After taking stock of their supplies and finding a set of clothes for Shen Ye to change out of his hospital gown, Jiang Jianxin ate a few bags of bread on the second floor to replenish her lost Spiritual Energy.
After they had rested up, the three of them went downstairs.
The first floor of the supermarket looked as if it had been plundered, with almost no supplies left.
A few scantily clad women huddled behind a shelf.
Next to the checkout counter, several bodies lay scattered about.
Lin Xin’an walked over to take a look.
They were the bodies of the lean man and the woman in pink, along with the corpses of a few other Talent Users, all lying in pools of blood.
It was clear the two sides had fought a vicious battle.
In the end, the Talent Users who had been freed from control were victorious.
While Lin Xin’an was examining the bodies, Jiang Jianxin approached the scantily clad women.
A closer look revealed that their clothes weren’t just revealing; they wore what looked like lingerie underneath.
Their bodies were covered in mottled red marks, interspersed with bluish-purple pinch marks.
After the recent chaos, the women were all disheveled, and they stared at her with looks of terror and fear.
Jiang Jianxin blinked, her tone reassuring as she said,
“That man is dead.
You’re free now.”
Hearing this, they didn’t look relieved at all.
Instead, they stared at her with resentment.
One of the younger women pointed at her and shrieked, her voice choked with sobs,
“What freedom?!
You bitch, you killed Brother Wang!
Without his protection, how are we supposed to survive in this world?!”
Jiang Jianxin’s brow furrowed, and she glanced outside the supermarket.
A vast, hazy downpour veiled the world.
The loud drumming of the rain against the city’s steel and concrete was clearly audible.
“People caught in the rain have a chance of becoming Talent Users.
You’ve seen those hideous monsters.
It’s hard for ordinary people to survive in this world.
If you miss this chance, all that’s left is to eke out a miserable existence.
Death will only be a matter of time.”
Jiang Jianxin looked at the barely clothed, wretched-looking women and said,
“If you want to live for long, you have to take a gamble…”
SPLAT—
SPLATTER…
The response to her words was a volley of raw eggs thrown by the women from the shelves.
Jiang Jianxin reacted with lightning speed, drawing her sword to cut the eggs out of the air.
Yellow and white liquid ran down her blade and splattered onto the floor, adding to the filth.
She frowned, looking at these crazed women.
“Go to hell, you bitch!
You make it sound so easy, but you don’t understand our suffering at all!
That rain can kill people!
Do you think just anyone can awaken a Talent like Brother Wang?!”
A slightly older woman shrieked like a shrew.
VMMMM—
Jiang Jianxin flicked her sword, and a wave of Sword Qi shot out, instantly severing the arm of the woman who had just spoken.
Blood sprayed through the air as the Sword Qi cut three feet into the ground, leaving a long, narrow fissure.
The sheer power of the attack and the brutality of the scene instantly silenced the frenzied women, as if their vocal cords had been severed.
She glanced at the egg still dripping from her sword and said flatly,
“I don’t kill unarmed women.
I severed your arm, and I’ll pretend I didn’t hear what you said.”
“My kind words end here.
There’s nothing more to say.”
With that, she sheathed her Tang Guang Sword and walked, back straight, out from the aisle.
She left the women cowering in the shadows of the shelves, left with only the fissure in the floor and a spreading pool of blood.
Lin Xin’an was leaning against the checkout counter, watching her with a mocking gaze.
“Well now, trying to show people the path forward, and you get cursed out for your trouble?”
The gunk on the Tang Guang Sword dripped down its blade.
Jiang Jianxin’s expression was foul as she grunted, “Mhm.”
Lin Xin’an chuckled and said,
“Good advice is wasted on those who are doomed.
The ones with a will to live don’t need to be persuaded in the first place—did you count how many of them there were?”
Jiang Jianxin was just taking out her Tang Guang Sword, forming the hand seal for the Cleaning Technique to wash it, when she heard him.
Her head snapped up to look at him.
“You mean to say…?”
“Two of them are missing.
They’ve already left the supermarket.
By now, they’re either corrupted monsters or Talent Users.”
Seeing the contemplative look on Jiang Jianxin’s face, Lin Xin’an said with a meaningful smile,
“Let this be a lesson to you.
This is the apocalypse.
Save your useful words for people who deserve them.”
Jiang Jianxin finished wiping the Tang Guang Sword clean and sheathed it with a sharp CLICK.
Using a gesture of courtesy from the Sword Master’s memories, she gave him a solemn bow, nodded, and said seriously,
“It won’t happen again.”
She didn’t have the memories of a brilliant foreseer, only the Sword Master’s eleven years of single-minded devotion to the Sword Dao, and her own four years as an innocent university student.
Her pre-apocalyptic education had taught her to be kind.
Now, in the apocalypse, Lin Xin’an was teaching her a deeper truth—kindness should be reserved for those worthy of it.
The two of them had just experienced a profound meeting of the minds, but Shen Ye, standing off to the side, still hadn’t figured out what was going on.
He was blind and couldn’t see, so he could only roughly piece together what Jiang Jianxin had just done from their conversation.
While Lin Xin’an was being sarcastic, Shen Ye said very little.
He simply clutched his large, silver-white saber, moved closer to Jiang Jianxin, and tugged on her sleeve to ask,
“Those people…
should I kill them?”
Jiang Jianxin glanced at him, sighed to herself, and flicked his forehead.
“Don’t be so bloodthirsty, young man.”
The young man rubbed his forehead, his ears instantly turning bright red.
Lin Xin’an shot a glance at Shen Ye, the corner of his mouth lifting as he said bluntly,
“He used to follow Blind Sister around, doing all her killing.
There’s not much in that head of his besides murder.”
“What’s that phrase again…?
Oh, right!
All brawn and no brains.”
Jiang Jianxin patted Lin Xin’an’s shoulder in exasperation.
“You should watch what you say.
He might actually kill you.”
From under his short hair, Shen Ye’s lifeless eyes turned coolly toward the sound of his voice.
Lin Xin’an fell silent.
The farce at the supermarket was over.
Jiang Jianxin returned to the car, her inventory space completely full.
She glanced at the two companions traveling with her.
One of them had a useless arm and couldn’t drive—he started caterwauling the moment he even tried to sit in the driver’s seat.
The other was blind; it was impressive enough that he’d made it to the car by himself.
So, she heaved a long sigh and said,
“I’ll drive.”
Naturally, Lin Xin’an and Shen Ye agreed with this decision.
The former opened the front passenger door and was about to get in when a large saber suddenly blocked his path.
Shen Ye’s expression was grave.
He said nothing, simply holding out the saber.
Lin Xin’an let out a “Tsk,” got into the back seat, and left the passenger seat for Shen Ye.
The latter sat down in the passenger seat.
He didn’t say a word, just hugged his saber and stared blankly into space.
Jiang Jianxin started the car.
With a roar from the engine, the small black sedan pushed forward into the downpour.
“Pull up the Navigation for the nearest Survivor Base…
I think it’s called Dawn.”
Jiang Jianxin said.
“Planning to stay for a few days at the Survivor Base run by the War Alliance?”
Lin Xin’an asked.
Jiang Jianxin hummed in agreement.
“In the early days of the apocalypse, social order is too chaotic.
A base will be a bit more peaceful.”