Chapter 78

Shu Fu once again felt the same chill run down her spine and a rusty sensation in her neck, just like that night before.

“What did you say? Can you say it again?” She was still afraid of startling him, so she slowed down her tone, lowered her volume, and asked cautiously.

This time, however, Lu Zheng’s face didn’t show the broken and conflicted expression from earlier. He looked very clear-headed, but his face was still in shock, as if, in that moment, the values he had held for decades were being confronted with an unprecedented shock and collapse.

To him, at this very moment, the whole world seemed to have gone wrong, as some deeply ingrained and natural ideas were replaced by something else.

He looked a bit like the way she had felt when she first awoke on that early morning, suddenly remembering her past memories of the original world.

Lu Zheng hesitated and looked at Shu Fu. There was no fear, disbelief, or apprehension in her eyes, only concern, care, and a bit of curiosity.

It was this curiosity that made him speak again, slowly: “This seems… like a backpack grid panel. There are 20 slots, kind of like…”

“A game interface?” Shu Fu interjected.

“Similar, but without the complex data and settings, it’s just a simple backpack grid.”

“Are there any quests appearing?”

Lu Zheng examined the air for a moment, even reaching out and tapping it a few times. He then said to her, “There originally were. On the lower right corner of the panel, there were main world quests and side quests, but some of the quest details were garbled. After clicking, a line of red text appeared, saying: System TKSE—21S missing error, no tasks available.”

System TKSE—21S?

Shu Fu was stunned. He even had a system?

She thought for a moment and then suddenly extended her left hand, pulling up her waterproof sleeve, and asked, “Do you think this bracelet is pretty?”

Lu Zheng, looking at her wrist which was empty: …

Shu Fu realized he still couldn’t see her bracelet. She asked again, “Have you noticed anything unusual on you?”

“Yes,” he nodded. In an instant, a finely crafted axe appeared in his palm. “There are items in four of the backpack slots, and this is one of them.”

Shu Fu had long been accustomed to using spatial items, but seeing another person pull an axe out of thin air still startled her.

She immediately grabbed him and walked inside a little, worried that someone might have seen him summon the axe out of nowhere. Luckily, the others had all returned to the warehouse, and no one was around the platform.

“What else is in there?” Shu Fu gestured for him to put the axe away.

“A fishing rod, something like a filter, and— a raft,” Lu Zheng said, putting away the axe and naming each item.

His speed in retrieving the items was very fast. It seemed like he didn’t need any intermediary, or perhaps he used one, but just like his panel, she couldn’t see it.

Shu Fu was left speechless.

The items he described were exactly the basic gear for players in an old single-player game that the animation company had purchased the rights for.

She thought for a moment and then said to Lu Zheng, “Come with me.” She quietly led him down the platform, around the warehouse, and to another building at the back.

It was like a small workshop with a little storage space, piled with some moldy cardboard. After confirming that there was no one else around, she asked Lu Zheng to retrieve items from the backpack grid again.

The raft, fishing rod, axe, and filter appeared one by one. Shu Fu took out a flashlight from her backpack and carefully examined each item.

Lu Zheng’s raft was twice as large as hers, more like a boat, but it was very roughly made, not like her smooth, natural wood deck, but rather logs tied together haphazardly.

At the back of the raft was a small flat-roofed house. The house had front and rear doors, with a small grid window on the side. The window wasn’t frosted glass, so one could see inside clearly. It was a wooden shack, looking rough and simple, but it was sturdy.

She tried stepping onto the raft and opened the door to the house. To her surprise, the house inside wasn’t a compressed space; its size was exactly as it appeared from the outside. There was a small compartment inside with a simple squat toilet, like a bathroom, and nothing else. It didn’t have temperature control or oxygen regulation.

No water tank, no sink, no wastewater tank… none of the functional devices.

What’s more, she found that his raft and house didn’t have any restrictions on her. She could freely enter and exit.

The fishing rod looked similar to a regular lure rod, with fake bait hanging from it, and the reel had line, seemingly ready to cast at any moment.

The filter was probably for purifying water. Compared to real-world filters, it was simpler in design, and the water storage barrel underneath had about seven to eight liters of capacity.

The raft and the little house could float on water to escape storms, the fishing rod could provide food resources, the filter could purify water, and the axe served as both a weapon and tool for protection. Though these four items seemed basic, they were very useful in a post-apocalyptic water world.

It felt very much like the basic gear of a gamer or an apocalypse survivor.

At this moment, they were so close, both becoming anomalies in this world, yet in this nearly identical similarity, there were stark differences.

So, what kind of world is this?

Why are the golden fingers so different between them? Or rather—what’s the difference between her and him?

Lu Zheng watched Shu Fu carefully examine each item, then spoke again, “The scenes from the last time we drank together… they weren’t a dream, they really happened, right? You and I… we met in another world?”

If it weren’t for these memories and the inexplicable trust he felt when facing her, there was no way he would reveal these abnormalities to anyone else.

He felt that, as time passed, and with each increasing encounter, his trust in her was rising once more.

Shu Fu turned around. Lu Zheng stood in the darkness outside the flashlight’s beam, the white light strip above him conspicuously reappearing.

The light strip no longer flickered; it seemed to have stabilized. She looked closely and saw that the white progress bar was full, with a number “91” appearing behind it.

The light strip and number seemed fixed above his head, and no matter how many times she looked, they remained there.

She didn’t know what the number meant, nor did she understand if his golden finger appeared because the white light strip had stabilized. But clearly, in this increasingly harsh post-apocalyptic world, these golden fingers could completely alter his fate.

Shu Fu looked at him, nodded first, then shook her head. “Actually, I can’t be 100% sure we met in another world. I do have some memory of what you mentioned, but as for you—or rather, this face of yours—I haven’t seen it in my world.”

Lu Zheng’s eyes brightened. It was the same light of hope someone finds after their worldview collapses. “So, you’re just like me! Something strange has happened to you too!?”

“I don’t really like to call these abilities ‘strange things.’ I prefer to call them golden fingers. But you’re right, I’m the same as you,” Shu Fu said with a slow smile, then raised her other hand.

In an instant, a cup of coffee appeared in her fingers. Watching his stunned expression, she handed the cup to him. “Here, your iced Americano.”

Lu Zheng: !!

**

Chen Fa felt like something had quietly happened between Shu Fu and Lu Zheng since last night.

A woman’s intuition is usually quite accurate. After watching the stars the previous night, Shu Fu and Lu Zheng had disappeared for a long time, and this morning, when they met by the car before departure, they exchanged several knowing glances.

Chen Fa wasn’t the type to make wild guesses, but as the three of them sat in the car eating breakfast, she directly asked Shu Fu, “You and Lu Zheng… did you two… you know…?”

“Plop—” Shu Fu spat out a mouthful of instant noodles. The noodles went up her nose, and she coughed violently, almost choking to death.

No wonder Chen Fa would make such an outrageous guess. Last night, she had indeed stayed alone with Lu Zheng in the small workshop for a long time. He had just discovered his golden finger and learned that she was the same as him, so he had a lot of questions to ask her.

For example, the details and limitations of the backpack grid, how the raft moved on the water…

There were many questions Shu Fu couldn’t answer. After all, their golden fingers were different, so she simply let him experiment and verify. Initially, she thought his backpack grid was similar to her new “Compressed Display Cabinet,” but through experimentation, there were many differences.

For example, her “Display Cabinet” couldn’t preserve freshness, but his backpack grid had time frozen, meaning food could be kept fresh after being stored.

The backpack grid had a size limit; apart from the starting item, the “Raft,” no objects larger than one cubic meter could be stored. Identical items smaller than one cubic meter could be stacked, with a limit of 10. Once box-type items were stored, whether opened or unopened, they could no longer be stacked in the backpack grid.

Also, his raft seemed to be bound to him. Even if he didn’t actively store it in the backpack grid, if he and the raft moved too far apart, the raft would automatically be stored inside.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Shu Fu also tested the “Compressed Display Cabinet” to see its storage limit.

In the workshop, there happened to be large abandoned machines. She selected one that was about the size of a car, and surprisingly, she successfully stored it. This meant that the remaining two spaces in the “Compressed Display Cabinet” could hold two vehicles.

She continued experimenting with the machine size limit and found that any machine larger than a standard C-type RV couldn’t be stored. In other words, the size limit for her “Display Cabinet” was the size of an RV.

This size limit already satisfied her greatly.

Later, Lu Zheng mentioned that he had memories from a world that wasn’t this one. Looking back on that day, he could already detect the inconsistencies in his own words, like using terms such as “taking a cab,” “director,” and “female lead.”

At the time, even though he used these unconventional terms, he was still confused, as if his judgment was impaired, not realizing where things went wrong.

Now, these memories were becoming clearer, and he could distinctly tell that they weren’t memories from this world.

“It’s like… I don’t know how to describe it, but it feels like…”

“It’s like looking into a mirror and finding it covered with thick dust, unable to see yourself clearly,” Shu Fu finished for him, recalling her own feelings on the day of her awakening. “And now, it’s like suddenly having water wash over it, cleaning the mirror completely, and everything inside is crystal clear.”

“Yes, that’s it…” Not only that, but this time, he noticed that more fragments of memories that didn’t belong to this world had surfaced in his mind.

In that world, people didn’t call him Lu Zheng, and he didn’t live in Suicheng. Instead, he lived in a large coastal city. He often flew on airplanes, was very busy every day, and had many people calling his name…

But all the images were fragmented. Whenever he focused on one memory and tried to recall it repeatedly, he found it was in vain. He couldn’t even remember what the name was that others called him…

“Don’t rush. Since the golden finger has already appeared, it means some things have already started,” Shu Fu said as she patted his shoulder. “Give yourself some time, you’ll definitely find all the answers.”

Just like her, she too would find all the answers that belonged to her.

**

At 9 AM, the off-road vehicle and bus, having reached a dead end, had to turn back and return to the abandoned factory area.

They had originally thought they could take the road leading directly to the south of Youcheng, but to their surprise, that road had been destroyed. The terrain of that road wasn’t narrow or fragile, and there shouldn’t have been any issues given the current weather conditions. The way the road had been destroyed seemed like it was intentionally sabotaged.

The problem now was that this road was the only one that led directly to the south of the city.

Youcheng had a unique topography, with an elevation range from 800 meters to more than 2,000 meters. The higher one went south, the higher the altitude. They were currently in the northeast direction of Youcheng, and if they couldn’t get to the south from the road outside the city, their only option would be to go into the city, pass through the entire northern part of the city, and then cross the river via a bridge in the city center.

But the problem was that now there was only one bridge left crossing the river, and the northern part of the city was occupied by several forces, making it extremely chaotic.

Lu Zheng, Xu Tingfeng, and the others had seen a few photos from Youcheng when they were at the Lucheng trading station. The photos, posted about one or two months ago, were from residents in the northern part of Youcheng, showing several forces seizing a batch of weapons left behind in the northern district and frantically sweeping through the area, taking all the supply points.

The residents were terrified and tried to flee to the southern part of the city. The south of Youcheng was near the Lan Kou Province border, close to the southern Xiangzhou Province.

Although the small cities and towns in Xiangzhou were also chaotic, several large cities there maintained order and city functions due to the presence of large military forces. These forces also maintained several provincial roads, national roads, and highways leading to the Fengshang Plateau to the west.

In other words, if they could make it to Xiangzhou Province, they would be able to reach the Fengshang Plateau, where the strongest forces of the Huagou were stationed.

That was currently the safest place in Huagou.

However, what Lu Zheng and Xu Tingfeng also found were photos showing several of Youcheng’s river-crossing bridges completely destroyed, posted after the earlier pictures. The people trapped in the northern part of the city, after struggling to get to the riverbanks, were left in despair upon realizing they couldn’t cross.

They didn’t understand why the people from the south would destroy the bridges. Was it to protect the people from the south? Was the life of someone from the south more important than those in the north?

…

When Lu Zheng and the others saw these photos, they could understand the desperation of the people in the northern part of Youcheng, but they didn’t quite understand why, if these people had made it to the city center’s river, they didn’t just leave Youcheng and take the road outside the city.

Now they knew the reason—because the road outside the city was cut off, and the only way to get to the south was via the bridge in the city center, which was also the only path leading to Xiangzhou Province.

“What should we do?” Everyone gathered in the warehouse of the factory to have a meeting.

They had spent several days traveling this far, and their supplies of water, food, and fuel were running low. There was no way they could turn back.

Shu Fu also couldn’t turn back. Her task checkpoint was at the dock in the southern part of Youcheng, and she had to get there.

In the end, everyone decided that since they had come this far, they should at least try. They decided to head to the northern part of the city, find a high point, and assess the situation in the northern district before planning how to cross it.

After all, the photos Lu Zheng and Xu Tingfeng had seen were from one or two months ago.

No one knew what the situation there was like now.

After their plan was made, they got back in the car and set off, but the mood was heavy as things had changed.

Chen Fa was the same; she didn’t ask about Shu Fu and Lu Zheng’s situation. She silently drove with her brows furrowed.

Shu Fu had already decided to reveal something to Chen Fa last night. She too had a white light strip on her head, and if she wasn’t mistaken, after the light strip on Chen Fa’s head stabilized, she would likely also get a golden finger.

But this matter had to wait until they successfully passed through the northern part of Youcheng.

They chose a small hill in the northeast part of Youcheng’s urban area to observe. It used to be an ecological park, located on the edge of the city with few buildings around. The hill had an observation deck and a guesthouse, so the car could drive directly up. Once there, they could find a higher point and use a telescope to observe the situation inside the city.

However, when the two vehicles drove into the guesthouse area, they quickly sensed something unusual.

Compared to the abandoned buildings they had passed earlier, the houses here had clean doors and some intact windows.

Although there was debris from the storm scattered all over the ground, abandoned buildings that had been vacant for a long time shouldn’t have such clean windows and doors. Could there be survivors here? Were they people who had fled from the northern part of Youcheng?

But the area was small, and even if there were supplies, they would have been scavenged long ago after such a long time. Moreover, this was the edge of the northern part of Youcheng. If someone really managed to escape from the city, why would they stay so close instead of leaving?

There were only two possibilities—either the person was part of one of the forces occupying the northern part of the city, or they were someone with the same goal as them.

In either case, in a time of chaos, anyone not traveling the same path represented danger.

As expected, almost as soon as the bus stopped, a crossbow bolt shot out from the second floor of a guesthouse, the force behind it enough to hit the reinforced windshield of the bus with a loud thud, lodging in the metal bars.

A voice immediately came from the window where the bolt had come from: “Leave immediately! Someone’s already here!”

Inside the bus, everyone except the driver and the thin man sleeping in the back had already grabbed their weapons.

The warning unintentionally revealed their identity—they were not part of the northern city forces. Judging by their appearance, they were likely another group of survivors.

The fact that they shot the bolt and warned them meant they didn’t want to have a confrontation. They didn’t seem like vicious criminals, so perhaps it would be worth trying to talk. After all, they only wanted to use a high vantage point to observe the situation in the northern part of the city and had no intention of staying.

However, before Lu Zheng’s group could get out of the bus, the nearby off-road vehicle started driving toward the front of the bus. Chen Fa even lowered her window slightly, as though trying to get a clearer look at the crossbow bolt stuck in their car’s front.

A moment later, Chen Fa, wearing only a waterproof suit, got out of the car and hid behind the off-road vehicle’s body, making sure she wouldn’t be hit by a crossbow bolt. She shouted loudly toward the guesthouse: “Yue Dong, is that you?”

The sound of rain around them was deafening, but Chen Fa’s voice cut through the noise with power and clarity.

Soon, there was movement from the second-floor window of the guesthouse. It seemed someone was moving aside the heavy object blocking the broken glass. After a moment, the same voice from earlier called out again, this time filled with surprise and joy: “Is—is that Deputy Team Chen?”

In the heavy rain, Chen Fa emerged from behind the off-road vehicle, and cheers rang out from inside the guesthouse: “It’s Deputy Team Chen! It really is her! She’s not dead!”

In the passenger seat of the off-road vehicle, Shu Fu watched Chen Fa through the windshield in the pouring rain.

It was as if she sensed a fateful reunion. A small white light strip flickered above her head, and this time, it lasted for about seven or eight seconds before fading away.