Apocalypse Mode: My Cheat Code Virtual Boyfriend - Chapter 29

Traveling through the apocalypse was never going to be smooth sailing.

Following the navigation, the forest map led them straight into the territory of a massive patch of mutated vines.

The mutated vines looked deceptively ordinary, with leaves resembling ivy, lying quietly on the ground.

Bai Xun, without any caution, stepped on the accelerator and drove over them. As the front wheels pressed onto the leaves, the entire patch of mutated vines began to tremble rapidly, writhing like a swarm of snakes. Their slender bodies coiled around the off-road vehicle, enveloping it completely.

“Holy shit!” Before Bai Xun could react, the windshield was tightly wrapped in barbed mutated vines, and the tires were entangled as well.

The metal body of the vehicle groaned under the strain.

Lu Jiaoshuang and the others were in the rear vehicle, still some distance away from the front car. They slammed on the brakes in time, stopping at a safe distance and avoiding entanglement.

Communication between the two vehicles was maintained via walkie-talkie. Bai Yu immediately pressed the button: “Sister Shuang, come help! We’re trapped by vines. The doors won’t open, and we’re about to be crushed into scrap metal!”

“On it!”

Lu Jiaoshuang reversed, moving Bai Guifang and Grandma Bai further away, then quickly grabbed a diesel flamethrower from the trunk. She and Yu Feibai sprinted toward Bai Xun’s vehicle.

For now, Bai Xun and the others were safe. The vines looked menacing but posed little real threat, their barbs only trapped people inside the car.

Yu Feibai summoned Xiao Hei, hidden within his body. Sharp fins flickered behind him, swiftly slicing through the entangled vines before retracting. The black fins flashed repeatedly, and vines fell to the ground, writhing.

Lu Jiaoshuang seized every opening, aiming the diesel flamethrower and unleashing a torrent of fire!

The ignited vines twisted and thrashed, the flames spreading to the other entangled vines like wildfire.

The vines wrapped around the windshield retreated like a receding tide, and the car doors could finally be opened.

Cheng Wei, sitting in the passenger seat, flung the door open and dashed out, moving so fast that only a blur of his fluffy black-and-white tail was visible.

Bai Xun, still in the driver’s seat, opened the kitchen simulator and pulled out a chainsaw before joining the fray to destroy the mutated vines.

After the exhilarating battle came the messy task of firefighting.

For some reason, these vines ignited at the slightest spark. In the dry conditions, the fire spread rapidly. Bai Xun frantically pulled buckets of water from the kitchen simulator, and together, they managed to extinguish the wildfire before it could spread further.

Bai Xun rubbed his aching back and muttered, “Almost worked to death. No wonder a single spark can set an entire mountain ablaze. Mountain fires spread way too fast.”

Cheng Wei twitched his ears, clearly hearing the complaint. He walked over to Bai Xun’s side and said, “I’ll drive next. You rest for a bit.”

Bai Xun nodded, but as he glanced aside, he noticed a torn piece of fabric beneath the charred vines behind Cheng Wei.

“What’s that?!”

Cheng Wei, startled by the sudden exclamation, flinched, a snow leopard’s unavoidable skittish nature, his tail fur puffing up in alarm.

Bai Xun felt a little embarrassed and reached out to smooth down Cheng Wei’s tail fur. “Sorry, I got a bit loud just now. But I think there’s something under these vines.”

Cheng Wei, having been soothed, couldn’t help but feel a purr rising in his throat, but he still turned his head away. “Here?”

“Yes, just a bit behind where you’re standing.”

Bai Xun went to the trunk to fetch the military shovels, handing one to each person to dig up and examine the charred vines.

What they unearthed was truly astonishing.

With one shovel, they overturned the roots of the vines and poked into shriveled corpses drained of nutrients.

They dug up the entire area and found a total of five corpses, all sucked dry of nutrients by the vine roots.

The clothing and personal belongings of the corpses were in varying states of preservation, as if they had temporarily camped here to rest but were unfortunately brutally preyed upon by the mutated vines. Once entangled by the barbed vines, escape was nearly impossible.

If Bai Xun and the others had been hiking through the wilderness instead of driving an off-road vehicle, mutants might have had a chance to survive, but ordinary people would have suffered severe lacerations.

Bai Xun sighed, feeling sorrow for these unfortunate victims.

However, sorrow aside, he swiftly pulled out gloves and a mask, put them on, and began rummaging through the corpses’ clothing and personal belongings to see if he could find anything useful.

For example, any other useful information about the post-apocalyptic world.

His resilience had grown much stronger now; seeing corpses no longer fazed him.

He opened a tattered backpack and found a loose-leaf notebook with torn pages inside. Scribbled pencil notes briefly recorded the mundane daily life after the apocalypse.

“The rain still hasn’t stopped today, food is scarce…”

“A dog downstairs ate… It came up and knocked on the door…”

“Very hungry, very hungry, I tasted a mouthful of rainwater…”

“The rain stopped, waiting for rescue, starting, rescue… occupied…”

“Joined the base, the base requires points, went on missions, Xiao Jie died.”

“Why can they eat meat? Parasites! Enjoying the fruits of my labor… parasites… die! Go die…”

“Finally left… liberated…”

The pages were blurry from being torn and soaked in water. It was clear that the owner of the notebook was in a precarious mental state, but from the lines, it was also evident that there were now organized and structured post-apocalyptic bases.

The forest map didn’t mark the location of any post-apocalyptic bases. This forest was likely far from any base, so they could still stick to their original plan and head to the abandoned logging camp to build their new home.

“Is this a crystal cone? It doesn’t seem like it.” Lu Jiaoshuang, as a medical student, had stronger mental resilience when handling corpses. She immediately discovered something valuable.

Holding a pendant encased in a small net bag woven with fine string, she turned to Bai Xun for confirmation.

Bai Xun took it, unwrapped the woven string around it, removed his glove, and lightly touched it. The Star game system immediately popped up a notification: “Obtained Crystal Cone ×1. Current Crystal Cone count: 4.”

It was indeed a crystal cone, just used as an ornament.

After thoroughly searching all the corpses, they found no other valuable clues or items. They spent some time digging a shallow pit and placed the bodies inside.

After finishing this, they took out alcohol to disinfect themselves briefly, then returned to the vehicle and continued on their way.

Cheng Wei took the driver’s seat, while Bai Xun leaned back in the passenger seat, closing his eyes to rest.

A nearly two-day drive took them across one-third of the forest reserve. As evening approached, they found a new campsite.

Having encountered mutated vines just that morning, Bai Xun was extra cautious about the new location. Only after Cheng Wei and Lu Jiaoshuang got out of the vehicle first to scout and confirm it was safe did the rest of the group disembark.

Dinner offered a change of pace tonight, they were having hot pot.

Cheng Wei chopped down a few sturdy branches to build a tripod. Bai Xun pulled out a large pot, filled it with purified water, and brought it to a boil before tossing in a block of hot pot base for a spicy red oil broth.

The group gathered around the pot. On a fire-retardant cloth spread on the ground, they laid out several boxes of sliced pork, beef rolls, chicken thigh meat, shrimp, along with frozen bok choy, daikon radish, lettuce, and shiitake mushrooms.

There weren’t many ingredients, so they added them as they ate.

Bai Xun held his dipping sauce bowl, a mix of sesame oil, minced garlic, crushed peanuts, and the last two handfuls of scallions and cilantro brought from home, blended into an oil-based dip. This meal was truly a luxury.

The hot pot bubbled and boiled, ready for ingredients.

Bai Xun used long chopsticks to pick up a slice of beef roll, dipping it into the bright red spicy broth. He waited for it to unfurl, wrinkle, and transform completely into a tender, delicate texture before quickly fishing it out. He rolled it in the oil dip, blew on it, and brought it to his lips.

Spicy oil dripped along the pink-and-white marbling of the cooked beef roll. He added a bit of minced garlic and cilantro before popping it into his mouth.

Delicious!

Bai Xun was so happy he nearly teared up.

Cheng Wei, however, was not faring as well.

He swished a slice of pork in the pot, blew on it to cool it down, rolled it in the oil dip, and took a bite, only for his mouth to turn bright red from the spiciness.

The pork slice, coated in spicy oil, was swallowed whole. Not only could his cat-like tongue not handle heat, but it couldn’t tolerate even a hint of spice either.

“Can’t you handle spicy food?” Bai Xun glanced over at Cheng Wei, who hadn’t touched his chopsticks for a while.

“It’s too spicy.” Cheng Wei stuck out his tongue, panting, looking like a teary-eyed puppy.

“Let me make you a clear broth base then.” Startled by the tears welling in the corners of Cheng Wei’s eyes, Bai Xun took out a small pot to prepare a separate one for him.

“Brother Cheng Wei is so sensitive to spice. Next time, let’s have tomato hot pot,” Bai Yu suggested, biting into a crisp piece of lettuce with a satisfying crunch.

“I think pork stomach and chicken hot pot sounds good too. Do we have any pork stomach in our supplies?” Lu Jiaoshuang asked hopefully.

“Nope,” Bai Xun replied, dashing her hopes.

“Any more garlic?” Yu Feibai raised his dipping sauce bowl.

“Xiao Yu has good taste,” praised Madam Bai Guifang, commending his garlic-adding habit.

“Grandson, cook some rice noodles for your grandma. A proper meal needs a staple,” Grandma Bai put down her chopsticks, waiting for the main course.

Bai Xun swiftly pulled out the rice noodles and added a large packet into the pot, watching as the white noodles tumbled in the red broth.

Tonight, he and Cheng Wei weren’t on the first watch shift. After washing up early, Bai Xun crawled into the tent, wrapped himself in a sleeping bag, rolled onto a wool blanket, and fell into a deep sleep.

On the following leg of the journey, both off-road vehicles refueled once, using the diesel Bai Xun had stored in the kitchen simulator, enough to get them to the abandoned logging site.

The closer they got to the abandoned logging site, the road conditions began to change. Perhaps because the logging site had been in use long ago, the trees here were relatively sparse, and there were even stretches of flat road.

Although these sections were now overgrown with weeds, they were still much easier to drive on compared to the uneven, rugged terrain deep in the forest.

The off-road vehicle finally stabilized on this stretch of road. Bai Xun had been worried that sharp rocks hidden beneath the weeds and bushes in the forest might puncture the tires.

Along the way, aside from encountering mutated vines, they also came across a group of bats.

These bats were hanging upside down from the large trees in the area where they had set up camp. Initially, they had kept to themselves, but in the latter half of the night, the bats covered the tent roof with droppings. At dawn, they spent a long time cleaning up while holding their noses.

On the fifty-sixth day of the apocalypse, they finally arrived at the abandoned logging site.

The abandoned logging site was essentially a flat, muddy ground, now overgrown with weeds. A few solitary logs lay scattered near the half-collapsed corrugated iron fence, which was rusted and riddled with irregular, gaping holes.

The main structure of the logging site was a two-story, container-style building. An iron staircase ran along the outside, while a rolling shutter door in the middle allowed processed timber to be transported in and out.

Now, it was completely abandoned.

And it seemed there was a minor issue.