Chapter Five: The End of the World Descends

Moonlight spilled over the villa like water, as if coating it in a layer of silver. A cold wind howled past, and withered vines crept up the structure’s veins, wrapping the villa in a dense, suffocating embrace that lent it an eerie, mysterious air.

The villa’s front gates stood wide open. In the center of the yard sat a long table laden with various delicacies, conveying a sense of solemnity akin to an ancestral sacrifice.

Delivery drivers who came and went would place their items down, tremble as they offered three bows, and then hurry away with panicked, hurried footsteps.

"I heard the boss say that a very beautiful woman ordered this for a company team-building event. But does this look like a place where people live? Could it be..."

"Could it be that the people are actually there, just invisible to us?"

"Stop scaring yourself! There are no such things as ghosts in this world!"

"Then why are you taking your money out and muttering about not wanting it to turn into spirit currency?"

"...Nobody will think you're a mute if you don't speak."

...

Jiang Qiyu closed the car door and stretched; she had finally made it home. Running around the markets all day was truly exhausting.

On the road, pedestrians wore hurried, ashen expressions, as if something were chasing them from behind.

Her gaze sharpened. These people were all coming from the direction of her home. Could something have happened there?

Jiang Qiyu hurried back. Upon entering the gate, she saw a deluge of takeout orders neatly stacked on the table, piled high enough that they somehow didn't topple over.

Fortunately, she had been clever enough to find a long table; otherwise, having all these piles on the ground like a trash heap would have looked filthy.

"G-ghost! A ghost!"

The delivery guy at the gate dropped what he was holding with a loud clang. Terror etched across his face, he turned and sprinted away without looking back, abandoning his electric scooter entirely.

Jiang Qiyu was so startled by his shout that she jumped like a cat with its fur standing on end, looking around nervously. "Ghost? Where is the ghost?"

A cold gust of wind blew, making the empty courtyard seem all the more desolate. Her white skirt fluttered in the breeze, casting flickering shadows.

She realized belatedly: surely this "ghost" wasn't referring to her?

Jiang Qiyu rubbed her forehead. It seemed she would have to hurry and hire a cleaning service tomorrow, or word would get out and no one would dare deliver food here again.

Storing all the food into her spatial dimension, she went inside, tidied up a room, and made do for the night.

She slept without dreams.

The next day, Jiang Qiyu rose at the crack of dawn.

The cleaning company she had booked arrived quickly. Because the villa was so large and had been neglected for so long, the company sent twenty people, costing 20,000 yuan. Even then, it would take over twelve hours to clean.

Jiang Qiyu wiped the sweat from her brow; if she had done this herself, it would have taken forever.

She did a quick calculation. She had spent over three million yesterday on supplies and now had three million left. She had to hoard everything she could while the money was still usable.

Food was still the top priority.

Jiang Qiyu went straight to a factory owner and ordered 100 tons of rice, then ordered another 100 tons of soybeans from an international firm. Everything was delivered to a warehouse, from which she would later transfer it to the villa via her space; a single basement would be enough to hold it all.

To be safe, she ordered 10,000 boxes of compressed biscuits and 1,000 boxes each of canned pork, beef, and luncheon meat.

To ensure nutritional balance, Jiang Qiyu found a fruit and vegetable supplier and bought 100 crates each of mangoes, bananas, dragon fruit, cantaloupe, and watermelon, along with 100 crates of canned fruit.

She had spent over 2.3 million in total, leaving only about one million.

With basic necessities secured, she could prepare some survival gear.

Jiang Qiyu visited an outdoor supply store in the mall and ordered a batch of tents, emergency lights, water purification tablets, thermal blankets, solid alcohol, and candles—just in case.

Next, she went to a wholesale market to buy over a dozen hoes, shovels, and rakes; they might come in handy for farming in her own territory later.

Finally, she bought a batch of basic medicine: anti-inflammatories, cold medicine, fever reducers, antibiotics... Because of purchase limits, Jiang Qiyu visited different pharmacies in batches to buy them.

In the apocalypse, medicine was more valuable than life itself; she had to stock up.

Jiang Qiyu had never fallen ill during the apocalypse, but those who did simply couldn't survive. Even a minor cold, if one managed to pull through, could lead to being abandoned. With limited medicine, the bases took measures to minimize the number of infected individuals to prevent the spread of influenza.

Only those in the upper echelons had the privilege of getting sick.

Jiang Qiyu’s eyes darkened for a moment, and she unconsciously gripped her shopping bag, crumpling it.

"Jiang Qiyu, you bitch! So you’re here!"

A shrill voice approached from a distance, accompanied by a limping gait.

Jiang Shan ran over, furious, and grabbed her. "I’m asking you, where did everything in the house go? Did you sell it all? We went to look today, and forget the furniture—there wasn't even a lightbulb left! You are so vicious!"

Jiang Qiyu’s expression sank, and she backhanded him. "Try calling me that again?"

"You! You dare hit me?"

Jiang Shan’s face flushed red, and he raised his fist, ready to charge at her, but his aunt pulled him back.

"Mom, why are you stopping me? Doesn't she deserve a beating?"

"Shut up!" The aunt scolded him for show, then turned to Jiang Qiyu with an apologetic smile. "Xiao Yu, he really didn't know what he was saying this time; he deserved the hit. But look, the house is just a bare shell now; we can't live like this."

What a classic "good cop, bad cop" routine.

Jiang Qiyu sneered inwardly, though her face remained impassive. She wanted to see what these people were really up to.

"So, what do you suggest?"

The aunt smiled and rubbed her hands together. "You sold the items in the shop, and we won't quibble over that anymore. But your grandmother treasures that jade pendant; she’s going to make a scene if this is all she gets in return for the house."

"Why don't you just transfer the money you got from selling the furniture to us? We'll buy it ourselves."

One truly laughs when faced with utter absurdity.

That jade pendant had belonged to the Jiang family all along; it was merely a return to its rightful owner. And now they wanted her to cough up another 360,000?

Jiang Qiyu scoffed. "The house I traded to you didn't include the furniture. If you don't want it, plenty of others do!"

The aunt clearly hadn't expected her niece, usually so easy to manipulate, to be so firm. She quickly tried to coax her. "We're just discussing it, aren't we? If you don't agree, fine. We definitely want the house."

"It's just that your brother is still 150,000 short for a down payment on a car. Why don't you cover it for him? Family should help each other out, right?"

"Look at all these expensive things you've been buying; you clearly aren't short on cash."

Normally, after refusing the first request, most people would agree to a second, less excessive one.

But Jiang Qiyu refused.

She rejected the request cleanly and mocked them.

"Listen, Aunt, don't be so possessive of other people's wallets. Mind your own business."

"You!" The aunt was stunned by the refusal, left speechless for a moment.

Jiang Qiyu didn't care what they thought and turned to leave.

Jiang Shan shouted threats in a rage, "Jiang Qiyu, you’re so cold-blooded! You’re destined to have no family, no friends, and no one to collect your corpse when you die!"

"Don't come looking for me if you have any trouble later! I won't help you!"

Jiang Qiyu looked back at him and said coldly, "I'll still be alive long after you're dead."

As if to validate her words, a car slammed into the sidewalk at high speed with a loud bang, knocking down three people in a flurry of screams—less than fifty meters away from them!

The aunt and her son were frozen in terror, swallowing hard as the shock set in.

After the initial panic, the victims' families rushed to the car, pounding on the windows and demanding the driver get out.

The driver complied, but he was swaying and convulsing, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles.

A moment later, he let out a roar, opened his blood-stained maw, and lunged at the nearest person!

"Ahhh! Help!"

The victim's family shrieked, terrified, begging the bystanders for help.

Kind-hearted people who stepped in to assist were bitten as well.

But many more were simply holding up their phones, recording video.

Jiang Qiyu frowned, realizing things were taking a turn for the worse. She withdrew from the scene before the crowd could descend into total chaos.

The apocalypse... it had arrived early.