The distance from Linzhou to Jing City was nothing like the stretch from Ning City to Linzhou, and what was more, they ran into an even worse situation on the road.
A heavy rain had swollen the river, and the water had drowned the road ahead of them.
The car stopped at the edge of a bridge. Every face inside it was grim.
They couldn’t risk crossing the bridge, if it collapsed with the car halfway across, not one of them would survive.
Bai Zhuo took out a fresh set of rain gear and handed it to the young man, who looked a little startled. Once it registered, he pulled it on and got out of the car.
He came back quickly, his expression bad.
“We can’t get through. We may have to go around.”
But there was a big problem: they had no navigation. The young man only remembered this one road from Linzhou to Jing City. If they detoured, there was no telling how long it would take to reach Jing City.
“Let’s go around, then. We can’t just sit here waiting for the rain to stop,” Bai Zhuo said with a light laugh.
Worst case, she’d just pull up a map.
With that thought, Bai Zhuo had already called up the system.
【Whatever I need, you know the drill, all of it.】
System: Don’t want to know it.
Feeling the system’s sulkiness, Bai Zhuo nearly laughed out loud. Even facing an unknown road ahead, her mood didn’t dip in the slightest.
How satisfying was it to open thirty boxes in a row?
Bai Zhuo’s heart was actually racing. Never mind the basic purified water and food, she’d stockpiled dozens of cases of compressed biscuits, and whenever the chance came she could hand them all to Gu Zhun or Chongming.
And just look at those five gold boxes. She was finally no longer a small-time unlucky wretch with nothing but the pity floor. [1]African chief / hard-luck gacha player, someone with terrible draw luck, “pity floor” = the guaranteed minimum reward jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2936508_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2936508_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
Bai Zhuo looked to be resting with her eyes shut, but she was in fact very happily taking inventory of the supplies inside the boxes and sorting them into the system warehouse.
She’d thought about the warehouse problem early on, so before she ever met Xue Yanhen, Bai Zhuo had put some supermarket shelving into her system inventory, which now came in handy.
In an instant the warehouse took on a fresh, immaculate look. The corners of Bai Zhuo’s mouth curved up in satisfaction.
Zhou Qing pulled the car over to the roadside. The rain was too heavy, and with no navigation, driving on like this could end in an accident.
“Even a paper map would do,” Xue Yanhen murmured.
Bai Zhuo looked out the window. With the infrastructure so badly damaged, the city had already begun to flood. Their position was on relatively higher ground, and even so the water was deep.
“Let’s find somewhere to take shelter first.”
“You two go on ahead. I’ll hide the car,” Zhou Qing said in a low voice.
Bai Zhuo answered with a hum, and she and Xue Yanhen pulled on rain gear together, tugged their hoods low, and got out.
Even in the downpour there were still zombies wandering. Seeming to sense living flesh, they lunged this way at once.
Bai Zhuo gripped the crowbar and cleanly finished off one zombie.
“Over here!” Zhou Qing called out to them.
Neither of the two lingered to fight. They turned and ran toward Zhou Qing.
A blade grazed past Bai Zhuo in an instant, driving straight into a zombie’s brain.
Bai Zhuo looked at the grim-faced Zhou Qing in surprise. So this was the strength of a rank-4 ability user?
“Get inside.”
This must originally have been some government office, the sign was gone, and they could only guess roughly from the interior fittings.
“Split up and search. Watch yourselves.”
Bai Zhuo flashed an okay and headed upstairs.
Papers were scattered across the floor, probably left behind during an emergency evacuation in the early days of the outbreak.
Bai Zhuo walked into an office that had lost its door, inside was an even greater mess.
Giving the leftover things a quick rummage, Bai Zhuo unexpectedly turned up a travel brochure.
Inside were a map of this city along with photos and markings of the corresponding landmark buildings.
That counted as a pleasant surprise.
Brochure in hand, she went through the other offices on the second floor as well, but found nothing else useful.
To avoid being flooded out on the ground floor or attacked by zombies, they chose the fifth floor as their rest point.
Zhou Qing had found two simple camp cots, with a bit of tidying, they were still usable.
Bai Zhuo waved the thing in her hand. “Look what I found.”
Zhou Qing’s eyes lit up. He took it, examined it carefully, and let out a breath of relief. “Good, our detour wasn’t too far. Once the rain stops, we can make it back within a day.”
It wasn’t like before the apocalypse, when any random highway would be jammed. This whole way, they hadn’t run into a single car or person besides themselves.
Bai Zhuo leaned by the window, looking outside. “You two rest. I’ll keep watch tonight.”
“Are you sure?” asked Xue Yanhen, who had been silent all this while.
Bai Zhuo turned and smiled. “I slept in the car. I’m fine.”
Zhou Qing drew a deep breath and nodded at her. “Sorry to trouble you.”
He really was exhausted.
Before long the two of them fell into a heavy sleep to the sound of the pouring rain, leaving only faint breathing in the room.
But even a downpour couldn’t mask a zombie riot.
Xue Yanhen and Zhou Qing snapped awake at once. “What’s happening?”
Standing by the window, Bai Zhuo had her brows knit tight. “The zombies are rioting. There may be someone out there.”
Zhou Qing rolled off the cot and strode to Bai Zhuo’s side, peering outside.
His eyesight was good, but the rain was too heavy, veiling their line of sight.
“I’ll go take a look.”
Zhou Qing pulled on rain gear and walked out without hesitation.
Bai Zhuo and Xue Yanhen exchanged a glance and followed him down, ready to back him up at any moment.
Zhou Qing was gone a long time and didn’t come back.
Suddenly a flash of light caught Bai Zhuo’s attention. She took a step forward without thinking. What was that?
【Beep, emergency mission issued! Host, hurry to rescue Gu Zhun!】
Gu Zhun?!
Bai Zhuo snatched up the crowbar and charged toward the flashing light.
Gu Zhun, down on one knee, had no strength left at all. The rain sluiced over the wounds on his body, badly hurt and losing heat, for one instant he thought he might die right here.
The rank stench of the zombies had already drifted into his nose. Gu Zhun tried to lift the hand pressed against the ground, but he couldn’t, the last of his ability had gone into that final strike a moment ago.
The feeling of a zombie’s sharp claws tearing through his skin—
“Gu Zhun!!”
Along with that shout came the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.
Gu Zhun’s vision had already gone blurry, he couldn’t make out the newcomer’s face.
But he remembered this voice.
Bai Zhuo.
“Thud—”
Gu Zhun collapsed into the rainwater.
Bai Zhuo gritted her teeth and kicked a zombie flying, hauled Gu Zhun up onto her back, and turned to run.
Brushing past her went Xue Yanhen, who cut down every zombie that gave chase.
Right then Bai Zhuo was deeply grateful for her own great strength, otherwise she’d never have carried Gu Zhun up five flights in one go.
She had just laid Gu Zhun on a cot when Xue Yanhen and Zhou Qing came rushing in.
“How is he?!”
Gu Zhun’s body temperature was too low. Bai Zhuo could spare no thought for anything else, she stripped off his soaked combat uniform entirely and pulled a blanket out of thin air, wrapping him up tight.
Zhou Qing’s pupils shrank sharply. He stared at Bai Zhuo, stunned.
So the space-type ability user the Linzhou base had been hunting all this time was actually her!!
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