Yang Xiao walked out of the Genetic Store, completely disoriented. As he passed by two Samurai, he took a careful look at them—the Armor they wore and the Broadsword they carried emitted a strong Killing Aura. Moreover, the style of the Armor and Sword did not seem to belong to Earth; at least Yang Xiao had never seen such before.
Is this a game or a dream?
Yang Xiao was doubtful.
By this time, daylight was beginning to brighten, and the entire campus was still dead silent.
After such a catastrophe, if it were like usual, rescue teams would have already come in. But why was there no rescue team this time?
A sudden thought popped into Yang Xiao's mind, recalling the old man Gu Bo from the Genetic Store's words, "Overnight, more than ninety percent of humanity had died." If it was as Gu Bo had said, then that explained why no one had come to the rescue—because everyone was dead. Who would be left to come and save them?
Yang Xiao rubbed his eyes again and pinched his thigh hard, desperately hoping it was a dream. But the pain told him that it wasn't.
Yang Xiao looked up at the distance and noticed that the whole world seemed to be shrouded in a layer of light blue mist, a mist that couldn't be seen up close, only visible when looking far away.
Yang Xiao felt something strange about this blue mist, yet couldn't express it.
Despite too many inexplicable doubts, Gu Bo's words kept echoing in his mind, "Find a way to survive for seven days."
Only by surviving could he continue with life ahead, and see whether it was as Gu Bo had said, that after seven days the creatures on Earth would begin to undergo massive Mutations.
Seven days, and without water, one would die.
Food and water!
A lightbulb went off in Yang Xiao's head, and he began running toward a collapsed building on the campus—that was the campus store, which should have a lot of food.
There were also many supermarkets and stores outside the college, but the campus store was the closest to his current location, and he had been shopping there yesterday, so he had a rough idea of the product layout.
Another important reason was that the campus store was just a low single-story building. Even if collapsed, it would be easier to find food in the ruins.
The supermarkets and shops outside the college were two or three stories tall, and the food, being crushed under the debris, was hard to find.
Yang Xiao ran to the campus store, which was already collapsed, littered with wooden planks, broken bricks, and various foods.
In the ruins, Yang Xiao found a brand new canvas backpack and a wheeled suitcase—items sold by the campus store.
After a brief thought, he went to the area that sold salt-baked chicken wings, chicken feet, sausages, and beef jerky. As expected, food was scattered everywhere, easy to pick up without moving bricks and debris.
Yang Xiao opened the suitcase and started packing the salt-baked chicken wings, chicken legs, sausages, beef jerky into the suitcase, and also put some in the backpack.
After collecting the meats from the debris, he went to the biscuit area and began looking for chocolate and biscuits, eventually filling up a whole suitcase and several dozen bottles of mineral water.
He couldn't go without water.
Yang Xiao also loaded some chocolate, biscuits, and mineral water into his backpack until it could hold no more.
These foods were enough to last him for more than twenty days.
Just as he was about to leave, a voice came from behind.
"Classmate, which department are you from?"
Yang Xiao was startled and turned to see a young man staggering over, covered in dirt, with a lot of bloodstains on the jeans of his left leg, presumably injured.
"Who are you?"
Yang Xiao counter-asked.
"I'm a junior student in the finance department, Xiao Zhe, I've injured my leg, which department are you from?"
"Um, Xiao Zhe, rest for now, I have to go."
Yang Xiao quickly shouldered his bag and dragged his suitcase away in haste.
Now was not the time for chit-chat. More survivors would slowly emerge, and he needed to take advantage of the current lull to hide these foods well. They were what he needed for the next seven days. Whether he could survive the next seven days depended on these foods.
"Hey, where are you going?"
Xiao Zhe looked at Yang Xiao's retreating back, somewhat puzzled and even angry. What kind of person is this? Not a shred of compassion, not even offering a hand to help.
As Yang Xiao walked towards the sports field, he contemplated where would be a good place to hide the food.
He could carry the backpack, but surely he couldn't always drag around this huge suitcase, could he? When everyone else runs out of food, dragging such a big suitcase full of it would make him a target for everyone.
When Yang Xiao arrived at the sports field, he saw a fairly deep ditch by the surrounding wall nearby. It was a drainage ditch used for water flow normally, but it was dry at the moment.
There used to be a fence over a meter high between the drainage ditch and the sports field. Most of the fence had collapsed now, but this particular section had survived the ordeal.
As the sun rose, the entire campus began to bathe in the sunlight, and there seemed to be sounds of people moving and calling out in the distance.
Yang Xiao didn't have time to look for a better place to hide. He threw the big suitcase into the dry ditch, then pushed over the precarious fence nearby to cover it up and tossed some bricks from the surroundings into the ditch.
A closer look made it hard for outsiders to detect a suitcase buried here.
He memorized the characteristics of several nearby trees to make sure he wouldn't forget the place, then headed for the Genetic Store.
However, a thought struck Yang Xiao's heart, as if he remembered something, and he turned around and ran back towards the school's commercial center.
Xiao Zhe, the injured senior, was sitting on the ruins of the commercial center, fiercely drinking from a bottle of mineral water and had opened a packet of biscuits.
"Why did you come back?"
Xiao Zhe looked at Yang Xiao, with some displeasure in his eyes.
By common sense, Yang Xiao was supposed to be assisting the injured and taking care of him. That kid had just run off without a word, and what's more, why did the kid pick so much food from the commercial center ruins?
It's just an earthquake, right? The rescue team should be coming soon. This guy is the typical example of profiting from a disaster, disgusting!
"I came back to find something!"
Yang Xiao couldn't care less about Xiao Zhe's strange gaze and went straight to an area within the commercial center ruins. If his memory served him right, this place used to sell knives and hardware tools, and he saw a foot-long watermelon knife here last night.
Right, there was no mistake. Yang Xiao indeed found two foot-long watermelon knives in the rubble. Such knives were fine for slicing watermelon but were flimsy for much else.
Better than nothing, after all.
Yang Xiao picked up two watermelon knives and slid them into his backpack, with the handles sticking out, so he could draw them out anytime.
Xiao Zhe caught a glimpse of Yang Xiao from afar and coldly said:
"You kid, why are you even picking up watermelon knives? Too greedy, aren't you?"
Yang Xiao glanced at Xiao Zhe, hesitated for a moment, and said:
"Senior Xiao Zhe, let me give you a simple reminder. This isn't just a typical earthquake disaster. I suggest you start collecting food quickly. Also, there's a strange building and some peculiar people who have appeared in the center of the sports field, they feel like aliens. I suggest you go and see for yourself, best of luck."
After saying that, Yang Xiao picked up two bottles of water and two packets of biscuits from the ground and hurriedly left.
"F**k, are you crazy? Got yourself too into gaming, huh? Aliens? It's just an earthquake, you coward!"
Laughter and mockery from Xiao Zhe followed behind Yang Xiao.
Yang Xiao had no time to deal with it and quickly left. Passing by a spot in the ruins, he found a three-meter-long steel pipe, picked it up, swung it a couple of times, and felt it was a decent weapon.
Passing by two other spots of ruins, Yang Xiao saw people crawling out of them; it looked like he wasn't the only fortunate one.
Some injured people began to howl in agony among the wreckage.
Yang Xiao thought about it; now was not the time for mercy. The Genetic Store in the center of the sports field was too strange, and there were two Samurai and an elderly man, Gu Bo, outside.
Yang Xiao decided to stay near the Genetic Store to understand the situation. So he strode towards the strange building in the center of the sports field.