Chapter 5

There were three days left until the extreme cold arrived.

In the past four days, Kelly and I both used “being busy with work” as an excuse and stopped living at home.

And Ethan was probably also preparing his underground storage room. He would be delighted if I didn’t show up in front of him.

At dusk, Kelly and I were riding motorcycles along a narrow path through the fields.

Not far ahead was the farmhouse, already officially finished.

Around it were three concentric layers of defense.

All the doors and windows had been reinforced a second time. The outside still looked weathered, so outsiders would only think this place was run-down and unoccupied.

But as long as you got close and looked, you could see that on the inside of every window there was a reinforcement panel, and on every door there were double lock cylinders.

Once the extreme cold arrived later, I was afraid not even a ghost would discover we were hiding here.

I walked along every corridor once, confirming that every water tank was filled.

I made sure the thick insulation layer outside the tanks, and the internal heating devices, were all running normally.

Every pipe here was wrapped in an anti-freeze sleeve. The key connection points had bypasses and redundancy, so even if the temperature dropped to the extreme, they wouldn’t burst.

Kelly stood in the shelving area, checking against the list.

Inside, heavy-duty shelves stood row after row, like a clean, calm warehouse.

Every section was divided clearly, and all of them were filled with supplies.

In the corner were fuel barrels. Next to them, the space left empty was for water purification equipment, fire-starting equipment, and spare cookware.

A row of freezers was stuffed full of meat and seafood.

I connected the hard-drive server to power and loaded in all the movies, TV series, and offline materials from each website.

After the apocalypse arrives, it won’t be only the body that is tested.

Human beings’ mental state is the same.

Over these four days, through Kelly’s connections, I bought a large amount of weapons and ammunition.

At the same time, I didn’t slack off in training on how to use firearms.

No amount of words could compare to us standing side by side.

After dark, we locked the farm’s doors and drove into town to eat our last hot meal.

That small diner wasn’t big, but the lighting was warm.

The owner smiled gently. “You’re here.”

Once before, Rick had dragged Kelly in the city and tried to shove her into a car as she was running away.

It was this strong owner who had rushed out to stop him.

Hot noodles were brought to the table, and the steam hit my face.

My palms finally warmed up a little.

I had barely eaten a few bites when my phone started vibrating wildly on the tabletop.

The caller ID showed Ethan.

Call after call, like a dog that wouldn’t let go.

Text messages immediately popped up one after another, each one harsher than the last.

“I got the divorce lawyer’s letter. You damn it!”

“If you dare run, just wait. You really did learn to go bad from the woman next door.”

Kelly saw my phone screen. Just as she was about to speak,

the glass at the entrance of the diner suddenly reflected the shadow of a car.

The car paused, then slowly moved away.

Kelly’s face turned white in an instant.

“That’s the car Rick usually drives.”

Before I could speak, Ethan called again.