"Damn it, when I get back home I'm showering every day. I haven't bathed for at least half a year!"
"You think half a year is bad? I ran away from home two years ago and haven't bathed since..."
"What the hell, no wonder I always smell it. You're disgusting as hell!"
"Jesus, it's the apocalypse, we don't even have enough drinking water. Shower? Why don't you just fly to the sky?"
"When we were at the Oasis, you guys didn't wash?"
"Wash my ass, do you think I'm one of those superhumans, sir?"
"Heh heh... I bathed once at Fairy Lake before, my god... Fairy Lake is the most beautiful place I've ever seen!"
"Yeah, Fairy Lake..."
"Oasis? Fairy Lake? What's that?"
The convoy members were in a complicated mood right now.
Some were original, long-time convoy veterans.
They'd joined before the Yanzhou desert days.
Of course, these people were the minority.
Some had fallen behind.
Some had become rear guards.
Some never came out of the Uninhabited Forbidden Zone.
Now only two or three of those remained.
A few joined back when Rong City fell, members of the Death God Church.
There weren't many of those either.
The rest had fled into the convoy in a panic after the Oasis collapsed.
The largest group came from the Doomsday Convoy during the Sea of Trees chapter.
So although the convoy appeared peaceful on the surface,
it had long since split into several factions beneath the surface.
If not for the superhumans keeping order, there would have been multiple riots by now.
People shouted and argued noisily.
Every face wore joy.
Many even forgot how the Oasis had collapsed.
Or perhaps they hadn’t forgotten, they simply chose not to think about it.
After all, today everyone was hearing good news.
Even Chen Ye, who usually kept a cold, expressionless face, showed a little more feeling.
"Mouse squad... you think..."
Dantai Bie muffled his face, fumbling to offer his opinion.
You can skip a meal, but you can't skip talking.
Even when injured, you still speak.
Of course, for superhumans, this minor injury would mostly heal by afternoon.
He was cut off without mercy by Chu Che: "Shut up! You're in that state and you still have the nerve to talk?"
Dantai Bie glared...
He noticed that the longer you stayed in this convoy, the less people treated you like a person.
What the hell... who started this culture in the convoy?
Dantai Bie seriously questioned Captain Chu's fitness to be leader!
"Captain Chu, do you think this Return to the City Plan can work?"
Gong Yong, the socially awkward young man, asked.
Maybe Chen Ye's slap earlier accelerated Gong Yong's acceptance into the convoy.
After all, even Xu Lina and Iron Lion got slapped.
If they could get slapped, so could he.
That meant Chen Ye and the others treated him as one of their own.
Chen Ye didn't play favorites!
From this moment on, the shy young man began blending into the convoy.
One only hoped he wouldn't become as shameless as Chen Ye and Chu Che.
Being shy didn't mean not curious.
"Success? Don't even think about returning to the city until humanity has Sequence 9!"
Chen Ye patted Gong Yong on the shoulder.
The more he learned about the Anomalies, the more Chen Ye thought the idea of returning to the city was a joke.
At least for now.
Chen Ye had decided: if he still had Slaughter Points, he'd upgrade the Monster Pickup Truck's escape capabilities.
If it failed, at least they'd get away faster than the others.
Gong Yong shivered a little from the shoulder pat, but stood straighter.
Seeing Chen Ye wasn't so terrifying after all, he quietly exhaled.
"Yezi, don't teach the kid bad habits!"
Sun Xixi complained.
"Kid? This kid looks way too eager!"
Chen Ye pointed at the full beard on Gong Yong's face.
Gong Yong was offended, but dared not retort.
At least not yet.
Sun Xixi rolled her eyes at Chen Ye. "Gong Yong, don't listen to Yezi!"
"He's still a child, don't scare him!"
Chen Ye: "..."
A child? A child of hundreds of months?
Nope, Sun Xixi, you actually look a year or two younger than this guy.
Chu Che: "But Gong Yong, if nothing else, fix up these vehicles. If something happens, at least you'll be able to get away..."
Gong Yong: "..."
You guys really are... a convoy.
At that moment,
Chen Ye noticed a different color on Sun Xixi's face.
A faint golden hope.
Subtle...
paired with an exquisitely beautiful face that could have been AI-generated.
And that long pink hair.
She looked like a goddess from myth.
And those pale golden eyes...
Sun Xixi felt embarrassed under Chen Ye's sudden stare.
A blush climbed her cheeks, then was replaced by irritation!
Pale golden eyes?
"The sun's coming out, the sun's coming out..."
A voice choked with tears echoed through the camp.
Everyone turned, looking toward the source of the gold.
In everyone's eyes,
on a distant mountaintop, within the clouds,
something divine seemed to be forming!
A sliver of golden light poked out from the peak, becoming the most sacred sight to each person.
Clouds there were dyed a mix of gold and crimson by that thin golden light.
It was as if a mad deity in the heavens had upended the sun's paintbox.
That streak of gold didn't just color the clouds.
Even the ground was gilded in a thin sheet of golden light.
It felt like stepping into sacred land!
Chen Ye raised his head, his blood-colored eyes fixed on that golden sliver on the horizon.
In that instant, he opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it, as if wanting to say nothing.
His eyes contained nothing but that brilliant gold.
At the same time,
Chu Che, Sun Xixi, Iron Lion, Ding Dong, Dantai Bie, Gong Yong...
they all stood the same as Chen Ye.
Frozen like clay statues...
Little Fish wiped the tears at the corner of her eye.
Choking, she said, "I... I thought the sun would never rise again... wah wah..."
The Little Girl bit her lip, but tears streamed down her cheeks uncontrollably.
She scrubbed her little face with her sleeve again and again, but even when her cheeks were red, the tears remained.
This little girl was barely a teenager...
And in the whole convoy, almost no one had seen her cry.
This was the first time...
The stubborn little girl bit down, turning her face away, unwilling to let others see her tears.
But the sacred golden light was too dazzling, she couldn't bear to look away.
Zhou Xiaoxiao stood there stunned, her delicate face blank.
She didn't know how to describe what she felt inside.
After taking a Sequence Serum, her superhuman awakening failed.
She became the convoy's joke.
Of course, no one dared to mock her to her face.
But she had sunk to the brink of emotional collapse.
Especially after witnessing Xu Lina succeed with the same Sequence Serum.
Zhou Xiaoxiao fell into deeper darkness.
Eternal Night seemed like her personal epitaph.
She didn't actually hate Eternal Night.
Maybe she was the only one in the convoy who didn't.
The blackness wrapped her in a cloak, shielding her from everyone else's gaze.
But she didn't give up.
She practiced the techniques her master taught her over and over.
Even after barely escaping the Sea of Chaotic Graves, even when she was so exhausted she could collapse any second, she still rose earlier than others.
When the camp was chaos, she had already gone to a secluded spot to train.
To outsiders, she lived like a puppet whose only purpose was to practice.
She didn't know what else she could do besides train.
But now...
when that strip of golden sunlight pierced through the darkness and finally touched her face,
Zhou Xiaoxiao felt her mind go blank.
She knew nothing...
thought nothing...
did nothing!
She simply stood there, stunned,
feeling the scene before her was shockingly beautiful.
The camp erupted.
"The sun's out, finally the sun's out!"
"Gods, the sun, the sun's out..."
"Wah wah... the sun! the sun..."
"My mother, I thought I'd never see the sun again in my life..."
"Wah wah..."
For a moment, the camp was like a boiling cauldron.
Many people had tears streaming down their faces.
Some knelt on the ground and kowtowed to the sun.
They knelt and cried at once.
Tears mixed with snot, dirt from the ground smeared their faces until they were filthy.
But nobody laughed at them.
Because only those who had lived through Eternal Night knew what the sun truly meant.
