Click.
A flowerpot, its texture betraying cheap plastic, made soft contact with a wooden shelf.
On an apartment building that clung stubbornly to its shantytown design—albeit with sturdier materials—a row of thriving succulents sat neatly on a wooden rack next to a row of identical, flimsy security doors that offered virtually no soundproofing. These plants were nothing precious; their resilience and low maintenance had simply earned them a place where delicate flowers could not survive.
Slender, pale fingers reached for the base of the fourth pot from the left.
The apartment key, buried upside down in the soil, was gently plucked free. With a soft rustle of cascading dirt came the sharp, metallic click of the lock disengaging.
"I'm home."
SLAM!
A voice, young but not childish, was swallowed by the irritable slam of the door. Still, it was the only reply the girl ever received, a sound she was slowly growing accustomed to—one whose absence would now leave her feeling insecure.
She turned sideways, bending at the knees.
The sunken floor of the entryway, a space of less than two square meters, was already half-consumed by a shoe cabinet. On the raised floor, just thirty centimeters higher, all of her belongings were stacked with meticulous order. In a home where storage rooms and closets were an impossible luxury, this was the most optimal solution she could devise.
At least, one didn't have to squeeze through the entryway sideways.
Creak.
Following the line of her ankle, her thumb and forefinger pinched the heel of her boot, liberating her left foot. Her next step onto the worm-eaten floorboards produced a protesting groan. After repeating the motion for her other foot, the girl smoothed the crumpled fabric of her skirt along her waistline, then crouched to set her boots aside with care.
This daily, almost ritualistic, act was the proof that she had returned "home."
Thump.
A sea-blue shoulder bag was tossed with practiced accuracy onto the one-person sofa. The bag, containing a weight that could qualify as a weapon, gave a defeated ten-centimeter bounce before the sofa's non-existent spring absorbed its momentum, forcing it to settle where it belonged.
Glug, glug, glug!
She opened the tiny, sub-fifty-liter refrigerator.
The two-liter carton of milk, half-finished that morning, was the perfect remedy for her thirst and stress. School followed by a part-time job—a combination that should have been unthinkable in a post-apocalyptic world—was strikingly normal in this city.
The sun still rose on schedule, but the curriculum was now Honkai theory and the part-time jobs were on construction sites. Schoolteachers were mostly active-duty soldiers from the Fire Moth, and the corner store was now part of a work-for-relief program. This explained why the girl's freshly polished leather boots were caked in a fine layer of dust, and why her shoulder bag—which should have held textbooks, magazines, or a gaming console—was instead stuffed to bursting with work clothes wrapped in a plastic bag.
Swish!
There was no changing room.
The most prominent feature of this apartment was the large, standardized bathtub that occupied a significant portion of the floor space. In a building where hot water was rationed, soaking in a bath after a long day—even if it meant drinking cold water—was perhaps her last stand of dignity while living under another's roof.
That's right.
This was Zenith City, deep in the heartland of Shenzhou—one of the last four cities on Earth, and one of only two remaining in Shenzhou. With a population now approaching twenty million, Zenith City had absorbed refugees from neighboring territories and fallen cities… well over five million outsiders in total.
The girl's original home, the island nation of Yingzhou, constituted a significant portion of that number, accounting for over 1.5 million people.
However.
While the city endured, the problem of resource scarcity was not so easily solved. Most citizens understood this. Those who didn't either left to experience wilderness survival firsthand or became a part of the now-fertile soil.
Rustle.
With her middle finger leading the way, her hand slid down from the raised hem of her skirt, tracing the line of her slender thigh. With a gentle tug, she peeled down the white stockings, whose thickness—well over 44 denier—prevented them from cinching her flesh. Her knees and ankles were far less alluring than the boys her age might fantasize; only the taut, delicate curve of her arch offered some small compensation for the loss.
The inland summers were nothing like the cool coastline she remembered. She chose stockings of this thickness not out of habit, but to conceal the texture of her lower calf—a fine, crystalline latticework, like a fractured gem. It was the scar of Honkai corruption, a mark that could only be hidden by layers of fabric.
Her index and middle fingers, held together, traced the outline of the "wound."
Besides this single blemish, she bore none of the other telltale symptoms of Honkai sickness. Yet this fact did little to quell the anxiety in her heart. In an age where the sickness had become a "common phenomenon," her own unique case was all the more alarming… especially given who she was.
But—
Hiss.
As she pulled off her blouse, a cascade of dark hair tumbled across her forehead.
In an apocalypse like this, she thought, just being alive is a stroke of luck. To ask for more is to tempt fate. Even if the end was yet to come, she was already more fortunate than most. This was the philosophy that guided her.
With a brisk wipe of her right hand, she freed the strands of hair that sweat had plastered to her cheek.
The sweat wasn't from fatigue. The work on site was strenuous, but the adults always looked out for her—a pretty girl was welcome anywhere—so her tasks were never too demanding. Of course, that wasn't the main reason. For someone with her physical conditioning, the day's labor barely qualified as a warm-up.
The perspiration was a deliberate act, a result of forcing her body to conform.
Her control was still unpracticed, however, so she had perhaps overdone it. By pressing her hands lightly against her stomach, she could see a small puddle gather in the valley formed between the twin peaks supported by her arms.
Click.
Reaching behind her back, she unfastened the clasp with practiced ease.
Like a dam bursting its gates, a trickle of moisture streamed down the centerline of her abdomen.
"Hah…"
Her sigh was followed by a lament that would have made connoisseurs of rarity beat their chests in despair.
"What's so good about being big, anyway?"
"At times like this… I'm so jealous of my sister."
She snatched a slightly smaller bath towel from where it hung beside the television cabinet. This spot by the window doubled as a drying rack. In apartments like these, devoid of balconies and possessed of paper-thin walls, privacy was a fragile thing maintained only by curtains and the volume of the TV.