Surviving the Apocalypse with the Young Miss - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Leaving the City

It wasn’t just one; soon, three or four monster zombies slammed into the car, thump, thump, thump!!

Tong Xiangyu’s face turned waxen. She knew that once the monsters caught up and surrounded them, they were strong enough to possibly flip the car. Panicked, Tong Xiangyu immediately lifted her foot off the brake and clutch; the car lunged forward an inch and then stalled.

It had died.

Song Ge immediately looked at Tong Xiangyu.

Fine beads of cold sweat covered the tip of Tong Xiangyu’s nose. Her hands shaking, she immediately tried to restart the ignition, recalling the steps for starting a car. But whether something was wrong with the car or she was simply too nervous, the moment she lifted her foot, the engine stalled again.

Tong Xiangyu looked like she was about to cry, her trembling hand reaching to twist the key once more.

Song Ge saw it—though this young lady was an outstanding student who excelled in everything, she clearly wasn’t very skilled at driving; she was likely a novice.

The situation was critical, but Song Ge took off her mask and offered a low, quick comfort: “Don’t rush, don’t be nervous. Take it slow, they won’t catch—”

Before she could finish, a loud bang rocked the vehicle!

A sturdy young male monster with half its face rotted away and rolled-back white eyes rushed to the side of the car, slamming its fists against the window!

The massive noise made Tong Xiangyu jump. Just as she was about to turn her head, Song Ge covered her eyes.

“Don’t look,” Song Ge said. “Calm down, Tong Xiangyu.”

Tong Xiangyu couldn’t see; she could only hear the thud-thud-thud of the car being smashed right next to her. Her heart hung in her throat. Feeling that she couldn’t even handle such a small task, she felt like a total burden. Tears suddenly gushed out, and she sobbed in a state of collapse: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry Song Ge, I can’t do it…”

“How can you not do it?” Song Ge saw Tong Xiangyu trembling all over and felt her palm becoming wet with tears. She knew the young lady was scared to death.

But Song Ge glanced at the increasing number of monsters catching up from behind and took a deep breath. There was no time to be afraid. If they didn’t drive away immediately, the sheer number of monsters would block their path. Once stuck, they wouldn’t be able to leave even if they could drive; it would only be a matter of time before the monsters shattered the windows and bit them to death.

Song Ge decisively pulled the car key out, placed it in Tong Xiangyu’s hand, and then gripped her hand firmly, her tone calm. “Little Milk Tea, listen to me.”

Tong Xiangyu was crying miserably, hiccuping as she tried to stabilize her emotions to listen to Song Ge.

“Didn’t I tell you I would take you to find your parents?”

Tong Xiangyu nodded through her blurry tears.

“I keep my word. We won’t die here, so calm down.” Song Ge said, “Try again. You can do it. You’ve always been my little lucky star.”

Song Ge let go.

Tong Xiangyu looked up, staring at Song Ge through blurry, tearful eyes.

Song Ge said: “I believe in you.”

Tong Xiangyu took a deep breath and nodded hard. She wiped the tears off her face haphazardly and inserted the key back into the ignition.

The burly monster was still thump-thump-thumping against the car. The window was already smeared with blood and flesh, and the entire vehicle was shaking. With a crack, the car glass fractured.

Song Ge immediately looked at Tong Xiangyu, only to find the young lady seemingly didn’t hear it at all. Her nose and eyes were a pitiful red, and tears still clung to her lashes, but her gaze was steady.

Grasping the steering wheel, Tong Xiangyu’s slightly trembling feet pressed both pedals to the floor again. Slowly lifting the clutch, she felt the car vibrate, then she lifted the brake pedal.

The car moved forward.

Success! Song Ge was delighted and about to offer praise when she heard the roar of the engine. She felt the sudden surge of acceleration, losing her balance as she was thrown back into the seat.

Tong Xiangyu slammed the accelerator to speed up, coordinating with the clutch to quickly shift gears—second, third, fourth, fifth. The foot she used to press the pedal was still shaking.

The car speed was getting faster and faster.

Song Ge held onto the seat and looked back. The monsters clinging to the car fell off one by one like sacks of grain, thump, thump, thump onto the ground. The swarm of corpses was a dark mass, seemingly still chasing them, but the distance was visibly growing further.

Song Ge finally let out a sigh of relief and sat back in the passenger seat, feeling drenched in sweat. She turned to look at the young lady who was driving with increasing stability and said, “Not ba—” bad.

“Aaaaaah—” Tong Xiangyu suddenly widened her eyes and screamed. “Car! Car!!”

She lost the ability to use words.

The road ahead was congested, but their car was moving fast. Tong Xiangyu frantically turned the steering wheel to dodge, but lacking experience, she didn’t know how much to turn; consequently, she bumped into things on the left and right. By the time the car came to a steady stop, Song Ge saw that the car’s side mirror was completely destroyed, leaving only a few connecting wires dangling.

Tong Xiangyu looked panicked, her hands shaking. “A… a car accident…”

Song Ge, however, let out a whistle, pulled the seatbelt over to buckle herself in, and said, “Nice driving, Little Milk Tea.”

Tong Xiangyu: “…”

“Let’s go, keep moving.”

Having escaped the pursuit of the monster tide, they were safe for now. Although the car was getting bumped here and there, it didn’t affect the driving. “Iron protecting flesh” was indeed more reliable than “flesh wrapping iron.” Song Ge flipped open the map to find their current location. After all, the young lady had just driven blindly in a panic; she didn’t know where they had ended up.

Fortunately, the map was drawn in a detailed and clear manner.

Song Ge pulled up her mask and lowered the window to compare the buildings outside, but suddenly remembering something, she slammed the window back up. She looked back at Tong Xiangyu’s face and, as expected, it wasn’t there. She asked urgently, “My dear young lady, where is your mask?!”

“I took it off.” Tong Xiangyu’s beautiful little face still had dry tear tracks; her expression was innocent but honest as she replied: “When we were being chased and the scooter ran out of power, I couldn’t breathe with the mask on, so I took it off to run.”

Song Ge: “Stop the car, stop, stop.”

Tong Xiangyu didn’t know what she had done wrong and immediately became nervous, but she still listened to Song Ge and stopped the car. She looked at Song Ge, “What’s wrong?”

Song Ge pressed down on Tong Xiangyu’s shoulder. “Does your body feel uncomfortable anywhere?”

Tong Xiangyu shook her head in confusion. “No.”

Song Ge held up two fingers for her to see. “How many is this?”

“…Two?”

Song Ge frowned, turning to look at the road in the distance. “Then look ahead. Do you see anything abnormal?”

“What kind of thing?”

“Like that wide lane without cars you saw earlier.”

“No.” Tong Xiangyu shook her head after looking, then suddenly remembered something. “By the way, Song Ge, I remembered something. Do you remember the black SUV we saw the day we left your basement?”

Song Ge’s heart sank slightly. “I remember. Why?”

“That day we ran for a long time, but no matter how we chased it, the distance from that SUV didn’t change. It was very strange, right?”

“Yes.”

“But it actually wasn’t strange, because the thing we saw wasn’t actually in front of us.”

Song Ge frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Sit down first.”

Song Ge sat down. Tong Xiangyu restarted the car and asked, “Which way do we go?”

Song Ge looked ahead, compared it to the map in her hand, and said, “Turn right at the traffic light 500 meters ahead.”

“Okay.” Tong Xiangyu paid attention to the road conditions and the intersection. The road here wasn’t wide, but there were many cars. The road was still littered with corpses, a sight she couldn’t bear to look at, but she wasn’t as afraid anymore, nor was she too worried about her rusty driving skills. In the previous crisis, she had only broken the side mirror; even Song Ge had praised her driving. With her confidence up, Tong Xiangyu naturally drove more boldly.

After turning right at the intersection Song Ge specified, Tong Xiangyu said: “The black SUV we saw that day and the empty lane without cars we saw today are actually the same phenomenon.”

Song Ge: “Hallucinations?”

“No, mirages.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s Fata Morgana,” Tong Xiangyu explained patiently. “A type of virtual image produced only in extremely high temperatures. Abnormal heat causes the air density to change, and light has different refractive indices in air of different densities. A mirage is a virtual image formed after light is distorted. The things we saw really exist, but they aren’t in front of us; they might be thousands of miles away.”

Even though she used plain language, Song Ge still didn’t quite understand, but she said: “Fine, as long as it wasn’t the virus causing us to hallucinate.”

Tong Xiangyu pursed her lips and smiled. “How could it be hallucinations? We probably wouldn’t see the same thing at the same time if it were a hallucination.”

Having said that, Tong Xiangyu remembered Song Ge’s hurried closing of the window and the question about her mask. Her heart skipped a beat. Was Song Ge worried she would be poisoned because she wasn’t wearing a mask? Tong Xiangyu’s ears quickly turned hot.

At that moment, Song Ge asked, “Does this car have much gas? Is it enough to get us out of Kecheng?”

Tong Xiangyu steadied herself and looked at the dashboard. “The gas tank icon on the dial represents the remaining fuel. This car still has four bars; it should be enough.”

“If it’s not enough, do you know how to refuel if we pass a gas station?”

“I… I know how to open the gas tank cover.”

“And the refueling?”

“I think you just unscrew the cap and put the nozzle in?”

“Fine.” Song Ge asked again, “What is this red bracket?”

Tong Xiangyu looked again. “That’s the indicator light for unstable tire pressure.”

“What happens if tire pressure is unstable?”

Tong Xiangyu answered obediently, “The tire could burst.”

Song Ge choked.

Tong Xiangyu immediately said, “But it’s okay. I’m driving slowly. If the tire pressure is only slightly unstable, it won’t burst that easily.”

Song Ge didn’t understand these things either, but since the young lady said so, it meant there was no need to worry too much. She looked at the map, then looked up, frowning. “Why is this road out of the city so clear?”

“True.” Tong Xiangyu also found it strange. Most of the other roads were packed tight with cars, but on this one, though there were cars, there was no long queue of traffic. She guessed: “Maybe the monster outbreak happened faster here, and people didn’t have time to react?”

Song Ge: “Maybe.”

Song Ge turned her head to look out the window. Numerous office buildings in Kecheng stood tall, reflecting the orange-yellow sunset. The only difference was the suffocating deathly silence. Song Ge carefully observed their surroundings as they passed.

Tong Xiangyu suddenly said softly, “Everyone should be having dinner now…”

Song Ge asked back: “Hungry?”

“No,” Tong Xiangyu replied softly, her beautiful apricot eyes a bit dim. “I just wonder what everyone will think when they realize we’ve left…”

Song Ge said: “They’ll be relieved there are two fewer people to share food with.”

Tong Xiangyu immediately objected: “They wouldn’t think like that!”

Song Ge looked into the distance silently. After a moment, she sat up and toyed with turning on the car music. The playlist was entirely English songs; she couldn’t sing a single one.

Seeing Song Ge avoid the previous topic, Tong Xiangyu suddenly gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter and spoke: “Song Ge, if we find rescue outside, let’s bring people back to save Grandma Tian and the others, okay?”

“Mhm.”

“I’m serious!”

“Am I being unserious?”

“…”

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