Chapter 318 - 162: On the Way

Chapter 318: Chapter 162: On the Way

The SUV crawled forward through the twilight. Xu Mo gripped the steering wheel, his eyes occasionally flicking to the rearview mirror.

The silhouette of Luochuan City had long since vanished, replaced by an endless wilderness. The sky was darkening bit by bit, the gray haze growing deeper.

It was already evening when Xu Mo left Luochuan City.

Luo Li had insisted he stay the night at their settlement and offered to show him their zombie factory.

"Zombie factory?"

Xu Mo had paused when he heard the term.

Only after Luo Li’s explanation did Xu Mo understand. They harnessed the zombies’ natural traits, restricting their freedom to make them work. Grinding grain, generating power—zombies never got tired. As long as they were properly controlled, they were the perfect labor force.

It certainly sounded creative; not many people in the apocalypse would have thought of such a thing. With Luo Li’s ability to control zombies, coupled with the cooperation of those mutated residents, they might have actually built a unique system for survival.

For a fleeting moment, Xu Mo was genuinely tempted. He wanted to see it. He wanted to see what Luo Li’s "zombie factory" was really like and how those mutated people lived.

But then Xu Mo’s gaze swept over Void, who was standing nearby, and that spark of curiosity quickly died.

Void stood at the edge of the ruins, all four eyes on its two heads fixed on him.

In the end, Xu Mo had shaken his head and declined.

Now, the sky was truly growing dark.

Xu Mo pulled his gaze from the rearview mirror and focused on the road ahead. He was on a highway heading southeast out of Luochuan City. The pavement was still relatively smooth, but the fields on either side were long since barren and overgrown with weeds. Occasionally, he’d spot a few abandoned vehicles tilted on the shoulder. ’I need to find a place to spend the night.’

According to the map, there should be a town about ten kilometers or so past Luochuan City. But it wasn’t on his main route; he’d have to make a detour.

Xu Mo hesitated for a moment, then decided against it.

’A detour means more time, and who knows what’s waiting in that town,’ he thought. ’I’m better off finding a relatively safe spot on the side of the road to hole up for the night.’

The sky grew steadily darker. Xu Mo flipped on the headlights, two dim yellow beams cutting through the darkness and illuminating the road for a few dozen meters. In the deepening night, the roar of the engine sounded exceptionally clear.

After another twenty minutes of driving, a blurry silhouette suddenly appeared in the headlight beams.

Xu Mo squinted, slowing down as he approached.

It was a building—a farmhouse inn, to be precise.

The courtyard was quite large, enclosed by a low wall, with about ten buildings inside. The buildings looked relatively intact, with no obvious signs of collapse. The main gate stood wide open, a Black Hole that made it impossible to see what was inside.

Xu Mo parked outside the gate and got out to investigate.

The beam of his flashlight swept across the courtyard, illuminating weed-choked ground and a few long-dead saplings. Directly opposite the gate was a small, two-story building. The ground floor appeared to be a lobby, its door ajar. Beside it were several single-story structures that looked like a kitchen and utility rooms.

Xu Mo approached the small building and shone his flashlight through a window. The lobby was barren, with tables and chairs in disarray and miscellaneous junk scattered across the floor. No zombies, no bodies—only thick dust and cobwebs.

Xu Mo backed away and checked the other single-story buildings. The kitchen was completely empty; there wasn’t even a pot on the earthen stove. The utility room door was open, and it too was completely empty.

’The good news is there are no zombies. The bad news is there’s nothing else, either.’

Xu Mo stood in the courtyard for a moment, his flashlight beam sweeping across the surrounding low walls. The walls were damaged in a few places, but not severely. ’If someone keeps watch,’ he mused, ’this place could work for the night.’

Xu Mo chose a room with a door on the ground floor of the small building and decided to sleep there for the night.

The next morning, Xu Mo was jolted awake by the bright sunlight.

The room had no curtains, and a piercing ray of light was shining directly on his face. Xu Mo squinted and sat up, stretching his stiff neck. Then he stood, pushed aside the barricade he’d propped against the door, and walked out.

The sun was bright. It was a rare, beautiful day in the apocalypse. The sky was a pale blue with a few wisps of white cloud drifting on the horizon. As the sunlight filled the courtyard, it created an eerie sense of life.

Xu Mo stood in the courtyard, sizing up the farmhouse inn.

It had been too dark to see clearly last night; in the light of day, the place was bigger than he’d imagined. In addition to the two-story building and the few single-story structures, there was a row of low buildings deeper in the courtyard that looked like staff dormitories or warehouses. The courtyard wall was built of stone. Though damaged in places, it was still solid for the most part.

Xu Mo did a lap around the farmhouse inn. The lobby was indeed barren, with old papers, plastic bags, and empty bottles strewn across the floor. A few yellowed promotional posters were stuck to the wall, displaying the inn’s signature dishes and contact information, but they were long since faded and blurred.

Xu Mo crouched down and picked up some of the papers, flipping through them. There were menus, advertising flyers, and scrap paper left behind by God knows who. Nothing useful.

Xu Mo checked the other areas. Practically nothing useful had been left behind.

It reminded Xu Mo of the people haggling in the Jiang City trading market, of the survivors who would argue until they were red in the face over a few ration biscuits. In the apocalypse, every useful item was a lifeline. A pot, a knife, a box of matches—any one of them could determine whether a person would survive the next winter.