“Um…”
A trembling voice suddenly broke the quiet.
Bai Zhuo opened her eyes. It was one of the members of Gu Zhun’s squad.
“I’m not feeling well.”
“Is it acting up?” Gu Zhun rolled up and stood, striding over to him, feeling his neck and forehead, then turned and headed for the door.
On the way in he’d noticed there was a community health center over that way, maybe there were leftover meds inside they could use.
By the moonlight coming through the window, Bai Zhuo saw Gu Zhun’s movements and guessed his plan. She spoke up directly. “No need to go. The meds there have already been picked clean.”
Gu Zhun stopped and clenched his fists. It was all his fault, if he hadn’t wasted time searching for the target at the weather monitoring station, they wouldn’t have been trapped on the road by the extreme cold, much less…
Bai Zhuo threw off her blanket, carried over the other black bag, and dumped out all the medicine inside.
“See if there’s anything you need.”
The young man who’d given Bai Zhuo the compressed biscuits at the gas station stepped up at once, carefully reading the names of the medicines by the moonlight, and in the end really did find one that fit.
Xue Yanhen handed over a water bottle at just the right moment, then pointed upstairs. “There’s another mattress up there. You can bring it down to use.”
“Many thanks.”
After settling the two who were ability-drained and sick onto the mattresses, Gu Zhun finally let out a breath, then turned to look at the yawning Bai Zhuo and Xue Yanhen and thanked them again.
Bai Zhuo rested her head on Xue Yanhen’s shoulder. Hearing Gu Zhun’s words, she couldn’t help laughing. “Captain Gu, you’ve said thank you plenty of times already. You should just hurry and rest.”
Gu Zhun gave a wry chuckle. “All right.”
A warm environment really does put people at ease. Gu Zhun, who had meant to keep watch through the night, fell asleep too amid his teammates’ steady breathing.
Bai Zhuo slowly opened her eyes. The pale-blue, semi-transparent light screen appeared once more, its countdown numbers ticking away.
Damned system, why did this lousy mission come with a countdown?
Bai Zhuo’s gaze swept over the six people across the room and finally settled on Gu Zhun. He was the most likely to be the mission target.
【If the countdown ends and I fail the mission, what happens?】
From getting the loot-box system until now, she’d never actually failed a mission, so Bai Zhuo was rather curious.
【The mission target will die.】
Bai Zhuo was full of question marks. Excuse me? Your system can do that too?
The system seemed to read her inner grumbling, and rather exasperatedly cleared its name.
【Please don’t malign the system, host. It’s the target’s own impending calamity that could affect the course of the apocalypse, which is why the system issues related missions.】
Bai Zhuo went “oho” inwardly. 【So your system even knows the course of the apocalypse? Don’t tell me you’re a system that came from the future?】
The system clammed up. Speaking wasn’t an option and neither was staying silent, so it just let the host fill in the blanks herself, not its problem anyway.
Having finally pried a bit of useful information out of the system, Bai Zhuo closed her eyes in satisfaction. This time she really did fall asleep.
The storm raged all night long, and only when everyone had woken did the moaning of the wind outside finally die away.
Bai Zhuo rubbed her eyes and found that only two people were left across the room, which caught her a little off guard.
The now-recovered girl nodded and smiled at her. “The captain and the others went out to look for supplies, and to see if they can find a route back to base.”
The young man who’d fallen ill last night looked over too, thanking Bai Zhuo and Xue Yanhen softly.
“How’s your body holding up?”
The young man gave a bitter smile. “A condition I was born with. It was better back south, but after coming to Ning City the sudden drop in temperature makes it flare up. I’d actually been planning to leave the service and switch careers, but then the apocalypse hit out of nowhere and threw off all my plans.”
Who wasn’t in the same boat? Bai Zhuo sighed. She’d just gotten into grad school, and poof, gone.
“Your captain looks pretty formidable.”
“He is. The captain was among the very first batch to awaken abilities.”
Bai Zhuo nodded and didn’t ask further, lest she expose herself, it wouldn’t be worth it.
Gu Zhun and the others came back quickly, their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes all coated in frost, the exposed skin frozen numb.
Bai Zhuo glanced at the thermometer. Minus sixty.
They stayed inside for a long while after coming in before they finally shook off the feeling of freezing to death.
Before setting out they’d deliberately put on cold-resistant suits, and even so they’d been frozen into this sorry state.
If even ability users ended up like this, how were ordinary people supposed to survive in such extreme cold?
Bai Zhuo looked at Gu Zhun. This man was her mission target, she couldn’t let him die.
Sensing her gaze, Gu Zhun turned to look. “What is it?”
“Did you find anything this time?”
The young man behind him sighed. “We did, but we couldn’t bring it back, it was all frozen solid. If Xiao Wu were with us, we could’ve given it a real shot.”
Xiao Wu was the fire-type ability user who’d drained herself the night before.
Hearing that, the girl pressed her lips together. “Then once I’m better, I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t,” Gu Zhun said, shaking his head. He looked toward the door, his expression grave. “The temperature out there will only keep dropping. Our cold-resistant suits won’t hold up, not even for a fire-type ability user like you.”
If Xiao Wu’s ability were tier four, Gu Zhun would definitely take her out again. But as things stood, he couldn’t gamble with his teammate’s life.
Bai Zhuo took in the whole exchange, and her impression of Gu Zhun only grew better. If he truly was as upright as he seemed, then there’d be no harm in helping him complete the mission.
“If only our squad had a space-type ability user.”
Bai Zhuo raised her eyes and asked curiously, “Are space-type ability users very rare?”
“Extremely rare. We’ve only ever seen two space-type ability users here in Ning City, and one of them had a space of only about three cubic meters.”
Bai Zhuo silently pulled up the system inventory. Just one of her slots had to be a good three cubic meters, right?
【Please have a little confidence in your system inventory, host! It’s five cubic meters!】
Hearing the system’s indignant, bristling voice, a flicker of amusement crossed Bai Zhuo’s eyes.
Bai Zhuo dragged the hiking pack over and, just like she’d dumped out the medicine the night before, emptied everything inside it onto the floor.
Back when the apocalypse had first hit, she’d nearly gagged on compressed biscuits. This time she’d stashed twenty-odd packs inside just for show, she really couldn’t stomach them if she had to eat them, but now there was someone to help her clear them out.
“Miss, do you know the saying about not flaunting your wealth?” [1]don’t let others see what you’ve got , it invites trouble jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2936269_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2936269_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); the bespectacled young man who’d spoken with her earlier couldn’t help saying.
Even inside a survivor base, let alone out here, this stuff was hard currency.
Bai Zhuo just smiled sweetly and said nothing.
Please. She still had dozens of crates of compressed biscuits in her warehouse. By that logic, from now on, whenever she took a disliking to someone, she could just chuck compressed biscuits at them, and the other party would probably be grateful and beg her to throw a few more.
References[+]