Chapter 16 – In Chaotic Times, Cut Down the “Saints”; Don’t Be Falsely Kind

Inside the apartment, Xia Xiaoman wiped the blood off her blade with a blank expression.

“Damn it! Bunch of idiots! Why are you hesitating—kick the door in!”

As soon as the burly man’s voice fell, the people outside began using their feet to kick at the door instead of their shoulders.

Timing it precisely, Xia Xiaoman unlocked the door, and just as someone raised their leg to kick again, she instantly withdrew the barricade from the door into her spatial storage.

In the next second, a figure stumbled into the apartment. Xia Xiaoman swiftly slammed the door shut behind him, blocked it again, and without hesitation, pulled out her axe and began to attack.

The intruder, quick on his feet, managed to dodge a few swings. Seeing the murderous glint in Xia Xiaoman’s eyes, he panicked and begged, “Don’t kill me! I was forced into this! It’s not my fault! Please, let me go!”

He had no weapon, but Xia Xiaoman chased him around the apartment.

She flung the axe at his back, then leapt to retrieve it and struck again.

It was her first time killing someone—she wasn’t exactly skilled. It took seven or eight brutal hacks before the man finally stopped breathing.

When the burly man and the bald guy finally broke in, they saw Xia Xiaoman standing in the middle of the living room, gripping the axe, half of her face splattered with blood.

Look closely, and you’d see that her hands were trembling slightly.

She wasn’t truly cold-blooded. It was just her first time killing, and she was scared.

The bald man hesitated at the sight of her terrifying stare. “Zhang-ge, should we still go in? That woman’s a lunatic.”

“So what if she’s a lunatic?” the burly man sneered. “She’s still just a woman and all alone. There’s ten of us—what are we afraid of?”

Ignoring the warning, he shoved aside the barricade and tried to step inside.

Xia Xiaoman took a deep breath, suppressing the nausea, pulled a watermelon knife from her waist, gripping it in her left hand, the axe in her right, and slowly walked toward the door.

The burly man gave her a taunting look.

Xia Xiaoman, step by step, closed the distance, calculating angles in her head.

Suddenly, she threw the knife with her left hand. The man dodged instinctively—but at that very moment, she flung the axe with full force.

One hit kill. The axe embedded squarely in his skull.

Throwing axes was a skill she’d mastered since childhood.

Her parents never fed her enough, so when she was out chopping pigweed or firewood and got hungry, she figured out how to hunt birds and rabbits by throwing her axe.

It had been two or three years since she’d last done it, but her accuracy was still terrifyingly good.

The bald man turned pale, frozen in place. When he saw Xia Xiaoman draw out another knife, he shoved the people behind him forward and bolted.

The others, seeing the axe embedded in the dead man’s head, nearly wet themselves in fear and ran for their lives. Whatever food or pretty female students they’d been after—they weren’t worth dying for.

The door, forced open moments ago, was now forced shut again.

Xia Xiaoman stood still, breathing heavily. The smell of blood filled her nose, and the sensation of the axe slicing through flesh replayed over and over in her mind. Eventually… she couldn’t hold it in anymore—she leaned against the wall and vomited bile.

No one knew how much time passed.

She heard the rhythmic clang-clang of metal and walked to the balcony to look.

Zhou Qiuyang was yelling, “Xia Xiaoman! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

She wanted to reply “I’m fine,” but her throat was raw and hoarse, and she couldn’t get the words out. So instead, she knocked on the security grate to signal that she was alright.

His interruption helped her calm down. Fighting the nausea, she dragged the two corpses to the window and dumped them into the floodwaters below.

After wiping the blood and sweat off her face, she changed into clean clothes and lay on her bed, mind blank.

“This is crazy… I actually killed someone.” She couldn’t help wondering: after the flood… would she be arrested and thrown in jail?

---

Half-asleep, she dozed off. When she woke up again, it was already dark outside, and her stomach twisted painfully in protest.

With no appetite, she forced down a pack of crackers.

Suddenly, she heard chaotic footsteps above, and the sound of tables and chairs being moved.

She quickly stored the barricade again and peeked through the peephole. The people squatting in the hallway were all gone. The door to 702 was wide open, the room inside empty.

She knocked on the 703 balcony. After a while, Zhou Qiuyang finally appeared.

“The people outside the hallway are gone. Do you know where they went?”

He pointed upward and repeated several times until she understood—they’d all gone up to the eighth floor.

Only then did she notice that the floodwater had risen to the sixth floor, only a few meters below the balcony.

She glanced at the storm outside, then carefully opened her door. Seeing no one, she grabbed her axe and tiptoed to 704.

“Sun Qing, it’s Xia Xiaoman. Open up, I need to talk.”

After a while, Sun Qing cracked the door open. “Why are you out? Hurry, come in.”

“Wait.” Xia Xiaoman knocked on 703’s door and brought Zhou Qiuyang with her into 704.

Inside, she heard indecent groaning coming from above.

Seeing her puzzled expression, Sun Qing sighed, “Those bastards are doing unspeakable things upstairs.”

Zhou Qiuyang’s brows furrowed. “What scumbags.”

Xia Xiaoman paused before understanding. “You want to go help?”

That one sentence plunged the room into silence.

Sun Qing slowly shook her head. “There are too many of them. Even if we go up, we can’t do anything, and we might end up victims ourselves.”

“You might think I’m cold,” Zhou Qiuyang said, taking a deep breath, “but when the people upstairs secretly installed a metal gate without telling us, they made it clear—they didn’t want an alliance.”

“When the chaos broke out on the seventh floor, none of them came down to help us. So now that something’s happened to them… I just can’t be the bigger person and return good for evil.”

Those people may be scum—but the eighth floor residents weren’t saints either.

They didn’t want to risk their lives to save others—fine. But don’t expect him to risk his life to save them now.

Ye Xiaojie nodded. “In chaos, you cut down the fake saints. Don’t act kind just to feel good.”

Xia Xiaoman secretly breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been worried these three would suddenly get idealistic and charge up there like heroes.

“Since we’re not helping the eighth floor,” she said, “let’s figure out how to get out of here.”

“The water’s already up to the sixth floor. By tomorrow night at the latest, it’ll flood the seventh. If we don’t leave, we’ll either drown or fight the eighth floor for survival.”

Sun Qing frowned. “The wind out there is insane. We might get swept away the moment we set foot outside…”