The next day, a military jeep slipped silently out of Lin City, which was already nearly deserted.
The growl of the engine drew countless zombies into pursuit, shambling after the vehicle through the ruined streets. The people inside paid them no mind. The jeep kept pushing forward, weaving through roads choked with abandoned cars. Only when the horde drew too close would flames suddenly erupt in front of them, exploding outward in a blazing barrier that swallowed the zombies whole and cut off their path.
Mo Chu leaned out from the passenger seat to look behind them. Only after seeing the pursuing zombies blocked by fire did she pull back inside and flash Li Chen an OK sign, signaling him to keep driving.
Li Chen, however, slowed the jeep to a stop.
“We can’t get through.”
Mo Chu looked ahead and immediately saw why.
Three sedans had crashed together across the narrow street, sealing it off completely. There was no way their jeep could squeeze through.
Just looking at it exhausted her.
When she’d asked for a vehicle, she’d done it without hesitation. Back then, she’d been thinking like someone from six years into the apocalypse. By that point, vehicles were priceless—without one, traveling between survivor bases was nearly impossible.
So she’d naturally chosen a car.
What she’d forgotten was that this was still the beginning of the apocalypse. The streets were packed with abandoned vehicles and human corpses. Traffic conditions were hellish. Honestly, if all she wanted was speed, she would’ve been better off asking the platoon leader for a military motorcycle.
Yesterday they’d gathered almost all the crystal cores they needed and stuffed the trunk full of scavenged food before leaving the city.
And after more than two hours of driving, they’d barely made it a few miles.
Li Chen got out of the jeep. Mo Chu followed, and finally Xiao Jin climbed out through the back window. The two humans and one dog stood staring at the wreckage blocking the road.
Mo Chu walked closer to inspect it.
Two of the cars were empty. She had no idea whether their owners had died in the mouths of zombies or become zombies themselves.
But in the third car, she saw a human corpse.
There were no bite wounds on the body. Instead, there was a knife wound across the neck, cleanly severing the artery.
Mo Chu stared at it for a moment before letting out a quiet sigh.
To survive the apocalypse only to die at the hands of your own kind.
How ironic.
She turned to Li Chen. “Let’s go around.”
He nodded.
So they took another detour.
Back in the passenger seat, Mo Chu glanced sideways at Li Chen as he drove, and her thoughts drifted unexpectedly to the night before.
Last night, Li Chen had absorbed his first crystal core.
His ability was overwhelmingly powerful—far stronger than most people’s, both in quality and raw strength. Mo Chu had assumed absorbing his first core would go smoothly.
She hadn’t expected things to nearly spiral out of control.
The moment he absorbed the crystal core, his reaction had been violent.
When Li Chen closed his eyes, she had no idea what he’d seen, but his body temperature skyrocketed almost instantly. Veins bulged along his wrists as if they were about to burst through the skin. His fingernails turned gray in a heartbeat—the unmistakable signs of secondary infection.
Mo Chu had been terrified.
She didn’t dare hesitate. Just as she was about to forcibly interrupt the absorption process, Li Chen suddenly opened his eyes.
He seemed awake again.
But his eyes were red.
When that crimson gaze turned toward her, there was a terrifying madness hidden beneath its eerie calm. It was not the look of someone who had regained consciousness.
Mo Chu’s guard shot to its highest point.
Tentatively, she called his name.
“Li Chen?”
Those red eyes fixed on her.
Her heart trembled.
A cold shiver crawled up her spine.
Yet somehow, that single call seemed to pull him back from the edge. His gaze wavered, struggling for a few agonizing moments before the red slowly faded away, replaced once more by the color of a living human being.
He looked at her.
The confusion in his eyes ebbed away, leaving behind a stillness as deep and quiet as the sea.
That was Li Chen’s gaze.
Only then had he truly come back to himself.
A close call—but in that moment, Mo Chu had genuinely felt relieved.
And when Li Chen spoke her name in that slightly hoarse voice of his, she suddenly thought her own name had never sounded so beautiful before.
Thankfully, Li Chen made it through.
At the time, that had been the only thought in her head.
But afterward, the more she thought about it, the stranger it felt.
Normally, the stronger the ability user, the lower the risk of infection while absorbing crystal cores. Li Chen’s powers were absurdly strong, so why had he nearly lost control?
He’d even fared worse than she had.
In her previous life, Li Chen had been acknowledged as humanity’s strongest fighter. There was no way the problem lay with his ability itself. If even Li Chen’s powers had flaws, then half the ability-user world might as well collapse.
Which meant the issue could only be with Li Chen himself.
What exactly had he seen in that instant while absorbing the crystal core?
What could shake even him so badly that he lost control long enough for the energy to overwhelm him?
But their relationship wasn’t close enough for that kind of question. Even though their lives had been intertwined from her previous life to this one, they still weren’t at the point where they could speak openly about everything.
So if Li Chen didn’t want to say it, she wouldn’t ask.
Still, ever since they’d hit the road today, he’d been noticeably quieter.
Not that he usually talked much.
But this was different.
Maybe because she’d been staring too long, Li Chen suddenly glanced over at her.
“What is it?” he asked softly.
Mo Chu had no intention of bringing up last night, so she blinked and said instead, “You’ve been driving for a while. Want to switch? I can take over.”
Truthfully, she’d never gotten a driver’s license in either life.
But after surviving six years in the apocalypse, there was no way she wouldn’t know how to drive.
Li Chen shook his head. “I’m not tired.”
Mo Chu casually popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth.
Li Chen froze slightly, the chocolate caught between his lips.
Then he heard her say, “Even if you’re not tired, you should still keep your energy up.”
From the back seat, Xiao Jin saw Mo Chu feeding Li Chen but not him and immediately started barking in outrage.
Without even looking back, Mo Chu tossed him half a sausage.
Xiao Jin quieted instantly, satisfied.
Watching Mo Chu’s helpless expression, Li Chen let out a soft laugh before he could stop himself.
The chocolate melted slowly on his tongue.
Strangely, he couldn’t taste even a hint of bitterness.
…
After another two hours on the road, the sun climbed high overhead. By the time noon approached, they finally managed to leave the city center behind.
Relying on memory, Li Chen navigated through winding roads until they eventually reached the highway.
Unlike the cramped city streets, the national highway was broad and mostly clear. There were still abandoned vehicles scattered around, but far fewer than before. At long last, they could finally pick up speed.
After spending half the day trapped in endless traffic jams and blocked roads, Mo Chu felt like sprinting thirty miles just to celebrate.
Another half hour later, Li Chen pulled the jeep over by the roadside so they could rest and eat.
Mo Chu sat on the roof of the jeep, chewing on a piece of bread while glancing down below.
Li Chen crouched beside the vehicle, absentmindedly eating with one hand while peeling open another piece of bread to feed Xiao Jin.
The golden retriever ate happily.
But watching him, Mo Chu started to worry.
Xiao Jin’s appetite was enormous. Maybe it was because he had awakened a strength-type ability, but he ate more than both her and Li Chen combined.
Originally, Mo Chu had calculated that the food they’d packed should barely last until they reached Hai City.
Now it looked like they’d need a new plan.
Lost in thought, she tore off another bite of bread.
That was when three sedans suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the highway, speeding toward them.
Mo Chu glanced over and called for Li Chen to move aside and let them pass first.
Along the way, they’d run into scattered survivors and vehicles from time to time—people who hadn’t left with the evacuation convoys for one reason or another. Some were trying to return home to find family. Others were heading to friends or relatives.
Li Chen rose to his feet and stepped aside with Xiao Jin.
At first, Mo Chu hadn’t paid the approaching cars much attention.
But as they drew closer, all three vehicles suddenly slowed at the same time.
A moment later, they accelerated sharply, charging straight toward Mo Chu and Li Chen. In the blink of an eye, the three cars boxed them in from front and back.
The instant the cars slowed, Mo Chu sensed something was wrong. Her hand moved immediately to her waist.
By the time the vehicles stopped, she already had her dagger drawn.
Li Chen, on the other hand, didn’t move at all.
He simply rested one hand lazily on Xiao Jin’s head, calm eyes carrying a faint, razor-sharp chill.
The car doors opened.
Seven or eight men stepped out.
The one in front was the largest, broad-shouldered and imposing, with an arrogant air about him. His eyes landed first on Mo Chu, sweeping lazily over her from head to toe before deliberately pausing on the dagger in her hand.
A loose, mocking chuckle escaped his throat.
At that moment, the calmness in Li Chen’s expression vanished.
He looked up sharply at the man. A flash of red flickered through his eyes before dissolving into a frightening coldness.
Mo Chu, however, became even calmer.
She understood immediately.
Highway robbers.
She looked at them evenly and asked, “What do you want?”
The lead man ignored her completely. Instead, he glanced at Li Chen, who had remained silent the entire time, and said in a commanding tone,
“Leave the woman and your food behind, and I’ll let you walk away.”
One of the men beside him immediately added, “Brother Ji, their vehicle’s good too! A military jeep—they must’ve gotten it from somewhere special.”
Brother Ji grinned.
“Fine. Leave the woman, the car, and the food.” He smiled leisurely. “We’ll spare your life. Of course, you can refuse if you want. In that case, we’ll break your legs first and still spare your life. You can crawl back to the survivor camp.”
The others burst into laughter.
Amid the jeering, Brother Ji raised a fist. His arm instantly swelled to more than twice its normal size.
He held it up proudly, looking at them with naked arrogance.
They’d done this many times before. With ability powers backing them up, robbing people on the road had become second nature. They had never failed.
Now he simply waited for the two strangers in front of him to beg for mercy.
But things didn’t unfold the way he expected.
Neither of them showed fear.
The woman looked at him coldly, and there was even a trace of mockery in her eyes.
Their reaction unsettled him.
A strange sense of panic rose in his chest, a feeling that things were slipping beyond his control. But soon that fear twisted into irritation at their refusal to know their place.
Just as he was about to speak again, the woman suddenly said coldly,
“Xiao Jin.”
Who was she calling?
Before he could react, a massive golden retriever lunged out from the side.
The dog leapt through the air, baring enormous fangs as it pounced on the man who’d spoken about taking the jeep.
The sound of bones cracking and flesh tearing exploded beside him.
The man screamed in agony, a shriek barely human anymore.
“Brother Ji! Save me!”
Brother Ji panicked for an instant, but quickly steadied himself. Just as he moved to intervene, the silent man before him finally lifted his head.
Brother Ji met a pair of crimson eyes.
Cold.
Murderous.
And he never got another chance to move.
