Chapter 155: Air
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“Such strong resilience? I’ll go take a look,”
Yu Hong said in surprise.
He quickly walked towards the outer yard, and before long, he reached Yao Feiling’s side.
This guy was still the same, looking up at the sky without moving. Doctor Xu had dragged her body into the yard to prevent it from being eaten by passing black bugs.
“Looks like you’ve figured it out?” Yu Hong stood next to her, a little surprised at this guy’s current expression.
...
“What are you doing here? To laugh at me?” Yao Feiling said calmly.
“There are fewer and fewer living people, just wanted to keep some memories,” Yu Hong replied calmly. For this guy, he might have wanted to let her join the camp if it were Ding Shao, but this person was so crazy she would even bomb her own friends, not a qualified teammate.
“Then what does whether I’ve figured it out or not have to do with this?” Yao Feiling said, “Doctor Xu gave me food and drink, why didn’t you stop him? I wanted to kill you before.”
“It’s still that reason, not many living people left… Anyway, you pose no threat to me now.” Yu Hong stopped paying attention to her; he just wanted to hear more human voices.
The food supply from the breeding box could support more than twenty people. Adding one more or one less didn’t matter.
There was food, but the number of living people outside kept decreasing… He felt this increasingly after the communicator lost connection.
He walked past Yao Feiling, not responding anymore, heading towards the direction where Li Rushan had left on the highway.
He needed to go meet up with Old Li.
He hoped that high-risk Black Disaster wouldn’t be encountered by Old Li halfway.
As he moved further away from the camp, the fog gradually enveloped the surroundings entirely.
Yu Hong moved forward, sometimes even unable to distinguish his direction, needing the surrounding black lizards to guide the way.
The black lizards were unaffected by the fog. Although everything was black and white, the scenes were exceptionally clear.
Rustle.
Rustle.
The dry leaves underfoot cracked, seemingly becoming the only tone in this mountain forest.
Fragments of gray leaves fell with the wind from above,
In the dim forest, Yu Hong’s fast-moving figure seemed insignificant compared to the tall trees around, like a black ant crawling slowly in a giant bonsai.
His black outfit matched the surrounding darkness strangely well.
The fog spread out, sometimes even making it impossible to see his silhouette clearly.
“Young man… come here… come over here…”
“I’m in so much pain, can you help me… I broke my leg passing by here…”
“It’s so scary here… Mom, Dad… where are you?”
“Yu Hong, why are you here? Come with me, it’s not safe here.”
Voices rang out, men and women, young and old, as strange figures appeared and disappeared behind the trees on both sides.
They were like fish in the fog, rising and falling, using eyes filled with deep malice to watch Yu Hong advance forward.
But he remained unmoved. The black lizards didn’t drive away these shadows because there were just too many of them… With only three black lizards, it was impossible to deal with so many shadows.
They couldn’t be killed completely; once dead, they quickly revived. Taking action only wasted his own energy.
So Yu Hong chose to turn a blind eye.
He gradually quickened his pace, and before long, a figure covered by a luminous stone blanket appeared ahead, lying on the ground.
He paused for a moment, stepping forward, the Inner Qi in his right leg withheld.
Until he was within a little over a meter of distance, the other side still didn’t move. Only then did Yu Hong glance at the open Red Value Detector.
It was still the environmental red value, with no changes.
‘Red Value: 46.315.’
He approached again, removing the Wolf Fang Club from his back, gently lifting the luminous stone blanket.
Woosh.
Under the blanket, a somewhat familiar face was revealed.
“Ding Shao?”
Yu Hong recognized her and called out softly.
“…. Is that you…!?” Ding Shao was still conscious. Her lips were cracked, holding a water bag in her hand, apparently toughing it out with that.
But even as a reinforced human, heavily injured, having gone without good food or rest for days, she was at her limit.
“I… apologize….” Ding Shao weakly squeezed out two words.
Yu Hong looked down at her, recalling the first complete reinforced human he had encountered. That guy’s body’s recovery ability was quite freakish, and he thought it was due to Evil Shadow’s pollution. Now it seemed… it wasn’t certain.
He thought his final kick would have killed a regular person on the spot, severely wounding a reinforced human, yet both were only half-dead.
It seemed that they had been able to move alone outdoors for so long because they were indeed skilled among reinforced humans.
“I have things to do. Previously, you attacked me, I fought back. We owe each other nothing now.”
He paused, “*If you’re still alive when I return, and if you’re willing, I can take you back.*”
Ding Shao’s eyes were hazy, and her vision was somewhat unclear. Hearing the voice, she realized it wasn’t an illusion, wasn’t a trick created by the shadows.
She recognized Yu Hong’s voice. She didn’t hate him, as he said, it was just an attack and a counterattack, nothing more.
She regretted… regretted fleeing with Yao Feiling… back then, with so many sisters from the organization, and with her connections, she had so many friends she could have chosen… Why did she lose her mind and choose that guy Yao Feiling as her escape partner…
*It was all fate,* Ding Shao said softly.
If it weren’t for Yao Feiling always holding her back, maybe alone she wouldn’t have ended up in this state…
Even now, half of her injuries were caused by Yao’s grenade.
Yu Hong took a tube of nutritional gel from his lower back, squeezed it into Ding Shao’s mouth, then gave her an anti-inflammatory pill, refilling her water bag.
After doing this, he stood up, covering her back with the luminous stone blanket. He didn’t look back, continuing onward on his own.
Old Li could encounter the high-risk Black Disaster at any moment; he needed to quickly fetch him back.
There was no way he could return for Ding Shao to waste time, especially when daylight hours were so short now.
*As for why he gave Ding Shao a chance at living,*
*It was simply because… the number of living people kept decreasing… If in the end, he was the only one left in this world, that wasn’t what he wanted.*
*Just imagining that kind of world felt despairing…*
He looked up at a small patch of sky between the trees.
Yu Hong could only see a palm-sized gray and white sky in an irregular shape.
The fog covered everything, leaving nothing visible.
He lowered his head, continuing forward with quickened steps.
*
*
*
On a gray and white highway, cracks and web-like patterns covered the road surface, some places even collapsing, leaving various strange footprints.
Buzz.
A faint sound of wheels rolling traveled along the highway.
A pitch-black jeep army vehicle, clearly modified, was barreling towards the vicinity of Black Wind Camp with solar panels on top.
The vehicle made almost no engine noise, just the slight friction of the wheels grinding against the road.
Inside the car, Li Rushan’s chest was wrapped in bandages, with faint bloodstains seeping through the white fabric. But even though his body hurt, his spirits were rather light.
*”Little Swallow, oh Little Swallow~~ Where is your springtime~” he hummed a song, gripping the steering wheel steadily.*
This trip, he not only found a rune that the camp didn’t have, but also managed to get a microwave, a mini fridge, both in perfect condition, along with some miscellaneous medicines from a small group hiding in a hospital basement.
Using the Vortex Talisman Plate given by Yu Hong, he effortlessly traded for a bunch of supplies.
He even kept the more powerful Radiation Hand Grenades for himself, knowing that without them, the luminous stone secret room effect of the car wouldn’t be enough to escape those Evil Shadows.
Before long, a burnt-out bus appeared on the road ahead.
Seeing the bus, Li Rushan knew he was close to the destination, as it was the bus he and Yu Hong had set ablaze together.
Buzz.
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As his vehicle passed the bus, Li Rushan felt an inexplicable chill run through him. He didn’t dare get too close, speeding through hurriedly.
Hiss!
Just in that brief passing moment,
The luminous stone talisman plate hanging on the bus door swiftly changed color to gray and white, waited two seconds, then cracked and fell.
Seeing this, Li Rushan’s heart went cold, quickly hanging a new luminous stone talisman plate to restore the effect of the pyroxene secret room.
“Just getting close is this dangerous, this bus didn’t seem this strong before,” he said with a serious expression, not looking at the bus anymore, and continued forward rapidly, soon arriving at the other jeep parking location closest to the camp.
He parked next to two other solar-powered jeep army vehicles and breathed a sigh of relief.
“This is the agreed upon location; now I’ll wait for the boss to come help,” he said, opening the radio and waiting for a notification from the other side.
The car engine stopped, and the surroundings fell into complete silence.
Old Li sat in the driver’s seat, reclining the chair slightly to rest his old back.
Then he lay back, letting his view only see the car interior.
On the roof, door, windows, the luminous stone runes painted on various places had been partially consumed during the journey, the resulting gaps were patched with his luminous stone talisman plates to ensure the complete effect of the pyroxene secret room.
*”In such times, such environments, don’t look at what shouldn’t be seen, those who don’t know the code are not real… I’ll just hum a song,” Old Li had long since concluded from experience.*
Humming Little Swallow under his breath, his mind began wandering to the peaceful scene of reuniting with his daughter Nana back home.
*He had even brought a mysterious gift from an abandoned mall for Nana.*
‘And also a dozen pairs of shoes for Old Zhou, enough for him to have a good variety,’
The spacious interior of the car allowed for such extravagance.
Shortly after he lay down.
Beside the jeep, at the edge of the highway, in the fog, a figure in a white dress slowly appeared.
It was a long-haired woman wearing a pale yellow top and a pure white knee-length skirt.
Her body was exceptionally clean, neat, as if completely detached from the current era.
In the faint fog, she quietly moved along the highway, apart from her stiff movements and her face obscured by black hair, she appeared to be a normal person from afar.
‘What’s that noise?’ In the car, Old Li heard footsteps and listened carefully with closed eyes.
‘Footsteps…? Could it be the boss?”
He pushed back with his hand, wanting to sit up and look outside.
But suddenly, he paused.
‘Better wait, for the boss’s code….’
*Even though the pyroxene secret room ensured nothing detected him, occasionally shadows tried to trick him with sounds.*
Highly vigilant, he slowly lay back down, relaxed his breathing, and listened to the footsteps outside.