But this lifetime was different.
She possessed the spatial storage ability—the rarest and most valuable capability in the post-apocalyptic world.
No matter how powerful Jin Chao was, he would still need someone to transport supplies for him, wouldn’t he?
When that time came, wouldn’t he have to view her in a whole new light?
At that thought, Lin Yao felt a wave of internal satisfaction, unable to resist stealing a quiet glance at Jin Chao standing by the window.
Jin Chao kept his back turned to everyone, staring motionlessly into the curtain of rain outside.
The downpour outside raged on, showing zero sign of letting up.
The rain beat harder than before, clattering against the glass like a string of firecrackers going off right outside the window.
The windowpane hummed violently from the vibrations, while occasional flashes of lightning illuminated the room in a ghastly white light, followed immediately by deafening claps of thunder.
Qiao Sheng set down the radio device in his hands, turning around with a grim expression: “Captain Jin, the rain is too heavy; we can’t get through to the research institute right now.”
Ever since the mutant invasion began, fiber-optic networks across the nation had suffered widespread destruction.
Some underground cables were dug up and chewed apart by mutants, others were snapped during ground collapses, and still others simply aged and failed due to lack of maintenance.
The vast majority of signal towers had also collapsed, making communications extraordinarily spotty.
Trying to reach the research institute under these conditions was no different from searching for a needle in the ocean.
To say nothing of satellites.
Ever since the mutants appeared, Earth’s magnetic field had fallen into complete disarray.
Satellite signals cut in and out unpredictably, with GPS location errors drifting several kilometers off target, rendering them utterly useless.
Jin Chao’s expression grew even darker.
Turning around, his gaze swept across everyone in the room before coming to rest on the blurred curtain of rain outside.
The equipment inside the research institute was paramount, but no matter how important, he couldn’t let his teammates risk their lives marching through a torrential downpour.
On rainy days, human visibility was severely restricted and movement became sluggish, yet it barely hindered the mutants.
—Their sensory perception operated differently from humans; they were far more acute.
Engaging mutants in a heavy downpour lowered human odds of victory by at least thirty percent.
Jin Chao fell silent for a long time before uttering a single word: “Wait.”
Hearing those words come out of his mouth left Qiao Sheng slightly stunned.
Yet right now, waiting was their only option.
If the rain didn’t stop, the roads remained impassable.
That was the harsh reality.
Silence settled over the room, leaving only the sound of drumming rain and occasional thunder.
Xia Ran squatted beside the sofa, watching Little Chubby lie there motionless.
The boy had stopped crying, but his eyes were swollen red like two walnuts.
He lay completely still, staring blankly at the ceiling, his pupils lacking any focus.
Wu Fang’s death had dealt too brutal a blow to Little Chubby.
When his father died earlier, the boy had felt immense grief, but a good cry had helped him process it.
After all, his mother had still been by his side back then, and her embrace offered the ultimate comfort.
Now, his mother was gone too, having died less than two meters away from him, leaving him to watch her blood drain dry with his own eyes.
Little Chubby didn’t say a word.
Ever since leaving the mini-mart, he hadn’t uttered a single syllable.
Xia Ran parted his lips, wanting to offer a few words of comfort, but swallowed them back down.
Ultimately, Xia Ran said nothing, merely patting Little Chubby’s shoulder gently.
Standing up, he walked to the side and leaned against the wall to sit down.
Closing his eyes, he began sensing the internal ability within his body.
During the earlier fight at the mini-mart, Xia Ran had realized he had awakened an ability.
Yet awakening was merely the first step; the true challenge lay in how to develop and deploy it.
Ability moves, execution techniques, and power control all required personal trial and error to unlock and refine.
Everyone’s innate talent differed, which naturally led to distinct, uniquely developed skills.
Even among water-type users, some could condense water into solid ice, others could manipulate water pressure to form high-velocity water blades, and some could sense water sources within a miles-wide radius.
—The classification and strength of a skill depended entirely on the awakened user’s own comprehension and creativity.
Closing his eyes, Xia Ran felt that faint, fleeting surge of elemental energy within him.
He attempted to channel that energy toward his palm, but the moment it moved, it dispersed instantly—like sand slipping through his fingers.
It still required time.
Jin Chao began assigning night watch duties.
Overnighting in an environment like this, no one could sleep with complete peace of mind.
Mutants could breach the perimeter at any moment—whether smashing through windows, kicking down doors, or dropping straight from the ceiling.
If everyone fell asleep, that would be the recipe for absolute disaster.
Jin Chao divided the group into three shifts, each taking a three-hour watch.
The first shift was covered by Xia Ran, Xia Qing, and Su Bai; the middle shift by Jin Chao, Qiao Xiao, and Qiao Sheng; and the final shift by the remaining two members.
Little Chubby was excluded.
—He was too young and had just suffered the trauma of losing his mother, making it unrealistic to assign him a watch shift.
Xia Ran walked over to Xia Qing, lowering his voice: “Qingqing, if you’re sleepy, go ahead and rest. I’ll handle the watch.”
Xia Qing shook her head: “It’s fine, I’m not sleepy.”
She was indeed far from tired.
With the little mouse in her pocket hovering between life and death, her mind was preoccupied, making sleep impossible.
Xia Ran glanced at her and refrained from pushing further.
His younger sister was different from before; he could see that clearly now.
She had her own mind and no longer required him to worry over every little thing like he used to.
This realization brought Xia Ran a mixture of comfort and subtle bittersweetness.
Leaning back against the wall, Xia Qing subconsciously slid her hand into her pocket, her fingertips lightly brushing against the little mouse.
The temperature inside her pocket was slightly warmer than the room air, and the mouse remained curled inside, its body still warm.
Stroking it gently with her finger, she could feel its faint, rapid breathing.
It inhaled and exhaled in swift, shallow bursts, as if struggling to sustain its flicker of life.
Just as Xia Qing prepared to withdraw her hand, her fingertips caught a subtle twitch.
It wasn’t a muscle spasm.
It was movement.
The little mouse moved.
Slightly excited, Xia Qing scooped it out.
Sure enough, the little mouse had not only survived, but had successfully mutated.
Its grayish-white fur had turned entirely green, and its eyes shone with a matching green hue.
Xia Qing immediately channeled her Charm skill directly toward it once more.
The imprint nailed itself firmly into the little mouse’s mental consciousness.
A permanent imprint.
The mouse’s willpower was inherently frail to begin with.
As expected, charming a small animal was vastly simpler than charming a human.
From now on, she would start by building her ranks with simple-minded small animals.
Despite mutating after swallowing the energy core, the little mouse’s willpower remained low.
It could only execute simple, direct command tasks for her.
It lacked the capacity to make complex, flexible judgments on its own.
All of that could be developed slowly over time.