Lu Xuan refused to believe that the smell was coming from him. He lowered his head and sniffed himself all over, only to discover that it really was coming from his own body.
“Why do I smell so bad? And why do I feel all sticky?”
“It’s the water you just drank taking effect. Hurry up and go take a shower!” Mu Xiaoxiao said, making a disgusted gesture with her hand.
Lu Xuan’s face turned slightly red. “Then I’ll go now.”
This was far too embarrassing.
After taking a shower, Lu Xuan came out looking excited.
“Sister Yu, Xiaoxiao, this medicinal water is amazing! My leg doesn’t hurt at all anymore, and I feel full of strength. My physical condition is even better than it was before I got injured.”
As he spoke, he threw a few punches through the air, each one strong enough to stir the wind.
“I feel like I could knock down a zombie with one punch now.”
“Neither you nor I have abilities, so we need to spend time training every day and improving our physical strength,” Mu Xiaoxiao said.
“OK, no problem.” Lu Xuan grinned. Following them was truly the best.
Over the next period of time, Lu Xuan began going out with them to kill zombies. After each outing, he would rest and then continue training his body.
The other people in the villa also continued forming teams and going out as they had before. However, the amount of supplies they could find was becoming smaller and smaller, and they had to drive farther away to search for anything useful.
At first, everyone had been neatly dressed and clean, but they gradually became increasingly disheveled. The main reason was that there was no water for washing.
Whenever Lu Xuan saw how miserable they looked, he silently felt fortunate that following Xiaoxiao and Meng Yu was truly a gift from heaven. He never had to worry about food or water, and he could even take a comfortable shower.
Whenever the villa’s stored water ran out, Mu Xiaoxiao would refill it. Their water and electricity had never been cut off, although they still could not afford to waste them.
That morning, when they woke up, the weather was unusually hot. Since Mu Xiaoxiao had slept in her space, she had not noticed the change, but Lu Xuan and Meng Yu were already sweating from the heat.
The temperature had changed drastically overnight. Just yesterday, they had still needed a blanket to sleep, and because they had gone to bed covered with one, they were practically awakened by the heat that morning.
“Xiaoxiao, are you awake?”
Mu Xiaoxiao sensed someone calling her from outside and immediately left her space.
“Ugh, why is it so hot and stuffy? Is an extreme heat wave about to begin?” Mu Xiaoxiao muttered the moment she came out and noticed the change in temperature.
“Xiaoxiao, are you all right? This weather is really too abnormal. How can it already be this hot at this time?” Meng Yu asked with a frown.
“The apocalypse has already happened, so I’m guessing we might be heading into a period of scorching heat,” Mu Xiaoxiao said.
“I’m going downstairs to make breakfast. Finish getting ready and come down when you’re done.”
“Morning, Sister Yu,” Lu Xuan greeted her.
“Morning. I just went outside, and the ground is already scorching hot. Even the leaves on the trees are starting to wilt.”
“Mm. Xiaoxiao said there might be a heat wave, the kind of extreme heat you read about in novels,” Meng Yu explained.
“A novel? What novel?” Lu Xuan asked, completely confused.
“It’s a story about surviving in an apocalypse. If you want to read it, ask Xiaoxiao to send it to you when she comes downstairs.”
“Oh, okay.”
When it came to novels, Lu Xuan had mostly read fantasy and martial arts stories before.
After washing up, Mu Xiaoxiao returned to her space to harvest her crops. The rabbits had already produced several litters, and their enclosure was almost too crowded to hold them. She harvested some and sold them. She had also accumulated plenty of eggs and planned to give some to Sister Yu later. She had collected quite a bit of goat’s milk as well and sold some of that too.
Her space had now reached Level 20. She had 80,000 gold coins and eight mu of farmland. She had used one mu to grow fruits with high water content, such as watermelons, sugarcane, peaches, oranges, and strawberries.
Having one of those in the summer would be incredibly refreshing.
She had only planted them recently, but once they ripened, she would have all the fruit she could want.
After finishing her work, Mu Xiaoxiao went downstairs.
Lu Xuan asked her for the novel, and she transferred it to his phone. Although there was no internet anymore, they could still transfer files between their phones.
Since the weather was so hot that day, Meng Yu made sandwiches and milk for breakfast. Eating a hot meal in that heat would probably have ruined their appetites.
Even so, they were sweating all over after breakfast.
“No, we should turn on the air conditioner. It’s way too hot,” Mu Xiaoxiao said after finishing her meal.
“The temperature must already be around thirty five or thirty six degrees. Who knows how hot it’ll get by the afternoon?” Lu Xuan said with a frown.
Mu Xiaoxiao had bought the milk tea when the weather was still cold, so it was still warm. She took out three cups and put them in the refrigerator. Later, she could add some ice cubes before drinking them.
Once her fruit ripened, she planned to drink freshly squeezed fruit juice chilled with ice every day. Just thinking about it made her crave it.
Meng Yu turned on the air conditioner, and after a while, the indoor temperature finally dropped. The three of them sat comfortably on the sofa and enjoyed the cool air.
While they were relaxing, Gu Jingchuan was facing a different situation. Ever since the water and electricity had been cut off, his group’s water supply had been rapidly decreasing. On top of that, they consumed a great deal of energy every day while going out to kill zombies and search for supplies.
The last time he had contacted Meng Yu, he had told her that once he became familiar with the apocalypse and finished training, he would go and find her. Now that there was no internet and his phone had run out of battery, he could no longer contact her.
His home was not particularly far from where Meng Yu and the others lived, only about fifty kilometers away. Before the apocalypse, it would have taken around an hour to get there, but now he had no idea what conditions they would encounter along the way.
During this period, his team had been clearing a route in that direction as part of their training, but they had only made it around ten kilometers away.
All the zombies they killed had provided crystal cores that were used to help the team members level up. The four of them had already reached Level 2 and were close to advancing again.
Everyone had also been awakened by the heat early that morning. Faced with such an extreme change in the weather, Gu Jingchuan finally decided that it was time to leave and find Meng Yu.
“Cheng Qian, go inform everyone. We’re preparing to leave the villa today.”
“Where are we going, Boss?” Cheng Qian asked.
“To find a friend of mine.”
A friend? Since when did their boss have a friend he did not know about?
Cheng Qian was about to ask more when Shen Pei smacked him on the head.
“If the Boss tells you to inform everyone, then go inform them. Why are you asking so many questions?”
“Got it.” Cheng Qian rubbed his head. That really hurt.
After receiving the notice, everyone began packing their things.
“Boss, are we going to find Miss Meng Yu?” Shen Pei asked.
Gu Jingchuan nodded, then said seriously, “The weather is already this hot today, and I’m worried that even more unexpected changes will happen later. Since the changes have only just begun, we should meet up with them as soon as possible.”
“All right, that makes sense. I’ll go get ready too.”
After returning from their previous trip, everyone had read the apocalypse novel Gu Jingchuan had given them and learned quite a bit from it.
There were nine team members plus Gu Jingchuan, making ten people in total. They had five vehicles, including two trucks, one RV, and two off road vehicles
Everyone gradually loaded the supplies into the vehicles. Once everything was packed and they had replenished their energy, they were ready to set off.
However, when they had driven halfway to the main gate, someone stopped them.
“Big Brother, are you leaving? Can you take us with you?”
“Yeah! What are we supposed to do if you leave?”
A group of people gathered below, chattering nonstop.
“These people are unbelievable. What makes them think we have to take them with us?” Cheng Qian said with a dark expression.
If it had not been for Gu Jingchuan and his group, these people would have starved to death long ago. The zombies in the villa area had been cleared by them, and they had also cleared the route outside the villa all the way toward the city.
At first, those people had not dared to go outside. But after seeing Gu Jingchuan’s group return safely every time with their vehicles full of supplies, they began secretly following behind them whenever they went out and picking up whatever they could.
Gu Jingchuan’s group killed the zombies, while those people were quick to snatch the supplies. Several times, after getting surrounded by zombies because of their own actions, they had even tried to lure the zombies toward Gu Jingchuan’s group.
He had never seen anyone so shameless.