Apocalypse Escape: Day One of Survival

Wang Zongxuan, standing beside him, couldn’t bear to watch his bro’s foolishness.

”Xinxin, pull... pull me up,” Ji Taixian said dramatically, holding out a hand.

Song Kexin shot him a look of complete disregard and let out a loud ”Hmph!”

”Big brother,” little Zhu Nanxing called out in his clear, childish voice, ”what does it feel like now?”

”Me?!” Ji Taixian gave the little troublemaker a long-suffering look. ”What does it feel like? I feel like I’m sinking into quicksand. No, no! Retract your quicksand, quick! It’s almost up to my chest! I’m going to suffocate! COUGH, COUGH, COUGH, COUGH.”

He put on a show of coughing, and sure enough, a frightened little Zhu Nanxing hastily retracted the quicksand.

Xie Ning’s eyes shone brightly. She stared at the little boy, then ran to his side and bent down to gaze at his hands.

After a moment, she gasped in amazement. ”Nanxing, you’ve really become something! This is a variant Earth Element ability! And you can control it at will, just like me. Amazing, amazing, amazing!”

”Amazing, amazing, amazing!” Su Xiyue echoed, nodding repeatedly. ”Nanxing, this is what they call ’the student surpassing the master’!”

Little Zhu Nanxing looked up at his beaming father. ”Dad, she said I’m stronger than you!”

”Hahaha.” Zhu Yong chuckled, patting his son’s head. ”Good lad! All those meals full of meat weren’t for nothing, hahahaha.”

”Nanxing, keep practicing this ability. From now on, our team can coordinate like this.” Xie Ning gathered the group of Superpower Users, young and old, and they began to cheerfully discuss their new strategy.

The group crowded into the small room belonging to Zhu Yong and his son, sitting in a circle on the sofa and around the bed.

Song Kexin was all smiles. ”Our team can handle both offense and defense now! Nanxing can trap people with quicksand, I’ll set them on fire, Shijun will fan the flames with wind, and Xie Ning will use her, uh, Space barrier to keep the enemies inside. We’ll burn them to a crisp, hahahaha!”

Everyone: ...

Song Shijun’s mother, He Shuping, spoke up timidly, ”Are... are we going to go rob someone?”

Song Shijun nearly choked with laughter. He put an arm around his mother’s shoulder. ”Mom, don’t listen to Song Kexin’s nonsense. She thinks she’s in a video game.”

...

”This little cubicle isn’t even ten square meters. How are we supposed to live in here?” Xu Yu walked over to push the window open, but it wouldn’t budge.

”Don’t push it. That’s definitely someone else’s room next door.” Zhuang Lei flopped onto the bed, wearily rubbing the lines on his forehead.

”Yiyi still hasn’t woken up? What did they say earlier? That they’d let us in first and then find a doctor for us. And now? They just dumped us in this tiny isolation room and took off.”

”Can you just stop your goddamn nagging?” Zhuang Lei glared at Xu Yu, who wouldn’t shut up. ”Were you blind on the way here?”

”As Superpower Users, our accommodations are much better than those of the ordinary people out there in the mass dormitories!”

”What’s so good about it? We don’t even have a private bathroom. If you have to go in the middle of the night, you have to run hundreds of meters outside,” Xu Yu retorted, her brow furrowed in displeasure.

”But when they were assigning rooms, there was one closer to the toilets and you rejected it because you said it stank.” Zhuang Lei pressed his temples, feeling his energy drain.

”Hey, what’s wrong with you? Why are you always picking on me?” Xu Yu shoved him angrily. ”Didn’t you see it? That Director Gu took Xie Ning and her group away. He’s definitely putting the Starfire Team up in a much better place.”

”What does them getting a better place have to do with you?” Zhuang Lei roared. ”Why are you always so fixated on Captain Xie, huh? Are you nuts?”

”You think we don’t have enough trouble as it is? Why do you spend all day provoking Xie Ning for no reason? Do you really think you can afford to mess with her?”

”How did I provoke her?!” Xu Yu furiously slammed her handbag onto the bed, her voice a gut-wrenching shriek. ”Hey! It’s your girlfriend who’s getting insulted to her face, picked on, and bullied! And you turn around and blame me for it? Are you even a man? How can you just swallow this humiliation?”

Zhuang Lei, at the end of his patience, swung his hand and slapped Xu Yu hard across the face.

He roared, ”So you can’t swallow it? Then what are you going to do about it? You think you can go up there and fight her?! Your superpower can’t even kill a Second-stage Zombie. What are you going to do against a Sixth-rank Superpower User? Feed? Give her a free kill? Just hand the enemy free EXP?!”

That heavy slap, combined with his barrage of insults, left Xu Yu’s head ringing.

She burst into loud sobs, crying until she was gasping for breath, looking as if she’d been more grievously wronged than anyone in history.

”So now this is my fault?”

”It’s all my fault, isn’t it? I’m the one who provoked that ’almighty’ Sixth-rank Superpower User. I’m the one who tore the team apart? It’s all my fault!”

Zhuang Lei was furious. ”If it’s not your fault, is it mine? Did I tell you to go running up there with Lin Yiyi in your arms, being all melodramatic and offending them with your rambling?”

”Did I tell you to provoke that Sixth-rank Superpower User over and over?”

”If you hadn’t provoked Xie Ning into threatening the entire Swift Leopard Team, would so many of our guys have scattered and run off to join Zhuang Jia and Luo Yanan?”

”You’re more trouble than you’re worth!”

Xu Yu covered her face, sobbing wretchedly.

”Crying, crying, what’s the use of crying!” Zhuang Lei roared. ”You think crying is going to solve anything? Is it useful at all?”

”Then what do you want from me?” Xu Yu cried out, her eyes swollen like walnuts as she sobbed. ”Do you want me to go kneel before that Sixth-rank Superpower User? To kowtow and beg for mercy, screaming that we’ll never do it again?”

Her words seemed to strike a raw nerve, that taut string in his heart called pride.

He flew into a thunderous rage. ”If you want to go humiliate yourself, fine, but I can’t afford that kind of shame!”

Xu Yu collapsed onto the bed, crying pitifully. She covered her mouth with her hands as tears streamed relentlessly down her cheeks, soaking the pillowcase.

”What are you crying for! I’m not fucking dead yet! Crying, crying, all you know how to do is cry all day long. It’s bad luck!” Zhuang Lei roared, striding forward and kicking the bed hard.

But the bed frame was no match for the vicious kick of a Third-tier and above Earth Element Ability User. With a loud CRACK, it collapsed.

Xu Yu, who was on the mattress, crashed to the floor. She was completely stunned.

Humiliated and enraged, Zhuang Lei roared again, ”What are you staring blankly for? Clean this mess up.”

Both frantic and furious, Xu Yu wiped away her tears and pushed herself up from the mattress. ”Go where?”

”Where do you think!” Zhuang Lei shot her a nasty look and continued to roar. ”Did you lose your mind along with your soul? Everyone ran off with Zhuang Jia and his group! They’re gone!”

”And our supplies are still with Xiao Zhang. So what do you think we’re going to do?”

Xu Yu shot to her feet, her face a mask of panic. ”Right, right, you’re right! Xiao Zhang! We have to find Xiao Zhang! That bastard, he just ran off with all of the team’s supplies!”

Zhuang Lei gritted his teeth. ”I’m warning you. When we see Zhuang Jia and the others, you keep your mouth shut.”

Xu Yu was about to lose her mind with anger. ”If you don’t want me to say anything, then why are you dragging me along?”

”So, are you coming or not? If you don’t get your share later, don’t come crying to me!”