Apocalypse Mode: My Cheat Code Virtual Boyfriend - Chapter 14

Plop.

Handcrafted leather shoes stepped directly into the accumulated water. These expensive luxury items, made from a single piece of calfskin and tanned by hand, were instantly ruined as filthy water flooded inside. Yet their owner paid no mind. A pair of peach blossom eyes, brimming with affection, peered out from beneath the black umbrella, observing the rain-soaked world.

This was a man with a delicate and fragile appearance, yet he wore a combination of a black suit and a long trench coat, looking like a mafia member about to send someone off, or perhaps a performance artist chasing trends. The only certainty was that venturing out with an umbrella on a stormy night fierce enough to peel one’s scalp was the act of a complete and utter madman.

The rain continued to fall.

More and more raindrops formed a curtain of water, driven by the wind into sweeping sheets that slanted in one direction. The man’s ankles submerged in the water as he walked fully into a wall of rain.

The bone-chilling cold of the rain brought him to the brink of hypothermia, yet above his pale lips burned pupils flickering with a strange, eerie flame. He could barely contain the frenzied laughter threatening to spill from his body.

The man wandered aimlessly through the streets. The water ahead grew deeper, yet it only reached his ankles.

Where there is a Sleeping Dragon, a Young Phoenix is never far behind. With the mafia-esque, rain-soaked performance artist madman leading the way, another madman was quick to follow. A bizarre, gleeful laughter drew nearer.

“What an unpleasant laugh,” the man frowned. Suddenly, he snapped his black umbrella shut and hurled it like an arrow toward the source of the sound.

Crunch.

A sickening, viscous squelching sound crawled through the auditory canal, followed immediately by a sharp metallic screech.

The black umbrella crumpled into a ball of twisted metal. A grating, teeth-grinding noise echoed, this Young Phoenix had quite the impressive set of jaws.

A massive mouth, layered with concentric rings of sharp teeth, opened and closed. It was unimaginable that it occupied the entire face of a girl wearing a Winnie the Pooh nightgown. Beneath her straight bangs was only that gaping, worm-like maw. Yet on her pale arms and slender neck, dense clusters of inhuman compound eyes blinked open.

The girl had been completely parasitized by this enormous mouth. Any trace of human reason was lost, leaving only the primal urge to feed. The countless compound eyes opened and closed in alternation, their greedy desire fixed unabashedly on the man.

Now unarmed, the man showed no fear. The creature lurking beneath the water finally revealed itself, a massive, pitch-black fish fin, so dark it seemed to devour all light, broke the surface. Its sharp lateral fin, like a cutting blade on an assembly line, sliced through the water and descended toward the girl’s head in an instant!

The girl crouched low, slipping past the fin like an eel. The water that had been at her waist now rose above her head, and she vanished from sight.

The enormous black fish had been concealed beneath the water all along, with the man walking upon its back. That was why the water, deep enough to reach his hips, only submerged his ankles.

No one could escape the mutation brought by this rain. Pollution spread through the misty air, and it was only a matter of time before the entire population transformed.

This mutation was defined by the retention of reason. Those who kept their human rationality were called superhumans, while those who lost their minds and were dominated by pollution became contaminants.

The rain grew heavier, the droplets like polished stones falling from the sky onto the glass floor, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter. The sound of the rain masked the subtle movements of a body gliding through the water below. Long, algae-like hair spread out in the depths, and the girl’s deathly pale skin made her resemble a drowned water ghost.

Her craving for flesh drove her to take immense risks, lingering and prowling around the man.

The giant fish made no further unnecessary movements. It carried the man forward smoothly. After the girl had devoured the umbrella, the biting wind and rain washed over his face again and again without obstruction.

It proved that no matter how astonishingly handsome a person might be, if they stood in the rain without an umbrella, hands clasped behind their back, gliding effortlessly across the ground, they would inevitably become either a vividly depicted lunatic in urban legends or a vividly depicted urban legend among lunatics.

The girl’s pale arms silently crept up the fish’s tail. Using all four limbs, she crawled toward the man like a massive white spider, her many compound eyes fixed unwaveringly on his back.

The man remained motionless, his back still turned, hands clasped behind him. The girl opened her mouth, her rows of sharp teeth trembling with excitement.

Squelch!

The sound of a blade piercing flesh rang out abruptly. Crimson blood spread across the water’s surface like red velvet. From the smooth back of the giant fish, a needle-like spike, two palms wide, suddenly shot out, brutally piercing through the girl’s fragile abdomen, leaving a gaping wound.

The man’s figure ahead was like the lure of an anglerfish in the deep sea, enticing the wide-mouthed girl to crawl forward, only to unexpectedly extend a spike and devour her.

This black giant fish was also a pollutant. The spike impaling the girl retracted into its back, and the surrounding flesh suddenly collapsed, turning into a black liquid that swallowed the struggling girl whole. Within seconds, the struggling bulge smoothed out, returning to its pristine state.

The heavy rain washed away all traces of bloodshed. No one would ever know that a monster had devoured another monster here.

For most people, this was just a night with slightly heavier rain, where flooding in the streets caused some travel inconvenience. As for the black giant fish and the wide-mouthed girl, they were nothing more than a second-rate story from the pen of a third-rate novelist.

A black fin slowly cut through the water’s surface, both prey and predator.

In the early hours of the fifth day of the apocalypse, mutated creatures that once lurked only in dark alleyways now roamed the bustling residential streets. Killing and devouring each other would only make them stronger.

The towering buildings around them were like cans of fresh meat. The delicious, unsuspecting inhabitants remained oblivious. Once these creatures finished their appetizers outside, it would be time to savor the fresh flesh.

When Bai Xun woke up, the first thing he did was reach for his phone and open the news page. A large red exclamation mark popped up, reminding him that the signal had been cut off the night before.

Cheng Wei’s side of the bed was empty. Bai Xun reached out and felt a lingering warmth, Cheng Wei must have woken up not long before him.

Yawning, Bai Xun got out of bed and shuffled out of the room in his slippers.

Everyone except Bai Yu was already awake, each sitting at the dining table with a large white porcelain bowl, eating breakfast.

This morning’s meal was sour cabbage and minced pork noodle soup. The oil in the wok was heated until sizzling, then minced pork, chopped scallions, ginger, and dried chili peppers were added and stir-fried until fragrant. Finely chopped pickled sour cabbage was tossed in and stir-fried over high heat for a few moments before being set aside. Just the aroma alone was enough to make one’s mouth water.

After washing up, Bai Xun eagerly fetched a bowl and chopsticks, scooping up a serving of noodles. The noodles were chewy, and the minced meat topping was tangy, savory, and spicy. He didn’t stop until he had slurped down several mouthfuls of the broth from the bottom of the bowl.

A full stomach gave him the energy to work. Today, there was still a large batch of fresh vegetables to process. They would set aside enough to eat fresh for about two months, and the rest would be turned into pickles or frozen.

Bai Xun rummaged through the kitchen simulator and pulled out a large commercial food dehydrator. Now they could make dried vegetables that would last even longer.

Making some cured meat or sausages would probably be a good idea too.

He moved the frozen meat from the freezer into the kitchen simulator, freeing up space to freeze vegetables. Plus, the furniture in the suite they rented together included a double-door refrigerator, so they could freeze everything in just two batches.

The vegetables to be frozen included carrots, spinach, tomatoes, corn, bok choy, broccoli, daikon radish, fresh shiitake mushrooms, and green beans.

Celery, lettuce, and lotus root were stored in glass jars filled with water.

Half of the fresh shiitake mushrooms were dried into mushroom flakes, and half of the yardlong beans were dried into bean strips. The other half of the yardlong beans, along with carrots, garlic, and ginger, went into the pickle jar.

The first step was washing the vegetables. Bai Xun and Cheng Wei stood on opposite sides, wearing rubber gloves as they cleaned the produce.

Once they finished washing, Bai Guifang and Bai Yu wielded kitchen knives to chop the vegetables into appropriately sized pieces. Grandma Bai was in charge of arranging the vegetables in the pickle jar, adding small chili peppers, salt, garlic, Sichuan peppercorns, pickled peppers, and rock sugar. She poured in cooled boiled water and then drizzled high-proof liquor over the top to prevent mold from forming.

Spinach and bok choy needed to be blanched before freezing. Once they changed color, they were quickly scooped out and plunged into cold water. After squeezing out the excess moisture, they were packed into sealed bags and frozen. This method preserved the fresh texture of leafy greens when eaten later.

Daikon radish needed to be salted to remove excess moisture before being packed into sealed bags and frozen.

Broccoli had to be boiled in salted water before freezing. Once cooled, it was packed into sealed bags and frozen.

Uncooked green beans were toxic, so they had to be blanched in salted water for two minutes, drained, cooled, and stored in sealed bags in the refrigerator.

Tomatoes, corn, and fresh shiitake mushrooms could be frozen directly without any processing.

These tasks kept them busy all day, so much so that they ate frozen dumplings for both lunch and dinner, simply boiling them in the water used for blanching the vegetables and scooping them out to eat.

After finishing all the work, Bai Yu brought out the projector and picked a family-friendly movie to project onto the white screen. The whole family collapsed on the sofa to watch.

Halfway through the movie, Cheng Wei’s tail quietly reached behind Bai Xun and poked his shoulder. “Can you help me groom in the room?”

Bai Xun’s attention immediately shifted. “Huh? Grooming? Sure!”

Oh my god! Wasn’t this an invitation to pet a cat in disguise? He was totally up for it!

The two of them headed back to the room one after the other. As soon as they entered, Bai Xun turned to close the door, and in that moment, Cheng Wei transformed into a fluffy snow leopard, lazily sprawled on the carpet, waiting for his grooming session.

Bai Yu had lent them a cushion comb. Bai Xun sat cross-legged on the floor, petting and combing Cheng Wei at the same time. “Don’t you groom yourself when you’re in snow leopard form?”

The cushion comb pulled out a lot of loose fur, making it seem like he hadn’t been groomed in a while.

Cheng Wei purred, his large paws kneading the carpet. “I end up swallowing fur, and I don’t like hairball paste or coughing up hairballs.”

Bai Xun struggled to hold back his laughter. “Then how did you groom your fur before?”

Cheng Wei stiffened for a moment, wrapping his tail around Bai Xun and gently brushing the tip against his arm. “I won’t tell you…”

Bai Xun finally burst into laughter. “Alright, alright, you don’t have to tell me. Is this spot comfortable?”

Outside the window, the rain beat urgently against the tightly shut frame, and the water level rose faster and faster. The carefree time left for them was dwindling.

But before the urgency set in, Bai Xun was the first to feel boredom. He had never imagined life could become so dull and monotonous.