Chapter 383 - 373: On the Road Again

Chapter 383: Chapter 373: On the Road Again

At this moment, Tang Mo noticed that Qiao Xin’s dagger was no longer hidden away in her clothes. Instead, it was now openly tucked at her waist.

At some point, Qiao Xin had wrapped the dagger in several layers of cloth strips to keep it from cutting her.

The cloth strips looked very familiar to Tang Mo. After a moment, she realized they were from Wang Yan’s clothes.

Tang Mo couldn’t help but give Qiao Xin a mental thumbs-up. ’Is she wearing her spoils of war?’

’That’s one hell of a mindset.’

Next to Qiao Xin’s backpack was a smaller one—the one Wang Yan had always kept with her, never letting it out of her sight.

She had probably left it in the room temporarily because she was going to do something for Zhang Li and was afraid carrying a backpack would attract too much attention. She must have thought no one would find it.

Qiao Xin yanked the backpack over and unzipped it. Inside was a considerable amount of food.

Wang Yan must have gone to great lengths and put in a lot of effort to hoard all this food along the way.

"Qiao Jin, put these things in your backpack. You’ll need them on the road ahead." Perhaps the load Qiao Xin was carrying had reached its limit, or maybe she wanted to repay Qiao Jin for her recent help. In any case, she told her to take all the food from Wang Yan’s backpack.

"There’s no room, no more room! My backpack is already full, I can’t carry anything else." Tang Mo quickly waved her hands and backed away. Her pack was already stuffed with food, daily necessities, and a pile of bait.

She had already given a lot of her food to Aunt Hua just to lighten her own load, so how could she possibly add more things to her pack now?

’She has no idea how to survive,’ Qiao Xin thought to herself. ’At a time like this, what could be more important than actual supplies?’

’How is someone with her personality supposed to survive in this apocalypse?’

’Looks like I’ll have to keep a closer eye on this niece of mine for the rest of the journey. Otherwise, I’m afraid she won’t even live long enough to see George Lin.’

After some thought, Qiao Xin decided to have Yiyi carry the backpack. It was full of food, after all. Leaving it behind was out of the question.

Although she couldn’t bear the thought of Yiyi carrying anything, the fact was that Yiyi had to learn to live in this new world.

Even with her mother watching over her, Yiyi would eventually have to learn to fend for herself.

You never knew what might happen in the apocalypse. If she were really gone one day, Yiyi needed to have the skills to survive on her own.

Qiao Xin made up her mind. Raising her daughter like a delicate flower in a greenhouse was probably not a good thing in this new world.

The most important thing was for her to learn the skills to survive.

Perhaps because they were exhausted, everyone slept soundly that night. The next morning, they were all packed and ready to go bright and early, waiting to assemble and set out.

After all, it was always unsafe after dark, so it was best to cover as much ground as possible during the day.

"Where’s your leader?" Zhao Huan asked as he did his usual headcount. No one was missing from his side, but Zhang Li from the other group was gone.

The remaining members of Zhang Li’s group shook their heads in confusion. They had woken up early to find their leader gone and had been searching everywhere for him.

They had searched the entire building, checking every open room, but still couldn’t find him.

Two of their companions and one of the women had vanished along with him. Those three had always been the ones closest to their leader.

Had he abandoned them, taking those few and leaving in the middle of the night? But that didn’t seem right. None of the group’s food was missing. If their leader were to leave, taking all the food with him would have been more in line with his character. No one could figure out what had happened.

In the end, they could only conclude that their leader had tried to take the woman out for a "date" and run into some kind of accident. As for their two companions, maybe they had gone along... After all, they couldn’t think of any other possibility.

"Is your food still here?" Zhao Huan couldn’t care less whether Zhang Li was alive or dead. ’It’d be better if he died,’ he thought. ’Saves me from having to look at that greasy, disgusting eyesore.’ The remaining group nodded frantically. "It is! It’s here!" They were terrified Zhao Huan would abandon them. They had only gathered together in the first place because they were relying on Zhang Li’s superpower. Now that he and two of their companions were gone, all that was left were weak women and children who couldn’t fend for themselves. They couldn’t possibly manage on their own.

"As long as the food’s here, that’s all that matters. Let’s move out." Zhao Huan led the group away. From that moment on, no one ever mentioned Zhang Li again. He was utterly forgotten in the abandoned building. Thanks to their ample supply of bait, the rest of the journey went smoothly. They pushed hard during the day and rested as a group at night.

Other than not finding any more well-stocked, unlooted convenience stores, everything was heading in the right direction.

However, as time went on, their food supplies began to dwindle. For this very reason, the group’s pace quickened. Everyone saw the food factory as their last hope for survival. After all, no one wanted to starve to death on the road.

Just as Tang Mo’s group was getting closer to the food factory, Qi Jiaming, leading George Lin and his wife, was also approaching it from another direction.

Since Qi Jiaming’s group consisted of only three people, their progress was different. Although Qiao Mu was in poor health, she was so worried about her daughter that she refused to rest for long.

How could Qi Jiaming and George Lin argue with a determined woman—especially the only woman in their party? The three of them had no choice but to press on at top speed in their search for Qiao Jin.

It was a shame; sometimes you can search so hard for someone only to pass them by. Without realizing it, they had overtaken Tang Mo’s much larger group. In truth, unlike Tang Mo, Qi Jiaming and George Lin had nowhere near enough bait to attract the Meat Dragons’ attention.

But a lack of food didn’t matter. After all, Qi Jiaming had learned another trick from Tang Mo.

You didn’t just have to use food to deal with Meat Dragons; you could also use your fists. Both Qi Jiaming and George Lin were superpower users. Their Combat Power and physical enhancements had already reached levels far beyond that of ordinary people.

Without enough food for bait, whenever they encountered a small number of Meat Dragons, Qi Jiaming would simply charge in, swinging his fists and a club, and carve a path straight through them by sheer force.

At first, George Lin was a little scared. But seeing the young man who was helping him find his daughter be so brave, he thought, ’As her father, what do I have to be afraid of?’

So, he too rolled up his sleeves and charged into the horde of mutant beasts alongside Qi Jiaming. He wasn’t used to it at first and had always felt the creatures were invincible. But as they gained more combat experience, they gradually discovered that these red-eyed Meat Dragons were nothing to be afraid of.

George Lin even started to regret wasting so much food on these creatures in the past.