Apocalypse: Why did you provoke her? She's a cultivator.

Chapter 153 Protect yourself

She didn't ask any more questions, and pointed to the thinnest-looking piece: "Give me a pound of lean meat."

The boss deftly cut the meat, weighed it, and handed it to her: "Thirty crystal cores. If you want fresh meat next time, come earlier. We usually have more stock in the morning."

After paying for the crystal cores, I carried the bag of meat back to the car, where the trunk was already piled high with stuff.

Ye Qiu Mian glanced at the sky; the sunset was gradually fading into a gray-blue hue. She then turned the car around and drove towards the Ruiya residential area.

She swiped her access card when entering the community, and the guard at the gate glanced at her car but didn't ask any further questions.

After parking the car, I carried my bags upstairs.

The moment she opened the door, a long-lost sense of warmth and homeliness seemed to rush in with her.

Carrying the vegetables and meat into the kitchen, Ye Qiumian looked at the romaine lettuce, lettuce, water spinach, and that small piece of lean meat on the cutting board.

Suddenly I felt I should do something to liven up this empty house.

She thought for a moment and then pulled out an old hot pot with two separate compartments from her storage space.

This was stockpiled before the apocalypse, and I've never been willing to use it.

He then pulled out a few packets of hot pot base, one packet of clear broth and one packet of spicy broth.

"We're having hot pot today!" she whispered.

Then wash the vegetables, tear them into appropriate sizes, slice the lean meat into thin slices, and arrange them on a plate.

I also found some frozen tofu, wide rice noodles, and even two packs of fish balls that I had previously stocked up on.

Boil water in a pot, and when the bottom of the pot is bubbling, pour in the base ingredients. The aroma will instantly fill the air.

The sky outside the window was completely dark, the streetlights in the base shone with a dim yellow light, and occasionally a few indistinct roars could be heard from afar.

But in the living room, the hot pot was steaming, the freshness of the vegetables and the richness of the meat mingling with the spicy aroma of the broth, creating a harmonious blend in the small space.

Ye Qiumian sat at the dining table, watching the ingredients bubbling in the pot.

Suddenly, I realized that in this apocalyptic world, being able to peacefully enjoy a hot pot meal is something many people wouldn't even dare to dream of.

Even after finishing the hot pot, the aroma still lingered in the air, and Ye Qiumian's actions of clearing the dishes and chopsticks paused in mid-air.

Just now, my phone suddenly vibrated.

She turned and walked to the charging cable, and when she picked up her phone, her fingertip accidentally touched the screen.

It turns out the phone was charged, and the automatic power-on setting that was previously enabled was now working automatically.

Entering the password, the lit-up screen showed those unread messages like needles chilled to the bone, piercing straight into my eyes.

The sender's name is Lin Yue.

Lin Yue, her best friend since high school, is her only attachment in this world.

Ye Qiumian's breath hitched, and her fingers trembled uncontrollably as she opened the message box.

The timestamp of the first message stopped at 3:17 PM on the third day after the apocalypse.

It was three days after the apocalypse, when the cell towers were destroyed and cell phones lost signal.

Lin Yue's words were filled with panic: "Qiuqiu, a lot of zombies have suddenly appeared here! What about you? Are there any zombies there?"

She remembered that on the afternoon of the apocalypse, she had just woken up and went to the window, where she saw a pale-faced person tackle a girl on the roadside.

She was terrified and instinctively closed the window, and then the world went completely out of control.

So, Lin Yue encountered the same thing back then?

The second message was sent half an hour later, and the panic in the tone turned into urgency.

"Qiuqiu, I can't get through to you on the phone. Please reply to me as soon as you receive this message."

Ye Qiumian stared at the line of words, her throat feeling like it was blocked by something.

She could imagine Lin Yue clutching her phone, dialing her number repeatedly amidst the chaos, only to hear a cold busy tone on the receiver—how terrified she must have been.

Then came the last message, dated 6:02 PM. "Qiuqiu, I've been bitten by a zombie. I might die. You have to take good care of yourself."

In just a few words, every single one seemed to be soaked in blood.

Ye Qiumian's vision blurred instantly, and she gripped her phone so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Her fingertips repeatedly traced the words "bitten by a zombie," as if trying to erase them from the screen.

She remembered Lin Yue always laughing at her for being timid, saying that she would protect her if she encountered danger in the future.

Remembering how they squeezed into their rented room to eat hot pot, Lin Yue snatched the last fish ball from her bowl and said, "Sisters should share happiness."

Thinking back to the day before the apocalypse, Lin Yue was still making plans with her on WeChat to go to the newly opened dessert shop on the weekend...

Those vivid images overlapped with the cold "I'm going to die" in the message, like a dull knife repeatedly cutting into her heart.

Unfortunately, the phone had no signal and the battery had died.

If only she could have left Ye Zhenxi and the others during that time and gone to find her...

But there are no "what ifs." Back then, Pinglian County was teeming with zombies, and she hadn't been reborn yet. If she had been alone outside, she probably would have died long ago.

In the end times, life and death are often separated by only a moment.

Lin Yue's last words were not a complaint, nor a cry for help, but a final plea from the last of her breath.

Even on his deathbed, he kept telling himself to take good care of himself.

Ye Qiumian gazed quietly out the window, a hint of sorrow in her eyes. The faint sound of traffic outside seemed particularly desolate.

She held her phone in her hand, the screen still lit up. Those few messages seemed to be the last traces Lin Yue left in this world, burning her eyes with pain.

After an unknown amount of time, she slowly raised her hand, wiped away her tears with her sleeve, and gently turned off the screen with her fingertips.

The night outside the window was so dark it seemed impossible to see through, and the streetlights of the base flickered in the distance.

Lin Yue...

Ye Qiumian took a deep breath and gripped her phone tightly in her hand, as if she were holding onto the last warmth of her friend.

She stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the silent yet dangerous world outside, her eyes gradually becoming firm.

As night deepened, the silence of the Ruiya residential area was punctuated by faint roars from afar.

Ye Qiumian sat cross-legged on the living room carpet, her fingertips pinching a spirit stone the size of a pigeon egg.

She closed her eyes and guided the spiritual energy into her body according to the method she remembered.

The spirit stone at her fingertips was clearly getting slightly hot, but the spiritual energy it emitted was like a pebble thrown into a bottomless pit. It disappeared without a trace as soon as it touched her meridians, without even causing a ripple.

She tried again and again, her forehead beaded with sweat, but the faint sensation of energy within her remained unmoved.

"It still doesn't work..." Ye Qiu Mian opened her eyes, put the spirit stone back into her space, and sighed deeply.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, a wave of frustration washing over her.

Thinking of his master and fellow disciples, who were all waiting for him in the cultivation world.

However, his cultivation breakthrough was too slow.

Frustrated, she reached for her phone, which had just been charged.

The signal was intermittent, but fortunately there was a self-built local area network in the base, so the short video app could still be scrolled.

She randomly clicked on one, and a shaky image instantly appeared on the screen.

The camera focuses on a dilapidated street, where several figures are wielding knives and hacking at a horde of zombies, their roars making the receiver vibrate.

The caption reads, "Old supermarket in the east of Letong Town, gathering of Tier 6 speed-type zombies, beginners need not enter."

Ye Qiumian paused with her fingertip, then swiped downwards.

The next video shows a bespectacled man speaking to the camera against a backdrop of a makeshift camp: "Brothers, be careful, never go to the abandoned factory in the southern suburbs..."