Chapter 20: The Spotted Female Corpse

  As dawn broke, the driver of the car had switched from Cao Mei to Boss Hu. However, no one expected Boss Hu’s driving skills to be even worse than Cao Mei's. He drove along the road with a jarring motion, scraping off several chunks of paint and even puncturing a rear tire on a piece of rebar. Now, Boss Hu was squatting on the ground, sweating profusely as he changed the tire.

  Lin Tao sat atop the roof of a Toyota Land Cruiser, which had windows that were completely shattered, nibbling on a piece of dry bread. In his right hand, he held a high-powered monocur, scanning a massive building several kilometers ahead. As he stared at the familiar sign, a thoughtful expression crossed his face.

  “Finally done! Damn it, how many kilometers did we even cover st night? We haven't even caught a glimpse of the river!” Boss Hu excimed, kicking the old tire he had just removed. At that moment, he spotted a half-decayed corpse stumbling out of a nearby dipidated house. Startled, he took a few steps back, but soon realized that this undead creature didn’t seem very threatening. He quickly picked up the repced tire and hurled it at the corpse. With a resounding crunch, the tire smashed against its neck, causing the head to tilt forward and the undead to colpse, twitching a few times before lying still.

  “Damn it, trying to take advantage of me? I’ll take you out!” Boss Hu spat disdainfully, and upon noticing more undead approaching from a distance, he hurriedly jumped into the car and revved the engine, pulling up beside Lin Tao.

  “Let’s go, get out of the car!” Lin Tao jumped down from the Land Cruiser and brushed off the dust from his pants.

  “Huh? Where are we going? Aren't we driving anymore?” Boss Hu popped his head out of the window, surprised.

  “We can’t drive any further; the road ahead is completely blocked!” Lin Tao shoved his monocur into Boss Hu's hands, forcing him to look at the pile-up of wrecked vehicles ahead.

  “So I changed the tire for nothing?” Boss Hu compined, his face fallen.

  “Originally, nobody asked you to change it!” Cao Mei, standing behind Lin Tao with her arms crossed, scoffed at Boss Hu.

  “Ugh, what a nightmare! From a Benz to the bus line, it feels like I've been thrown back to square one!” Boss Hu shook his head, helplessly retrieving some essential gear from the car. He then turned to Lin Tao, asking, “What’s our pn now?”

  “Follow me!” Lin Tao said, grabbing a bck backpack and leading the way ahead.

  With a defeated demeanor, Boss Hu followed Lin Tao but had only taken a few steps when he pointed to a bck Porsche Cayenne that had crashed into a tree. “Hey, I recognize that car!”

  “Really? A retive of yours?” Cao Mei interjected, her tone venomous. Ever since escaping from the factory, she seemed to have lost all fear of Boss Hu, instead meting out sharp jibes as if to vent her resentment.

  “Damn, it might as well be your retive! Don’t tell me you don’t recognize that car. When you fled to my pce, you came with its owner’s brother. When those two were using you, it wasn’t even the apocalypse yet! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten all that!” Boss Hu said with a smirk, crossing his arms.

  Cao Mei was taken aback, and as she recognized the nearly unrecognizable Cayenne, her face turned pale. Suddenly, she trembled and let out a sharp scream, pulling a knife from her waist and charging at Boss Hu like a crazed leopard, aiming straight for his heart.

  “Damn it, you have some nerve!”

  Boss Hu responded without hesitation, spping Cao Mei to the ground. Immediately, he stomped on her wrist, seizing the knife. A chill flickered in his eyes as he aimed the bde at her heart.

  “Thud…”

  As Boss Hu thrust the knife toward her, he felt a violent tremor in his palm. The low-quality bde had broken, leaving only a wooden handle. His heart sank, and he looked up to find Lin Tao pointing a gun at him, smoke curling from the barrel. Embarrassed, Boss Hu tossed the wooden handle aside, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. He awkwardly stood up and said, “Heh, brother, she was just acting out of line. I was only trying to scare her!”

  “I don’t wish to see this happen again!” Lin Tao coldly reholstered his gun, while Cao Mei stood up, clutching her wrist. She shot a complex gnce at Lin Tao before turning to the almost wrecked Cayenne.

  Despite being a top-equipped Turbo Cayenne, valued at over two million yuan, the luxury vehicle now appeared pitiful. It had smmed into a thick tree, crumpling the front end into a V-shape, and the left front tire had vanished, leaving only a red caliper lying on the ground, barely visible.

  The windshield was completely shattered, and the airbags had long since deployed. However, no amount of airbags could withstand such a traumatic impact. The two bodies inside had already turned into heaps of bones, their clothes in tatters. A slender female skeleton y sprawled on the engine hood, resting against the tree, suggesting she had been ejected from the car upon impact, dying there.

  Cao Mei stood before the Cayenne, gazing at the grim scene, tears streaming down her cheeks. Biting her lip, she struggled to open the deformed car door. With a loud crash, the robust skeleton slumped out of the driver’s seat, falling to the ground in a heap.

  Looking at the scattered bones, Cao Mei wiped her tears and turned to Lin Tao. “Lin, could you wait for me a moment? I want to bury him!”

  Lin Tao nodded silently, asking, “Who was he to you?”

  “...He might be considered my man,” she replied, bending down to pick up the bones. Each bone was thick enough to indicate that this man had been quite a muscur figure in life.

  Not far from the Cayenne, there was a shallow pit, likely used for pnting a tree. At this moment, nobody would be picky. Cao Mei pced all the bones inside and, just as she was about to find a tool to cover the pit, she suddenly ran back to the Cayenne and lifted the smaller skeleton onto her shoulder, pcing it in with the others. “Ah Fang, I know you despise me as a third party, but in the end, it was you who left with Qiang while he was escaping, not me. You should be at peace now. I’m ying you both to rest together. May you both find love again in your next life!”

  After pcing the final bone in the pit, Cao Mei picked up a piece of scrap metal and struggled to fill the hole. At that moment, a tall figure approached and started helping her. Cao Mei looked up in surprise to see it was Lin Tao. Grateful, she gave him a faint smile, wiped her tears, and continued digging.

  “I thought in your eyes, a selfish woman like me wouldn’t deserve any sympathy!” Cao Mei spoke softly as she covered the st bit of dirt and wiped the sweat from her forehead, gazing at Lin Tao.

  “In my eyes, being a little selfish in this world isn’t a bad thing!” Lin Tao said, inserting the broken shovel into the ground, brushing off the dirt from his hands. “As long as there’s still a shred of humanity, that’s worth empathizing with!”

  Watching Lin Tao turn away, Cao Mei bit her lip, uncertain of her thoughts, but the light in her eyes seemed to glow brighter.