Hand in Hand to Build a Home Amid Great Chaos

chapter7

When passing by a hardware store, Qian Ling, who had just finished a robbery, stepped out and was startled by the slowly gathering fog in the sky. The already pitch-black night, combined with the thick fog, instantly made people feel suffocated as if about to choke.

Qian Ling quickly took out field protective suits and gas masks from her space. These were the most advanced equipment currently available internationally, unsure whether they would work, but for now she could only try.

Qian Ling instinctively felt that these fogs and sunlight radiation were the ultimate culprits causing human mutation. To be safe, she quickly drank some spiritual spring water from her space, then continued on her way.

Country M was eerily quiet due to a massive power outage. The lights supported by a few backup generators went out one after another. In an instant, time seemed to stop, and the usual hustle and bustle was gone.

The pitch-black night, where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, was as terrifying as a hellish demon devouring the light. Through her night-vision goggles, Qian Ling saw occasional passersby who hadn't made it home inexplicably collapsed on the ground; then stray dogs also lay sideways on the roadside. The whole world fell into a state of silence.

And Qian Ling's journey was more than half done.

Before Qian Ling could calm her mood from this desolate scene, chaos suddenly erupted on the distant road as vehicles collided. One after another, unexplained explosions sounded in all directions. Patches of dazzling firelight, under this pitch-black night, appeared even more cold, glaring, and eerie!

Shortly after, the sirens of police cars and fire trucks rang through the night sky, mixed with continuous explosions and the sounds of unknown objects colliding. The world seemed to come alive again, but all one could feel was spine-chilling terror!

The towering flames did not bring people the joy of light; the successive loud explosions proclaimed the arrival of the apocalypse.

Qian Ling narrowly avoided several traffic accidents along the way. She turned her headlights to the brightest and sped at full throttle toward her destination.

When she brushed past an unknown explosion site, Qian Ling could no longer deceive herself with wishful thinking. The scene, identical to her dream, sent a chill through her entire body to the extreme.

In her mind, two familiar faces kept appearing. She clenched her teeth, sprinted toward her destination, ignoring the tears streaming down her face and the occasional obstacles and vehicles she hit. At this moment, only one belief supported her crumbling emotions: go home...

Because at home there was him,

there was him...

The apocalypse had arrived. Suppressing her anxiety, Qian Ling used a silenced pistol to break into a shop, openly looted it empty, and then quickly left.

Country M not only fell into widespread darkness but also into a state of chaos. Explosions rang in the ears, faintly mixed with people's terrified roars and cries.

Before long, Qian Ling, hiding in a corner, witnessed with her own eyes many people with ferocious faces rushing into the streets, frantically smashing every object, facility, car, and shop they could reach...

The scene was just like a group of emotionless madmen in a horror movie, manic and terrifying, sending chills down one's spine.

Qian Ling ignored everything else and, dodging and hiding along the way, followed the planned route, looting the stores she had already eyed. Among them, only a gun shop's access control issued an alarm, supported by backup batteries.

But this didn't trouble Qian Ling at all. After quickly turning off the alarm, she still implemented the "clear-out" policy on the store. After all, the apocalypse had come and she was not a citizen of Country M, so she felt justified in taking things.

After robbing a large supermarket, she also looted a few convenience stores. By unexpected good luck, she encountered a tanker truck parked at a gas station that had not yet unloaded its fuel. Of course, she took it! This was good supplies hard to find even with a lantern. In the apocalypse, with scarce resources, gasoline and diesel were absolute treasures.

Then she entered a fairly large pharmacy. Looking at the store she had looted completely, clean as if a swarm of locusts had passed through, she felt no pressure at all. Coolly, she left only a moving shadow in the night.

Not sure if it was because of the fog, some people went crazy while others fell into a coma. When she stopped by several super trucks, she clearly saw the drivers collapsed on the steering wheels, unknown whether alive or dead.

Qian Ling callously left the driver by the roadside and 'commandeered' their truck. By now, the fog was growing thicker, and she knew she couldn't afford any further delay. She headed straight for her destination.

Outside the airport, she stashed the off-road vehicle in her space and, using a screenshot of the map on her phone, successfully infiltrated the airport grounds. Perhaps because M Country had been unsettled lately, she luckily collected several parked military helicopters along the way before searching for a suitable plane.

The flight from M Country to H Country would take at least ten hours. A small plane wouldn't have enough fuel, so she had to choose something larger, leaving the second half of the journey to fate.

The airport was an important protected facility, so not all power was out—at least some areas and the runways still had lights. Qian Ling searched for a while before spotting a medium-sized private jet on one runway. Without hesitation, she sprinted over. Fortunately, the cabin door wasn't fully closed, but the moment she boarded, she realized someone else was already inside.

Qian Ling quickly pulled a pistol from her space and, wearing night-vision goggles, crept cautiously toward the cockpit.

"Damn this piece of junk! I swear I'll get you running!" a man in the cockpit cursed angrily. He was from H Country.

"Hey, hey, hey—easy, easy! I just want to leave M Country. I'm not going to resist!" The man raised his hands above his head, not daring to move. Qian Ling's pistol was now pressed against the back of his skull.

"Where to?" Qian Ling's voice was ice-cold.

"H-H Country. I just want to go home. This weird weather is seriously abnormal. A lot of people in my apartment building have fallen into mysterious comas. I'm terrified.

All flights from M Country to other countries have been grounded. I had no choice—I took advantage of the chaos to steal a plane and try my luck."

"Where are you from?"

"Bro, can you put the gun down? We sound like countrymen from our accents. I'm unarmed, and with this build of mine, I really can't take you on."

Qian Ling hesitated, then lowered the pistol and stepped back a few paces, still keeping it aimed at him.

Tang Xiao broke out in a cold sweat. When he turned around and saw Qian Ling fully kitted out, he was stunned speechless.

"Whoa, a hot chick!"

Even though Qian Ling wore loose protective gear, it couldn't hide her feminine, graceful figure. With her night-vision goggles pushed up on her head, her delicate face was still visible behind the protective mask. There was no mistaking her for a man.

"Spare me the crap. Can you fly this plane? Which city in H Country?" Ignoring this i***t who was staring at her starry-eyed, she shot him an impatient glare.

Tang Xiao snapped back to reality as a chill hit his face. "F City. It's my hometown. I don't have many family left, but you know how we H Country people are—the idea of returning to one's roots is deeply ingrained. You're not planning to steal this plane too, are you?"

"Hmph, if you want to leave, you'd better hurry. The fog will only get thicker. If you can't see the runway, I don't know how you'll take off." With that, Qian Ling exited the plane, found an emergency power box by the runway, connected her computer to it, made some adjustments, then returned to the aircraft.

Tang Xiao felt disappointed when she left, but he never forgot his predicament. If he didn't hurry and got caught by the police, he'd be done for—it had taken considerable effort to sneak into this airport in the first place.

He continued working alone. When he saw Qian Ling returning with an oversized hiking backpack, his eyes lit up.

That backpack was her cover—after all, the secret of her spatial ability couldn't be easily revealed. She set the bag in a corner of the cockpit, secured it loosely, closed the cabin door, and quickly took her seat in the co-pilot's chair.

Tang Xiao watched as she removed her protective mask, deftly took out a tablet, plugged in a device he recognized to interface with the plane's system, and began typing rapidly on the keyboard.