Making trouble

The sudden voice drew everyone's attention at once.

Lin Qi turned to look. It was Yi Xue, the college girl who had asked him to trade for sanitary pads earlier.

She stood at the back of the crowd, her expression fearful but her gaze utterly resolute.

Hearing someone contradict them, the burly men around them all turned their eyes toward Yi Xue, who had spoken.

One of them, a burly bald man, glared viciously at Yi Xue. "Young lady, you need to have a conscience when you speak."

Yi Xue had never faced a threat like this. Her small face went pale, and she stammered, trying to say something, but her teeth chattered with fear. For a long while, she could not get a single word out.

"Heh, good to see you know what's best for you." The bald man felt smug. Scaring a student fresh out of school was child's play.

But just when he thought he had victory in the bag, something unexpected happened.

A group of people streamed off the bus behind Yi Xue, the vast majority of them male students.

Leading them was a woman in gold-rimmed glasses and professional attire, clearly the students' teacher.

The teacher stepped in front of the female student, radiating an inexplicable confidence of authority. Under her teacher's commanding presence, the unease in Yi Xue's mind began to fade. "Teacher Gu..."

"It's all right."

The teacher shielded Yi Xue behind her, clutching a red flip phone.

She calmly adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses and met the bald man's gaze without a trace of fear. "I happened to record the old lady attacking her. Shall I show everyone?"

The bald man's expression changed immediately at Teacher Gu's words, but he kept up a fierce front despite his misgivings. "Heh, I don't believe your phone still has any power."

"Then let's find out."

The teacher did not open her phone. She simply stared quietly into the bald man's eyes.

In the end, the bald man did not dare gamble. If he lost, his mother would be expelled from the convoy. How would that be any different from dying? Without the old woman, how was he supposed to keep using her to stage accidents and extort people?

After weighing his options, he quickly went over to the old woman and helped her up, giving Liu Yan an apologetic smile. "My mom's getting old. Maybe she remembered wrong. Sorry, sorry..."

The old woman had clearly realized she could no longer keep up the act, so she could only leave with the bald man.

Lin Qi did not stop the bald man and his group from leaving. He might have evidence, but driving away the old woman alone would mean little. What he wanted was to find opportunities to slowly carve a little flesh off the bald man's gang...

The old woman glared at Lin Qi, thoroughly unconvinced. As she passed Teacher Gu's group, she even spat out a vicious threat. "Just you wait!"

Teacher Gu's expression remained unchanged as she gently adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses. "Anytime."

Seeing that the matter was settled, Liu Yan had no desire to waste any more time on it. As she led her subordinates away, she waved at the surrounding survivors. "Break it up, everyone. We have to get moving tomorrow morning. Get some rest."

Lin Qi withdrew his gaze from the old woman and looked at Teacher Gu, wondering whether she had helped him because she wanted supplies from him.

Such thoughts occurred to practically every survivor in the apocalypse.

Teacher Gu seemed to see through him, her voice calm. "Don't overthink it. Calling in favors is beneath me. I was merely teaching my students a lesson: no matter when it is, you must face what is in your heart!"

Lin Qi was momentarily speechless.

Never mind the apocalypse-even before it, an upright person would have been devoured without so much as a scrap left.

He wanted to say something, but Teacher Gu had already led her students away.

Yi Xue studied Teacher Gu's flip phone curiously, blinking her big, clear eyes. "Teacher, did you really record it?"

"No." Teacher Gu shook her head. "This isn't deception. This is the second lesson I'm teaching you after leaving school..."

"What a strange person."

Lin Qi shook his head as he watched Teacher Gu walk away. The little incident had not affected him. He wolfed down the bowl of instant noodles in a few mouthfuls, only putting away his pot and bowl once the bowl gleamed with grease.

Conditions in the apocalypse did not allow him to spare water for washing dishes. Besides, he was the only one eating from them, so he did not mind his own mess.

Lin Qi returned to his SUV and switched on the car radio, part of his routine whenever he rested.

Since the apocalypse had arrived, many areas had lost their signals for inexplicable reasons.

Occasionally, however, some places he passed through still had a signal.

If the radio picked up a signal when he switched it on before resting, that was undoubtedly like hitting the jackpot!

"Bzz, bzzzz..."

Luckily, intermittent signals still came through the radio today.

First came a burst of static, followed by a male presenter's deep, powerful voice.

[To all the survivors struggling through the apocalypse, it is an honor to share information with you once again.]

[As of now, all major cities in our country have fallen. The nation is working hard to establish shelters. Once they are ready, we will notify everyone immediately!]

[Survivors, you must not lose confidence!]

[You must keep fighting to stay alive for a better tomorrow!]

[...]

As Lin Qi listened, he began to grow drowsy.

The radio broadcast was the same as always. Aside from pumping people up, there was basically no useful information.

Perhaps it was meant to reassure the survivors, or perhaps those at the top did not want them to lose hope.

The daily inspirational platitudes had already become a regular program at a fixed time.

Lying in the reclined driver's seat, Lin Qi could even hear the surrounding survivors cursing at the presenter and complaining...

"Fuck that. A while back, I got a call from a friend. He said he'd benefited from knowing a scientist and had moved to an offshore island with some higher-ups ages ago!"

"I heard that too. There aren't any supernatural horrors on those offshore islands. We're risking our lives struggling to survive, while they're living in peace and comfort!"

"Figures. Whether it's the apocalypse or before it, the world always has two different sides!"

Lin Qi closed his eyes, taking in the information coming from around him.

Offshore islands?

He found it laughable. When he had escaped the city, he had personally seen quite a few animals mutate beneath the Blood Moon, turning into terrifying monsters.

Even the cats and dogs in the city could mutate.

Let alone what lived in the mysterious ocean.

If a blue whale mutated, never mind an offshore island-it could even send an aircraft carrier flying.

But the survivors had been right about one thing: offshore islands were largely free of supernatural horrors.

After all, supernatural horrors only appeared in places where humans were clustered when the Blood Moon descended...

If those people who had fled to the islands really had some good resources at their disposal, and were not unlucky enough to encounter terrifying mutated sea creatures, they might really be living quite comfortably!

Firearms could not harm supernatural horrors, but they could still threaten mutated creatures.

Firearms were probably their greatest source of confidence...

Lin Qi's mind raced with all sorts of wandering thoughts. As he kept thinking, he gradually drifted off to sleep.