Chapter 91: Meeting Ruka Again

After twenty minutes, Su Miao delivered the young soldier to their barracks.
Staring at the men on the assault boat, she asked in a dazed tone, “What did you just say?”
Perhaps it had been the cold.
Perhaps he had been shocked by her unusually long reflex.
The young soldier could not find his words for quite a while.

Su Miao blinked, explained the matter nervously to the sentry, and handed the man over.
“Thank you so much. Could you tell us your name and which shelter you come from? We’d like to visit and thank you.”

The company sergeant, only a few steps away, saw the scene and hurried over first to express his gratitude.
“It’s nothing,” Su Miao said, waving her hands repeatedly to refuse.

Seeing more people about to gather around, she immediately set off in her assault boat.

“That medicine…”
Only then did the sergeant notice the cold tablets beside the rescued fighter and stiffened inwardly.
Those tablets would have fetched five tiny yellow fish on the black market.
“Fetch the police sketcher and have her face recorded. We must thank her properly when we have the chance.”
He barked an order. “A good person like this is rare.”

Su Miao moved on.

……

She was still tense.
Almost half an hour later, she slowed the boat.

She had just forgotten something important: to ask whether they could get in touch with Qin Longzhang and tell him she was safe.
But once she calmed down, she thought better of it.
What if Qin and the others risked coming and sacrificed more people?
She quickly abandoned the idea. For the moment, finding a place to survive the polar storm was wiser.

“Beautiful, searching for supplies all by yourself?”
Three assault boats suddenly sped toward her.

Each boat carried five or six men and was packed with all sorts of cargo, sunk low in the water.
At the front was a blond man who whistled. “What luck—such a pretty girl alone out here.”

“Girl, come with us. We’ll take care of you!”
“Brother has premium sausage here.”
“Damn, you scared her already.”

The thought of being surrounded by so many men made Su Miao tremble with fear.
The air was already harshly cold, and this time she could not keep her face frozen; her body shook violently.

But when the three boats came within ten meters, Su Miao lifted her crossbow and, with a sharp hiss of release, loosed a few bolts that punched through all three boats.
A hiss of escaping air followed immediately.

“They’re flooding! They’re flooding!”
“Plug it! Plug it now!” voices shouted.

But there was no way to stop it all at once; each boat had more than one puncture.

“Bitch!”
The blond leader snarled, his voice cracked with fury. “Brothers, seize her boat, or we all end up in the water freezing to death!”

“Kill her!”

One of them raised an axe to smash.

To guard against this kind of thing, Su Miao had already laid out her magical-space array as they drew near.
Now, seeing a weapon swing, her body trembled and moved by reflex.

A bolt flew.
It went clean through the man’s throat.
He dropped with a wet splash, vanished beneath the water with a bright spray.

For a breath, the blond man stared, mouth agape, terror written plain on his face.
He had no idea how someone still trembling so badly could still shoot so cleanly.

“Damn…”
He managed before a bolt struck his own throat. He made no further sound.
His body toppled backward into the current.

The leader was dead.
The boats were still leaking, already filling with water.
The remaining thugs panicked. Seeing Su Miao still shivering, they broke into pleading, eyes wide with fear.
“Save us! We have supplies. We’ll give you everything!”

Shaking, Su Miao watched them and, as another boat edged close, sent another bolt into its hull, making an extra hole so it could sink faster.

“Brothers, take her on! Sink her boat too!”
Someone tried to damage Su Miao’s boat, but the instant he raised a weapon, an arrow struck his forehead directly. Instantly dead.

The few others who lifted their weapons hesitated—wanting to attack, wanting to explain it was a mistake.
In that heartbeat of doubt, each had a bolt in the throat. Instantly dead.
No one dared approach anymore.

They threw away their cargo and desperately tried to row their sinking boats away, but it was too late.
Within seconds all three boats were full of water and broken up, and those still aboard were swept into the torrent.

“Help! Save me!”
A man jumped in after them and swam toward Su Miao, but she sent one arrow into the center of his brow. He stopped struggling instantly.

No one else dared come near. But if they kept staying in that freezing flood, death was only a matter of time.
In less than three minutes, all trace of them was gone, erased by the icy current.

When no one remained, Su Miao sat still in her assault boat and forced herself calm.
She had only shot through their boats at first to save bolts, but they had thrown away the chance and she ended up wasting several more herself.

In her magical space, she had only one heavy sniper rifle left, without ammunition.
In daily survival combat she relied on her custom crossbow and her umbrella-sword—especially the crossbow.

She checked the arrow supply in the magical space: only 231 bolts remained.
If she couldn’t recover arrows after each fight, she knew trouble would come when they were all gone.

An hour later, she drove the assault boat to an industrial area near the road, now submerged by floodwater.
Scanning left and right, she came upon a large, solid-looking building.
It was dark inside, empty and silent.

Outside, night had fully fallen.
She entered and checked each floor, then found an empty room on the top level. She blocked the door with a steel plate and a large slab of stone, set up an alcohol stove, boiled a bowl of rice, and pan-fried two steaks for supper.

Steak with rice tasted excellent.
She was used to instant noodles and beef hot pot; when she skipped rice, she felt unwell.
She had cooked too much, so she packed the leftovers away, planning to make Yangzhou fried rice next time.

After dinner, well fed and warm, she read for a while from *Blood Magic*.
She felt she had almost fully mastered the spell *Reanimation of the Dead*.

“Is it already eleven?” she wondered, then soaked her feet in hot water.
The cold was so severe that without doing so, she knew she would barely sleep.
Once her feet warmed through, she brought out the bed she had laid out earlier and added a silk quilt.
Prepared and comfortable, she crawled in and fell into deep sleep.

At six in the morning, Su Miao was woken by her alarm.
After eating one savory sauce-scented pancake and a cup of yogurt, she packed up and prepared to leave.

But when she came down and reached to launch the assault boat, she found the flood surface itself had frozen over.
How could that be?
This was a muddy, turbulent river.

She checked the thermometer: minus ten degrees Celsius.
She fell silent.
This place was no place to survive winter. If she stayed, she’d be trapped.

She glanced at the ice and dropped a ten-kilogram stone from her magical space.
With a hard thud, the ice held.
Then she tossed a fifty-kilogram stone. A tiny crack appeared, but the sheet still held.

She could walk.

With her backpack on her back, Su Miao stepped carefully onto the ice and made for the far bank at a steady, careful pace.
After more than twenty minutes, she reached the road.

She looked down at the frozen flood and felt a weight in her chest.
A thin glaze of ice coated the road as well, unsuitable for driving.

Three hours later, she arrived at an intersection whose road signs read Physics Research Center, Astronomy Research Center, Biology Research Center, Botanical Garden, Zoo, and Starry Plaza, among others.
Unlike the lower districts she had passed, this district stood above water level. Aside from seasonal floods, the buildings were still largely intact.
Most of what had been inside was probably gone long ago.

Passing the Physics Research Center, she noticed only a few whole panes of glass remained; the place seemed to have suffered an explosion.
The Astronomy Center looked much the same.

The Biology Center lay behind the Botanical Garden, now smothered in dense vegetation. From afar all she could see was dense, lush flowering growth.

Yet with the temperature at minus ten, how could the flowers be so bright, so abundant?
Or were they meant to make travelers think the garden was warm?

She was still thinking when she saw a stray dog cross the road.

It sniffed at flowers by the roadside, perhaps scenting some meat.
The next second, those blossoms surged outward, suddenly swelling and swallowing most of the dog in one sweep.
The dog writhed in terror, but the more it struggled, the more greedily the flowers drew it in.
Soon it disappeared entirely, consumed and forgotten, and the blossoms eased back to their ordinary, lush shape, glossy and beautiful as if nothing had happened.

A faint wind brushed past, carrying a sweet, floral scent.
It was terrifying.
Su Miao shivered, a chill she could not shake, then hurried forward.

The zoo stood next to the garden. From the intersection she could see the gate had been blocked solid by dump trucks, and scattered human bones lay beside them. Something terrible had once happened there.

Su Miao needed to go toward Starry Plaza, a large complex mall.
Normally all the supplies inside would have been emptied already.
She had no wish to forage now—only to leave this district quickly.

But the road to Starry Plaza was blocked by big vehicles set at odd angles, leaving a single entrance. Beside it hung crude signs:

“Road toll: 2.5 kilograms of grain.”
“Starry Base is recruiting. Pay five kilograms of grain and join us!”
“Starry Song-and-Dance Troupe is recruiting. Outstanding appearance required. Under twenty-five. 15 kilograms of grain and 5 kilograms of meat per month.”

The familiar roadblock. The familiar toll.
Why did people keep seizing roads to set up these gates?

The ten young men guarding it held steel pipes, machetes, and homemade shotguns, their expressions feral and unnerving.
Outside the blockade, a dozen or more people were lined up, unsure whether they had come to join or just pass.

Su Miao stopped and hesitated.
There was no way around; this was all mountain and ravine. A mutated beast could come out anywhere, not to mention the carnivorous trees and grasses that would eat humans.

Too dangerous.
And only about fifteen days remained until the deep-winter blizzard on the first of December.

At just that moment, an old woman with a vegetable basket came out from within the line. She spotted Su Miao instantly.
She came a little closer and whispered, “Girl, leave now. The ones in there are all monsters. Don’t go in.”

The man watching the gate tapped the side of one of the trucks with his steel pipe and looked over, roaring, “Old woman, what more trouble are you starting? You want me to tear your mouth out?”

“Then go pick wild greens and be done with it. If you can’t find greens, don’t expect to go home!” the old woman said, giving a forced smile before backing away cheerfully.

At that moment, Su Miao felt a cold wave of danger.
She was being watched.

She kept her face as still as ice and stayed at a distance from the queue, deciding to observe first.
Now it was a woman and her little girl’s turn: the mother looked about thirty-five, the child around six, both pale and underfed.

“Big brothers, please let us pass. We’ve only had grass roots and tree bark to eat on this road.”

The mother pleaded.

“Grass roots and bark?” one of them sneered. “Let me check if you’re hiding anything. I’ve seen enough of people like you.”

“Mom!”
The little girl began to cry at the sight of her mother being bullied.

The man looked at the filthy little girl’s face, streaked with black mud, and laughed.
“Well, look at her—black face and mud. What a little beauty.”

“One of you come. Take the little one and wash her face. She’s so young; how could you let her be like this?”

A thin man stepped in and grabbed the child.
The mother clutched her daughter and begged repeatedly. “Brothers, she’s just a child! Please, don’t do this.”

The thin man kicked her aside, carried the girl away, and barked, “Child? Aren’t all of us children? I’m only twenty-nine. What’s wrong with me washing a little girl’s face? Don’t give me excuses!”

“Mom! Mom!” the child wailed louder.

The line behind them drew back at the sight.
Some tried to speak, then saw the steel pipes and machetes and went silent.

After several tense seconds, the thin man returned with the girl, smiling. “Brother, she’s a real beauty, you know. I haven’t seen one this pretty.”

The child’s face, red with freezing from the cold water, wailed and sobbed.
Her mother, seeing her face washed clean, threw herself forward, crying, “Please, let my daughter go. We’ll be careful, we won’t take her home with nothing—just let her go.”

The pipe-wielding guard shoved her away and snapped, “Damn, at least put some clothes on her to keep warm. With that pretty face she’ll get frostbite. Bring her back to us and we can all get cigarettes.”

Another muttered, “Christ, we haven’t smelled tobacco in a month.”

One of them suddenly shouted toward Su Miao, “Bro, that woman’s trying to run!”

After seeing what had happened at the gate, Su Miao had been backing up in fear. She had taken only ten steps when they noticed her.
“Shoot the bitch!”
The man with the steel pipe shouted, and in the first instant they were after her.