Chapter 22: Self-Rescue

Su Xiao opened the chat and asked, “Hello, may I ask—has your son bound a safehouse?”

The reply came quickly: “No, I did. I just brought my son inside. He’s still young, only thirteen, and he suddenly came down with a high fever.”

Su Xiao had a sinking feeling. “Check his body for any unusual changes. This might not be an ordinary fever.”

The system announcement had warned: A new crisis is quietly approaching.

Could it be that not only safehouse-bound survivors were affected—but even those who hadn’t bound a safehouse had become infected?

Those with safehouses could still collect weapons and fend off zombie cats, zombie dogs, and the like. But what about the ordinary survivors?

After sending the message, the person responded quickly: “He… seems… different somehow…”

They didn’t specify how, but Su Xiao had already guessed. “If it’s due to the apocalypse, then only apocalyptic resources might be able to save him. Ordinary medicine won’t work.”

Of course, that was just Su Xiao’s speculation. In fact, without binding a safehouse, one might not even be able to see the treasure chests—let alone use apocalyptic resources to cure an infection.

Enduring her own discomfort, Su Xiao asked, “Xiao Mo, has yesterday’s feedback come through yet?”

Xiao Mo: “One moment, retrieving the data for you.”

Su Xiao: …

Xiao Mo’s tone now sounded exactly like a perfunctory in-game customer service agent. Say nothing until asked, and only then go bother the programmer.

Still, when a game bug occurs, you can’t really blame customer service—it’s always the damned developers.

Soon, Xiao Mo responded: “The Apocalyptic Lord has returned the feedback. As the host is the first player to bind three safehouses, a bug occurred that prevented the activation of additional resource channels. This issue has now been resolved. Upon leaving a safehouse, a mark will appear on the palm of the host’s left hand to indicate the active channel. When the warehouse is full, the resource channel will automatically switch, and the host may also manually select a channel to retrieve items. As compensation, the host may choose one of the following three rewards.”

Su Xiao was offered three options.

Three barrels of gasoline / three bottles of oxygen / three batteries.

All survival-critical resources!

Without hesitation, Su Xiao chose the three barrels of gasoline. Combined with the two she got from Yu Yu yesterday, she now had five—enough to travel 50 kilometers.

After a brief moment of thought, Su Xiao pushed open the hatch to check the situation outside the cellar.

She was still located in the underground warehouse from last night.

It was obvious that there had been another severe earthquake during the night. The entire underground warehouse had been buried in rubble. Even underground, the quakes were dangerous.

Su Xiao maneuvered her safehouse to leave the warehouse and position itself on a flat open area, making access easier.

But she hadn’t moved far before something blocked her path. A large, hollow zone had suddenly appeared in front of her.

Su Xiao frowned in confusion. Was her memory failing her? This area had been solid yesterday—there shouldn’t be a hollow zone here.

Puzzled, Su Xiao stepped out of the cellar to check.

Luckily, no one was within 50 meters.

As she stood up, she saw a deep, jagged chasm splitting the ground right in front of the cellar entrance.

“There! Someone just climbed out of the ground—she must have a safehouse!”

A voice rang out suddenly.

Su Xiao looked up and saw, nearly 100 meters away, a group of survivors had gathered and set up temporary tents!

Indeed, no one had been within 50 meters, but just beyond that range, a small encampment had formed.

At night, no one would’ve noticed her. But after 8 a.m., the daylight was bright and revealing.

Naturally, anyone watching would have seen her suddenly emerge from underground.

Su Xiao also noticed a white treasure chest right next to the crowd—but they ignored it entirely. Clearly, without a bound safehouse, they couldn’t even see its value.

“Miss, we mean no harm,” said two men in Alliance uniforms walking toward her. “Since you’ve bound a safehouse, would you be willing to turn it over for research? It could be humanity’s only hope for survival.”

Su Xiao rolled her eyes and dropped straight back into her safehouse cellar, not even dignifying them with a response.

A man squatting nearby, eating instant noodles, let out a snort of laughter.

Idiots. You can’t control something like that. Who’d willingly hand it over if they had it?

But he saw clearly—this young woman was the one who had saved him in the underground warehouse last night.

She’d looked so small and delicate, barely reaching his shoulder. Yet with a casual lift of her slender arms, she had hoisted a several-hundred-pound shelf like it weighed nothing.

Just as he chuckled, the two “Alliance” men heard him. Already in a foul mood, their faces darkened further. One of them glared and viciously kicked over his bowl of noodles.

“What the hell are you laughing at? Who said you could laugh?”

The man sprang up, grabbed the other by the collar, and snapped, “I was eating just fine. What the hell did you kick me for? You think you’re some big shot? I’m not one of your prisoners!”

As if the constant earthquakes weren’t frustrating enough.

They had just barely settled the chaotic crowd, and now this nonsense again.

The Alliance man’s gaze turned cold and sharp as he scanned the makeshift relief camp. “The Alliance saved your lives. If we don’t find a solution soon, we’ll all die. No one has the luxury to gloat.”

“The Alliance?” The noodle man sneered. “And how many of you are left, exactly? You hauled off all the supplies last night and set up this so-called rescue camp. Where did everything go? There were so many trucks last night, and not one of them remains this morning!”

His words drew the attention of everyone around.

Though entering the camp technically meant they’d joined the Alliance—

Where were the supplies?

Could the Alliance really be trusted?

“The Alliance is working on a solution! Be grateful—you’re not the only ones affected!” the man snapped back.

“We’re not the only ones affected, true. But why won’t you let us leave? Everyone knows the only way to survive is to find a safehouse. You’re trapping us here—how are we supposed to find one?”

The man’s shout rang out, and the crowd began to stir.

Su Xiao, intending to discreetly move her safehouse using the lever, had unknowingly witnessed the whole exchange.

She reached out, touched the nearby white treasure chest, and retrieved it in an instant.

A woman nearby widened her eyes as she stared at the small opening in the ground—just enough to meet Su Xiao’s eyes.

She was about to shout.

“Pa—”

The cellar hatch snapped shut.

The woman rushed forward to touch it, but it had already melded back into the dirt as though it had never existed—not even a crack remained.

This—this was unbelievable.

How could someone with such a mysterious safehouse possibly hand it over?

In a world like this, could the Alliance really save them?

No.

Rather than waiting for the Alliance—

They would have to save themselves.

Realizing this, the woman rushed forward to stop the two men from coming to blows, separating them and declaring, “We need to leave!”