Chapter 32: Stop

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: Stop

Wang Jian Country grew pale at the sight. He immediately drew the gleaming fruit knife from his waist and pointed it at the frenzied crowd. "If any of you dare to take a single step forward, I’ll gut you!" he roared hoarsely. "The blade goes in clean, and it comes out bloody!"

Wang Jian Country originally thought drawing his weapon would intimidate the starving mob. To his surprise, the crowd suddenly pulled out their own gleaming knives. A dozen sharp blades flashed with a sinister, cold light in the corridor. Most of the knife-wielders were men, and they all glared at Wang Jian Country with the eyes of ravenous wolves.

"Wang Jian Country, did you think you were the only one carrying a blade? We brought ours too!"

"You think a whole group of us can’t take down one guy? Stop trying to be a hero. Take us to your place and hand over all the hoarded supplies so we can split them!"

The frenzied crowd shouted at Wang Jian Country, pointing their dozen gleaming knives straight at him.

Cold sweat seeped from Wang Jian Country’s forehead, quickly freezing into ice shards as it met the freezing air.

"Don’t come any closer! Whoever dares to approach, I’ll fight you to the death!" Wang Jian Country glared with bloodshot eyes, brandishing his knife in the air to threaten the mob. However, his tone had already begun to waver.

The residents before him could no longer be called "residents." They were a pack of starving wolves. Every single one of them stared at him with hungry, ferocious eyes, looking as if they wanted nothing more than to tear him to pieces on the spot. These were the same people who used to respectfully call him Brother Wang. Now, they had turned into ruthless beasts, clamoring to devour his family’s rations.

Wang Jian Country did, in fact, have a hidden stockpile of supplies at home. Whenever a resident in the building died, he would use his authority as the property manager to sneak into their apartment alone. He would first take the necessities he needed for his wife and children, and only then would he allow the remaining living residents to scavenge what was left. Since more than half the residents in Building 5 had already perished, he had naturally hoarded quite a lot.

He hadn’t wanted to do it at first. When he scavenged from the first deceased resident’s home, Wang Jian Country went through a long and agonizing moral dilemma. But looking at his crying, starving children and his gaunt, emaciated wife, reality ultimately defeated his sense of morality.

He remembered it clearly. The first to die was an elderly man living alone on the fifth floor. At that time, Wang Jian Country took half a bag of rice and a bag of powdered milk from the man’s apartment. Once there was a first time, a second and third inevitably followed. From then on, whenever someone died, he would quietly visit their home to take the first pick of the supplies, bringing them back to keep his wife and two children alive. It was precisely because of this that his family had survived until now.

Snapping back to reality, Wang Jian Country looked at the knife-wielding beasts screaming at him to hand over his stash. He thought in despair, "I’m going to die here today..."

"Wang Jian Country, every time someone in this building dies, you’re the first one in to take their stuff, aren’t you?"

"I refuse to believe you could have survived this long without profiting off the dead!"

"Hurry up and hand over the supplies you embezzled, or your whole family is going to die!"

The crowd had lost their minds. No one was human anymore; everyone had become a beast. The women, pale with fright, dragged their children into the corners to hide. The little ones burst into terrified, wailing tears. The sobbing of the women and children mixed with the crazed shouting of the mob, echoing through the gloomy stairwell like the bloodcurdling howls of ghosts and wolves.

As for Wang Liping, she was already too terrified to speak. Although she also held a fruit knife, she was so shaken that she had even forgotten to remove the sheath. Her expression was one of sheer horror and shock, leaving her completely mute.

Wang Jian Country wasn’t the only one secretly taking the dead’s belongings; Wang Liping was guilty of it, too. Every time someone in the building perished, Wang Jian Country would be the first to loot, with Wang Liping following close behind. She hadn’t wanted to do it at first either, but she and her husband needed to survive! The instinct to live triumphed over everything else.

Wang Liping stared at the out-of-control mob in sheer terror. She wondered despairingly if she would be the next victim once Wang Jian Country was killed.

Chen Momo witnessed this horrifying scene with her own eyes. She subconsciously took two steps back, tightly gripping the knife in her hand. The living had completely devolved into animals, willing to commit murder just to fight over a meager amount of supplies.

Chen Momo quickly analyzed the situation. If anything happened to Wang Jian Country and Wang Liping, she would swiftly be next—Yang Hong and Zhang Qiang already knew she had provisions in her apartment, and that news would spread fast. Therefore, she absolutely could not let Wang Jian Country and Wang Liping die!

At that thought, Chen Momo suddenly shouted, "Stop!"

Her cry carried an immensely powerful and intimidating force. It was sharp and imposing, instantly suppressing the frenzy of the knife-wielding residents. They all turned their heads to stare at Chen Momo in astonishment. However, upon seeing that the speaker was nothing more than a frail, skinny woman, the crowd sneered at her.

Secretly tightening her grip on her knife, Chen Momo locked eyes with the unruly mob and enunciated every word. "Brother Wang and Sister Wang are the only people in this building who can contact the rescue team. If you kill them, we will lose our very last chance of survival."

Upon hearing Chen Momo’s words, the crazed crowd gradually began to settle down. A man in the group stepped forward and took the opportunity to speak. "She’s right! I urge everyone to stay calm. Wang Jian Country has been actively communicating with the rescue team since the snowstorm began. If anything happens to him, we’ll lose our final hope of making it out alive!"

The speaker was a young man from the twelfth floor named Zhang Liang. Witnessing the recent events had terrified him as well. Zhang Liang glanced at Chen Momo, a look of admiration welling up in his eyes. To be able to step forward at a time like this proved that this woman possessed extraordinary wisdom and courage. If it hadn’t been for this seemingly delicate woman intervening, someone would have undoubtedly been killed on the spot.

Hearing Zhang Liang’s reasoning, the previously chaotic crowd slowly calmed down. They gradually put away their gleaming knives and stopped clamoring for Wang Jian Country’s blood. Wang Jian Country, however, remained on edge. Coming to his senses after being severely traumatized, he found that his legs were still trembling uncontrollably.

"Then what should we do now? We can’t just sit here and wait to starve to death!" someone in the unruly crowd shouted again.

Chen Momo kept a tight grip on her knife and spoke calmly. "What we are doing right now is slaughtering each other, and that will only lead to one outcome: everyone will die. Instead of being trapped in this building killing one another, we’d be better off trying to find opportunities elsewhere. There are many office buildings, malls, and restaurants across the street from us. Before the blizzard hit, those places definitely had leftover provisions that couldn’t be taken away in time. If we smash open the main doors and head across the street from the complex, we are bound to find some supplies."