Xia looked up at her surroundings, encircled by buildings and lush vegetation.

Building 15 was on the left, Building 17 on the right, with a small path running between them. Dense, impenetrable shrubbery lined both sides of the asphalt road, the air thick with an almost viscous plant aroma.

Plants breathe too—photosynthesis, and respiration—are slow, weak, imperceptible processes. But when you’re in a world surrounded, entangled, and overgrown with plants, you realize they’ve merged into one enormous living being. This being has billions of stomata across its body, each one breathing. Every long, endless breath of this vast green organism before the girl’s eyes was like some boundless slime mold.

Xia stood where she had just bent the tree trunk down, crouched, and swung a wrench to drive one wooden hook vertically into the soil upside down. She hammered it forcefully until only the hook portion remained above ground.

She then gripped it with both hands and pulled it upward with all her might. When she couldn’t pull it out even with her face flushed red, she knew it was secure. One part of the trigger was complete.

This was the fixed hook, responsible for keeping the mechanism stable and still.

The second hook was the moving hook, responsible for triggering the mechanism.

Xia took out the second wooden hook and chiseled two holes in its end, threading a nylon rope through each.

The two ropes were different lengths—one half a meter, the other two meters—each serving a different purpose. The shorter nylon rope would be tied to the treetop, responsible for pulling the bent trunk to the ground. The longer one needed to extend out and form a loop, responsible for catching prey.

The girl climbed the tree again and bent down the trunk. Lying on the bent sawtooth oak, she tied the nylon rope with the hook to the treetop, securing it with a tight knot. Now the hook hung from the treetop. After this, Xia stretched her arms as far as she could to hook it onto the fixed hook in the ground.

The notches of the two wooden hooks interlocked, securing the bent oak.

The girl carefully released her arms from the trunk. The oak slowly rebounded until the nylon rope went taut and stopped. Now enormous elastic force was competing vertically with the ground-anchored fixed hook—the two hooks were in a tug of war, reaching equilibrium, holding the entire trap mechanism in an ‘n’ shape.

The first nylon rope was secured.

Next came the second rope.

The second nylon rope was also attached to the moving hook. The girl backed away, slowly letting it out five or six steps, and tied a noose about thirty to forty centimeters in diameter.

Laying the noose flat on the grass, Xia found several small forked branches and stuck them in the soil to suspend the noose about twenty to thirty centimeters above ground.

With this, the trap was complete.

It was a simple snare trap with an obvious working principle. The bent trunk provided elasticity, firmly pulled to the ground by the hooks. If untouched, it would remain stable, but if an animal stepped into the noose and was caught, its struggle to escape would inevitably pull the hook horizontally. The two hooks could maintain stability vertically but would unhook with a horizontal pull.

Once unhooked, the trunk storing massive elastic potential energy would be suddenly released, springing back and hauling the prey into the air with the rope.

Like an ancient trebuchet.

Simple principle, but effective.

A teacher had once said that in the post-apocalyptic era, the most basic survival rule was to stay low—the less you stirred things up, the longer you lived.

You could carry guns and bows, but they shouldn’t be your primary hunting method. All animals were dangerous—both predators and herbivores posed threats to humans. So avoid confrontation when possible; use underhanded methods when you can, use traps when you can.

The girl exhaled deeply, standing on the grass flexing her sore wrists.

The noose was empty for now; she’d need to place bait in its center later. Xia suspected the uninvited guest was a fierce predator, so meat would be necessary bait.

Meat alone wouldn’t be enough.

To be safe, she’d need to mix rat poison into the bait.

In case she caught a leopard or even a brown bear, Xia wasn’t sure if this simple trap could restrain such a large, powerful creature, so she’d add poison to the bait.

The trap alone wasn’t sneaky enough—she needed poison too!

Poison them to death!

Unfortunately, the rat poison hadn’t arrived yet. Three or four days ago, Xia had told BG4MXH she needed rat poison, but something had gone wrong, and the time capsule hadn’t reached her hands.

The night before last, he’d told her to break the wall at the community entrance, saying the time capsule was hidden inside.

Yesterday she’d hammered at it all afternoon but couldn’t break through.

Solid cement was just too sturdy. Opening it would require heavy machinery or explosive demolition.

Xia only had a pitiful combat shovel. No matter how she chiseled, she could only leave white marks. She dug until her whole body ached, but the cement wall remained unmoved.

She had no way with it.

“This is ridiculous,” the girl said.

“This is ri-di-cu-lous!” she shouted at the cement wall.

Xia gathered dead leaves and weeds, gently covering the trap mechanism and nylon ropes until they blended in—necessary camouflage, as a visible noose would easily alert animals.

After finishing, she walked several circles around the trap, confirming the noose was invisible from all angles.

The girl resisted the urge to test the noose with her foot.

Humans were strange creatures, always probing the edges of danger. Draw a circle on the ground, and someone will step into it—they’d feel uncomfortable if they didn’t. Xia dismissed this dangerous thought; if the mechanism triggered, she’d be hanging from the tree, and no one was here to help her.

Xia cleaned up and left the scene, erasing traces of her activity.

The trap could stay there; she’d return once the bait was ready.

She needed to prepare the next trap.

One trap wasn’t enough; she needed to set several. If resources weren’t limited, Xia would have covered Meihua Estate with animal traps.

Xia planned to set four traps in different positions throughout Meihua Estate. She refused to believe she couldn’t catch that uninvited guest. This was human wisdom—even if she was the last human in the world, she wouldn’t let those beasts look down on her.

This was a showdown between girl and beast.

She shouldered her pack and bow, walking back along the asphalt road. Tonight she’d need to urge BG4MXH to deliver the rat poison quickly, though this time hopefully not sealed in cement.

A howling draft blew through the alley between two buildings, instantly setting all vegetation swaying like overlapping waves. Xia suddenly stopped, turning her head to look around suspiciously.

As far as the eye could see, everything was lush green and glistening.

Xia frowned.

Was it an illusion?

Was she being overly suspicious?

What was that laughing?