Xin Xiaoru didn’t know why, but she felt like she had become a mother prematurely at a young age.
Especially when checking the little girl’s satisfaction…
There was no satisfaction; the bulletin board prompted: “The little girl regards you as family, so she does not participate in tenant satisfaction assessment.”
Huh?
“Family” had only been triggered by Aunt Qian, and that was because Xin Xiaoru had treated her as family, so she didn’t qualify as a tenant. So if the other person treated themselves as family, they wouldn’t trigger tenant status either?
She paused slightly, holding the little girl’s hand. Xin Xiaoru remembered that at first, the bulletin board seemed to only show that she treated Qian Zhengli as family; it didn’t say Qian Zhengli treated her as family.
Rain pounded on the roof of the RV, and even after noise reduction, the crackling sound of the raindrops could still be heard.
At the beginning of the last life’s apocalypse, she had started in the hospital. Later, zombies appeared, and because the situation wasn’t immediately under control, the whole hospital fell into chaos. She drove the RV out, hiding and fleeing in different directions.
She wanted to find Aunt Qian to discuss what to do together, but earthquakes and landslides blocked the roads.
Aunt Qian finally managed to get to the rescue team, carrying a backpack, but soon lost signal due to a nearby base station collapse. After that, the two completely lost contact.
Xin Xiaoru didn’t have much money; after buying supplies, she had no money left for gasoline. Later, when participating in gasoline struggles, she nearly died.
There were many reports of shelters in Yicheng, some rumors, some true. For the few real messages, Xin Xiaoru ran to sign up, but the spots were already full; there was no place for her.
Later, while hiding and fleeing, the RV ran out of fuel. At the same time, a wildfire broke out in her hiding place. She couldn’t live in the mountains with the RV and had to abandon it and escape.
What about Qian Zhengli and her daughter at that time? Would they have thought of her?
Xin Xiaoru didn’t know.
Perhaps they hadn’t thought of her, or even if they did, they probably scolded her for being useless and failing to protect them.
Xin Xiaoru held the warm child, but her heart was chillingly empty, radiating outward.
He Guying handed her a thermos, said little, and directed the RV in rescuing people.
Many people were trapped in the building now, along with zombies. The latter wouldn’t drown, but they also couldn’t swim.
Human physiology is such that our density is lower than water. Without equipment or skill, one either floats on the surface or drifts in shallow water; there’s no way to sink freely. Many zombies flailed on the water surface, and from the high vantage of the RV, it looked particularly horrifying.
The RV placed the people it had rescued on a nearby hill with higher ground and gave them some vegetable seeds to manage on their own. There wasn’t any extra energy to help further, so it simply left.
Some parents, seeing Xin Xiaoru holding a child the whole time, tearfully pushed their own children forward, hoping the RV would take their children too.
“As long as he or she survives! They’re just a child and don’t eat much. I beg you, please, you’re good people!” Saying this, they were about to get off the RV, leaving the child alone on board.
The child cried loudly and tried to follow, and for a moment, the crying and commotion were overwhelming.
Xin Xiaoru held Song Weiyu in one arm and propped her chin with the other, looking out the window.
She had no family. If her parents were still alive, hadn’t died in that accident, would they have made the same decision in the apocalypse? Would they have fought with everything they had to give their child a chance to survive, even just a little hope?
Xin Xiaoru didn’t know.
She let the others leave, keeping only the families with children, just three households in total, with four children and five adults.
Xin Xiaoru said, “Other survivors will come later. You must keep quiet and say nothing. I won’t support you for free. You need to learn to farm and work, and you must pay me a high RV fee, or you won’t survive.”
No one dared to disobey; they felt they had narrowly escaped death and would have knelt to thank her if they could.
Xin Xiaoru waved her hand, letting the RV support their knees. For a moment, she still felt these people were too disruptive. When she had left the others behind earlier, it had almost prompted more people to get off, crying and begging to be kept. Fortunately, the RV used its internal power to send them down; otherwise, she didn’t know how chaotic it could have become.
A thick fog rose in the alternate space, reducing visibility to almost nothing. Xin Xiaoru brought these nine people into the off-road RV in the alternate space, where they had to squeeze inside.
She wanted to put the little girl inside too, but the moment she let go, the child, who had been asleep, immediately woke up. Without saying a word, she clung tightly to Xin Xiaoru and refused to let go.
Xin Xiaoru had no choice but to continue holding her and return to the driver’s seat.
Later, while rescuing more people, she continuously encountered others with small children or children who were alone.
Most children surviving alone were ability users. They were either like Song Weiyu, silent and heavily traumatized, or like frightened little animals, showing awkward attempts at pleasing or uncontainable wariness. Some ability user children didn’t even give 4- or 5-star ratings, only 3 stars, clearly not trusting the RV and seeing it only as a tool to escape danger.
Xin Xiaoru didn’t say much, simply introducing the farm situation. These ability user children could stay if they wanted or leave if they wished.
Children had little reaction; adult ability users were far more eager, revealing their abilities and wanting to go to the farm.
Xin Xiaoru shook her head and refused them.
“The farm has limited farmland and can only support a certain number of ability users,” she explained. “Moreover, production is unstable, and even our own people might not get enough to eat.”
If the first batch of crops had already been harvested, she could afford to take in some people. But seeing her own food reserves dwindling and the crops in the fields still needing three to four months to grow, she didn’t have enough to feed adult ability users.
Helplessly, the ability users could only give up.
On October 24, the day the RV finally upgraded to Lv4, Xin Xiaoru added 31 new tenants besides Song Weiyu—11 adults and 20 children. Among the children, 9 were ability users, and the rest were ordinary people.
The upgrade reward was a densely packed 100-person hotel. Its structure was very similar to Youzhuang’s 30-person hotel but three times the size, with a total of 33 upper, middle, and lower bunks. In addition, there was a single bed. This single bed even had a small private room, which Xin Xiaoru estimated could be used as a room for staff.
The 31 newcomers immediately had a place to go. After moving in, they were extremely happy; the hardships of recent days seemed to be somewhat washed away.
Only Song Weiyu remained silent, clinging to Xin Xiaoru and unmoved by anything she saw.
Xin Xiaoru sighed and let her follow like a little tail.
She continued her routine with everyone: rescuing people, earning popularity points, fighting zombies, and collecting crystal cores.
Not to mention, He Guying thrived in this city flooded like a “water-covered mountain.” His ice-based abilities no longer required him to form ice shards from scratch; he could directly draw on the water everywhere in the environment, form it, decapitate zombies, and extract crystal cores.
Zhao Changyue felt a bit constrained and could only fight zombies from the shore, temporarily far less efficient than Guying.
After a day of eating and sleeping, the ability user children also joined in the zombie hunting and crystal core collecting. Somehow, they agreed among themselves that half of the crystal cores they worked for would automatically go to Xin Xiaoru.
Xin Xiaoru didn’t refuse. After all, her RV was the core that allowed everyone to fight zombies safely. However, after upgrading to Lv4, the RV fee had become either 5 jin of food per day or five crystal cores per day. For ability user children, five crystal cores were easier to obtain than food, so Xin Xiaoru simply counted the crystal cores they handed over as payment for the RV.
While they were busy around Rencheng, Youzhuang and Yicheng were also making major moves.
Yicheng mobilized people to quickly assemble a temporary pipeline, connecting the large water pipes from Youzhuang’s extra-dimensional hotel to the Yicheng base.
Since the route passed through areas full of wandering zombies, all the ability users at the base took action, killing zombies while protecting the pipeline construction.
Even after completion, the pipeline needed constant monitoring because many survivors and ability users were eyeing it, itching to puncture it the moment water started flowing, taking as much as they could.
Once the base overcame all difficulties and completed the pipeline, Xin Xiaoru arrived in the rainstorm area. A massive flow of water broke through the constraints of time and space, reaching the drought-stricken Youzhuang and flowing through the pipeline to Yicheng.
People, hearing the roaring water inside the pipes, erupted in cheers.
They were finally saved!
The farmland would no longer remain abandoned, and no one would die of thirst or hunger at any moment.
The emergency pipeline had some weak welds. The RV didn’t have time to fully filter the faraway rainwater, so slightly dirty water trickled out. People nearby couldn’t resist, rushing to catch the small streams and drink them.
It didn’t taste good, some had a strange flavor, but it could save lives.
And that was enough.
Everyone at the Yicheng base was so excited that they couldn’t wait to boil water, drinking huge gulps to catch their breath. Only then did they finally start boiling water properly and watering the fields. Some drought-resistant vegetables might even be saved.
The oppressive atmosphere lifted. Although the crops in the fields hadn’t fully grown yet, life was visibly returning to Yicheng.
However, there were too many ability users and survivors stealing water along the way. The base couldn’t manage them all, and in the end, many holes were punctured in the pipeline. Yicheng’s base decided to dig channels along the existing pipes. The water that leaked from the punctures wasn’t wasted, it flowed through the channels toward Yicheng. Anyone along the way who needed water could take some; as long as the main pipeline remained intact, most of the water would still reach the Yicheng base.
To thank Xin Xiaoru, the Yicheng base made a decision: they would build walls around Youzhuang, enclosing several nearby hills, including terraced hills whose owners had died or turned into zombies, stopping only at hills with living owners. All other areas were incorporated into Youzhuang’s territory.
Looking at the map, the length of the walls wasn’t shorter than the Yicheng base, and when factoring in the uneven terrain, the area enclosed was even larger than the Yicheng base itself.
They acted decisively, mobilizing both laborers and ability users to do infrastructure work day and night, full of energy, seemingly tireless. Their efforts shocked the people of Youzhuang.
The residents of Youzhuang, who were insiders, hadn’t even started building walls yet, but Yicheng was far more proactive… making the Youzhuang people feel even more useless.
So the Youzhuang residents, in addition to farming every day, began helping to build walls, stacking bricks, and constructing watchtowers.
The drought lasted a long time, sometimes causing wildfires or small fires in concentrated areas due to the heat. Xin Xiaoru, relying on memories from her previous life, estimated they would have to stay outside for another six months.
But food supplies were nearly exhausted. They couldn’t support so many people and had to work the fields themselves.
So when the tenants were fully occupied in November, she returned to Youzhuang at top speed, moving the new tenants and the hundred-person extra-dimensional hotel there. She planned to leave the last of her food behind and then request additional stored supplies from the Yicheng base before setting out again.
When she returned home, Xin Xiaoru was speechlessly shocked at the changes in Youzhuang.
The once sparse terraced fields were now lush and green, with various crops and vegetables beginning to take shape.
The newly built walls and watchtowers clearly enclosed the hills for miles around. From the height of the RV, looking down, there was a sense of bold territorial control.
Thick pipelines connected to small channels, winding down toward distant Yicheng. However, since the RV had just returned today, there was no water, and the pipelines and channels looked somewhat dry.
The Youzhuang farmers sensed something, looked up, and saw the familiar cream-colored RV. They immediately waved and cheered, calling out “Boss Xin!” and “Leader Xin!”
Pale yellow chicks and ducklings followed their mother, chirping meaninglessly.
Youzhuang now even had livestock.
As the RV approached the livestock area, Xin Xiaoru noticed not only chickens and ducks but also lambs and piglets. They were eating a mix of scraps, looking bewildered.
Xin Xiaoru: “…” She felt her own gaze was even more clueless than that of the chicks and ducklings.
How could her Youzhuang have upgraded and transformed in just a few days?!
When she went to check out the Yicheng base, Xin Xiaoru understood: it had been their doing.
Whether it was building walls, doing infrastructure, or raising livestock, the Yicheng base was far more experienced than Xin Xiaoru. Having received her help, they returned the favor, and in just one month, Xin Xiaoru’s Youzhuang underwent a massive transformation.
Xin Xiaoru’s expression was complicated.
As expected, infrastructure work really needed professionals!
Originally, she hadn’t planned to join the base, thinking she was free and independent, and that was fine. Now she realized that having a mutually beneficial partner, someone to support each other, made everything so much easier.
She also didn’t feel that the Yicheng people were too numerous or hard to manage.
Really, as long as everyone could live well together, who would deliberately cause trouble? Moreover, she had heard from the Youzhuang residents that many ordinary people from the Yicheng base had come to help build the walls.
So, after a brief return home to settle the newcomers and the new hotel, Xin Xiaoru decided she would return two months later, at the end of January next year.
By then, the tenants of the 30-person hotel would hand over their first batch of crops, whether leftover food, discounted rent from the first quarter, prepaid rent for the next quarter, and so on, all of it would show her the results and replenish her already depleted stock.
At that time, the RV’s upgrade speed would jump from the current three upgrades per day to 33 per day, quickly reaching Lv5, and even potentially Lv6, unlocking more RV functions.
At present, the Lv4 RV had 16 square meters of space, a 30-person hotel, and a 100-person hotel. At the next stage, Lv5 would add 100 square meters. According to system instructions, the ceiling height would increase from the current 5 meters to 10 meters, perfect for using as a warehouse for rent collection.
Xin Xiaoru looked at the bulletin board, calculating upgrade speed and potential gains, feeling a huge sense of satisfaction.
It seemed that the most hectic period had simply passed.
The group rested in Youzhuang for a day, held a day-long meeting at Yicheng base, and on the third day set out again.
This time, the group included Xin Xiaoru, He Guying, Zhao Changyue, the clingy Song Weiyu, three ability user children they had brought back last time, and two ability users from the fertilizer factory.
Xin Xiaoru took them out to train together, coordinating their abilities to fight zombies. The remaining ability users trained in shifts with the Yicheng base and took turns guarding Youzhuang.
They had their own wages, and whether it was crystal cores or food, Li Dayuan managed distribution on their behalf.
Xin Xiaoru didn’t have time to linger or inspect further, continuing the journey to fetch water from other regions.
By the time they set out, it was already January of the following year.
The drought in Yicheng was starting to ease, and the rainfall in the rainstorm area had finally reached a critical turning point.