Zhong Manting glanced toward Qin Shen's house. The courtyard gate was wide open, and two corpses were suddenly thrown out, scaring her so much that she immediately covered her daughter's eyes.
A moment later, two more bodies, blood trickling from their mouths and noses, were tossed out.
Zhong Manting mustered her courage and peered into the courtyard. She was caught off guard, her eyes meeting a pair of deep, beast-like, pitch-black eyes.
Qin Shen stood in the shadows, his dagger dripping blood. DRIP. DRIP. Countless bodies lay collapsed around him, the mottled bloodstains forming what looked like a bizarre sacrificial array.
They were all the people who had rushed into Qin Shen's house earlier.
Despite the sixty-degree high temperature, a chill ran down Zhong Manting's spine. It was a terror even greater than when her husband's eye was shot out. "Hurry, let's go! Let's go!!!"
From her window, Jiang Si raised her binoculars and also witnessed the horrific scene of Qin Shen's house filled with bodies.
One, two, three... In just a few moments, Qin Shen had killed a total of eighteen people all by himself.
Every wound on the bodies was a single, fatal blow.
Qin Shen suddenly looked up at her. His upright posture, sharp gaze, and outstanding alertness... 'Is he a special forces soldier, or maybe a highly trained assassin?'
Qin Shen's father had killed someone, so he couldn't be a special forces soldier. 'That means he must be the latter.'
Jiang Si grew even more worried about having such a powerful neighbor.
'When a killer is pushed to the brink, you'd be better off getting a couple of guns than counting on him to have any moral integrity.'
'Wait, does Qin Shen have a gun? He hasn't pulled one out yet!'
Jiang Si watched Qin Shen's every move. He piled all the corpses at his gate. Anyone else who thought about breaking into the courtyard took one look and nearly had their soul scared out of their body.
They ran as fast as they could. As a side effect, no one dared to approach Jiang Si's house anymore either.
'For now, it seems having him as a neighbor isn't so bad, is it?'
Jiang Si went downstairs to relieve Jiang Linhai from guarding the courtyard gate. She casually asked, "Dad, you just went out to get the boar leg. How come you came back so quickly?"
Jiang Linhai recalled for a moment. "Qin Shen suddenly told me to leave quickly, as if he sensed danger. I went outside, saw the hillside was covered with people, and immediately ran back!"
"I wonder how he's doing now."
Jiang Si stated calmly, "He killed everyone who broke in."
Jiang Linhai's pupils contracted, shocked that Qin Shen would dare to kill so many people.
He suddenly remembered that Jiang Si had also killed someone earlier, and the body was still lying by their front door. Worried about her psychological well-being, Jiang Linhai composed himself and said cautiously, "If others don't harm us, we won't harm them. They deserved to be killed. Qin Shen wasn't wrong, and neither were we!"
Jiang Si nodded in agreement and handed Jiang Linhai a bottle of antidepressants. "Dad, if you're feeling bad, take one."
He had meant to comfort his daughter, but she had seen right through him instead.
Jiang Linhai took the bottle, a dejected, bitter smile on his face. "Sisi, is your dad useless?"
He desperately wanted to protect Jiang Si, yet he felt a deep resistance to killing.
Jiang Si shook her head and said lightly, "Dad just needs time to adapt. In a cataclysmic apocalypse, just being able to pick up a weapon to protect yourself and your family is already incredibly difficult."
"Yeah, it's incredibly difficult." Jiang Linhai clutched the medicine bottle. 'What's a grown man like me getting so sentimental for?'
Without Qin Shen's early warning, Jiang Linhai would likely have been in grave danger. Jiang Si, who hadn't planned on going out again, decided to airdrop some medical supplies to his house to repay the favor.
Jiang Si took out hydrogen peroxide, povidone-iodine, erythromycin ointment, gauze, Yunnan Baiyao spray, adhesive bandages, cotton balls, and disinfectant from her space. She wrapped each item in bubble wrap, then bundled it all into a ball. To add weight for throwing, she stuffed a brick inside and wrote a note.
Just as she was about to throw it, Jiang Si unwrapped the bubble-wrapped ball and took some things out, leaving only a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, the Yunnan Baiyao spray, and some gauze.
'Giving him too much might make him think our family still has a lot of supplies.'
After tying it up again, Jiang Si threw it with unerring accuracy into Qin Shen's courtyard.
Qin Shen heard the noise and came out. He picked up the bubble-wrapped ball, took out the conspicuous note from inside, and after reading it, looked up and gave her a slight nod.
Jiang Si nodded back, then closed the window, shutting out all the noise from outside.
Just as she got downstairs, her grandmother cried out from the kitchen, "Oh my goodness—"
Jiang Si's heart skipped a beat. She rushed into the kitchen with lightning speed, only to see her grandmother pulling a scruffy little puppy out of the stove.
The puppy was covered in soot from the stove and was whimpering softly. Then, another black shadow struggled out from the hole inside the stove.
Grandma reached in and gave it a pull. It was a skinny, black mongrel, likely the puppy's mother.
She licked the little puppy and moved into a nursing position, her watery black eyes gazing at Grandma as if begging her to take in mother and child.
Grandma stroked its head. The dog showed no aggression at all; instead, it intelligently nuzzled her palm.
Seeing its paws, which were covered in bloody scratches with all its claws broken, Grandma said to Jiang Si, "All living things have a spirit. She was so desperate to get in that she dug through our stove. We should let them stay and guard the house. That would make things a little easier on all of us."
Dogs are different from people. They're loyal, guileless, and simple. Save its life, and it will repay you with its own.
Jiang Si took two cans of meat from her space, opened them, and placed them in front of the dog. "Go on, eat. From now on, this is your home."
The mother dog seemed to understand. With a single WOOF, she began to wolf down the food.
In no time, both cans were empty. Grandma wanted to feed her a bowl of rice with pig liver, but Jiang Si shook her head. "You can tell she's been starving for a long time. Eating too much will make her sick. We can give her some goat's milk."
Grandma prepared a bowl of goat's milk and put it in front of the dog, smiling. "Sisi, why don't you give them names?"
Jiang Si deferred to her grandfather. He stared at them for a long time, wracked his brain, and finally decided, "Let's call them Big Black and Little Black! Simple and easy to remember!"
Jiang Linhai's mouth twitched. 'It really is simple and easy to remember.' He thought it was a good thing Big Black and Little Black were just dogs and wouldn't care how ugly their names sounded.
The tunnel that Big Black had dug, along with the kitchen floor, had to be completely re-poured with concrete to prevent anyone from invading from underground like she did.
The whole family was busy for three full days. Based on her observations, at least a third of the original homes in Longquan Village had been taken over by others.
Some people were killed, others were driven out. Unable to bear the high temperatures, some headed for the forest, clinging to their last shred of hope.
The corpses scattered throughout the village began to emit a potent stench of decay under the scorching heat.
Even though their house was filled with the smoke of so much mugwort and they were using an air purifier, they could still faintly smell it.
Grandpa looked out the window at the situation outside and asked worriedly, "Sisi, do you think there will be a plague?"
The intense stench of decay from the bodies could very well lead to the spread of various infectious diseases.
The timeline of the disaster in this life was different from her previous one. Jiang Si frowned and said, "If the temperature continues to stay above seventy degrees, the bodies will soon be baked into decaying ash. That should prevent the spread of infectious diseases."
Just as Grandpa was about to ask if it would rain after the heatwave, a tide of dark, writhing things suddenly swarmed up from the ground, instantly surrounding the corpses and devouring them at a terrifying, visible rate.
Jiang Si raised her binoculars, her expression changing drastically. "It's all rats!"