Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Extreme Heat, Blood-sucking Mosquitoes

The group, consumed by infighting, quickly thinned out until few were left.

Blood stained their yard red, the bodies lying about like worthless slabs of spoiled meat.

Zhang Qingzhi and Shen Baoying stood upstairs, witnessing the scene unfold. Only then did they truly understand how terrifying the apocalypse was.

It turned people into walking corpses, into merciless killing machines.

Ding Sheng was beaten to a bloody pulp by his own two brothers, but the medicine box in his hand was snatched away by someone else.

Then, in the next moment, the three brothers united against a common enemy, viciously strangling their opponent until he stopped struggling and drew his last breath.

Ding Chou moved with lightning speed to snatch the crushed medicine box. It was incredibly light—obviously empty.

He viciously tore the box to shreds, kicked away Ding Sheng who was lunging for him, and roared at everyone still fighting, "The box is empty! The son of a bitch tricked us!"

As his voice fell, everyone froze as if someone had pressed pause. With trembling hands, they opened their own medicine boxes.

Empty... Empty... Still empty...

In an instant, the invaders’ furious gazes turned into murderous intent.

"We’ll drag you down with us today!"

They picked up the clubs, hammers, and kitchen knives from the ground and once again launched a ferocious assault.

Smashing walls, prying at the door, hacking at the protective bars...

When Jiang Si had thrown the dynamite packs, she had already planned an escape route.

If they really couldn’t hold them off, she would take out the safety ropes and retreat from the back.

After all, she had already modified the RV; rats absolutely couldn’t get in.

They could find a spot, light a ring of fire, and the whole family could still spend the night safely.

Jiang Si told everyone to fasten their safety harnesses. Suddenly, a buzzing sound washed over them like a tide. She looked up, and her pupils contracted.

A dense, dark swarm of mosquitoes that blotted out the sun descended as if the sky itself were collapsing, instantly engulfing every living thing on the ground.

They were moving incredibly fast and were about to head right for them.

Jiang Si said urgently, "Back inside, quickly!"

The others were just about to ask why they weren’t leaving anymore when Jiang Si shoved them back into the attic.

Jiang Si bolted the roof access shut, quickly took out a mugwort-based insect repellent, and sprayed everyone down thoroughly before saying urgently, "The mosquito eggs have all hatched!"

The words had barely left her mouth when the buzzing of mosquitoes, so loud it seemed to make the very earth tremble, enveloped the entire house. The sky seemed to darken in an instant.

The bloodthirsty crowd trying to break in suddenly fell silent.

The steel shutters on the second-floor windows hadn’t been lowered yet. Jiang Si rushed down to the second floor and saw longan-sized mosquitoes massed into a formidable force. In the next second, it looked as if the glass was about to be shattered.

Fortunately, Jiang Si reacted quickly, pulling down the steel shutters just as the glass was impacted and burst.

The demonic buzzing surrounded them, and no one dared to let their guard down. Their bodies were tense, and they sprayed the mugwort repellent again and again.

After a while, her mother’s worried voice broke the silence. "What if the rat swarm comes at the same time?"

The air was suddenly silent for a few seconds. Burning a large amount of gasoline indoors would poison them, and a small fire wouldn’t be enough to stop the frenzied rat swarm.

If they went outside, they would face the blood-sucking mosquito swarm.

It seemed... even though they had prepared for everything, they were still trapped in a desperate situation.

Jiang Si calmly analyzed the situation. "The mosquitoes drink our blood, so they’ll definitely drink the rats’ blood too. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine."

Jiang Linhai’s eyes lit up. "That’s right! It would be best if the mosquitoes suck the rats dry, and then the mosquitoes burst from overeating!"

The atmosphere suddenly lightened. Her grandmother said hopefully, "It would be great if we can just last until dawn!"

Jiang Si retrieved several iron boxes of different sizes from her space. She nested them like Russian dolls, creating six full layers in the living room. She then set up a ring of fire around the outermost box and gave everyone an oxygen tank. "Six layers of steel," she said. "Let’s see how long it takes them to chew through that."

Everyone got into the innermost iron box. It was so cramped that each person could only just sit down; there was no room to even turn around.

The tightness was secondary; the main problem was the intense heat.

Jiang Si scattered a pile of ice cubes in the gaps between everyone. They were all wearing protective suits, while Little Black and Big Black, lying on their laps, were actually the most comfortable.

Before long, it grew dark. Jiang Si sensed that the rat swarm seemed to be on the move. Everyone held their breath, listening intently. It sounded like the rats were being fiercely attacked by the mosquitoes, as the buzzing above their heads began to subside.

It seemed the mosquitoes were the more ferocious attackers.

After five hours, they estimated it was dawn.

Jiang Si climbed out of the nested boxes, her bent knees numb.

Little Black and Big Black were full of energy; they were the only two who had gotten a good night’s sleep.

The buzzing of the mosquitoes was much quieter. Jiang Si carefully pulled aside the steel shutter and looked through the glass window, stunned by the scene before her.

As far as the eye could see, the sky was black with mosquitoes, and the ground was pink, densely covered with their eggs.

And beneath the mosquito eggs were the skeletal remains of thousands upon thousands of rats... The human corpses had long been submerged among them.

In her past life, there had also been blood-sucking mosquitoes, but nowhere near this many.

Nor was there a rat swarm to provide enough nutrients for the blood-sucking mosquitoes, allowing them to reproduce in such vast numbers in an instant.

It was utterly terrifying.

Shen Baoying covered her mouth, her voice trembling with shock. "Sisi, can we even leave this place now?"

"Wearing a few more layers of protective suits should be fine, right?"

Jiang Si frowned. "We can leave, but the problem is, I don’t know where is safe right now."

"If we go somewhere else and it’s no different from here, then we’re better off not leaving at all."

At least a familiar place is easier to deal with.

If they went somewhere else and encountered something even more terrifying than the blood-sucking mosquitoes, it would be even more dangerous.

’Mutated plants only appeared in the later stages of the apocalypse, but from the moment the end of the world arrived early, I could no longer predict its course.’

Everyone sighed deeply. They ate a few bites of compressed biscuits and started reinforcing the doors and windows again.

「One day... two days...」

Jiang Si noticed that the adult mosquitoes in the sky were gradually dying off, while the red eggs on the ground were gradually growing larger.

Everyone grew more and more anxious, constantly worried that the world would be ruled by mutated, blood-sucking mosquitoes.

Just as the eggs were about to hatch, the temperature soared. Even with ice blocks placed indoors to cool things down, it was still over forty degrees Celsius. Jiang Si conservatively estimated the temperature outside was at least seventy degrees.

One morning, Jiang Si woke up and was suddenly overjoyed to discover that the mosquito eggs had popped. All of them had popped.

The temperature was probably too high, no longer suitable for the mosquitoes to reproduce. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Everyone was thrilled. Her grandmother opened a window to let in some fresh air, but as soon as her finger touched a ray of sunlight, she hissed. It felt like being burned by a cigarette butt.

Her grandmother immediately pulled her hand back. In just a second, a large blister had formed on her finger.

Jiang Si quickly shut the insulated window, took out a spray bottle, and continuously sprayed water on her grandmother’s hand. Only then did the intense, burning pain on Zhang Qingfang’s hand begin to subside.

Jiang Linhai frowned and griped, "Don’t tell me the sun has mutated too?"

Jiang Si applied burn ointment to her grandmother’s hand, looked out the window, and sighed, shaking her head. "It’s solar radiation. If you go outside, you’ll be burned by the sun. An hour out there, and you’d definitely be a desiccated corpse."