Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Lin Hao sat on the couch, repeatedly refreshing his phone. The internet still hadn’t gone down completely, but the connection kept cutting in and out, only adding to his frustration.

“Sigh…”

He had no choice but to put down his phone and fiddle with the radio instead, but there was still no news.

Nearly half a month had passed since the apocalypse began, yet there had been no word from the government. He had even privately asked his cousin and Fang Shuyao if they knew anything. Since Fang Shuyao came from a military family, he had thought she might have received some inside information.

Instead, Fang Shuyao had merely shaken her head with a grave expression. “The last time I spoke to them was two days before the apocalypse. I haven’t been able to reach them since.”

There was no way the government was completely incapable of dealing with these crazies.

At the end of the day, they were still human. A few drone strikes should have been enough to clear out a safe zone in no time.

Could it be… that the situation was even worse than they had imagined?

Lin Hao raked a hand irritably through his hair before picking up the drone controller again.

Carefully working the joysticks, he sent the drone flying steadily down the mountain and gradually lowered the camera.

The streets slowly came into focus. Lin Hao noted the locations of several supermarkets and convenience stores, committing them to memory.

He left the drone hovering above an intersection and slowly rotated the camera, trying to survey the neighborhoods farther away. As the camera swept past an alley, he spotted several figures swaying in the shadows.

Crazies.

They seemed to be tearing something apart, their movements wild and excited.

Lin Hao lowered the drone for a better look.

Just then, one of the crazies crouching beside a wall suddenly snapped its head up. Its bloodshot eyes locked onto the drone in the air. Grinning, it snatched up a dark red lump from the ground and hurled it at the drone with all its strength!

The object grazed past the rotors, leaving a blurred streak across the screen.

Lin Hao’s hand jerked, but he quickly steadied the controls. He curled his lip, thoroughly unnerved, then reassured himself: As long as it flies high enough, they can’t hit it.

He raised the drone and continued his survey, memorizing the locations of several places that might still contain supplies.

Meanwhile, Qingshui had decided to venture into the forest behind the villa and scout out an escape route in advance.

She, Li Wei’an, Ji Feifan, and Zhou Shaocheng had packed a few essentials and were now standing at the villa’s back door.

Each of them carried a lightweight backpack containing water and a small amount of high-calorie food.

The four of them pushed open the back door and entered the dense forest.

The trees were so thick that visibility remained poor even in broad daylight. The soil underfoot was soft and damp, making it easy to slip.

“Stay close,” Qingshui said from the front. Zhou Shaocheng followed directly behind her, keeping watch on their left. Li Wei’an walked in the middle, while Ji Feifan brought up the rear.

At first, they followed the faint traces of a footpath, but less than ten minutes later, it vanished into the dense undergrowth.

Soon, everything around them began to look the same: identical trees, identical vines, identical rocks.

“We need to keep a record of our route,” Li Wei’an said quietly. She pulled a small notebook and pen from her backpack and sketched a rough map as they walked, marking any distinctive trees or rocks they passed.

The forest was far more complicated than they had expected. Ground that appeared flat could suddenly drop into a steep slope. Paths that looked passable from a distance turned out to be blocked by tangled thorns. In some places, the trees grew so close together that they had to turn sideways just to squeeze through.

“Stop,” Qingshui suddenly said, raising a hand.

The other three immediately froze and held their breath.

A patch of shrubs trembled not far ahead.

It wasn’t the wind.

Qingshui slowly crouched, picked up a small stone, and lightly tossed it toward the shrubs.

Rustle!

Several startled birds burst from the undergrowth, beating their wings as they disappeared into the depths of the forest.

It was a false alarm.
The four of them pressed on in silence. As the hours passed, the time on their phones slowly crept toward noon, and the sunlight grew steadily stronger.

“Let’s take a break,” Qingshui said, stopping in a relatively open clearing. “Eat something and get your strength back.”

The four of them sat with their backs against the trees and took energy bars and water from their backpacks. No one spoke. The only sounds were chewing and the occasional sip of water. The mountain forest was eerily quiet, with barely even a birdcall to be heard.

“According to my phone, we’ve covered three kilometers,” Li Wei’an said, studying the rough map she had drawn and making a quick estimate. “We’ve stayed more or less north, but the actual route has been very winding.”

“It’s way too easy to get lost in these woods.” Zhou Shaocheng wiped the sweat from his forehead. “A developer was planning to turn this whole mountain forest into a tourist attraction before, but they decided it was too much trouble. What a shame.”

Qingshui painted a yellow dot on the tree they had been resting against.

After a twenty-minute break, the four of them set out again. The route ahead was even more difficult. They had to cross a steep scree slope, where loose stones shifted beneath their feet and a single misstep could send them sliding.

“Careful!”

Ji Feifan reacted quickly, grabbing Zhou Shaocheng just as he was about to lose his footing.

Zhou Shaocheng broke out in a cold sweat. Once he regained his balance, he thanked Ji Feifan repeatedly.

After crossing the scree slope, they found that the trees ahead were beginning to thin out. They walked for another half hour before Qingshui, who was leading the group, suddenly stopped.

“Look.”

She pushed aside the last cluster of branches blocking their path.

The view before them opened up all at once.

The mountain forest ended abruptly here, giving way to a vast expanse of farmland. The fields lay abandoned, clearly uncultivated for a long time. Weeds grew everywhere, nearly reaching their waists.

In the distance, a gray-black road stretched across the fields like a ribbon.

“We made it out of the forest,” Li Wei’an said softly, her voice carrying a trace of incredulous delight.

The four of them stood at the edge of the forest, gazing over the open land before them.

“The visibility is excellent here,” Ji Feifan said as he surveyed their surroundings. “From higher ground, we’d be able to see a long way. But that also means we’d be easy to spot.”

Qingshui used her camera to examine the road in detail. Several abandoned cars sat along it, but there was no sign of anyone moving. Everything looked lifeless.

They left clear markings at the edge of the forest, spraying a conspicuous yellow arrow on the tree closest to the open fields.

“We should head back.” Qingshui glanced at the sky. The sun had already begun to sink westward. “We need to reach the villa before dark.”

The return trip was more tense than the journey out. As evening approached, the light beneath the trees faded quickly. They had to retrace their original route, relying on their makeshift markers and their memories.

“Is this the right way?” Zhou Shaocheng asked uncertainly when they reached a fork.

“This way.” Qingshui spotted the yellow dot on a tree trunk. “There’s the marker.”

As darkness closed in, they quickened their pace. None of them wanted to spend the night out there.

At last, just before the sun disappeared completely, they caught sight of the villa’s rear wall.

At that moment, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

By the time they returned to the villa, night had fallen. The others in the main hall were calmly going about their tasks.

“How did it go?” Chen Yuhui asked, looking at them with concern.

“Let us get some water first,” Zhou Shaocheng said as he practically collapsed onto the sofa.

“The mountain forest is complicated, and it’s very easy to get lost,” Qingshui summarized. “But we found a passable route. We kept heading north, and after about four hours of walking, we finally made it out of the forest.”

“We left markers along the way.” Li Wei’an took out the rough map she had drawn and spread it across the coffee table. “We marked the tree trunks with yellow paint, roughly one marker every fifty meters, all the way to the exit. We added a few more on the way back to make sure they’ll still be visible at night.”

“That road…” Fang Shuyao asked quietly. “Did you see any cars? Or… people?”

Qingshui shook her head. “There was no sign of activity. We saw several abandoned cars, but no people.”