Chapter 52
Chapter 52
Qingshui led the others on a detour around the left side of the rising smoke.
They did not dare head straight for its source, but even their roundabout route could not completely avoid the “things” drawn by the smoke. Several times, they had to stop abruptly, hold their breath, and huddle in the bushes as hideous Madmen swept past nearby.
Constantly stopping and starting drained what little stamina they had left and pushed their frayed nerves even closer to the breaking point.
“Qingshui,” An Xiaolin whispered between gasps, sweat trickling down her temple. “Do you think… that smoke could’ve been… Yuhui and the others?”
Qingshui did not dismiss the possibility right away. With her back pressed against an old tree, she watched the direction in which the Madmen had disappeared. Only after several seconds did she answer, “It’s possible.”
After a brief pause, she added, “But it could also be a trap set by the Madmen.”
“If it really is them, and we keep taking the long way around… could we end up…” Lin Hao asked quietly.
Qingshui fell silent for several seconds. Going straight there would be far too dangerous. But if they ignored it completely, and it really was a signal from their companions…
Watching Qingshui’s grave profile, Lin Hao suddenly had an idea. “What if… we use the drone to take a look?”
Even he thought it sounded far-fetched as soon as he said it, and his voice trailed off.
Qingshui and An Xiaolin turned toward him almost simultaneously, staring at him in speechless disbelief.
An Xiaolin rolled her eyes. Exhaustion and tension had left her voice hoarse. “And let it buzz all the way over there, announcing to all the Madmen, ‘Hey, we’re over here! Come take a look’? Lin Hao, are we not dying fast enough for you?”
Lin Hao ducked his head and shut his mouth sheepishly.
Qingshui frowned slightly. Her gaze fell on her mud-caked hands, then slowly traveled upward to the phone tucked into her side pocket.
“Our phones,” she said.
An Xiaolin and Lin Hao froze for a moment, then their eyes lit up at the same time. Of course! Their phones! In an age when smart devices had become an inseparable part of everyday life, they had somehow completely forgotten the most ordinary means of communication.
The two of them fumbled to pull out their phones.
But the moment the screens lit up, their faint spark of joy was drowned beneath even greater disappointment.
“No service… Not a single bar in this damn forest!” Lin Hao cursed under his breath, holding his phone up and turning it futilely in different directions.
“Same here…” An Xiaolin anxiously swiped at the sluggish screen.
Lin Hao said, “But… if we keep heading out, or find higher ground, we should be able to get a signal.”
“All right,” Qingshui said.
They moved toward higher ground with even greater caution.
They had no idea how much longer they walked. Exhaustion was close to crushing the last of their willpower. Zhou Yaping could only continue with Lin Hao carrying her, and Qingshui’s lips had gone pale.
“There! I’ve got service! One bar!” An Xiaolin suddenly cried out in a hushed but excited voice, her eyes fixed on the faint, flickering symbol in the upper-right corner of her screen.
Her spirits surged. With trembling fingers, she struggled to unlock her phone and tapped the familiar green icon.
The icon spun as the app loaded… so slowly it made their hearts burn with impatience.
She found Chen Yuhui’s profile picture and opened their chat. Their last conversation was still there, casual chatter about homework and the cafeteria’s new dishes from before the apocalypse. Looking at it now felt like peering into another lifetime.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to stay calm. Fighting the unresponsive screen, she painstakingly tapped out a short message:
Where are you? The smoke?
Send.
The tiny circle began to spin as the message loaded…
They waited. Every second made their entire bodies prickle with anxiety.
An Xiaolin bit down hard on her lower lip, nearly drawing blood, and stared unblinkingly at the screen. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. Hurry! Come on, hurry!
Qingshui and Lin Hao stood with their backs to her, vigilantly scanning their surroundings, their nerves stretched just as taut.
After what felt like a century, the message status finally changed from “Sending” to “Sent.”
An Xiaolin nearly collapsed with relief, but she did not dare relax. All she could do was endure another agonizing wait.
Answer me! Yuhui! Chen Yuhui! Please! An Xiaolin screamed silently in her heart. Veins stood out on the hand gripping her phone.
“Well?” Qingshui asked without turning around.
“It went through… No reply yet…” An Xiaolin’s voice was dry and trembling.
Just as despair was squeezing the breath from her lungs, her phone screen suddenly flickered.
A short message appeared beside Chen Yuhui’s profile picture:
Yes. Don’t go.
Before An Xiaolin could even react, a live location-sharing request popped up.
An Xiaolin’s heart nearly stopped. She looked at Qingshui, who quickly glanced at the screen and gave a slight nod.
With a trembling finger, An Xiaolin tapped “Accept.”
The map loaded at a crawl, and two markers representing their real-time locations slowly appeared on the screen.
One showed their own location. The other… was Chen Yuhui.
They weren’t terribly far away. More importantly, the tiny dot representing Chen Yuhui was slowly moving across the map.
They were still alive! And they were on the move!
An Xiaolin zoomed in on the map again and again, trying to make out the general terrain and direction.
“Let’s go!” She turned the phone toward Qingshui and Lin Hao, quickly pointing out the direction and distance.
They changed course. Instead of wandering around aimlessly, they headed toward a point roughly ahead of Chen Yuhui’s moving marker, hoping to meet up with them.
After passing through a denser, dimly lit stretch of woods, the ground began to slope downward beneath their feet. Gradually, the unbroken sound of running water reached their ears.
The soil underfoot also grew wet and slippery.
The water effectively masked the faint sounds of their movement, allowing the group, who had been on edge the entire time, to relax slightly.
They carefully followed the sound until a narrow but fast-flowing stream came into view.
Not daring to stop, they continued along the bank in the direction indicated by the map.
As they pressed on, the canopy overhead seemed to thin. More and more of the gray sky showed through.
Even the air seemed to flow more freely.
After struggling over a low, treacherously slick rise, the view before them suddenly opened up.
The trees became shorter and more sparse, while vast expanses of gray sky stretched unobstructed overhead.
They had finally emerged from the suffocating mountain forest and reached its outskirts.
“Did we… make it out?” Lin Hao murmured in disbelief as he held Zhou Yaping and stared at the open sky.
“Yeah,” Qingshui replied, though her eyes continued to sweep their surroundings warily.
An Xiaolin had kept her gaze fixed on her phone. Now, she said in a subdued voice, “We’re close.”
On the screen, the two dots representing them and Chen Yuhui were now only a tiny distance apart.
Before Qingshui could speak, An Xiaolin abruptly looked up. “I’ll go ahead alone. You should hide nearby.” She pointed toward several large rocks off to the side. “In case… in case it isn’t Yuhui and the others…”
She didn’t finish, but everyone understood. It could be a trap, or Chen Yuhui and the others might already have met with disaster, leaving the phone in the hands of the Madmen. Someone had to check, but there was no reason for all of them to risk being wiped out.
Qingshui looked at her and fell silent for a moment. An Xiaolin’s suggestion was the most cautious option they had. She nodded. “Be careful. If anything seems wrong, run back immediately. Don’t hesitate.”
An Xiaolin nodded firmly and tightened her grip on her dagger. Drawing a deep breath, she set off alone, cautiously approaching the other marker on the map.
Every step landed on slick pebbles. Her heart pounded like a drum, and her eyes remained locked on the path ahead. Her shoulders even angled back unconsciously, her entire body poised to flee at a moment’s notice.
The distance between them continued to shrink. The two dots on her phone were almost completely overlapping.
Suddenly, a patch of waist-high plants ahead rustled faintly.
An Xiaolin stopped dead.
A mud-smeared hand reached out and pushed the leaves aside.
A face appeared from behind the swaying greenery.
It was exhausted and filthy, with deep-set eyes, but those eyes were brimming with joy.
It was Chen Yuhui!
The next instant, An Xiaolin rushed forward, threw open her arms, and pulled the equally stunned Chen Yuhui into a fierce embrace.
The force sent them both stumbling.
“Thank goodness…” An Xiaolin buried her face in Chen Yuhui’s dust-covered, sweat-scented shoulder, barely able to string her words together. “Everyone’s alive… You’re alive.”
Chen Yuhui slowly raised a hand, then wrapped her arms around An Xiaolin’s trembling shoulders. “We’re alive.”
No more words were needed. At that moment, their embrace said more than words ever could.
Behind them, Qingshui and Lin Hao had seen everything from their hiding place behind the rocks. Qingshui’s tightly drawn brows eased slightly, and Lin Hao released a silent breath.
“That’s enough hugging. Let’s move.” Ji Feifan stood behind Chen Yuhui with his arms crossed, his expression grim. “We need to get ahead of those Madmen.”
Qingshui hurried over, her brows furrowed. “What was that smoke about?”
“We’ll explain as we walk.” Chen Yuhui quickly pulled up the map on her phone. “We made the smoke, but it drew the Madmen here too. Ji Feifan and I decided to head for the gas station over twenty kilometers away. It’s the nearest place to find supplies. We figured that once you shook off your pursuers, you’d probably head there as well.”
She looked up, her tone becoming lighter. “Luckily, we heard from you.”
Qingshui nodded. Her gaze swept over their faces before settling on the slight stiffness in their movements. In a grave voice, she pressed, “Are you two all right?”
Ji Feifan tugged at the corner of his mouth, his tone giving nothing away. “We’re fine. We took a fall, but it won’t stop us from walking.”