83: mouse!
However, Bai Wanning didn't make her mother wait too long.
She had already compiled her practical experience into a series of theories, changed the name, and published them online using a virtual account.
These theories had been made public long before the Apocalypse, but because Bai Wanning received no response when she sought help, she didn't want others to go down the same path she had.
So, she wrote down these experiences and posted them online, hoping that someone would see them before the internet completely crashed and find them useful in the future.
Originally, she wanted to wait for her mother to finish reading, but at this point, drowsiness overcame her.
She had been busy since early morning and had used her ability to protect her family in the afternoon; now, she was not only sleepy but also too tired to keep her eyes open.
She bid her mother farewell and returned to her room, which had a small battery-powered heater, making it warm and comforting.
Mother Bai had wanted to ask her daughter some questions about her Older Brothers' abilities and Bai Wanning's Water Ability, but hearing that her daughter was tired, she said no more and told her to rest well.
She herself then seriously began to read the theoretical materials her daughter had sent her.
The theory clearly stated: Awakened Ones who have just mastered an ability will be extremely fatigued after using it extensively for the first time.
Bai Wanning had filled three bathtubs and a kettle with Water Ability today, clearly overexerting her powers, so her body naturally couldn't handle it.
Thinking of this, Mother Bai sighed with concern and simply stopped disturbing her.
Bai Wanning also didn't know how long she had slept.
When she opened her eyes, the room was pitch black, and the only thing she could see were two pairs of dark red glowing eyes in the darkness.
Her body reacted faster than her brain, and she instantly sprang up from the bed like a carp leaping out of water.
She almost instinctively pulled a gun from her space pocket, raised it, and pulled the trigger at those eyes.
“Bang!”
The bullet left the barrel, emitting only a faint thud due to the silencer.
The next second, the monster's head exploded, and its body fell heavily to the ground.
Bai Wanning turned on the room light and saw that it was a rat.
It hadn't fully mutated yet, but its size was already comparable to a Puppy, and its danger level was not to be underestimated.
She frowned, pulled another gun from her space pocket, and immediately left the room, holding two guns and a flashlight, which seemed perfectly reasonable in this Apocalypse.
She patrolled around her Older Brothers' and mother's rooms, found no further traces, and then went downstairs, quietly infiltrating the first floor.
The kitchen and bathroom were her key areas for investigation; sure enough, she found two rats in the kitchen and three more in the bathroom.
The rats in the kitchen were gnawing on bones in the trash can, making a “crunch, crunch” sound that sent shivers down one's spine.
And the rats in the bathroom were drinking from the buckets she had previously filled with her Water Ability; their gulping sounds made her face turn green with anger.
Bai Wanning calmly shot them one by one, then carefully cleaned up the traces they left behind.
The water buckets touched by the rats, of course, could no longer be used, and she unhesitatingly poured all the water out.
Although her family had awakened, Bai Wanning did not intend to take any risks; she knew that in the Apocalypse, even a small oversight could lead to disaster.
She emptied the buckets, pouring the water into a corner of the yard. Even while pouring, her heart ached. Even if the family temporarily had plenty of water, wasting resources was always distressing.
She followed the rats' traces to find the source and finally discovered a gap in the kitchen's exhaust vent.
It turned out that she had been cooking too frequently these past few days and had momentarily forgotten to seal the exhaust pipe, allowing the rats an opportunity.
She sighed, took out cement to thoroughly seal the gap, and then retrieved several sticky traps, rat poison, and mousetraps from her space pocket, preparing to set them up inside and outside the house to prevent further rat disturbances.
But just as she finished setting up the traps and stepped outside, a low sobbing sound came from inside the house.
She frowned and turned to see the Lei Family Members huddled in a corner of their house in the distance, their eyes filled with fear, like startled ostriches.
“What are you doing?” Bai Wanning asked coldly, her gaze sharp as if she had just returned from the battlefield.
“Sister Bai…” Lei Yan's face was pale, and after a moment of hesitation, she recounted everything that had just happened.
It turned out that the Lei Family had also been attacked by rats.
Lei Yan tried to resist, but she had only just awakened her ability and couldn't fully control it yet. After a struggle, she ended up turning the whole house upside down.
What was worse, Lei Yan was afraid of rats, which made her completely lose her composure in the chaos.
“You can deal with zombies, but you're afraid of rats?” Bai Wanning asked, somewhat exasperated, after listening.
“Sister Bai, don't laugh…” Lei Yan's expression was almost tearful, “They aren't ordinary rats, they're half-zombies, truly… truly terrifying.”
Bai Wanning listened, her mouth twitching, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes.
She knew Lei Yan wasn't weak, but merely unstable in her emotional control after just experiencing an ability awakening.
“First deal with the rats by conventional means, and practice controlling your ability slowly,” she said indifferently.
“Don't use your ability indiscriminately now; solving the rat problem is most important. Check all unsealed pipes and make sure they are blocked. Otherwise, the rats will multiply.”
After speaking, she sent the ability theory document she had organized to Lei Yan, and then took out several small pistols and several sticky rat traps from her space pocket, handing them over to the Lei Family Members.
“You know how to use guns, right?” she asked, her tone cold and indifferent.
She didn't want to accidentally become an accessory to indirect murder, unless it was facing a girl like Lu Yin, who glared at her with eyes that seemed to say, “You killed my whole family.”
“Yes.” Lei Yan nodded, took the guns, distributed them to her parents, Lu Yu, and even handed one to Lu Yin.
Lu Yin, of course, was unwilling. She had been pampered since childhood, and killing rats was not only disgusting but torture for her.
But Lei Yan ignored her thoughts, coldly shoving the gun into her hand.
Lu Yin was indeed a spoiled princess, but it wasn't as if she hadn't killed rats before; her frowning, disgusted expression seemed to be put on for someone's benefit.
Lei Yan looked at her like this and sneered, “You have to kill at least one rat, or you'll sleep in the hallway tonight! Our family doesn't support freeloaders.”
Lu Yin's face immediately turned pale upon hearing this.
She knew very well that the situation outside was even more chaotic than before.
After the water receded, it was replaced by these man-eating Mutated Rats. People living in the hallways already faced the threat of zombies, and now with rats as another terrifying enemy, it was worse than death.
If she were really driven out of this top-floor safe house, how would she survive?
So, she silently lowered her head and obediently followed behind Lei Yan.
Father Lei and Mother Lei thanked Bai Wanning gratefully, then quickly followed suit.
Bai Wanning was indifferent to this; her help to the Lei Family was merely for Xiao Cai's sake. Beyond that, she wouldn't go an extra mile or deliberately try to please these people.
She set up the remaining traps in the hallway one by one, ignoring the few screams coming from downstairs, and directly turned and entered her house.