The Rest of the Homeowners

With the food and drink issue resolved, they had time to recount what had happened.

The woman with long hair was named Feng Hanjun and was in a romantic relationship with Zhao Xifeng. They lived in 401. Currently, the couple in room 403 were Lu Qiuman and Yu Liangjun. The other woman was named Zhu Yihong, who was classmates with Lu Qiuman and currently shared the place with her.

Normally, Feng Hanjun looked down on others and had no acquaintance with Lu Qiuman despite being neighbors. They even had psychological struggles and friction when they met in the elevator. After all, both women were strong-minded and successful in their respective fields. They both managed their boyfriends tightly and engaged in subtle power struggles behind their backs.

As a result, when they all woke up one night and found that they had all shrunk, they were baffled. After experiencing confusion, arguments, and fear, they relied on the snacks prepared by their boyfriends on the coffee table to get through over a month.

When they noticed that the batteries in the remote-controlled door locks were running out, they opened the doors on both sides in hopes of finding a way to escape.

The difference was that Feng Hanjun didn't pay attention and accidentally closed the door when she came out. Lu Qiuman, on the other hand, had her boyfriend use a delivery box to wedge the door open, avoiding the embarrassing situation of being unable to reopen the door.

Although the two strong-minded women had subtle power struggles, they weren't evil. Lu Qiuman generously invited the "homeless" Feng Hanjun and her partner into her own home.

So, with both strong-minded women under the same roof and their bodies shrunk to 1/24th of their original size, they engaged in another round of subtle power struggles in secret, this time involving their boyfriends.

Feng Hanjun, relying on being the general manager of Haotao Industrial Company and believing that her company's strong relationship with the government would lead to her rescue, refused to believe Tom's warnings about the dangers outside. Tom didn't mind this, having learned from the example of Chen Jianbin. If they didn't listen to orders and ran around recklessly, he wouldn't have any sympathy.

Of the five people, Lu Qiuman and her best friend Zhu Yihong decided to leave with Tom, unwilling to stay and wait for the delayed government rescue. On the other hand, Feng Hanjun didn't trust Tom's words and insisted on staying for rescue. As for the opinions of the two men, they could be completely ignored.

She didn't want to leave, and Tom didn't mind leaving with such a noisy woman. He didn't say much, just emphasized the rules once more before putting on his helmet and starting off.

This made Zhao Xifeng anxious. He repeatedly urged Feng Hanjun to leave with Tom, emphasizing that there was no more food left, and the government's rescue was nowhere to be seen.

Feng Hanjun had long wanted to leave this place, but she was unwilling to bow down to Tom due to her pride. She hoped Tom would persuade her again, but he didn't say a word and simply left, leaving her feeling embarrassed. Eventually, she begrudgingly followed Tom, feeling like she had lost face.

Whether face was more important than life, this was not a difficult choice. After seeing Tom and the others leave, she cursed at Zhao Xifeng for a couple of sentences and reluctantly followed the group.

Then Lu Qiuman naturally mocked her a few times, and Feng Hanjun, not one to be underestimated, thickened her skin and retorted. The two women followed Tom, bickering back and forth, while Zhu Yihong occasionally chimed in on Lu Qiuman's side. Despite their efforts, they couldn't match Feng Hanjun's verbal skills.

The two men who were already taken were happy to be at ease, actively offering to help Tom carry the backpack.

But Tom wasn't going to hand over his supplies to two strangers he had just met; he still had his guard up against this group. Fed up with the noise from the three women, he simply snapped, "Shut up!" and the three women immediately fell silent.

When they reached the third floor, Lu Qiuman suggested going up to the third floor to check. She had a colleague who lived on the third floor and hoped to bring her along.

Although they had seen from the shelter that there were only six survivors in this building, and now they were all gathered, meaning there were no more living people, Tom still agreed to her request. He could have said that the doors couldn't be opened and that everyone inside had died, but Feng Hanjun probably wouldn't believe it. Seeing is believing; nothing is more convincing than seeing with one's own eyes.

The doors of each room on the third floor were tightly closed. Perhaps, unlike Feng Hanjun and Lu Qiuman, they hadn't realized the consequences of the electronic door locks running out of battery. Anyway, as they walked along, they found that each door couldn't be pushed open.

Until they reached the end of the corridor, Lu Qiuman had given up on finding her colleague. She shouted a couple of times through the door, "Xiao Li, Xiao Li!" But how could such a faint voice penetrate the thick door?

"Let's go," Lu Qiuman said.

But Tom noticed something unusual about the door crack. He raised his hand to signal them to wait and then pushed the door... and it opened.

"Great! Xiao Li..." Lu Qiuman was overjoyed, but just as she shouted, she immediately covered her mouth, "Ugh..."

The other four also covered their mouths and quickly ran far away. However, the putrid smell that had accumulated in the room, now released by the tightly closed door, immediately rushed out of the cage and spread freely throughout the corridor. No matter how far they ran, they couldn't escape the clutches of this nauseating odor demon.

"Don't go too far, or you'll run into mosquitoes and be doomed!" Tom shouted at them, then glanced at Lin Meiqi, who was standing beside him with a similarly distressed expression, and nodded silently.

This little girl had quite a high tolerance.

"Aren't you curious about how the other people in the building are doing? Come with me and find out the truth."

Taking Lin Meiqi with him, Tom entered a room, following the light from the shelter outside, where they saw a large, highly decomposed body lying on the floor.

Longyao Garden was a high-end residential area, and the decoration here was of high quality. The tightly closed doors effectively kept out external mosquitoes and flies, also preventing the corpse from attracting flies. However, without the suppression of bacteriophages, bacteria inside the body began to proliferate and spread rapidly throughout the body, quickly decomposing it, with maggots crawling all over the floor.

Lin Meiqi, who had never seen a decomposed body before, couldn't help but vomit up her dinner despite her strong psychological endurance.

Tom chuckled, picked up the little girl, and walked out, closing the door behind him to let the unfortunate deceased rest in peace.

By this time, the five people outside the corridor had already vomited profusely, but they dared not go far because of Tom's warning. Now that they saw Tom coming out, they naturally hurried to catch up.

As they descended to the second floor, Lin Meiqi was set down, finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. "Are you a pervert?" she asked.

The others looked at Tom with the same eyes.

Tom smiled. "I've been saying it's dangerous outside. Over these two months, I've encountered many bodies. Some people can handle it."

"Her head was smashed, that should be the real cause of death. Why?" Lin Meiqi's words made Lu Qiuman recall the stench from earlier, and she immediately squatted down and started dry heaving again, emptying her stomach of the remaining water.

"Not everyone is as lucky as us," Tom said.

Now Feng Hanjun objected, "So, we should thank God for making us small?"

Lin Meiqi chuckled and said, "Yeah, you should thank whoever, God or Buddha. Because if you weren't lucky enough, you'd become the corpse with the exploded head just now."

Observing and deducing carefully, Tom greatly appreciated Lin Meiqi's insight. "Yes, those who fail to shrink properly either die as they shrink or during the process. I've seen several bodies like this on the road. Compared to the population density here, the number of people I've encountered who are still alive is much lower."

Zhu Yihong shivered as she looked at the rooms along the corridor. "You mean..."

"Yes, in this entire building, except for you six, the others are probably all dead."

"Wow!" Zhu Yihong screamed in fear and ran towards the stairs to the first floor. "Let's get out of here!"

"Stop, come back!" Tom shouted hastily, throwing a steel needle. The long spear, with six times the strength, pierced a large mosquito emerging from above her head, and the spear, still connected to the corpse, fell beside her, scaring her into crying and running back.

Tom sighed and looked at the mosquitoes emerging from the darkness. "Let's go into Lin Meiqi's room first, her door lock still has power, hurry!"

Finally, the door Tom knocked on let the mosquitoes outside know, and they began to crawl in one after another. They had to transfer to the shelter as soon as possible.

Tom was the last to retreat into Lin Meiqi's room, ensuring that no mosquitoes followed him in before closing the door.

Looking at Lin Meiqi's luxurious room, the picky and arrogant Feng Hanjun obediently closed her mouth. Her self-proclaimed luxurious enjoyment was shattered in front of this petite beauty.

"Oh my God, isn't that the most expensive Kaimdlin floor-cleaning robot from Germany?" Zhu Yihong stared at a floor-cleaning robot with stars in her eyes, and the others naturally recognized more high-end goods.

But this little girl was still so arrogant, shrugging her shoulders, "Oh, these are all things my old horse at home ordered on his own. I'm just living here for a while; there's no need to make such a fuss."

Now Feng Hanjun found her psychological balance, sneering, "So, it's being kept, huh..."

This time Lin Meiqi wouldn't stand for it. She walked up to her and said, "What kind of sour words are you saying, auntie? What do you mean being kept? What do you call the things my dad buys for me? And all these expenses, he paid for them with the money in my account. Who's keeping who? Do you think it's you? Always thinking about being kept."