Chapter 82: Two-Legged Sheep?

Jiang Yan had just reached the fire escape when the door to room 3204 creaked open.

“Jiang Yan!”

Ye Qing, carrying a black hiking backpack, strode out with his long legs.

Behind him, Sun Jingtao and Su Dai followed, one after the other, each shouldering a red inflatable raft.

The temperature had dropped again today, and all three wore masks and windbreakers.

Jiang Yan had no choice but to stop and set one end of her own raft down on the floor for the time being.

The moment Su Dai saw her and the raft, her eyes lit up and her jaw almost dropped.

“Oh my god! Jiang Yan, I never thought you were so skinny, but you’re actually this strong!”

She almost blurted out her surprise that Jiang Yan also had an inflatable raft, but managed to hold her tongue.

Right now, what she felt most was excitement and delight.

Since Jiang Yan also had a raft, and they’d run into each other by chance on their way out, it would be perfectly natural to team up and go scavenging for supplies together!

Jiang Yan just smiled, neither confirming nor denying.

Her raft weighed over forty kilos—heavier than two large water jugs.

Normally, carrying it on her shoulder would be tough, since the weight wasn’t evenly distributed.

But now, after her body had been enhanced by her space, even carrying two wouldn’t be impossible.

Ye Qing had already come closer and reached out. “Let me carry it down for you.”

“Thank you, but I can manage,” Jiang Yan politely declined.

Meanwhile, Su Dai had already locked her door and was walking over with Sun Jingtao.

“Jiang Yan, just let Xiao Ye help you. The stairwell is too dark, and it’s hard to walk while carrying that thing. You might end up brushing against those… things. He’s 1.85 meters tall—on him, the raft is just a big accessory. It won’t touch anything,” Su Dai said, giving a small smile.

Jiang Yan: “…”

Su Dai had a point.

Sure, it was the apocalypse—who cared about cleanliness anymore? But if something really did get stuck to the raft, it would definitely ruin her mood.

“All right, then. I’ll light the way for you,” Jiang Yan started to say, but Ye Qing had already taken her raft.

She had no choice but to dig a flashlight out of her backpack.

These days, whenever Jiang Yan left her apartment, she not only wore a mask but always carried her backpack—mainly to cover up the fact that she could retrieve things from her space.

Besides, everyone who went out now was searching for supplies. Leaving empty-handed would look suspicious.

“Jiang Yan, didn’t you bring any diving gear?” Su Dai glanced at her backpack, puzzled.

She remembered that when Jiang Yan did her live streams exploring underwater caves, she always had a full set of equipment.

Just the scuba system alone weighed over ten kilos, not to mention the equally heavy oxygen tank.

And the backpack she had now clearly couldn’t hold all that.

Of course, she probably couldn’t carry that much, either.

Jiang Yan just smiled and said, “No.”

“Huh? But—” Su Dai wanted to ask more, but Sun Jingtao coughed twice to interrupt her.

With the raft on his shoulder, he couldn’t reach out to tug his wife.

“Let’s go down first. Once more people realize what’s going on, they might come asking to borrow our rafts or something.”

With that, Sun Jingtao took the lead down the stairs.

Before the apocalypse, if someone had asked to borrow something, he would never have refused—he might have even helped them paddle out.

But now, after everything that had happened, all he wanted was to survive with his wife.

His old principles had quietly shifted.

Ye Qing, always the quiet one, picked up Jiang Yan’s raft and followed.

Su Dai went third.

Jiang Yan switched on her flashlight, illuminating the stairs from behind as she brought up the rear.

Once they entered the stairwell—where the smell and the sights defied description—they all fell silent.

But what surprised Jiang Yan was how physically strong Ye Qing and Sun Jingtao were.

Both carried rafts weighing dozens of kilos, backpacks on their backs, and still managed to nimbly dodge all kinds of “ancient stains” on the floor, as if it was nothing.

From the 32nd floor down to the 16th, it took them less than a few minutes.

Along the way, they passed a few sleepy, disheveled kids heading to the stairwell WC.

It was not a pretty sight.

Fortunately, the kids, seeing how well-equipped and imposing Jiang Yan’s group looked, just stared in wide-eyed surprise and didn’t dare say anything.

Maybe they weren’t fully awake, or maybe they were too young to realize the rain had eased up and it was time to go out and search for supplies.

Also, as they descended, it was clear that the people living in the stairwell were much more active now.

They must have noticed the rain had lessened.

On one floor, there was even a burst of cheering—people saying the apocalypse was finally ending, that the authorities would come soon, and so on.

A lot of the time, in the apocalypse, hope and positive energy were things you had to give yourself.

The four finally reached the 16th floor.

Ye Qing and Sun Jingtao leaned their rafts against the wall near the door to 1603, then each took a hammer and a pair of gloves from their backpacks.

The stairwell window was open as before, and the floor tiles near it were soaked by rain blown in from outside.

Near the window, the floor and walls were splattered with sticky, pale red liquid.

Some of it had dried, some was still fresh and wet.

Su Dai glanced over, and her pupils contracted.

She remembered Jiang Yan telling her about people catching leeches for food, and she couldn’t help but turn aside and retch, covering her mouth.

Jiang Yan glanced at the tightly shut door of 1604—those people had probably moved upstairs.

She quickly and carefully approached the window and looked outside, her eyes freezing in surprise. “…”

The wall outside the window, which had once been crawling with mutant leeches along the waterline, was now almost empty.

Only the areas farther from the window were still pitch black with them.

This wall only had one window in the stairwell—otherwise, Jiang Yan figured the mutant leeches nearby would be gone too.

Sun Jingtao poked his head out for a look, a bitter smile on his lips as he sighed:

“Back when we were on missions, eating centipedes, caterpillars, leeches—those were basic survival skills. I never thought leeches would end up on ordinary people’s dinner tables so soon. Sigh, this apocalypse really pushes people to the limit…”

Hearing this, Ye Qing’s tone was calm as ever:

“That’s nothing. When humanity is truly desperate, there’s child-swapping for food, or even eating ‘two-legged sheep.’”

Jiang Yan’s eyes darkened at his words.

That’s right. In her previous life, wasn’t she just one of those “two-legged sheep” people ate?

Su Dai, having finished retching, heard him and asked in confusion,

“Xiao Ye, what’s a ‘two-legged sheep’?”

Ye Qing glanced at her. “Dai-jie, it’s better if you don’t know.”

“Brother Tao, let me break the glass. It’s safer for one person to do it,” Ye Qing said, then turned to remind Jiang Yan and Su Dai, “You two should step back, just in case any shards fly your way.”

Jiang Yan and Su Dai quickly took a few steps back."