She stared at him blankly for a moment, then suddenly grinned widely.
"Hehehe! Handsome! Hello, handsome!"
Wei Wenbin could only feel a dark cloud descend over him.
"Ying'er, snap out of it! An Nan is gone!"
"An Nan?" Qian Ying'er muttered absentmindedly, repeating the name. "An Nan... An Nan..."
Suddenly, her expression darkened. "That bitch, An Nan!"
Wei Wenbin thought she had regained her senses and quickly grabbed her hand. "Ying'er, are you awake?"
To his horror, Qian Ying'er turned her head toward him, drooling. "Hehehe, handsome!"
Wei Wenbin's shoulders slumped in defeat as he let go of her hand, sighing helplessly.
He helped Qian Ying'er sit on the sofa, then paused for a moment before deciding to leave her for now. He headed toward the broken security door that An Nan had wrecked.
At this time, a broken door posed a dangerous risk, as any food for survival could easily be stolen by others.
He had gone to great lengths to gather a considerable amount of supplies, trading with numerous women to secure the food he had. Even his cousin, Qian Ying'er, had paid a high price.
Those men he had traded with were no gentlemen.
They were rough, battle-hardened men who had gathered food through bloody means.
In these harsh times, with the threat of disaster looming, survival pressures were immense, and the psychological strain was even more overwhelming.
These men were especially brutal in their actions, discharging their pent-up frustrations in various ways.
Wei Wenbin had toiled tirelessly to find women willing to follow him, and his cousin had suffered greatly as a result...
Thinking of the precious food he had managed to gather, his eyes instinctively turned toward the kitchen.
When he saw the empty shelves, his heart nearly stopped.
"My food?!"
He ran over in a frenzy, only to find that the twenty or so loaves of bread on the counter were gone.
Opening the cabinets revealed the same emptiness.
The five bags of instant noodles, ten sausages, and three bottles of water—gone.
These were the very supplies he had counted and cherished as though they were treasures!
Stumbling out of the kitchen, he rushed to the bathroom.
With trembling hands, he lifted the toilet lid...
"My compressed biscuits?!"
To his horror, the two sealed bags of compressed biscuits he had hidden in the toilet tank were also gone.
These were the provisions he had placed there, anticipating the worst—so that even if his home was ransacked, he wouldn't starve, at least for a few days.
But now...
His mind cursed bitterly: *This An Nan... she's too ruthless!*
Breaking into his home and beating him and his sister was bad enough, but now she had taken their food as well.
The food they had been so careful with, eating only one meal a day, was enough to last them half a month!
How could she, living in luxury with no need to leave her home, take away their meager supplies?
He was beside himself with rage, limping out of the bathroom.
Before he could even begin to process the loss of his food, his eyes fell on the TV cabinet in the living room. To his astonishment, even that was gone!
Inside it had been his precious candles and lighters!
He stood there, stunned, surveying the surroundings.
The shoe cabinet—gone!
The wardrobe—gone!
Tools, including hammers, wrenches, and other weapons—gone!
Even the kayak he had painstakingly acquired—*Qian Ying'er had worked three nights for it*—was gone!
His clothes, his food, his very survival items—everything had disappeared!!
It was as if An Nan had descended like a plague of locusts, devouring everything in sight. A perfectly good home had been reduced to an empty shell in the blink of an eye.
The televisions, computers, phones, and game consoles were still there, but without electricity, they were utterly useless—couldn't even trade a single sausage for them!
He collapsed to the ground in despair.
The only thing left of use was the sofa in the living room—at least he could rest on it.
But even the bed in the bedroom was gone, and he suspected the sofa wasn't even for him. Perhaps it had been left for An Nan herself to rest after wreaking havoc.
He couldn't even speak for his rage.
No matter how furious he was, there was nothing he could do.
Frustrated! Completely and utterly frustrated!
He deeply regretted provoking that woman. Greed had caused him to lose everything—he had lost the fight and the battle...
He cursed himself, *I've regretted it, regretted it deeply!*
As Wei Wenbin counted his losses, he marveled at An Nan's power. She had taken everything from him and moved it all to her own place.
But wait—something didn't add up. His apartment was on the eighth floor, and hers was on the fourteenth. How could she have carried all those bulky items up and down six flights of stairs?
Wei Wenbin's mind raced, and in a flash of realization, he rushed to the window and peered down.
On the glistening surface of the water below, a heap of scattered belongings floated.
Sure enough, she had tossed everything out the window.
Though much had already sunk, lighter items still floated on the water's surface.
His eyes widened, and he immediately thought of retrieving the items.
Just then, the old woman from the neighborhood, who was often seen rummaging through trash bins, paddled toward the items in a red plastic basin, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
She picked up his kayak, sat down in it, and began quickly loading the rest of the items.
Wei Wenbin, seeing this, screamed in fury, "Put that down! Those are my things!"
The old woman glanced up at him but didn't respond. Instead, she continued her work, faster than ever.
"You old hag! I said, *put it down!*"
Out of sheer desperation, he ran down the stairs to the seventh floor, but once there, he had no idea how to get to the floating items.
Perhaps it was the force of An Nan's actions or the current of the water, but everything had drifted far from him, floating next to the building across from him.
Without his kayak and with poor swimming skills, he could only stand there, yelling in impotent fury:
"You deaf old bat! Keep taking my things, and I'll kill you, you hear me?!"
The old woman shot him a scornful glance, then proceeded to fish out more of his belongings from the water.
She even grabbed his large underwear and warm socks.
Wei Wenbin, enraged and humiliated, shouted until his throat ached, but he couldn't stop her.
In the end, all he could do was watch helplessly as the old woman finished collecting his things and paddled away.
Before leaving, she turned and flashed a grin at him, her teeth scattered and half-missing.
"Goodbye, you disrespectful little fatty!"
Wei Wenbin's fury reached a boiling point.
*Fatty?* After all these years of exercising, surviving on barely enough food, how could he be called fat?
It took a moment for him to realize: it was An Nan who had swollen his face.
He had almost forgotten about the bruises in his frustration.
Now, as the pain came back to him, his face burned, and his whole body ached, especially the cuts on his arms and shoulders, still bleeding.
He clutched his wounds, his spirit utterly crushed, and shuffled home.
What was he going to do now? His house was empty, and his medicines were all gone...