under the sunlight, a red figure stood silently in the shadows by the supermarket entrance, her mouth, split all the way to the back of her neck, curving upward.

She was smiling.

Then she turned and floated back into the depths of the darkness.

Super bicycle, activate.

Yang Yong silently recited the words.

The next second, a powerful thrust abruptly pressed him forward, and the bicycle beneath him shot off like an arrow from a bow, moving so fast it was only a little slower than a motorcycle.

This was what he had relied on to endure three whole months after the apocalypse broke out.

Three months ago, Yang Yong had just transmigrated into this Spiritless World when, a mere day later, the apocalypse descended.

At the time, he had almost fallen into utter despair.

Fortunately, the furnace pendant he had worn around his neck before transmigrating had come with him.

The moment the Red Moon hung high in the sky, an inexplicable voice abruptly rang out in his mind.

[Ding, Thousand-Hammer, Hundred-Refinement Furnace activated.]

[Ding, world information recorded.]

[Ding, no Spiritual Energy match found. Searching for an alternative energy source.]

[Ding, Red Moon aura detected. Absorb?]

Without thinking, Yang Yong roared a single word in his mind: Yes!

Immediately afterward, the furnace pendant he had picked up for two hundred yuan at an antique stall suddenly erupted with dazzling red light, turned into a streak of light, and plunged straight into his body.

After three months of exploration, Yang Yong finally figured out that the furnace was called the Thousand-Hammer, Hundred-Refinement Furnace and had an extraordinary origin. It seemed to belong to some unspeakable being and, for unknown reasons, had ended up in his original world before finally coming into his possession.

The furnace could automatically absorb Red Moon energy, but it did so very slowly. Only after three months of painstaking effort had he obtained a sheet of iron and fitted it into his bicycle.

From then on, the bicycle had gained the ability to absorb Red Moon energy, along with a special power boost.

What Yang Yong was drawing on now was precisely the Red Moon energy stored in the bicycle.

It was also thanks to this modified bicycle that he had escaped death in encounter after encounter with the Eerie.

"Holy shit, how is that guy's bicycle going so fast?"

"He barely seems to be pedaling. How can he be going that ridiculously fast?"