In the evening, Chen Shouyi informed his aunt and cousin before walking out of the hotel with a backpack on his shoulder.

He walked to the roadside and waved down a tricycle.

"Where to?"

"To the cold weapon shop!" Chen Shouyi said.

The war-like atmosphere in Ningzhou made him a bit uneasy. Thinking that he had exhausted his supply of arrows, he planned to stock up just in case.

"It's a bit far, ten bucks!" the tricycle driver said tentatively.

"Alright, hurry up!" Chen Shouyi got into the vehicle.

"Okay!"

...

A few minutes later, Chen Shouyi walked into a cold weapon shop that was open; it was quiet inside, with only a few scattered customers.

Chen Shouyi glanced around the arrow counter, his face slightly grim.

Since the mutation, steel prices had skyrocketed due to soaring processing costs. The price of ordinary arrows had increased from ten yuan each to nearly forty yuan each, and now, in just a few months, they had risen six to seven times.

But unexpectedly, the price of arrows in Ningzhou was forty percent more expensive than in Hedong, with a single ordinary arrow costing a staggering one hundred forty yuan.

Still, no matter how expensive they were, he had to buy them.

Luckily, he had brought quite a bit of money with him on this trip, so he could afford it.

"Give me one hundred ordinary arrows and ten armor-piercing arrows."

...

Chen Shouyi placed the arrows in his backpack and, as he walked out of the cold weapon shop, he saw a fully armed special police unit quickly surrounding a five-story building not far away. Then came a burst of dense gunfire followed by the explosion of flashbangs.

Someone, in a panic, jumped out of a fifth-floor window, falling and landing on the cement ground with a dull thud. The body bent peculiarly and twitched a few times, then lay still.

Chen Shouyi paused slightly, then quickly walked over.

The gunfire had barely ended when, slowly, a large group of people with shackles, being escorted out by the police at gunpoint, came out of the building. Many of them were emotional, their expressions manic:

"We are not a cult, we truly believe in the True God. The ones that should be abolished are those legal religions."

"Earth is on the brink of destruction; humanity is facing doomsday. Only the divine can save us humans. You people who refuse to see the truth are the sinners driving humanity to the abyss!"

"Kneel and repent, the divine exists, Heaven exists, everyone knows this, yet you stand against divine forces and blaspheme the divine. You are all going to Hell."

Several special police officers were visibly flustered, a hint of sway in their expressions. A senior officer, sensing the problem, didn't hesitate to strike one of them harshly in the face with the butt of his gun, instantly causing their mouth to flood with blood: "Shut up."

Other special police quickly reacted, and those still trying to delude others soon let out wails of agony, shocking everyone into silence.

"Turns out they were secretly running a cult. Someone even tried to recruit me back then, saying it was some Peace Cooperative Association. Good thing I was sensible and didn't go!" A middle-aged woman outside the police line said, feeling fortunate.

"You're lucky then. If you joined, you'd be brainwashed, just like those in multi-level marketing schemes. By then, you wouldn't be able to leave. These lunatics can do anything." A middle-aged man with glasses said.

"I heard many of those spreading the cult now came over from Dongning, it's like a cult nest there."

"Isn't there a lockdown?"

"How long has it been locked down? Many people from Dongning settled here before it was closed off."

"Sigh, society is becoming more chaotic by the day."

Listening to the crowd's discussion, Chen Shouyi's face was grim. Cults were like a plague, impossible to guard against, and even in Ningzhou, they seemed to be spreading. After observing for a while, he turned and left the crowd, heading back to the hotel.

...

In the dim night.

The room was filled with deep, periodic breathing.

Suddenly, Chen Shouyi felt a tremor in his heart and awoke from sleep, opening his eyes.

He looked at the watch on the bed; through its cracked glass, the needles glowed faintly.

"Only four o'clock!"

He rose from bed and walked to the window, opened the curtains, only to find the outside still enveloped in darkness.

Amidst the silence, faint cannon sounds seemed to come from afar.

"The war has already begun!" Chen Shouyi felt heavy-hearted.

The war was faster than he had anticipated; he thought it would be in a few days, but the fighting had already commenced on the second morning. Given the current stance, unless the God of Hunting doesn't appear, nuclear weapons will surely be used as soon as it does. The higher-ups won't just sit by and watch Dongning remain like a malignant tumor inside the Great Xia, consuming significant material and manpower in defense.

Moreover, the longer it drags on, the more disorderly people's hearts become.

But once the nuclear missiles are launched, the consequences would be tremendous, with unknown casualties.

Chen Shouyi sat back on the bed, glancing at the Shell Lady, who had turned over and continued to sleep, and stared blankly into space.

Time slowly slipped by, and soon dawn was breaking.

Only when there was a knock at the door did Chen Shouyi wake up from his trance, looking at the time, realizing that in a daze, he had sat for over three hours without moving.

Chen Shouyi gently covered the Shell Lady with a blanket and opened the door.

"Shou Yi, I brought you breakfast!" Chen Yuwei handed over a big bag, smiling: "I hope it's enough!"

"Sister, it's enough, more than enough." Chen Shouyi hurriedly took it, opened it, and glanced inside. There were buns, fried dough sticks, rice balls, and egg pancakes—a bit of everything, as if she had bought a little of each.

"I just went to the train station. It's still not open, so we might be here for a few more days." Chen Yuwei said.