Chapter 23: Settling Scores

As the five minutes ran out, a glimmer of disappointment flickered in Fang Xia's eyes. Though he had anticipated this outcome, it was still astonishing—this was only the first few days of the apocalypse, and already these people had mastered the rules of survival?

He selected a room at random. With a single swing, the sturdy security door was split open.

The force of six men combined with a razor-sharp war blade—the destruction pleased Fang Xia.

“What are you doing? Why are you breaking into my room? Someone help! There’s a murderer!”

No sooner had he stepped inside than a shrill woman’s voice rang out. A strong beam of light swept over the room, revealing only a woman clutching a child of about three or four.

“They didn’t steal anything,” Bai Xing whispered from behind, but her eyes immediately landed on the food piled in the living room.

“In a place this small, do you think hiding will help?”

Sweeping the flashlight over every corner, Fang Xia saw no one else. They must be hiding within the rooms.

He had no time for games. With a swift kick, he knocked the woman to the ground and pressed the war blade to her throat.

“Come out, or the food will be wasted—and so will your lives.”

The door to the inner room creaked open, and a bespectacled man emerged, trembling.

“You can’t kill people. The law will never let you go for this.”

“Oh, so the law will forgive thieves, then?”

The man fell silent, legs trembling as he stared at the blade.

“Jump. If you do, I’ll spare your wife and daughter, and leave them three days’ worth of food. Whether they survive will be up to fate.”

The man shook harder, torn between his fear of death and his dread of his family’s demise.

“Help! Murder! You’re next if you don’t stop him!”

His desperate, piercing screams echoed through the silent night, drawing a wave of zombies to the building below. They stood dumbly, gazing upward as if pondering how to climb up.

He cried out three or four times, but no one came to his aid. Despair welled up in his eyes.

“Noisy.”

Fang Xia closed the distance in two steps. With a gentle stroke of his blade, the man’s cries ceased forever.

With a sweep of his hand, all the food they had stolen vanished—transferred into Fang Xia’s spatial gear.

“Murder! He’s killed someone!”

The man had died too quickly; the woman only now realized what had happened and screamed even louder, her daughter’s cries joining in.

“I don’t like killing women, but that doesn’t mean I won’t.”

At those words, the woman clamped her mouth shut, holding her daughter tightly, terrified the child’s cries would provoke the killer before her.

“Next.”

Bai Xing felt nothing wrong with Fang Xia’s actions. Those who did wrong must bear the consequences. If she’d been unarmed earlier, she would have become Brother Qiang’s plaything, and these people were his accomplices.

After the break-in, not one of them pleaded for her, not even a word; they just snatched the food and slammed their doors.

He forced open the second door as he had before. Two brothers lived here, no women. Fang Xia dispatched them without hesitation and reclaimed his food.

The third household.

Before he even reached the third door, most of the doors on the floor swung open. Over a dozen people stepped into the hallway.

“Young man, you’ve killed enough. Isn’t it time to calm down?” ventured a middle-aged man with a beer belly, trying to sound brave.

“That’s right. This had nothing to do with us. It was those four—you want revenge, go find them.”

Another voice chimed in.

“How about this—we’ll return your food, and let’s call it even. What do you say?”

It seemed the beer-bellied man was their self-appointed negotiator.

“Jump. I’ll spare your wives and children, leaving three days’ food in each home.”

Did they really think they could walk away so easily? Not with Fang Xia.

“Who do you think you are? Just because you have two blades? There are more than a dozen of us! You’re forcing our hand!”

A man in his thirties rushed forward, but before he could finish his words, Fang Xia’s blade had sliced him in two.

So what if they were forced? Six years in the apocalypse had taught Fang Xia this one truth: any monster can be defeated, but the evil within human hearts is far more dangerous.

“Jump, or I’ll help you.”

For those who had lived in a peaceful world, witnessing such bloodshed was more shocking than they could ever imagine.

“Fight him! He’s only got two blades—what’s there to—”

Once again, the ringleader didn’t finish his sentence before Fang Xia’s blade found him.

“Jump, or I’ll do it. One minute.”

Death was inevitable, but Fang Xia didn’t intend to let them die easily. He wanted his ruthlessness known, so none would dare provoke him again.

When only five seconds remained in his countdown, panic erupted among the dozen or so people facing him. Some charged at Fang Xia, shrieking for mutual destruction; others fled back to their rooms. Only one, terror-stricken, chose to jump—already broken by Fang Xia’s brutality.

He felled those who charged him as effortlessly as chopping vegetables. Behind him, Bai Xing couldn’t hold back any longer and vomited to the side.

Fang Xia simply stood by, watching silently. He neither helped nor spoke—she would have to adapt on her own.

He took note of those who’d fled into their rooms. When Bai Xing recovered, Fang Xia casually swung his blade, hacking open all the doors.

One man tried to ambush him from behind a door with an iron object, but he had wildly overestimated his own strength.

He reclaimed all the stolen food. As for the women and children in those rooms, Fang Xia paid them no heed, leaving them to their fates.

The one who had jumped—since he hadn’t bothered to say which room he was from, Fang Xia decided to consider him a lone wolf and saved himself three days’ rations.

“Did you see clearly? Did we miss anyone?”

Having made a circuit of slaughter, Fang Xia turned to Bai Xing.

“No, only the four who pried the doors remain.”

From the beginning, Fang Xia had pieced together the cause of all this, so he had deliberately left those four for last.

With all the commotion outside, Brother Qiang and his group were well aware of what was happening. But as the instigators, they knew they wouldn’t be forgiven and chose not to come out.

They waited inside, pressed against the door, each gripping whatever makeshift weapon they could muster, ready for Fang Xia’s arrival.

“Fatty, what are you doing with a TV remote? Get something harder!”

If he didn’t need every man he could get, Brother Qiang would have killed the fat one himself.

“This one, right?”

“Yeah.”

Outside, Fang Xia’s voice rang out. Brother Qiang’s grip on his stick was slick with sweat. The fat man, who had swapped the remote for a clothes-drying rack, shook so hard his knees nearly buckled.

Bang!

With a deafening crash, the door splintered open.