Someone had broken into the villa. Yu Xi furrowed her brows, initially suspecting it might be one of the residents from the other villas in the neighborhood. During the days they stayed indoors, several previously vacant villas had been occupied. Yu Xi and Ya Tong noticed this change when they returned from a trip to town.

They weren’t sure if the new occupants were the original owners of those villas or squatters taking temporary refuge. However, when Ya Tong drove past, Yu Xi could feel the eyes peeking through the curtains. Some were filled with fear and anxiety, while others were curious and scrutinizing. Regardless of their nature, everyone was vigilant, keeping their doors and windows tightly shut and avoiding interaction with the outside world.

A major disaster had exposed and magnified human weaknesses. Perhaps some of these people had already witnessed the cruelty of human nature before reaching the villas, which made them so cautious. So, who could this intruder be? An innocent and desperate person or a dangerous and ruthless criminal?

From the time Yu Xi was awakened by the faint noise to now, only about ten minutes had passed. The intruder was likely still inside the villa. Yu Xi continued to switch between the camera feeds inside the villa, checking almost every camera. Aside from the missing pasta in the kitchen, there were no other anomalies.

When the kitchen camera feed cycled back, she decided to review the surveillance recordings. Due to memory constraints, these surveillance recordings were periodically overwritten. This computer, a work computer from Yu Qi’s apartment, had limited performance and memory, resulting in a two-hour overwrite cycle. However, two hours was sufficient. As she clicked the mouse, the kitchen camera, which should have shown an overhead view, suddenly displayed a close-up of a face.

In the stillness of the night, within the deep underground sealed space, the sudden appearance of a face on the computer screen nearly made Yu Xi drop the mouse. The kitchen camera was installed in the corner of the ceiling, nearly three meters high, and wouldn’t typically capture such a close-up, direct view of a face.

It was the face of a Caucasian man, slightly swollen and with traces of blood under his nose. He looked into the camera with a pleading, pitiful expression. “Is anyone there? Can anyone behind the camera hear me? I’m very sorry, but I was so hungry. I needed food, and I ate your pasta. If anyone can, please respond. Can you turn the camera a bit? Can I have more food? There’s someone else with me… you should have seen her. We met on the day the meteorites fell. I was standing in the yard at the time…”

In the quiet of the night, the camera’s audio was especially clear. The “Translation Gum” kicked in, translating the man’s words into her native language, regardless of the original language.

Yu Xi had already lowered the volume when the man started speaking, but Yu Qi and Ya Tong were still awakened. They quickly put on their clothes and joined Yu Xi in the living room to ask what was happening.

“He says he’s looking for food. He also mentioned that he ate the leftover pasta in the kitchen.”

“…” Ya Tong immediately showed a shocked expression. “He ate it all!?”

Before she could finish speaking, Yu Qi patted her on the shoulder. “So what if he ate it all?”

Ya Tong cleared her throat and changed the topic. “How did he get in? I locked all the doors tightly.”

The man in the video seemed to wait for a while, but hearing no response, he pleaded again, looking directly at the camera. “Is anyone there? I know you’re there. You’ve been inside since the meteor shower, but you drove out yesterday to get food, didn’t you? We’ve searched the whole villa. Are you in the basement?”

Yu Xi turned to Yu Qi for confirmation. “Does every villa here have a bomb shelter underneath?”

“To my knowledge, no. Most of the villas have regular basements that were added later. Only a few were originally built with bomb shelters, which is why I chose to buy this villa.” Furthermore, she had spent a significant amount of money to renovate and upgrade it, ensuring top-notch security and airtightness.

“Should we go out?” Yu Xi asked deliberately, mainly to gauge the reactions of Yu Qi and Ya Tong.

This was, after all, an apocalyptic situation. Having resources and abilities was not enough; rational decision-making was crucial.

Ya Tong furrowed her brows and shook her head. “They live in the villa closest to us. If they were truly lacking food, the normal course of action would have been to come over yesterday when they saw us drive back and ask for help. But instead, they chose to break in during the dead of night to steal. They even searched the whole villa for us and now are trying to elicit sympathy through the camera to lure us out. What do you think?”

Yu Qi responded, “He’s trying to lure us out?”

“Couldn’t he find the entrance to the bomb shelter?” Ya Tong was puzzled.

“The entrances to regular basements are inside the villa, but bomb shelters are built for safety and usually have disguised entrances, like mine outside. No one except the person who sold me this villa would know where it is.”

Yu Qi took the mouse from Yu Xi and clicked a few times, pulling up the two cameras covering the backyard. The vast backyard was empty, and their hidden entrance was so well-disguised that an observer wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

“So, we can assume that the intruder broke in at night to steal food. Finding neither food nor people, just a house full of surveillance equipment, they guessed we might be in a bomb shelter and are now trying to lure us out,” Yu Qi analyzed.

“But we can’t stay inside forever. If they destroy our cameras, it will be harder to monitor the outside,” Yu Qi contemplated.

Yu Xi remained silent throughout, feeling reassured by her sharp and clear-headed sisters.

“Since they can’t pinpoint the entrance to the bomb shelter and can’t lie in wait forever, we should go out and take them down,” Ya Tong suggested. She walked into the storage room and came back with a travel bag full of weapons, throwing it on the table. “Does everyone know how to use a gun?”

Yu Xi: …

Yu Qi: …

They were just trying to steal food; there was no need to kill them outright…

Ya Tong was already busy sorting the weapons and picking out suitable ones for Yu Qi and Yu Xi based on her judgment.

“Wait a moment,” Yu Xi said, keeping the kitchen camera feed up while continuing to check the other cameras. Eventually, she found something suspicious outside the villa.

There was a large tree near a blind spot in the front yard, its thick foliage creating a substantial shadow in the dark. A casual glance might miss it, but Yu Xi noticed movement in the shadows. She immediately zoomed in on the area, and both Yu Qi and Ya Tong leaned in to see. Ultimately, it was Yu Xi who discerned the movement in the shadows. “There’s someone under the tree, more than one person.”

“Are they that man’s companions? I remember there were three of them, two men and a woman. Why are they hiding under the tree?” Ya Tong’s question was soon answered.

In the kitchen feed, the man, who had been pleading in vain, suddenly lost his patience and snarled at the camera. “You damned rats, come out now! You think you can stay hidden in your cozy hole, eating and drinking comfortably? Dream on! Someone is coming in soon! He will find you, take all your food, and kill you all! Just like he killed Louis!”

“Is he… insane?” Yu Qi was stunned.

“No, he just gave us some information.” Yu Xi quickly reviewed all the camera feeds again, stopping at the kitchen and front yard feeds. “One of the two men and one woman should be dead, killed by an outsider or someone new. The man in the kitchen is not looking for food; he’s helping this outsider find us. Because we’ve seen him before, he thinks we might lower our guard. He seems to have been beaten and is emotionally unstable. But if he keeps shouting like this, his deception will fail, and he will become useless to the outsider—”

Yu Xi was interrupted as someone emerged from the shadows under the large tree in the front yard.

It was a burly Latino man, bald and muscular, wearing only a T-shirt despite the cold. He was holding a massive axe. He knew where the camera was and looked directly at it, then gave a silent, menacing grin. He turned and dragged out a woman lying unconscious under the tree.

It was the young American woman they had met before, the one who had come to their door that day. She woke up as he dragged her, screaming and struggling in terror, but he held her leg firmly. He laughed, as if amused by her helplessness, then suddenly swung the axe down on her leg.

Yu Qi let out a shocked, distressed cry and quickly covered her mouth, fearing any noise, even though she knew the man couldn’t hear them. The axe fell repeatedly—second, third strikes. The woman’s leg was severed, her screams became hoarse and distorted. He grabbed her arm and continued swinging the axe, methodically dismembering her.

Yu Qi was in shock, unable to tear her eyes away from the screen.

“This is… torture!” Ya Tong stuffed the handgun into her waistband, grabbed two grenades, and picked up an AK. “I’m going to take this psycho down!”

“No!” Yu Xi stood up and grabbed her. “I’ll go.” She had a gut feeling this man was not easy to deal with.

In a country where everyone could carry guns, his weapon of choice was an axe. Knowing the risks of breaking in at night, he showed no fear, even mocking them through the camera before enacting this gruesome display. He wanted to instill fear.

“Have you even used a gun? How will you go?” Ya Tong checked the bullets in the AK and grabbed an extra magazine. “Stay here and keep your sister company. I’ll be back soon. Trust me, I can handle this.”

Ya Tong turned to leave, but Yu Qi quickly reached out to stop her. However, Yu Xi was faster, delivering a swift chop to Ya Tong’s neck, catching her before she hit the ground and placing her gently on the sofa.

Yu Qi: …

That move seemed oddly practiced.

“Xiao Xi?” Yu Qi watched as Yu Xi set Ya Tong down and handed her the AK.

“Sis, do you trust me?” Yu Xi looked at her. “Before I was reborn, I had some encounters. This man is too dangerous. You stay here with Ya Tong. I’ll go.”

“No, you—” Yu Qi was cut off by Yu Xi’s next move. Yu Xi bent down and, with ease, lifted the entire sofa along with Ya Tong. “Don’t worry. I can handle it.”

Yu Qi: …

Yu Xi checked the camera feeds one last time, then swiftly climbed the two ladders to the door leading outside. She pressed her ear against it, listening intently for a moment, and confirmed there was no one in the backyard before quickly exiting the shelter.

She moved swiftly, closing the door and re-camouflaging it. The early morning air was thick with the smell of blood. The woman’s screams had stopped, and she heard the front door being locked and the fearful, rapid heartbeat of the man who had locked it.

Someone was dragging a bloodied axe across the front yard lawn, then kicked open the front door of the villa.