A rustling sound abruptly broke the silence. The sky had gone completely dark, not a trace of light remaining.
“They’re here…”
As Qin Sang warned her parents, she carefully suppressed her own aura. Qin’s father and mother did the same. As for Ye Fei, who had come with them, Qin Sang had already sent him over to Captain Qin’s group. This captain, who shared her surname, seemed reliable—and he’d clearly managed the larger group well.
At that moment, Captain Qin’s team made a series of hand gestures.
Several squads simultaneously retreated deeper into their freshly dug holes, careful not to be spotted by the passing mutated insects.
Yes—this time, the mutated insects weren’t flying through the air. They were crawling on the ground.
Sure enough, within two minutes, the swarm arrived.
As they watched the countless segmented legs writhing across the earth, everyone’s faces turned dark—Qin Sang included.
There was no question about it. The swarm charging toward them was a horde of mutated centipedes.
Qin Sang had encountered mutated centipedes outside a few times. She’d always taken them down with ranged attacks. Close combat was a bad idea for humans—mutated centipedes were highly venomous.
However, a dead mutated centipede could be broken down into many useful materials: mouthparts, venom sacs, legs, and carapace. It was said that some traditional Chinese medicine practitioners had used these mutated centipedes to successfully formulate an anti-cancer drug.
Qin Sang wasn’t sure if that was true, but before the apocalypse, centipedes were indeed used in medicinal wine, mainly for treating unexplained swelling and pain as a topical remedy. The effects of mutated centipedes were bound to be even stronger—similar to mutated cockroaches. She’d heard that the Academy of Sciences had developed an upgraded version of Kangfu Xin Ye (a wound-healing solution) with excellent results for treating external injuries.
Anyway, back to the present. No matter how strong Qin Sang thought she was, there was no way she was taking on over a hundred mutated centipedes, each over two meters long. And besides—could their meat even be eaten? They seemed poisonous from head to toe.
She glanced over at Captain Qin and saw his expression was equally grim. He made several hand signals to his team, clearly indicating: Don’t engage. We can’t take on this wave.
Qin Sang breathed a sigh of relief. She knew this Captain Qin was a steady leader—not reckless. Mutated centipedes were numerous and highly venomous; there was no point in fighting them head-on.
But she’d relaxed too soon. Just as she was about to pull back further, she spotted a few burly men—and she meant literally burly: over 1.9 meters tall, with biceps bigger than her head—charging at the two centipedes at the rear of the swarm, weapons in hand.
The other centipedes didn’t stop to help. Instead, they scrambled away on their countless legs, continuing forward.
The two centipedes left behind were already locked in combat with the men.
Qin Sang watched but made no move to intervene.
Clearly, the burly men looked confident. Their gear appeared to be the early-model electric-grid guns issued by the authorities—useful, but not particularly powerful.
Sure enough, barely two minutes into the fight, one of the men collapsed from poisoning.
The venom seemed vicious.
The man had been grazed by a centipede’s mouthpart on his arm. The wound instantly turned black, and he fell. Before anyone could react, his entire body had turned coal-black—like a miner just coming up from a coal pit.
Of course, once he was fully black, he was dead.
“Th-This is way too toxic!”
Qin’s parents stared in disbelief, unable to accept what they were seeing.
Qin Sang narrowed her eyes and examined the mutated centipedes carefully. They looked similar to the ones outside—so why was their venom so much more potent?
Had those men assumed these mutated centipedes were just like the ones outside?
She’d guessed right. They were young villagers who’d worked outside the village before. When the authorities announced the apocalypse was coming, they’d returned to the village. One of them had gotten absurdly lucky and awakened a spatial ability, so they’d teamed up to survive.
Killing bugs—mutated bugs—was routine for them.
Plus, after arriving in this strange world, they’d stuck together with the other villagers first, and later had military protection. So they’d never realized that the mutated insects here were far, far deadlier than those outside.
Deadly enough that they’d only grasped that truth after losing their lives.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
Or maybe not—because Captain Qin and his soldiers had already moved into action the moment the first man fell.
They’d been ready to help, but before they could act, one was already dead. Talk about a rude awakening.
The others in the group were fellow villagers. Seeing the soldiers rush in, they wanted to follow—but Captain Qin barked orders, stopping them.
—
“Wanna eat… Sang Sang, wanna eat…”
Just as Qin Sang was figuring out the most efficient way to handle the mutated centipedes, the tiny mutated dandelion seed tucked behind her ear suddenly piped up, clamoring to eat.
Qin Sang: …What a glutton.
“Wanna eat the human?” She pointed at the dead burly man. Little Seed only ate dead things, not living ones.
Little Seed: “Ew ew ew, no eat, no eat. Humans gross. Bugs tasty…”
Qin Sang: Not sure whether to be pleased or exasperated. Pleased, of course, because it was confirmed that Little Seed didn’t eat humans. Exasperated, because of that “humans gross” comment. She was human herself—did that mean she was gross too? Should she agree or disagree?
“Be good. Wait a moment.”
Seeing that the fight seemed to be reaching a critical moment, Qin Sang figured it wouldn’t be right to suddenly jump in and steal the kill.
“Wanna eat…” The repeated whine of “wanna eat” droned on in her ear. Qin Sang was glad Little Seed was just a seed—otherwise, her whole head would probably be drenched in its drool by now.
“Fine, fine. If there’s no chance later, I’ll chase down a few more for you, even if I have to hunt them down myself.”
Just as she was speaking, the mutated centipede the burly men were fighting suddenly reared up on half its body. The stance was even more imposing than a snake’s.
When a snake half-rears, its belly doesn’t have countless little legs wriggling around.
Seeing this, Qin Sang knew the men were out of their depth.
“Do you need help? Let me be clear—if I take it down, the spoils are mine.”
The burly men were already at their limit. Hearing Qin Sang’s offer, they immediately cried out for help.
Seeing that, Qin Sang charged in with her parents.
Her parents were in charge of kiting the centipede, while she found a good spot a bit farther away and simply shot arrows until it was done.
Just like the countless times they’d worked together before, Qin Sang took down the mutated centipede in under two minutes.
The remaining one was taken care of a few minutes later by Captain Qin and his men working together.
At that point, the people who’d been hiding in their holes came out one after another.
The family of the dead burly man rushed over, crying beside his body. They wanted to touch him but were afraid the poison on the corpse would spread to them.
And so, the snide remarks began.
—
“Sang Sang, those villagers are bad-mouthing us.”
Qin’s mother watched her daughter pull out tools from her space and whispered.
Qin Sang: “Let them talk. I wasn’t stealing a kill. As for that burly man—he died from poison. What does that have to do with me? I didn’t tell him to jump out and fight a mutated centipede. They say I have so much strength but held back until the end—that if I’d acted earlier, no one would’ve died. That argument makes no sense either.”
She flat-out refused any moral manipulation. Just because she had the ability, did she have to be the first to charge in?
Those people only dared to mutter under their breath. If they had the guts to say it to her face, she’d bet they didn’t.
Sure enough, when they saw this pretty young woman pull out a gleaming butcher knife and start dissecting the grotesque mutated centipede corpse, their mouths snapped shut.
Captain Qin saw this and kept a straight face, but inwardly he applauded. Some people really needed to use their brains. What kind of time was this for moralizing? With so many people, one centipede wasn’t even enough to feed them. And its blood was toxic—you couldn’t drink it anyway.
Qin Sang didn’t care what they were thinking. Right now, she was utterly astonished.
She’d already determined through her mental perception that this mutated centipede contained abundant energy. But she hadn’t expected it to be this abundant.
The energy core, as big as her palm, radiated dazzling light. Though still a colorless white crystal, the energy within it was shockingly dense. Compared to these, the ones outside were practically knockoffs.
And besides the energy core, every single part—the mouthparts, venom sac, legs, and carapace—was top-tier material.
She even dug out the only edible meat from the belly—and was stunned again.
She hadn’t expected the centipede meat to be pure white, a little springy, with a texture like shrimp. It had no gamey smell—instead, it carried a light, clean fragrance.
It was completely at odds with the centipede’s fearsome appearance.
What shocked her even more was how incredibly fragrant it became when she fried it in oil.
“Before, I always thought people who ate bugs were terrifying!” Qin’s mother watched the meat sizzling in the pan, its irresistible aroma filling the air, and didn’t know how to describe the sheer intensity of the smell. She felt she was about to become one of those terrifying people herself.
Qin’s father was beaming. Since the apocalypse, the chef in him had rarely had a chance to shine. Today, cooking a piece of bug meat made him feel a little like his old self—the roast goose master he used to be.
Meanwhile, some people on the other side, overwhelmed by the delicious smell, started bad-mouthing the Qin family again. They called them selfish—being in the same team but eating alone. They said the family was too slick—that their village people had nearly killed that centipede, only for the Qin family to swoop in and steal it.
Qin Sang rolled her eyes in exasperation. She picked up a plate of fried meat that her father had just cooked, skewered a piece with a toothpick, and announced loudly, “So fragrant! So delicious! Super delicious!… Capable people get to eat meat; incapable people get to eat sour grapes.”
Her mouth was running a mile a minute, when suddenly she paused. Then, as if nothing had happened, she kept showing off.
Captain Qin, who’d repeatedly told those people to shut up, saw this and held back his laughter without a word. Some people just needed to be put in their place—especially those burly men who’d disobeyed orders and charged the centipede. That was how one died and three got injured.
These people weren’t great, but they were still some of the laborers protecting the village. Now a few of them were out of commission, and Captain Qin had a headache.
Better to find the exit as soon as possible. He wasn’t cut out for leading a deadweight team like this.
That night, Qin Sang made a spectacle of herself and found it surprisingly fun—especially watching a few insufferable people fuming in helpless rage. It was oddly cathartic.
Ever since she’d started taking missions, she’d accumulated some fatigue and stress. This little outburst made her feel refreshed and energized. No wonder villains in novels always cackled with glee—being the bad guy was actually pretty satisfying.
The people she’d infuriated spent the night hungry and thirsty, as they never encountered another insect swarm.
And when they woke up the next morning, they found that the Qin family of three had vanished without a trace.
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