Undoubtedly, there were many places that needed manpower. Ordinary people’s workload was enormous and involved every aspect of daily life. It was basically like society had regressed to the 1970s, when her grandmother was young. Although there was electricity, buses, and people could occasionally make use of others’ televisions and radios, most people had to engage in labour and production, doing physically exhausting work.
After washing up and rinsing her feet outside the box-car, Fu Erdie placed her slippers by the door and walked barefoot to the bed that had already been laid out. She lay down, resting while thinking.
Her grandmother had gone to the D City base, more than two hundred kilometres from here and over three hundred kilometres from their home in C City.
Fu Erdie had saved the location of the D City base before, and she also felt that since her grandmother had gone with the convoy, after two months from September to November, she had most likely already reached the destination.
But the problem now was that if she went to D City base to find her, it would take two days. Assuming she found her grandmother on the same day and returned smoothly, it would take another three days to get back to C City. That would still take five days.
In those five days, there was no way to predict what might happen on her parents’ side.
And five days was only the most ideal situation. Anything involving a base and dealing with many people would inevitably produce some complications. Especially in an apocalypse where all aspects of management could not be standardised, “minor officials can be harder to deal with than major ones.” Perhaps if someone came looking for relatives, the higher-ups might think: Come, come, take one more away and we save one more person’s food ration.
Release the hostage.
In short, anything could happen, and the time wasted during that process could not be predicted.
The reason she had first come to look for her grandmother was because her grandmother was in the same province and was in poor health. Before the apocalypse, she had needed to take medicine every day.
But now, her grandmother’s situation was relatively clear and stable. Even if she had gone to the base and had to work hard every day, nothing should happen to her in the short term. Her urgency could be moved back in priority.
She had to go back and find her parents.
After struggling with the decision, Fu Erdie finally made up her mind, and her eyes became clear again.
By now, the sky had completely darkened. Only faint moonlight spread indistinctly over the wasteland.
At this moment, Sang Wenhao had also finished washing up, but he still had not come inside.
He stood at the entrance like a door god, lost in thought.
The so-called door was actually the back section of the vehicle folded upward, like the lid of a box opened and stacked onto the roof. The open side became the door of the box-car.
The current structure of the box-car was divided into two parts: one sleeping area, and one entrance/storage area at the foot of the bed. Together, the two areas were only about 1.2 by 2 metres, extremely narrow. It was fine when they were sitting during the day, but now that they had to lie down, they would almost be pressed against each other, cramped and close.
Fu Erdie realised what was going on, and then heard Sang Wenhao say, “It’s fine. I’ll sleep outside. Potato’s roots and leaves can spread out into a very clean bed. I’ll just sleep outside.”
Potato Seedling: ?
Fu Erdie said, “It’s not safe outside.”
Sang Wenhao said, “Perfect. I can keep watch and eliminate unsafe factors before they grow.”
Fu Erdie: “…”
One person stood inside, the other outside. Their dark brown eyes were both somewhat evasive.
Just as Sang Wenhao was about to force this idea into reality, thunder sounded.
A strange wind appeared from nowhere, blowing Potato Seedling’s leaves out of shape.
It hurriedly ran into the box-car to hide from the wind, no longer caring about making a bed under Sang Wenhao’s tyrannical pressure. It curled itself into a cushion-like ball and shrank into the corner, pretending to be dead.
Light rain began to fall from the sky, then gradually grew heavier.
Fu Erdie got up and pulled the man inside, then had the house close the doors and windows, completely shutting out the outside world, which had turned into a torrential downpour in an instant.
Sang Wenhao had been caught in the rain, but he had just finished washing up, so overall he was still clean.
He could not stand straight inside the box-car. Lowering his head, he wiped the rainwater off himself and sat on the floor bedding. Clearly tall, long-legged, and large, he nevertheless looked very cramped and restrained.
Fu Erdie lay down beside him first. Only then did he turn sideways and press himself against the wall to lie down.
Immediately after, he began another round of reshaping the vehicle. The height was reduced to only as high as the wooden windows, which he could not control, roughly one metre. It allowed people to sit but not stand. By sacrificing height to expand width, the width of the box-car suddenly became 1.9 metres.
Seeing Sang Wenhao flee to a spot two metres away as if escaping disaster, Fu Erdie watched him create an iron hanging rod and drape their removed coats over it as a temporary curtain, dividing the space into two sections.
Fu Erdie found it amusing and could not help teasing him, “Did you take advanced classes in male virtue?”
“I’m afraid you’ll feel uncomfortable.” Sang Wenhao’s muffled yet serious voice came from the other side. “And I’m also afraid I won’t be able to sleep.”
Fu Erdie touched her own face.
She actually did not want to admit that not only did she not feel uncomfortable, she was even a little expectant.
Everyone liked beautiful bodies. And who would not like a big dog who looked cold and quiet but was actually delicate and gentle?
It was just that the timing really was not right.
“If only I had met you before the apocalypse,” Fu Erdie said, thinking of her past self with a little nostalgia and melancholy.
If it had been back then, and she had met someone she liked, she would definitely have bravely approached and pursued him.
On the other side of the curtain, Sang Wenhao, who had still been awkwardly arranging the clothes-curtain, paused. Before his mind could fully react, he pulled the curtain open again.
“It’s not too late to meet now.”
Sang Wenhao’s dog-like eyes were bright. In the stormy, lightning-lit night, they shone startlingly, like a fully charged little lightbulb.
The curtain he had just put up was pulled down by him without mercy. The hook also returned to its original form, and even the camper narrowed again.
Of course, it did not narrow back to the previous 1.2 metres, but to the size of an ordinary 1.5-metre double bed.
He lay on his side facing Fu Erdie and said seriously, “I’m very happy to have met you. It’s not late at all.”
Joy rose up, while a trace of sadness also spread. Fu Erdie shook her head. “It’s the apocalypse now. All our energy is spent surviving and finding family. I really don’t have that kind of relaxed mood…”
“Precisely because it’s the apocalypse, we should cherish every day we’re alive. I’ve never been in a relationship, but…” Sang Wenhao hooked Fu Erdie’s hand. “Liking someone means unconsciously relaxing when you’re together, not adjusting yourself into a relaxed mood for the sake of dating, right?”
Fu Erdie widened her eyes and looked at him.
Sang Wenhao’s rationality slowly returned, and his face instantly flushed red. But the hand hooked around Fu Erdie’s did not let go.
“I…” He carefully organised his words. “I was a little impulsive just now, but I’m serious too. I want to try having a more relaxed way of getting along with you and a closer relationship, but I don’t want you to misunderstand it as teammate affection. I also don’t want you to see me keeping distance and misunderstand that I’m drawing a line or deliberately distancing myself.”
“I know it’s too early to say I like you, but if this long journey leaves behind knots because of misunderstandings or because some things weren’t said clearly, I’ll definitely regret it.”
“If you dislike me, or dislike certain kinds of contact from me, you can tell me immediately. Even if we can’t go any further, we’ll still be teammates.”
Sang Wenhao was very nervous. He did not confess in some romantic atmosphere or say anything especially moving. But Fu Erdie understood what he meant, and strangely, she felt even more relaxed and at ease.
People said the ambiguous stage was the most wonderful stage of romance, but that depended on the people involved.
If you were a good person and met another good person, this kind of push-and-pull during peaceful times was indeed very tempting.
But if you happened to meet a white lotus type, someone who checked on you, sent daily photos of his life, reported his schedule, took the initiative to explain when he could not reply in time, and waited until midnight to send birthday wishes, while also saying, “She and I are just good friends,” or “This has nothing to do with you, right?” when you discovered him going on ambiguous one-on-one outings with other girls…
When you angrily asked why he was flirting with you, he would say, “No, how can this be called flirting? You just liked me one-sidedly and overthought it.”
Compared with tugging back and forth with this kind of white lotus green tea man, Fu Erdie would rather kick him flying and tell him to get as far away as possible.
They would not say they liked someone because saying it clearly would cause many later problems. It would give people evidence. Someone could screenshot it and post it in a campus or company group, turning them into confirmed scumbags pursuing many girls at the same time.
Sang Wenhao did not say he liked her because he was laying out all his current feelings for her to see.
He wanted Fu Erdie to know that he had a favourable impression of her, and not misunderstand or overthink things.
But he also did not exaggerate his feelings. At present, it was only the early stage of liking, wanting more contact.
Fu Erdie did not know whether others would accept this kind of strange, confession-yet-not-confession, clumsy and not deeply romantic method, but she accepted it. And she felt very relaxed about it.
Sang Wenhao was still rambling, afraid that some earlier sentence had been misunderstood by Fu Erdie, continuously and honestly expressing his thoughts. Fu Erdie very ladylike pulled up his hand and hugged his arm like a pillow.
“I know. Thank you for being honest. How about we treat this as a boyfriend-girlfriend internship period? Although we’re not yet at the point of liking each other enough to officially be boyfriend and girlfriend, we can still indulge our feelings a little and be almost-boyfriend and girlfriend?”
It was as if fireworks exploded in his heart, crackling so loudly he could not hear anything else. One of Sang Wenhao’s hands was being hugged and could not move, while the other covered his burning face.
“Okay.”
He suspected that if Fu Erdie came any closer, she would be able to hear his heartbeat almost jumping out of his chest.
He felt like he would not be able to sleep.
But Fu Erdie’s ability flowed over. This time, for some reason, the push-and-pull of their abilities was extremely smooth. The instant it entered, it not only calmed those metal abilities, but also seemed to inject a warm current, making a tired person feel as if they had fallen into a hot spring, so comfortable their whole body nearly trembled.
Fu Erdie noticed this change and opened her eyes. “Looks like the more trust there is, and the fewer barriers between us, the smoother the flow of my ability becomes.”
She suddenly laughed. “Then doesn’t that mean my ability is a natural trust detector?”
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