Application to Share a Home in the Apocalypse [Stockpiling]

Cold but purehearted assassin top × gentle, intellectual doctor bottom

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Having just retired from her life as an assassin, Xie Zhihan spends a fortune buying the top three floors of a building, hoping to spend her retirement alone, petting cats and daydreaming.

Unfortunately, the world ends the day after the renovations are finished.

Overnight, multiple meteorites crash to earth, volcanoes erupt, and global temperatures rise.

Then the glaciers break apart, the seas rise, and tsunamis sweep through coastal cities, swallowing up more than half of them in a single night.

The permafrost thaws and viruses spread. People collapse all over the streets. Before long, the infected lose their minds, become violent, and attack anyone they see. The cities begin to fall.

The climate goes haywire too, with typhoons, heavy rain, and thunderstorms taking turns battering the world.

The world becomes an out-of-control hellscape, and humanity can only struggle to survive between natural disasters and monsters.

Xie Zhihan sits at home, watching the devastation outside.

Not bad. She stocked up on plenty of supplies so she could stay in.

Just then, her phone rings.

[2701-Shen Qingwu] has requested to add you as a friend through the residents' group chat.

She'd seen this woman twice when she first moved in. They vaguely remembered each other.

[28-29-30-Xie Zhihan]: ?

[2701-Shen Qingwu]: Could you help me clear out the infected? Would that be convenient?

[2701-Shen Qingwu]: There's been banging next door since yesterday, and fluid is seeping out under the door. The person inside has probably turned. If we leave them alone, they could damage the building's structure. You live above the 27th floor, so I assume you don't want them crawling up there either?

She made her case clearly and logically, every point right on target.

Very persuasive, but what did it have to do with her?

She typed without expression.

[28-29-30-Xie Zhihan]: Whatever.

The other side fell silent for a moment. A few seconds later, Xie Zhihan received another message.

[2701-Shen Qingwu]: I'm a doctor. I can drive and fix cars. My apartment is a connected suite with two separate entrances, so it can serve as a buffer zone. How about we work together and live together?

Xie Zhihan reads the message, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Two entrances mean they could set up a double line of defense. Being able to drive and fix cars means mobility and logistical support, and she's a doctor on top of that.

[28-29-30-Xie Zhihan]: Wait there.

She gets up and grabs a weapon.

At the door, she turns back and takes a can of iced cola from the fridge.

She'd stocked it before the apocalypse. Every can she drank was one less.

But she was in a good mood today.

On the 27th floor, three infected hit the ground in one minute.

[28-29-30-Xie Zhihan]: Done.

The door opens a crack, revealing half a face with fair skin, a straight nose, and eyes gazing at her, calm and gentle as a lake in late autumn.

Shen Qingwu opens the door. She's wearing a windbreaker over light gray loungewear, her hair casually tied back, a club in hand and a knife at her waist.

"Thank you. You're amazing. I've already packed my clothes, medicine, tools, seeds, and books."

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After Shen Qingwu moves in, she organizes the home in perfect order. Seedlings sprout on the vertical gardening racks, charts tracking supply use and water quality hang on the walls, and she's drawn up three different evacuation plans.

Xie Zhihan: "Are you really just a doctor?"

"I am a doctor. I also spent three years with Doctors Without Borders, working in war zones, epidemic zones, and disaster areas."

The woman turns her face aside. The gray sky looks gentle in her eyes.

She says, "So there are still plenty of things about me you can discover, little by little."

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Xie Zhihan realizes that something is wrong.

She's starting to get used to things.

The figure moving around the living room, the rustle of paper as the charts on the wall are updated, the gentle voice, and having someone sitting across from her at mealtimes.

She'd been alone for so long that she'd thought she was only suited to being alone.

But Shen Qingwu seeps into her life like warm water. By the time Xie Zhihan notices, traces of her are everywhere.

It makes Xie Zhihan feel a subtle sense of alarm.

She shouldn't get used to anyone.

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Theme: Work together and strive for self-reliance