Chapter 97: Rats That Hoard Food

"Is that a... a mouse-man?" Xiao Huang Mao took a step back, his eyes filled with horror.

The creature looked extremely strange.

Its entire body was covered in hard, black fur, which was especially thick on its face.

Only a hint of his facial contours was visible. Before the apocalypse, he must have been a fairly young man.

But now...

The strange creature let out a horrifying SQUEAK SQUEAK and lunged at them.

Xie Ning took a deep breath, her long blade swinging out with speed and power.

"It’s unclear if humans passed the zombie virus to rats, or if rats infected humans."

"The zombie virus has perfectly fused human and rat traits. Be careful, its claws are highly venomous."

Xie Ning’s blade sliced through empty air. She spun around, darted to Song Shijun’s side, and with a backhand motion, plunged a sharp Metal Spike into the lunging mouse-man’s shoulder, pinning it in place as it thrashed and squealed, "SQUEAK SQUEAK!"

Song Shijun swung his kitchen cleaver down, embedding it in the back of the mouse-man’s head, but found he couldn’t quite pull it out.

The young man usually just studied and played a bit of basketball at school. He wasn’t very athletic, and now, unable to even pull out a cleaver, he felt extremely embarrassed.

With a flick of her hand, Xie Ning knocked her younger cousin backward, him and the cleaver both.

Song Shijun, now holding the freed cleaver, stumbled back a few steps with the momentum. A blush crept across his fair, handsome face.

Xie Ning gave her younger cousin an expressionless look. "You need to train harder when we get back."

’If I run ten laps,’ she thought, ’these weakling family members of mine should probably add five.’

The young lady’s weakling family members had no idea that, thanks to Song Shijun, they had all been inexplicably roped into running extra laps.

"Ms. Ning!" Wang Zongxuan shouted.

Xie Ning swiftly tilted her head, and a small lead pellet went BIU as it struck the head of another mouse-man behind her.

Taking advantage of the moment, Xie Ning ran a Metal Spike through the mouse-man. "Go."

At her command, everyone followed her, running toward the small production department office across from them.

"You guys be careful. I’m going to take care of that First Rank mutated mouse-man." ’If I don’t deal with that thing, it could probably summon every rat for miles around.’

If this place became an ocean of rats, they would all be as good as dead.

"Ningning," Song You’ai called out, only to see her daughter kick open the door to the small office with exceptional bravery, sending seven or eight bared Metal Spikes flying toward the figure ahead.

’Not good.’ Xie Ning frowned slightly. Just as she shouted, "Stay back!", the ground beneath her gave way with a RUMBLE and she fell through a huge hole.

"Ningning!"

"Ms. Ning!"

Rats sure know how to dig, that’s no joke. This mutated mouse-man had actually dug such a massive hole in someone’s office.

The concrete below had actually been completely hollowed out, leaving only a paper-thin layer of floor on top.

All it took was a little force from Xie Ning’s initial movement, and she fell right through, along with the mutated mouse-man.

Song You’ai and the others ran to the edge of the pitch-black hole, stomping their feet in anxiety. "What do we do now?"

"Ergouzi and Shijun, stay here. Aunt Song, Xiao Huang Mao and I will go down with you to take a look."

"You’re the Ergouzi," Ji Taixian muttered, but his actions were swift as he pulled out bundle after bundle of thick hemp rope from his Space.

Meanwhile, Xie Ning’s body had fallen through the collapsed ground into a long tunnel.

Xie Ning couldn’t help but curse inwardly at its ingenuity.

It turned out the ground beneath the entire instant noodle factory had been completely hollowed out.

’So is this the butterfly effect of my rebirth?’

She hadn’t encountered this situation in her past life, so Xie Ning had no way of knowing what was going on.

She slid all the way down the winding tunnel for a full five minutes.

Fortunately, the moment she started falling, she had decisively pulled a blanket from her Space and wrapped it around herself.

This would prevent her skin from scraping directly against the earthen walls.

Wrapped in the blanket, Xie Ning, backpack and all, landed heavily on top of something.

The thing beneath her let out a pitiful wail.

Xie Ning felt a sharp pain in her chest where her backpack was digging in. With a flick of her wrist, she sent out Metal Spikes, piercing the heads of several large rats that were lunging at her with SQUEAKS.

"Dr. Yu!!" A shrill cry suddenly exploded next to Xie Ning’s ear.

Xie Ning, still wrapped in the thick blanket, forcefully rolled over and tumbled off.

Turning her head, she saw a man with a messy mop of white hair curled up on the ground, bent like a shrimp.

The man’s features were scrunched together in pain as he struggled to look up at her.

"Sorry about that," Xie Ning said expressionlessly, pulling the blanket off herself and standing up with her backpack.

"Who do you think you are!" a woman cried, rushing over in a panic to help the white-haired man. "Dr. Yu, Dr. Yu, are you all right?"

"I’m... fine." ’Like hell I am!’

Gritting his teeth, the man raked a hand through his messy white hair, avoided the woman’s eager attempt to help him, and shakily pushed himself to his feet.

"You’re a... Gold Ability User, aren’t you? Those were Metal Spikes that just came out of your body." The man’s contorted features gradually relaxed.

However, the patches of black and brown on his face made him look rather comical.

Xie Ning glanced at him. "Is there something you want?"

"How dare you speak to Dr. Yu like that?" the woman snapped, gritting her teeth.

She was about to continue her tirade, but the Dr. Yu she revered like a god waved a hand and cut her off impatiently. "Don’t argue, don’t argue."

The man stared at Xie Ning with his narrow phoenix eyes, then suddenly extended a hand toward her. "Hello. May I study you?"

Expressionless, Xie Ning swung a fist at his face, knocking the tall, pale-faced man flat on the ground.

The crowd erupted into chaos. Several middle-aged and older people in white lab coats rushed forward, fighting with the woman to help him up.

Only then did Xie Ning realize that there were fifty or sixty people sitting or standing around in this massive, excavated cavern.

Some were leaning listlessly against the wall, muttering to themselves as if they’d lost their minds.

Others, however, began to gather around her, occasionally glancing up at the tunnel opening above.

"You? Were you also thrown down here by the mouse-men as rations?" The speaker was a middle-aged worker in an instant noodle factory uniform.

There were thirty to forty other people around him in the same work clothes; they appeared to be factory workers who hadn’t managed to escape in time.

Xie Ning pulled off the tattered blanket, frowning as she dusted it off.

This blanket had been with her for twenty years. After the apocalypse, she had patched it here and there with various animal hides until it was old and ragged beyond recognition.

But the sentimental Xie Ning couldn’t bear to throw it away.

It was her habit to save small, insignificant things, as they could become useful at critical moments.

After folding the blanket and stuffing it into her bulging backpack, Xie Ning glanced around.

She saw that most of them were now staring at her backpack, swallowing nervously.

"Are you all just sitting here, planning to quietly wait to be hoarded food?" Xie Ning asked, looking around curiously.

This was a large cavern, surrounded on all sides by thick layers of earth.

Above was the tunnel opening—the entrance she had just slid down from the production department office.