Shen Jinwen

The woman with a high ponytail quickly changed her clothes. When she came out and saw that Sophia Johnson hadn't touched her glass of water, she wasn't surprised. After all, if it were her, she wouldn't drink that water either, even though she hadn't added anything to it.

There was blood on her hair too, but now there was no time to wash up. She simply let her hair down and wiped it with a towel before sitting across from Sophia Johnson. She forced herself to keep her gaze off the large snake coiled around the girl's feet and stiffly asked, "What information do you want to exchange?"

Sophia Johnson didn't answer the question immediately. Instead, she softened the atmosphere a little, "Sister, how about we exchange some basic information first? It's always good to get to know each other, especially since we'll be living in the same building. We might run into each other quite often."

The woman didn't object. She nodded and said, "My name is Shen Jinwen. I'm from Yun City. I just graduated from university and came back for some reasons. I didn't manage to leave in time. Since I was young, I've been interested in cold weapons and learned some moves. Never expected they'd come in handy one day."

Shen Jinwen's explanation was vague, but it was enough for two strangers who had just met.

After finishing, she looked at Sophia Johnson and asked, "And you?"

Sophia Johnson briefly introduced herself, and then, in a calm tone, said, "I didn't really attend school, and my health isn't great, so I was left here."

Shen Jinwen looked at her with a trace of surprise in her eyes. She had suspected that Sophia Johnson was likely still in the city because of her health, but what surprised her wasn't this—it was the calmness with which Sophia Johnson spoke.

Sophia Johnson didn't pay attention to the look, instead glancing at the black snake coiled around her feet. "This is my pet, or you could say it's my supernatural ability. It awakened not long ago. What about you? Do you have any abilities? When did you awaken yours?"

Shen Jinwen, having already openly mentioned her own ability, didn't hide hers either. She nodded, "I do. I awakened it about two days after the city was sealed off. My ability, you could say, is related to my knife."

"Oh? That's quite a coincidence."

Sophia Johnson remarked, though in her heart, she didn't believe it was just a simple coincidence.

After this brief exchange, Sophia Johnson decided to get to the point. Asking questions like this was inefficient. The disaster had only started less than half a month ago, and those who were alone probably didn't have much information to share. So, she directly suggested, "Let's exchange information—one piece of information at a time. You can question the validity of the information, but it must be reasonable. We'll keep going until one of us feels we no longer needs to continue."

"Oh, and by the way, if the information is too trivial, I'm not interested. I won't be sharing anything too cheap or useless. If you're okay with that, you can go first, Sister."

Her tone was polite, yet there was an undeniable edge to it. After all, she was the one holding power now. In this situation, her actions weren't unreasonable.

Sitting across from Sophia Johnson, Shen Jinwen looked a bit gentler than she did in the hallway. Sophia Johnson took the chance to observe her up close and noticed that Shen Jinwen was wearing a short-sleeve shirt, with muscular arms showing smooth, flowing lines. It wasn't excessively muscular, but it exuded a sense of power.

Sophia Johnson, in comparison, looked at her own frail arms, which seemed like they could snap with a single touch. A sense of frustration welled up in her. Though she didn't like overly muscular figures, she did hold some resentment toward her own body.

Shen Jinwen's face could be considered only slightly delicate. Her eyebrows were sharp and her jawline was more defined than most girls, giving her an almost natural sharpness even when she was sitting quietly.

When she spoke, her voice was crisp and direct, "The information I have isn't much, but the most valuable thing I know is..."

"Only a few of the people who stayed in the city can resist the mist and maintain their sanity. The majority of those who can't resist either died or went mad. The insane ones are very aggressive toward the sane humans. They're hunting them down, especially those with supernatural abilities. Most of the mad ones have very low intelligence, but their bodies gradually become monstrous. A small fraction, however, retain some intelligence but have completely lost their human sense of morality. Their bodies don't get stronger, but they gain some supernatural abilities."

"To sum up, the mad ones seem to have split into two branches. The rarer, intelligent ones are, in my opinion, more dangerous. They lead the mindless ones and have very strange powers. So far, I haven't found any weaknesses."

When Shen Jinwen spoke about this, there was a hint of frustration in her voice. She finished and looked at Sophia Johnson, signaling that this was all she had for the exchange.

It was useful information. Clearly, Shen Jinwen went outside often and knew more than Sophia Johnson, who had been staying indoors.

However, Sophia Johnson also had information that was hard to come by now.

She mentally categorized what she knew and selected a few pieces of valuable information to share, "All supernatural abilities, whether for humans, strange creatures, or animals undergoing mutations, have attributes. Perhaps the key to countering the mad ones lies in these attributes."

Sophia Johnson said no more. She felt that was enough.

Before this, even though supernatural abilities had existed for almost a year, no one had mentioned the concept of attributes. This was a groundbreaking piece of information. In Sophia Johnson's view, she had practically given it away to Shen Jinwen.

Now that Yun City had become a dead city completely cut off from the outside world, the outside might have realized the existence of attributes, but inside Yun City, people probably hadn't.

Sophia Johnson had no intention of holding onto this information.

"...Are you serious?"

Shen Jinwen furrowed her brow, unable to suppress her doubt. Sophia Johnson understood her skepticism and nodded, answering, "Just because it didn't exist before doesn't mean it doesn't now. There wasn't any mist before either. I'm not lying to you."

In fact, from the game's vague hints, Sophia Johnson even suspected that the attributes might have something to do with the arrival of the mist.

But she certainly wouldn't tell Shen Jinwen that.

Shen Jinwen had already believed about seventy percent of what Sophia Johnson said. The reason she believed so quickly had its cause.

She took something out of her pocket and held it up in front of Sophia Johnson. "Do you recognize this?"

She slowly opened her palm, revealing a faintly blue attribute core that Sophia Johnson was both familiar with and somewhat unfamiliar with.