Night of Despair

Chapter 141: Development Three
 

Carrying Doctor Xu up the slope, Yu Hong stepped onto the smooth surface of the roadway.

The two fully armed women behind him followed suit.

“You can come back to the camp with me, but you are not allowed to enter the main camp, and you must surrender your weapons. After all, we haven’t established basic mutual trust yet,” Yu Hong stated calmly.

The two fell silent. The slightly taller one spoke up.

“No need, we’ll just set up a temporary camp near your site, just give us a bit more food and drink.”

“…” Yu Hong frowned slightly, sensing something off in her tone. “Why should I provide you with food and drink?”

As these words came out, the two of them trembled, seemingly not expecting such a question.

But then, as if remembering something, the taller woman hesitated before single-handedly grabbing the edge of her face mask and pulling it up.

Whoosh.

Beneath the mask was a delicate, pale, and pretty face. A pair of almond-shaped eyes stood out, tearful as if always carrying a pleading look. But upon closer inspection, one could see it was not the look in her eyes but an illusion created by their shape.

“If you could provide us with basic sustenance, we would be immensely grateful and would assist by offering basic support,” the woman said earnestly. “My name is Yao Feiling, and she is Ding Shao. We’re survivors who escaped from Baihe City.”

“…” Yu Hong glanced over the two women’s equipment and their cautious stances and actions. They looked alert and capable of surviving this challenging environment so far, having fled Baihe City, a place ravaged by the Black Disaster. These people must have some strength…

“Fine, I can provide two days’ worth of food and drink, but after two days, you’ll need to show enough value and earn my trust to stay,” he said indifferently.

If he weren’t in urgent need of manpower, he actually wouldn’t be keen on bringing strangers back. Unfamiliar people without a foundation of trust could pose a threat to Nana and Old Zhou.

But these two came with Doctor Xu, and they should pose little danger once their weapons were confiscated.

“By the way, you must give me your firearms,” he emphasized once more.

“We are setting up camp near your site, why should we disarm?!” Yao Feiling exclaimed with discontent.

“If you really don’t want to disarm, then stay far away from my camp. I need to ensure the safety of everyone in my camp,” Yu Hong replied calmly.

Yao Feiling wanted to say more, but Ding Shao gently patted her arm, silencing her.

“Let’s do this, we can stay at a distance, but disarming in this environment is truly unacceptable,” Ding Shao spoke softly, her voice heavy with exhaustion.

“I understand your cautiousness, that’s fine,” Yu Hong nodded, then turned to look at the car. “Are you going to check on those people?”

“There’s nothing to see. We had a car accident because some idiots!” Yao Feiling said, clearly irate at the mention.

It seemed there was little connection or feeling between them and the others in the car.

“Do you need to tidy up?” Yu Hong asked.

“One minute,” said Ding Shao, her voice gentle, conveying a good temperament even in fatigue.

The two quickly went back to the car, gathered some belongings, and each carried a large backpack, climbing onto the road.

Both large backpacks were military green hiking packs, nearly as big as their bodies, appearing somewhat exaggerated.

After the two struggled up, Yao Feiling looked at Yu Hong, who stood unmoved, not offering a hand, and she bit her teeth in dissatisfaction.

They had encountered many men, but before the city fell, most would actively help them with their heavy luggage.

But Yu Hong, a big fellow, just stood there, motionless. Utterly lacking in manners.

“Let’s go,” Yu Hong said, turning to lead Xu Ruoying toward the direction of the camp.

Without a basis of mutual trust, he still couldn’t be certain they posed no threat, so maintaining distance was wise.

“Let’s go…” Ding Shao sighed and followed, carrying the sizeable pack with difficulty.

They were both partially enhanced humans; otherwise, after such intense encounters, they wouldn’t possibly still have the energy to travel now.

“Ding Shao… we still have some food, maybe we should just find a place for ourselves…” Yao Feiling couldn’t help but express her dissatisfaction. She had a feeling something was off about him, something not quite right.

“Don’t be stubborn,” Ding Shao said helplessly. “We have no other choice, without food and water we can’t last a few days. Following them at least provides a camp. If he can survive out here, he must have a way to ensure basic supplies.”

After the Baihe City defenses collapsed, they organized a team and rushed out in a vehicle as soon as possible.

Because of that, they faced the least danger and managed to break through the Black Disaster’s layers of encirclement.

Although they had nearly exhausted their talisman arrays and luminous stone marrow supplies, at least they had kept their lives.

The two fell silent and followed Yu Hong without further talk.

The four of them moved through the fog-filled mountain forest.

Strangely, they didn’t encounter a single shadow in the forest. It was quiet, without wind, and the air was cold.

Up ahead, Yu Hong took out a detector to check the time: 11:32 AM. Red Value: 43.116.

Holding Xu Ruoying with one hand, he put away the detector, silently commanding the black lizard to drive away shadows ahead.

“I’m going to die…” Doctor Xu moaned, clearly in a bad state.

“Yiyi, where’s Yiyi? I was planning to find her…”

“I don’t know, I’m looking for her too,” Yu Hong answered. “You’re fine, just a broken bone. A fix and a bit of rest should do the trick.”

“Ha-ha, right… just a broken bone, I’ll be fine in two days! Ha-ha…” Xu Ruoying laughed.

Behind her, Yao Feiling and Ding Shao both felt somewhat helpless.

They didn’t actually know Xu Ruoying, only having temporarily joined her in the vehicle, initially believing that this madwoman would die halfway through the journey. Both harbored some disgust towards her.

After all, it was hard enough for a sane person to survive in such an environment, let alone a lunatic.

But unexpectedly, after escaping through several dangers, this crazed doctor actually did survive. With her rather decent medical skills, Xu Ruoying was repeatedly assisted by people she treated along the way. And now, she even seemed to know people at this campsite, with relationships looking quite amicable.

The two suppressed their thoughts.

The four of them moved forward, and amidst Doctor Xu’s rambling nonsense, it took them a full twenty minutes to get back near the campsite.

When they were about tens of meters away from the camp in the forest, Yu Hong stopped and turned back to look at the two women.

“You can stop here. My camp is just ahead,” he said.

“Here… How are we supposed to stay? There’s no suitable place around!” Yao Feiling looked around, the ground was filled with dead grass; towering trees shot up into the sky, with grim lighting, damp mist, and uneven ground that was steep and riddled with tree roots.

The overall slope, that is, the gradient of the ground, was also an issue.

“This is something you need to figure out. If you want to enter my camp, you must disarm,” Yu Hong said calmly. “To be honest, if I hadn’t known her, I wouldn’t let strangers so close to my camp.”

He gestured towards Xu Ruoying.

The two women glanced at Doctor Xu and were not expecting that someone they found repellent, a lunatic, had actually led them to salvation.

They looked around and then back at Yu Hong.

“Then we will find a spot nearby to set up camp,” Ding Shao decided.

“Good,” Yu Hong promptly nodded, then turned to return to the campsite with Xu Ruoying.

His figure quickly disappeared into the mist.

Leaving the two women standing on the slope, silent for a moment.

Yu Hong quickly brought Xu Ruoying back to the courtyard. He placed her in a newly dug breeding pit, found some clean clothes to pad the ground, and had her lie down.

Then he poured a glass of water, got some anti-inflammatory medicine, and stuffed two pills into her mouth all at once.

“I need to find a wooden board to stabilize my hand…” Xu Ruoying said, out of breath and sweating profusely.

“Say everything you need all at once,” Yu Hong said, wiping her face with a damp towel. Instantly, her face was cleansed of grime and dust, revealing Xu’s original features.

She looked visibly haggard, with sunken eyes, and her pupils constantly moving, unable to focus on a point for long.

Yu Hong found her a wooden board, then picked up an unused blanket to cover her.

There were still some iodine and cotton swabs left. He rarely used them, but he brought them over as well.

Fortunately, despite being a bit off, Xu Ruoying’s basic nursing and stabilization techniques were still intact. In no time, she had fixed her broken arm and hung it around her neck.

Yu Hong gave her some nutritional paste and then left the breeding pit.

Outside, Zhou Xueguang and Aisena were awakened by the commotion and came out to see what was happening.

“An old friend has come back,” Yu Hong explained simply.

“If you need help, just ask,” Old Zhou declared promptly.

“Just say the word!” Aisena nodded, patting her chest.

Yu Hong was amused by her gesture and patted her hair.

“Thanks. She’s a doctor; she can take care of herself.”

After asking Old Zhou to keep an eye out, he took four sticks of nutritional paste and a bucket of boiled water and walked out of the courtyard towards the spot where the two women had stopped.

Soon, a hammock suspended among the tree trunks materialized through the mist.

On the military green hammock, two women were placing sticks horizontally beneath it.

Using branches and ropes, they had woven a rectangular safe zone in mid-air and then placed an air mattress on top, which they tied down with ropes.

They had turned it into a makeshift hammock.

Judging by the speed and efficiency of the women, it was obvious that this wasn’t their first time doing this.

They truly deserved to be survivors who had escaped from Baihe City.

Yu Hong stood on the ground, estimating the hammock’s height from the ground—about seven or eight meters.

Pretty high.

“This is the food and drink I promised you,” he called out, placing the items on the ground.

“Thank you,” Ding Shao paused her work, looking down at Yu Hong from above.

“Can you tell me about the current situation in Baihe City?” Yu Hong asked. Although he had obtained some intelligence from the communicator, Zhang Kaijun, many details were only known to those who had really experienced them.

“It’s terrible…” Ding Shao sat on the edge of the hammock, supporting herself against a tree trunk. “The defense line collapsed suddenly. At that time, many people in the city still didn’t know. Plus, the freighter outside the port was destroyed by that huge whale, and everyone panicked at once.”

“There were dead everywhere on the streets, bodies piled up. Actually, the Black Disaster didn’t kill as many people as the stampeding crowds did. There were car accidents everywhere; the roads were completely impassable, with everyone unwilling to make way and jamming the streets completely.”

“I guess that not more than one-tenth of the people could survive,” Ding Shao concluded at last.