Chapter 489: Echoes in the Hidden Valley

In the family photo hanging on the stone wall of the secluded valley, the fair-skinned, full-figured woman standing behind her parents in a cheongsam, long hair flowing, wore a happy smile. But in her final video, she looked like most people did during the disaster years.

She was emaciated and sickly, her eyes dull and lifeless, her face blank. Still, she was lucky—her limbs were intact and she bore no acid rain burns or insect scars on her face and neck.

Now, this woman stood beside the table, hands trembling as she set her phone down and stared at the screen. She tried to smile, but after so long without one, her facial muscles had stiffened. The corners of her mouth pulled into a distorted, almost terrifying grin.

During the disaster years, if people saw someone smiling like that, their first instinct was to shield their food and run. Anyone suddenly grinning at you could be seconds away from stealing your last scraps or losing their mind and attacking.

“I… am… going crazy…” She must not have spoken in a long time—her voice sounded wrong, and she struggled to form words. The phone’s audio was distorted too, but thanks to her evolved hearing, Xia Qing could still pick out the sound of rain drumming in the background.

“The food, it’s yours. The house, it’s yours. The hot spring… Bury me… Shi Jiayi. My name is… Shi Jiayi… hot spring…”

Shi Jiayi—the name was one of two carved into the stone marker beside an overgrown grave in the hidden valley.

As she spoke, the woman called Shi Jiayi suddenly clawed at her own head, a classic act of self-harm that came from losing control during Devastation Evolution.

On her withered wrist, Xia Qing spotted a snakebite—blackened and bloody, left untreated. Poisoned and in the grip of Devastation Evolution, no wonder she’d lost control.

She must have lost the will to live long before. That’s probably why, when her mind finally snapped, her rage turned inward.

Right then, a crack of thunder echoed through the phone’s background. The sound bounced around the valley, jolting the self-harming woman from her daze and startling both Old Goat and Er Gou, who’d been resting at Xia Qing’s side. Both animals got up, pressed close to her, and stared out the window.

Xia Qing set the phone aside and reached out to soothe her companions. “It’s alright. That wasn’t a Devastation Burst or thunderstorm here—it’s just coming from the phone.”

Er Gou burst out laughing, while Old Goat glared suspiciously at the phone.

The woman, face streaked with blood from her self-inflicted wounds, snapped back to awareness. Slurring “hot spring” under her breath, she reached out with a trembling, blood-soaked, and gray-haired hand to switch off the video.

Xia Qing checked the date on the video and, thinking of the thunder, remembered exactly when it was recorded.

It was the second day after the third Devastation Rain of the seventh year. That was the bloodiest day of her ten years in disaster, the day she killed the most people.

That day, lightning, hurricane winds, and red-level hail tore through the Hui Three Base Safe Zone. Countless people lost control and ran rampant with axes and knives. Some faked it to loot or destroy. Outside, the Safe Zone descended into hell—rivers of blood, corpses everywhere.

Even fourth-rank Strength Evolutionaries, who usually just ran transport during Devastation Rain, were forcibly conscripted by the Base to help contain the chaos.

On that day, Xia Qing was among those summoned. Wielding her big machete, she cut down thirty-nine rampagers and six more who pretended to be mad. By nightfall, her blade was notched and bent.

Sitting by the warm fireplace, Xia Qing watched the last two videos over and over. Only then did she open the phone’s notes, calendar, and files, figuring out that the woman had been an elementary school teacher—her phone was full of school forms.

After turning off the phone, Xia Qing checked the bag for the children’s textbooks and exercise books stashed with it. Both were filled with childish handwriting—crooked letters and numbers, but every page was done with care.

She packed the phone, exercise book, and textbook back into the sealable bag. Lying back in her chair, Xia Qing stared at the smoke-stained ceiling and quietly pieced everything together.

First, there had to be something special about the hot spring in the cave, or else the woman wouldn’t mention it over and over in her last video. But Xia Qing had tested it—the Devastation Element readings were anything but low. Looks like she should mention this to Zhang San, the expert.

Second, in the penultimate video, the little girl celebrating her birthday, the older man, and the woman who survived the longest—they all had to be evolutionaries, and not just low-ranked either. Without protective masks, suits, or Devastation Element Detectors, anyone exposed to repeated Devastation Rain and Snow, eating questionable food and drinking untreated water, would never survive three years out here, let alone seven.

Third, in the last video, the woman spoke of “going crazy”—clearly, she didn’t realize her breakdown was actually Devastation Element overload causing Evolution loss of control. So, as early as the second year, they must have lost all contact with the outside world.

If they’d been in touch, they’d have known that after Devastation Elements and major evolution appeared on Blue Star, everyone needed protective suits, detectors, and anti-parasite sprays just to survive.

They would have left the valley and headed for one of the human settlements that had sprung up by then.

During the second and third years, all the bases and settlements were broadcasting around the clock, trying every trick to recruit evolutionaries.

The valley was only ten mountainous miles from the old regiment headquarters at the northwest foot of Hill Forty-Nine. Sadly, they never knew. Because of that isolation, these powerful evolutionaries slowly withered and died here.

From under her thin blanket, Xia Qing reached out and gently scratched Old Goat’s neck.

Lying beside her, Old Goat froze for a few seconds, then went back to chewing cud, a little more slowly this time. He edged his head closer to Xia Qing, angling for a better scratch.

Er Gou didn’t want to be left out, so he shuffled over and stared up at Xia Qing with pleading eyes.

Smiling, Xia Qing sat up straight and pulled out a brush made from porcupine quills, giving both her companions a good grooming. Only when her hands throbbed with pain did she clean the brush, sweep up the loose fur, and get the rotary tiller running to clear the snow in the yard.

This bout of Devastation Snow was forecast to last fifty-eight hours—nineteen left to go. She’d have to keep clearing constantly, or the snow from the roof would collapse on the door. When the yard was done, Xia Qing drove the tiller down the main paths through her territory.

When Chen Cheng, shoveling snow nearby, saw Xia Qing bringing out the rotary tiller again, he started to go help, wanting her to rest. But as the machine rumbled closer and Chen Cheng spotted both the sheep and the wolf squeezed in with her under the rain cover, he froze.

Those two evolved animals might act like harmless pets around Xia Qing, but if anyone else dared climb into that cab, they’d get a swipe from Er Gou’s claws or a kick from Old Goat’s hooves.