The four of them from Quan Xiaoyu’s side also got into the car, with Ouyang Jing driving. They followed Mu Jiu’s vehicle toward J City.
Both Xiao Ziran and Quan Xiaoyu were covered in blood and looked thoroughly battered.
Fortunately, their injuries were only superficial. Neither of them could be bothered to deal with them for now. They figured that once they reached their destination, they could simply have Li Nan and Lu Zhongxia treat them.
“The situation in J City may be more complicated than we originally expected,” Chu Tian said.
“So what should we do?” Ouyang Jing asked.
Over the past few days, he had gradually become accustomed to leaving the decisions on major matters to Xiao Ziran and Chu Tian.
Of course, they still asked for his opinion.
“What should we do?”
Chu Tian responded with a question, a faintly amused smile on his face.
Ouyang Jing froze.
Had he asked the wrong question?
“Wouldn’t it be great if it’s chaotic?” the Doctor lazily spoke from the front passenger seat. The battle had indeed left him somewhat exhausted, and he still couldn’t summon much energy. “It’s easier to fish in troubled waters. The more chaotic they are, the more opportunities we’ll have. That’s much better than them being united from top to bottom.”
Ouyang Jing nodded thoughtfully.
“Originally, we only planned to use J City as a temporary place to rest and pass through. Looking at things now, perhaps there may be other opportunities as well.”
With that, Chu Tian calmly ended the subject.
Sometimes, it was enough to make the point and stop there.
If the other side wasn’t chaotic, they would leave.
If the other side was too chaotic, they would take the hope with them.
Only Quan Xiaoyu had been somewhat distracted ever since they got into the car.
“What’s wrong?”
Chu Tian gently put an arm around his shoulders.
“The disaster in S City will probably happen within the next few days. J City is too close to S City. I don’t think it’s advisable to stay here for long.”
Based on the timing, the great destruction of S City was only days away.
He couldn’t remember the exact date, but he could feel the day approaching, one day at a time.
The decision to destroy S City had been wrong from the very beginning.
The radiation left behind by the bombing accelerated the mutations of the zombies and mutant beasts. The massive bombardment had failed to completely eliminate them.
Instead, it had made them even stronger.
Yet they had no way to stop it.
All they could do was carry out their escape in a planned and organized manner.
“I’ve already thought about this,” Chu Tian said, gently patting Quan Xiaoyu’s back. “We’re not going to J City to settle there permanently. Ideally, we should be able to bring some people with us and continue heading north.”
“Ability users?”
Quan Xiaoyu assumed that Chu Tian and the Doctor were mainly interested in the other side’s ability users.
“Ability users don’t necessarily mean anything.”
The Doctor lazily spoke again.
“The people we hope to take with us are those who can become the hope of humanity’s future. It doesn’t matter whether they’re ability users or ordinary people. It doesn’t matter whether they’re elderly or children. As long as there is still hope in them.”
The Doctor spoke very calmly.
Yet Quan Xiaoyu felt his blood surge at those words.
The hope of humanity’s future.
People with a fierce desire to survive.
People who would not become numb because of suffering, and who would not simply drift along with the chaos of the world.
Those were the people the Doctor was looking for.
Only today did Quan Xiaoyu once again discover the shining quality of that powerful leader from his previous life, the man who had once dominated an entire region.
“I understand.”
As Quan Xiaoyu spoke, he felt that the road ahead had become a little clearer.
Chu Tian smiled and pulled Quan Xiaoyu into his arms.
Quan Xiaoyu looked utterly bewildered, not understanding what he had done to amuse Chu Tian again.
If there hadn’t been other people in the car, Chu Tian really wanted to hold him and kiss him several times.
What a naive guy.
He had actually been moved by something like this.
Looks like he really needed to keep a closer eye on him.
Otherwise, he genuinely worried that this guy might be sold off by someone and still help them count the money.
Of course, Quan Xiaoyu wasn’t actually as quick to trust other people as Chu Tian thought.
He had simply been influenced by the idea from his previous life that Xiao Ziran was an incredibly formidable person.
The vehicle soon arrived at the J City safe zone.
The appearance of J City now unfolded before everyone’s eyes.
It was quite different from what they had imagined.
Instead of being heavily fortified and tightly guarded, there were quite a number of tents set up outside the city, with vehicles and people packed densely together.
All the other roads into the city had been blocked off, leaving only one entrance and exit.
There really were armed personnel guarding it.
The densely populated area was chaotic and noisy, seemingly containing all kinds of people.
Their conditions did not look very good.
Looking disheveled and worn-out seemed to have become the standard appearance of the apocalypse.
Most of the people wandering outside were men.
There were no elderly people or children in sight.
There were, however, several women standing near the tents.
Mu Jiu’s convoy and Chu Tian’s group attracted most people’s attention.
All kinds of looks immediately turned toward their vehicles.
Curiosity.
Envy.
And, more than anything else, ill intentions.
This situation was far beyond what several of them had expected.
Quan Xiaoyu was relatively unaffected. He had more or less already judged that this was a poorly managed safe base.
There were simply too many places like this in the apocalypse.
As for Chu Tian, Xiao Ziran, and Ouyang Jing, they had still held some expectations for J City after hearing about the safe base.
They had never expected the place to be this chaotic.
Mu Jiu’s convoy stopped first.
Someone quickly went to the entrance to speak with the guards.
Mu Jiu himself walked toward Chu Tian and the others’ vehicles.
“Brother Chu, this is the entrance to J City. You can’t enter the city yet, so I’ll have to trouble you to wait outside for a while. These days, all our communication equipment has become useless scrap metal, so we’ve had to return to more primitive methods. Let me go inside and report the situation.”
Mu Jiu was very good with words.
He spoke politely and courteously, making people feel comfortable and helping to ease the displeasure of being temporarily denied entry.
“Officer Mu, you’re too kind. Then we’ll trouble you to make another trip. We’ll wait outside.”
Chu Tian and the others also got out of the vehicle and responded courteously.
Only the Doctor remained inside the car to rest because he was too exhausted.
Both sides understood each other, so there was no need for unnecessary conversation.
Mu Jiu quickly led his convoy into the city.
Chu Tian also ordered everyone to rest where they were, but repeatedly reminded them not to let their guard down.
Looking at Quan Xiaoyu, who was practically covered in blood, Chu Tian felt his heart ache.
He called Li Nan over, but Quan Xiaoyu refused, saying that there were too many eyes around.
It wasn’t a serious injury, so Chu Tian couldn’t force him and simply let him remain as he was.
The people around them certainly did not seem friendly.
Even now, many people were still watching Chu Tian’s group.
After all, mixed in among these disheveled people, their group stood out far too much.
Their vehicles were orderly and well maintained.
Everyone helped one another, with clear divisions of labor.
Although the journey had been difficult, they had never been short of supplies.
None of them had the sickly, pale complexion of the other people around them.
Their clothes could hardly be described as clean and neat, but at least they were still recognizable as clothes rather than rags.
The two women in the team stood out especially.
With the water-type ability user providing their water, they could still take a bath every five or ten days.
Compared with the women standing beside the tents, whose clothes were torn and filthy and whose faces were pale and numb, they looked incomparably better.
Quite a few lecherous gazes lingered over the two women in the team.
This made them extremely uncomfortable, so they stayed within the area occupied by their own people and did not dare wander too far.
If there hadn’t also been a man standing nearby with an icy expression and blood covering his body, radiating such a fierce and intimidating aura, someone might already have worked up the courage to approach them.
In fact, no one needed Chu Tian to remind them to stay vigilant.
The people around them were simply too unfriendly.
There was a feeling of being surrounded by a pack of wolves.
Their instinctive human wariness had been brought out to its fullest under these circumstances.
Chu Tian and Quan Xiaoyu were resting against the side of the vehicle.
Quan Xiaoyu had just said to Chu Tian, “I looked around. I didn’t see Xie Mingxuan among those people, but I did see one of the fellow believers from back then.”
This was also one of the reasons he had been distracted earlier.
Before Chu Tian could respond, the door of a battered vehicle not far away was suddenly kicked open with a loud bang.
A figure tumbled out of the vehicle.
After rolling several meters, the person scrambled to their feet and ran forward.
The direction they were running in was precisely where Quan Xiaoyu and the others had parked to rest.
It didn’t seem as though the person had deliberately chosen to come toward them.
It just happened that the direction was facing their vehicle.
The person ran desperately and soon reached the group.
It was a girl.
The clothes on her upper body had been torn apart, exposing most of her body.
Her pants were still intact, though they were already somewhat dirty and tattered.
What was most horrifying was the blood-covered shard of glass clenched in her hand.
At the same time, a man’s howls could still be heard coming from inside the vehicle.
The girl ran several more steps.
Suddenly, a blade of wind came flying toward her, striking directly at her ankle.
A cut instantly appeared across her ankle, and blood gushed out.
The girl crashed heavily to the ground.
But she did not cry out in pain.
Nor did she give up.
She continued struggling forward, trying to crawl ahead.
The bloodstained shard of glass remained firmly clenched in her palm.
Even though its sharp edge had already sliced into her hand, she refused to let go.
She did not ask anyone else for help either.
Her eyes remained fixed firmly ahead.
It was as though she had only one thought in her mind—
Forward!
Her tenacity suddenly reminded Quan Xiaoyu of what the Doctor had just said in the vehicle:
People who carry the hope of the future.
So he stepped forward and carefully looked at the girl.
And with that closer look, he realized that the girl actually looked somewhat familiar.
At that moment, a young man chased after the girl from behind.
Obviously, he was not the person from the vehicle who had been injured by the girl.
He had heard the commotion and run over from another vehicle.
When he saw the girl trying to escape, he immediately became furious, cursing as he approached and launching a blade of wind at her.
Now that he had caught up to her and saw that she was still trying to escape, he launched another blade of wind, this time directly at the right hand clutching the shard of glass.
This young man also stood out rather conspicuously among the crowd.
He was almost as clean as Chu Tian and the others.
He was also quite handsome.
Standing among those gray, filthy, disheveled people, he immediately stood out like a crane among chickens.
Most importantly—
Quan Xiaoyu still found this young man strangely familiar.
The girl was incredibly stubborn.
Even after another blade of wind wounded her wrist, she did not immediately loosen her grip on the shard of glass.
As though that piece of glass were her greatest protection and her last hope, she continued to hold it tightly and firmly.
She absolutely refused to let go.