The city was very lively at night.
Qin Sang rode her scooter past the urban village and into the commercial district. Before the apocalypse, this area had factories and office buildings, but now they were completely empty. The people she encountered along the way were either killing cockroaches or resting in the cleared-out areas while setting up stalls to sell things.
Yes, in this area, killing cockroaches also meant that any supplies you cleared out belonged to you personally. However, killing cockroaches here didn’t earn you points. Unlike when they went into the city before, where they could accept missions through the survival app and everyone got a base number of points.
That night, Qin Sang hadn’t killed any cockroaches, but because she discovered the giant spider and saved several people, she was rewarded with 1,000 points by the authorities after returning. The points had already been deposited into her account. Right now, Qin Sang felt terrifyingly rich.
There were quite a few people ahead, and the area was brightly lit. Many people were setting up stalls, so Qin Sang folded up her scooter and switched to walking.
“Do you want to go into the market?”
Just as Qin Sang approached, a middle-aged woman stopped her.
“Yes, is something wrong?”
The middle-aged woman rubbed her hands together. “Do you need a guide?”
This remark immediately reminded Qin Sang of her experience in Chaonan City. She directly shook her head. Ignoring the woman’s unpleasant expression, she walked right past her and entered the market.
It was called a market, but it was really just a square with stalls set up. The square was brightly lit, and cockroaches generally didn’t come near. As for the occasional stray cockroach, everyone could now kill them without batting an eye.
There were quite a few stalls selling food and drink, as well as various weapons. However, most of the weapons were clearly very crude. Truly useful things wouldn’t be sold here in a stall.
Of course, there were also people selling jade. Whether it was real or not, and whether it could grant someone spatial storage, was anyone’s guess.
Qin Sang spent half an hour browsing every stall. She really didn’t find anything that interested her and was about to leave when she ran into that middle-aged woman again.
The woman didn’t seem to notice her. She was chatting animatedly with a young man.
“I’m telling you, there are definitely a lot of giant cockroaches in that place. I can’t guarantee anything else, but the cockroaches there will definitely satisfy you.”
Qin Sang raised an eyebrow, thinking to herself that there shouldn’t be any large-scale cockroach gathering areas left in Huashan City. They were all dealing with scattered cockroach groups now.
The middle-aged woman had already taken out her phone and was showing it to the young man.
Qin Sang’s eyesight was truly excellent. From a distance, she could clearly see the animated picture on the screen.
My eyes…
Qin Sang closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. She felt like her eyes had been sullied.
But seriously, there really were a lot of giant cockroaches! Those were walking points. The authorities were currently very eager to collect giant cockroaches.
However, Qin Sang felt that she already had a terrifying number of points, so she wasn’t going to bother with this. But she didn’t hesitate to report the location to the management bureau.
Of course, she had already seen the address from the animated picture. It wasn’t anywhere else—it was the cockroach farm where Old Uncle Lü from their village worked as a security guard. This farm was located in the suburbs of Huashan City, not too far from here, about an hour’s drive.
Logically, this place should have been cleared out immediately. She didn’t know why this middle-aged woman was openly advertising it at a folk market like this.
After reporting the situation, Qin Sang left directly.
Watching her carefree retreating figure, the middle-aged woman’s expression immediately turned vicious. The young man she had been talking to, meanwhile, changed from his just-acting simple and honest demeanor to a shrewd one.
“Mom, do you think this woman will take the bait?”
The middle-aged woman sneered, “Why wouldn’t she? We’ve already fooled several people into going.”
The shrewd young man said, “That would be best. The more people go to offer themselves up, the more we’ll be able to harvest later!”
The mother and son chuckled to themselves as they talked, as if thinking of something truly remarkable.
And what about Qin Sang?
At this moment, contrary to the mother and son’s imagination, she wasn’t heading straight for the suburbs. Instead, she rode her scooter directly to the nearby official office.
Her reasons for coming out tonight were, aside from wanting to walk around the neighborhood and try her luck at possibly encountering mutated insects, to personally find Xu Lin. She wanted to tell him in detail the information she had gotten from Grandpa Goose.
Xu Lin had access to a lot of information. He might be able to discover more details that Qin Sang didn’t know.
—
“Boss, boss! There’s a beautiful woman downstairs looking for you!”
Xu Lin, who was in the middle of screening useful information, heard Xiao Ma’s words and froze for a moment. He wondered who was looking for him. Then his phone popped up a message from Sangsang.
“Alright, get back to work. I’ll go downstairs and check it out.” With that, he closed his computer and ran straight downstairs.
Seeing this, a few of the guys in the office pulled Xiao Ma aside to ask who the visitor was, to get the boss so excited.
Xu Lin didn’t think he was excited. He was just walking a little faster, that was all.
“Sangsang, did something happen at home? Why did you come here to find me?”
Qin Sang was sitting in the waiting area on the first floor. Hearing Xu Lin’s words, she smiled. “Nothing’s wrong. Can you take some time off right now?”
Xu Lin knew something was up. He picked up his phone, sent a message to his work group, then gestured for Qin Sang to head outside.
“This entire street is full of official departments. It’s very safe.” Xu Lin walked and talked, pointing out which building belonged to which department and which unit. He led her all the way to an open area at the end of the street. This used to be a park. After the apocalypse, the park’s greenery had all turned yellow, so the Forestry Bureau had simply cleared it out. Fortunately, some exercise equipment remained, keeping the place from looking too bare.
Qin Sang didn’t waste any time. She used her spiritual power to scan the surroundings and, after confirming there was no danger, told Xu Lin everything she had learned from Grandpa Goose. Of course, she didn’t mention Grandpa Goose directly, only the content of the information. Xu Lin knew that Qin Sang had secrets. But since she didn’t bring them up, he would never ask. And he trusted Qin Sang unconditionally.
After hearing her out, Xu Lin’s expression didn’t change much.
“So if there are many of those energy crystals, there will be many mutated insects.”
Qin Sang nodded. “I plan to spend more time outside in the coming days, trying to find these mutated insects. If you come across any information, let me know.”
As a maintenance staff member for the survival app, Xu Lin was exposed to a vast amount of information on a daily basis. He was bound to come across reports of unusual areas.
“You don’t have any proper weapons,” Xu Lin said. He wasn’t trying to stop Qin Sang, nor did he think she was overestimating herself. The Sangsang he knew was a brave, resourceful, and intelligent girl.
But no matter how smart or capable she was, human strength was insignificant in the face of mutated insects. Their internal emergency meetings had already informed them of the lethality of these creatures. In a one-on-one fight, even a weaponless elite soldier would be helpless.
Mutated insects were creatures on a completely different level.
Qin Sang smiled mysteriously. “I have a weapon.”
Unfortunately, I’m just too weak. That was Qin Sang’s inner complaint about not being able to draw the Dragon’s Roar Bow.
“I won’t be foolish and charge in blindly.”
Seeing this, Xu Lin didn’t say anything more. Instead, he thought about whether he could get his hands on one of the newly developed large-scale electric grid guns.
“By the way, what I just told you—the authorities will probably figure it out soon too.”
Qin Sang never underestimated the power of a nation. This was a global disaster. The combined intelligence of the world’s brightest minds would surely uncover the unique nature of these mutated insects. It was only a matter of time.
Her goal was to use this time lag to collect some energy crystals to give to Grandpa Goose. Collecting more energy crystals would also reduce the birth of more mutated insects.
After that, the two discussed some family matters. Then, Qin Sang left first.
Back in his office, Xu Lin opened his computer and continued working. Only this time, when running the data filtering program, he added many new variables.
Meanwhile, Qin Sang wandered around the area a bit more. Seeing nothing unusual and realizing it was getting late, she rode her scooter straight home to sleep.
She slept for a full eight hours.
At 9 a.m., Qin Sang woke up. After washing up, she took a bowl of Char Siu rice noodles from her space for breakfast. After breakfast, she called her parents to begin their daily spiritual power training at home.
Of course, after training outside for an hour, the whole family went into the Roast Goose Space to continue training.
In terms of efficiency and energy concentration, the space was still better. But Qin Sang felt that the family needed to acclimate to the energy concentration outside the space. After all, battles would take place in the outside world. Adapting to the energy concentration outside would allow them to better utilize the free-floating energy in the air during combat.
Training ended at noon.
The three Qins had lunch. Again, they ate ready-made food from the space. With the recent insect plague, they didn’t cook at home. They just ate pre-prepared food. If they did need to cook, they did it in the space. The outside felt a bit disgusting.
After lunch, the family napped for half an hour. Then they got up and continued training.
It sounded boring, but spending such a peaceful day left the whole family content.
Unfortunately, peaceful days were always short.
That evening, before the sun had even set, Old Uncle Lü started posting little videos in the village group.
“Oh dear, what the heck is Old Lü posting?”
Qin Ma was eating dinner while scrolling through her phone when she saw new messages popping up in the village group. She opened one and immediately lost her appetite for the braised pig intestines in front of her.
Because the dense cockroaches in the video were frighteningly similar in color to the braised pig intestines.
Qin Sang saw the same scene she had seen the night before and inwardly wailed again, My eyes!!
Qin Ba, on the other hand, didn’t mind at all. He continued eating noisily and happily.
Qin Sang silently switched to a basket of crystal shrimp dumplings. She decided it was much more comforting to eat food where she could actually see the ingredients inside.
Back in the village, countless people were cursing at Old Lü. After they finished, Old Lü fired back with thirty voice messages, each one cursing back at those who had cursed him.
“I was being kind by telling you there are points everywhere here.”
“You don’t know a good deed when you see one. Someone posted this in our company group, and I immediately shared it with everyone.”
“Believe it or not, I don’t care. I’ve done my part.”
People started loudly apologizing to Old Lü. But not a single person said they were going over there to kill cockroaches for points.
The reason was that when they went into the city to take on missions a couple of days ago, a young man from the village had died. When asked, the other young people who had been with him couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer any questions. They only said he was dead, not how he died. The official who came to notify the family repeatedly reminded them not to ask too many questions.
In the end, the family could only cremate their son that very night.
After hearing what happened to that Brother Hao, Qin Sang knew that the authorities had sworn the other young people to secrecy. That was good. Otherwise, Qin Sang suspected her house would have been surrounded again.
Brother Hao’s family would have come to blame her and demand to know why she didn’t save him. Others would have come to pry for information about the giant spider.
Now that everything was confidential, Qin Sang was spared that trouble.
Just as she was reading the various messages from the villagers, Qin Sang saw the survival app push a notification directly to her.
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