A pet?
A moment of silence settled over the room.
Qiao Xiao raised an eyebrow, casting a glance at Xia Qing and then toward her pocket. The corner of his mouth twitched subtly, though he refrained from making a comment.
Jin Chao watched Xia Qing’s response, lost in thought.
The rest of the group showed little reaction.
Only Lin Yao had a dramatic response.
The expression on her face shifted from terror to sheer disbelief, and from disbelief to an indescribable mixture of disgust and disdain.
Who in their right mind adopts a rat as a pet?
It’s a rat! A filthy creature that crawls through sewers, scavenges garbage, and spreads diseases!
In an apocalyptic world like this, where people could barely get enough food to eat, keeping a disgusting rat as a pet was truly perverse.
It was downright sick!
Xia Ran looked at Xia Qing in confusion as well; he had no idea when his younger sister had started keeping a rat.
Lin Yao took a deep breath, striving to compose herself, though her voice still carried an undeniable tremor and sharp malice: “Xia Qing, even if you haven’t awakened an ability, you don’t need to mess around with a rat, do you?”
Lin Yao’s words pelted down like a barrage from a rapid-fire gun, every sentence laced with bitterness and sting. She paused briefly, seemingly weighing her phrasing, but ultimately couldn’t hold back and vented every thought in her mind:
“It’s completely useless anyway. Who knows if it’s carrying viruses?”
“A wild thing like that—there’s no telling how many bacteria and parasites it has on its body.”
“We’re already short on medical supplies as it is. If it infects someone with a disease, can you take responsibility for that?”
Besides, mutations were erupting everywhere right now.
No one knew what terrifying forms animals might mutate into.
Lin Yao delivered her speech with righteous indignation, as if she were acting out of concern for the entire team’s health rather than indulging her own disgust.
Her voice echoed through the hollow stairwell, cutting even through the sound of the pouring rain outside.
Xia Qing watched her silently without saying a word.
Her eyes were unnaturally calm—flat like a pool of stagnant water, devoid of any emotional turbulence. No anger, no grievance, not even disdain.
She simply observed Lin Yao quietly, as though looking at a complete stranger who had nothing to do with her.
That piercing stare made Lin Yao’s skin crawl. Before she could ponder it further, Xia Ran stepped in.
Standing between the two girls, Xia Ran glanced at Lin Yao and then at Xia Qing, a look of helpless resignation crossing his face.
He had certainly seen the little mouse in Xia Qing’s pocket, and truth be told, he found keeping a rat as a pet rather strange as well.
However, what concerned him far more was something else.
His sister hadn’t been like this in the past.
“Qingqing,” Xia Ran began, a trace of hesitation in his voice, “didn’t you used to hate these things the most?”
He remembered it vividly.
When a mouse had appeared in their house during their childhood, Xia Qing had screamed in terror and jumped onto the sofa, curling into a tight ball without daring to open her eyes.
In the end, he was the one who grabbed a broom to chase the mouse away.
For a whole week after that, Xia Qing had checked under her bed every single night before she could fall asleep with peace of mind.
How could that Xia Qing be carrying a rat in her pocket as a pet today?
Xia Qing finally withdrew her gaze from Lin Yao and turned toward Xia Ran.
Her expression remained composed, though a note of seriousness crept into her tone: “I’ve awakened an ability—I can control small animals.”
What?
Those words landed like a bomb exploding inside the room.
To the others, it wasn’t a massive shock.
Awakening an ability was a normal occurrence.
However, the person hit hardest by the revelation was Lin Yao.
Her mind buzzed loudly, as if ten thousand bees were swarming inside her head.
How is that possible? How could this be? How could a Charm ability possibly work on animals?
She had awakened the Charm ability in her past life, so she knew the boundaries of this power better than anyone—Charm strictly targeted humans and had zero effect on animals.
This was an ironclad rule, an experience bought with countless failures on her part.
Yet what was Xia Qing claiming right now?
She could control small animals?
Impossible!
“Impossible, how could you…”
She cut herself off just in time before the rest of the sentence slipped out.
Lin Yao’s mind raced, a flurry of thoughts colliding inside her head.
It made no sense. She had seized Xia Qing’s spatial ability, and she had personally watched Xia Qing swallow that pink energy core.
How could a Charm-type user control animals?
Unless… Xia Qing’s awakened ability was different from hers.
That thought sent a complex, indescribable wave of emotion churning inside Lin Yao.
Where did things go wrong?
Or is an awakened ability genuinely tied to an individual’s unique genetic code?
Is that why the Charm ability I awakened in my past life only worked on humans?
She knew that every awakened ability varied from person to person.
Even if two individuals absorbed energy cores of the exact same attribute, they wouldn’t necessarily awaken the exact same ability.
Xia Ran, on the other hand, didn’t overthink it.
Upon hearing Xia Qing’s explanation, his eyes lit up subtly, and he nodded: “So that’s how it is!”
He was thrilled from the bottom of his heart that his sister had finally awakened an ability.
Earlier, when Xia Qing and Lin Yao had absorbed energy cores together, Lin Yao had swiftly awakened her spatial storage, whereas Xia Qing had shown no signs of awakening for a long time.
Xia Ran hadn’t voiced his worry, but a heavy stone had been hanging in his chest all along.
In this apocalyptic world, surviving as an ordinary human without an ability was brutal.
He didn’t want his sister to become a liability to the team, nor did he want her to be defenseless when danger struck.
Now that his sister had awakened an ability, even if it didn’t sound like a high-powered offensive skill, having something was infinitely better than nothing.
“Let’s go, don’t waste time,” Jin Chao’s voice drifted from up ahead, cutting off the silent confrontation.
Jin Chao was the first to step out into the rain, which immediately drenched his raincoat and streamed off the hem.
Without looking back, he waded steadily into the standing water, splashing droplets in all directions.
Qiao Xiao followed second, followed by Su Bai and Qiao Sheng.
Xia Ran pulled down the hood of his raincoat and fell in line as well.
Lin Yao stood frozen for two seconds before her brain finally recovered from the initial shock.
She began to rationalize the situation.
Everyone possessed unique genetics, so even when absorbing the same type of energy core, the resulting ability would naturally vary.
This was an established, widely accepted fact in the apocalypse—
In her past life, her Charm ability could at least manipulate humans; though ineffective against Jin Chao, it worked with near-perfect reliability on ordinary men.
But what about Xia Qing? She could only charm tiny animals? A little rat?
As that thought took hold, the complex anxiety inside Lin Yao dissolved completely.
It was replaced by a sense of condescending pity and relief.
How pathetic.
What could a little mouse possibly do? Scout ahead? Perform reconnaissance? Or serve as emergency rations? In the apocalypse, an ability like that isn’t even worth calling junk.
Lin Yao could already envision Xia Qing becoming increasingly marginalized within the squad from this point forward.