Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 556 Direct Attack

Xu Xiaoyan has quite a few weapons at hand, but when it comes to something that is both intimidating and capable of long-range attacks, nothing beats that precision-aimed crossbow.

She took out the crossbow from her spatial storage. The crossbow had a dark black alloy body with cold, smooth lines. The handle was treated with a non-slip surface, making it very stable against her palm. The whole body gleamed with the cold light unique to metal.

The most vicious weapon was the arrow, with a triangular metal spike as its arrowhead.

With its sharp blade, it can easily penetrate hard objects when fired, but once it pierces the flesh, it will cause severe lacerations, resulting in uncontrollable bleeding that is difficult to stop.

Is using arrows like these too harsh to deal with thieves climbing over walls? It's not that she's soft-hearted, but she's afraid that if someone gets killed, it will be difficult to handle.

After all, although those three people outside have ill intentions, so far they've only been talking. If someone actually dies, there will only be more trouble to come.

She thought for a moment, then turned around and went downstairs. She picked out a green bamboo of suitable thickness from the pile of bamboo left over from when she set up the shed during the day.

The bamboo has been dried for two days, and its surface is dry and smooth, with just the right amount of toughness and hardness.

She took it back into the house and started shaving it with a knife, first splitting the bamboo into thin strips.

Then slowly carve it into the shape of an arrow shaft, sharpen one end, smooth it with sandpaper, and carve a shallow groove at the tail so that it can fit perfectly into the string groove of a crossbow.

She shaved one off in about twenty minutes. She weighed it in her hand and found it was about the same length as a metal arrow.

Although its penetrating power is certainly not as good as a metal triangular arrowhead, it is enough to scare people. At most, it will puncture the skin and cause a little bleeding, but it will not be fatal.

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There was an open space inside the courtyard wall. She thought for a moment, set up the target in the center of the courtyard, and then took the bamboo arrow to the window of her second-floor bedroom, her gaze sweeping across the courtyard.

Xu Xiaoyan checked the bowstring and the slot, inserted the bamboo arrow, leveled the bow, aimed at the target in the courtyard downstairs through the scope, and pulled the trigger.

With a soft "whoosh," the bamboo arrow shot out from the bowstring, slicing through the air at incredible speed and embedding itself in the target in the blink of an eye.

Xu Xiaoyan peeked out the window and looked down; the bamboo arrow had pierced right through the center of the target.

Most of the arrow shaft was buried in the soil behind the target, leaving only a small section of the tail sticking out.

She rushed downstairs to the yard, squatted down next to the target, and tried to pull out the arrow with her hand, but she couldn't.

He grabbed an entrenching tool and dug a circle of loose soil around the arrow shaft, then struggled to pull the entire bamboo arrow out of the ground.

The arrow shaft was polished to a shine by the mud, but the tip was still clean and sharp, without any curling.

She held the bamboo arrow, ran her fingers along the shaft, and was secretly startled.

The crossbow was more powerful than she had anticipated; even a bamboo arrow could penetrate so deeply. If it were a metal triangular arrow… She shook her head and stopped thinking about it.

After returning to the house, she carried the large bundle of remaining bamboo up to the second floor and sat down in the corner by the window.

The curtains were mostly drawn, leaving only a finger-width gap so that one could observe the movement on the wall.

As she whittled new bamboo arrows, she switched her phone to audiobook mode and turned the volume down to the lowest setting. A passage from a novel was being narrated softly in the quiet room.

The occasional sounds of wind and insects chirping outside the window created a strange sense of tranquility.

About an hour later, a figure suddenly appeared silently on top of the wall.

Xu Xiaoyan's eyes instantly fixed on that direction.

By the dim moonlight and the yellowish glow of the streetlights, she could tell that he was a man of medium build.

He gripped the top of the wall with both hands, pushed off with his arms, and straddled the wall.

The man was dressed in dark clothes and moved rather nimbly.

After settling into position, it glanced into the yard, seemingly checking the terrain below, then bent down, preparing to climb over.

Without hesitation, Xu Xiaoyan picked up the precision crossbow, inserted a freshly sharpened bamboo arrow into the string groove, steadied her breathing, and extended the crossbow through the gap in the curtain.

The crosshairs in the scope steadily locked onto the body of the dark figure on the wall, and then the trigger was pulled.

The faint sound of a bamboo arrow piercing the air swept through the night. The next instant, the person perched on the wall let out a heart-wrenching scream, sharp and shrill.

He convulsed violently on the wall, lost his balance, and fell to the outside of the wall.

He was still howling intermittently, but after only a few howls, his mouth was suddenly covered.

Then the sound seemed to be abruptly cut off by something, leaving only a few muffled groans before falling completely silent.

Xu Xiaoyan held the crossbow without moving, still quietly looking towards the wall through the gap.

After a while, several low, indistinct voices came from outside the wall.

I couldn't quite make out what was said, then I heard hurried footsteps fading into the distance, heading towards the alley entrance, getting farther and farther away, until they finally disappeared completely into the night.

She waited for a long time, and only after confirming that there was no further movement did she slowly put down the crossbow, carefully collect the remaining bamboo arrows on the windowsill, wipe the crossbow clean, and put it back into her spatial storage.

I slept without any dreams.

When Xu Xiaoyan opened her eyes, the sun had already risen high in the sky.

She turned over, feeling the familiar bed and soft blankets beneath her. The incident of climbing over the wall last night seemed like a long time ago.

She stretched and sat up, walked to the window, pulled back the curtains, stared at the footprint from last night for a few seconds, and then frowned slightly.

The 3.5-meter-high wall is neither particularly high nor low.

Ordinary people can't climb over the wall without tools, but someone like the one last night could easily get on top of it in no time, as long as there's a gap to lean on or a short ladder.

She shot one away with a bamboo arrow last night, but there's no guarantee that no one will come tonight, tomorrow night, or the night after.

She couldn't possibly sit behind the second-floor window every day, doing nothing but waiting for someone to climb over the wall.

There's still a long way to go. She has greenhouses to manage and will need to set up a stall at the farmers' market in the future. She can't spend all her time just guarding the house. She needs to find a way to solve the problem once and for all.

Standing by the window for a moment, a thought suddenly popped into my head—a nail.

If you install nails with pointed ends all along the top of the wall and then fix them with cement, no matter who tries to climb over the wall, their hands will be full of holes as soon as they touch it.

With a height of three and a half meters, plus the row of barbs on the top of the wall, it's impossible to climb over by hand, let alone bring a ladder. Even if you bring a ladder, you can't get down there.