Chapter 75: The Cat is Worth It
The old woman’s eyes were glued to the camping table inside the room. She swallowed hard and said urgently, "What else do you want to know? Ask away! Just give me more food!"
Luna Dawson glanced at the space behind her and asked calmly, "Is the rooftop big? Can we get up there?"
The old woman immediately broke into a fawning smile, her tone eager. "Big! It’s huge! The rooftop is a good five or six hundred square meters. I’ve always had the key. If you want to go, I can open the door for you! Just give me some more things!"
Luna Dawson chuckled softly and tossed her a chicken sausage.
The old woman caught it, and her face instantly fell. "Just one?! When you were asking that cat, you gave it five packs of noodles!"
The words had barely left her mouth when two hoarse meows sounded out. Kevin Keane, Evan Olson, and the others walked over to the balcony to take a look.
Luna Dawson’s tone was languid. "Because the cat is worth it."
The old woman flew into a rage, stomping her foot and spewing curses. "What’s so damn worthy about that filthy beast? There’s something wrong with you, girl..."
SLAP!
Before she could finish her sentence, Luna Dawson’s hand had already connected in a vicious, heavy-handed slap.
The old woman spun around from the force of the blow before falling flat in the hallway. With a CLATTER, her dentures flew out of her mouth. Her lips instantly caved in, puckering into a wrinkled knot.
The slap stunned everyone into silence. Logan Sawyer and his group peeked out to watch, but none of them dared to take a single step forward.
The commotion drew Hector’s attention, and he turned to look at Luna Dawson.
Rhonda Dawson quickly pulled him into an embrace. "Don’t look, Hector. Your auntie is transforming. Let’s go look at the kitty, okay?"
The old woman was dizzy and disoriented, her face searing with pain.
Panic flared in her heart. She finally understood this girl wasn’t a pushover like Tilly Lane, someone she could easily bully.
"S-Sorry... I was wrong..." she stammered, trembling.
Luna Dawson said coldly, "Scram."
Clutching her face, the old woman scrambled to pick up her dentures and fled into her room without a single glance back.
Logan Sawyer watched Luna Dawson’s retreating figure with a complex expression. He turned and waved a hand at the people behind him, signaling for them to disperse.
Luna Dawson didn’t spare them a single glance. She walked back to the edge of the balcony, just in time to see a flash of white nimbly crossing the road and disappearing into the distance.
Kevin Keane came to her side and said in a low voice, "That old hag is a classic bully, used to picking on the weak. She never expected to run into you today."
Luna Dawson smiled. "Even a cornered rabbit will bite. That old hag won’t be able to act so high and mighty for much longer."
That’s just how it was in the apocalypse. Ordinary people were already at a disadvantage compared to Superpower Users, yet some insisted on lording their power over those even weaker, carving out a pathetic sense of existence by oppressing others.
Luna Dawson turned to look at the stairwell and waved her hand. "Let’s go to the rooftop. This place is too filthy to spend the night."
The words had barely left her mouth when, with a flick of her wrist, the table and chairs in the room vanished into her space.
Meanwhile, Blake Blue activated his Gold Element superpower. A thin golden thread materialized from his fingertip, and he used it to precisely pick the core of the metal lock on the door to the rooftop.
Just as they stepped onto the rooftop, dusk descended. A bone-chilling cold instantly enveloped them, and a series of shudders ran through the group.
Without wasting any words, Luna Dawson waved her hand toward an empty space on the rooftop. A two-hundred-square-meter, light-steel villa materialized from thin air, landing steadily on the ground.
Hector, sniffling from the cold, watched the villa appear, his eyes instantly lighting up as if they held the stars themselves.
He tugged on the hem of Luna Dawson’s clothes, bouncing with excitement. "Auntie Luna! Auntie Luna! You can make a car appear and a house! Are you a fairy?"
Kevin Keane, Blake Blue, and the others stared at the villa before exchanging glances. Once again, they were completely floored by the sheer variety of items in Luna Dawson’s spatial storage.
Aaron Palmer was the most visibly stunned. He rushed to Luna Dawson’s side, unable to hide the shock in his voice.
"Luna, you even have a prefabricated house in your space?!"
"I do. Now stop standing around in the cold wind and get inside!" Luna Dawson said with a smile and a wave of her hand. The vicious glint she’d had when she slapped the old woman was completely gone from her eyes.
A gust of wind from outside made her shiver. "Let’s eat! It’s freezing out here!"
Everyone hurried to follow her. The moment they stepped inside the villa, a wave of warmth washed over them.
The interior was fully furnished and decorated. A fire blazed in the living room’s central fireplace, casting a warm glow that filled the entire house and chased away the cold.
Luna Dawson activated the air purification system on the wall and shut the main door tightly, unwilling to waste a single bit of heat.
Rhonda Dawson closed her eyes in comfort and sighed. "Oh my god, it’s so wonderfully warm in here!"
Miles Dawson sidled up to Luna Dawson, his eyes filled with adoration. "Sis, you’re the ultimate apocalypse heroine! You’re on a whole other level!"
Aaron Palmer nodded vigorously, his tone utterly sincere. "Luna, you’re seriously the most amazing girl I’ve ever met!"
In just one day, he had been completely captivated by Luna Dawson’s strength.
It felt as though in this bleak, sunless apocalypse, any problem, no matter how great, could be effortlessly solved the moment it came before Luna Dawson.
Having vented her frustrations on the old woman and also having benefited from her association with the formidable cat, Luna Dawson was already in a good mood.
Their back-to-back praise made her cheeks flush. She laughed and waved her hands dismissively. "Stop, stop! One compliment is enough. Any more and my head’s going to swell up so much I’ll float away!"
As she spoke, she waved her hand again. Instantly, over a dozen individual charcoal hot pots appeared on the dining table. The broth in each pot was bubbling furiously, the red chili oil swirling in some, the rich bone broth fragrant in others. The sight and smell immediately stoked everyone’s appetite.
Rolls of thinly sliced beef and lamb, seafood, crispy fried pork, beef tripe, goose intestines, and all sorts of vegetables and meatballs were piled high, their tantalizing aroma spreading through the room on the steam.
The cold, hungry group could only stare, their eyes wide with disbelief.
On a bone-chilling night like this, a steaming hot pot feast was nothing short of a life-saving miracle.
Luna Dawson had always been a foodie. Even in the apocalypse, she refused to settle for anything less than delicious.
’So what if others nearby were eyeing her feast greedily?’
’She had always done as she pleased. If they had the guts to try and take it, they were welcome to try. Whether they’d live to actually eat it, however, would be up to fate.’
"Boss, have a seat here."
Kevin Keane walked to the dining table, pulled out a chair for Luna Dawson, and casually sat down beside her, his tone perfectly natural.
"Thanks." Luna Dawson sat down and gestured for everyone to begin. "Let’s all eat. It’s been a long day."
Everyone quickly took their seats, their gazes glued to the bubbling pots. The unpleasantness from earlier was completely driven from their minds by the fragrant steam.
After a long day on the move, no one stood on ceremony. They grabbed their chopsticks and began dipping ingredients into the pots, and the living room soon filled with laughter and cheerful chatter.
Inside, the air was warm and fragrant; outside, the north wind howled.
Despite the howling wind, the group downstairs caught the drifting aroma of the hot pot. Regardless of whether they were hungry, they couldn’t stop swallowing, their eyes filled with a mixture of envy and greed.
The guy who had been squatting at the top of the stairs to peek came running down, his face pale. "This is insane! They’re not just eating hot pot—they’ve put a whole villa up on the roof! A two-story one!"
"Holy shit! Are you sure you saw that right?" someone exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "A villa? Before the apocalypse, I was living in a studio apartment!"
"Why would I lie to you? Come on, let’s go up and see for ourselves!"
A crowd of people swarmed up the stairs. Peeking out furtively, their jaws dropped wide enough to fit a fist. "I’ll be damned... that villa is real?"
Tilly Lane clutched the hem of her shirt, her eyes gleaming with a frightening intensity. ’If only I could be half as strong as her...’
At the back of the crowd, the old woman huddled and cursed under her breath, "That bitch. Why does she get to live so well? If my son were still alive, I’d be the one in that villa!"
Leonard Miller, having already forgotten the pain of his earlier lesson, leaned against the wall and sneered, "Heh. They cleaned out all the supplies around the community hospital. Of course they can afford to be so extravagant."
Logan Sawyer lowered his gaze, his expression unreadable.
’He’d thought his brother was just hitting on a woman like he always did. He never imagined it would cost him his life.’
’The core of that group was clearly the woman with the spatial ability. If he could have recruited her for his own team, their future would have been so much easier. What a shame.’