After finishing a fragrant full-fish feast and a plate of fresh, tangy stir-fried bok choy, the three people and one snake set off on the road again.
The black snake that had shown its ferocious side in the water now returned to its lazy and pampered state, coiled up in the front passenger seat, sleeping soundly.
Su Su took a few extra glances at it, and the strange feeling in her heart completely dissipated.
Xiao Hei was still the same Xiao Hei. It must have been the innate human fear of snakes acting up, influencing her reaction.
Thinking of this, Su Su felt a bit guilty.
Since the moment she considered it a companion, she should have accepted its ferocity and hideousness without reservation. Yet, for a brief moment, she had felt fear and even wanted to retreat. Although Xiao Hei was unaware of her mental struggle, she ought to be ashamed of her own cowardice.
A few boiled eggs were placed around the black snake as compensation.
The quality of its sleep was as good as its sleeping posture was bad. In just a short while, the eggs had all been tucked under its belly, making it look exactly like it was incubating them.
Su Su chuckled for a few seconds before suddenly remembering—these were the last few eggs.
The delay in G City had taken far longer than expected. In her previous life, when traveling with Si Zhe and the others, most of the bandits along the way, upon seeing so many ability users, would wisely choose to avoid them.
This time, however, the car carried only two women and a child, drawing out every bandit gang, big and small, along the way.
As a result, their journey had been dragged out even longer.
Thinking of the impending snow disaster, Su Su turned onto the right-hand road at a fork.
Pang Cancan, still digesting the stewed and grilled fish from earlier, quickly spoke up when she noticed, “You’re going the wrong way! The left road is faster. The right one passes through a small county town and adds seven or eight kilometers to the route!”
“We’re not going the wrong way,” Su Su replied calmly. “We need to stock up on more supplies.”
The food they had collected in X City was ultimately just a small amount. With no idea how long the upcoming journey would take, they had to prepare more.
“Alright! Let’s go raid for supplies again!”
Having broken through to Tier 3, Pang Cancan’s poison insect babies had reproduced in large numbers, each now the size of a Red Fuji apple! With such a powerful ability, she was confident that even if they returned to X City, she could go in and out three times unscathed—let alone handle a mere small county town!
The outskirts of the town gradually came into view.
How should she put it? It wasn’t quite what they had imagined.
Pang Cancan slumped against the car window, pouting, and spoke exactly what Su Su was thinking: “What county town? This is clearly just a village.”
“Let’s go in and take a look first.”
As the off-road vehicle entered the small county town, the surroundings appeared desolate. On the streets… Su Su focused her gaze and noticed more than a dozen zombie corpses lined up along the roadside.
“Someone got here before us.”
Pang Cancan hesitated. “Should we still go in?”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Su Su answered with certainty. “This county isn’t that big or that small. Those people couldn’t have taken all the supplies inside.”
With their leader remaining so composed, the other two teammates calmed down as well.
“That’s right.”
The deeper they ventured into the small county town, the more zombie remains piled up around them. Judging by the wounds left on the corpses, there weren’t many ability users involved—almost every kill was a clean one-hit execution.
These were some ruthless individuals.
Su Su silently raised her guard.
In the distance, she spotted a large supermarket at the next intersection. Given its prime location in a busy district, it must have been thriving before the apocalypse.
“That’s the Range Rover!”
Following the voice, Su Su indeed saw a familiar Range Rover parked beside a large banyan tree next to the supermarket!
Meanwhile, the entrance was packed with zombie corpses, evidence of a fierce battle that had just taken place.
Su Su hesitated for a few seconds before deciding to drive forward. “There has to be more than one supermarket in this town.”
But reality proved otherwise.
This remote and underdeveloped county town—or was it just a rural township?—really had only one supermarket!
They checked convenience stores and small grocery shops as well, but the best they found was a few boxes of instant noodles and an uncountable number of snacks.
In the end, the off-road vehicle still returned to the supermarket entrance.
The moment Su Su jumped out of the car, the black snake in the passenger seat immediately opened its eyes.
It deliberately waited for a moment, only to realize that the human wasn’t, as usual, picking it up and carrying it down.
“Hiss?”
Its tail nimbly pried open the door lock, and with a click, the door swung open.
The three-meter-long python slithered over to Su Su and, dissatisfied, bit onto the hem of her pants.
Su Su was helpless. “Xiao Hei, it’s getting really hard for me to carry you now.”
At twenty-three kilograms, she could still lift it if she forced herself to, but she wouldn’t last long.
It needed to get used to moving independently.
Xiao Hei also knew it had been growing a bit too fast and reluctantly accepted the reasoning.
Seeing that Xiao Hei could keep up, Su Su felt relieved. “Let’s go in and take a look. They’re just a few people with one vehicle—there’s no way they could have emptied an entire supermarket.”
But today seemed destined to prove her wrong.
The moment they stepped inside, they were stunned to find that the shelves closest to the entrance were already completely emptied!
Pang Cancan’s mouth fell open. “This is the cleanest supermarket I’ve ever seen.”
They had come across looted supermarkets before, but there were always bits and pieces left behind—worthless items like brooms and fly swatters. But this… this was like a swarm of locusts had swept through.
This kind of scene usually only appeared two or three years into the apocalypse, after being repeatedly raided by countless scavenging teams.
A bad feeling rose in Su Su’s heart.
She hurriedly strode past several rows of empty shelves, but the deeper she went, the more she saw—the entire supermarket had been cleared out.
“Was this supermarket never open to the public?”
“Impossible.”
Su Su carefully examined the shelves and noticed that while the edges were covered in dust, the areas where items had been placed were exceptionally clean.
“The supplies were just taken.”
But who could possibly clear out an entire supermarket in the blink of an eye? And where could they store everything?
Su Su and Pang Cancan exchanged a glance.
“Spatial ability.”
Among the ability users who had entered earlier, someone had spatial abilities!
Boom!
A crashing sound echoed from another part of the supermarket, roughly in the direction of the warehouse.
It was obvious—there must still be plenty of supplies stored in the warehouse. But charging in now and trying to seize them by force was not an option.
The shortest member of the group, Le Rui, lightly tugged at Su Su’s sleeve. “Sister Su Su, let’s go over there. That’s the discount section.”
Having lived with his grandfather for ten years, he was very familiar with the layout of supermarkets.
Before the apocalypse, the discount section was the most popular area. After the apocalypse, however, most people wouldn’t think of checking there first.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Since most of the supermarket was empty, it didn’t really matter where they searched.
However!
In this least-expected place, they found over a dozen packs of toilet paper, along with several large bags of rice and flour!
“It’s flour! We can make dumplings now!”
Pang Cancan excitedly rushed forward, grabbing two fifty-pound bags of flour with ease…
Meanwhile, Su Su took a moment to reflect on herself. Why was it that after evolving her ability, others could lift a hundred pounds effortlessly, yet she still struggled to carry Xiao Hei?
As she was lost in thought, a loud voice suddenly rang out behind her.
“Put that down! That belongs to us!”
From a distance, a tall and broad figure came striding toward them, his face filled with anger.
With his long legs, Guan Zixuan quickly reached the discount section, but the moment his furious gaze landed on Su Su, he froze in surprise.
“It’s you?”
It was that little beauty he had passed on the road this morning!
His eyes lit up instantly. “Did you follow us here?”
What kind of nonsense was that?
Su Su frowned and took a few steps back. “I don’t think I know you.”
“We passed by each other just this morning!”
Just as Guan Zixuan was about to step closer, a dark shadow suddenly darted between them.
Hiss—!
“Holy shit! What is that?!”
Guan Zixuan leaped two meters backward, narrowly avoiding the black snake’s attack. When he got a clearer look, his eyes widened in disbelief—
It was a three-meter-long python!
He had dodged the attack, but the python was still too close to the two girls. If it just turned its head and took a bite…
Guan Zixuan immediately decided to be a hero and protect the little beauty in front of him.
“Beauty, get back! I’ll kill this snake for you!”
Before he could activate his ability, Su Su, her face dark, pulled Xiao Hei back into her arms. “What are you trying to do to my Xiao Hei?”
“Your… Xiao Hei?”
Guan Zixuan froze in place, his head turning stiffly to follow the girl’s actions. A faint cracking sound came from his neck.
He swallowed hard. “This is your pet?”
Su Su’s expression remained cold. “It’s my battle pet and my companion. What exactly were you planning to do to it?”
She admitted it herself, and the python even slithered onto her, flicking its tongue at him. The whole scene was like a twisted version of Beauty and the Beast—a full-blown horror edition.
Guan Zixuan was completely shaken.
“Zixuan, what’s going on?”
His teammates had finally finished clearing out the warehouse and rushed over upon hearing the commotion.
Guan Zixuan couldn’t even form words. He simply pointed a trembling finger forward. “Brother Wei, there’s a snake. A giant python.”
Wei Yan had already noticed the snake. His pupils shrank for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure.
He discreetly scanned the three people and one snake standing before them.
The team setup was particularly strange, making it hard to gauge their strength. But with that python alone, he doubted they were an easy group to deal with.
“What do you want?”
Considering that the zombies outside the supermarket had all been taken care of by them and that Su Su’s group had only come in afterward to scavenge, she tried to maintain a peaceful tone. “We’re just looking for supplies. The supermarket is big, and there are only three of us—we can’t take much.”
Her words, paired with the bags of rice and flour behind her, made her sound particularly credible.
Wei Yan’s gaze lingered on her face for a moment before he silently looked away. “You guys…”
“Let them take it.”
Now that his teammates were here, Guan Zixuan had recovered from his initial shock. Seeing the three of them—thin, with a malnourished little boy in tow—he suddenly felt pity.
“They’re all so skinny, and they even have a kid who’s clearly undernourished. They must not have eaten properly in a long time.”
Su Su: “……”
Wei Yan: “……”
Wei Yan pressed his fingers against his temple. “Take what you want.”
His generosity surprised Su Su a little.
Seemingly noticing her reaction, Wei Yan pursed his lips slightly. “It’s just a few bags of rice and flour. Whoever finds it first gets it.”
“That’s right, take it!” Guan Zixuan’s eyes were still locked onto Su Su’s face, though he deliberately avoided looking at the coldly staring black python. “Beauty, meeting like this must be fate. Why don’t you join us on the road?”
Su Su coldly refused. “No need.”
Guan Zixuan looked utterly disappointed.
Just then, their last teammate walked out of the warehouse and exchanged a glance with Wei Yan.
Wei Yan gave a slight nod, then turned and smacked the back of Guan Zixuan’s head.
“Stop talking nonsense. Let’s go!”
Su Su watched the group leave, her mind repeatedly echoing the name the man had just called out—“Zixuan.”
Impossible… The person she had heard of wasn’t in G City. It was probably just a coincidence.
In Huaguo, among ten men, there was always one named “Zixuan.”
Having the same name was normal.
She didn’t dwell on it any further and instead shifted her focus back to the bags of flour and rice.
“Let’s go too.”
The supermarket had been completely emptied; staying any longer was meaningless.
Su Su took the lead, lifting a bag of rice. Pang Cancan carried a bag of flour on each shoulder, while Xiao Hei hauled another bag of rice.
Even little Le Rui gritted his teeth and carried off all the toilet paper.
That was a necessity too! They couldn’t exactly use leaves in the wild, could they?
As they stepped out of the supermarket, a sudden gust of cold wind blew past.
Pang Cancan shivered and muttered casually, “It’s only September—why is it getting cold already?”
Su Su’s footsteps paused almost imperceptibly.
She lifted her head to look at the sky. The sun was still shining brightly, but in just two weeks, it would be nothing but continuous overcast days.
Perhaps she had stood in a daze for too long, because the black snake that had been slithering near her ankle also stopped.
It glanced at its servant’s palm, reddened from gripping the fifty-pound bag of rice, and assumed it had figured out why she had stopped.
Of course. If she couldn’t even carry it, how could she handle such a heavy load?
Hiss!
The snake’s tail suddenly swung over and coiled around the bag of rice.
“Xiao Hei?”
Su Su looked down in surprise, only to see Xiao Hei had already wrapped around two fifty-pound bags of rice and dragged them to the off-road vehicle.
In that instant, thoughts of Zixuan, snow disasters—everything paled in comparison to Xiao Hei’s place in her heart.