Sang Wenhao nodded.
Because it was too comfortable, he felt as if he had fallen asleep in a pool of warm water.
Fu Erdie was about the same. She only lasted two minutes longer than Sang Wenhao, wanting to keep circulating her ability and recover a little more through training.
But her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Her ability also seemed to have developed inertia as it flowed, naturally moving back and forth. It could carry out push-and-pull training without Fu Erdie needing to control it.
She instructed Potato Seedling, who had slept the whole afternoon after eating zombies, to stay alert. If any zombies, humans, or mutated plants approached, it should wake them up. Only then did she fall asleep.
She had a good dream all night.
Perhaps because of their abilities, Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao woke up at the same time.
Their two intertwined hands were still automatically circulating their abilities, and both of them, whether in ability, physical strength, or mental energy, had reached an incomparably abundant full state.
Fu Erdie looked into his eyes and could not help leaning her head over, finding a comfortable position to laze in bed a little longer.
But in the next second, she suddenly felt that something was wrong.
Why was the box-car swaying???
Sang Wenhao also noticed the problem. The two sat up and looked outside.
At some unknown point, a layer of water had already covered the wasteland.
Judging by sight, the water was about half a metre deep. It would not drown people immediately, but the current was very strong, knocking the box-car back and forth.
The house box-car was extremely waterproof, so no water had seeped in. But Fu Erdie was somewhat speechless. She and Sang Wenhao had actually slept so deeply that they had only woken up now. And Potato was still stretching its roots and leaves out by the window to play with the water, not feeling at all that this was a situation worth sounding the alarm over.
Fu Erdie: “…”
The box-car left the water surface and drifted toward the place where the farmer had been yesterday. There, they saw that the farmer had already placed large and small bundles into a huge, deep bathtub. The clean water and potatoes he had received yesterday were clearly inside too.
He was stepping through the water with difficulty, pushing the bathtub toward the county town.
From afar, when he saw the familiar metal box-car approaching, he hurriedly called for help. “Friend! Friend, help me! Can you help me get to the county town? Just the county town is enough. I know a vehicle there, and once I get there I can run! Please, help me!”
Nomad: I don’t know where this farmer came from, I checked the original text many times to see if the one I had was cut off somewhere but its not. So I will continue as is
Fu Erdie nodded, signalling for him to stay calm.
She had come over precisely to give him a ride and ask about the situation.
She did not let him enter the carriage. Instead, she helped him onto the roof, moved all his belongings onto the roof as well, then flew with him toward the county town.
“Is there a reservoir or dam nearby? Or is this just rainwater rising and flooding this area?”
Fu Erdie asked through the roof.
The farmer’s voice was rough. “There’s a reservoir. The water rose too quickly. I reckon something happened to the reservoir. I thought my place was so far from the river that no matter how it flooded, it wouldn’t reach me. I didn’t expect I still overestimated it… If I’d known, I would have gone to the base with them! At a time like this, I shouldn’t have tried to avoid hardship! Now it’s over. All the crops are gone. With the flood like this, can I even make it to the base?”
Fu Erdie could not say anything comforting. Thinking of her parents downstream, whose fate was unknown, her heart kept sinking.
Their abilities circulated faster, and the group soon reached the county town.
The county town was on higher ground and had not yet been flooded. On the roof of the vehicle, the farmer hesitated. “Friends, are you going to D City base to look for someone? If you are, could you…”
“We’re not going to D City. We’re going downstream to find other relatives.” Fu Erdie apologised, put the farmer’s luggage down, and after the farmer got off, quickly flew away.
Their map had saved the route from Senyu Residential Complex to H City, but not the route from Xiangde Village to H City. So Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao needed to return to Senyu Residential Complex, then set off from there toward H City.
The heavy rain had lasted all night, stopped briefly in the morning, and started again while they were travelling.
Fortunately, there was no thunder, otherwise they would not have dared to fly.
With the experience from the trip there, they travelled back quickly according to the map and their previous memory.
When they reached the provincial road, they repeated their old trick: find an electric vehicle, charge it, drive for a while, then when the road became congested, use the box-car to fly again.
In this way, the journey that had taken twelve hours on the way there now took only six hours on the way back. When they reached Senyu Residential Complex, it was only two in the afternoon.
Along the way, they made a shocking discovery. It was not only the area around Xiangde Village in Baochang County that was raining; it was raining the entire way.
After meeting up with Cen Xiyang and the others, Fu Erdie pulled Sang Wenhao and quickly began pushing and pulling their abilities to recover.
Zhang Dongxuan hurriedly went to cook a big pot of millet porridge and stir-fried a large basin of vegetables. Han Zhi helped from the side, and very quickly they made a simple meal of porridge, vegetables, and soup.
It was inconvenient for Fu Erdie to eat while holding Sang Wenhao’s hand, so she used an arm-in-arm posture, inhaling food like a storm while maintaining physical contact with Sang Wenhao to circulate their abilities.
If not for the fact that this was not the time, Cen Xiyang really would have wanted to comment on Fu Erdie’s ability.
She went to 16-3 and took out a large bag of plastic-wrapped snacks. “Yesterday, Han Zhi and I searched Building Five for supplies. These are snacks that haven’t expired and can still be eaten. We don’t know how long it’ll take you to reach H City or how long you’ll have to eat potatoes. Take these with you. They should help change the taste a bit.”
Fu Erdie thanked her, took out a few packets of pickled vegetables and spicy strips symbolically, then returned the rest of the snacks. “These are enough. We’ll come back as soon as possible.”
Perhaps because they had opened their hearts to each other, Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao’s push-and-pull speed had become much faster, so their recovery time was also shorter.
After two hours of temporary rest, the sixty percent of ability energy consumed from rushing back had already recovered.
It was now four in the afternoon. They could still travel for another six hours and stop to rest around ten at night.
Unlike going to her grandmother’s place, where they could not travel at night, Fu Erdie’s strategy for finding her parents was to travel day and night as quickly as possible until they reached the front line of the flood. After arriving at the flood-affected area, they would slow down, travel while using the loudspeaker to call her parents’ names.
Last year, she had bought her parents watches that had a flashlight function.
Because they were gifts from her, her parents had always habitually worn those two watches. Now, even if only one of them was wearing the watch, or carrying a flashlight with battery left, they could flash the light toward the sky after hearing her voice. With her and Sang Wenhao’s ability-user eyesight, they could see the flashlight beam even during the day.
As for possible dangers on the road and unnecessary trouble that the loudspeaker might attract, Fu Erdie no longer had the mood to consider them.
She only wanted to find her parents faster, faster.
From C City to H City was a total of fifteen hundred kilometres. At their average speed of ten kilometres per hour, flying twelve hours a day would only cover one hundred and twenty kilometres. In other words, it would take them around twelve days to reach H City.
Fu Erdie calculated and felt they needed to increase their daily travel time.
There were twenty-four hours in a day. They could travel for seven hours first, then rest for two hours and recover their abilities, then travel for another seven hours. The remaining eight hours would be for sleep and another round of ability recovery. Then they would repeat the cycle.
Their daily speed could also be increased. Whether through faster flying or finding more chances to use vehicles, they could shorten the overall travel time a lot.
Especially on the expressway: if there was a certain stretch of road that was not congested, and they found a suitable vehicle, they could sprint along and cover in one hour the one hundred and twenty kilometres that was originally expected to take a whole day of flying!
Fu Erdie even had a slightly crazy thought. If a stretch of road was blocked, but the blockage was not too long, then they could overturn all the vehicles that were already scrapped, move the ones that looked usable to the side, clear a path, and once the road was open, continue driving.
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