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as translator, proofreader and editor!
Hui Hui and her three babies were placed in the back seat, so Jiang Ci also moved from the front passenger seat to the back to stay with them.
The newborn Xiao Honghong’s head had a jade-like luster to it, feeling both warm and comfortable to the touch, like a natural hand warmer.
Seeing that there was no one beside him, Song Jinchuan pursed his lips, and the smile that had just appeared on his face gradually faded away. He started the vehicle, still feeling a bit down.
This time, the base was in the north. From the system, they learned that it was a small base. Supplies were slow to arrive, and the roads were difficult to traverse, almost trapping them in the base, isolating them from the outside world.
After leaving the base, the car switched to snow mode, with the tires gripping the ground to ensure that they wouldn’t slip, even on icy surfaces.
C City was a city in the south, so it would take some time to reach this city in the north.
Along the way, Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan rested for a while and had a meal before continuing to drive.
By evening, they finally arrived at the small base in the north.
At this point, the red dot on Jiang Ci’s map was blinking rapidly. Not daring to delay any longer, the two quickly put away the bus and hurried into the base.
Other bases would periodically clear the snow covering their grounds, but the snow in front of this base had piled up quite thickly, indicating that it hadn’t been cleared for some time.
Most of the houses were already buried in the snow, with only some of the higher floors still peaking out to the outside world.
The system detected that the remaining survivors were hiding in those higher floors, with the remaining supplies also concentrated there.
Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan found the path increasingly difficult to traverse, so they had to exchange for a pair of boots that allowed them to move effortlessly through the snow.
The magic of these boots was that they could stand on the snow without sinking, making it as if they were walking on flat ground.
Song Jinchuan also changed into the boots with Jiang Ci. By now, he was no longer surprised by the strange things Jiang Ci occasionally produced.
With these boots, their speed increased significantly.
Both of them carried bulging backpacks. Song Jinchuan carried Hui Hui and Xiao Lulu, while Jiang Ci’s backpack held Xiao Heihei and Xiao Honghong.
The sides of the backpacks had breathing holes, and from time to time, their little heads would pop out, only to slowly retreat back inside upon feeling the cold air outside.
pls do not share this anywhere or u will always stub ur toe when u walk past a door frame !! this translation has been stolen from mioscorner.com, pls only read there i’m begging u :kneels:
Meanwhile, in the high-rise building, the survivors were huddled together, shivering, covered with all the thick quilts and clothes they could find in the house.
But it didn’t help much. The survivors could feel the warmth in their bodies gradually fading, and their consciousness was slowly blurring.
“Dad, I’m so cold, so hungry,” Huang Dian held his son Huang Doudou in his arms, a wave of sorrow welling up in his heart. His voice was choked with emotion, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. Dad is here. No matter what, Dad will be with you.”
Huang Doudou was the youngest child in the room, his face pale from the cold, a sight that tugged at the heartstrings.
Their food supply had been declared exhausted several days ago, and rescue efforts were still nowhere in sight. They knew that most survivors were still struggling to fend for themselves, let alone having the capacity to deliver relief.
They had finally endured the apocalypse for ten years, yet they never expected to meet their end here this year.
Huang Dian watched as his son’s breathing grew weaker in his arms, a tear sliding down the corner of his eye.
Just as everyone was about to give up, a faint noise suddenly came from outside, followed by the distinct sound of snow being cleared, the sound especially noticeable in the quiet room.
“Who is it? Is it a mutated beast?” The survivors’ voices trembled.
The sound grew closer and soon reached their door.
Then, a voice came from outside, “Is this the place? The door is completely frozen. Song Jinchuan, try using your fire ability. No, no, no, Xiao Honghong, I didn’t mean for you to spit fire. Please don’t blow this place up.”
The voice was clear and melodious, clearly not belonging to the mutated beast they had feared. The survivors’ hearts, which had just settled, began to stir with a glimmer of hope. Could it be that someone had come to rescue them?
Huang Dian, who was still holding his son, stood up immediately and took a few steps forward in excitement.
A wave of warmth seeped through the door, and soon, the biting cold inside the room seemed to ease slightly.
The door slowly opened, revealing Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan standing outside.
It had taken them considerable effort to reach this building. The surrounding snow was thick, completely sealing the entrance and windows. The two had to clear the snow outside for quite some time before they could even enter.
As soon as the door was pushed open, Jiang Ci saw a group of people huddled together, seemingly barely alive. The temperature inside seemed to be slightly higher than outside, but only by a little. The windows had cracked from the cold, and unlike other bases, they hadn’t reinforced their defenses, leaving them vulnerable to the freezing wind.
Jiang Ci instructed Song Jinchuan to conjure a fireball and suspend it in the middle of the room. Soon, the room began to warm up.
The survivors, who had been shivering from the cold, gradually recovered. Their minds, frozen by the extreme cold, slowly began to function again.
So, it was true—someone had come to rescue them.
Jiang Ci noticed the boy in Huang Dian’s arms, whose breathing was faint. She immediately took out a cup of still-warm milk from her space and handed it to Huang Dian, instructing him to feed it to the child.
Huang Dian finally snapped out of his daze and took the warm milk, murmuring his thanks before placing the straw into Huang Doudou’s mouth.
Perhaps driven by an instinctive craving for food, the semi-conscious Huang Doudou began to sip the milk from Huang Dian’s hand.
Jiang Ci distributed a bottle of warm milk to each survivor in the room. This was a new product recently launched by the food processing factory. Thanks to the special design of the bottle, the milk could stay warm for several hours.
It had quickly become a favorite among survivors. By carrying the milk with them, they could still enjoy a warm drink despite it being noon or evening.
After downing a glass of milk, the famished survivors instantly felt comforted from head to toe.
Huang Doudou also regained some energy, no longer looking like he was barely clinging to life, ready to breathe his last at any moment. Instead, he now had a bit of strength, and his pale cheeks were now tinged with a warm flush.
Once everyone had some food in their stomachs, Jiang Ci started preparing the hotpot.
The white rice was directly taken from a few of her shops. Worried it might not be enough, she nearly emptied all the prepared stock from the current store.
The mushroom soup base, along with various meats and vegetables, filled the room not only with warmth akin to spring but also with the aroma of food.
In about an hour, the survivors felt themselves gradually coming back to life. They still had varying degrees of frostbite, and Jiang Ci planned to take them back for treatment, as professional matters should be handled by professionals.
While Jiang Ci was cooking, Song Jinchuan went to help bring over all the surviving survivors, and they all crowded into this room.
After the meal was ready, each person received a bowl of vegetables and a bowl of rice. Since they hadn’t eaten for several days, Jiang Ci didn’t give them much, intending for their stomachs to slowly adjust to the situation.
The food was scalding hot, and the survivors trembled as they took it, tears streaming down their faces as they ate the delicious meal bite by bite, finally feeling like they had narrowly escaped death.
Jiang Ci didn’t say much; she wasn’t good at comforting people, so she simply stayed quietly by their side.
It took several hours for the survivors to finally regain enough strength to walk.
Jiang Ci then led them out of the building. The bus, which was driven by Song Jinchuan, was already waiting downstairs. The survivors descended, barely feeling the cold wind outside before they were seated in the bus with the heater on.
The transition was so natural that the survivors hadn’t even realized it.
Wrapped in their cotton coats, they felt a slight warmth in the vehicle. Dazed, they wondered if they had already frozen to death and if all this was just a posthumous illusion.
Since Xiao Honghong kept trying to peek out of the backpack, seemingly eager, Jiang Ci let it spit a fireball onto the snow. The fireball was then sent far away by Song Jinchuan’s wind ability, exploding and leaving a large, terrifying crater.
After spitting out a fireball for fun, Xiao Honghong seemed very happy, shaking its head and contently staying in the backpack.
“How did you end up in such a sorry state? You should have known about the severe cold weather, right? Didn’t you prepare some supplies?” Jiang Ci asked, puzzled, once everyone seemed a bit more spirited.
“We did prepare a lot and were well-equipped to withstand the cold, but we encountered a group of people who specifically loot supplies in severe cold weather. They had a lot of weapons, some quite lethal. They’re not foolish enough to target large bases, so they go after small ones like ours. Many of our people died, and most of our supplies were stolen,” Huang Dian, now extremely grateful to Jiang Ci for saving his son, answered truthfully as soon as the question was asked.
“So there are even people like that!” Jiang Ci exclaimed, immediately feeling naive for saying so. There are always bad people in society, and those who take advantage of disasters are even more numerous.
The survivors hung their heads in despair, some already weeping aloud, mourning the loss of family or friends in this man-made catastrophe.
They had endured for ten years, not perishing at the hands of monsters or natural disasters, only to die at the hands of their own kind. How could this not chill the heart?
Jiang Ci also fell silent. Just then, she suddenly heard a distinct gunshot, followed by a series of weapon sounds.
Were there survivors battling mutated beasts? Jiang Ci glanced in the direction of the noise, only to see a haze of smoke and swirling snow.
After a moment of contemplation, she instructed Song Jinchuan to turn the vehicle around and investigate.
The commotion was significant. If there were indeed some mutated beasts or zombies they couldn’t handle, she could always lend them a hand.
Song Jinchuan always obeyed Jiang Ci’s words without question. The survivors in the vehicle owed their lives to her, so naturally, they didn’t object either.
the translator has nothing to add ◡̈
