Chapter 30: Xu Xiaoka’s True Level

Chapter 30: Chapter 30: Xu Xiaoka’s True Level

With that, she confiscated all the instant noodles in Xu Xiaoka’s suitcase and pulled her to the table, telling her to eat breakfast with Xiao Bao.

Touched, Xu Xiaoka felt incredibly grateful, thinking that Sister Momo was truly wonderful to her. Since the apocalypse began so many days ago, this was the first time she had eaten a boiled egg! Xu Xiaoka picked it up and wolfed it down. The rich aroma filled her senses. As she took her first bite, tears of gratitude rolled down her cheeks.

"Eat slowly, or you’ll choke," Chen Momo couldn’t help but remind her when she saw this.

Sure enough, the egg yolk got stuck in Xu Xiaoka’s throat. Just as she was about to grab some water, Chen Momo got up, went into the kitchen, and brought out three steaming bowls of millet porridge.

"Have some porridge!" Chen Momo handed a bowl to Xu Xiaoka, then placed the other two in front of her son and herself. She had cooked and stored this porridge in her spatial dimension before the apocalypse hit.

"There’s porridge too?" Xu Xiaoka could hardly believe it. Life at Sister Momo’s place was absolute bliss! She took large, eager gulps, weeping tears of joy as she ate.

Ever since the surviving households merged, combining two families into one, supplies were noticeably conserved. Pooling resources together allowed for better rationing and longer-lasting provisions. Not only did this save food, but the combined body heat and shared living spaces also raised the indoor temperatures.

Naturally, the mortality rate among the residents dropped. Previously, one or two households died off every day. Now, with the new arrangements, a death only occurred every three or four days. At first, everyone was relieved by the declining death rate, but the residents soon plunged into a new kind of anxiety. Fewer deaths meant fewer sources of scavenged supplies. And without a steady influx of resources, survival was impossible! In this twisted reality, for the living to persist, someone had to die. The more people perished, the longer the survivors could live off their remains.

Meanwhile, Chen Momo became even more cautious when cooking. Before, everyone was isolated. Now that neighbors were pairing up, if two united families decided to smash her door down, it was hard to say whether she could fend them off. To avoid any unnecessary trouble, she took out some weatherstripping, planning to seal all the doors and windows once more to prevent food smells from leaking.

"Sister Momo, let me do it!" Xu Xiaoka volunteered eagerly.

Having stayed here for a few days, she felt guilty about eating without contributing. Seeing Chen Momo preparing the weatherstripping, she immediately stepped up and offered to handle the task.

Chen Momo thought that this worked out well. Leaving the weatherstripping to Xu Xiaoka would free up her own time for other tasks.

Xiao Bao came pattering over, tilting his little head up with an adorable expression. "Sister, I’ll help!"

Looking at Chen Xiaobao’s cute, chubby cheeks, Xu Xiaoka felt an overwhelming urge to pinch them. "Okay!" she said gently. "Xiao Bao can help me put up the tape!"

The two of them got to work. For the lower spots, they each held one end of the strip, carefully pressing it into place. For the higher spots, Chen Xiaobao held the stool steady while Xu Xiaoka climbed up to apply the tape meticulously.

Taking advantage of the free time, Chen Momo returned to her room and entered her spatial dimension to take inventory of her supplies. Her stockpiles were depleting faster than she had anticipated—especially the solar panels. She hadn’t expected the temperatures in this lifetime’s apocalypse to be even lower than the last. The extreme cold drained the solar panels rapidly, and two were already broken beyond use. Other essentials were also being consumed ahead of schedule. She would have to figure out a way to replenish her spatial dimension’s inventory soon.

Following the merging of households, the apartment building experienced a period of eerie quiet.

That was, until the forty-fifth day of the apocalypse, when a sudden shriek shattered the silence on her floor.

"Murder!"

"Ah! Someone’s being murdered!"

The bloodcurdling screams echoed through the empty hallway like the wails of a ghost. Chen Momo immediately ordered Xu Xiaoka to take Chen Xiaobao back to the bedroom. Grabbing a Swiss Army knife and a fruit knife for herself, she crept to the door and peered through the peephole.

A woman, covered in blood, stumbled into view. Before she could make it more than a few steps, a tall, lanky man caught up to her. Like a crazed maniac, he wielded a fruit knife and stabbed her back relentlessly. The woman quickly collapsed in a pool of blood, which soon froze into crimson ice shards against the freezing floor.

When the man finally straightened up and lifted his head, a few splattered droplets of blood still clung to his glasses.

Chen Momo was shocked to realize that this was the very same man who had brought his wife and child to her door just days ago, asking to merge households! As for the woman he had just slaughtered, she was clearly the wife from the other family they had partnered with. The exact reason for the murder was unclear to Chen Momo. This man looked so refined and had spoken so politely; she never would have expected this.

Deeply shaken, Chen Momo secretly rejoiced that she had refused to let his family move in. Driven to extremes by the harshest of environments, people inevitably exposed their primal instincts. Even someone with the most civilized exterior could reveal a savage, bloodthirsty nature when pushed to the brink. Today, she had witnessed it firsthand.

Snapping back to reality, Chen Momo realized the hand gripping her knife was trembling.

Through the peephole, she saw the couple living directly across from her—Zhang Qiang and Yang Hong—crack their door open. They glanced at the dead woman lying in the pool of blood with complete indifference. If anything, their expressions were almost mocking.

"Someone died," Yang Hong said with a laugh.

"Good thing we didn’t merge our household with anyone," Zhang Qiang chimed in. "Two families will never truly be on the same page. It’s fine when there are no issues, but the moment a conflict arises, someone ends up dead."

Having finished watching the bloody spectacle, the couple turned their gaze toward Chen Momo’s door. Yang Hong stared at it for a moment and curled her lip. "The woman in 1608 never leaves her place. She’s cooped up inside every single day. Who knows what she’s doing in there."

Zhang Qiang scoffed. "Who knows. If you ask me, she’s in a dangerous spot. A widow and her young son—if anything goes wrong, they don’t even have a single helper around."

Yang Hong frowned. "You seem awfully concerned about that widow and her son."

Zhang Qiang gave a sleazy chuckle. "What’s wrong? Are you jealous? But honestly, that woman is pretty damn good-looking."

Yang Hong glared at him. "Get your ass back inside! You shameless dog!"

With that, the couple slammed their door shut with a loud BANG. Right before it closed, Yang Hong shot a vicious glare in the direction of Chen Momo’s apartment.

Suddenly, a series of massive BOOM, BOOM, BOOM sounds erupted from downstairs. The rhythmic thuds were so forceful that they shook the entire building, sounding exactly like someone violently smashing a door. Yet, not a single person in the complex dared to step outside and check.

Chen Momo retrieved two sets of weapons and pepper spray she had stockpiled in her spatial dimension before the apocalypse, including a military combat knife and a fruit knife. Then, she called Xu Xiaoka and Chen Xiaobao out of the bedroom.

"Do you know any martial arts?" Chen Momo asked Xu Xiaoka.

Xu Xiaoka nodded. "I know Taekwondo."

Chen Momo was mildly surprised. This girl looked so delicate and fragile; who would have thought she secretly possessed Taekwondo skills? This instantly sparked Chen Momo’s curiosity. She decided she needed to test out Xu Xiaoka’s true combat proficiency!