"No, no, I got this! I'm strong!" Hong Bin panted, his voice strained with confusion. "It felt easy when I tried it before."
Lǚ Liu gave an awkward laugh. "Yeah, because back then, we thought the propeller could handle a bit of mud and water. Who'd expect this place to be a swamp? The resistance's crazy! It's a miracle we're even moving."
Crunch, crunch... boom!
The moment the minibus entered the swamp, it started sinking. Even with the anti-sinking plates set up outside, muddy water was already seeping in. Xiao Dou fluffed up her feathers and shuffled further inside. She loved her feathers way too much to let them get dirty.
"Come on, Hong Bin! We're sinking! Can you even do this or not?" Lǚ Liu yelled while struggling to keep the steering wheel steady.
"Forget it, let me do it!" Jing Shu said. Under everyone's stunned gaze, she grabbed Hong Bin by the collar and yanked him out like a chick. Then she jumped into the driver's seat, braced herself, and started pedaling fast.
Thump, thump, thump!
Her legs moved so quickly they blurred into afterimages.
A wet sloshing sound followed. The minibus jerked violently, and inertia sent everyone lurching backward as a gust of wind whooshed in through the open window.
"Wait... the minibus is flying?!"
"Holy shit!"
Jing Shu even heard a few people gulp loudly. Seriously, was it that shocking?
The minibus finally broke free from the swamp and rolled back onto solid ground. Its speed slowed down again, crawling like some ancient old-timer chugging through the mountains.
Yep, that was the fastest it could go. The propeller powered the four wheels, and everything else depended on good old leg strength.
No matter how fast Jing Shu pedaled, without the swamp water providing extra thrust, the top speed was about the same as a bicycle. After pedaling for hours, she swapped out with Hong Bin, then with Lǚ Liu, but the minibus still crawled like a snail.
The whole thing was torture. It wasn't just physical exhaustion, it was the mental grind of not knowing when—or if—they'd ever reach their destination.
"I've got some good news for everyone," Lǚ Liu said while gnawing on a compressed biscuit. "None of the other teams have found any sign of the fleet yet."
"That's... good news? I'm dying here!" Hong Bin huffed between breaths. He wasn't as strong as Jing Shu, and his stamina was even worse. Every time he saw her pedaling like a machine while absentmindedly playing with her Rubik's Cube, he couldn't help feeling jealous. Did she ever get tired?
He could barely last half an hour before his legs gave out. But since he was the genius who came up with this pedal-powered idea in the first place, he had no choice but to keep going, even if it killed him.
Jing Shu finally smiled. "That means the fleet's either on our route or outside the Tianshan Mountains entirely. So yeah, that's definitely good news."
Xiao Hong trailed behind them faithfully. As a gastropod, it only needed enough food to keep its energy up, and it could keep crawling forever. That alone made Jing Shu very happy.
They pushed forward for another three days. Jing Shu's mood rose and fell with the endless mountain road. The mountains seemed to stretch on forever, swallowing their hope bit by bit. The swamps along the way were getting worse too, forcing them to wade through mud more often. Thankfully, the minibus could switch to water mode.
"The Tianshan Mountains are supposed to be high altitude, but it feels like we're heading downhill now. There are more and more valleys."
That wasn't what mattered, though.
What mattered was that the more swamps they saw, the stronger the black liquid's presence became. Jing Shu could sense it clearly now. Unfortunately, she still couldn't collect it herself. Diving into those swamps wasn't an option, and every failed attempt made her restless and anxious.
So she started marking locations one by one. The best way was to leave some of her bugs behind. They weren't as freakishly advanced as Xiao Wei's, but as long as they were within range, she could still sense their coordinates. That way, she wouldn't get lost if she came back later.
By now, the group's food supply was down to compressed biscuits. Aside from Hong Bin and Lǚ Liu, who kept munching on those dry things, the rest cooked with Jing Shu. The rice that Yang Yang and Hao Yunlai had given them was nearly gone, but luckily, Jing Shu's two giant food crates still held plenty. She rationed carefully, only sneaking an extra meal late at night when everyone else was asleep.
She had no idea how much longer the journey would take, but just as dawn started breaking one morning, they finally reached the end of the mountain range.
The road stopped dead. If the minibus moved any further, it'd go straight off a cliff—no, not a cliff, an enormous canyon.
But when they looked closely, they realized the canyon was moving.
It was like waves crashing against each other. The ground itself was pushing and squeezing, the plates grinding together with deep booming sounds. Anything caught in the middle—rocks, ruins, whatever—was being crushed to dust.
It was breathtaking.
This wasn't an ocean, it was solid land rolling like a sea.
"Look!" Jing Shu pointed at one spot and told Lǚ Liu to angle the headlights that way. Amid the churning earth, a huge ship was being pushed along!
If it hadn't been blocked by a few short buildings, it probably would've been shoved right into the middle by now and completely pulverized. Once that happened, there'd be no finding it ever again.
The moment the headlights hit it, voices shouted from under the ship's dark hull. Even from a distance, they could hear it faintly.
"It's them!" Lǚ Liu shouted in excitement. "Hong Bin, fire up the signal locator and confirm their position!"
"The radar signal's really weak! Looks like there's some kind of magnetic interference here. If we didn't have our own satellite radar, nothing would get through."
It had been four years since the apocalypse began, and most of the old signal towers had decayed without maintenance, making what little coverage remained practically useless.
Jing Shu's heart pounded. After searching for so long, they'd finally found them. The ship looked beaten to hell, but at least there were survivors. She jumped out of the vehicle and scanned the scene below.
"So... how do we get down there? The ship and everyone else are trapped on that side." Below them was a sheer drop and waves of rolling earth that could crush anyone who fell in.
Yang Yang frowned and pointed toward the giant bug behind them. "Get Xiao Hong to send a message. It's too far to yell, they won't hear us."
He still hadn't forgiven those bugs for scaring him half to death before. Even though Jing Shu had explained everything, he just couldn't get over it.
Jing Shu, however, hesitated. Xiao Hong wasn't smart enough for that. Besides, a massive bug like that would probably scare the people below out of their minds. And even if she sent it, the waves down there were brutal. Anything caught in them—no matter what it was—got crushed instantly.
If Xiao Hong got shredded, returning it to Xiao Wei later would be a nightmare.
Then her eyes drifted to Xiao Dou. The hen was elegantly preening her feathers while sitting atop the gastropod's shell, clearly enjoying her very first "mount."
===
Xiao Hong is the red bug