The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

"No need." Brother Liu shook his head, his tone calm, but with an indescribable quality. "This person can't possibly be one of our team members. Look at his speed; he killed that giant without even blinking. This kind of person... is at least several levels higher than us."

"Then we..."

"Let's go our own way and not bother him." Brother Liu withdrew his gaze, loaded the last box of supplies onto the handcart, and said, "This world is vast, and there are many strong people. All we can do is keep up with them and not fall too far behind."

The group was silent for a few seconds, then nodded quietly.

They came from another cable and only joined Ash City's public channel yesterday.

There were also several strong individuals on their cableway... two of them had leveled up to level three in the last two days, and one had even obtained a blue-level profession skill book. Before coming to Ash City, they thought that the people on their cableway were already strong enough, at least not inferior to anyone.

But after meeting this person today, they truly understood what the word "gap" meant.

"Let's go." Brother Liu pushed the handcart and headed north. "The military will break out tomorrow evening, and we need to get to the power plant in the northern suburbs before then. Don't waste time."

Several people followed behind him, some pushing and some carrying, and they soon disappeared around the corner of the street.

Su Mu paid no attention to these people.

This is the second wave he's encountered tonight. The first wave was a six-person team that he met at a street corner three kilometers away.

When those people saw him fighting Titans, their expressions were exactly the same as the five people from before... shock, envy, and a hint of inexplicable awe. They didn't come up to talk to him, but just glanced at him from afar and left.

He walked past the supermarket entrance without stopping.

But before he had walked a hundred meters, his nose caught a scent. It wasn't the smell of blood... He was all too familiar with the smell of blood; it was a rusty, warm, sweet-smelling odor. This wasn't it.

This smells like decay.

It wasn't the pungent, nauseating stench of a fresh corpse, but a much stronger, heavier stench, like the putrid smell of long-accumulated garbage baked in the summer sun. Su Mu frowned and looked in the direction of the smell.

Next to the supermarket is a narrow alley. At the entrance of the alley, several overturned garbage cans are piled up, and garbage is scattered all over the ground. The stench of decay is coming from inside the alley.

Su Mu hesitated for a moment, but still went inside.

The alley wasn't deep, only about twenty meters long, and at the end was a wall. At the base of the wall were several black garbage bags, torn open by some animal, their contents scattered all over the ground.

Next to those garbage bags was a corpse.

No, to be precise, it's half a body.

The corpse had been bitten off at the waist by something, with only a few blackened tendons connecting the upper and lower body, like a twisted rope.

The internal organs slid out of the ruptured abdominal cavity, dragging on the ground, already dried and blackened, mixed with the soil, making it impossible to distinguish between flesh and dirt. The bones protruded from the broken ends, stark white, with teeth marks from a wild beast along the edges.

The time since death was at least ten days.

Su Mu frowned, but he didn't leave immediately. He noticed the corpse's posture... It was lying on its side, its upper body slightly curled up, its hands tightly clutching something in its arms.

The object wasn't large, wrapped in a gray-blue coat, and was tightly held by the corpse's arm, as if it were clutching something more important than its own life.

"Could it be some kind of treasure?"

Su Mu walked over, squatted down, endured the almost suffocating smell, and reached out to pry open the corpse's fingers.

His fingers were stiff, his knuckles were black, and his fingernails were filled with dried blood and dirt. He used some strength to pry those fingers apart one by one.

Then he unbuttoned his gray-blue coat.

Inside was a bag of flour.

It comes in a 5-kilogram plastic bag with a brand logo printed on it.

The flour bag was half deflated, as if someone had rummaged through it. Su Mu opened the flour bag; it was empty except for flour. He then checked the pockets of the jacket; they were empty too.

"I shouldn't have had any expectations!"

He cursed under his breath.

As he was about to leave, he caught a glimpse of a line of writing on the lining of his coat.

Those were words written in blood.

It's dark red, completely dry, and in some places it's even starting to turn black.

The handwriting was crooked and uneven, as if it had been carved out with the last bit of strength. The strokes were so deep that they almost tore through the fabric, while the shallower ones were barely visible, but every single character was still legible.

"My son is in apartment 304, building 17, Funing Garden. He's six years old. Please take this bag of noodles to him. Please."

Su Mu stared at the words, his fingers unconsciously tightening around the coat.

He didn't move, just squatted down next to the corpse, staring at the few lines of bloody words for several seconds.

Six years old.

A six-year-old child.

This man... this ordinary person whose name is unknown, from whom he came, and who has experienced what in this city...

Before he died, he used his last strength to hug the bag of flour and wrote his home address on his clothes, hoping that someone would see it and bring the bag of flour to his son.

A six-year-old child is alone in a room, waiting for his father to bring food home.

I waited one day. Two days. Three days. Ten days.

Su Mu closed his eyes and let out a long breath.

He bent down and bowed deeply to the mangled corpse. It wasn't a perfunctory nod, but a genuine, full-length bow.

Then he straightened up, rewrapped the bag of flour, and put it back into the corpse's arms.

He didn't bring it with him.

It's not that he doesn't want to.

Funing Garden is not far from here, but it is an area teeming with monsters.

But that wasn't the reason he didn't go... it was because the child couldn't wait for him anymore.

The body had been dead for at least ten days.

A six-year-old child, alone in this city teeming with monsters, survived for ten days in a room where the door might not have been locked, with an unknown amount of food left. He has survived until now.

If he were still alive, it would be a miracle. But Su Mu didn't believe in miracles.

He took one last look at the line of blood-written words, then turned and left the alley.