Chapter 45 Crispy Starch Grilled Sausages

"A natural hot spring resort?"

Inside a supermarket in City G.

Lin Weiran picked up a flyer stuck to the floor, falling into a brief moment of deep thought.

Si Zhe and the three remaining teammates had just finished loading all the supplies onto the truck and looked over in confusion, asking, "What's wrong?"

Lin Weiran smoothly handed the flyer over. "There's a hot spring nearby."

"There's a hot spring nearby?" Several teammates eagerly crowded around.

Ever since entering the provincial capital where City G was located, the temperature had dropped lower day by day. At that time, they were only wearing thin mountaineering jackets and had almost frozen to death halfway.

By the time they finally managed to rush to a few small towns, all kinds of cold-weather gear had long been looted clean.

It wasn't until they spurred their horses and rushed to City G that they finally found a few down jackets and cotton quilts in this large town. But with this delay, heavy snow had already begun to drift from the sky.

After two days of this snowfall, the outdoors felt like an ice cellar in January. If not for their robust physiques and high internal body heat, the guys would have frozen to death in the cold night long ago.

The flyer had been kept indoors and still looked relatively crisp.

Si Zhe scanned it at a glance and likewise fell into deep thought.

With the snow falling so heavily and the road surface beginning to freeze, their original plan had been to load up on sufficient supplies, find a suitable foothold in City G, and wait until the snowstorm ended before setting off.

Now that they knew there was a natural hot spring near City G... Lin Weiran's gaze landed on the back of the flyer, where a line of small text was printed—Inviting you to the Hot Spring Village for a three-day agritourism trip!

She was completely tempted.

"Si Zhe." Lin Weiran tugged at Si Zhe's hand. "Shall we go there?"

"Why are your hands so cold?"

Si Zhe's first reaction was to wrap his palms around Lin Weiran's hands and rub them together.

Ever since they found the medicine in City X, Si Zhe's injured body had finally recovered. Thanks to Lin Weiran's steadfast companionship during that period, their relationship had rapidly warmed up, and now only the step of officially defining their relationship was missing.

The warmth in his palms transmitted straight to her heart. Neither the biting cold wind nor the goose-feather snow drifting from the sky could dispel the trace of warmth in Lin Weiran's heart.

"It'll be fine once we get in the car."

"Si Zhe, while the ice layer on the road isn't too thick yet, shall we drive to the Hot Spring Village? Since they advertised agritourism, they must have cultivated plenty of crops. Even if they're all frozen now, as long as the seeds remain, we can try planting them ourselves."

Back in City X, they were in a rush to find medicine and anxious to escape the zombie nest, so they had only scavenged some food before hastily hitting the road. From City X to City G, their meals along the way could only be described as meager. Earlier, they could still dig for wild vegetables by the roadside, but once the cold snap arrived, everyone had no choice but to subsist entirely on plain congee.

Lin Weiran harbored a vague sense of cognitive dissonance; she always felt things shouldn't have turned out this way.

People like them were so strong that even when encountering zombie hordes and cold snaps, they should have remained calm and composed, fighting monsters and leveling up all the way until they entered the Southern Base. After all, before they drove off the highway, things had been progressing precisely along that trajectory.

Until... her cousin concealed her superpowers and abandoned the team, causing everything to become completely unrecognizable.

Si Zhe acutely captured the fleeting disappointment in the depths of his beloved's eyes and secretly took a deep breath.

He knew that it was his injury that had dragged Weiran down. If not for taking care of him, she definitely could have lived a much better life.

Now that his injuries were healed, driven by a sense of compensation, Si Zhe thought whatever Lin Weiran said was right.

"Alright, then let's go look for this Hot Spring Village right now."

His unhesitating agreement made Lin Weiran instantly cast aside the chaotic thoughts in her mind, giving him a sweet, reproachful glance. "Get in the car quickly! If we don't leave now, the snow is going to get even heavier!"

The vehicle drove in the direction of the Hot Spring Village, following a trajectory identical to their previous life.

The only two differences were the absence of Su Su and the fact that the timeline had been advanced.

***

Screeech—

Over the course of just a few dozen kilometers, the car slipped and slid several times, stabilizing solely thanks to Si Zhe's superb driving skills.

A teammate asked with extreme anxiety, "Weiran, if we can't find this Hot Spring Village, aren't we going to end up trapped on the road?"

Lin Weiran couldn't provide an answer for the moment either.

The road signs around here had been violently smashed by unknown culprits, leaving them to rely entirely on a pre-apocalypse map to discern directions.

Lin Weiran was anxious as well, constantly gazing into the distance until she caught sight of the foot of the mountain marked on the map, at which her face lit up with sudden joy: "We've arrived!"

An empty guard booth stood at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by absolute silence without a single person keeping watch.

Amidst the jubilant atmosphere, only Si Zhe frowned.

He acutely noticed that inside the snow-covered guard booth, everything was exceptionally clean, as if someone had been keeping watch there continuously since the apocalypse began.

"Si Zhe, what are you thinking about?" Lin Weiran waved her hand. "Let's head up the mountain quickly!"

Si Zhe withdrew his gaze, temporarily suppressing the doubts in his heart. "Yeah."

Driving from the foot of the mountain to the mountainside, the sign for the Hot Spring Village came into view, and the traces of living humans in the surroundings grew increasingly obvious.

A teammate rolled down the window, staring in disbelief at the villagers walking around within the village: "There are actually people inside!"

Seeing an external vehicle drive into the village, a flash of resentment crossed the eyes of the villagers at the entrance, though they were powerless to do otherwise.

Over the past two or three days, with Wei Yan and Zou Gaoming no longer garrisoning the place, an increasing number of people had come to the Hot Spring Village to escape the cold.

At first, these villagers had been reluctant.

For accommodating outsiders who were easy to talk to and willingly handed over supplies and crystal cores, they would gladly let them in. As for those who were difficult... it usually meant a beating, and worse yet, some short-tempered visitor would straight-up kill a villager on the spot.

From then on, all the villagers understood one thing: outsiders who could drive cars into the Hot Spring Village during a snowstorm were nine times out of ten supernatural beings—existences they could not afford to provoke. From that day onward, no villager ever dared to collect a "living fee" again.

Not only that, but these overbearing outsiders forcibly seized the hot springs, guesthouses, and vegetable greenhouses.

Supernatural beings with meager supplies would even break into the villagers' homes, plunder their provisions, and stride away.

By the time Lin Weiran and her group got out of the car, the villagers scattered in all directions, daring only to steal glances without uttering a single word.

"Si Zhe, do you think this village is very strange?" Lin Weiran's gaze swept over the non-superpowered villagers. "How have they managed to survive until now in the apocalypse? Could it be because it's far away from the urban area?"

Mid-sentence, a miserable roar echoed from not far away.

"That's my family's rice! Give my rice back to me!"

Two Tier-2 supernatural beings leaped out from a courtyard wall by the roadside, hoisting a bag of rice as they strode away.

The villager chased after them in absolute despair, ultimately becoming nothing more than a soul under the supernatural beings' blades.

The group watched in silence, waiting until the farce ended before exchanging glances with one another.

Lin Weiran drew a conclusion: "It seems the cold snap and heavy snow drove quite a few people to discover this Hot Spring Village, disrupting the original ecosystem of the village."

As they continued forward, a teammate beside them suddenly cried out in pleasant surprise, "Look at that!"

Lin Weiran and Si Zhe looked in the direction of the voice.

Greenhouses. Several vegetable greenhouses had been erected among the fields near the back mountain.

Lin Weiran said in pleasant surprise, "There are actually greenhouses here! We can grow vegetables!"

As long as the temperature inside the greenhouses could be regulated, they could even grow tomatoes!

***

A teammate had already jumped into the fields ahead of the others, roughly pulling back the heavy door curtain.

"It's tomatoes! There are tomatoes inside!"

Speak of the devil. Lin Weiran excitedly walked up to the greenhouse, where the teammate inside had already plucked two semi-ripened red and green tomatoes, devouring one himself with juice splashing everywhere while handing the other to her.

"Hurry up and try one!"

Just as Lin Weiran reached out to take it, a surging flurry of wind and dust suddenly stabbed diagonally from the side.

"Careful!" Si Zhe pulled her back with quick reflexes.

The sneak attack missed, and Lin Weiran looked toward the rear flank with lingering fear. "Who is it?"

Several supernatural beings leaped out openly, staring with malicious intent at this unfamiliar team.

"Newbies, don't you know these greenhouses are claimed by us? Get lost!"

Lin Weiran laughed out of anger. "Did you build these greenhouses? Did you grow these vegetables? What gives you the right to claim they belong to you!"

"Just this."

The group displayed their strength: two Tier-3 supernatural beings and two Tier-2 supernatural beings. With this lineup, they could dominate practically anywhere they went.

Si Zhe's expression instantly turned serious.

He silently released his supernatural energy—Tier-3 lightning element—possessing an aura fierce enough to bluff the vast majority of people.

Lin Weiran also seized the moment to display her fireball. Having successfully obtained a Tier-3 crystal core during the zombie horde in City X, she had already broken through to a Tier-3 supernatural being.

Speaking of pure strength, their side had two Tier-3 supernatural beings and three Tier-2 supernatural beings, giving them a numerical advantage.

This time, the expressions on the opposing side shifted.

However, greenhouses were scarce survival resources in the apocalypse; there was no way they would hand them over willingly.

A loud roar rang out: "Fine! Then let's see whose fists are harder!"

The supernatural beings on the opposing side charged forward first, and neither Si Zhe nor Lin Weiran retreated, taking the lead to meet them head-on.

With four Tier-3 supernatural beings and five Tier-2 supernatural beings clashing simultaneously, the scene instantly turned into a chaotic battlefield of flying sand and stones, darkening the sky.

Aside from a few greenhouses that were deliberately avoided, the surrounding courtyards were completely reduced to ruins, and the villagers hiding nearby either fled or were wounded. In an instant, the village completely degenerated into a battlefield for outsiders.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!"

Blazing flames burned a Tier-3 supernatural being into a human torch. Lin Weiran turned her head to see Si Zhe about to severely injure his opponent, while her other three teammates were also on the verge of subduing the remaining two Tier-2 supernatural beings.

Seeing victory within reach, a smile curled the corners of her mouth, six parts exhilaration and four parts high-spirited arrogance... Yet this smile didn't last long before the entire ground began to shake violently.

"What's going on?"

"Is there an earthquake?!"

After feeling it for a few seconds, Lin Weiran shouted, "It's not an earthquake! It's..."

A localized tremor had erupted, as if some colossal behemoth was about to burrow its way out from the mountains.

Every single person's gaze turned toward the nearby back mountain, where a massive creature, five to six meters wide, was clawing its way out from a pitch-black, deep cavern.