The battered concrete road was being crushed beneath the wheels of seven or eight large trucks, one after another.
An off-road vehicle escorted the convoy at both the front and the rear. It looked like an ordinary convoy, perhaps loaded with supplies that had been gathered and was now returning.
This was a remote stretch of road, and the surroundings were unnaturally quiet.
Until several thunderous crashes shattered the silence.
Bang—!
Bang—!
Bang—!
Several huge boulders came crashing down from the sky, smashing two of the off-road vehicles and completely blocking the convoy from both ends.
More than a dozen people leaped out from the roadside. The leader at the front greedily stared at the large trucks and shouted, “Leave all the supplies behind! I’ll spare your lives!”
The sudden turn of events forced the seven or eight large trucks to stop. The jolt from the emergency braking sent all the women in the rearmost truck tumbling into one another.
“What happened?”
“Why did we suddenly stop?”
“What was that noise outside?!”
“……”
A jumble of frightened questions filled the entire rear compartment of the truck. Dozens of women were both panicked and terrified. If the doors hadn’t been firmly locked, some of them would probably already have tried to stick their heads out to see what was happening.
In the corner, a young girl curiously raised her head. There were only a few smudges of black dust on her fair face. Her pure white spaghetti-strap dress reached only to mid-calf, revealing two feet covered in dust.
She was still trying to look around.
[Your reaction is wrong.]
[You should be frightened along with them.]
Hearing the instruction in her mind, Ye Manman tried hard to force a “frightened” expression onto her face.
[……Forget it. You have no acting ability.]
Ye Manman thought for a moment, then quietly protested, “I don’t know how to control human facial muscles.”
[Then bury your head. Don’t show your face.]
“All right.”
Ye Manman obediently buried her head between her knees, more out of compliance than anything else, until another girl grabbed hold of her arm.
“Manman, something seems to have happened outside. I’m a little scared.”
Ye Manman had no choice but to raise her head again. Awkwardly, she reached out and patted Sun Wen on the shoulder. “Don’t be scared.”
She still wasn’t very good at comforting humans, so she could only imitate the way Sun Wen had comforted her yesterday and use it to reassure Sun Wen now.
The system, which had been instructing her all this time, said gloomily, [As a villain, you should be a little colder toward humans.]
Ye Manman disagreed.
She was still wearing Sun Wen’s jacket. Yesterday, after seeing the spaghetti-strap dress she was wearing, this frail human had hesitated for a long time before taking off her own jacket and giving it to her.
“Sun Wen is a good person. Maybe I can persuade her to switch sides.”
The system gave a scoff.
It was practically laughing at her naivety.
Ye Manman ignored it.
Having received comfort from her companion, Sun Wen instinctively moved closer to her, their arms and legs pressed tightly together.
“Aren’t you scared? What if someone is robbing us……”
Before she could finish speaking, the metal latch outside the truck was pulled away, and the heavy door was abruptly yanked open.
Intense light poured into the rear compartment, making everyone instinctively squeeze their eyes shut.
“Holy shit! This truck is full of women!”
An excited, lecherous voice rang out, immediately drawing several more men over to look. Faced with their undisguised, invasive gazes, all the women shrank fearfully toward the corners.
Before Ye Manman could react, Sun Wen quickly wiped a handful of black dust from the truck compartment and, using the crowd in front as cover, vigorously smeared it across her own face.
[Do what she does.]
Ye Manman didn’t really want to smear herself with it. Washing herself was such a hassle, and she certainly didn’t want to make herself filthy.
She refused to do it, but Sun Wen beside her was far too concerned. Even after smearing her own face, she wasn’t satisfied. Without giving her companion a chance to object, she rubbed her two blackened hands all over Ye Manman’s face.
In an instant, Ye Manman’s beautiful face, white dress, and exposed calves had all turned black. Even her long, dark hair had been mussed up by Sun Wen, making her look like a frail little beggar.
The little beggar stared at her with her mouth slightly open, apparently stunned by what Sun Wen had done.
Eight years into the apocalypse, judging by the girl’s age of twenty, she should have been taken into the mountains by her family to hide when she was twelve. It was perfectly normal for her to be unfamiliar with human ways.
Sun Wen felt that she had figured out the truth and hurriedly explained in a low voice, “People can be cruel. You can’t let others see what you really look like, or you’ll definitely be in danger.”
As an ordinary woman without any special ability, even someone with an average appearance could suffer all kinds of terrible experiences. Not to mention…… Sun Wen turned her head toward Ye Manman. Even with her face covered in black dust and her hair a complete mess, when those eyes looked over in confusion, one could still notice her exceptionally delicate bone structure and those brows and eyes that seemed capable of tugging at someone’s heart with a single blink……
There was simply no solution.
The system spoke at just the right moment: [She’s right. Before infiltrating the base, you need to protect yourself first.]
“I understand now.”
Those words were both an answer to Sun Wen and a response to the system.
Secretly, however, Ye Manman sighed with some distress.
Taking a bath was really such a hassle. She would have to scrub each and every one of her tentacles all over again. There were 108 of them!
Whatever. Once she infiltrated the base and took control of these humans, she would make them wash her tentacles for her.
Thinking of this, Ye Manman finally perked up a little.
The excited commotion outside had already caught the leader’s attention. He walked toward the rear of the truck with a puzzled look, and the moment he saw the women inside, his eyes lit up.
Who could have imagined that a convoy escorting supplies would have so many women hidden inside it?
“Brother Lin, if we take all these women back to the base, our contribution points will double!”
In the apocalypse, modern supplies that could not be replenished were resources, and women, whose numbers were steadily declining, were resources as well.
Excitement also appeared on Brother Lin’s face. He had come to this godforsaken remote area to ambush and intercept supplies from another small base precisely so he could bring them back to the C City Base and earn contribution points for himself.
There were at least twenty women in this truck. The number of contribution points they could obtain would certainly be high!
The bodies of the ability users they had just killed were still lying around them, blood already flowing to their feet. Seeing such a bloody scene caused another round of screams from the women inside the truck.
“What are you screaming about?! Shut up!”
The ability user beside him viciously slapped the side of the truck. His gaze gradually became lecherous. “Brother Lin, once we take these people back, they’ll definitely be sent to the Corridor. Why don’t we have a little fun first?”
His words reached the compartment, and all the women shrank back in terror.
No one knew what kind of place the “Corridor” was, but every one of them understood what the man meant.
Ye Manman could feel Sun Wen suddenly tighten her grip around her hand, her body trembling slightly with fear.
The 108 tentacles inside her body stirred restlessly, but she still had to take the system’s plan into consideration.
[The plan can be changed.] Even the “Villainous Deeds System” still put its host first. [If they hurt you, pierce straight through them.]
“But what if I can’t pierce through them?”
As a little vine that had only just come out of the mountains, Ye Manman had encountered only one human in total before meeting this convoy.
That human had treated her very well, but he was simply too fierce.
Every time she tried to pierce him with her tentacles, he could detect it even with his eyes closed. He would then turn cold-faced and “punish” her harshly.
In just one month, Ye Manman had developed a serious psychological trauma.
If every random human she encountered was this powerful, then this inexplicably transformed little vine of hers might not even be able to defeat the weakest ability user.
She still had to follow the system’s plan: infiltrate the notorious C City Base, find the Man-Eating Flower Mutated Plant that was rumored to have been controlled, join forces with it to pierce through the entire base, and take the first step toward ruling humanity!
Thinking of this, Ye Manman sighed again.
Sigh.
Could she really fail to even get into the base?
[Don’t overthink it. If you can’t pierce through them, run.] The system was still a novice and had also been bound to a seemingly not-too-bright nonhuman host, so its understanding of things was extremely limited. [You may not be able to beat them, but you can definitely outrun them.]
Ye Manman thought so too.
She secretly released one pale-green tentacle. It was less than fifty centimeters long, but it was already excited enough, waiting for those damn humans to pounce so that it could kill them in a single strike.
The other ability users were all waiting for Brother Lin to give the order.
As long as he nodded, they would drag all the women out of the truck, have their way with them, and then take them back.
Brother Lin coldly surveyed the surroundings. “One woman is worth ten thousand contribution points. If you play around here and kill one, we lose ten thousand points.”
“If you’re really that desperate for women, ten thousand contribution points are enough to buy you a month in the Corridor! What kind of woman couldn’t you have there?”
Women were indeed scarce in the apocalypse, but contribution points at the base were even more important. If their team brought this batch of supplies and women back, their treatment and status would rise by at least another level.
Brother Lin spread his arms and firmly shut the truck doors.
“Hurry up and get back to the base. The longer we wait, the more likely something will go wrong. Got it?!”
Scattered voices of acknowledgment sounded from outside the truck, and darkness once again enveloped the entire compartment.
They had clearly escaped one disaster, yet someone still began crying in fear. Her sobs instantly spread the grief among everyone else, and the sound of muffled weeping continued without end.
Ye Manman noticed that the hand Sun Wen had been gripping tightly around hers slowly and helplessly loosened.
“Are you crying?”
The tentacle she had released had not yet been withdrawn. At this moment, it tilted its tip along with Ye Manman, staring at Sun Wen, who was covering her cheeks tightly with her hands.
“……What use is crying?” A bitter voice came through the gaps between her fingers. “I’ve known my fate for a long time. What’s there to cry about?”
Even if no one had hijacked this convoy transporting supplies, they would still have been taken to some unknown small base, where they would have had to swallow their pride and endure humiliation just to survive.
What difference did it make if they were taken to a different base now?
Ye Manman inexplicably sensed a trace of sorrow and numbness in her words.
She still couldn’t completely understand such emotions. She was somewhat confused, and even more at a loss.
“Isn’t going to a base a good thing?” Ye Manman quietly asked the system. “Don’t humans always say that bases are the safest places?”
The system didn’t understand either, but that didn’t stop it from taking the opportunity to insert its own agenda: [Maybe they don’t feel safe enough yet. But it doesn’t matter. Once you conquer the human base and surround it so completely that it becomes as impenetrable as an iron fortress, they’ll be completely safe.]
Ye Manman was coaxed into seeming to understand. A glimmer of longing flashed through her beautiful, wide eyes, and her heroic ambition rose once again in her heart.
If she conquered the human base, she would be able to obtain more crystal cores, grow more tentacles, and become even stronger.
Sun Wen was a good human.
When that happened, she would let Sun Wen manage the other humans and have them come over one by one to serve her—to bathe her and massage her 108 legs.
Amid Ye Manman’s fantasies, the large trucks finally arrived at the C City Base.
After the administrators finished counting all the supplies and saw the truckload of women, they gave the team that had returned to report the mission a meaningful look.
“270,000 contribution points. Not bad!”
Brother Lin was also somewhat pleased with himself. “We got lucky. We happened to catch another base’s supply route.”
“All right. Everything checks out. Your contribution points will be credited tonight.”
“As usual, send these women to the Corridor.”
The truck started up again and slowly drove into the base.
Only after the truck’s exhaust fumes had completely disappeared did an unfamiliar team outside the gates finally withdraw their gazes.
“No wonder the population of C City Base keeps growing. So this is how they’re bringing people back.” After sighing, the man with a little topknot on his head came up with another question. “What exactly is the Corridor?”
“Whatever it is, it’s definitely not a good place.” The only woman on the team turned her head toward their captain, who had only been found half a month ago. “Captain Zhou, shall we go straight in?”
Zhou Zhou did not respond.
His gaze remained firmly fixed on the direction in which the large truck had disappeared.
The woman received no answer, and a trace of disappointment rose in her heart.
“Sigh, he’s been like this ever since we found him half a month ago.” The topknot man heavily patted the woman on the shoulder. “He lost a month of his memory, spaces out whenever he sees something, and who knows where he left his soul. Maybe he met some sweetheart out there and dumped her, and now he feels guilty about it.”
His teammate’s covert teasing never reached Zhou Zhou’s ears.
On the way to C City Base, Zhou Zhou had led his team into an ambush. He had hit his head, lost his memory, and disappeared for a month after sustaining severe injuries.
It was only half a month ago that he finally remembered everything.
Except…… perhaps his brain still hadn’t fully recovered, because he had forgotten everything that had happened during that month all over again.
Whatever. Losing a month of memories wasn’t important.
“Go straight in.”
Zhou Zhou’s reply came after a long delay, but it still brought a satisfied smile to the woman’s face.