Chapter 113

At 3:42 AM, they arrived at the central square. Their pace wasn’t fast because, except for Cheng Yu, everyone was helping an injured person. Awen limped while supporting someone, and fortunately, his strength allowed him to keep going.

However, Cheng Yu seemed even more unusual—he was running while carrying someone on his back.

Awen, curious, took a quick look at the person Cheng Yu was carrying and realized it was Shu Fu. “How did you end up here? I didn’t see you earlier. Are you injured? Where are you hurt?”

Shu Fu coughed lightly and reminded him, “Hurry up,” before turning her head silently.

At 3:44 AM, they finished crossing the central square, only to hear an even louder explosion coming from the hotel behind them. The explosion sent a massive shockwave through the air, and even though there was a thick layer of snow between them, they could see the smoke rising from the area.

The explosion seemed to affect the snow-covered path around them as well. The ice and snow walls on both sides, which had been frozen solid, began to collapse, with chunks of ice and snow falling down.

“Hurry up,” Shu Fu whispered in Cheng Yu’s ear.

“Don’t look back! Keep running!” Cheng Yu’s voice rang out.

That was the captain’s order. Although some team members wanted to look back, they instinctively turned around, each supporting an injured person, and once again sped up toward the county’s outskirts. The injured were struggling to keep up.

In truth, the rescue team members still didn’t understand what was happening. Why had the planned evacuation, which was supposed to be the next morning, been moved up to before dawn? And why, even though they had already escaped danger, were they still running for their lives?

Wen Rou and the others probably had an idea, but because they trusted Qi Kai’s judgment, they instinctively felt it was unlikely.

Blood stained the snowy path as the wounds of the injured were torn further open by their frantic running.

Wen Rou’s shirt was already soaked with blood, and Shu Fu quickly noticed that Cheng Yu’s arm, which was carrying her, was also dripping blood. But with the disaster looming so close to 4 AM, it was safer for him to carry her than not.

At 3:49 AM, they could see the mountain road that led out of the county.

At the same time, they heard a rumbling sound from behind them, like continuous thunder, deep and roaring, shaking the night sky.

Some couldn’t help but look back and saw a shocking sight. The snow-covered hillside that had wrapped around Wei County seemed to tremble all at once.

The epicenter of the tremor was on the hillside behind the hotel. It was like a crack appearing on a glass pane—there’s always a starting point. Initially, the starting point cracks due to powerful external force, and then the crack spreads in all directions, eventually shattering completely.

At this moment, the ice and snow that had surrounded Wei County began to fracture from the hillside behind the hotel and spread toward the sides.

In the night, the terrifying cracking sound of the ice and snow layer filled the air.

With the entire Wei County surrounded by mountains, once the avalanche started, it was like a domino effect. They could imagine what would happen when the chain reaction reached the other side.

The only exit from the county would be blocked by collapsing snow and rubble!

“Run faster!” Someone shouted, and everyone picked up speed again.

However, the speed at which the ice and snow layers fell from the hills surrounding Wei County was much faster than the speed of their running.

At 3:50 AM, they saw the flickering lights from the only exit.

It was—a jeep rushing toward them!

The jeep made a clicking sound as it moved, like an old, worn-out tractor.

It was the survivors’ vehicle!

Shu Fu remembered that when she had quietly returned, Han Lan had been pulled by the survivors to help them repair the vehicle, which had broken down again.

They had remembered Cheng Yu’s order—the armored vehicle was supposed to clear the snow on the road and couldn’t return, so they borrowed this jeep.

From the front passenger seat, Liu Shuang’s face popped out, waving at them, and shouted to the driver, “I see them!”

In no time, the jeep pulled up in front of them, and the window of the driver’s seat rolled down. Han Lan’s head poked out. “Get in!”

“How did you get here?”

“Captain, this is a private operation! Hehe!” Han Lan laughed, but when he saw the other people Cheng Yu was carrying, he immediately stopped laughing. “Wow, so many people! I’ll open the trunk. Guys—everyone but the captain, go to the back!”

Liu Shuang had already gotten out of the car and was surprised to see Cheng Yu carrying Shu Fu, thinking she had been injured. But at this moment, no one had time to talk.

She helped Awen and Qi Kai, along with the other two injured people, squeeze into the trunk. There was barely any space, and their legs had to hang out. She quickly pulled the seatbelt from the back row and made do, strapping all four of them in.

Up front, the female rescue team member helped Wen Rou, whose face was pale, into the back seat, and then climbed in herself. On the other side of the back seat, Cheng Yu placed Shu Fu inside.

Liu Shuang climbed in after Shu Fu, and Cheng Yu quickly got into the front passenger seat.

The group coordinated their speed quickly, while Han Lan kept twisting his head to check on the situation behind them, keeping an eye on the people getting into the car and vigilantly watching the surrounding mountains of Wei County.

He had experienced avalanches before, but he had never seen one like this—an avalanche roaring toward them in all directions, encircling them!

He knew that during an avalanche, you shouldn’t run downhill; instead, you should run toward the sides of the slope. But with this kind of circular avalanche, no matter which direction they ran, it would be a dead end!

The only way to survive was to get out of this canyon.

The moment everyone was seated, Han Lan leaned down and kissed the steering wheel. “Come on, baby, give me some power!”

With that, the car quickly turned around and sped toward the county’s exit.

He floored the accelerator, and the car shook uncontrollably, making a rattling noise as if it could fall apart at any moment.

The wheels quickly ran over a stone on the road, causing the car to jolt heavily. The four people in the trunk screamed, nearly tumbling out. In a critical moment, the four girls in the back seat turned around, each grabbing one person and pulling them back from sliding out.

“Hold on!” Han Lan glanced at the rearview mirror and accelerated again.

He could already see the waves of snow surging down from the two mountain slopes. The roaring snow was as intimidating as a massive tidal wave, with a dust cloud of powdery snow rising from the top, and the bottom of the snow resembling rolling sea water, moving at a speed that took away their breath.

Behind them, the towering snow walls, more than five meters high, began collapsing one by one. As they got closer, it felt like a giant ice and snow monster was chasing them. That monster was opening its wide, snow-cloud-filled mouth toward the tiny car on the snow path.

“Faster!” Liu Shuang shouted.

Han Lan gripped the trembling steering wheel tightly and shouted. The car finally broke through the county’s exit and sped toward the mountain road below.

The roaring ice and snow beast slammed its giant mouth shut. At the same time, the ice and snow layers on the slopes of Wei County finally spread to the exit of the road. The ice and snow seemed to instantly lose their support and tilted down, crashing with stones onto the road behind them, completely blocking their exit.

But that wasn’t the end. Soon, a huge airwave was created by the falling snow blocks, spreading down the mountain road—this was a powdery snow cloud capable of crushing buildings.

The four people in the trunk had just breathed a sigh of relief when they were once again startled by a loud cry. “Don’t slow down! Keep driving!”

At 4:00 AM, Shu Fu felt the last vibration from her phone.

“Keep driving,” she said. “Keep going until we pass the bridge and the red road marker!”

Han Lan revved up again, this time still on the mountain road. Fortunately, the ice and snow walls on both sides, although collapsing, were dangerous yet acted as a kind of wall, guiding the path.

The off-road vehicle passed the red road marker and continued toward the location where the armored vehicle was parked.

Behind them, the giant ice and snow monster, like death itself, had finally been stopped at the bridge section of the canyon road.

The car braked to a halt, and the four girls in the back seat let go. The four people in the trunk tumbled out onto the ground. After their cries of pain, they were all helped up and hugged by their teammates. “Thank goodness! You’re not dead!”

Shu Fu got out of the car and was immediately embraced by a figure that rushed toward her.

“Senior…” Yao Ruoyun’s voice was still trembling. Heaven knows how fast her heart had been beating when she saw their car being chased by the snow cloud all the way out of the mountain road.

Shu Fu, feeling the tremor in her wrist, gently patted her back to comfort her, but her gaze shifted to Cheng Yu, who only raised his uninjured hand, patted her head, and softly said, “Thank you.”

Thank you for coming back to save him.

He might not have died in the fire, but he would definitely have been seriously injured.

And thank you for saving Wen Rou, Awen, and Qi Kai. If she hadn’t saved him first and reminded them time after time, the three of them, carrying him, would likely have died in the avalanche…

But he knew she didn’t want to hear those words.

So, he simply said “thank you,” and left it at that. He knew she would understand.

**

At 7:30 AM, the sky was overcast, and freezing rain continued.

On the mountain road near Yinsha River, a group of survivors, who had been busy all night and hadn’t slept, had barely gone far before encountering the freezing rain. They could only take shelter in an abandoned tunnel.

This used to be a two-lane tunnel, but the project had never been completed, and with the arrival of the apocalypse, it was abandoned.

In the past, many cars must have taken refuge here from heavy rain, hail, thunderstorms, and tornadoes. Some people even once used it as a shelter. Inside the tunnel, traces of human life could still be seen, along with abandoned vehicles and household items, which were now garbage.

Fortunately, there were no bodies.

Freezing rain caused more damage to vehicles than heavy snow, so all the cars in the convoy drove into the tunnel and parked closer to the entrance to shield the exhausted survivors from the cold wind.

The tunnel was large enough for the armored vehicle to fit inside, though it required the snow-clearing equipment to be removed from the vehicle.

During this evacuation, most of the rescue personnel and military staff from Wei County’s rescue station had been withdrawn, with about one-sixth of the remaining survivors also evacuating.

These one-sixth of survivors were those who hadn’t been involved in the previous resource disputes. When the warehouse incident occurred, some of them were shoveling snow, and some were at the clinic building.

They had been mocked by another group of survivors, who had directly taken the supplies, calling them saints and incompetent people. However, they were the first to act when they received the early evacuation notice at dawn.

Actually, the evacuation had been planned by Cheng Yu’s team from the start, and the rescue team had been notified via radio.

But since the situation was critical, and although they had anticipated an avalanche, the entire Wei County was still trapped under a five to six-meter-high snow layer, and everyone felt like caged animals. Thus, the team leaders from Cheng Yu’s team and the hotel building had reached an agreement: before finding a solution, they would only inform the survivors about the evacuation plan without explaining the reasons, in order to avoid further chaos and panic over resource hoarding.

However, many people didn’t take this notice seriously.

The rescue team couldn’t manage everyone; they only helped those who trusted them and wanted to be rescued. To cooperate with Cheng Yu’s plan, they had been working hard these days to clear snow, digging out buried vehicles to check and repair them, and creating a passage between the hotel building and the clinic.

The ambulance had also been dug out after a long struggle, with windows, tires, engines, and internal rescue equipment nearly all replaced.

But even then, they still couldn’t get the ambulance to start.

Fortunately, yesterday afternoon, Wen Rou and the others arrived. Awen, the mechanical repair expert, gave the rescue team hope. Even with Awen’s help, getting the ambulance to work wasn’t easy.

After receiving Cheng Yu’s early evacuation order, the three of them decided to remove parts from the off-road vehicle to barely fix the ambulance.

However, no one had expected that their recent activities—such as the airdrop of snow shovels, clearing snow on Wei County’s main street, digging out wide snow paths, and various actions by the rescue team—would be watched by the group of people hiding in the building on the other side.

This group had originally been two teams. One had accidentally obtained weapons and, not long after the blizzard hit, took advantage of the rescue team’s absence to rob the supply warehouse, killing one person and injuring two others.

The second team consisted of people who had been ostracized by the other survivors in the hotel. When they were trapped by freezing rain on the mountain road, they indirectly caused the deaths of three people, so they turned traitor.

These two groups had taken a path that gradually led them to a point of no return.

The day they fled, the building they chose to hide in also concealed another person, who was allied with the one who had previously blown up the service desk. He came from the same organization.

That organization had sent more than ten people in several batches to carry out sabotage. This person had stayed behind to manage the others—essentially, the other members were cannon fodder, and he was the one leading them. While the actions of the other groups succeeded, everyone was eventually captured, with some being shot on the spot.

He had originally planned to wait out the storm and leave after things calmed down, but he too was trapped by the freezing rain and blizzard.

Though he had weapons, he lacked food and water, and so he temporarily allied with the two groups who had escaped into the same building.

However, this alliance was fragile and could easily fall apart. After over ten days, the hotel building and clinic had received an airdrop of supplies, while their resources were running low.

They were never on the same side to begin with, and in a disaster, emotions could be amplified. Over the past days, they had no plan, eating and drinking excessively, fighting over more or less, and blaming each other. The internal chaos had already begun, and it only took a small incident to spark infighting.

The member of the organization was the first to be killed in the ensuing chaos. The remaining survivors naturally took his weapons and equipment, discovering a radio signal jammer.

Later, they planned a second attack on the hotel building to seize the new airdropped supplies.

Fortunately, Wen Rou, Awen, and Qi Kai were there, and Cheng Yu returned to look for his team members.

Even more fortunately, Shu Fu turned back.

She seemed like someone fighting against predetermined fate, reaching out her hand to snatch those people from the grip of death.

---

[In the next four hours, Wei County’s Red Stone Road Monument task completed, earning 20% progress toward Raft Level 5; additional 15% bonus progress. Obtained 7 spin chances for the reward wheel. (Current progress on Raft Level 5: 95%)]

This was probably the first time, aside from progress bar tasks for leveling up, that she had received such a generous reward.

She had a feeling that this reward was somehow related to her return to Wei County.

Thirty-five percent on the progress bar, plus seven spin chances!

Such a rich reward made her still feel pleased when she saw the familiar 95% progress, just one step away from completion.