RLDRFH Chapter 20

“There is a gas station two kilometers ahead. Let’s stop there and see if we can add more gas.” Although their car had enough gas to drive to city A, He Zizhong couldn’t stand the tail of cars behind him. After finding a place to stop and letting those people find out that they were following the wrong person, they should leave. Afterwards, they could find a place to enter the space and rest for one night. That was what he wanted to do most now.

Fang Hao had no opinion – of course the more gasoline, the better.

Two kilometers later, He Zizhong slowed down and entered the gas station. Sure enough, the cars behind also slowed down hesitantly and stopped on the side of the road, but they didn’t get off immediately like the two of them.

As for the reason?

——A few zombies are dangling at the gas station!

The two of them ignored the cars behind them, and neatly dealt with the few zombies. He Zizhong used the steel pipe in his hand to quickly put the crystal nuclei he touched into the space. After Fang Hao went to refuel the car, He Zizhong entered the gas station room alone and swept away the small barrels of gasoline.

Sure enough, when they discovered that Fang Hao was going to refuel, and the zombies had been cleaned up by them, how could the rest of them stay inside? They drove to the gas station quickly, picking up a gas nozzle and refueled.

One person even thought quickly and ran into the small room of the gas station, right past He Zizhong who had just collected the gasoline.

The faces of the people who came in later were embarrassed. They were the people who followed the cars behind He Zizhong, and naturally knew the reason for the formation of this inexplicable team. He Zizhong ignored them and walked back to his car empty-handed.

“Filled up?”

Fang Hao turned his head after hearing the sound. Relieved to see it was only He Zizhong, he heaved a sigh of relief and then nodded.

He Zizhong looked around. After they drove out of the city, the zombies who chased them were too slow and left behind. Right now, the road was still relatively safe.

“Eat something in a bit. Let’s take a break and then go.”

Fang Hao was about to say something when a few people walked by and asked: “Where is your convoy going?”

He Zizhong looked at them and found that there were many people around, all leaning forward to listen in on their conversation, so he asked inexplicably, “What convoy?”

The few people asking were taken aback and looked at each other. “Didn’t you escape from the city?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that it? We just want to ask, where your team is going? It’s dangerous outside now and it’s not safe to act alone. If it’s along the way, we can go together and be companions.”

He Zizhong frowned: “The two of us only have one car and no team.”

Fang Hao also said from the side: “We originally came out to find some food, but halfway through driving, a bunch of cars began following us. We planned to go back, but couldn’t turn around. There was also a bunch of zombies behind. Helpless, we had to leave the city.” As he spoke a frown formed, “We still wanted to ask, where are you going? When we slowed down to make way, why didn’t you overtake us?”

The few people were taken aback. Some people were embarrassed and some were angry. They deliberately said loudly: “We really wanted to drive forward. Whose car was in front? It swayed from side to side and never gave way?”

“Damn, cars and zombies are on the road, instead of avoiding them were we supposed to hit them?!”

“Really, why are they blindly leading the way? And then don’t explain either!”

“Hey? Why is there no gas in the gas station? Who was so incompetent and pumped all the oil away?!”

He Zizhong patted Fang Hao on the shoulder, motioning him to get in the car.

The two of them started their cars again and drove north. There were still a few cars following, leaving the disputing force behind them. Fortunately, compared to the mighty convey previously, the number was much smaller now.

After driving for a while, He Zizhong chose a place with a 24-hour convenience store to stop, and the three cars that followed them also stopped.

This section of the road was not without other people passing by. From time to time, there were other cars coming from the opposite side and cars passing by from the intersection.

He Zizhong let out a sigh of relief, and saw that the man who he had ran into at gas station was also present. The man seemed to have discussed something with the people in the two cars behind before he walked over together. Upon seeing this, He Zizhong opened the car door and greeted him.

“Little brother, my surname is Wang, Wang Tianqiang.” The man said, handing a cigarette.

“No thanks.” He Zizhong shook his head nd declined.

“Um… we all escaped from city F. Although we had a misunderstanding just now, after all, the world is not peaceful now. It is better for everyone to go on the road together. Where are you going? If it’s on the way, why don’t we go together?”

The corner of He Zizhong’s mouth curled up, gaze sweeping over those people. “We don’t have a place to go, but we have relatives in city A, so we were going to go and take a look.”

Those people were stunned when they heard his words. Wang Tianqiang frowned, and persuaded: “You’ve seen the situation in city F. I read online that zombies are everywhere in the country, just like our city. The population of city A is much larger than city F, I’m afraid… the situation is even more dangerous than city F…”

Before He Zizhong spoke, a woman in the other car suddenly said, “No matter what, city A is also the capital. The places that no one cares about, no one will care about. But that’s not the same for the capital, right?”

“But the Internet said that the streets in city A were full of zombies. Looking at the photos, it is more serious than in city F!”

“I think the countryside is better, with fewer people, food, and more land. There are definitely fewer zombies than cities!”

“It’s better to go to the northwest. If it really doesn’t work, go to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as they said online…”

Across the three cars, the more than a dozen people did not reach a consensus at all. He Zizhong said helplessly to Wang Tianqiang: “We’ll also discuss it again, but it’s still more likely for us to head to city A.”

When Fang Hao saw him back in the car, he asked, “Senior, how was it?”

He Zizhong shook his head: “They haven’t reached agreement yet, but it is likely we’ll have to camp out tonight.”

City A. He Zizhong was not clear then the base was built, but the speed would not be slow.

In his previous life, due to various reasons, they kept stopping and going, causing him to arrive at the base of city A more than two months later. But now, he does not intend to delay time.

Fang Hao looked around. They were on a highway with no village in front and no buildings visible when looking back. Faraway, though, were the shadows of a some high-rise buildings.

“We can only camp tonight?”

He Zizhong nodded: “Sleep in the car, and we can take turns watching at the night.”

Fang Hao thought for a while, “Then senior should sleep first and I’ll wake you up in the middle of the night? We can take turns driving during the day tomorrow, and can make up lost sleep then.”

He Zizhong still has a low-grade fever every night, but the duration was much shorter now, and much better than in his previous life. In his previous life, he could only travel with other people, and he could only watch with others during the night.¹As in, he could not watch by himself due to his fever/exhaustion It was impossible to count on Dai Jun who stayed in the space and refused to come out.

On the contrary, regardless of the past and present, he and Fang Hao partnered together the most. Except in the previous life he was not be the same as now, calling out ‘senior’ all the time…

“Let’s eat.” Rubbing his hair, He Zizhong took out the portable food Fang Hao made yesterday—two steamed rolls and various meat pastries, plus two glutinous rice balls and two bottles of filled space water.

Smelling the scent, the two realized that because they were busy, and then because they met survivors and were on the road for so long, they didn’t eat a bite until now. If it weren’t for the well water’s ability to restore physical strength, how could they have held on?

“A fat man in the apocalypse should be able to lose weight successfully…” Fang Hao took out a steamed roll and took a big bite.

He Zizhong laughed: “In the future human society, it is estimated that it will become like the Tang Dynasty, where fatness was a measure of beauty.” Thinking about it, it didn’t take long, after half a year it became rare to see living people who were very fat.

Their car was filled with the aroma of the food. The rice ball was okay. After all, it was cold and the aroma was limited. But the vegetables and meat in the baked pastry were all put into the lower level of the space while it was hot. It was the perfect temperature for fragrance to overflow, like something freshly baked.

A few cars not far away faintly smelled the scent, and sniffed, “Whose home is cooking?”

But most of the nearby areas were open spaces and fields, and only some high-rise shadows can be seen in the distance. Where could they find the target?

Fortunately, because it was only a few days into the apocalypse, although everyone was collecting as much food and water as possible, they did not attack others to fill their stomachs.

Therefore, the door of the cars behind did not open again until they were drinking water after dinner.

Those people seemed to be going down to move their muscles and bones and to get some fresh air. The man who had spoken to them before came over again.

“We decided to go to a small village in the northwest. My hometown is over there.”

He Zizhong nodded, but said nothing. He knew that after the end of the world, some villages where the epidemic situation was not too serious were indeed preserved. As long as there was no special situation, cleaning up the zombies in the village could ensure safety.

“Although we won’t go to city A, we’ll still head along the same way for the first half. Why don’t we go together for a while? It’s safer.”

Originally, these people didn’t care about whether everyone should act together. However, the people in the car following He Zizhong had witnessed the neat methods they used to clean up zombies.

Although those zombified people were obviously no longer humans, most modern people have never killed a fish and can’t do anything when faced with their former compatriots. Even if some had fought the zombies that put them in danger, they would definitely not be as straightforward as He Zizhong and Fang Hao.

It’s natural for them to want to join forces with relatively strong combatants on the road.

If it were not because they were unable to guarantee enough food to last themselves a year after arriving in the village, they might have tried much harder to win over those two young people.

Probably a good thing they didn’t try to win ’em over, since HZZ and FH wouldn’t want to go anyway!

 

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  As in, he could not watch by himself due to his fever/exhaustion