"It's just like a video game; the entire world has entered a hellish dungeon mode." Xie Ning shrugged. "How should I put it? In time, you'll slowly get used to all of this."
Song Kexin laughed in exasperation. "Sis, you weren't like this before."
'Why does my cousin seem so different?'
Her cousin used to be a lazy, artsy girl, always getting sentimental and moping around school.
'How come she's so pragmatic and down-to-earth in everything she says and does now?'
'Faced with something so terrifying, how can she still manage to laugh?'
'And even comfort me in a joking tone?'
'That would have been unimaginable before. An artsy girl at the dawn of the apocalypse should be hugging her blanket and shivering, long since scared to death, right?'
Xie Ning paused for a moment.
To be honest, after surviving twenty years in the apocalypse, she had long forgotten what her past self was like.
'Yeah... to my cousin, the way I am now must seem... pretty strange, huh.'
"Sis, Sis! Sis, watch out for the zombies ahead!"
Xie Ning's wandering thoughts were pulled back by Song Kexin's shout. She quickly turned the wheel, and the minivan barely scraped past two swaying, rotting corpses.
Song Kexin let out a breath of relief. "Oh my god, Sis, you should just focus on driving. I'm not going to talk to you anymore."
"Okay, help me watch the road." Xie Ning also broke out in a cold sweat.
"Sis, your face doesn't look so red anymore. How are you feeling?"
"It feels like I'm not burning up as much as before." Xie Ning belatedly noticed, a hint of joy rising in her heart.
'Thank heavens. The superpower awakening is probably in its final stages.'
'Once my body stops burning continuously and my vision clears up, I'll be much more confident about getting Mom out of Ai Jia Supermarket.'
"Turn left up ahead." Song Kexin suddenly turned her head, pressing her face against the window to look outside. "Sis, it looks like there are a few people at the intersection trying to flag down cars..."
Before she could finish her sentence, she saw her sister, face cold and indifferent, slam the gas pedal to the floor, nearly hitting the young man blocking the middle of the road.
The minivan sped away from between the people, and Song Kexin could faintly hear them cursing.
"You can only do as much as your ability allows. Right now, our main priority is to save ourselves. Only when we've ensured our own and our family's safety can we even think about helping others."
Xie Ning lectured the rookie Song Kexin as she drove. "First rule of survival: Don't just pick up strangers willy-nilly. The TV shows have already taught you this. Picking up random people usually doesn't end well."
"You either pick up an ungrateful bastard or a phony innocent, got it?"
The rookie Song Kexin nodded obediently. "Oh."
"Take everything I'm teaching you now to heart. Don't let it be in one ear and out the other. Start using your head."
"Sis, I'm not an idiot. I'm listening."
"Second rule of survival: When you encounter all sorts of monsters, don't be afraid, and you definitely shouldn't run. Just go up there and hit them with a socialist Iron Fist. Beat them until they call you Daddy, and that'll be that."
Song Kexin: ...
'Holy shit, what's wrong with my cousin?'
'Did she have a genetic mutation or something?'
'She remembered her cousin never used to speak or act so decisively before.'
'The cousin in her memory was still that gentle girl with the ponytail, the one who would lie on the couch watching artsy romance films and wiping away tears...'
Song Kexin secretly turned her head just as the minivan SCREECHED to a halt at a side entrance of Ai Jia Supermarket.
"You lie down in the car and don't move. Lock the doors, don't make a sound. I'm going up to get my mom and bring her down."
"I'll go with you." Song Kexin grabbed her in a panic.
"It's dangerous up there. You behave and stay here. I'll be down in twenty minutes."