“Oh, the peach blossoms are blooming.”
As Ye Mian walked back, she heard Xue Kai’s voice and followed his gaze toward the peach tree planted on one side.
A couple of days ago, it had barely any presence—just a bare little sapling. Now, it was as if pink flower buds had sprouted in the blink of an eye, languidly blooming under the hazy glow of the morning sun.
Xue Kai was beaming. “This is a good omen! it means something good will definitely happen on your trip.”
“…”
“…”
Seeing that neither Ye Mian nor Lu Ning reacted, Xue Kai cleared his throat to hide his awkwardness. He knew this wasn’t an ordinary peach tree; it was a tree planted on the farm. It bloomed now simply because its time had come.
“Everything is ready. Are you going to eat before you go, or eat on the road?”
Ye Mian glanced at the rising sun and said, “Let’s head out directly. We’ll try to be back before five.”
“Alright, I’ll pack everything for you… be safe.”
Under Xue Kai’s watchful eye, the two women and the dog climbed into the car that was barely functional. Lu Ning first checked the fuel gauge, then looked back at the large black dog whose breath was huffing right against her ear.
“Bringing him along might cause some chaos.”
Da Hei tilted his head slightly. “Awoo?”
Ye Mian pulled her seatbelt tight and buckled it. “It’s fine. We’ll have Da Hei hide when there are many people. If we run into people who reject or resist us because of him, then there’s no need for further contact anyway.”
She only worried that those Evolutionaries might view the two of them as enemies as well.
In that case, they really would have no choice but to run.
A flash of helplessness crossed Lu Ning’s eyes before she started the car. “We’re low on gas. We’ll look for some spare fuel cans on the road later.”
“Mm.”
According to the route Xue Kai had drawn for them, they were supposed to take a detour to reach the national road. However, Lu Ning found it too troublesome. She drove straight to the base of the highway guardrail, had Ye Mian and Da Hei get out, and then physically lifted the car up onto the highway herself.
The heavy thud of the car landing drew the attention of several low-level mutants wandering aimlessly nearby. As they howled and leaped toward them, Lu Ning knocked them down with a single punch each.
While Ye Mian followed behind to collect the dropped stones, she watched Da Hei sniff the humanoid mutants before wagging his tail and returning to her side. He clearly had no interest in mutants that weren’t of his own kind.
Whether it was the day before yesterday or today, the information displayed by her [Insight] skill for the low-level mutants she encountered was just a single, brief line:
[Low-level Mutant, Danger Rating: D]
It didn’t specifically list weaknesses, as if to say they were nothing but weaknesses—as long as enough damage was dealt to any part of their bodies, they would go down.
The key point, however, was likely the danger rating. Mid-level mutants jumped straight to A-rank, which meant there were C and B ranks in between, with strengths higher than the low-level mutants they had encountered so far.
On the other side, Lu Ning efficiently handled the fuel situation, then lifted the car once more to move it down from the other side of the highway.
After driving along a small wasteland path for a while, the national road Xue Kai mentioned finally appeared before them.
Abandoned vehicles could be seen by the roadside, some having veered straight into the fields after losing control.
From this, one could tell that this national road used to be quite busy, with many villagers and passing vehicles.
At the same time, it served as a reminder for them to be careful.
As they approached a village town, Lu Ning slowed the car down and skirted along the outer paths, eventually parking among some lush bushes.
After getting out, the two exchanged a look and then, without needing a word, quietly crept toward the back of the town.
However, the dangerous scenes they had imagined did not appear. Both the main roads and the alleys of the town were deserted; only the mess covering the ground served as proof of the great upheaval that had recently occurred.
Knowing that Da Hei had a keen sense of smell and was fast enough, Ye Mian patted his head. “Go look around. If you find danger, come back and report immediately.”
Da Hei gave a soft whimper in response and then leaped, quickly disappearing into the winding alleys.
“Let’s start too.”
Lu Ning nodded and began searching house by house alongside her.
Their primary goal for this trip was to collect various tools, and only secondarily to find surviving Evolutionaries.
Because the people living here mostly farmed, the two of them actually harvested quite a few farming tools and semi-manual agricultural machines during their search—they even found a small tractor.
Lu Ning couldn’t help but reach out and touch it. “I’ve only seen this on TV… I wonder if Xue Kai knows how to use it.”
Since he hadn’t mentioned it, Ye Mian could only guess, “Probably, maybe, possibly.”
Besides the question of whether he could use it, there was also the problem that they hadn’t found any extra diesel.
This was the strange thing about this town.
It clearly looked like it had been swept over by a group of mutants, with many things destroyed, but there were no horrific scenes. Furthermore, most of the houses showed no signs of a struggle, only one-sided attacks and destruction.
There were, however, many traces of stored supplies having been cleared out.
It was as if after the change occurred, the Evolutionaries here had fled immediately, drawing the mutants away to scatter them, and then returned later to move all the supplies.
If that was the case, it meant they were about to encounter their first organized group of Evolutionaries.
“Let’s go to the next town.”
The two returned along the main road they came from and called for Da Hei, who also had no findings. Together, they got back into the car and continued forward.
Though they encountered a few low-level mutant beasts that brushed past the car on the way, the creatures ran away dejectedly before the women even got out—they had all seen Da Hei inside the vehicle.
Soon, they arrived at the second village town along this national road.
Compared to the first one, this one was much larger. As far as the eye could see, there were buildings of all heights.
So, as before, the two did not rush in blindly but first found a high point from which they could overlook the entire town.
Ye Mian then took out two bottles of carrot juice from the warehouse and handed one to Lu Ning. “Take a sip and see.”
Lu Ning followed instructions without question.
Ye Mian also tried a sip. Although the texture was rich and smooth, the sweetness was very faint, with a hint of tartness.
The next moment, she felt something very cool and refreshing spread through her eyes. Then, as if a layer of mist had been wiped away, every brick and tile in the distance was reflected in her sight with extreme clarity.
“This…” Despite having experienced the miraculous effects of the corn juice, Lu Ning couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise, “It’s so clear.”
She couldn’t help but think to herself that if these two types of vegetable juices could be mass-produced, it would be a huge boon for the surviving Evolutionaries of this world.
But the thought only flashed by. Immediately after, Lu Ning began to look around intently.
The miraculous effect of the carrot juice didn’t last long; about ten minutes later, their vision returned to normal.
But that was more than enough.
“I only saw some lone mutants, nothing gathered or large.”
“Mm,” Ye Mian nodded. “Then let’s just drive straight in.”
The place was larger, so the search time would naturally be longer.
The two spent nearly two hours in this large town, harvesting some abandoned supplies and tools, and dealing with the low-level mutants they found searching for prey.
Then, they hurried to the third village town.
After driving for a bit and seeing many mutant corpses scattered along both sides of the road, Ye Mian was able to confirm that her earlier guess was indeed correct. The reason the first two towns were so peaceful and overly clean wasn’t because there weren’t many mutants, but because the mutants had been led away to be scattered and then killed upon the survivors’ return.
Swift action and decisive decision-making—it seemed someone had organized the survivors and led them to a safer place.
The third town was the smallest, with only about a hundred households, and its layout consisted of clusters of three to five houses and courtyards separated by some distance.
This way, no matter where they were temporarily settled, they would have an extremely wide field of vision, allowing them to spot approaching mutants immediately or set traps in advance.
Thinking that it might not be appropriate to drive into the village so blatantly, Lu Ning suggested, “Should we take a detour?”
Ye Mian was about to nod when she saw several figures in the distance. “No need… let’s charge straight in.”
“…” Lu Ning finally understood a bit of Xue Kai’s feelings at that moment. However, she made the same choice as Xue Kai, following orders and flooring the accelerator, charging directly toward the several people who intended to stop them outside the village.
Those people hadn’t expected this at all. After hurriedly scrambling out of the way and getting a mouthful of exhaust and dust, they shouted in anger after a delayed reaction, “Hey! Stop!”
Lu Ning naturally wouldn’t stop; she didn’t even know when or where she was supposed to stop.
It wasn’t until Ye Mian spoke again: “Stop.”
Only after letting out a sigh of relief did Lu Ning realize she had instinctively been holding her breath.
After the two got out of the car with Da Hei, they saw that those people hadn’t chased after them. Instead, they stopped not far away, exchanged a few words, and then one of them headed toward the other houses in the village.
“?” Ye Mian looked around. “Could there be mutants here?”
As soon as she finished speaking, Da Hei barked at the house behind them.
Ye Mian turned around and looked at the two-story building that appeared to be newly built.
Lu Ning also snapped back to attention, shielding her from behind. “Be careful.”
“It’s fine,” Ye Mian shook her head. “There’s no movement inside. Even if there are mutants, there won’t be many.”
The reason she decided to barge in was that she didn’t want to be the passive party; she wanted to seize the initiative before negotiating with the Evolutionaries here.
What she hadn’t expected, however, was that she would accidentally stumble into a place resembling a “forbidden zone.”
Just as Ye Mian intended to wait for the follow-up from the people who went to report, something suddenly crashed down from upstairs, shattering with a loud bang.
However, the scattered shards were still some distance from their feet. It was clear the person who threw the object had no intention of hurting anyone.
Ye Mian looked at the porcelain bowl fragments on the ground, then turned her gaze toward the tightly closed main door of the small building. “Is this an invitation for us to come inside as guests?”
“…” Of course not.
Lu Ning silently watched Ye Mian and, as expected, heard her next sentence:
“Then let’s go inside and take a look.”
On the other side, the few people who had stopped halfway saw the two women entering the house with a mutant beast and couldn’t help but panic.
“What do we do? Chen Jia is still inside!”
“But A-Yi told us not to approach on our own initiative and to focus on defense.”
“…Surely nothing will happen.”
“Let’s hope so.”