Li Xing, you really deserved to die.

Lin Qi's gaze lingered on Huang Li for only two and a half seconds before he looked away.

There was none of his former warmth in the way he looked at her.

They might have had two and a half years together, but when Huang Li chose to betray him and conspire with Li Xing to kill him, death was her only fate.

Some might call him cold-blooded, but this was the apocalypse. If she thought of killing him once, there would be a second time, and a third.

Compared with his own life, everything else was insignificant.

To avoid the chance of letting her go only to fall victim to her later, his only option was to send her to the afterlife to reunite with Li Xing.

Unfortunately, killing was forbidden in the convoy, so he could only let her cling to life a little longer.

Without sparing Huang Li another glance, Lin Qi drove around him toward the convoy.

The convoy had begun moving slowly when the Giant Bear Extraordinary rejoined it.

It did not move fast, to accommodate the survivors without vehicles.

Just as Lin Qi was about to merge into the convoy, Huang Li lunged toward the passenger door and began yanking hard on it. "Lin Qi, what's wrong with you? Open the door!"

"Huang Li, I'm very disappointed in you." Lin Qi's voice was calm, devoid of any emotion. The way he looked at Huang Li was more like looking at a dead person.

Suppressing his murderous intent, he stepped on the accelerator. Caught off guard, Huang Li was dragged off her feet and fell to the ground.

She stared at this utterly unfamiliar Lin Qi. She had never seen him like this before. Through the window, she saw the empty back seat, and together with Lin Qi's attitude, she finally understood something.

Li Xing had failed!

She had guessed the outcome, but still refused to give up, chasing after the vehicle and shouting, "Lin Qi, where's Li Xing? What did you do to him?!"

Lin Qi did not respond.

Since the convoy was moving slowly, the SUV could not pick up speed amid the stream of people. Even though Huang Li had guessed Li Xing's fate, she still stormed up to the driver's side and angrily pounded on the window. "Lin Qi, what's this supposed to mean?! So what if there was something between Li Xing and me?!"

"Other than money, you can't give me anything! If Li Xing hadn't given me emotional support and sweet-talked me, do you think I would have stayed with you?!"

"Lin Qi, don't turn down a chance when I'm giving you one! Stop right now, then get down and knock your head against the ground three times, and I'll forgive you!"

Huang Li shouted outside the window with absolute confidence. Seeing that the vehicle still showed no sign of stopping, and that Lin Qi would not even glance at her, she finally began to grow anxious.

Her pride would not allow her to show weakness before Lin Qi. Instead, she held her head high. "Lin Qi, don't forget, you were the one who begged to be with me!"

"Do you think I actually like you? If it weren't for the huge compensation for your dead parents, I wouldn't give you a second glance even if you spent your whole life as my dog!"

"Whew."

Lin Qi let out a deep breath, his gaze gradually turning cold.

The knuckles of his hands cracked around the steering wheel.

His parents were a lifelong source of pain.

How had he never noticed before how disgusting Huang Li was?

As though she had finally finished venting, Huang Li viciously kicked the SUV. "Pah! Don't come begging me tonight if you've got any guts!"

Click.

Just then, the door opened. Huang Li wore an expression that said she had known it all along, still maintaining her haughty demeanor. "Now you know to apologize? Too late!"

Smack!

What answered him was not an apology, but a palm whipping through the air.

Searing pain burned across her face. Huang Li's eyes filled with disbelief, and she froze for a moment before reacting. "You hit me! You actually dared to hit me?!"

"I told you, if you provoked me again, I wouldn't let you off. You'd better pray that the next time we meet, it's inside the convoy."

"You should be grateful we're in the convoy right now..."

His expression icy, Lin Qi returned to the SUV without so much as looking at her and started the vehicle.

When she had schemed over his parents, she had completely snapped the last thread holding him back.

The scene Huang Li caused naturally attracted the attention of quite a few survivors eager to watch the drama.

Since the apocalypse began, survivors had almost no entertainment. The occasional spectacle had instead become one of the few diversions on their flight to safety.

Huang Li paid no attention to the people pointing and whispering around her. She glared viciously at the retreating SUV, never having imagined, no matter how hard she tried, that Lin Qi would treat her this way. "Lin Qi! You'll regret this!!!"

The journey was dull.

After leaving the town, the convoy did not slowly come to a halt until night fell and the Blood Moon hung overhead.

After the Blood Moon arrived, all crops were contaminated, and the soil could no longer grow anything humans could eat.

The world's food supply dwindled with every bite consumed.

But none of that was something the survivors needed to worry about. Their only concern was whether they would still see the next day's sun after waking from sleep.

Lin Qi parked the SUV beside the national highway. In just a week, weeds had already grown wild on both sides of the road, stretching out of sight and standing almost half a person's height.

It was strange. Crops clearly could not grow, yet the weeds seemed to have found ideal growing conditions.

Lin Qi did not know why, nor did he have any inclination to investigate.

Once parked, he took out the two backpacks of supplies collected during the day and sat in the back seat to sort them.

One bag of salt.

Three rolls of toilet paper.

Fifteen packets of instant noodles.

Two packets of sausages.

Ten bottles of mineral water.

Five cartons of Chunghwa cigarettes.

Biscuits, a small bag of flour, and some snacks made up the rest of the backpack of supplies Lin Qi had collected himself.

After sorting through his own backpack, he opened Li Xing's.

The instant he opened it, his vision went dark, then darker still.

A full two-thirds of Li Xing's backpack was stuffed with sanitary pads!

The remaining third was full of goddamn cosmetics!

"Whew. Li Xing, you really deserved to die. Your death wasn't unjust in the slightest!"

Lin Qi's resentment toward Li Xing grew a little stronger. Not wanting to spare the contents another glance, he zipped the backpack shut and tossed it aside.

Rather than eating right away, he looked through the windshield toward the Transcendent Squad at the very front.

Members of the Transcendent Squad rarely interacted much with the survivors.

Any communication went through a female administrator named Liu Yan, who relayed orders to the rear and dealt with trivial matters among the ordinary survivors.

Lin Qi's gaze passed through the crowd and soon settled on a spot not far behind the Transcendent Squad's heavy truck.

There, Liu Yan was arranging for survivors to set up a cooking station and start heating water.

Though called a cooking station, it was really just a makeshift sheet-metal barrel topped with a large iron pot of the kind used for village gatherings.

The administrator cooking was a signal. Whenever the cooking station went up, it meant there would basically be no movement that night, giving the survivors enough time to rest.

Only after seeing Liu Yan light a fire to cook did Lin Qi get up and step out of the SUV.

The food the administrator cooked had nothing whatsoever to do with him.

It was merely a bare-minimum provision to keep survivors from starving. Anyone with supplies basically had no chance of receiving any unless they traded those supplies for a serving of plain rice.

Of course, some of the elderly, infirm, women, and children would generally help the Transcendent Squad with chores, earning eligibility to receive plain rice porridge in return.

Lin Qi went around to the back of the SUV and opened the trunk. There were no important supplies inside, but half of it was stuffed with broken pieces of wooden tables, chairs, and stools.

He grabbed a few pieces at random and rummaged out an iron pot.

As he passed the SUV's back seat, he paused. "Hey, I was just wondering what to use as tinder."

Lin Qi opened the rear door, fished a packet of sanitary pads out of the backpack, and began piling roadside bricks into a makeshift stove.

The stones were stacked rather crudely, but it was good enough to use.

He tossed the scraps of wood into the middle of the stones, lit a sanitary pad with his lighter, and threw it in.

It worked surprisingly well!

Only when everything was ready did he set the iron pot on top and pour in a bottle of mineral water. Holding his instant noodles and ham sausage, he watched the fire eagerly, waiting for the water to boil...

The water took far longer to boil than he had imagined.

Click.

Bored out of his mind, Lin Qi lit a cigarette and opened the virtual screen almost instinctively.

Honestly, in an apocalypse without any entertainment, even watching ads felt like a pleasure to him...

Just as he focused his attention on the virtual screen, a timid female voice sounded beside him without warning. "H-handsome, could you give me some of that..."