Chapter 125: Chapter 125: Terrified of Her

Stella Sterling glanced at him, then turned and left.

Stephen Lawrence also hugged his can of food, happily digging in.

The man from before had screamed so fiercely that Stella Sterling thought he would go back to complain or get backup. To her surprise, no one came looking for trouble, even by nightfall.

This, however, was a bit of a disappointment for Stella Sterling!

Everyone rested for two days before setting out again. This time, however, they didn’t continue digging from the residential complex. Instead, they used the previous office building as a central point and began excavating outward in three directions.

Office buildings like this were usually clustered together. Since there was one here, there were bound to be many more like it nearby.

And so, everyone was full of motivation.

This was especially true for Stella Sterling’s squad. Under her intimidating presence, everyone worked with 120 percent of their spirit, far more than the others.

Their speed was faster than the others, and they quickly dug a path from this building to another one.

As for the man who had previously mocked Stella Sterling, she had deliberately pulled him into her tunnel-digging team. Terrified, he did nothing but bury his head and work hard every day, not daring to utter a single complaint.

Now that they had finally broken through to another building, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. ’The she-devil should let them rest for a bit now, right?’

"We’ve dug through. Scour for food, quickly. Or are you planning on just handing over everything here to the other teams?"

Seeing everyone’s exhausted appearance, as if their bodies had been completely hollowed out, Stella Sterling scoffed.

With that, she walked right out and started collecting things inside the office building. If they didn’t hurry, whatever she found would be hers alone.

From the moment they decided to dig in three directions, Felix Lawrence had already made it clear that whatever was found in a tunnel belonged to the team that dug it. Items scavenged by individuals belonged to them personally, no longer to be divided equally as before.

The first time, they had no choice. Many people had run out of food and were eating supplies loaned to them by others, so a system of rules was necessary for distribution.

But things were different now. After the first haul, everyone from both buildings had received a share of the goods. If they continued with the old system, many people would lose their earlier motivation to work.

Moreover, it was unfair to those who were more capable and did more work. That was why they had split into three teams.

Anything you dug up and collected was your own. This way, if you wanted more, you had to work for it.

If you ended up with no food, you would have no one to blame but yourself.

Now, their tunnel was the first to break through. At the thought of getting another batch of food so soon, everyone was very happy, despite their grumbling.

After hearing Stella Sterling’s words, no one said anything else. Propping up their weary bodies, they began to excitedly scavenge the office building as well.

Being another office building, the situation in this one was quite similar to the last one they had searched.

The only difference was that before, over 100 people had searched a single building, so it was cleared out quickly and no one’s individual haul was particularly large.

But now, with only twenty-some people searching this building, the pace was much slower. They didn’t miss a single spot, taking two or three hours to search the entire place.

The once-magnificent office building was now in ruins. The fancy company doors had all been violently smashed, and everything inside had been turned upside down. An occasional glance outside revealed gusting winds and hailstones, painting a bleak picture.

But at this moment, everyone was full of laughter and cheerful chatter.

Someone tore open a few packages of food on the spot and ate them, a look of pure satisfaction on their face.

Who knew how long it had been since they’d eaten so freely!

Stella Sterling’s haul was also quite plentiful. In her past life of survival, she had long since mastered the fastest way to gather supplies.

She searched quickly, so she covered more company offices and reaped the largest reward.

She carried several bags in her hands. When she absolutely couldn’t hold any more, she placed them into her space, leaving only three or four bags of food and one bag of miscellaneous items in her hands.

After they had finished searching, Stella Sterling silently returned to the places they had already been and collected all the things they had deemed worthless, storing them in her space.

Only after doing all this did she go downstairs. For some unknown reason, the others hadn’t left before Stella Sterling came down; they were all waiting there for her.

When they saw her small haul, and that one of the bags wasn’t even filled with food, the others were a little puzzled.

One woman even boldly stepped forward and asked in confusion, "Sterling, how come you only have this much?" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

’That can’t be right. There are only twenty of us, so everyone was able to find quite a bit. It’s a huge office building, after all.’

’Some of the luckier ones even found several burlap sacks. When they couldn’t carry them, they found a big box to pack everything in, planning to drag it all away later!’

’The haul was so big that even carrying it was a struggle for some of them.’

’If they weren’t worried that something might happen if they left it here, they would have wanted to make several trips.’

’Even if Stella Sterling just casually searched a few offices, there’s no way she would have ended up with so little!’

Seeing the woman ask so cautiously, as if terrified of offending her with a single question, Stella Sterling smiled.

’I might be a bit fierce, but it’s not like I just beat up anyone I see without reason. Look at them, scared like this. How boring!’

But her smile startled the woman who had spoken. A wave of worry washed over her, and she wondered if she had somehow displeased her.

Just as she was growing fearful, Stella Sterling spoke up. "Hm, just unlucky today. I searched several places, but they were all empty. Didn’t find much!"

After saying this, she turned and left.

The fact that she wasn’t angry allowed the woman who asked the question to relax, thinking to herself that she had been worrying too much.

Just then, an elderly couple in their sixties or seventies walked toward Stella Sterling and held out a bag of supplies to her. "Young lady, it’s alright if your haul wasn’t great for now. Take this bag. We’re old and can’t eat that much anyway."

Stella Sterling looked over, a little surprised. It was the very kind old couple from the building. At this moment, they were looking at her with a gentle expression.

Before she could speak, two children next to the old couple rushed over, shouting, "Grandpa Lawrence, that’s ours! We barely have enough for ourselves, how can you give it to her!"

"Yeah! Grandpa Lawrence, Grandma Lawrence, have you two gone senile? We have so many people at home waiting to eat! If you give it to her, are you two just not going to eat? No way! You can’t give it to her! We won’t allow it!"