"Let's try this distance again, Pichu. Are you ready?"
Chen Mo stood inside an abandoned construction site, placing a stone about twenty centimeters long on the ground.
"Pichu!"
Pichu, positioned roughly thirty meters away, nodded firmly.
"Then let's begin. Pichu—give it everything you've got!"
As Chen Mo gave the command, energy rapidly gathered inside Pichu's body. Crackling, frightening arcs of electricity flickered around its small frame.
"Pi—chu!!!"
A blinding golden bolt of lightning erupted from the tiny yellow body, surging straight toward the stone target at astonishing speed!
Bang!
Watching the stone shatter into several chunks, Chen Mo clapped his hands.
"Very good, Pichu. You're amazing."
After finishing their meal, Chen Mo figured it would be good to get some post-meal exercise, so he brought Pichu to this deserted construction site to complete the skill testing they hadn't managed to do the night before.
"Pichu~"
Praised nonstop by Chen Mo, Pichu now looked a little shy.
Chen Mo smiled faintly.
"Pichu, do you still have stamina left?"
"Pichu!"
Pichu patted its chest, clearly signaling that it was fine.
"Alright, then let's do another set of continuous skill tests. We'll also see what the maximum range of your Thunder Shock is."
"Pichu!"
After several rounds of testing, Chen Mo had a fairly clear grasp of Pichu's current capabilities.
Although it hadn't learned any new moves because of the Electric Ball, the power of its only offensive skill—Thunder Shock—had increased dramatically.
Just from what they'd seen, even stones over thirty meters away could be accurately hit and shattered with ease.
"With this, when we head into the wild again, having you around will make things much safer."
Chen Mo rubbed the little Pichu perched on his shoulder.
"Come on, let's go buy some things. We'll stock up on a few more bottles of ketchup for home, then head back."
Having used its skills too many times, Pichu looked slightly tired, but the moment it heard the word ketchup, its eyes lit up instantly.
"Pichu chu~~"
At the same time.
Inside a supermarket several hundred meters away.
"What do we do now? We're completely surrounded by the police—we can't get out."
Inside the brightly lit supermarket with its doors tightly shut, a disheveled adult man sat slumped on the floor, muttering endlessly.
"I told you from the start, Rooster Head, we shouldn't have done this. We wouldn't get away. You wouldn't listen. Now look—we're finished. Totally finished."
"Damn it, Big Head, can you shut up for a second and let me think?"
Beside him, Rooster Head—wearing a dark denim jacket and looking equally dejected—gripped the shotgun in his hands as if it were the only thing giving him a sense of security. His hands trembling, he fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket, put it in his mouth, and lit it.
"Holy hell, Rooster Head, this isn't the time to smoke!"
"I need to calm down, alright?"
"Calm down my ass! Even if you calm down, with that pig brain of yours that's no better than mine, you won't think of a solution!"
"Then you tell me what to do!"
Rooster Head suddenly threw the barely smoked cigarette to the ground—something he would never normally do, because cigarettes were expensive.
"You think I wanted this?! Did you forget what kind of life we've been living these past six months? No jobs, no money, can't even pay rent, barely able to eat—we're starving to death, don't you get it?!"
Big Head lowered his head.
He understood all of it, because he'd lived through it together with him.
Thinking back on the past half year, Big Head's heart ached just as much.
Both of them had grown up in the countryside, without much talent for studying. When they grew up, they came to the city to work.
They did nothing but hard labor—but at least they could scrape by, and at the end of each year, they could send some money back home.
But after the monsters arrived, every industry suffered massive losses. The entire market economy entered an unprecedented freeze, and the construction site where the two worked was no exception.
What made things worse was that their boss ran off with the money. By the time the workers realized what had happened, the boss was already nowhere to be found.
"It's all because of those damned monsters. If they hadn't shown up, even if we lost our jobs, we wouldn't have been completely unable to find new ones."
"So what if it is? That's just how society works—someone always gets swallowed up. But I won't accept it. I won't accept that we're the ones getting eaten!"
Rooster Head's expression gradually turned vicious.
He glanced at Big Head—the man who'd left home with him as a kid, spent decades struggling alongside him, practically his own brother.
"Listen. I'll go out and create an opening. You seize the chance and run with the goods."
"What about you?"
"I've got a plan. What are you panicking for? When the time comes, just run as fast as you can. We'll meet up at the old place."
Rooster Head turned toward the hostages squatting with their heads covered not far away.
Even if he wasn't very smart, he knew why the police outside hadn't dared to storm in—because of these hostages.
His bloodshot eyes swept over them one by one. No one dared meet his gaze.
Soon, his eyes settled on an adult man holding a child.
"You. Stand up."
"Ah?! Please don't kill us! I'm begging you, don't kill us!"
The selected man shielded the little boy beneath him, his entire body shaking.
"Why are you talking so much nonsense? I told you to stand up, so stand up. Or I'll shoot you dead right now."
The pitch-black muzzle of the gun—this deadly threat—finally forced the man to stand.
Rooster Head sized him up, frowning.
"Still not quite right… forget it, there's no time. Dead horse or not, we ride it! Take off your clothes—now!"
With no choice, the man complied.
"And your pants too! What, can't you understand what I'm saying?!"
After a round of humiliation, the man—wearing nothing but his underwear—squatted off to the side.
Rooster Head then turned to his accomplice.
"Big Head, put these clothes on. Then give your clothes to this guy. In a bit, this guy comes out with me. You take his kid and run. Once you get away, you let the kid go. Got it?"
"Got it…"
"And you."
Rooster Head looked at the nearly naked man.
"You look like an educated type. You should understand what I'm saying. Don't try anything funny—if you still want your kid to live."
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