Chapter 12: The Ultimate Doomsday Armored Vehicle

What is that? From the outline, it looks like a tank.

An Nan couldn’t help but take a couple of steps closer for a better look.

Tough, imposing black steel plates, a reinforced steel bumper, sharp diamond-shaped lines...

Wait, is this—a Knight XV?!

The very armored vehicle she’d been drooling over on the winding road to the hillside villa!

An Nan’s eyes widened in disbelief.

This car owner is seriously impressive! Not only do they have a helicopter and a helipad, but they even managed to get a car up on the rooftop?

The rooftop drainage was good, so the vehicle was perfectly preserved.

An Nan couldn’t resist running her hands over the hard, cold body of the car.

What a perfect doomsday vehicle—not only could it easily ram any other car out of the way, it probably wouldn’t even be fazed by a grenade.

The only pity was that she didn’t have the key. Even if she put it in her storage space, she wouldn’t be able to drive it.

Wait... the key?!

An Nan thought for a moment, then pulled out the box of car keys she’d found in the CEO’s office.

The CEO was so rich he kept his car keys in a box.

She rummaged through the box, and among the Bentley, Maybach, Lamborghini, and other logos, she finally found a key with a “K” on it.

She pressed the button, and the car’s lights flashed.

It’s open!

As expected, another asset from a big shot. An Nan quickly stored the armored vehicle in her space.

Thank you again, generous boss!

Coming down from the rooftop, An Nan quickly searched each floor.

Compared to the CEO’s office, there wasn’t much—just some basic office supplies, nothing useful to her.

But some newly moved-in companies had a lot of renovation materials: cement, tiles, stone, paint, and so on.

An Nan took as much as she could.

These things would become incredibly valuable later on. Once she entered an official base, she could trade them for housing.

In her previous life, she’d had nothing and never managed to get into a base, forced to wander and flee until the end. This time, she was planning ahead.

By the time she left the office building, it was already 3:30 a.m. An Nan piloted her speedboat back to her neighborhood.

On the way, she came across a pharmaceutical factory. After checking it out and confirming there was no one inside, she decisively went in to scavenge.

Not only did they have the everyday medicines she’d stocked up on before, there were also Chinese herbal medicines and all kinds of vaccines.

There was even a small amount of medical equipment.

In the apocalypse, treating illness was the hardest thing. Even if you had the chief physician from a top hospital by your side, you could still die from a simple infection if you didn’t have the right medicine.

With these medicines and equipment, her chances of survival just went up again.

As she stored everything in her space, An Nan couldn’t help but marvel at how fruitful tonight’s haul had been.

When she got back to her neighborhood, the water level had already flooded the entire first floor. Soon, the second-floor residents would be woken by water pouring into their homes.

An Nan quickened her pace and hurried home.

As soon as she opened the door, Fugui came bounding over, wagging his tail enthusiastically.

“Fugui, calm down, I’m all wet.”

An Nan changed out of her rain-soaked clothes before finally giving her spoiled, affectionate dog some attention.

Hugging Fugui, she went to the kitchen and made herself a bowl of hot ginger soup.

Now was definitely not the time to catch a cold.

After drinking the soup and taking a hot shower, she finally went to bed to rest.

Morning.

An AW139 helicopter braved the torrential rain and landed steadily on the rooftop of a tall building.

A man in a suit stepped out, opened his umbrella, and stared blankly at the now-empty rooftop.

“Where’s the car?!”

He frowned and headed downstairs into the adjacent mall, only to be shocked by the sight of empty space before him...

“Where’s all the stuff in the mall?!”

He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

Still nothing. A sense of dread welled up inside him.

He hurried up to the seventh floor, saw the office door wide open and the ransacked secret room, and was left utterly speechless.

It took him a while to recover before he pulled out his phone and made a call:

“Boss, the stuff you wanted is gone. And the armored vehicle on the roof is gone too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean... everything is gone... the entire mall is empty...”

The more he spoke, the quieter his voice became.

This is insane!

The whole city was flooded, and the only way to get around was by boat. Who could possibly have the ability to clear out an entire mall overnight?

The voice on the other end was emotionless: “Investigate.”

“Yes, boss.”

The man in the suit put down his phone, nearly in tears.

Who? Who could be so shameless as to take everything?

Investigate? Easy for you to say. Damn, even the surveillance cameras are gone, and with the whole city underwater, where am I supposed to start?

He rubbed his forehead in frustration.

No choice—when the boss gives an order, employees have to run themselves ragged.

Investigate!

Maple Grove Community.

When An Nan woke up, it was already noon.

Outside, the sky was still covered in dark clouds, rain pounding against the windows, while the lights in the neighborhood shone brightly.

She checked her phone and saw new messages in the residents’ group chat.

She clicked to read them. Turns out, the second-floor residents were asking the upstairs neighbors to take them in.

When the heavy rain first started yesterday, the first-floor residents whose homes were flooded had all left while the water was still shallow.

Now, it was the second-floor residents who were in trouble.

None of them had expected the water to completely submerge the first floor and start flooding the second.

In just one day, the water was already nearly four meters deep.

Outside was chaos, with rescue teams busy saving people trapped in the flood, so they didn’t have time to worry about what was happening inside the neighborhood.

So the unlucky second-floor residents couldn’t leave and could only turn to their neighbors for help.

But no one responded.

The unprecedented rain had cast a shadow over everyone’s hearts.

The ingrained habit of stockpiling food among Chinese people only made everyone more anxious.

In this situation, no one felt safe. Everyone wanted to go out and buy food.

But the water was too deep, and the situation in the water was complicated. Even expert swimmers didn’t dare go in.

Getting scratched by floating debris was the least of your worries—if there was a live wire in the water, or you got sucked into an uncovered drain, you could lose your life.

No one knew how long they’d be trapped at home by the rain, so everyone was rationing their own food. How could they possibly take in others?

So after the second-floor residents sent out their pleas for help, there was no reply for a long time.

“Please, neighbors, help us out. We have a young child at home—just let us stay somewhere for a while.”

Mentioning a child immediately tugged at people’s heartstrings.

“Come to my place, I have a spare room.”

“Thank you so much! Don’t worry, as soon as the rescue team arrives, we’ll move out right away.”

Seeing the plight of the second-floor residents, those on the third floor grew anxious too, praying nonstop: Please let the rain stop soon, don’t let it flood my home...

But reality would disappoint them. An Nan remembered that in her previous life, the rain didn’t stop until the water had reached the sixth floor.

An Nan put down her phone, mixed some dog food for Fugui, then went to the kitchen to make herself a plate of beef dumplings.

Smelling the aroma, Fugui ran over, staring at her with bright, eager eyes: Let me try some!

An Nan couldn’t help but laugh and gave him a few dumplings too.

After they finished eating, with nothing else to do, An Nan started cooking again.

She deliberately made stir-fried dishes and all sorts of foods with strong aromas.

Stir-fried lamb with scallions, spicy crayfish, braised beef, marinated duck, stewed ribs...

She had to cook while the neighbors still had food of their own. In a few days, when everyone was desperate, the smell of food would only bring unnecessary trouble.

So she kept busy for a few days, until suddenly, a commotion erupted outside."