Chapter 35: Stir-fried Hairy Crab with Perilla

After enjoying a fragrant feast of fish and tender, delicious sautéed baby bok choy, the trio and the snake hit the road once more.

The black snake, which had displayed such viciousness in the pool, had returned to its lazy and spoiled state, sleeping soundly curled up in the passenger seat. Su Su took a moment to glance at it, and the strange feeling in her heart vanished completely. Xiao Hei was still the same Xiao Hei; it must have been the innate human fear of snakes playing tricks on her mind.

Thinking of this, Su Su felt a pang of guilt. From the moment she had decided to treat it as a companion, she should have accepted its ferocity and terror without reservation. Yet, for a split second, she had felt fear and even wanted to retreat. Although Xiao Hei was unaware of her internal conflict, she felt ashamed of her own cowardice.

As a gesture of compensation, she tucked several hard-boiled eggs around the black snake. Its sleeping posture was as poor as its sleep quality was good; in just a short while, the snake had curled itself around the eggs, looking exactly like it was brooding. Su Su chuckled for a moment, then suddenly realized these were the last of their eggs.

They had been delayed in City G far longer than anticipated. In her past life, when she traveled with Si Zhe and the others, many highway bandits would steer clear upon seeing such a large group of ability users. In this life, however, with only two women and a child in the vehicle, all sorts of bandit groups had crawled out of the woodwork, dragging their progress further and further behind.

Remembering the coming snow disaster, Su Su turned onto the road on the right at the fork.

Pang Cancan, still digesting the stewed and grilled fish, reminded her, "You took the wrong turn! The road on the left is faster. The right side goes through a small county town, adding seven or eight kilometers!"

"I didn't take the wrong turn," Su Su said calmly. "We need to restock our supplies."

The food scavenged from City X was, after all, limited. She didn't know how long the remaining journey would take, so they had to be prepared.

"Alright! Let's go scavenge then!"

With her abilities having broken through to the third tier, Pang Cancan’s venomous insect babies had multiplied significantly, each one now as large as a Fuji apple. With such formidable power, she felt confident she could make three trips in and out of City X, let alone a mere small county town.

The outskirts of the town began to come into view. To be honest, it was not at all what they had expected. Pang Cancan leaned against the car window, depressed, voicing Su Su’s own thoughts: "This isn't a county town; it’s barely even a village!"

"Let's go in and take a look."

As the off-road vehicle drove into the small town, the surroundings were extremely desolate. On the streets... Su Su focused her eyes and spotted over a dozen zombie corpses laid out along the roadside.

"Someone beat us to it."

Pang Cancan hesitated, "Should we still go forward?"

"Why not?" Su Su said firmly. "This town isn't large, but it isn't tiny either. Those people couldn't possibly have cleared out all the supplies."

Seeing their leader so composed, the other two teammates calmed down. "Right."

The deeper they drove into the town, the more zombie remains they saw piled up. Judging by the marks left on them, the attackers were few, and most of the kills were single, lethal strikes. They were a ruthless bunch. Su Su quietly raised her guard.

In the distance, she spotted a large supermarket at the next intersection. In such a bustling area, business must have been booming before the apocalypse.

"It's that Land Rover!"

Su Su followed the sound and, sure enough, saw the familiar vehicle parked under a large banyan tree by the side of the supermarket. At the entrance, zombie corpses were piled high; they had clearly just finished a fierce battle. Su Su hesitated for a few seconds, then decided to keep driving: "There must be more than one supermarket here."

As it turned out, this remote and backward little county town—or perhaps it really was just a village—only had this one supermarket. They checked other convenience stores and grocery shops, but only managed to scrounge up a few boxes of instant noodles and countless snacks.

The off-road vehicle finally returned to the supermarket entrance. As soon as Su Su jumped out, the black snake in the passenger seat opened its eyes. It waited for a moment, noticing that the human didn't carry it out as she usually did.

"Hiss?"

The snake’s tail nimbly manipulated the car lock, and the door clicked open. The three-meter-long python slithered to Su Su’s side, dissatisfied, and bit the hem of her trousers.

Su Su sighed helplessly, "Xiao Hei, I can hardly carry you anymore." At twenty-three pounds, she could technically force it, but she wouldn't last long. She had to get it used to moving on its own. The black snake seemed to understand it was growing fast and reluctantly accepted the explanation.

Seeing Xiao Hei could keep up, Su Su relaxed. "Let's go in and see. There are only a few of them and one car; there's no way they could empty an entire supermarket."

But today, they were destined to be proven wrong. Walking into the supermarket, the three were shocked to find that the shelves closest to the door were completely stripped bare.

Pang Cancan’s mouth hung open. "This is the cleanest supermarket I've ever seen." They had encountered picked-over stores before, but there were always scattered, useless items left behind—brooms, flyswatters, that sort of thing. They had never seen a place so thoroughly scoured, like a swarm of locusts had passed through. This was the kind of state a store would reach after being looted by countless hunting parties for two or three years into the apocalypse.

A sense of unease welled up in Su Su. She quickly swept past several empty shelves; the further in she went, the more empty space she saw.

"Did this supermarket not even open for business?"

"Impossible." Su Su examined the shelves closely, noticing that only the edges were dusty, while the spots where items had been placed were clean. "The items were taken just recently."

But who could be powerful enough to clear out an entire supermarket in the blink of an eye? Where could they be hiding it all? Su Su and Pang Cancan exchanged a look: "Spatial ability." One of the ability users who had arrived earlier must have had a spatial power!

*Boom!*

A crashing sound came from another part of the building, likely the warehouse. It was easy to guess that the warehouse held the bulk of the supplies, but they couldn't just rush in to fight for them now.

Little Rui, the shortest of them, tugged gently on Su Su’s sleeve. "Sister Su Su, let's go over there. That’s the discount section." Having lived with his grandfather for ten years, he knew the layout of supermarkets better than anyone. Before the apocalypse, the discount section was the most popular area. After the apocalypse, most people’s first reaction wasn't to head there.

"Good, let's go there." Since most of the supermarket was empty anyway, one place was as good as another.

Yet! In this least-expected spot, there were a dozen rolls of toilet paper and several bags of rice and flour!

"It's flour! We can make dumplings!" Pang Cancan rushed over in excitement, picking up two fifty-pound bags of flour at once... Su Su reflected on herself again: how was it that when others evolved their abilities, they could carry a hundred pounds effortlessly, while she struggled to even hold Xiao Hei?

As she was reflecting, a loud shout came from behind them.

"Put that down! That’s ours!"

From far away, a tall, broad-shouldered figure stormed over. Guan Zixuan, with his long legs and height, reached the discount section in a few strides. His angry glare faltered the moment it landed on Su Su.

"It's you?" It was the little beauty they had met on the road that morning! Guan Zixuan’s eyes lit up instantly. "You followed us here?"

What on earth was he talking about? Su Su frowned and took a few steps back. "I don't think I know you, do I?"

"We just passed each other this morning!" As Guan Zixuan prepared to close the distance, a black shadow suddenly squeezed in front of him!

"Hiss!"

"What the hell? What is that?!" Guan Zixuan leaped two meters away, luckily dodging the black snake's strike. Looking closer, he realized it was a three-meter-long python! He had escaped, but the python was too close to the two girls; if it turned and bit one of them... Guan Zixuan immediately decided to be a hero and protect the beauty before him. "Beautiful, get away! I'll kill this snake!"

Before he could unleash his ability, Su Su pulled Xiao Hei back with a grim face. "What are you trying to do to my Xiao Hei?"

"Your... Xiao Hei?" Guan Zixuan froze, his head following the little beauty's movements, his neck emitting a faint creaking sound. He swallowed hard. "This is your pet?"

Su Su said coldly, "It is my battle pet and my companion. What were you just trying to do to it?"

She had personally acknowledged it, and the python was now crawling onto her, flicking its tongue at him. The whole scene looked like "Beauty and the Beast," but a terror-max version. Guan Zixuan was in deep shock.

"Zixuan, what's wrong?" His companions had finished clearing the warehouse and hurried over upon hearing the commotion. Guan Zixuan couldn't speak, only pointing a trembling finger forward: "Brother Wei, there's a snake! A giant python!"

Wei Yan had already seen the abrupt appearance of the python. His pupils contracted for a few seconds before he regained his composure. He scanned the trio and the snake in front of him without leaving a trace. The team configuration was incredibly strange; he couldn't gauge their true strength, but with that python, he didn't think these were easy targets.

"What do you want?"

Considering that the zombies in front of the supermarket were cleared by them, and she and her team were just scavenging in the wake, Su Su tried to explain as peacefully as possible: "We’re just looking for some supplies. The supermarket is so big, and there are only three of us; we can't take much." Her words, paired with the few bags of rice and flour behind her, sounded particularly credible.

Wei Yan’s gaze lingered on her face before he silently looked away. "You..."

"Let them take it." With his companions there, Guan Zixuan had recovered from the shock of the python and now felt a surge of pity. "They look so thin, and they have a malnourished little boy with them; they must haven't had a full meal in a long time."

Su Su: "..."
Wei Yan: "..."

Wei Yan rubbed his temples. "You can take these things."

His generosity caught Su Su by surprise. Seeming to notice her astonishment, Wei Yan pursed his lips. "It’s just a few bags of rice and flour. Whoever finds it first, keeps it."