They were standing on higher ground, and the forest terrain below was chaotic and uneven.
Fu Yinli pulled her into a hiding spot behind a tree. Through the dense woods, about thirty meters downhill, they could see a figure.
It was an old man, thin and agile-looking. He wore a military-green jacket and a pair of Liberation-style shoes. In his hand was a woodcutting knife.
As he neared their direction, he turned and walked off toward another path. After a while, he came back carrying two bundles of firewood—clearly very strong.
He moved through the forest with ease, unlike them who were being cautious at every step.
After the old man completely disappeared, the two exchanged a glance.
They hadn’t expected anyone to be here. Where there were people, there might be zombies—and also supplies.
“Let’s go back and discuss this. What did you find?” Fu Yinli asked, gently patting her head in a calming gesture.
Only then did Ruan Zhe remember. She used a stick to part the grass.
“Eggs.”
A nest of small eggs, tinged with faint blue and white. No other animals were in sight.
Not snake eggs—these looked like bird eggs, ones she vaguely remembered from childhood.
There was nothing else to say.
Fu Yinli immediately reached out and carefully lifted the entire nest.
The moment Ruan Zhe touched it, she stored both eggs and nest into the farm.
They took a detour back to the RV with what they had gathered.
“We need to be more careful from now on. Don’t stray too far from the RV,” Ruan Zhe said.
Fu Yinli scraped mud off their rain boots with a branch. “Mm. Don’t be afraid.”
Saying she wasn’t afraid would be a lie. In the apocalypse, humans were dangerous too.
They still hadn’t fully figured out the surroundings and didn’t drive off immediately. They could follow the dirt road out, but it was muddy and they were worried the tires would get stuck.
For now, they stayed and gathered resources, fuel, and firewood, while also figuring out who the old man was and whether he posed a threat.
After discussing it, Fu Yinli went to chop firewood, while Ruan Zhe climbed onto the RV roof with binoculars to scan the area.
About two kilometers north, she saw an open clearing with a small wooden house. Beside it was a vegetable garden, laundry hanging nearby, and something moving around.
Adjusting the focus, she saw an old woman sitting in front of the house. Her face was unclear, but she was motionless.
Vegetables grew in the garden, and chickens ran around it.
The old man was chopping firewood outside the house, working slowly and steadily, pausing every so often.
“It’s an elderly couple. They look like forest rangers,” Ruan Zhe called for Fu Yinli to come up.
He wiped his sweat and climbed onto the roof, taking the binoculars. After looking for a while, he said, “The old woman doesn’t look in good health.”
Ruan Zhe nodded. The old man would occasionally stop chopping and turn back to look at her.
“They probably aren’t bad people. After all, we’re the outsiders,” she said after a moment.
“Bad people don’t have their names written on their faces. We just keep our distance and observe,” Fu Yinli replied, then went back down to chop wood.
When they had free time, they collected firewood, mushrooms, and wild vegetables. They gathered quite a lot, though the fridge could barely hold it all.
They even started drying excess mushrooms and pickling wild vegetables.
After observing for two more days, Ruan Zhe noticed the elderly couple had a very regular routine.
At around six in the morning, the old man would get up, start a fire, and help the old woman outside. She would sit and sort vegetables.
In the morning, the old man would go into the forest for one to two hours and return with either firewood or game.
At noon, they ate together. Afterward, the old woman would take a few slow steps while holding the wall.
In the afternoon, the old man continued working while the old woman sunbathed. At nightfall, they turned off the lights early.
It seemed the apocalypse hadn’t affected them at all.
Ruan Zhe eventually felt it was a bit creepy to keep spying on them with binoculars every day, so she stopped.
The old couple seemed to be doing fine and lacked nothing. Approaching them might instead disturb their peace.
So the two deliberately avoided the old man’s routine and coexisted peacefully.
Ruan Zhe also stopped frequently storing things into the farm. Instead, she would store a batch and then rest for at least an hour each time, which helped a lot.
They had accumulated a large amount of firewood, and the excess mushrooms and wild vegetables were also stored in the farm.
“It would be great if we could catch some animals,” Ruan Zhe said enviously, tapping her stick against the ground.
The old man had been catching wild chickens and rabbits every few days.
Fu Yinli looked at her and said, “We will. I’ll study it when we get back.”
Then he asked, “Why do you keep carrying that stick?”
Haha—finally he asked.
Ruan Zhe had been waiting for this. She squinted and smiled. “It’s called ‘beating the grass to scare the snake.’”
The forest was dense and humid. Animals were active—they had already seen squirrels and rabbits—but there could also be snakes hiding in the bushes.
She didn’t just tap the ground; she also tapped branches ahead.
Fu Yinli picked up a long branch from the roadside. “I’ll do it.”
She gladly handed it over.
Walking in front had been dangerous.
They walked one behind the other. Since finding the eggs, she kept hoping to find more—but instead they only saw squirrels and rabbits brazenly passing right in front of them.
Fu Yinli had also learned to identify some wild vegetables. When he looked up and saw a cluster of bright mushrooms, he instinctively stepped forward to crush them.
“Foot off the mushrooms!” Ruan Zhe quickly grabbed him.
Fu Yinli pulled his foot back. “Didn’t you say red umbrellas mean lying in a coffin? These are poisonous.”
Ruan Zhe squatted down and examined them carefully. “This one is different. It’s called goose egg fungus. The only non-poisonous red umbrella mushroom I know.”
She used a small stick to carefully pry them out without damaging the mushrooms, then covered the soil and leaves back so they could regrow later.
“What about that over there? Is that the morel mushroom you mentioned?” Fu Yinli pointed to another patch under a tree.
Ruan Zhe’s eyes lit up before she even looked closely. “Yes! That’s definitely morels!”
“Fu Yinli, you’ve improved! You can recognize mushrooms now! And your eyesight is amazing—you spotted so many!”
Indeed, right in front of them was a whole patch of morel mushrooms.
They carefully picked them, both quite happy—these mushrooms were delicious.
Fu Yinli smiled. “At least I got one thing right.”
But neither of them noticed that, seventy to eighty meters behind them, the old man was leaning against a pine tree, a woodcutting knife in hand, silently watching them.