Chapter 45: Torrential Rain

Jiang Si reeled in the spotted gar alligator and killed it with a stick before tossing it back into the water.
With a splash, a swarm of spotted gar alligators of various sizes leapt up, their sharp teeth tearing the carcass to shreds.
The blood in the water drew in even more of them.

The larger ones arrived too late to get any meat and instead opened their fanged jaws to devour the smaller gar alligators whole.

Jiang Si had originally wanted to kill the gar alligators to prevent them from continuing to reproduce in large numbers.
But to her shock, they even ate their own kind.

And judging by the numbers in the water, this wasn’t just the offspring of the two giant gar alligators they’d previously killed.

Just the thought of so many dangerous creatures lurking beneath the surface, watching hungrily, made Jiang Si uneasy.

She immediately said to everyone:

“Don’t touch the water—it’s too dangerous. There must be even bigger gar alligators down there. Especially the first floor—we need to seal off the stairway entrance with cement right away.”

No sooner had she spoken than a blood-curdling scream erupted from the village.

Jiang Si grabbed her binoculars and looked out. A man was struggling in the muddy floodwaters, surrounded by gar alligators swarming like piranhas.

His pained, desperate cries echoed as ripples of blood spread through the water—gruesome and horrifying.

Soon, the man disappeared beneath the surface, and only then did the people indoors dare come out.
In the pouring rain, they used nets and tools to salvage the attracted gar alligators.

Jiang Si didn’t want to assume the worst of people—but watching this unfold, she had a chilling suspicion:

That man had been pushed in as bait.

Watching someone be devoured like that, the expressions on everyone’s faces grew dark and heavy.

Through the binoculars, Jiang Chengwu saw rescue soldiers casting nets to catch gar alligators and asked in confusion:

“Aren’t they poisonous?”

Jiang Si shook her head:

“They are, but not entirely. Their toxins are concentrated in the internal organs and roe, especially the roe, which is highly poisonous and easily lethal.
But the meat itself is edible—as long as you don’t rupture the gallbladder, can distinguish male from female, and avoid eating the developing roe, it’s safe.”

“The rescue team is probably fishing them out in bulk now because they no longer have surplus food.”

“Even though it’s edible, there’s still the risk of accidental poisoning.”

Zhang Qingzhi sighed:

“Still better than starving to death. At least it’s a way to survive.”

The small gar alligators were easy to catch, but the larger ones had learned after being hunted.

They now lay low at the bottom, patiently waiting for prey to get close before leaping up for a fatal strike.

Many people were dragged into the water. Before the rescue team could even fire a shot, the gar alligators had already killed their victim.

And these weren’t even the largest ones.

Jiang Si and her family spent two full days sealing off the first floor completely.
But instead of easing up, the rain became even more violent, like a waterfall pouring straight from the sky.

Standing on the stairs, they repeatedly applied waterproofing material to the ceiling, but still couldn’t stop water from seeping through.

To prevent flooding on the second floor, Jiang Si had to drill a drainage hole in every room.

Even so, water still rose high enough to cover their ankles.

To prevent infections, everyone wore protective suits with tall rubber boots, and they slept in a rescue boat Jiang Si took out from her storage space.

The boat was small, but just big enough for everyone to sleep in bunk-style beds.

Big Black and Little Black lay on the cabin floor, where Grandma had set up a dog bed for them.

As for food, Jiang Si would enter her storage space, prepare something simple, then bring it out to serve everyone.

As long as the house didn’t collapse, life aboard the boat was surprisingly peaceful.

But that peace didn’t last—the rising floodwaters ended it.

The sand and mud buildup from the earlier sandstorm had blocked drainage throughout the village.
Now the murky flood had risen all the way to their second-floor windows.

The rainfall was so intense that even the previous drainage holes weren’t enough—they had to drill more.

The indoor temperature plummeted, not much different from outside.

Everyone had to add another blanket to sleep at night.

But that wasn’t the biggest problem.

Jiang Si discovered baby gar alligators swimming in the floodwater inside their home.

These carnivorous predators, despite their tiny size, were already ferociously aggressive.

She and her family used nets to fish them out and applied chemicals to the water in an attempt to eradicate them.

Then—
BANG BANG BANG!

A series of gunshots rang out.
BOOM—
A grenade exploded.

Even through the storm, the blast was clearly audible.

This was the first time the rescue team had resorted to grenades.

Jiang Si had a bad feeling.

She grabbed her binoculars—and was stunned by what she saw.

Dozens of massive gar alligators, nearly two meters long, were surrounding a house on the verge of collapse, hunting their prey.

Those prey included animals—and panicked humans.

Terrified screams begged the soldiers to blow the creatures up.
If the grenade hit its mark, it might work—but if it didn’t, the gar alligators would use their armor-like scales to slam into the fragile houses over and over again.

The small ones could still be shot, but these 100kg monsters had scales tough enough to make arrowheads. Bullets couldn’t penetrate them—ordinary people had no way to defend themselves.

Those trying to escape boarded makeshift boats, but as soon as they hit the water—they vanished.

Even rescue soldiers didn’t dare come out in lifeboats anymore.

Commander Jiao Weisong was overwhelmed with anxiety.
If the rain continued like this, everyone would eventually be devoured by these mutated gar alligators.

He looked toward the clogged drainage outlet in the village and ordered his soldiers to

“Use grenades and explosives—blast it open at all costs!”

As long as the flood drained, they might survive.

Jiang Si, however, didn’t believe Jiao Weisong could really clear the outlet.
She was already planning to leave.

But just as she was about to take action, a strange pain spread through her:

Her chest, abdomen, and entire body began to hurt.
It felt like being pricked by countless needles—subtle, oppressive, but still bearable.

Jiang Si assumed it was the energy stone acting up again and tried to endure it.

But by midnight, the pain turned into a burning, searing torment—like being torn apart.

She moaned in pain, and everyone immediately got up and surrounded her with glowsticks.

“Sisi, what’s happening to you?!”

Jiang Si’s face was pale, veins bulging, her wet hair clinging to her cheeks—like a mermaid dragged ashore, beautiful and tragic.

She forced herself to sit up and took five painkillers, about to reassure everyone she was fine—

When a wave of intense pain struck her chest and turned her words into a helpless scream.

No one had ever seen Jiang Si in so much pain before. Shen Baoying burst into tears:

“Sisi, where does it hurt?!”

Jiang Si, who had survived ten years of the apocalypse, was practically a half-doctor herself.

But even she had no idea what was happening to her body.

Afraid something might happen to her, she forced herself to remain lucid and began pulling out large quantities of food and supplies from her spatial storage.

But before she could finish, her vision went black—

And she collapsed, unconscious.