Cen Wu decided to stay behind and help pack.
Seeing the determined look on her face, her mother had no choice but to let her be. Cen Yi left the house alone to go scavenging.
Thinking about how they would soon be leaving Base No. 9, she came up with another brilliant idea and decided to buy some local specialties from the base before they left.
Soon, only two people remained in the house.
Cen Wu nudged the utterly lifeless-looking Luke with her foot.
“Get up and start packing already. I stayed behind just to help you.”
Luke didn’t move. He simply muttered under his breath, trying to hand control of his body over to his other personality.
Unfortunately, fate was not on his side.
He was still himself, but Cen Wu shook his shoulders so hard that he nearly suffered a concussion.
Resigned to his fate, Luke got to his feet and went to the storage room to fetch packing boxes.
If only someone in the family had awakened a Spatial Ability. They wouldn’t have had to go through all this trouble.
Thinking about his hopeless older sister, he felt even more disappointed.
Meanwhile, Cen Wu hummed an off-key tune as she packed their daily necessities—food, clothes, and household supplies—into the boxes one by one.
Since the whole family was moving together, it felt more like a family vacation to her.
“I really don’t want to leave this place.”
Although she hadn’t lived there for long, that slightly worn old villa had been the first place that truly made her feel what a home was.
“You’ve only been here for a few days,” Luke said, pouring cold water over her sentimentality. “Better get used to it. Moving will become normal in the future… unless you don’t want to live with Mom and Dad anymore.”
“How could I not want to?”
Cen Wu immediately protested.
She didn’t care how many times they had to move.
She wanted to live with Mom and Dad for the rest of her life.
Luke merely scoffed.
Narrowing her eyes, Cen Wu shuffled closer to him as though she’d caught him doing something suspicious.
“So… you want to leave home when you grow up?”
Luke answered in the tone of someone repeating common sense.
“Everyone leaves home when they grow up. Big Sister did. Older Brother did. I will too. And so will you.”
“I won’t!”
Cen Wu retorted without hesitation.
The living room fell silent.
Only the sounds of items being placed into boxes echoed through the room.
Taking a deep breath, Cen Wu decided she wasn’t going to argue with someone who could probably poison himself just by licking his own lips.
If Cen Yuxing had been here, he definitely would have chosen to stay home.
“Have you ever been to Base No. 18?”
She took the initiative to break the silence.
Luke glanced at her in surprise.
“No. But that’s Big Sister’s territory, so you don’t have to worry.”
Big Sister…
Cen Wu wondered whether she looked more like Mom or Dad.
She was probably a gentle older sister.
Cen Wu couldn’t help imagining the wonderful scene of meeting Big Sister at Base No. 18.
“Wake up.”
Luke mercilessly burst her fantasy bubble.
“Big Sister won’t like you.”
Cen Wu: “…”
It felt as though she had actually heard the sound of her own heart shattering.
A broken heart was like shattered glass.
She instantly wilted, looking completely dejected.
Seeing her reaction, Luke couldn’t help curling the corners of his lips into a smile.
“It’s not just you. She doesn’t like me either. She doesn’t like Second Brother or Third Brother. She thinks Dad’s too lazy. Mom’s the only one she’ll actually talk to.”
Cen Wu nodded.
“I like Mom the most too.”
The smile on Luke’s face disappeared instantly.
He demanded, “Who’s your second favorite?”
Cen Wu answered without even thinking.
“Older Brother. Little Xing Older Brother.”
“Cen Wu! Have you already forgotten who carried you out of the dense forest?”
Luke finally exploded.
He was furious.
He never should have bothered carrying this ungrateful little brat out of the forest in the first place.
“Hehe.”
Cen Wu laughed awkwardly and hurried into another room, pretending to continue packing.
…
Cen Yi returned from her outing with quite a fruitful harvest.
She had thoroughly cleaned out that Lu family’s house and brought back plenty of good things.
There were two full boxes of Regeneration Factor alone—ten injections in total.
One injection normally sold for 500 points, and purchases were limited every month.
On the secondhand market, the price could climb as high as 800 points.
An ordinary civilian in the base could spend an entire month gathering resources without eating or sleeping and only earn around 1,500 points.
Besides that, she had also obtained a bag of Crystal Cores.
Xie Yuanchuan would probably like that local specialty.
One box of Regeneration Factor would be kept for Little Wu.
The other box would be given to her eldest daughter.
As for her three sons…
They weren’t even worth considering.
Finally, the day of departure arrived.
The pickup truck’s cargo bed had been modified. It was wider, thicker, fitted with heavy-duty tires, and could carry up to three tons of cargo.
A small portion of the game they had hunted a few days earlier had been salted.
The rest had all been smoked into jerky by Cen Yi.
The drive from Base No. 9 to Base No. 18 was more than 3,000 kilometers.
The journey alone would take four or five days.
With the weather warming up again, fresh meat simply wouldn’t keep.
After loading all the large and small boxes into the truck, Cen Yi honked the horn.
Cen Wu and Luke climbed into the front passenger seats one after the other.
As the sun rose and set day after day, Cen Wu leaned against Older Brother’s shoulder, fighting to stay awake.
Even so, she still tried to keep Cen Yi company.
“Mom, are you hungry? I packed some energy bars in my bag for you.”
Looking at her daughter’s drooping eyelids, Cen Yi’s heart softened.
“I’m not tired. Mom’s got plenty of energy.”
Cen Wu was genuinely worried that her mother might become exhausted from driving.
If only her legs were long enough to reach the pedals, she would have taken turns driving with her.
“Go to sleep.”
Cen Yi turned up the music.
She could entertain herself just fine.
It wasn’t that she truly had endless stamina.
The fog had been getting thicker and thicker lately.
For safety’s sake, they had to reach their destination as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, in the apocalypse, there were no traffic lights out in the wilderness.
She practically kept the accelerator floored the entire way.
If anyone was foolish enough to block her truck…
She wouldn’t hesitate to send them flying.
Outside the window, everything was a sea of white.
Compared to just two days earlier, visibility had already dropped to less than forty meters.
After driving for four straight days, by the time they reached Base No. 18, Cen Yi felt as though her legs no longer belonged to her.
Xie Yuanchuan had already been waiting at the entrance of the base.
The Guard Squad had been notified in advance.
As long as they underwent the standard inspection for prohibited items, they could enter immediately.
Cen Yi stood impatiently at the security checkpoint while the guards waved scanners over her body.
Having already passed inspection, Cen Wu obediently stood nearby, her eyes filled with curiosity as she looked around the unfamiliar base.
In her previous life, ever since she could remember, she had lived in the shelter at Base No. 9.
Even after her scumbag father took her back home, she had remained in that base.
She had never visited any other base before.
Base No. 18 looked very different from Base No. 9.
If she had to describe it, the people here seemed much more spirited.
Just by looking at them, it was obvious they were able to eat their fill on a regular basis.
Cen Wu stared absentmindedly at one of the public buses used by the Collection Team.
For some reason, it felt like something from a lifetime ago.
“Hey, newbie!”
Someone bumped her arm.
“Got any food? I’ll trade you something good.”
A young man with yellowish skin darkened by the sun quietly appeared beside her.
The sudden appearance of a stranger instantly wiped away the childish innocence from Cen Wu’s face.
The obedient look in her eyes disappeared, replaced by guarded vigilance.
“What’s with that look?”
The young man grinned.
He took out a jade-green object and waved it in front of her.
“Pretty, isn’t it? I’ll trade it to you for just ten catties of meat.”
Ten catties of meat.
That was no small amount.
Mutated Beasts were never easy to hunt in the apocalypse.
Many species were so heavily contaminated that they couldn’t even be eaten.
The meat sold inside the bases mostly came from specialized hunting teams, and the market price was around fifty points per catty.
Ten catties meant…
Five hundred points.
Cen Wu recognized the jade-green puzzle piece at a glance.
In her previous life…
She had seen it in Lu You’s room.