After Auntie Zhang and her son woke a few days earlier, the world outside had already changed, there was nothing to buy, and it was only fortunate they still had a bit of old stock.
Since yesterday, more shops had opened, and at last there were things to purchase.
But Auntie Zhang had been so wrapped up in the smug glow of having an ability that whenever she went out it was to buy clothes and perm her hair.
She hadn’t much education, couldn’t think of long-term matters, and had no sense of crisis at all.
Hearing her son’s words, Auntie Zhang too realized something was wrong.
She hurriedly threw on a coat, planning to go out and buy more to stockpile.
There were many shops outside the resettlement housing, and now more than half were open, every one of them packed with people.
Mother and son struggled half the day and finally managed to buy a single bag of goods, enough to last them only two days.
Many shops, having opened a mere two or three hours, then closed, go too late and there was simply nothing left to buy.
Something occurred to Zhang Xinren, and he asked, “Ma, when you were at Shan Ran’s place last night, did you see what she’s stockpiled?”
“Her fridge and pantry had a fair amount, but about the same as before she went to District 4, no real change.”
At that, Auntie Zhang suddenly remembered.
“I don’t know what her basement’s like, I was too busy last night and forgot to go down. But she’s got a big cold room on basement level two, there’s definitely a lot stored in there.”
Mother and son exchanged a glance, the same thought had struck them both.
They had to go take a look at Shan Ran’s place.
When they reached that big villa, the workers in the yard were still hard at it.
Zhang Xinren stared at the utterly transformed house before him, eyes wide, rooted in place.
Hearing about it from his mother was one thing, seeing it with his own eyes was another.
A thought suddenly welled up in his heart: even if something big really did happen later, living in a house like this would be quite safe, wouldn’t it?
At that thought, his gaze, as it moved across the place, gradually turned greedy.
Auntie Zhang had brought her keys.
In the past, while Shan Ran was in class, she would simply unlock the door and go in, but now the key wouldn’t fit into the lock at all.
They looked at each other in disbelief.
“Shan Ran changed the lock?”
“She didn’t even change the door, why would she change the lock?”
Auntie Zhang’s breathing grew rapid.
“It can’t be… to guard against ‘me’, can it?”
Zhang Xinren thought about it and reassured her, “Ma, you two have known each other so long, there’s no reason she’d do that. Hasn’t she been remodeling lately? Maybe she just changed the lock because of the renovations.”
That made sense to Auntie Zhang, so the two decided to come back and feel things out next time.
‘She’d looked after Shan Ran for so long, all those years of goodwill! Shan Ran lived in that huge house all alone, with so many things, what would sharing a little with them even cost her?’
After gaining his ability, Zhang Xinren’s self-confidence had swelled all the more.
He’d liked Shan Ran to begin with, it was only that she’d always cut the figure of an aloof little princess high above him, and that he’d worried about affecting his mother’s job, so he’d hidden it well all this time.
But things were different now.
If Shan Ran had no ability, he could protect her, maybe even become her other half and take care of her.
And then the house and supplies would all be his.
Shan Ran was out buying supplies just then, with no idea of the scheming mother and son.
It had to be said, Auntie Zhang’s work was solid, she’d done an excellent job cleaning the house.
Rising at dawn, Shan Ran worked out for over an hour in the third-floor gym before heading out.
The Shan Ran of the book had always practiced striking and combat techniques, which lined up almost exactly with the real Shan Ran’s own habits.
She wondered if it was a coincidence.
Today was the seventh day.
The streets were gradually filling with people, and some official agencies had opened too.
Shan Ran learned that the district chiefs of Districts 1 and 2 had both gained abilities and were restoring social order.
Ordinary people on the Third Continent couldn’t connect to the other two continents’ networks and knew nothing of the situation over there.
But Shan Ran had a special route and could access both sides’ networks.
On the Second Continent, the public was currently barred from going out at will: except for certain essential workplaces, each household, whether for shopping or any other need, could send out only one person at a time.
The First Continent was stricter still: all citizens were forbidden to go out unless they held a special work permit, even supplies couldn’t be bought in person, only purchased collectively by the community and then distributed to each household.
The great families went further, forbidding anyone from entering or leaving, strictly protecting all family members, and inside news seldom leaked out.
By comparison, the Third Continent might be a chaotic mess, but at least you could come and go freely.
Today, besides stocking up, Shan Ran also had to go pick up a modao at a place the black market had referred her to.
The spot was in an urban village in District 1’s central city.
District 1 had no slums, but every city had a few urban villages, houses packed tight, alleys narrow, residents many and mixed.
Shan Ran parked outside the urban village and got out.
A tall, heavy-duty RV, a beautiful, willowy young woman.
The moment Shan Ran appeared, she drew no small number of stares.
But no one made any rash move, a girl who showed up this conspicuously, and alone, might well have some terrifying ability.
Stepping into the urban village, it was a good deal more chaotic inside than it looked from without.
Quarreling drifted down from upstairs, two parties cursing each other across a corridor, a few people brandishing kitchen cleavers, the other side about to use an ability, but both sides were only making threats, nobody actually throwing down.
The ground floors along the main road inside were mostly shops, more than half were shuttered, but the open ones, salons, stores, restaurants alike, had plenty of people coming and going.
There was no avoiding the odd squabble.
Shan Ran smoothly picked up the modao she wanted, a long-hafted blade [1] modao: a heavy two-handed saber, the kind once carried by Tang-dynasty soldiers jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2777446_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2777446_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); that she’d had shortened to her specifications: about 1.5 meters long, weighing 8 kilograms.
If not for the fact that Shan Ran stood 1.7 meters tall, had trained for years, and had practiced with the blade as a hobby before transmigrating, she couldn’t have wielded this thing at all.
Besides firearms, she definitely wanted a handy melee weapon on hand, better safe than sorry.
Shan Ran strapped the modao across her back and walked slowly out.
Passing through a narrow crossroads, she heard a muffled “‘mmph, mmph'” from the alley on the right, mixed with a child’s broken, sobbing cries for help.
Shan Ran frowned, hesitated two seconds, then decided to go take a look.
The alley was very narrow, with ground-floor entry doors along one side.
The first few households all had their doors and windows shut tight.
Near the alley’s end, one door was left ajar, the sound was coming from inside.
Drawing closer, Shan Ran heard the tearing of cloth.
She shoved the door open in one motion, and the scene inside leapt into view.
It was a room of thirty-some square meters, no partitions, the bedroom and living area were divided only by a curtain, which had now fallen to the floor, leaving the interior in plain sight.
By the door and in a corner lay two unconscious men.
On the floor lay a girl of around ten, she was the one crying, and she seemed badly hurt, unable to move.
On the bed, a girl of about twenty was struggling: one man pinned her legs and one arm, another covered her mouth to stop her from making a sound.
The girl could move only one hand, struggling and pounding at the man even as she did, but she was far too weak to budge him in the slightest.
At that moment all four still conscious people inside froze and looked toward Shan Ran in the doorway.
The two men’s eyes lit up, they whistled.
“Oh-ho! An even prettier one’s here. Today’s our lucky day, hahahaha…..”
The man covering the girl’s mouth stood and started toward Shan Ran.
With her mouth freed, the girl didn’t hesitate, she screamed at Shan Ran, “Run! They all have abilities!”
The injured little girl on the floor sobbed too, barely managing to lift a hand, the faint shape of a flower appeared before her, lasted a single second, then vanished.
The man advanced with a savage grin, a crocodile’s tail sprouting behind him as he came, one hand turning into a crocodile claw.
“Little beauty, big brother’s ability is amazing. Come along with big brother, be good and don’t squirm~”
Shan Ran’s face was expressionless.
The instant he stepped into her attack range, she reverse-gripped the haft, drew the blade, and swept it straight down, lopping off the man’s other, untransformed hand.
It was all over in two seconds, everyone stood stunned.
How could the man have imagined a surprise strike from that distance, ‘an inch longer, an inch stronger’ [2] a martial proverb: extra reach gives the decisive edge in a fight jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2777446_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2777446_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, that was exactly the long blade’s unexpected advantage.
The man stared dumbly at his spurting arm, slow to react, before letting out an earth-shattering scream.
Under the agony, his potential erupted, his face went crocodilian too, the long snout thrusting forward.
He opened his jaws wide, baring rows of dense, serrated teeth, and lunged to bite at Shan Ran.
Shan Ran shifted from a slash to a thrust, driving the blade into the inner palate of the lunging crocodile.
It was the man’s first time conjuring a crocodile head, and in his panic he’d used the clumsiest method, exposing his most vulnerable spot.
Getting a powerful ability was one thing, you also had to use it sensibly to get the effect it ought to have.
The razor-keen modao flashed cold and ran the crocodile head clean through.
Shan Ran kicked the man away, he hit the floor and, still half-man, half-crocodile, stopped breathing.
The other man came to his senses and lunged forward with a furious roar.
Two earthen spikes appeared out of thin air, shooting straight at Shan Ran’s eyes from very close range, an earth-element esper.
Shan Ran leaned back, her waist folding into an extraordinarily supple angle, the spikes carried past on their own momentum and smashed into the wall.
The ground rolled, and Shan Ran spun and sprang away in a flash, a row of earthen cones erupted where she’d just been standing.
Bracing one hand on the floor to steady herself, she lifted her eyes to the wild-eyed man ahead, calculated the distance between them in an instant, planted her left hand, gripped the blade in her right, and, borrowing the force of her surging charge, slashed diagonally upward, shearing the man’s head clean off.
Shan Ran examined the modao in her hands and nodded, satisfied.
It sliced through steel like mud, a fine blade indeed.
These two men’s abilities were stronger than any she’d seen on the street before, their attack power formidable too.
If they hadn’t underestimated her and chosen to strike together at the same time, Shan Ran might have had to draw her gun.
The girl on the bed had watched, in the space of a few blinks, two men who’d been so insufferably arrogant a moment ago become two corpses.
Still not caught up to it, she stared blankly at Shan Ran, her lips moving a few times, saying nothing.
“Are these two on the floor their accomplices?”
The girl on the bed sat up and nodded.
Shan Ran stepped forward, lifted the little girl crying breathlessly on the floor over to the bedside, then without hesitation gave each of the two unconscious men a blade, and sent them on their way.
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