Chapter 62: Braised Pork Hock with Rice

When Su Su returned to the urban village, a fine, misty rain had just begun to fall.

At the very bottom of a rundown residential building, which had been converted into a large communal dormitory, seven or eight burly men were gathered together playing poker. In such foul weather, neither working nor hunting zombies was an option, so card games became the best pastime.

The narrow alleyways were completely deserted.

Su Su carried no umbrella; she unzipped her windbreaker and tucked the black snake coiled around her body straight into her embrace.

The flash of fair skin and her shapely figure drew a few jeering, harassing whistles.

The sharp little black snake instantly slithered out from the semi-open collar, and a tiny cluster of blue flames flew toward the communal dormitory, burning up everyone's bedding in the blink of an eye.

Including the playing cards scattered all over the floor.

The thick smoke from the burning flammable materials quickly drifted up to the second floor. As soon as Su Su's figure vanished at the end of the alley, the landlord hiding upstairs pushed open the window and roared furiously at the people below: "Are you out of your minds?! How dare you provoke an ability user! If you burned my property, you are all going to pay me back the full price! Do you hear me?!"

Even after walking out of the alley, Su Su could still hear the landlord hurling a rapid-fire string of furious curses—in a dialect Su Su didn't quite understand—at the boorish men who had brought this disaster upon them.

Dozens of profanities were delivered without a single pause for breath.

Su Su lowered her head and gently pressed Xiao Hei back into her embrace. "Try not to get wet."

Yet she herself was clearly standing in the rain.

The black snake's body quietly grew warmer, steadily supplying warmth to the female.

At last, the woman and the snake returned to Granny Niu's Forge.

Granny Niu sat inside the shop, intently channeling her special ability to craft a weapon.

"You're back." She glanced up casually at Su Su, pointing her left hand toward the counter. "Your weapon and soft armor are already done."

"So fast?"

Su Su walked up to the counter and saw a curved short blade, about fifty or sixty centimeters long, lying there.

She drew the blade from its scabbard. The surface was unadorned and unpretentious, yet it faintly radiated a sharp, lethal aura.

With a gentle sweep of her hand, the blade merely brushed against a chair, and the back of the chair was sliced cleanly in half, clattering down onto the floor.

Su Su: "..."

If she used this to hack at zombies, wouldn't it be just like slicing watermelons?

She put the knife down, shifted her gaze to the other side of the counter, and saw a small piece of close-fitting soft armor made of an unknown material folded neatly there.

It was shaped like a vest, looking small, lightweight, and thin, yet possessing great elasticity—perfect for wearing underneath as a protective layer for her vital organs.

Besides that, there was also a small iron sleeve-arrow, exquisitely compact and minimalist in design.

"What is this?"

"A sleeve-arrow. Pull the trigger, and it fires a steel nail about ten centimeters long. If you ambush someone and aim for the neck, it's a fatal blow."

Su Su instantly grew interested. "Let me try!"

She first strapped the sleeve-arrow onto her arm, then hung the soft armor on a nearby rack, took aim, and fired—

A harsh clanging sound rang out. The moment the sharp steel nail struck the soft armor, the tip of the nail and the surface of the armor generated intense friction. The steel nail, which had started with plenty of momentum, was obstructed for a few seconds before completely losing its forward drive and succumbing to gravity.

Clink.

The steel nail dropped to the ground.

Granny Niu had walked up to Su Su's side at some point. "Those snake scales you brought are harder than any material I've ever used."

Su Su took down the soft armor vest, carefully tracing her fingers over the spot where it had been struck, but she could not find a single flaw.

"Truly formidable."

Her smile lasted only two seconds before vanishing abruptly.

"What is it?"

Su Su was silent for two seconds, then slowly shook her head. "Nothing."

Since she didn't want to talk about it, Granny Niu didn't pry into Su Su's brief moment of distraction. "That third-tier crystal core you gave me—was it worth it?"

"It was worth it. I honestly didn't expect you to make things this well." Su Su turned her head, speaking with conviction. "Did you absorb that third-tier crystal core?"

Having worked as Granny Niu's assistant for two years, she naturally understood the woman's strength.

The exquisite craftsmanship of these three pieces of equipment far exceeded the level achievable by a second-tier forging ability. Take the soft armor, for instance; even Granny Niu would normally find it difficult to make something that was both elastic and rock-hard at the same time.

Granny Niu did not deny it.

She walked back to her workbench and focused once more on crafting a new weapon.

Su Su stood nearby and watched for a while, realizing it was the framework of a crossbow.

In her past life, she had also seen this bow. It had only appeared on Granny Niu's workbench in the third year of the apocalypse, after Granny Niu had advanced to a third-tier ability user.

Yet now, it had appeared ahead of time.

Su Su was finally certain: even though Granny Niu had moved to the urban village, she had never given up on revenge. The crossbow she crafted in her past life was never an order from some ability user; it was the instrument of death intended to claim Wan Pengfei's life.

"Granny, there's something I need to tell you."

Granny Niu didn't even raise her head. "What is it?"

"I can't explain it clearly right now. You'll have to come out with me for a bit."

Granny Niu frowned, staring at Su Su for a long time as if trying to guess her intentions.

"Don't you trust me?"

Even Su Su herself hadn't realized that whenever she used the polite form of address, there was actually a slight hint of spoiled pleading in her tone.

Granny Niu remained silent for several seconds before finally nodding. "Let me get ready."

Her idea of getting ready was simply grabbing two umbrellas from the shop.

The rain outside was still falling in a fine drizzle, neither stopping nor intensifying, as the two women and the snake stepped out into the misty rain.

Neither of them spoke, walking one behind the other in a profoundly silent atmosphere.

They bypassed the muddy cement road, stepped across drainage pits filled with dirty water, and finally stopped in front of the abandoned security booth at the back gate of the urban village.

There were people standing inside—several of them, in fact.

Granny Niu hesitated for just two seconds before silently following along.

"You're finally here!"

Brother Wang, crouching beneath the eaves of the security booth, stood up. His gaze bypassed Su Su and landed on the white-haired Granny Niu.

Just when he should have spoken, he found himself momentarily at a loss for words: "..."

"This is the Granny Niu I told you about," Su Su took on the role of introducer. "Granny, this is Brother Wang. He—"

Seeing someone who shouldn't have been here, Granny Niu's voice became exceptionally raspy. "I know him."

"You know me?" Brother Wang asked, extremely surprised. "How do you know me?"

Granny Niu refused to confess.

Su Su exchanged a glance with Brother Wang.

The latter promptly pushed open the door of the abandoned security booth and dragged out an ability user who was bound hand and foot.

"Granny, do you know this person?"

"Mmph mmph mmph!"

The moment she saw the man's face, a deep, bone-deep hatred flashed in the depths of Granny Niu's eyes.

How could she not know him? She would recognize this man even if he were reduced to ashes!

The moment Wan Pengfei was thrown out, Granny Niu completely understood the situation at hand.

She first looked up at Su Su. "Did you help me find him?"

It was her, and yet not her.

Without offering further explanation, Su Su nodded. "I went hunting zombies in the eastern hunting ground today and happened to run into him."

Granny Niu's lips trembled a few times, but the word "thanks" never managed to escape.

"Granny Niu," Brother Wang said, eager to get to the bottom of the truth and interrupting her surging emotions, "when I first met this kid Wan Pengfei, he was only a first-tier ability user. Relying on some decent blade techniques for killing zombies, he teamed up with me a few times."

"Later on, he inexplicably started dating my daughter. Although I was against it, it didn't do any good, so I just had to grit my teeth and accept him as my prospective son-in-law."

"To help him survive longer, I even helped him upgrade his ability to the second tier."

"This winter, as soon as the Eternity Team entered the base, this kid licked up to them. After his ability advanced to the third tier, he turned around and dumped my daughter."

"To this day, she still hasn't recovered; she stays at home and bursts into tears every now and then."

Brother Wang was both annoyed with his daughter for lacking backbone and having an unclear head in the apocalypse, and furious at Wan Pengfei for casting her aside. Every time he saw him, or the Eternity Team he clung to, he wished he could hack them to pieces with a blade.

Hearing this, Granny Niu rasped, "Your daughter is at least still alive."

Brother Wang was instantly struck dumb.

That's right, his daughter was at least still alive, unlike Granny Niu, whose daughter had been murdered by Wan Pengfei.

"I know you because the month after she died, I used to stake out the mission hall day after day."

She had thought about killing everyone, but her enemies were all offensive-type ability users, and her support-type ability offered zero chance of victory.

That was why Granny Niu had moved back to the urban village.

One day, some day... and finally, she had lived to see Wan Pengfei tied up like a pig.

The ungrateful man widened his eyes. His ability had already been crippled, and a large rag was stuffed into his mouth. At this moment, he could only crawl miserably on the ground, whimpering and pleading for these people to spare his life.

"Granny, I'll leave him to you to deal with."

Granny Niu looked at her, then turned to look at Brother Wang.

The latter nodded. "I've already crippled this bastard's ability. As for his life... I'll leave that to you, Granny."

Su Su didn't stay to watch what happened next.

She returned home ahead of time. The black snake slithered into the room behind the female, the raised tip of its tail supporting a soft armor vest.

Su Su looked at it with a puzzled expression.

The snake used its head to nudge her knee urgingly, hissing softly. "Hiss!"

"You want me to put it on?"

"Hiss!"

Su Su actually caught a flash of intense anticipation in Xiao Hei's vertical pupils. Was it because this soft armor was forged from its own scales?

"I'll put it on right now."

She tossed the armor aside, bent down to pick up Xiao Hei, and then—

Locked it outside the bedroom door.

"I'll let you in in a minute."

The black snake kept a gloomy vigil outside the door, its vertical pupils narrowing unhappily.

Why wouldn't it let her look? It had already seen everything long ago!

Its tail thumped restlessly against the floor, making a thudding sound.

After enduring for a dozen seconds, the black snake suddenly pressed flat against the floor, trying to peek inside through the crack at the bottom... but soon, it realized how silly and foolish that action was. When it slithered back up, it was even angrier!!

Finally, just as its anger was reaching a boiling point, the door opened.

Su Su stood inside the room, tugging at the vest she hadn't quite finished adjusting in front of the mirror.

The stark contrast between black and white, combined with an aura of overly ripe, mature femininity, instantly quieted the rampaging black snake.