bookbashuk 6: Compass
6: Compass
Su Chen treated the big white egg in his arms like a treasure.
He tightened the backpack's horizontal buckle around his waist, and with the help of the two shoulder straps, he secured the egg firmly to the front of his stomach, only then did he feel at ease.
"This is my trump card; I absolutely cannot afford any mishaps."
He gently touched the egg through his clothes.
After touching it for a while, Su Chen finally walked to the window and leaned out to look down.
Outside the apartment building, the lame cat was still there. It growled softly as it slowly paced back and forth, as if surveying its territory. Every now and then, it would look up and glance at the window where Su Chen was.
As soon as their eyes met, it bared its teeth and hissed at Su Chen, making a threatening sound in its throat.
After a while of hissing, the big cat's tense body slowly relaxed, and its head drooped. It limped towards the community square, squatted down next to a large, nearly dried-out black wild boar, and while gnawing on the meat that was as hard as firewood, it glared fiercely at Su Chen upstairs.
It bit into the wild boar carcass and shook its head violently, tearing off pieces of meat several times. While chewing, it strained its entire upper body, its eyes involuntarily closing. Even so, it still spared some attention, never letting go of its surveillance of Su Chen.
"If animal rights activists saw you like this, they'd be heartbroken..." Su Chen thought to himself.
He now understood that the old cat wouldn't let him go easily—it even kept a close eye on him while he ate.
"well……"
Su Chen shook his head and walked back to the living room from the window.
"We'll figure out what to do about Old Cat when we go downstairs later. Right now, the most important thing is to 'hunt' – loot everything usable in this house."
Having made up his mind, Su Chen left the balcony and returned to the living room.
The living room is divided into two areas: the east side near the entrance is the original owner's work area, where the alchemy table and workbench are placed; the side near the balcony is the living area, where the TV, sofa, and coffee table are placed.
Su Chen walked closer to the coffee table and opened the drawer to search.
Among a jumble of data cables, he pulled out a palm-sized, high-tech rectangular battery.
The front of the battery is marked "750Wh", while the back says "Not for Sale".
Su Chen weighed it in his hand and felt that it weighed less than half a pound, which startled him.
"A kilogram of lithium iron phosphate battery has a capacity of less than 300Wh, but this small piece has 750Wh? That's amazing! If there's a power outage, this thing is a lifesaver."
With that thought in mind, he immediately stuffed the solid-state battery into his backpack and then took out a few new-looking data cables from the drawer.
After sweeping the coffee table, Su Chen ran to rummage through the TV cabinet.
There was nothing useful inside, so he turned and went into the master bedroom.
In the ensuite bathroom of the master bedroom, he found two tubes of toothpaste and three brand-new boxes of Safeguard soap.
Then he rushed to the balcony of the master bedroom, took the binoculars that the original owner had set up on the tripod, and stuffed them into his backpack.
After ransacking the bedroom, Su Chen immediately went out to check the other rooms one by one.
Soon, he arrived at the original owner's collection room.
The owner of room 602 seemed to be an alcoholic, as the collection room contained only seven large, six-tiered wine cabinets. These cabinets were all leaning against the wall, looking as if they were about to collapse.
Most of the bottles in the wine cabinet had fallen to the floor, with glass shards and wine stains splattered everywhere.
"What a waste..." Su Chen looked at the broken pieces on the ground and felt a little heartbroken. If he could keep these wines, he could mix and match them to create hundreds of different flavors. If he could find a girl to drink with, they might even have a little "sparring" when they got drunk.
Su Chen shook his head, squatted down, and began rummaging through the bottles. After searching for a while, he finally found three 200ml bottles of high-proof liquor at the very bottom of the wine cabinet closest to the wall.
Su Chen's eyes lit up when he received the liquor.
"Good stuff! Luckily, the previous owner put the liquor at the bottom of the cabinet, otherwise these three bottles wouldn't have survived."
"With this thing, plus the antibiotics I bring myself, I don't need to be too afraid even if I get a knife wound."
After putting away the liquor, Su Chen continued walking forward.
He soon reached the end of the corridor and saw a pile of broken furniture lying haphazardly together.
At first, Su Chen didn't pay attention. He originally planned to start from one end of the corridor and search the other side of the room as well.
But he soon realized something was wrong—these broken pieces of furniture shouldn't be piled up here. Even if they were to be thrown away, they should be thrown outside, not piled up at the end of the corridor.
Thinking of this, Su Chen immediately started moving the broken furniture.
Then he saw a kitchen door that was blocked by furniture.
"God help me, I must find something to eat!"
Su Chen silently recited the instructions in his mind, and then gently pushed open the door that had been deliberately hidden.
"Hiss—this kitchen is actually a suite?" Su Chen was stunned by the sight before him.
To the north of the room is a combined Chinese and Western style dining and kitchen area, while to the south is a food storage room of more than 30 square meters, separated by a glass curtain wall, which looks like a small supermarket.
"Extravagant! This is far too extravagant!"
"No wonder someone wanted to hide this place; I would have hidden it too!"
Seeing the piles of rice stacked like small mountains, the two walls covered with dehydrated vegetables, each bag weighing at least five kilograms, and the boxes and boxes of brightly colored cooking oil next to the cabinet... Su Chen was completely stunned, wishing he could settle down here immediately and never leave.
"Do the people in this neighborhood live such comfortable lives?" Su Chen remarked, chewing on a spicy snack he'd found in the snack aisle.
But then he realized something was wrong.
"With so much food, the entire community was still wiped out... This means they didn't starve to death, but encountered something they couldn't stop and were killed."
"Ugh...it's terrifying just thinking about it."
Su Chen suddenly remembered the gruesome deaths of the animals in the community square, as well as the signs of battle on the ground and walls, and couldn't help but shudder.
What if that thing that wiped out this place returns under the cover of night? With only a Nepalese kukri, Su Chen probably wouldn't even qualify as a "tough guy" in front of it; he'd be more like a "loli" at best.
"We can't stay here any longer!"
With that in mind, Su Chen quickly started picking out food.
White sugar, 100% pure chocolate, dried beef, compressed biscuits, freeze-dried vegetables... He doesn't care about the taste at all, he only cares about whether the energy density is high and whether it can provide the essential nutrients for the human body.
After filling more than half of the backpack, Su Chen weighed it in his hand.
"This weight is about right. We should eat it sparingly for half a month. We can't pack any more—food is only food if it can be carried away; otherwise, it's just a burden."
Thinking of the old cat eyeing him menacingly at the door, Su Chen understood: if he carried too much weight, he would probably have a hard time breaking out of the old cat's encirclement.
So he zipped up his backpack, left the kitchen, and walked toward the room on the other side of the corridor.
He wanted to find some weapons to enhance his combat capabilities. That old cat could scratch sparks out of an iron gate; with only a Nepalese kukri, Su Chen really didn't dare to confront it head-on.
He searched room by room, but he couldn't find the weapon he wanted—all the weapons more lethal than a kitchen knife had vanished without a trace.
Soon, Su Chen walked to the corner of the living room work area and stood at the door of the last room.
This room was very different from the others: the door was gone, and the floor was covered with dark brown, dried bloodstains.
Su Chen subconsciously tensed up, took several deep breaths, and finally mustered the courage to go in.
As soon as he entered, he saw more than a dozen huge glass jars in the center of the room. The jars were covered with runes, and inside were huge, hideous, and blood-oozing monster corpses floating in the potion.
"hiss--"
Su Chen gasped, his pupils shrinking to tiny dots, and his whole body trembled uncontrollably.
He reached out and braced himself against the wall, keeping his eyes fixed on the jars as he slowly backed towards the door, fearing that the monsters might suddenly come to life, burst out of the jars, and tear him to pieces.
Suddenly, his fingers, which were pressed against the wall, touched something cold.
The moment he was hit by the ice, Su Chen jerked his hand back, faster than when he was a child touching an electric shock.
At the same time, he turned his head to look at the cold thing.
"Phew...it's just a compass."
Su Chen breathed a sigh of relief, took down the crookedly hanging compass, and casually wiped away the bloodstains on its surface.
After wiping away the bloodstains, the words on the compass casing were revealed: Home Compass.
Looking at the name, and then at the small needle that kept trembling but always pointing in the same direction, Su Chen felt an overwhelming surge of excitement!
"A home compass? Could it point me home? I... I can go back?"
In an instant, all of Su Chen's muscles relaxed, and his stiff brows unfurrowed.
The panic that had been weighing on my heart ever since I was pushed into the gray fog was mostly dispelled by the swaying compass in my hand.
At that moment, Su Chen felt his body warm up.
"It's good that there's hope...it's good that there's hope!"
He tightened his backpack straps again, fastened the buckle around his waist even more, and then tucked his trouser legs into his socks... He was fully prepared to go home and to seek revenge.
Even now, Su Chen still remembers the despair he felt when he was pushed into the fog—he couldn't see anything clearly, he couldn't lean on anything, and he felt like he had been abandoned by the world.
If it weren't for his strong will to survive and good luck, he might have already died in that gray fog.
Moreover, he was the one who led the expedition, facing the most strangeness and danger. Logically and emotionally, he shouldn't have been pushed into the fog.
"Could it be Huang Mao? Or Wen Fei? That much strength... Could it be that 'Chengdu specialty'?"
"Judging from strength alone, it could be the woman with the Miao sword. She is definitely not a delicate, weak woman—a weak person wouldn't have such sharp equipment."
Su Chen secretly guessed that everyone was a suspect and no one seemed like a good person.
But who cares? No matter who it is, they all have to pay the price!