Chapter 28

The chaotic crowd fell silent for a moment.

Lin Tu approached with her long blade in hand, the sharp edge gleaming coldly in the dim light. She stared at the crowd with icy eyes, the bone-chilling coldness of the blade seeming to seep into her already sharp features, silencing everyone.

Earlier, Li Tong had always thought Lin Tu was cute and soft-spoken. Sure, she had freakish strength, but at least she was a law-abiding good person—she'd been willing to share her bread, and when she'd gone to the convenience store the day before yesterday, she'd only taken a little for herself, far less than the others.

That was why Li Tong had dared to bring people to pry at her door when he realized she wasn't home. She might get mad at him personally, but in consideration of everyone in the neighborhood, she wouldn't blow things out of proportion.

Now Li Tong realized how terribly wrong he'd been.

"You..." He tried to make his voice sound authoritative. "Don't joke around. You're not that kind of person. What do you mean you're taking all his stuff? Aren't you going to share with everyone?"

Lin Tu curved her lips, but there was no trace of a smile. "What kind of person? I'm also someone surviving the apocalypse. I'm also someone who could starve to death at any moment. According to your logic, I'm about to die, so shouldn't all the supplies go to me?"

"Share with everyone? When you were prying at my door, were you thinking about breaking down the shelter I worked so hard to build, then splitting everything evenly with me?"

Li Tong finally understood why Lin Tu was angry. He furrowed his brows—they hadn't even managed to pry her door open, so why was she so upset? With that thought, his tone took on a hint of impatience and something like coaxing a child. "We never even got inside your place. Don't say things like that. We're all neighbors in the same community—we should help each other. I promise, next time I'll definitely ask for your opinion first."

He thought Lin Tu would at least soften her attitude, but instead, with a heavy thud, she viciously slammed her blade into the railing of the entrance stairs not far from him.

A piercing gust of wind swept past his cheek. Li Tong felt his ears ring, and for a moment, he couldn't perceive anything except the clash of metal.

Terrified gasps rose from the crowd. Li Tong followed everyone's gaze and saw that Lin Tu had actually chopped the railing clean off with a single stroke.

The clean cut sent a chill down Li Tong's neck.

More precisely, it wasn't just a feeling.

Lin Tu had already brought the blade to rest against Li Tong's throat. She held it steadily—Li Tong could barely feel the weight of the blade, only a line of cold.

"I said, I'm taking everything," Lin Tu said with a raised brow, examining Li Tong's expression with the curiosity of an outsider. After a moment, she smiled. "And I hope you can give me more information about supplies. Next time you set your sights on another household, I'll be taking all of their stuff too."

The neighborhood residents backed away one after another. Li Tong trembled uncontrollably, blade at his throat, not daring to move an inch, his lips quivering as he stammered, "Y-Yes..."

Only then did Lin Tu withdraw her blade and turn to look at the boy.

Yuan Que was spread-eagled against the doorframe like a spider. He'd been hit a few times during the chaos, his body slightly curled in on itself, looking at Lin Tu with a helpless expression.

When Lin Tu grabbed him, he glanced at the trembling residents outside and obediently moved aside.

Lin Tu was able to walk straight into Yuan Que's home without obstruction.

Inside, a disposable gas canister was being used to cook dried rabbit meat, the chunks bobbing up and down with the bubbles of the boiling water. Lin Tu strolled over as if it were her own home, sniffed it, and found the boy's crude cooking somewhat lacking—but she wasn't about to turn her nose up at the rest of what the place had to offer.

The supplies here were more plentiful than she'd imagined.

Tall cardboard boxes were stacked by the kitchen, a good dozen or so in total. Judging by the labels on the boxes, they were instant noodles in various flavors. There was a cabinet in the dining area, and another beside the TV wall in the living room—both filled with all kinds of snacks and dried goods. Aside from the dried rabbit meat the boy was cooking, there was also pork floss, beef floss, and more.

Two clear storage bins sat by the window, containing several bags of rice and over a dozen packs of noodles. Two bottles of cooking oil sat on top.

Without any hesitation, Lin Tu picked up an empty storage bin and started loading things into it.

Just then, Yuan Que was rummaging through his things and found a tube of red ointment. Seeing Lin Tu taking his belongings, he hurried over and asked anxiously, "What are you doing?"

Lin Tu pushed him aside. "Taking things." She continued stuffing snacks into the bin as she spoke.

Yuan Que quickly blocked her. "Th-This is my stuff."

The two faced each other. Lin Tu looked at him—more accurately, she looked down at him. The boy had bent his long, slender frame to protect his supplies, his height advantage completely gone.

His lashes lifted slightly, revealing extremely dark pupils that made the skin of his cheeks look especially fair. She was right in front of him, her eyes slightly upturned at the corners, and even without doing anything, there was a hint of contempt in her downward gaze. Even when he squeezed himself between her and the cabinet, she showed no sign of backing down, her breath faintly brushing against his forehead.

Yuan Que felt a pang of humiliation. Just as he was about to speak, Lin Tu took a slight step back and clenched her fist.

Yuan Que: "?"

He looked at the lean muscle on Lin Tu's arm—slim, yet with extremely smooth, pleasing lines. Before Yuan Que could sense the danger, his body reacted ahead of his mind.

"Ah!" A blood-curdling scream rang out from inside the house.

Outside, the residents exchanged glances, naturally recognizing Yuan Que's voice. The people who had just treated him like an enemy now instantly rallied together, wanting to speak up for him.

But that scream had been far too horrifying. Recalling Lin Tu's feat of chopping through the railing with one stroke, no one dared say a word. As hungry as they were, they could only file away one by one.

"Isn't this a bit too much?" One of the people beside Li Tong asked—they'd only wanted supplies, but Lin Tu was clearly out for blood. After all, Yuan Que was one of them. To just abandon him...

"What's wrong with it?" Another person spoke before Li Tong could. "If he'd handed over his stuff sooner, none of this would've happened. Besides, he treated us like that—why should we go crawling back to him?"

"It's all that Lin woman's fault..." The crowd gnashed their teeth at her name.

"So what do we do now? I'm really hungry." They all looked to Li Tong—he was the one with the best ideas here.

"It's too dangerous outside. Going out is definitely not an option. The others probably won't want to hand over their stuff either. We'll wait until later, when the sun goes down and it's not so hot, and Lin Tu's calmed down—then we'll go beg her." Li Tong made up his mind. "We'll kneel at her door and plead. I refuse to believe she'll really just ignore us."

Beyond that, he couldn't think of any other way. He didn't want to die, but begging Lin Tu was still better than facing those terrifying plants. They weren't brawny men like Zhao Chong.

"It's the only way," the others nodded, hopeless.

Inside Yuan Que's home.

Yuan Que's heart was pounding. When that fist had come flying straight at him, with an angry "Go to hell!" ringing in his ears, he'd genuinely felt like he was about to die. He closed his eyes, recalling everything he'd been through. He didn't regret it. He almost wanted to laugh.

But that fist never reached his head. It stopped just before touching his cheek.

For a moment, Yuan Que could feel his fine hairs brushing against the knuckles of that hand.

"Just messing with you." The fist pulled away, revealing Lin Tu's bright smile. "I was really curious how someone as weak as you ended up with this many supplies. I guess heaven has people it hates, and people it favors, huh?"

If Lin Tu was one of the hated, then the boy before her must be one of the favored—he'd had a father who'd prepared all these supplies before the end of the world. What a lucky kid.

Yuan Que stared at the smiling face so close to him, his cheeks still pale from fright, his eyes dazed and rimmed with red. M-Messing with him? Yuan Que suddenly felt a flicker of anger.

"Get up and pack your things," Lin Tu said, stepping back. "What are you standing there for? Waiting to leave all this for them?"

Yuan Que shrugged helplessly. "Aren't you going to steal my stuff?" There was no logic in making the victim pack up his own belongings for the thief.

"Who's stealing your stuff? I'm not a robber. You're bringing the supplies and moving into the empty room upstairs in my building. Otherwise, do you think you can hold on to these supplies..." Lin Tu rolled her eyes, remembering how Yuan Que had closed his eyes in terror before her fist had even landed.

He was moving into the place above hers... Yuan Que asked, "Then the stuff is still mine?" Upon receiving an affirmative answer, his mood perked up instantly.

Yuan Que handed the red ointment he'd just dug out to Lin Tu.

It was a tube of erythromycin ointment. Yuan Que pointed at a scrape on Lin Tu's elbow. She'd probably gotten it when she jumped out of the car earlier—she hadn't even noticed it herself.

Lin Tu said thanks but didn't take it.

Yuan Que glanced at her carefully, then suddenly realized she wasn't trying to save him but rather... "You're going to get revenge on them? Then why not just kill them outright? You clearly could."

Lin Tu looked out the window. The air was muggy and clouds were gathering, but the wind was strong—she couldn't tell which direction it was blowing.

"It's not safe, and..." Lin Tu smiled. "They want food, don't they? I want to see them want it and never get it."

"How?"

"You'll see in a bit."

.

After the two of them moved everything up to Room 302 above, it was close to dinnertime, and Lin Tu immediately began preparing the meal.

Carrying a certain vindictive mindset, and genuinely hungry herself, she decided to make this a feast.

The menu was four hot dishes, one cold dish, plus a soup and a dessert. The hot dishes were three meat and one vegetable. Lin Tu first took out eight chicken wings, a piece of beef shank, a bag of shrimp, and some vegetables to thaw.

Meanwhile, she grabbed a pack of Oreos, crushed the cookies and mixed them with melted butter, then pressed the mixture into a cake mold. She whipped the egg yolks, sugar, and heavy cream, added melted chocolate and gelatin sheets, plus some cream cheese, and smoothed it into the mold. Into the fridge it went—after dinner, she'd dust it with cocoa powder, and it would be a simple tiramisu.

After finishing the cake, Lin Tu started on the dishes.

She rinsed a bowl of mung beans and half a bowl of lily bulbs, tossed them into a stew pot, covered them with water, and threw in a small handful of rock sugar. With the weather so hot, some mung bean soup was just right.

Then Lin Tu used ginger slices and cooking wine to remove the gamey smell from the chicken wings. She lined a baking tray with foil, brushed on oil, neatly arranged the wings, painted them with the teriyaki sauce she'd made earlier, and slid them into the oven.

Before the meaty aroma could waft out, Lin Tu was already heating oil in a wok. She tossed in onion shreds, ginger slices, and garlic slices, frying them over low heat. The sweetness of the onion, the pungency of the ginger, and the fragrance of the garlic immediately melded together. Then she added the blanched beef chunks. As the spatula turned them, a tempting golden-brown appeared on the surface, and an aggressively rich meaty aroma mixed with the scent of spices drifted out the window.

Yuan Que, sitting on the stairwell, sniffed the air. He'd just eaten two pieces of jerky, but now his stomach was suddenly growling again.

Through the stairwell window, he spotted a small group of people approaching from a distance, and suddenly understood what Lin Tu had meant by "want it and never get it." His eyes lit up, and he turned to rest his chin on his hand, staring at Lin Tu's door, a sense of anticipation building.

The wind chime on that door seemed to sense his gaze, swaying on its own even without wind, suddenly letting out a few crisp "ding-a-ling" sounds.

.

After stir-frying the beef, Lin Tu added half a basin of boiling water to the pot.

The potatoes and curry cubes were already set aside. In about ten to twenty minutes, once the beef was about seventy to eighty percent tender, she could add the potatoes and curry cubes one by one.

The curry beef was almost done. Lin Tu moved on to the next dish—Typhoon Shelter-style fried shrimp.

Meanwhile, Li Tong and his group finally arrived at the foot of Lin Tu's building.

Not much time had passed since Lin Tu started cooking, so the aroma hadn't fully spread yet.

It wasn't until they got close that they caught a rich, scorched scent of onions, ginger, and garlic mixed with beef. The already starving crowd's stomachs immediately began to growl.

"What's that smell?" One person even wondered if he was smelling things.

It had been almost a month since the disaster began. He hadn't smelled food this good in nearly a month.

"It's meat." Another person said with certainty.

"More precisely, it's beef stewed with potatoes, plus a bit of roasted chicken. Hmm... and the smell of frying. I pick up curry, soy sauce, oyster sauce, scallions, ginger, garlic..." One person stopped in his tracks, savoring the scents carefully.

The more he described, the hungrier the others got. Several sounds of gulping saliva rose from the crowd.

"Stir-fried cabbage!" A tantalizing sourness hit them—the smell of hot, wilting cabbage mixed with oil, enough to make anyone's mouth water.

And with it came the scent of rice. That smell seemed to send a signal—dinner time.

"But the thing is..." Li Tong stared blankly at the bare neighborhood, certain he was still in this damned apocalypse. "Where's that smell coming from?"