Chapter 88 No Outsiders Allowed

"How many people are on Mian Mountain right now?" Bai Xiao asked again.

The person who had just spoken shook his head: "I'm not sure. The first two days the heavy fog came happened to be a weekend. Generally, these merchants stay on the mountain long-term, and it's even less likely for them to go down on weekends. Moreover, it was the beginning of the summer vacation, so there were quite a few people from both within and outside the city who went up the mountain to escape the heat and vacation."

Bai Xiao pondered his words. This meant there were at least a thousand people on the mountain. She felt that at least one thing he said was right: before the main group ascended the mountain, it was indeed necessary to go ahead and find a good place to settle down.

Regardless of whether the Disaster Relief Department would requisition everything on Mian Mountain in the name of the city, as original inhabitants, they couldn't possibly suffer too much.

After thinking, she stopped wasting time, pointed her gun at everyone, signaling them to retreat to the doorway furthest from the window. Then she put on her backpack, unfastened the safety rope, boarded the boat, and left.

The people had just said they had elders and children to take care of, and their supplies were nowhere to be seen, indicating that the supplies were still outside being guarded by their family. Therefore, she wasn't worried that this group would dare to ambush her after she left.

In fact, they were more worried that Bai Xiao would harm their families or use her gun to steal their supplies, especially since she only had a large backpack, and these four families indeed had more abundant provisions.

Seeing her leave directly without snatching their supplies, the group breathed a sigh of relief and no longer dared to hope that she would repay their unkindness with kindness and help them.

...

The further away from the city center, the fewer high-rise buildings there were, and the fewer markers matched the map. Bai Xiao could only correct her direction with a compass while looking at the map.

She stopped and started along the way, and in the middle, she accidentally scraped the air-cushioned side of her assault boat on an underwater road sign. Fortunately, with the protection of the defense capsule, although the airbag was leaking, the damage was not severe. Bai Xiao had to first use strong glue to temporarily slow the leak and would repair it with a boat repair kit once she reached an overnight stop.

Around four in the afternoon, the sky showed signs of dimming. On the vast expanse of water, Bai Xiao finally spotted a building that was submerged except for its top five or six floors. Without a doubt, that was the Pet Supplies Company she was looking for.

Because she had to stay overnight, Bai Xiao was hesitant to leave the boat tied outside. She found a large window in a stairwell, smashed the glass, and carefully dragged the entire assault boat inside.

After getting inside, she didn't rush to settle herself. Seeing an open office door, she first went in to search around. After confirming no one was there, she dragged the boat inside. Then, she locked the office door with a lock from her storage slot, only then feeling secure enough to continue exploring other rooms and floors.

Although putting the assault boat back into the storage slot space would be the safest, doing so would require deflating and disassembling it, and she would need to use it again tomorrow, so she didn't want to go through the trouble again.

Only five floors of this building remained unsubmerged. The floor Bai Xiao came up to and the second floor were both employee office areas. Normally, she should have been able to find some small snacks in the desk drawers, but it seemed this place had already been ransacked; let alone snacks, there wasn't even a single sunflower seed.

The third floor was the company's product display area. As soon as she went upstairs, Bai Xiao smelled a strange stench. When she followed the smell to the cat and dog food display section, she was shocked to find two men, one old and one young, dressed in security uniforms, leaning motionless against the display cabinets. Their faces showed signs of decay, indicating they had been dead for a long time.

Bai Xiao saw that their faces were peaceful, there were no penetrating wounds on their bodies, and no signs of struggle around them, clearly indicating it wasn't murder. If not murder, then it was either natural death or suicide; in any case, it certainly wasn't starvation. But as for the exact cause of death, Bai Xiao didn't delve deeper.

Since the world catastrophe and entering the game, she had encountered many corpses, but being in an empty, deserted building with two decaying bodies, she admitted she couldn't be completely at ease and just wanted to quickly investigate and leave this floor.

This Pet Supplies Company probably mainly produced cat food, dog food, and cat litter, with more than half of an entire floor dedicated to displaying these items.

Passing by the cat litter display area, Bai Xiao's attention was drawn to the advertising slogans: 'antibacterial and deodorizing,' 'super absorbent,' and 'fast clumping.' She couldn't help but nod, thinking it was a good item for solving personal physiological needs.

The entire display area showcased hundreds of bags of cat litter of different types, series, and packaging. She collected every single bag into her empty storage slots.

Actually, under extreme conditions, humans could also eat cat and dog food, but Bai Xiao had plenty of food on hand and wasn't desperate enough to eat pet food. She hadn't originally intended to use her limited space to stockpile it, but seeing many meat-based foods and canned meats in the display area, she took some, adhering to the principle of not wasting.

The fourth and fifth floors of the building housed offices and conference rooms for various executives. The food and drinks here had likely already been scavenged by the two deceased individuals downstairs, and there was nothing else of value.

As dusk gradually fell, Bai Xiao returned to the first floor where she had arrived. She cleared a small space in the office area, took out a Moisture-Proof Sleeping Mat and Sleeping Bag from her storage space, laid them out, and ate a hot meal by the not-so-dim light of her flashlight.

She needed to rest well tonight. She might not find a suitable resting place tomorrow morning and would likely spend the entire day outside.

...

The next day, Bai Xiao had packed up and was ready to depart at dawn. She wanted to reach Mian Mountain as early as possible, so she would have more time to find a place to stay for the night.

After leaving the Pet Supplies Company, aside from the occasional utility pole visible by the roadside, Bai Xiao could no longer see any traces of the city. If not for the murky yellow water beneath her, it would be no different from being at sea.

There were no road signs or buildings in the suburbs. Besides dealing with dangers in the water, Bai Xiao had to constantly divert her attention to correct her direction.

The closer she got to Mian Mountain, the further she was from the city. As the terrain rose, the current also became inexplicably turbulent. Once, the boat was almost sucked into a whirlpool. If she hadn't switched to a high-horsepower outboard motor and accelerated along the edge of the whirlpool, the assault boat would have been swallowed and capsized.

She didn't even take a break for lunch, just chewed two Energy Bars to replenish her strength. When the Mian Mountain range clearly appeared before her eyes, she knew she wasn't far. She decided to go all out, accelerating at full throttle directly towards it.

Mian Mountain, as a mature commercial venue integrating hot springs, leisure, and entertainment, had relatively accessible transportation. There was an Asphalt Road for ascending and another for descending.

Bai Xiao, coming from the urban area, would definitely take the ascending road. The descending road was on the side of the mountain, and it would take a long time to paddle to get there.

The closer she got to the mountain, the more gravel there was, and the shallower the water became. Bai Xiao didn't want to risk hitting a pile of gravel by continuing to navigate the boat. As she neared the ascending road, she had already decided to put away the boat and ascend the mountain via the ascending road.

At the Pet Supplies Company, she had noticed that once the assault boat stopped being used, the pill icon in her backpack would dim, and it would light up again when in use. Bai Xiao guessed that the dimming and brightening indicated a timer, as she hadn't seen any instructions about pausing usage in the defense capsule's manual, so she assumed no human control was required.

The assault boat, paddles, outboard motor, and fuel tank had already been put back into her storage slots. She only had a Waterproof Bag on her back, and her pistol and dagger were still concealed at her waist beneath her Windbreaker.

Perhaps it was the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet, but Bai Xiao suddenly felt much lighter. The terrain here on Mian Mountain was high; the city water had already risen twenty to thirty meters, which for this large mountain was just barely over its toes.

She hadn't walked far when she saw several barbed wire fences with sharp spikes strung across the middle of the Asphalt Road. A rusty iron sign hung on the barbed wire, with four large characters painted on it: "Outsiders Not Allowed."