Chapter 90: Back on the Road
Translator: Pluto Editor: Tehrn
The countless vehicles on the highway formed a river of steel. The cars surged forward like turbulent currents under the blue road sign as if trying to create an escape path to survive. There was a cacophony of insane car horns, the sounds of crashing cars, the crying screeches and irate arguments, and the aftermath of various collided cars… This horror scene quickly spread and extended…
Until everything suddenly stopped as if someone had pressed a “pause” button.
Lin Sanjiu threaded through the rows of cars stuck in an eternal traffic jam. Apart from her own footsteps and the incessant sound of a car horn coming from a distance, there was silence. It was that same jutting honk which made the highway seemed even more lifeless.
Suddenly, the sharp, annoying blare stopped. Hu Changzai was some distance away from her. He was in front of a car whose original color had already faded beyond recognition. He straightened his back as he complained, “Of all places, he had to die on his car horn.”
When Lin Sanjiu heard this, she remembered how Luther had stepped quickly and callously on the backs of multiples corpses — she had been so angry back then. But now, their impression of a dead body had turned from that of unimaginable fear to something that they were so used to seeing that they wouldn’t even raise a brow.
The blue sky hung over her as she looked up to read the road sign above. The road sign had been exposed to the sandstorms and high heat for over six months, so it wasn’t a mystery that the words on the sign were barely readable. Lin Sanjiu squinted and stood on the spot with her tilted head for several minutes before she eventually made out the words with some guessing. She yelled out to her companions who were far away from her, “We are 60 kilometers away from Yanping Port!”
“We are still that far?” B.Rabbit sighed as he stood on top of a flatten Volvo, still in his goth makeup. “Why didn’t we get a special item which can let us fly?”
Due to their [Versu Poison], they spread themselves out and walked at their own pace. It had already been more than one month since they escaped that weird game-type Pocket Dimension. This one month had been unexpectedly peaceful, apart from the fact that they were often hungry and beleaguered by thirst. It had already been two days since they last ate.
The high temperatures no longer posed a threat to their enhanced body, but it created another problematic situation. Without the water reserve in their vehicles, they naturally thought that they could find some food supplies from supermarkets, food factories or convenient stores… They initially thought that, within this large city, it would be easy to find a supermarket which hadn’t been ransacked. However, they were proven wrong by reality.
Vacuum-packed and dried food had all been taken from the shelves. Going to a supermarket was probably the first thing on everyone’s mind, so there wasn’t even a single bottle of water left in most supermarkets they went to. And those were the supermarkets which still remained intact after the apocalypse. Most of the supermarkets in the city were destroyed along with the entire building they were in. Under the hot weather, they were now merely heaps of rubble.
Nothing. There was no food or drinkable water anywhere. Even the city’s reservoirs were dried up, leaving only a shallow sump surrounded by mud.
Just as all of them were getting worried and closer to despair, Lin Sanjiu suddenly thought of a place. If things went well, the water and food supplies stored there would far exceed any supermarket. In addition to that, not many people would even think about that place: the customs warehouse at the port.
As a flourishing port city, Shenghai City’s imports and exports figures were astronomical. Imported consumables were one of the special goods which had to be stored in a customs warehouse for a month for inspection before they got approvals.
Imported consumables imported from overseas had to fill up at least one container. Furthermore, the conditions at sea meant that the food had to be properly sealed and preserved. Moreover, the port was located in a rather secluded area, so it was also safer.
[Other than the customs warehouse at the port, could there be any better place to seek shelter?]
Therefore, even though Yanping Port was very far, they all continued on this journey willingly. As they were impeded by the long rows of abandoned cars, they could not move any faster. However, without any map and no GPS, they could only forge ahead following the signs on the highway. After walking quietly in the same manner for some time, Lin Sanjiu stopped.
A dark brown hand opened the car door beside the driver’s seat belonging to the car in front of Lin Sanjiu. The opened door directly blocked Lin Sanjiu’s way forward.
Lin Sanjiu watched expressionlessly as a dried, shriveled duoluozhong came out of the car. She waved her hand, and a mouthpart appeared in her hand, one that was longer than the mouthpart of the duoluozhong in front of her. Even before the duoluozhong could react, its head along with its small mouthpart flew away from Lin Sanjiu.
“I haven’t seen such a dry duoluozhong in a long time,” she mumbled to herself. “Life must be hard,” after she said that, she stepped over the dead body and kicked the door before continuing forward.
Hu Changzai, who watched her from a distance, suddenly approached Hai Tianqing and asked, “Hey, Executive Hai…”
Hai Tianqing consciously moved away from him. “What?”
“Do you think that Xiao Jiu looks much cooler after she has cut her hair short?”
“I have no idea. I am straight,” Hai Tianqing replied as he eyed Hu Changzai.
“Uh, that’s right…”Hu Changzai nodded in agreement but suddenly realized that there was something wrong with that logic. “Huh? But I am straight too. Executive Hai, you mean…”
Lin Sanjiu, who was leading the group, acted like she didn’t hear their conversation at all. They continued for about another two hours until it was near afternoon. The sun gradually became harsher as the sunlight made it hard for them to keep their eyes open. Despite all of them having Heat Resistance Adaptation and Physical Enhancement, all of them could feel the scalding hot air surrounding them. The burning heat, along with the sand dust, irritated their lungs.
After they passed a few intersections, there were fewer cars on the road. As the sun blazed over their heads, the temperature was no longer suitable for them to be walking outside. Just when they were tempted to look for a car to sleep, the road turned to one corner, revealing the entrance to a dark tunnel.
“Let’s enter that tunnel to rest. It’s cooler there.”
They entered the tunnel in a single file. The tunnel was very long, so without the lights, it was as if they were entering the stomach of a mountain. The road ahead of them was dark, and they could only see the light at the end of the tunnel when they turned behind.
Once they entered the tunnel, they realized that there were even fewer cars. The road they were on only led to the seaside, and when Hyperthermal Hell just descended, almost no one thought of going to the seaside for shelter.
As B.Rabbit was the smallest among them, he needed twice the energy to cover the same distance. Thus, at that point, he was already very exhausted. Before they even walked a few steps, he jumped up on top of a car, like the king of the mountain, and declared, “I will sleep in this car!”
As they had [Versu Poison] in their bodies, all of them slept in individual cars throughout their journey. This was to prevent them from accidentally touching each other. Dying that way would be really quite stupid.
Hai Tianqing chose the largest SUV he could find while Hu Changzai chose a jeep. Lin Sanjiu was the only one who continued walking around. Every now and then, she would bend down and wipe a car window before looking inside.
Even though most of the cars were not locked, not all cars were suitable for sleeping. Most of the owners died in their cars, so the interiors of their cars were filled with the stench of rotten flesh and the smell of iron from their dried blood. The stench from opening one of those cars was sufficient to give a person a headache. Thus, only cars belonging to owners who had abandoned them to escape were a somewhat bearable choice to sleep in.
The few cars which Lin Sanjiu checked were all not suitable. Just when she was feeling a little at a loss as to what she should do, she suddenly noticed a Toyota Land Cruiser with an opened door just some distance in front of her. She was delighted. If the door was open, it meant that the owner had already left. The car was big, so she thought about how she would be able to sleep comfortably inside. She walked a few steps toward the driver seat and opened the door wider. Then, she peeked inside the car.
When she looked inside the car, she saw Zhu Mei smiling at her — if that could be considered a smile.
