Entering the building, Qin Shilei discovered it was likely an office building and employee dormitory.
Since he was already inside, Qin Shilei didn't mind searching.
Just then, more than ten people came rushing down from the staircase in front.
They were all armed with knives, swords, and other weapons. Leading them was a man in his thirties with a knife scar on his cheek.
The scar-faced man said sternly, "This brother entered without an invitation. It seems a bit impolite."
Although Qin Shilei's armor looked a bit ostentatious, it was still armor and superior to what these people had, which was why he hadn't immediately engaged them in a fight.
Qin Shilei smiled and asked, "Is this place yours?"
The scar-faced man observed Qin Shilei again. Comparing their strengths, he finally said coldly, "I've claimed this place, so it's my territory. Go back where you came from."
"You've claimed it?" Qin Shilei chuckled, "Now I've taken a liking to it, so it's mine."
The scar-faced man said fiercely, "Don't push your luck. Leave now, and I might spare your life."
"It seems I need to beat you all into submission first to have you lead the way."
As Qin Shilei finished speaking, he turned into a blur and charged at the scar-faced man and his group.
The scar-faced man's vision blurred, and he lost sight of Qin Shilei, inwardly realizing something was wrong.
Before he could react, he felt a powerful force strike his abdomen, sending him flying into the air and crashing against the wall behind him.
Bang, bang, bang!
A series of impacts echoed.
In the blink of an eye, everyone in the hall except Qin Shilei was on the ground.
After a while, the group finally recovered, letting out groans of pain.
"Stop. Anyone who makes another sound will be silenced forever," Qin Shilei said coldly.
The groans on the ground abruptly ceased. No one dared to make a sound.
Qin Shilei slowly walked up to the scar-faced man. "Whose place is this now, and who decides?"
The scar-faced man hastily replied, "It's yours, boss. You decide everything here."
"No," Qin Shilei said calmly. "I don't have subordinates like you. You're familiar with this place, aren't you?"
The scar-faced man fawned, "Master, after the apocalypse, I've explored this place thoroughly. I know it very well. What are your orders?"
Qin Shilei kicked his thigh with his foot. "Get up and lead the way. I want to see the grain in the granary."
The scar-faced man struggled to stand, but it seemed Qin Shilei's kick had been too hard. He couldn't get up for a long time.
Qin Shilei frowned. "Perhaps you should just stay lying down."
With that, he kicked again, causing the scar-faced man to cry out in pain once more.
"Cough, cough."
The scar-faced man coughed twice, his head bowed to the ground. "Master, I'm useless."
He paused, then added, "This building is the office and dormitory. There's no grain here. The other three buildings are full of grain."
Qin Shilei, no longer interested in him, turned and walked towards the corridor.
This building was indeed an office and dormitory area. He searched several rooms but found not a single grain of rice.
When he returned to the hall, he could see from the open doorway that the group had just disappeared from view.
Let them go. Qin Shilei continued up the stairs to the second floor.
Still no findings.
He then went up to the third floor and discovered it was a series of dormitories.
Upon opening a door, he found a corpse.
Naked, with a ravaged lower body and multiple purple scars.
It was obvious she had been raped to death.
"Damn it!"
Qin Shilei regretted not killing that group earlier.
He picked up a quilt from the bed and covered the girl.
Too many people had died in the apocalypse; it was impossible to give everyone a proper burial.
Qin Shilei continued searching other rooms.
In the third room, he found five women of varying ages, with vacant eyes and pale faces.
They showed no reaction to Qin Shilei's arrival.
Qin Shilei immediately understood they must have been tortured to this state by that group of men.
"Those men are gone, and you are free now."
However, the women seemed not to have heard Qin Shilei's words and remained unresponsive.
Qin Shilei sighed, put down some food, and turned to go to other rooms.
Qin Shilei finished searching the third floor. Apart from some food, he found nothing else of value.
He didn't take the food either, leaving it there.
Just as he was about to go downstairs, his peripheral vision caught sight of several corpses below through the window.
He pushed the window open, and a foul odor wafted up.
Directly below the window were seven or eight naked female corpses.
Some were already rotten and stinking, while others had died only two or three days ago.
Presumably, they had been played with to death by that group of men and then unceremoniously thrown out the window.
"May I never encounter them again."
The coldness in Qin Shilei's eyes deepened.
He turned and went downstairs, heading towards another building.
...
The scar-faced man and his group stopped, panting, only when they were far from the granary.
"Boss, what do we do now?"
"Wait. Wait for that man to die, then we'll go back."
"He's so powerful. Do you think he'll really be killed?"
"As long as he dares to go to the granary, he's as good as dead."
"Boss, will we be alright if we go back?"
"That group of ants only guards the granary. As long as we don't step into it, we should be fine."
"Boss, why don't we find another place? Staying here makes me feel uneasy."
"We'll see. Right now, there are zombies and mutated beasts everywhere; no place is safe."
While the scar-faced man and his group were conferring, Qin Shilei had already arrived at another building.
The door to this building was ajar and unlocked.
Qin Shilei pushed it gently. With a clang, the door seemed to hit something, and then he heard a rolling sound.
As the door opened, he saw a skeleton behind it.
A human skeleton with no flesh or blood. The rolling sound had been its skull.
"Strange. It's only been a month since the apocalypse. The corpses shouldn't have decomposed into bones yet."
Qin Shilei frowned and scanned his surroundings but found nothing unusual.
With his skill and courage, after a brief observation, he stepped into the granary.
Through the aisle, he saw a vast expanse of golden rice.
"Fortunately, my spatial ring has been upgraded to the Qiankun Ring. Otherwise, I might not have been able to carry all this grain."
Just as Qin Shilei finished his thought, he heard a rustling sound behind him.
He turned and saw countless ants swarming towards him.
The ants were all black and brown, varying in size from thumb-sized to as small as chopsticks.
At that moment, a rustling sound also came from behind him.
The ants were approaching from all directions. kanδん
The dense, uncountable small figures made his scalp tingle.
"Have I stumbled into an anthill?"
With a thought, Qin Shilei conjured a golden shield around himself.
By then, the ants had crawled to his side and were climbing onto him along the shield.
A bolt of lightning appeared in Qin Shilei's palm. He pressed it directly onto himself.
A smell of burnt meat rose, and countless ants fell to the ground.
As Qin Shilei continuously unleashed lightning from his hands, a thick layer of ants quickly piled up at his feet.
However, the ants on his body seemed to be increasing, almost covering him entirely.
And his outer shield, under the relentless gnawing of the countless ants, began to shake, as if about to shatter.
Thinking of the skeleton he had seen earlier, Qin Shilei felt a chill run down his spine. He flickered and instantly teleported outside.