At fifteen, during the Lantern Festival, Zhou Rong organized the remaining supplies, chopped several bundles of firewood to pile in the courtyard for future use, and hugged Si Nan’s shoulder, standing in front of the cement building and kissing his hair.
“We shouldn’t encounter zombie waves head-on when heading south now. We’ll take the national highway, resupply at towns along the way, and figure things out once we reach the coastal area. Fortunately, the positioning device wasn’t lost. If Yan Hao Chun Cao and the others have already reached the South Sea base, we’ll definitely receive a signal and report upwards.”
Si Nan crossed his arms, overlooking the layered mountains below, the vast snow reflecting in his eyes with a bright luster.
Si Nan patted Zhou Rong’s shoulder, walking towards the SUV without looking back, laughing, “You’re overthinking it.”
The twenty-some days of rest and care had restored Si Nan’s body and spirit to peak condition, even better than when they first met Zhou Rong’s group in T City.
“Let’s go!” Si Nan sat in the driver’s seat, starting the engine, one hand propped on the car door.
He looked like a handsome mixed-race kid racing a luxury car through New York streets, whistling at Zhou Rong and curling one beautiful corner of his lips: “Why are you standing there? Get in!”
Zhou Rong burst into laughter, striding forward to lift Si Nan out of the driver’s seat, hoisting him over his shoulder and depositing him in the passenger seat, forcefully buckling his seatbelt.
“I’m driving, got it?” His finger, callused from guns, lifted Si Nan’s chin: “Your job is to eat tangyuan, sleep, and massage my neck every ten kilometers to relieve boredom. Division of labor is clear. Any objections, Comrade Si?”
Zhou Rong cracked the car window and drove with one hand in the cold wind, the other resting on Si Nan’s knee. Si Nan sat cross-legged, eating the “tangyuan” Zhou Rong made from flour and sugar, feeding him a piece while studying the tattered national highway map.
The SUV exhaled exhaust, driving beneath the vast sky towards the southern land at the mountain’s end.
The car passes through uninhabited villages, breaking through snow-covered fields, speeding southward. In front of an abandoned gas station in the suburban town, the road is empty, with wild grass, dust, and trash swirling in the cold wind.
Zhou Rong stopped the car, signaling Si Nan to stay in the warm car, and picked up the diesel gun.
Ci Nan spread out the road map, seeing a small convenience store ahead that didn’t seem to have been obviously looted, and opened the car door: “Want a cigarette?”
Zhou Rong politely declined: “No, for my partner’s health, I’ve decided to quit smoking… Get back! Sit down!”
Zhou Rong was filling gas while desperately blocking the car door, while Ci Nan pushed the door outward: “Don’t make such a sacrifice, Brother Rong. I’m very democratic, you can smoke freely, I’ll get them for you… Let go! It’s not easy to find a store, let me go!”
After a tug-of-war standoff, Ci Nan suddenly narrowed his eyes: “Get in quickly, there are zombies!”
Zhou Rong instinctively looked back, but there was nothing on the road behind him.
Ci Nan ran from the other car door, grabbing his snack-dedicated box, happily sprinting towards the convenience store.
“You just want to eat candy!” Zhou Rong was exasperated, calling after him: “Hurry up and come back, we don’t have many bullets left!”
Ci Nan pushed open the store door, ignoring the zombie behind the cash register, and scoffed: “So what?”
Two minutes later, Zhou Rong finished fueling, and just as he hung up the gas pump, he saw the store door open again. Ci Nan came out hugging his full snack box, with a half-decayed zombie stumbling behind him.
Zhou Rong’s expression changed instantly. Just as he was about to rush forward, he saw Ci Nan turn, leap up, and with a dazzling martial arts move, climb onto the zombie’s shoulder and neck, breaking its cervical vertebrae with just his knees.
The zombie howled and fell, Ci Nan landing smoothly, not even glancing at it, walking towards Zhou Rong with a lollipop in his mouth.
Zhou Rong looked down at Ci Nan’s calm and innocent face: “Where’s the cigarettes?”
“Forgot,” Ci Nan said absently.
He turned back to the store and randomly grabbed a few packs of cigarettes to stuff in his pocket. Zhou Rong casually browsed the sandwich cookies in the box, feeling a surge of emotion.
“When we were dating, he’d sneak out at night to steal snacks and still remember to bring me two cigarettes. Now that we’re married, the treatment has dropped straight down… seems like once he’s got me, I’m worthless…”
Brother Rong patted Ci Nan’s head and stuffed a milk candy into his mouth.
Ci Nan ate the milk candy and an Alpine green apple lollipop, legs curled up in the passenger seat, frowning while repeatedly examining the map: “Something’s strange.”
“Right—” Zhou Rong, cigarette between his lips, said carelessly: “I said this route was wrong, but you insisted we follow the map…”
Ci Nan: “I mean the milk candy tastes weird. Expired?”
Zhou Rong immediately stopped the car, pulling out the wrapper from the door’s storage compartment to check carefully, finding the expiration date was next year, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Ci Nan was still unsatisfied: “Why doesn’t it taste like milk?”
Zhou Rong couldn’t explain why a five-cent milk candy from a rural gas station didn’t taste like milk, so he could only comfort him: “Later, I’ll take you to Inner Mongolia, live in a tent on the grasslands, and raise a milk cow just for you.”
Ci Nan modestly responded with an “Mm.”
“Continue south for thirty kilometers, bypass the small town,” he closed the map: “Avoid densely populated areas, reach the peninsula, then find a pier and see if we can go directly to sea.”
— Outside the car window, the road stretched straight ahead, passing through a dilapidated rural area. The residential buildings were like broken steel and concrete coffins, scattered silently under a gray sky.
Zhou Rong asked for the 101st time: “Are you sure this is the right road?”
“Not certain, but this nationwide road map published three years ago indicates this route.”
“You remember all this?” Ci Nan was surprised.
“Mm.”
“Zhou Rong exhaled a deep smoke ring.
After thirty seconds of suffocating silence, Zhou Rong finally told the truth:
“Back then, looking for a toilet on this road, couldn’t find one, so the whole team lined up by the roadside to pee and had a contest about who could pee the furthest.”
“Particularly memorable. Lost to Yan Hao.”
At noon, the SUV left the road, leaving the zombie tide from the town center far behind, crossed a hill, and drove towards the peninsula.
Sunlight emerged from behind the clouds, casting a glimmering light on the distant harbor.
The once-prosperous gambling city was now reduced to ruins, almost all high-rises destroyed, the TV tower cut in half, and the garden casino burned to the ground. The bay port no longer showed the bustling scene of ships coming and going, replaced by a desolate, silent, and lifeless nearshore.
Further away, the South China Sea islands were hidden in misty waters, like a mirage from legend.
Zhou Rong slightly adjusted the angle.”
Looking towards the end of the dust-covered city, across the undulating hills, sunlight reflected a faint light point in the military high-powered telescope.
“What’s that?” Zhou Rong squinted, muttering to himself: “Looks like a building.”
Ci Nan leaped onto Zhou Rong’s shoulders with both hands. Zhou Rong staggered, steadying himself against a tree trunk.
After a moment, Ci Nan said: “Ground base. The building surface seems to be covered with solar steel panels.”
