They had stayed in the forest for five days and even discovered a small stream. The water was extremely clean, so the two of them were able to wash their bodies and hair properly, and even hang their clothes out to dry. Water was no longer a problem.
“What are you doing?”
Ruan Zhe wiped her hair with a dry towel as she got out of the car, only to see Fu Yinli crouching in front of a tree ahead, his back turned toward the RV.
Fu Yinli stood up and handed something over. “A rabbit.”
In his hand was a small rabbit—but it looked injured.
“Ah, how did you get this?” Ruan Zhe quickly wrapped her hair up and took the gray little rabbit.
Fu Yinli pulled out a crude slingshot. “Didn’t you want meat? I caught a dumb rabbit.”
Only then did Ruan Zhe truly look at him differently. In just a few days, he had learned to hunt.
“You’re amazing, Fu Yinli. You’re good at everything… but I don’t really know how to deal with rabbits yet. I don’t know how to skin them either. Let’s raise it a bit before eating it.”
Fu Yinli nodded. “Up to you. I’ll try to catch a bigger one next time.”
What he didn’t say was that this rabbit already seemed injured to begin with. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have been able to hit it.
Not out of pride—but because this rabbit might have escaped from that old man’s hands. Saying it would only make her more uneasy.
“Definitely,” Ruan Zhe always encouraged him.
Then she went off to find branches and quickly wove a temporary cage, and when she worried the rabbit might escape, she placed it in a plastic box instead.
After resting for the night, the next morning they took a wide detour and expanded their search area slightly, entering a denser pine forest.
The ground was covered in pinecones. Fu Yinli picked one up and broke it open—empty. Another one—also empty.
Ruan Zhe looked up. “They’re still green. Not mature yet.”
She suddenly brightened. “Look over there.”
Following her finger, Fu Yinli saw a fallen log covered in black-brown fungus—wood ear mushrooms.
“Can we eat them?”
“Of course.” Ruan Zhe was already picking them quickly. “These are wood ear mushrooms. They can be dried and stored for a long time.”
Fu Yinli joined in. “There’s really a lot of food in the mountains. No wonder people say the mountains feed you. But if we get another heavy rain like before, I don’t know how we’d survive.”
The terrain here was sloped, so water flowed downward, but if rain continued for long periods, things would become uncertain. Even gathering firewood would become difficult, let alone drying fuel.
“In the future, there might be even more extreme weather. I feel like this is just a temporary break for us,” Ruan Zhe said seriously.
It was actually based on her experience from novels—usually apocalypse stories started with heavy rain first.
“Then we’ll just prepare as much as we can,” Fu Yinli replied.
They continued collecting mushrooms, found some hazelnut mushrooms, gathered firewood, and finally returned to the RV.
Fu Yinli made mushroom soup while cooking, and Ruan Zhe sat nearby, taking out the seeds wrapped in damp cloth.
The sprouts had already emerged—white and tender, like tiny worms. This stage was called “breaking white.”
She took out disposable food containers from the car, since she didn’t have seedling trays.
After punching holes in the bottom and filling them with forest humus soil, she planted chili and eggplant seeds one by one, covered them with a thin layer of soil, and misted them with water.
Once the seedlings grew, they could be transplanted into the ground.
Fu Yinli made a pot of mushroom and canned food soup. It didn’t look great, but it smelled amazing—and tasted even better thanks to the mushrooms.
Ruan Zhe ate two bowls of rice just with soup.
That night, she took the first watch while Fu Yinli slept. He had been doing heavy labor and taking night shifts lately, so he was exhausted.
She sat in the driver’s seat with a blanket over her legs, recording their forest supplies.
They kept part for themselves and stored the rest in the farm space, though they still didn’t know what the inside of the farm looked like.
She suddenly sat up, wrapping the blanket around herself. Rain began again, a soft patter—like natural white noise that made people sleepy.
Before she realized it, half the night had already passed.
But something felt wrong.
She quickly turned off all the lights in the car and quietly walked to the bed, tapping Fu Yinli.
He sat up almost instantly. “What is it?”
“Something’s happening,” she whispered.
They quickly got dressed and grabbed their weapons.
Soon, flashlight beams appeared in the forest—three or four people moving through the trees.
They stayed alert, but those people didn’t come toward them and instead changed direction.
“They’re going to those two old people,” Ruan Zhe frowned.
It wasn’t kindness—going out at this hour to find elderly people usually meant trouble.
Those people seemed to have come from lower in the mountains. Down there, there were zombies, and supplies and settlements had already been destroyed. If they found people living up here… they would eventually be affected too.
Fu Yinli had the same thought. “Let’s go take a look.”
If things went wrong, they would need to relocate immediately.
They moved toward the wooden house. It was still dark, visibility poor, and they used dim flashlights to avoid detection.
After about an hour, they began to hear voices.
Then came gunshots.
A gun?
Both of them immediately became alert. Did those people have guns? That wasn’t something easy to obtain.
They crouched in the forest, not daring to advance.
A second shot. A third. Then shouting—unclear words.
But it didn’t sound like something the old man and woman could make.
By dawn, as mist rose, they cautiously moved closer.
From a higher position in the trees, they saw the wooden house.
The door was open. The vegetable patch was trampled. There was a pool of blood at the entrance, stretching from the doorway down the steps, smeared by rain into a red trail.
Inside, a man slowly crawled out, dragging an injured leg.
Behind him stood the old man, holding a gun, shouting toward their direction:
“You two young people—come here!”