The map lady froze and He Yuan sighed. This was the reason he had used the pickup truck to help them instead. If he had gone with his SUV and boot full of supplies, he would have been robbed and possibly killed.

He looked to the leader calmly and pulled out a phone. "You don't have to give me the hard copy, I could take pictures and be on my way."

The leader scoffed. "With what? You're not getting the truck either."

The map lady looked at the leader with pleading eyes. "Gu Wei you can't do this. We promi-"

"Shut up." The man cut her off with a glare. "YOU promised, not me. Now hand over the map before I put a hole in that skull of yours."

When the lady handed the map over, Gu Wei moved over to the driver's side and hopped in. "All of you except you," He pointed at He Yuan. "Are free to come with me. You can refuse but I know you're not dumb enough to wait out here for the zombies to get to you."

The false alarmist quickly rushed over to ride shotgun whilst the expressionless member got into the back seat and sat firmly. He might not like Gu Wei's methods but he was not about to be left out in the middle a long stretch of road with trees on both sides. It was normal for people to die in these times. The girl was just unlucky.

The map lady, on the other hand, hopped down from the cargo bed and walked over to He Yuan. She was scared out of her wits but she was not about to abandon the stranger that helped them. She would be dead without his help anyways so she didn't mind.

The leader looked at her and scoffed. "Bring that bag here."

The lady's eyes widened and she clutched her bag of supplies tightly. "But it's mine! I gathered all of it by myself!"

The leader laughed and cocked his gun. "Well it's mine now. You better start moving before I make you unable to move forever." When the lady reluctantly shuffled over and threw the bag at him, the leader caught it with a wolfish grin. "Idiot," He said before driving off.

The lady bit her lip to hold back her sob. It wasn't easy for her to gather all that on her own. She was miles away from any base. The mall in the countryside they were coming from had been ransacked. Without supplies, she was most likely going to starve to death.

He Yuan and the lady stared at each other in total silence. When the lady realized the stranger wasn't going to speak, she took out two pieces of folded paper hidden in the waistband of her jeans and handed one of them to him.

"Here. As promised. I had three copies. I'm not really part of the team, I met them yesterday and they agreed to let me join them because of the map." She didn't ask for anything else.

The man before her had absolutely nothing, just like her. All he had was probably the truck that was taken away. He didn't even have any weapon to protect himself with at least she had her axe with her.

"Do you want to team up with me?~" Her voice broke at the end but she cleared her throat and continued quickly, "It's fine if you don't want to, I'm not compelling you or anything. It's just, you saved my life and now you don't have a weapon or anything and I don't want you to die because-"

"Sure." He Yuan said to cut off her ramblings. She was actually quite brave for choosing to stay behind in the middle of nowhere with an absolute stranger and he hadn't driven out here without a plan.historical

He was already expecting such a thing to happen to him so he had mapped out a return route using the map of the countryside.

The forest by the side of the road was actually a shortcut back to the town. People would actually be scared of going into the forest at first but at a time like this, the forests were actually safer than open roads.

Firstly, people rarely entered the forest even when the world was normal that meant that the amount of zombies that would be located in the forest would be really small.

Secondly, zombies were sensitive to sound. That means that the zombies who had indeed found their way into the forest would have been led out by now by following the sound of the cars and screaming people on the main road when they fled for their lives weeks ago.

Thirdly, the ones that still managed to remain in the forest wouldn't be much of a problem to handle. The forest had obstacles and the zombies were stiff so it would be difficult for them to maneuver their way through the forest when chasing a prey.

It was currently noon so the forest was more than a perfect option. If it was late at night, that would've been a different story because there was no way He Yuan was entering a forest at night whether it had lurking zombies or not. Forests were creepy at night.

The map lady paused a little at He Yuan's answer before smiling. "I'm Liu Bao."

"Du Ling," He Yuan answered and walked towards the forest.

"Do you live there?" Liu Bao asked as she followed behind.

He Yuan only shrugged. There was no time to answer any questions now. When they entered the forest, He Yuan looked around for a short log. He eventually found one and although it was a little moist, it had a good weight and would serve.

He felt a little regretful for leaving his machete behind in the pickup. It was a handy weapon.

After walking for four hours and killing a few zombies on the way, they arrived at the edge of what appeared to be a farmland. Up ahead was the farm house.

Liu Bao's eyes lit up. There might be supplies! They searched through the house and she was able to find some bags and snacks. After getting everything together, she split them into two equal parts and pushed one half to He Yuan. "Here."

He Yuan shook his head. "You can have it." He had a boot load of supplies in the SUV and he made sure to park it away from prying eyes. He had found another machete too, it was rusted in a few parts but it was sharp so he was good.

Liu Bao looked at He Yuan with pity. He had nothing yet he still refused to take the supplies. He must have lost a lot of loved ones hence he chose to give up. She sighed. "I lost loved ones too. It would not be good to give up so easily."

He Yuan raised a brow at her in confusion before he understood what she was thinking. "I'm not giving up. I have supplies." Liu Bao eyed him doubtfully. In the end, she ran to the kitchen and prepared some rice congee with the little ingredients she could find.

He Yuan wasn't polite and ate two bowls. Hot food was good. "Let's go," He said after.

Liu Bao, who was just preparing to make herself comfortable, looked up at him. "Go where?"

"If we remain here, we would have to take turns keeping watch and that wouldn't be convenient for the journey tomorrow."

Liu Bao nodded and they began walking again, making sure to avoid main roads. With the help of the countryside map, He Yuan was able to locate the house he had slept in, the day before. After scouting the perimeters, he led Liu Bao to the basement and secured the door.

The both of them silently chose a part of the wall to lie next to, ready to sleep off after a long day.

"888?"

[I'm still alive.] The system answered and He Yuan drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, He Yuan led Liu Bao to the SUV. She was pleasantly surprised. "I thought you were bluffing."

He Yuan only shrugged and started sorting through the drugs in his bag whilst Liu Bao took care of the zombies around.

After selecting the most important ones, He Yuan went over to the boot and stuffed the cans of food with high energy content into the bag. This way, if he had to ditch the car and run for his life, he would have enough supplies on him.

He gave the medicines and food that couldn't fit in his bag to Liu Bao. Another back up. Liu Bao had a packet of bottle water with her so he took two.

There was water in his system storage but he would look awfully suspicious pulling a bottle of water out of thin air.

Once the both of them were seated and buckled in, He Yuan started the car.

"ARGH, ACK, ACK!" At the sound of the car coming to life, a lot of zombies began rushing over. This was the reason He Yuan hadn't come back to get the car the day before.

He maneuvered the car out of the parking space and drove off with high speed. Once they got out of the countryside, Liu Bao began navigating.

On her map were red circles that marked the location of the different bases. "I think we should go to the military base. It's the biggest and would be the most secure."

He Yuan shook his head. "Bases like that would have more people to feed and would most likely turn people away." That wasn't his real reason. He didn't want to go there because Du Jian was in that base.

If He Yuan went over now, it would be very convenient for Du Jian to arrange a few 'accidents' and kill him off. He pointed at the base closest to the military base. It was an average sized base.

He Yuan chose that one specifically because sooner or later, he'd have to go to the military base. Du Jian was the special one and his task of fixing the realm had to be fulfilled.

He just needed time to get stronger so he would be able to efficiently protect himself. With that, the both of them headed towards the direction of base Beta.