Everyone gave Jing Shu a thumbs-up, their faces weary but showing a hint of a smile. Sometimes, luck really mattered in the heat of a desperate escape.
Just when they thought they had finally escaped death, the mechanical thrum of another armed helicopter came flying in from behind. Jing Shu's plan to sneak back into the river and stash the helicopter wreckage into her Rubik's Cube Space—maybe to salvage something useful, or at least fill it up with high-grade ores—vanished instantly.
"Run! Get inside a building, hurry!"
"Shh! Keep quiet, turn off every light!"
"Hide under that big rock!"
Soaked and bedraggled, they scrambled up the muddy riverbank, their boots slipping on the wet clay. Luckily, Tank's heavy exoskeleton armor had absorbed most of the concussive damage from the explosion, leaving him only slightly injured with some bruising and surface scrapes. Jing Shu held her pack high above her head with both hands, letting herself get drenched to the bone just to keep her treasures dry inside the fabric.
The moment everyone made it onto the firm ground of the shore, they bolted into the treeline. The helicopter swooped low over the river, its chain guns going rat-tat-tat as they sprayed bullets everywhere. Its powerful floodlights swept through the darkness again and again, circling relentlessly over the spot where the ship had gone down.
Each time the searchlight passed over their hiding spot, Jing Shu's heart pounded faster against her ribs. She had seen firsthand how powerful those machines were when they opened fire. Still, she told herself that someday, she would have one of her own—something just as badass and lethal.
After fifteen minutes of circling and ten minutes of blind strafing into the reeds, the armed helicopter finally pulled back toward the city. Jing Shu then caught the sound of distant voices; it sounded like the nobles' bodyguards had arrived on the far bank, bringing lines of slaves to begin the arduous task of salvaging the ores from the riverbed.
Cargo ships began passing through the blown-out canal one by one, their engines echoing in the night, but the slave king's luxury yacht was nowhere to be seen. He had probably taken the helicopter to chase down the twenty-three cargo ships that had diverted. After all, in the apocalypse, food meant wealth and the power of life itself. All they could do now was hope they had bought Yang Yang enough time.
"I wonder how they will deal with several helicopters," Ling Ling said, her voice low and worried as she checked the action on her rifle.
"Let's just hope Old Goat and the others make it," Monkey replied, leaning against a damp tree trunk. "A few choppers like that could level twenty ships in minutes."
That slave master BOSS really had the guts to travel with so much cargo. If Yang Yang had tried to attack the convoy head-on, they would all be dead by now. Who could have imagined someone would actually have the balls to pull a swap like that and succeed? It was insane, a move like poking a tiger right in the eye.
"With Captain around, you have got to believe in his strength," Snake Spirit said as he stripped off his soaked shirt. He revealed lean muscles and several jagged knife cuts that had turned a pale, sickly color from the cold river water. Ling Ling turned her gaze away, her cheeks turning a faint red, while Jing Shu just clicked her tongue. She hadn't expected the man to be so scarred.
The guy looked cool for all of three seconds. Then the cold wind hit his bare skin, and suddenly a whole bunch of shirtless men were shivering like wet dogs in the night air.
"Let's move! Get far away from here before they sweep the area again with a ground team!" Tank said, hauling the weight of all their salvaged weapons on his back. "Damn it, all the other supplies went into the water."
"We will head straight back to Kolusa and regroup with Old Goat. As long as our weapons are safe, losing food and supplies isn't the end of the world."
"We have got plenty of wilderness experience. If we have to steal, we will steal," Snake Spirit said confidently. But before he could even finish his sentence, the reality of their situation hit them.
Xiao Hei was crying, his shoulders shaking. All the bedding, the toothbrushes, and the hard loaf of black bread he had just managed to scavenge before the chaos were gone again, lost to the river.
Everyone turned to look at Jing Shu. To her, her luggage was practically her life. Even in moments like this, she clung to it like it was made of solid gold. Fresh garlic sprouts poked out from the edges of her pack, along with a few limp lettuce plants she had planted days ago. Right now, she was gently stroking a leaf that had been torn in the chaos, her face looking completely heartbroken.
The worst part for the others was the smell. She had stacked slabs of preserved meat in there too. A whole dried pig leg was hanging from the side, apparently part of a plan to make ham. There were beef ribs marinated in a thick coat of cumin and chili powder—her "hand-torn jerky project." She had even turned the leftover eagle-and-rabbit stew from a few days ago into spicy dried meat, claiming it was perfect when eaten with rice.
On the black market, she had traded every one of her coins for flour and rice every single day. Instead of eating it raw or plain, she roasted the stuff in a pan with butter and rich sauce, making "buttered fried rice" and "crab roe fried noodles" as her personal snacks.
As if that wasn't bad enough for the starving men, she had stockpiled corn just to make popcorn—chocolate, brown sugar, and milk-flavored popcorn. Who did that in the middle of an apocalypse? The others couldn't decide whether to drool openly or secretly swallow their saliva whenever they looked at her bulging pack.
"Let's keep going. Follow this path for fifteen kilometers, and we will reach Fred Town," she said, adjusting the straps.
They did a quick patch-up job on Tank's wounds with some basic bandages and pressed on. Everyone kept quiet, trudging forward through the dense brush and night shadows. Except for Xiao Hei, who kept whining that his legs were tired and he couldn't walk anymore, the group moved with purpose. The rest were trained and fit, but even so, the journey through the unmapped terrain was brutal.
When they finally reached the coordinates for their supposed destination, everyone froze.
"So… where exactly are we?"
Something was seriously wrong. They had expected to find a populated area, maybe grab some fresh supplies, or at least steal a vehicle for the trip. But this place? It was all empty wilderness and jagged mountains. There wasn't a single building in sight.
Jing Shu frowned, her eyes narrowing. Unlike the others, she could see clearly even in the dark, as if the moon were a bright sun. And what she saw made her even more uneasy. The jagged mountain range ahead hadn't always been here. The rock looked fresh, as if it had been pushed up recently by violent tectonic movement.
That meant the old paper map they were carrying was useless now. The shifting plates had thrown the entire geography out of alignment. What used to be a few kilometers away on the map could now be hundreds of kilometers away in reality.
Tank unfolded the map and shone his flashlight on the paper. "We came up the canal to this town. If we keep heading straight for about two hundred kilometers, we will reach Luksa. With a car, that's just a two-hour drive. But we have walked so far and haven't seen a single road or light. So, what do we do?"
Snake Spirit's brow furrowed. "This was supposed to be a town, right? There should be supplies here. Our coordinates aren't wrong—this is Fred Town. But why the hell is there a mountain here? Even after the apocalypse, an earthquake shouldn't have wiped out every single building without leaving a trace."
Monkey planted his hands on his hips, looking at the dark peaks. "Then we just keep following the general direction of the road. We will hit civilization eventually. If not, we can cover two hundred kilometers in two days on foot if we push. By the time we reach Luksa, the others should be done with their part, and we can regroup, claim our contribution points, and start the next mission."
Everyone nodded, their faces grim. It was the only plan that made sense given their limited options.
Except for Xiao Hei, who was nearly in tears again. "But… what about food? I'm starving."
Snake Spirit flicked his tongue, glancing at the woods. "There's plenty to eat in the mountains if you know how to hunt."
But Jing Shu shook her head, her gaze fixed on the broken landscape. "I don't agree. Haven't you noticed? This whole mountain range, and the wilderness around it, looks like it was squeezed up by a massive earthquake. The quake must have shifted the land significantly, and we can't be sure Luksa is still where it used to be. The safest move is to go back to the canal and retrace our steps. At least we know Luksa was connected to the canal when we came up the river."