Your Fine Is Eight Hundred!

Lin Qi slipped through the gap in the rolling shutter. Looking at the shutter, twisted by brute force, his gaze settled on its lock.

Who knew where Li Xing had found a key? He had actually locked the shutter.

None of that mattered now. Before finding Li Xing, he had other things to do.

A virtual screen appeared before his eyes.

In his field of vision, the Ghost Cash Deduction Card's five-minute countdown was ticking steadily toward zero.

Lin Qi slipped back into the snack shop through the warped shutter.

Bang!

Bang, bang, bang!

He kicked the shutter furiously, over and over, until the opening was large enough to pass through with ease and sunlight spilled freely across a small patch inside. Only then did he turn his gaze toward the kitchen, still hidden in darkness.

Lin Qi grabbed a wooden stool and hurled it into the kitchen.

Crash!

The wooden stool landed heavily in the kitchen with a dull thud.

Tap, tap.

Tap, tap.

Footsteps sounded again.

The chef entity slowly emerged through the shadows, and a thick, bloody stench began spreading through the snack shop.

Perhaps the effect of [Bro, Give Me Face] had ended.

Or perhaps Lin Qi's actions had enraged the chef entity. Cleaver in hand, the chef entity charged at Lin Qi without hesitation.

Lin Qi stood with his back against the shutter, warm sunlight beneath his feet and deep darkness just a short distance away.

It was as though the entire snack shop had been divided into two separate worlds at that moment.

Lin Qi stared fixedly at the chef entity. If it refused to play by the rules and stepped into the sunlight, he would abandon his plan and flee immediately.

Tap, tap.

Tap, tap.

The chef entity's steps grew faster and faster.

Finally, the moment he reached the boundary between sunlight and darkness, he stopped advancing.

He simply stood motionless in the darkness. The few meters between them seemed like an impassable chasm as they stared at each other from afar!

"It worked."

Seeing this, Lin Qi breathed a sigh of relief. The convoy captain really hadn't lied to him. After all, he had never dared provoke an entity during his previous supply runs.

His gaze shifted from the chef entity back to the virtual screen before him.

The Ghost Cash Deduction Card was still counting down.

10...

5...

1...

And just as the countdown reached zero-

"Your fine is eight hundred!"

Lin Qi shouted at the chef entity.

The countdown on the virtual screen ended.

All the Ghost Cash he owed was cleared!

At the same time, his Ghost Cash balance, which had been reduced to zero, shot upward the instant he used his ability. In the blink of an eye, it became a new number-800!

"Roar!"

As though sensing the disappearance of his Ghost Cash, the chef entity let an enraged roar erupt from his throat.

Having had his Ghost Cash stolen, he was clearly furious. He roared and tried to charge into the sunlight, but every time he attempted to enter its reach, his body burned, giving off clouds of black smoke!

"ROAR!!!"

The chef entity roared helplessly, testing the sunlight again and again. By the time Lin Qi's nimble figure darted out of the snack shop, all he could do was roar helplessly...

Lin Qi left the snack shop and, bathed in scorching sunlight, quickly scanned the surrounding buildings.

"Looks like my test proved right. I can steal even from entities."

Lin Qi was very satisfied with his ability. If he could only steal from other humans, given that he spent every day with the convoy, he would probably get strung up on the front of a vehicle like cured meat the day after using his ability to steal from one of the convoy's superhumans.

As for stealing from entities...

Entities couldn't talk anyway. What could they do besides swallow the loss?

Lin Qi was currently on a street near the main road of a small town.

Every so often, the convoy would stop at a supply point to give ordinary survivors time to gather supplies.

Lin Qi had originally been an ordinary survivor, and venturing deep into town had generally been difficult for him.

It wasn't that he was timid. In this apocalypse of reawakened entities, the only way to survive was to follow the convoys established amid the disaster.

If someone ventured deep into a supply point and fell behind, only one fate awaited them-death!

Every convoy captain possessed some kind of ability that allowed them to avoid entities in advance and lead their people along safe roads.

You could say the apocalypse was medium difficulty with a captain. Without one, it was hell difficulty with a little extra seasoning...

Lin Qi walked along the town's dilapidated streets. The apocalypse had arrived only a week ago, yet the entire town was already steeped in decay and deathly silence.

No one cleared the wildly growing weeds.

The pileups caused by the outbreak of the apocalypse had battered many nearby shops beyond recognition. Even the streets were covered in patch after patch of long-dried blood.

Perhaps the only things missing were the bodies of the dead.

Whenever night fell, the corpses of those who had died in town became a lavish feast for the entities!

Lin Qi's goal was no longer a little food, but...

He arrived outside a convenience store.

The shelves inside had toppled over. The whole store looked as though a swarm of locusts had swept through it, and at a glance, there were virtually no supplies left to take.

They clearly weren't the first convoy to visit this town.

Every passing convoy harvested another share of the town's resources.

Lin Qi scanned the shadows inside the convenience store but failed to find what he wanted.

He continued on like this, searching the surrounding shops as he walked.

His final destination was a large supermarket several hundred meters outside town.

From what Lin Qi knew of Li Xing, that guy would definitely follow the convoy's superhumans into the large supermarket to pick up whatever they missed.

The thing about Lin Qi was that if you treated him well, he wouldn't necessarily treat you well in return.

But if you cheated or harmed him, then sorry-Lin Qi took revenge from morning till night!

He checked the shops along the way while also searching the road for a usable vehicle.

"Ah, if only I knew how to start a car without a key, like they do on TV..."

Looking at the vehicles parked by the roadside, Lin Qi couldn't help sighing.

The cars were fine, but they had no keys.

The ones with keys had all been smashed beyond recognition.

All along the way, he had barely seen a single vehicle he could readily use.

"Ah! An entity! Run!"

Just as he tried pulling open the door of a car parked by the roadside, screams suddenly rang out from a distant shop.

Lin Qi looked up and saw several survivors in filthy clothes scrambling out of a tobacco and liquor shop, fleeing into the distance like headless flies...

Fear covered the survivors' faces.

Yet a smile slowly curled across Lin Qi's lips. "Work's here!"