Zhuang Xiao: ……

She’d seen Huo Xiao demonstrate the use of sleeve darts and crossbows before, but this level of accuracy… was just too good!

No wonder he used to be the captain of a mercenary team.

Even if his physical condition wasn’t what it used to be, the qualities expected of a captain were still very much present.

“I got this, I got this…” Seeing Huo Xiao about to draw his sword and run the test, Zhuang Xiao grew anxious. After spending so much time gathering with him, she had a sneaking suspicion that his luck with samples was just a little worse than hers.

Quick as lightning, she pulled out one of the crossbow bolts and smeared the mutant crab’s juice onto the analyzer’s test strip. “Beep beep, high-level radiation mutation—inedible.”

Zhuang Xiao: ……

Ouch. Her face hurt. A lot.

Huo Xiao calmly retrieved the remaining eight crossbow bolts from the mutant crab’s body, took the one from her hand, cleaned them all with leaves, and reloaded them back into the crossbow.

Zhuang Xiao decided she’d better go back to testing the fish mint leaves. That was her true love today.

Suddenly, there was a rustling sound from the nearby underbrush.

Oh no. That was the sound of scales rubbing together—a mutant serpent.

Huo Xiao immediately pulled the crouching Zhuang Xiao behind a large tree. “Shh… there’s a snake.”

Just as he spoke, a pitch-black mutant serpent slithered into Zhuang Xiao’s field of vision. Its thick, muscular body moved with eerie grace, glistening under the afternoon sun.

That rustling noise—it was the sound of its body brushing against leaves and grass.

Besides venom, one of a serpent’s primary weapons was constriction.

Zhuang Xiao instantly recalled scenes from documentaries where pythons hunted their prey.

This one didn’t look venomous, but it was thicker than her waist and at least ten meters long. It looked like it could wrap up and crush both her and Huo Xiao in a matter of seconds.

The mutant serpent slithered quickly, occasionally raising its head and flicking out a black tongue with a “hiss” before diving back down and continuing forward.

No idea where it was heading, but it didn’t stop—just made a beeline downstream.

Still, neither Zhuang Xiao nor Huo Xiao dared to relax. They held their breath, tense and silent, terrified of being discovered.

Seriously—was this just a rainstorm? Why did all the monsters crawl out?

Hadn’t the Safe Zone already dispatched teams to clean up the surrounding mutated animals?

This was already what, their third or fourth incident today?

Not until the serpent completely disappeared from view did they finally exhale and step out from the underbrush.

“Should we just head back?” Zhuang Xiao’s voice trembled slightly.

There was no way she could take on a mutant serpent that size. They were outmatched in speed, strength, and firepower.

Besides, it wasn’t like the snake had come for them—they didn’t need to risk their lives just to test whether some random meat was edible.

Better to play it safe.

“Alright,” Huo Xiao agreed.

Unless absolutely necessary, no one in the Wasteland wanted to mess with a giant mutant serpent.

The two of them packed up, avoided the snake’s path, and headed in the opposite direction, hoping to get out of the forest quickly.

But today just wasn’t their day.

Just as they left the forest, they unfortunately ran straight into the Future and Dark Night Mercenary Teams—driving straight toward them in their vehicles.

And trailing right behind the convoy? That damn snake head—wasn’t it the very same mutant serpent from before?

What rotten luck.

Before they could react, the vehicles were already upon them.

Feng Ziyang, sharp-eyed from his seat, spotted them immediately. Without giving them a chance to refuse, the two were hauled onto a truck.

Zhuang Xiao: ……

Huo Xiao: ……

The two of them were a mess, blown around like leaves in the wind. They absolutely did not want to be on this truck, okay?!

The mutant serpent followed behind the convoy, gobbling up mutant crimson fish and mutant crabs that were being thrown off the back of the vehicles.

Chasing and eating—multitasking like a pro.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” Feng Ziyang shouted over the roar of the engine, all the while directing his team to keep tossing fish and crabs overboard to slow the serpent down.

With all the bumps and occasional gunfire, yelling was the only way to be heard.

Huo Xiao shot back with a question instead, “What the hell did you do to provoke it?”

And what’s more, they’d dragged two completely unrelated bystanders into the mess. They might’ve avoided the serpent altogether if they hadn’t been picked up!

Now look at them—caught up in the madness.

And it’s not like they could jump off the truck. At this speed, it would be fatal.

Feng Ziyang yelled back, “It’s those arrogant bastards from the Dark Night Team! They insisted on going after it, said they sensed an energy stone or something…”

Before he could finish, he turned and shouted into the back, “Hurry up, toss out everything! All the river haul—throw it out!”

At this point, Huo Xiao didn’t have time to argue. The most important thing was to survive the immediate crisis.

Zhuang Xiao was starting to believe she really hadn’t checked the lunar calendar before going out today. Just when she thought they’d escaped danger, she ended up riding shotgun in a death race with a giant mutant serpent.

Originally there had been six vehicles. When the serpent attacked, several people were eaten. Now only three vehicles remained—two of which belonged to the Dark Night Team.

Their vehicles were higher quality, and their people were quicker to flee.

So in the end? It was the Future Mercenary Team stuck at the back—feeding the snake.

The snake had been provoked by the Dark Night Team, but guess who was left holding the bag?

The river haul didn’t last long. Even after eating all of it, the mutant serpent was still hot on their tail.

Feng Ziyang cursed under his breath and shouted to the driver, Hu Qianli, “Find a good spot and turn off—ditch this thing!”

If you provoke it, you deal with it!

Zhuang Xiao gripped the safety bar tightly, feeling like her guts were about to be jostled out of her body.

Several times, she thought the truck was going to flip over—only to stabilize at the last moment.

This adrenaline-filled, high-speed nightmare? No, thank you.

Where was her ability? Where was her damn ability? Without it, today’s script might as well end here, with her waving goodbye to the Heavens and the audience.

Up ahead, the road was getting rougher, overgrown with weeds and increasingly hard to navigate.

Then all the wristwatches in the vehicle blared in unison: “Warning, warning. You have entered a dead zone. Please return immediately. Please return immediately…”

“F*ck.”

Everyone in the truck said it together.

Sure, they wanted to turn around.

But that giant mutant serpent trailing behind? Yeah, it wasn’t exactly on board with that plan.

Zhuang Xiao, hearing the alarm, stood up abruptly in the truck bed and looked toward the road ahead.

In the distance, countless red light pillars rained down from the sky, densely scattered across the land.