A drop of cold sweat dripped from Fei Jun’s forehead and flowed down his neck. He swallowed hard, his posture twisted, not daring to move an inch. He was afraid that if Ye Yuhan’s hand slipped, his life would end right there.

“Don’t ever show up on the twenty-fifth floor again. If you do, the next knife will directly cut your carotid artery. The blood will flow into the damage in your trachea, and if blood or blood clots enter your airway, it will cause difficulty breathing or even suffocation. You will clearly feel the process of dying. If you want to experience that feeling, feel free to come and look for death.”

The cold blade pressed against the man’s neck. It barely touched the skin before it cut open a small line of blood. Ye Yuhan’s icy voice, paired with the sting of the blade on his neck, made Fei Jun not even think of resisting. He didn’t dare nod either, but kept blinking wildly to show that he understood.

“Get lost!” Ye Yuhan withdrew the knife, watching as the few men scurried away from the twenty-fifth floor, their pants soaked in fear, before she turned and returned home.

For her, the people in the same building in the neighborhood posed no real threat; they were just a nuisance.

The door to the stairwell on the twenty-fifth floor had been destroyed, and people were likely to move in soon. She couldn’t let the hallway be filled with garbage, but if she went out alone again, it would be hard not to be noticed.

“Tch—”

The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became. The urge to kill came back, and Ye Yuhan simply decided to take out some ingredients from her space and cook to distract herself and calm her mood.

As time passed, the rainstorm disaster was finally nearing its end. In the past three months, the social order built over many years had collapsed and was on the brink of total destruction. The official government’s credibility had dropped to its lowest point. Amid the chaos in other buildings of the neighborhood, the building where Shuxin and Ye Yuhan stayed remained unusually quiet.

Under the devilish training of Yan Mo and Mu Qi Mai over these three months, Shuxin and Bo Xiangwen had made rapid progress. Although they hadn’t improved by leaps and bounds, they had grown significantly, shedding any unnecessary fat. Their outward appearance hadn’t changed much, but they now looked much more energetic.

The rainstorm was visibly weakening, and people seemed to see hope in restoring normalcy. Even though Shuxin and the others didn’t go downstairs, they could still hear the excited voices of the people in the stairwell, feeling their enthusiasm.

As people hoped, the rainstorm finally stopped on the afternoon of the third day. When it ceased, people from all over the country erupted in spontaneous cheers, celebrating that the disaster was finally over and that normal life was about to resume.

The floodwaters, which had reached the 18th floor, receded quickly. In just half a day, they had fallen below the tenth floor. People quickly began gathering what little belongings they had left, preparing to move back into their homes.

Shuxin knew that as soon as the rain stopped, she would need to take out the heating appliances from her space. She pulled out a stove, thickened down blankets, thick bedding sets, thick winter coats, small sunlamps, and hand warmers, piling a room full of them before stopping.

After Shuxin had prepared everything, Yan Mo brought Bo Xiangwen and Mu Qi Mai upstairs to help move things. The four of them spent the entire afternoon and part of the evening reorganizing their frequently used spaces.

They installed the largest stove in the living room to heat the entire house with underfloor heating. Their bedroom also had a smoke-free heater with excellent heat dissipation. They piled up four to five extremely thick quilts on each bed, adding extra blankets in case they still felt cold while sleeping.

The floor was covered with a thick carpet, and even the doorknobs were wrapped in a layer of velvet for full protection.

The floodwaters would continue to recede for a day. This day seemed like the last respite from the heavens, for once the time was up, an even more brutal disaster would await.

If someone could seize the opportunity during this day to go out and find some food, they would fare much better during the early stages of the extreme cold. Unfortunately, few people could take advantage of the opportunity.

While people were celebrating the end of the rainstorm and the relief of surviving, no one realized that a new round of danger had silently descended.

The moment midnight passed, the temperature plummeted, and the stove was already lit inside the house. The underfloor heating was also on, keeping the house warm. Shuxin stood at the window, watching the outdoor thermometer drop from twenty degrees Celsius to single digits in just a few seconds. The temperature continued to fall, and tonight, she wasn’t sure how many people would silently die in the stillness of the night.

The glass window, still streaked with rainwater, had a thin layer of frost creeping up it. Shuxin didn’t want to keep watching. She pulled the curtains shut and turned back to her bed to sleep.

The world’s development had long been determined. She still couldn’t fully adapt to the survival rules of this world. Surviving alone in this world was difficult enough, and she didn’t yet have the ability to help others. Even the official government, which had consolidated the strength and resources of a nation, could only do so much in the face of such a cataclysmic disaster.

The next morning, people woke up from their sleep, only to be shocked by the abnormal cold temperature. Shivering, they wrapped themselves tighter in their blankets, only to find that those lying beside them had already frozen stiff, no longer breathing.

The cries of sorrow echoed through the neighborhood, with each building witnessing people discovering that their loved ones had frozen to death in their sleep. The day before, they had been happy that the rainstorm had passed. Now, they realized the true horror that awaited them.

After the night passed, the floodwaters that hadn’t fully receded froze in place. The entire area was covered in a blanket of white, turning the outside world into an icy, snowy wasteland.

Even the slowest people realized that this disaster might truly be the end of the world. The loss of hope, coupled with the death of loved ones, caused some with weaker mental fortitude to faint right there, unwilling to accept the cruel reality.

Meanwhile, another group of people who had done wrong during the rainstorm had an entirely different attitude.

When the rainstorm stopped, those who had committed various evils over the past three months feared they would be arrested and imprisoned. They had spent the entire day on edge, worried about their fate.

But with the arrival of the extreme cold, they were able to relax completely. It seemed that, as the internet had said, the end of the world had truly arrived. No one would pursue them for their wrongdoings anymore, and they could continue to live without restraint.

After the extreme cold arrived, the social civilization and order that had taken millennia to build finally collapsed completely.