Chapter 21

According to Elsa’s description, her family had been living in a shelter that they had built themselves.

Elsa’s father was an architect who liked to research doomsday legends during his free time and even started to build his own shelter when Elsa was very young. The basement of their home had been modified to become a shelter during her childhood with a stockpile of seeds and emergency rations.

Wu Peng had a glimmer in his eyes when he heard that there were seeds. He wanted to ask Elsa about the whereabouts of her shelter.

However, he thought for a moment and suppressed the urge. She was already so pitiful. He should not lust over her belongings for the time being.

“Judging from that, my hobbies are quite similar to that of your father’s,” Wu Peng said.

Elsa had a gentle gaze when she talked about her father. “My father was a humorous and brave man. It was because of him that my mother and I did not feel despair when the apocalypse arrived.”

“Humorous and brave, wasn’t that the same as me?” Wu Peng secretly praised himself.

As if she had slipped into a beautiful memory, Elsa became silent. Wu Peng did not rush her.

He stood up and handed Elsa a can of water. “You are very dehydrated. Drink some water to replenish yourself.”

Elsa thanked him after taking the water from his hands and continued with her story after she started to sip the water.

When the apocalypse arrived, her father, being a high-level architect, was mobilized to work on the official shelters.

Even though the government had done well to keep up with the secrecy, Elsa’s father still managed to see that something was off.

The government had suddenly wanted to build a large underground building. That either meant that they were going to war or that doomsday was approaching.

After the shelter was built, the higher-ups from the agency secretly sent men to look for Elsa’s father.

They hoped that he would join the official shelter but they only allowed him to bring one family member along.

“I would think that your father chose not to go to the official shelter?” Wu Peng asked.

“That’s right. No matter who my father chose, the person who stayed behind would not be able to survive,” Elsa explained.

Elsa’s father decisively chose to reject the offer but as an exchange, he could not tell his wife and daughter about the apocalypse before the news reported about it.

As their house already had a shelter, all Elsa’s father needed to do was to constantly reinforce it.

Back then, Elsa’s mother thought that he had gone insane and had even quarreled with him over it.

However, in the end, Elsa’s father continued to reinforce the shelter like a lunatic.

His stubbornness was rewarded, and the shelter held up after the apocalypse arrived, and his family understood his efforts.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long since a giant meteor crashed into Jiang City a short time ago.

Originally, Elsa and her family thought that they were done for and did not expect to survive.

At this point of the story, if nothing else had happened after, this was supposed to be an encouraging and great ending.

However, one day, Elsa’s father brought back a black crystal and told them that it had fallen from the meteor.

“That’s this crystallized meteorite?” Wu Peng asked, filled with curiosity.

Elsa slowly nodded and looked at the crystallized meteorite beside her with a complicated gaze.

Elsa’s father seemed to have been possessed after he obtained the crystallized meteorite and researched the item all day long. Even after he exhausted all of the means at his disposal, he could not decipher anything useful.

He took a picture of the crystallized meteorite and posted it online to seek help from other netizens.

In the end, this action attracted Viper’s attention.

Viper first sent men disguised as scientists to communicate with Elsa’s father through the Internet before they obtained the address of Elsa’s shelter.

“Yesterday, when our family was asleep, we heard a loud explosion. The door had been forcefully blasted apart and four people dressed in black protective gear charged in. They captured my father and started to interrogate him about the whereabouts of the crystallized meteorite.” Elsa’s eyes turned red, and her voice became softer and softer.

Elsa’s father pretended to give in and lied to the members of Viper and said that he had hidden the crystallized meteorite somewhere else.

The members of Viper sent three men to retrieve the crystal with Elsa’s father, while one of them stayed behind to keep an eye on Elsa and her mother.

Elsa’s mother was not an ordinary housewife. She had been a coach in the Jiang City Sports School before the apocalypse arrived.

She knew that the crystallized meteorite was hidden in the shelter and that her husband might not make it back alive.

Her husband had created an opportunity for them to escape and had sacrificed his life for theirs.

Elsa’s mother found an opportunity and engaged in battle with the guard while Elsa grabbed the crystallized meteorite and ran out of the shelter.

She had just run a few meters when she heard a wave of gunfire that came from the shelter. She knew that her mother had been killed and was flooded with grief.

However, the most important matter at hand was to escape. She had to prevent the bandits from obtaining what they wanted no matter what.

What happened after that was that she encountered Wu Peng while she was running away.

Wu Peng slipped into silence after he finished listening to Elsa’s story. He felt his hatred for Viper grow deeper in his heart.

“Do you know why that bunch of people wanted to obtain the crystallized meteor?” This was something that Wu Peng was very concerned about. He could think back and deduce what Viper would do next if he knew what their goal was.

Elsa gently shook her head. She and her mother were not very interested in the crystallized meteor, only her father immersed himself in it every day.

“Can you show me the crystallized meteor?” Wu Peng knew that Elsa was still like a frightened bird and adopted a very polite tone.

Elsa glanced at the crystallized meteor in her hands and nodded gently.

Wu Peng picked up the crystallized meteor and examined it closely for a while.

It was very similar to the piece of rock that the repair team had given him previously. However, this was more transparent. It looked like a black crystal under the light.

Wu Peng had Elsa rest before he brought the crystallized meteor over to the production station. He accessed the operating pod and chose the selection of item analysis.

A thin, red laser shot out from the production station, started to scan the crystallized meteor, and the analysis was ready a moment later.

The Crystallized Meteorite was a crystalline object that was left behind after an extraterrestrial meteor was burned at high temperatures. There was also a string of complicated, unreadable chemical equations behind that sentence.

Wu Peng stroked his nose dejectedly, “That shouldn’t be the case. It’s an item that Viper definitely wanted to obtain. Why can’t I see how special it is?”

However, Wu Peng believed the data that the Mechanical System gave him. After all, the system was something that surpassed the existing technology on the planet.

He brought the crystallized meteorite over to the main hall and returned it to Elsa.

“My abilities are limited and I can’t discover the secret of this item. However, since this is something left behind by your father, you should be the one to keep it,” Wu Peng said as he returned the crystallized meteorite to her.

Elsa took the crystallized meteorite back and stroked it gently with her hand as tears fell down her cheeks.

Wu Peng quickly changed the topic when he saw her start to wipe her tears. “What do you intend to do in the future? I know the captain of the law enforcers. I can get her to help you settle into an official shelter. I think that Viper, the people who are trying to catch you, would not enter an official shelter.”

Elsa thought for a moment, shook her head, and said, “I want to stay. You saved my life. I want to stay here and help you.”