Chapter 56: An Acquaintance

Once, the highway showed none of the apocalyptic scenes one might expect—no wrecks, no chaos. It was broad and clean, flanked on either side by towering trees and overgrown grass, making the spacious road resemble a tranquil forest path. As the car glided under the shade, not a trace of the oppressive late-summer heat could be felt—instead, there was a refreshing coolness that lifted the spirit and invigorated the soul.

Li Li sat in the front passenger seat, clad in combat attire that accentuated her shapely figure, the tactical belt tracing every curve. Her long black hair was coiled neatly at the back of her head, exuding the mature allure of a seasoned woman—a presence that could easily captivate any man. Yet Ma Yi, lost in the joy of returning home, paid no mind to the beauty beside him.

A peculiar sound, a mixture of thumping and rumbling, crept into their senses. Ma Yi slowed the car, puzzled, his gaze fixed on the distance. Even after the vehicle came to a stop, an odd vibration accompanied the hum of the engine.

“Master, what’s wrong?” Li Li’s reaction was worlds apart from Ma Yi’s. She looked at him in confusion, sensing his sudden pause and intense stare out the window.

“Something’s off. I’ll check it out,” Ma Yi replied, stepping out of the car. With his feet on the ground, he could feel the tremor more acutely—a primal force from the earth itself.

“Is this an earthquake?” Ma Yi squatted, pressing his palm to the ground and closing his eyes. In his mind, he perceived waves of vibrations emanating from ahead—subtle, but detectable, likely due to their distance from the epicenter.

“An earthquake?” Li Li echoed, climbing out as well, astonished by Ma Yi’s pronouncement.

“It must be. Let’s get back in the car; we need to pick up the pace,” Ma Yi urged, concern flickering in his eyes as he looked toward the road ahead. This highway led straight to P City, the place he’d been yearning for, but now the source of the tremors seemed to lie directly in their path, stirring unease in his heart.

“Alright,” Li Li replied quickly, scrambling back into the front seat.

With the car accelerating along the open road, Ma Yi started to notice faint fissures appearing in the once-pristine pavement—a sign that they were drawing closer to the earthquake’s heart, not because the tremors had grown stronger, but because their journey was carrying them toward the epicenter.

Earthquakes are one of nature’s most formidable weapons, their destructive power immense. They can unleash toxic gases, bacteria, and radioactive substances, threatening both life and architecture. Ma Yi recalled Liu Wen once speaking about sunspots—how solar activity could provoke reactions on Earth, with earthquakes among the natural responses.

He hadn’t expected such a disaster to erupt as he made his way home.

As the car pressed onward, the cracks in the ground widened. Even Li Li, with her keen eyes, could see dark lines snaking across the road. The wheels rolled over them with a strange, hollow resonance.

“It’s getting worse. Please, let nothing happen,” Ma Yi muttered anxiously as their SUV began to jolt with the uneven terrain. The shifting earth impeded their progress, and Ma Yi felt his urgency mounting.

When they finally came upon a broken stretch of bridge, Ma Yi’s face seethed with frustration. The road home, so close, was now severed. He had little familiarity with alternate routes, and the navigation system only left him more perplexed.

“Master, the gap is only about twenty meters. You could jump it. It might take a bit longer, but we can make our way across,” Li Li suggested timidly after inspecting the chasm. The tense aura Ma Yi exuded was almost frightening.

“Jump?” Ma Yi glanced from the broken bridge to the car, and a spark of realization lit his eyes. Wrapping his arms around the vehicle’s frame, he effortlessly hefted the multi-ton SUV, leapt across the breach, and landed lightly on the other side, all under Li Li’s astonished gaze.

Following his lead, Li Li retreated for a running start. As a second-tier evolved human, she managed the twenty-meter leap—not without difficulty, but well within her capabilities.

With this method, Ma Yi’s spirits lifted. Whenever the road was severed, he would simply lift the car across. For minor cracks and potholes, the off-roader could handle them. Amidst the rough terrain, Ma Yi almost rediscovered the thrill of off-road driving—bumpy, but still making progress.

“Here it comes again,” Ma Yi muttered as the ground trembled once more. He could feel each aftershock acutely. By sensing the vibrations, he navigated the car along the safest paths, narrowly avoiding fresh fissures and collapses time and again.

As they drew closer to the epicenter, fallen trees began to block the road, their tangled limbs a formidable barrier. Li Li, her power insufficient for slicing through the trunks, could only watch as Ma Yi, steering with one hand, wielded his blade with the other. With each swing, he cleaved the trees into fragments.

The ceaseless hacking honed Ma Yi’s techniques. He devised new moves—like the Meteor Slash, each cross-shaped strike bursting forth like a shower of shooting stars, reducing all obstacles to flying splinters. Then there was the Spiral Drive—spinning the weapon to churn the air into a high-pressure vortex, piercing even the hardest objects and tearing them apart with a force greater than the Meteor Slash.

Li Li, accustomed by now to Ma Yi’s ever-evolving abilities, gazed on with little surprise. This man seemed favored by fate itself; just when you thought you knew him, he would reveal something even more astonishing—mysterious and powerful.

As they neared their destination, marked ever closer on the map, Li Li’s thoughts turned inward—curiosity and anxiety mingling as she considered meeting Ma Yi’s wife for the first time. Though she was only a servant, she couldn’t help but worry: Would the mistress be easy to get along with? What if she wasn’t? In the apocalypse, Li Li had seen too much injustice. In this new world, power was everything. Without it, no matter how beautiful, a woman was just a commodity—something to be traded or used as currency by the strong.

It was like the so-called Three Giants of Changfeng; on the surface, their women seemed glamorous and respected. But Li Li knew: to be with the Giants—even as a bed-warmer—required at least second-tier evolutionary power, as well as beauty. Those lacking strength were mere decorative tools, passed around as rewards or barter, with no status at all.

Lost in these thoughts, Li Li was jolted back to reality as Ma Yi suddenly stopped the car, his gaze fixed intently on the distance, brow furrowed, annoyance written on his face.

She looked in the same direction, but saw only collapsed buildings and yawning craters—nothing that explained his reaction.

“Master, what is it?” Li Li tried to appear as obedient as possible. She knew that, once in Ma Yi’s home, she’d need to be even more diligent, to impress his wife and not seem useless.

“Well, isn’t this a coincidence? I haven’t even reached home and already I’ve run into an old acquaintance. Let’s go have a look,” Ma Yi said, the irritation vanishing as he smiled and stepped out, motioning Li Li to follow him toward the ruins.

Beneath the fallen structures, a group of people was resting. They looked gaunt and battered, many bearing fresh wounds. A few sturdier men eyed Ma Yi warily as he approached.

Li Li, as a woman, saw at once the trauma written on the women’s faces—pale and sallow, their tattered clothes stained with filth, hair lifeless and tangled, their spirits teetering on the edge of collapse.

“That’s Ma Yi!” someone exclaimed, standing up with a mixture of excitement and deep shame, surprised by how much he had changed. His imposing stature seemed diminished, but his presence was even more commanding.

“Who are you?” barked a burly man standing atop a broken wall, gripping a steel fork. He eyed Ma Yi and Li Li suspiciously—their clean clothes and healthy appearance set them apart. In this world, only the strong or the powerful remained unscathed.

“I’m just here to check on a few friends. I’ll be on my way soon,” Ma Yi replied with a dazzling smile that made the sentry squint.

“We meet again!” Ignoring the suspicious men, Ma Yi strode up to a group of familiar faces. One of them, who appeared to be their leader, bristled at Ma Yi’s casual disregard, but dared not confront him directly. He turned away, heading for a derelict building.

The others, overcome with emotion, were speechless. Months had passed since they’d parted at the villa. In that time, they had suffered indignities they never imagined—once living comfortably, they were now treated like animals, never with enough to eat. Even the women, once elite, had no power to protect themselves, forced to watch as their own were abused.

Only Chen Yuanshan, thick-skinned as ever, dared approach Ma Yi. He was a shadow of his former self, painfully aware now of what the apocalypse truly meant. Before, Ma Yi had given them a secure life—food, water, shelter. But used to their privileges, they eventually resented relying on someone else and struck out on their own, only to find themselves enslaved and abused. Chen’s wife had taken her own life after being humiliated, his secretary was seized by the local boss, and even Liu Jing had caught his eye. Other women had either died along the way or been executed for defiance.

All these regrets surged in Chen Yuanshan’s heart as he looked at Ma Yi, hope and despair warring in his eyes. Now that Ma Yi seemed to have returned to his human form, even the faint hope of rescue faded.

“Ma Yi, we meet again,” Chen Yuanshan managed, his face burning with shame.

“How have you fared here? Where is everyone else?” Ma Yi asked, his gaze sweeping over the diminished group.

“It’s all my fault,” Chen replied, hanging his head. “Old Zhao and some of the others died along the road, some perished from exhaustion here. The survivors… they’re in the boss’s quarters.” His wife was dead, his secretary taken, even Liu Jing had caught the boss’s fancy. The other women had either died on the road or been killed for defying authority. Suddenly, Chen looked up at Ma Yi, hope flaring in his eyes—perhaps Ma Yi could change their fate. But seeing Ma Yi’s calm, almost detached demeanor, that hope flickered and died.