Chapter 282: Return to the Pigsty

“Whew…”

Lin Fan let out a long breath, opened his eyes, and deactivated the Invisibility Crystal.

The moment he did, Cheng Qi’s vision blurred. The sense of nothingness—as if Lin Fan could disappear at any moment—suddenly shattered, like an invisible pane of frosted glass being removed. The familiar, solid presence of Lin Fan had “returned” to the vehicle’s cabin.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it.” Lin Fan stretched his stiff neck, which let out a series of cracks. He glanced at Ye Qingniao, who had fallen asleep in his arms, then looked up at Cheng Qi. “Have you checked the map? Is this the road the convoy needs to take to get to the quarantine zone?”

“Mmm… convoy?”

The person in his arms stirred. Awakened by the voices, Ye Qingniao let out a drowsy murmur. She subconsciously tried to stretch, but the moment she raised her arm…

“Hiss—” The pulling sensation from the wounds on her chest and back jolted her fully awake. It wasn’t just painful; there was an intense itch as well.

When she tentatively reached for her chest, her fingertips brushed against the gauze. It felt hard, as if a thick scab had already formed underneath.

“Don’t scratch.” Lin Fan grabbed the hand she was about to use to scratch the itch.

“…Oh.” Ye Qingniao obediently pulled her hand back. Only then did she realize she was still draped in the animal hide—and was naked underneath. Her face flushed red. She quickly pulled the hide, which had slipped halfway down, back up to cover herself tightly, leaving only her eyes visible as she asked Lin Fan, “The convoy, where is it?”

Lin Fan jutted his chin toward the driver’s cabin, where Cheng Qi was looking over the map.

“Looks like it is…”

Cheng Qi traced a path on the map with his finger, starting from the Tianshui Road gas station and following it down.

“I remember their original route. They were supposed to go north, then east, which means they would have to cross this bridge to get to the quarantine zone.”

“So you’re saying they might have already come to the broken bridge, found they couldn’t cross, and then continued north…”

The route Cheng Qi traced matched Lin Fan’s guess almost perfectly. He figured that going north from Tianshui Road and then east was fundamentally the same as the general direction he had decided on last night: east along the outer ring road, then north.

It was just a matter of finding a bridge to cross the river and then traveling a bit further to reach the quarantine zone. Logically, both groups should have ended up at the same impasse at the broken bridge, though their arrival times were uncertain. So, he asked,

“Or have they not even made it here yet?”

“They have a lot of people…”

Cheng Qi was staring at the map, analyzing the convoy’s travel speed. Before he could finish, a slightly hoarse but spirited female voice cut him off.

“They have a lot of people!”

After that short nap, nourished by the crystal’s energy, Ye Qingniao had recovered a good deal of her strength. Hearing news of the main group, she immediately scrambled up from Lin Fan’s lap, clutching the hide around herself.

“With so many people, they couldn’t possibly travel in this heavy rain. The visibility is terrible. If they got surrounded by zombies, or if the civilians and soldiers caught colds from the rain, it wouldn’t be easy to treat them.”

She held up a finger and said with certainty, “So, they must be holed up somewhere enclosed, taking shelter from the rain. But we traveled through it, which means they must be behind us!”

“Well, in that case…” Lin Fan glanced at the weather outside through a firing port. Although the dark clouds hadn’t completely dispersed, golden sunlight was already spilling through a gap in the distance. It was clear the skies would clear up sooner or later.

So he gave Ye Qingniao, who was still sitting on his lap, a little push. “Cyan Bird, can you still use your ability? To start the vehicle.”

“I can! No problem!”

Ye Qingniao nodded vigorously. She pushed herself up from his lap, planted her feet on the steel floor, and stood up straight.

She subconsciously reached for the small pile of clothes on the seat, only to remember that her top had two holes in the front and was tattered in the back where it had been cut. It was unwearable.

“Ah, my clothes…”

Ye Qingniao looked at the ruined cloth in her hands, then glanced down at her own awkward state—naked underneath and relying on a single animal hide for modesty. Her face instantly flushed red to the tips of her ears. She froze on the spot, unsure of what to do.

“Here, wear mine for now.”

With Ye Qingniao standing, Lin Fan felt less constrained. Seeing her embarrassed expression as she looked at her clothes, he reached up. ZZZIP! He unzipped and took off his own track jacket, revealing a black T-shirt underneath.

But on closer inspection, his track jacket also had three holes in it, probably from when the “Boss” shot at him during the chase. He thought for a moment, then reached down again and pulled off his black T-shirt as well, offering both to her so she wouldn’t be exposed to the draft.

Without the cover of his clothes, Lin Fan’s lean, powerful upper body was completely exposed. He didn’t have the exaggerated bulk of a bodybuilder, but every muscle fiber was as defined as a steel cable. A few pale pink, recently healed bullet wounds were visible on his chest.

He pulled the T-shirt over Ye Qingniao’s head, blocking her glowing blue pupils and her dazed, infatuated stare.

“…Wear my clothes for now. You two get the vehicle started, head west on this road for a bit, and look for them. See if you can rendezvous first.”

Bare-chested, he bent down and walked to the exit on the roof of the rear cabin. He reached up and pushed it open. The sunlight pouring in illuminated his body and brightened the cabin’s interior.

“If you don’t find them, come back to the bridgehead here and wait for me…”

Ye Qingniao had just poked her head out of the T-shirt’s collar. The oversized men’s shirt hung loosely on her frame, the wide neckline revealing a large expanse of her collarbone.