The next morning, I was awakened by a loud rumbling noise.

Outside the balcony, a five-meter-high outer wall blocked my view further, and the villa door had been replaced with a prison-like airtight steel door.

Lan Yao stood next to Chen Ze urging the construction workers to hurry up, looking every bit like the mistress of the house.

We were college roommates, and Chen Ze was her fellow villager.

During one of their fellow villager gatherings, I tagged along and got to know Chen Ze.

After that, Chen Ze seemed to appear intentionally or unintentionally on my usual route, and we naturally started dating.

We even agreed that once we graduated from college, we would get engaged.

It wasn't until the engagement banquet that I found out Chen Ze and Lan Yao had known each other since childhood, attending the same school from kindergarten to college for a full sixteen years.

Back then, I thought even though they grew up together, Chen Ze chose me.

I got caught up in the sweetness of marrying Chen Ze, ignoring a pair of malicious eyes around me.

A car accident just before the wedding almost cost me my life.

When I reappeared in front of the overly affectionate couple, Chen Ze explained that Lan Yao was a childhood friend, like a sister to him, with no ill intentions.

After the door was installed, workers began fitting blast-resistant glass, and it was then that the two of them turned around and saw me.

"I sold those vases in the living room to pay for the renovation," Chen Ze casually informed me.

I rushed downstairs, the antique shelf was empty, and the vases my grandfather left me were all gone.

I grabbed the ashtray from the coffee table and hurled it at the person about to enter the door.

"How could you sell the vases my grandfather left me? Don't you know how important they are to me?"

My grandfather died protecting those vases from antique dealers.

Blood dripped from Chen Ze's forehead onto the carpet, and Lan Yao yelled at me.

"Shi Xin, you're crazy. If a zombie outbreak happens, what use are those broken vases to you?"

Her voice was so loud that even the workers outside heard and turned to look.

With such a commotion today, coupled with her words, the confidentiality agreement might not hold.

Oh well, there should be more than just the two of them mutated, and I might not be the only one leaking information.

I shouted at the workers outside the door, "What are you looking at, it's just an argument."

Chen Ze stared at me through his thin glasses.

"Shi Xin, you're not right. When Sakura Country was discharging nuclear wastewater, you hoarded a house full of salt. Now that you see that thing growing on my arm, you don't care about stocking up for building materials."

He had already sold the vases, demolished the house, what more did he need from me.

Before going upstairs, I gestured to them to look at the workers in the yard who were rapidly sending messages, kindly reminding them, "It's best to stock up on supplies quickly, or you might miss out if it's too late."