this chapter is brought to you by mio
as translator, proofreader and editor!
At this moment, outside the hotpot restaurant, two tall and menacing-looking men stood at the entrance with a thin and delicate-looking boy. The boy didn’t seem very old.
“A hotpot restaurant? The lights are still on, so there must be someone inside. Let’s go in and take a look,” one of the men said, exchanging an unfriendly glance with the other.
The boy followed them, his eyes dull and empty.
Hearing footsteps, Jiang Ci looked up from behind the counter and saw three people walking in from outside.
The two men in front immediately lit up when they saw Jiang Ci’s face.
Their gaze wasn’t concealed at all, and before Jiang Ci could say anything, she felt a wave of undisguised malice wash over her.
Seeing the guns on their backs, Jiang Ci instantly became nervous. For some reason, her sixth sense seemed to have become sharper.
[This is an ability granted by the system to the host, allowing you to more keenly sense malice directed at you and the hotpot restaurant,] the system seemed to sense Jiang Ci’s confusion and explained directly.
At this moment, it felt like an alarm had been installed in Jiang Ci’s heart, beeping incessantly as the men approached.
“Is this a hotpot restaurant?” the man with a buzz cut stood by the counter, his eyes tightly fixed on Jiang Ci like a predator.
Jiang Ci felt goosebumps erupt all over her body and was frantically chattering to the system in her mind despite maintaining a calm expression on the surface.
“This guy is bad, definitely a bad guy. Why is he looking at me like that? So greasy. Does he think he’s being cool?”
This was one of Jiang Ci’s little quirks—when she got nervous, she liked to talk to herself non-stop.
Although Jiang Ci knew the system would protect her, she was now directly facing two tall, burly men carrying guns, who clearly harbored ill intentions.
The system patiently soothed Jiang Ci’s nerves, repeatedly assuring her that it would ensure her safety and not let the men lay a finger on her. Gradually, Jiang Ci’s panic subsided.
“Yes, this shop is A Hotpot Restaurant,” Jiang Ci responded.
Her face showed no smile, and her tone wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. However, since she was good-looking, the man across from her didn’t mind much. Instead, he chuckled as if he had heard something absurd. “What do you have to eat here?”
Jiang Ci tapped on the blackboard beside her, signaling him to look at it himself.
The man’s gaze shifted from Jiang Ci to the small blackboard nearby.
After a moment, the man raised an eyebrow, exchanged a glance with his companion, and shared a look of disbelief and amusement.
It had been ten years since the apocalypse. How could these things still exist?
As the two men began to sneer, Jiang Ci noticed the young boy who had entered last. He was still taller than the average person but unnaturally thin.
In theory, although resources were scarce in this world, the state had developed nutrient solutions that could provide the basic nutrients needed by the human body. It shouldn’t have been possible for someone to be this emaciated.
The boy kept his head down, not glancing around at all, as if he didn’t care about anything. His entire demeanor exuded a sense of despondency.
“Then bring ten portions of each ingredient,” the man with the crew cut said, seemingly in no hurry. He and his companion plopped down at the wooden table.
They were like cats toying with a mouse, ready to bare their fangs once they had had their fill of fun.
[Should we kick them out directly?] the system asked in her mind. [As the owner of the restaurant, it’s your basic right to decide whether to accept or expel customers.]
“Wait a bit. Didn’t they just order? Let’s get their crystal cores first,” Jiang Ci replied, feeling bolder with the system by her side.
Seeing Jiang Ci’s sudden change in attitude, the system couldn’t help but marvel that humans were indeed the most complex creatures in the world.
“That will be five third-level crystal cores and seven second-level crystal cores,” Jiang Ci said to the two men after calculating the bill.
The number of crystal cores wasn’t large, so the men didn’t hesitate for long before handing them over. Jiang Ci’s account was credited with 5,700 points.
While Jiang Ci went to the kitchen to prepare the food, the two men wandered around the room. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t open the door to Jiang Ci’s room. Afraid of alerting her, they decided to leave it alone for the time being.
Apart from that room, there was no sign of anyone else in the entire house. The two men felt slightly relieved.
They quietly discussed their plan. Dealing with a girl didn’t require much effort, and they even felt somewhat relaxed.
As the ingredients were brought out one plate at a time, the men’s expressions changed. They hadn’t expected there to be so many ingredients. Where had they been stockpiled?
Regardless of where they came from, the significance of this place immediately shifted for them. What had started as a desire for the person now turned into a desire to take control of the entire shop.
No matter what they were thinking, the two men eagerly dumped the food into the pot.
As they ate, they paid no attention to the boy nearby. The boy, seemingly accustomed to such scenes, didn’t sit at the table either. Instead, he sat on the floor with his knees hugged to his chest, as if he had automatically tuned out all external sounds.
The food was almost ready, and the air began to fill with an enticing aroma.
The two men went to serve themselves rice, and as they passed by Jiang Ci, the bald man behind the one with a crew-cut couldn’t resist reaching out to touch her fair and delicate face.
But the next second, an electric shock-like pain spread through his entire body starting from his fingertips. The bald man instantly stiffened, and his eyes rolled back.
A loud thud echoed noticeably in the hotpot restaurant, startling the man with a crew cut. He reacted swiftly, turning around while drawing the gun from his back and aiming it in Jiang Ci’s direction.
pls do not share this anywhere or u will always stub ur toe when u walk past a door frame !! this translation has been stolen from mioscorner.com, pls only read there i’m begging u :kneels:
“Da Niu! Da Niu! What’s wrong with you!” the man with a crew cut called out to his teammate twice, but his teammate seemed to still be unconscious from the pain and couldn’t respond.
“What did you do to him?” the crew-cut man’s voice tightened, completely different from the deliberately low tone he had used when speaking to Jiang Ci earlier.
“Nothing. He was the one who tried to touch my face,” Jiang Ci shrugged, looking innocent. She really hadn’t done anything; it was the system’s protection that had kicked in.
“Do you have lightning-based abilities?” The crew-cut man’s eyes grew tense. He had underestimated women, and this time, he had finally met someone formidable.
The two men weren’t usually this careless. It was all because the bald man had let his impulses get the better of him. Otherwise, they would have investigated their target before making a move.
Jiang Ci didn’t deny it and looked at the crew-cut man. “This is a hotpot restaurant. If you’re here to eat, then eat properly. Don’t get any funny ideas. Do you think I, a woman, would dare to open a shop here for no reason?”
Jiang Ci had now completely mastered the art of bluffing.
The man with a crew cut was a ruthless character, and since things had already come to this, he had no choice but to resort to force.
He quickly moved into position and pulled the trigger.
With a loud bang, Jiang Ci noticed that her ears felt as if they had been covered by earmuffs, isolating the deafening gunshot and preventing any harm to her hearing.
The bullet, too, seemed to hit something elastic about a meter away from her and instantly bounced back.
With a thud, the bullet that was meant for Jiang Ci ricocheted and struck the crew-cut man in the chest.
His gun had been modified, and the bullet wasn’t the traditional kind—it had been mixed with nails. Upon impact, it exploded in his chest.
The fatal wound meant there was no chance of survival. The crew-cut man had never imagined he would die by his own gun. His eyes still held a terrifying ferocity, but the light in them gradually faded. He let out a few gurgling sounds before collapsing to the ground, motionless.
Jiang Ci didn’t notice that Hui Hui, who had been quite calm earlier, slowly retracted her neck that had been stretched out in alarm after the crisis was over. The earthy yellow glow in her eyes also vanished in an instant.
Jiang Ci’s heart was pounding wildly. This was the first time since she arrived here that she had faced death head-on, and it had even almost been her own death.
But she wasn’t a saint either. The other party had intended to strike first. If she hadn’t taken the initiative and didn’t have the system’s protection, her fate would have been a hundred times worse.
The little boy huddled by the table seemed to be frightened, taking a while to react. However, he wasn’t afraid of Jiang Ci. Instead, he moved closer to the counter, his previously lifeless eyes now carrying a glimmer of hope as he looked at her.
The boy wasn’t too close to Jiang Ci, but he wasn’t far either. She finally got a clear look at him—his body was covered in bruises, both old and new, all of which appeared to be man-made.
Jiang Ci had already formed some suspicions in her heart, and her disgust for the two men lying on the ground grew even stronger.
After the two men lost consciousness, the incessant alarm that had been ringing in Jiang Ci’s mind finally stopped.
Having personally experienced the system’s protection, Jiang Ci felt her fear lessen significantly. She even started to feel like she could walk around without a care in the world.
“Were you forcibly taken by them? Which base were you originally from?” Jiang Ci asked, her voice soft.
The boy shook his head, his voice hoarse when he spoke, “My base was overrun by zombies. I escaped with my family, but along the way, my family was…”
At this point, his voice choked up. After a few minutes, he continued, “I’m the only one who survived.”
Though he survived, he had fallen into an even more terrifying abyss. Meeting Jiang Ci was his salvation.
Jiang Ci sympathized with his plight, but she herself hadn’t even established a firm footing in this world. She couldn’t send him to a new base.
After discussing with the system, they decided to let him stay at the hotpot restaurant temporarily, waiting for a survivor willing to take him in before letting him leave.
“Go ahead and eat some hotpot. I’ll clean up the place,” Jiang Ci told the boy, waving her hand to signal him to sit at the table where the bald man and his companion had been eating.
Seeing how thin he was, it was clear he hadn’t been eating much.
“Let me help,” the boy said, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the kindness.
“No need. Eat something first. You look like a gust of wind could knock you over. Once you’re full and have some strength, there’ll be plenty of opportunities for you to help,” Jiang Ci waved her hand dismissively. “Besides, they already paid for this table with crystal cores. It’d be a waste not to eat it, and I’m not giving any refunds.”
The boy hesitated for a moment but eventually sat down at the wooden table.
this is also why i think the apocalypse would be super dangerous, i feel like without the constraints of the law and government, you’re just testing how dark human nature can get
