Surviving the Apocalypse with the Young Miss - Chapter 36

Chapter 36: The Wild

Tong Xiangyu had brought shampoo, so she definitely had to hide far away to wash her hair, lest the sight of bubbles rouse Song Ge’s suspicion. However, she didn’t dare go too far; if something happened and she was too distant, Song Ge might not make it in time to save her.

Should she choose upstream? Song Ge was processing fish there. Should she choose downstream? Song Ge was also processing fish there…

Tong Xiangyu agonized over it while she ate, but before she could reach a decision, Song Ge had already finished with the small fish.

Song Ge set up a fire to grill the fish.

Seeing this, Tong Xiangyu walked to a spot by the stream where the terrain was slightly flatter. The stream was crystal clear, with shimmering light reflecting off the pebbles underwater. Tong Xiangyu adjusted her position several times before she managed to find an angle to wash her hair. But she had never done anything like this in her life; the fierce sun beat down on her back through her shirt, making her skin feel scorched, and the rock she was kneeling on was hard, making her knees ache.

Her long black hair floated in the stream like beautiful, supple seaweed.

Song Ge watched as the young lady secretly squeezed out a bit of shampoo and couldn’t help but hide a smile. She lowered her head and continued skewering the fish. There was no bamboo nearby, so after catching the fish, Song Ge had simply used her tactical knife to sharpen three wooden sticks to serve as skewers.

The feeling of washing her hair was truly wonderful.

Tong Xiangyu breathed in the fragrance of the shampoo, her fingers gently rubbing through the dense foam. The stream water was cool and refreshing. From her inverted perspective, the water’s surface was shimmering, as if something was swimming toward her. Having no experience, Tong Xiangyu simply thought it was the reflection of sunlight rippling on the water.

But suddenly, Song Ge’s figure appeared in her line of vision, walking briskly toward her.

Tong Xiangyu froze, only to see Song Ge grab something long and thin from the water and toss it far away with a smooth motion. Only then did Tong Xiangyu realize it was actually a snake. Terror seized her, and she lost her balance with a cry of “Ai-ya,” falling entirely into the stream.

Song Ge was startled as well and hurriedly waded into the creek to fish her out.

Tong Xiangyu choked on a couple of gulps of water, her eyes unable to open. Thinking there was a snake in the water, she frantically clung to Song Ge with both hands. “Song Ge! Pull me up!”

Song Ge hauled the young lady out of the stream.

Tong Xiangyu coughed for a long while before suppressing the discomfort of the fall. With red-rimmed eyes, she turned to look. “Song Ge, was that… was that a snake just now?”

“Mhm.”

“You just grabbed the snake and threw it??”

“Mhm.”

“Just threw it away?” Tong Xiangyu was shocked. “What if it comes back later?!”

“By the time it comes back, we’ll be gone,” Song Ge said. “We’re the ones who suddenly intruded into its territory; should we kill it too?”

Hearing this, Tong Xiangyu grumbled, “I didn’t say that.” She looked down and said with distress and frustration, “What should I do? My shirt and pants are all soaked.”

“Take them off and dry them,” Song Ge said. “The sun is so strong, they’ll dry in no time.”

At this, Tong Xiangyu glanced at Song Ge, feeling hesitant and bashful.

How could she take them off? Never mind that Song Ge was right there; even if she weren’t, she couldn’t overcome the psychological barrier of stripping naked in broad daylight.

Song Ge knew the young lady was thin-skinned, so she returned to the fire and avoided looking in Tong Xiangyu’s direction. While roasting the fish, she said, “Just call out to me at regular intervals.”

Seeing her act this way, Tong Xiangyu’s face couldn’t help but flush, though she felt she was being overly difficult and narrow-minded.

Tong Xiangyu undid her buttons and took off her shirt. She had a slender waist and skin so white it seemed to glow. After she took off her long athletic pants, her legs were straight and fair, and her firm, upturned hips were covered by expensive silk underwear. Even with her back to Song Ge, Tong Xiangyu felt bashful as she carefully placed her shirt and pants on a rock.

The sun was intense. The water on Tong Xiangyu’s body dried instantly. She couldn’t stand the direct heat of the sun and felt ashamed to stay on the bank naked, so she really wanted to take a bath in the stream—she was just afraid of snakes in the water.

Tong Xiangyu wrapped her arms around her chest and worried, “Song Ge, do you think the snake will come back?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to… take a bath.”

“Go ahead.”

“But…”

“Water snakes aren’t venomous,” Song Ge said. “Besides, when it sees a person as big as you, it’ll be too busy running away to bite you.”

“But I’m still a little scared.”

“Pay close attention to the water surface. When a water snake swims, the ripples are large and very obvious.”

“Won’t the snake sink to the bottom? What if I accidentally step on it…”

“Snakes don’t have gills like fish. If they stayed submerged, they’d drown.”

Tong Xiangyu was half-convinced. “Really?”

Song Ge: “Mhm.”

With Song Ge’s assurance, Tong Xiangyu scanned the upstream, downstream, and the opposite bank thoroughly. Once certain there were no signs of danger, she cautiously stepped into the stream. Unlike the heat on the bank, the stream water was soul-refreshingly cool. It just wasn’t deep. Tong Xiangyu had to crouch to submerge herself in the icy water. After crouching for a moment and seeing that Song Ge wasn’t looking, she secretly shifted toward the bank to grab the body wash from her pants pocket.

Tong Xiangyu quickly finished washing her body.

The clothes dried fast. However, the fish Song Ge roasted was a failure. Aside from being cooked through, it had no flavor and retained the characteristic fishy smell. Tong Xiangyu only tried one small piece before refusing to eat more, so Song Ge had to eat all three herself.

Song Ge said, “Next time we need to bring some salt.”

“Next time?”

“Did you think we could reach the neighboring province in half a day on a bicycle?” Song Ge said. “We’ll have to stay overnight in the wild at least a few more times. Be mentally prepared.”

Tong Xiangyu gave a small “Oh.”

After eating, Song Ge put out the fire with two handfuls of stream water, then packed the woman’s jacket and the blanket back into the backpack.

Tong Xiangyu’s hair was dry now. She adjusted her hair with both hands, wanting to tie it up with a hair tie, but couldn’t find one. She had taken it off and placed it nearby when she washed her hair; it probably fell into the stream and floated away when she was startled by the snake and fell into the water.

Tong Xiangyu’s hair was very long; without a tie, it would be disheveled. That ink-like long hair was fine and soft—beautiful as it was, it was impractical. In this weather, not tying it up was hot, and it would hinder an escape in case of danger.

Song Ge saw the young lady hesitating, about to use a wild grass core from the bank as a makeshift tie. She handed her the wooden stick she had cleaned after using it to skewer the fish at noon. “Use this to bun it. If we see any bamboo, I’ll make you a bamboo hairpin; those don’t break easily.”

Tong Xiangyu looked at the stick, which was as thick as a pinky finger. “Ah? But I don’t know how to do a bun…”

“You don’t know how?”

Tong Xiangyu’s face felt a bit hot. “I only know how to do it with a hair tie. I don’t know how to do it like this.”

“Let me do it.”

Tong Xiangyu looked at Song Ge in surprise. “You know how?”

“Mhm.” Song Ge didn’t say why she knew. She clumsily gathered the fine, soft hair. Though her movements were careful, she still heard the young lady cry out daintily when her scalp was tugged. After two or three attempts, she finally managed to put the long hair into a bun.

Tong Xiangyu reached up to touch it; surprisingly, it wasn’t loose.

“It won’t fall apart even if you run.” Song Ge felt more exhausted than she did fighting monsters. She hurriedly said, “Let’s go, let’s go.”

Before they even reached the provincial highway, the fresh air was once again filled with that sweltering, rotten, foul smell. Song Ge gave Tong Xiangyu two masks.

While putting them on, Tong Xiangyu asked muffledly, “How long is this traffic jam?”

They walked onto the road and looked ahead; vehicles were lined up beyond several bends, with no end in sight. Most were leaving the city, but some were entering. Some private cars lacked etiquette and tried to overtake by using the opposite lane, making the already narrow highway even more cramped. Song Ge even had to shoulder the bicycle and carry it through the narrowest spots before setting it down to ride again.

In this manner, the two of them didn’t encounter another soul the whole way. What they saw most were cars, unrecognizable fragments of corpses and rotting flesh, greenbottle flies, and maggots. Tong Xiangyu hugged Song Ge’s waist from the back seat, and the journey was silent.

The bicycle covered stretch after stretch of road. The only good news was that with so many stationary cars, they could occasionally find something to eat or use inside them. Of course, such finds were rare. Most cars had been looted clean, and there was seldom anything useful; more often than not, they were startled by the foul-smelling corpses rotting inside.

Darkness fell again before they knew it.

The bicycle was left by the side of the highway. As usual, Song Ge took the lead to scout the path while Tong Xiangyu followed behind. But this time they were lucky; Song Ge found a farmland.

Crops meant two pieces of good news— First, if they moved a bit further tomorrow, there should be villages and residents. Second, they might have something else to eat tonight.

Song Ge pulled at a crop with her bare hands, but the roots and tubers all snapped off beneath the soil. Under such prolonged scorching weather, the soil was extremely hard and even cracked.

Tong Xiangyu asked what it was.

Song Ge said, “You’ve got me there.”

Tong Xiangyu was amazed. “Is there something you don’t know?”

Song Ge had a vague impression, but how could she remember such things? “I don’t know. I’m a bad student.”

Tong Xiangyu couldn’t help but purse her lips and smile. She squatted down and said, “But you still know a lot, and you’re very brave. You’re not like an ordinary girl.”

Song Ge didn’t respond but tried to dig down following the broken root. Her luck was good; they soon dug up something the size of a fist.

Tong Xiangyu immediately let out an amazed “Wow.” “What is this?”

“No way, young lady,” Song Ge said, holding the object and looking at Tong Xiangyu. “You don’t even know what a sweet potato is?”

Tong Xiangyu: “A sweet potato? Sweet potatoes actually grow underground?”

Song Ge: “…”

Song Ge continued digging along the roots in the surrounding soil and unearthed a few more pieces. She said, “Let’s eat sweet potatoes tonight.”

“How do you eat sweet potatoes?”

“Eat them raw, roast them—how do you want to eat them?”

Tong Xiangyu looked at Song Ge with a timid tone, as if afraid of saying something wrong. “Can you eat sweet potatoes raw?” And what kind of cooking method was “roasting”…

Song Ge was amused and stood up. “I’ll peel a piece for you to try later.”

Song Ge gathered firewood and started a fire. Tong Xiangyu’s state was slightly more relaxed than the night before, but there were only occasional bird calls and insect chirps around them. Everything was silent in the pitch-black night except for the crackling of the burning firewood; it was still quite eerie.

Sitting quietly, Tong Xiangyu suddenly rubbed her neck.

Song Ge: “What’s wrong?”

Tong Xiangyu frowned slightly. “I don’t know. It hurts a bit, and it’s itchy.”

Song Ge took a flashlight and walked behind Tong Xiangyu to look. She gently pulled back Tong Xiangyu’s collar and realized why the young lady was in pain. The skin covered by her shirt was white and delicate, but her neck was clearly reddish-brown with some small bumps. Song Ge touched it; it was probably an allergy from the sun during the two days of travel, and the skin was already peeling slightly. The remaining rough spots were a rash, likely from insect bites at night.

There was no medicine on hand. Song Ge asked, “Can you bear it?”

Tong Xiangyu nodded.

“Then just bear with it for a bit.”

Tong Xiangyu gave an “Oh,” lowered her lashes, and gently tidied the fire with a wooden stick.

Seeing her mood drop significantly, Song Ge said, “We should be able to find the next town or village tomorrow. We can ask then if there’s any ointment to rub on it.”

Tong Xiangyu’s beautiful little face was reflected in the firelight. She resisted the urge to scratch her neck and said in a low voice, “Okay…”

Song Ge sat back down. She had already buried several sweet potatoes in the fire. With only one left in her hand that she’d promised to peel for Tong Xiangyu, she took out her tactical knife to peel it and cut it into several pieces. She ate the outer parts herself and handed the crisp, sweeter heart of the sweet potato to Tong Xiangyu.

Tong Xiangyu took it, hesitating and not quite daring to eat it.

“Go ahead and eat. We have medicine even if you get diarrhea.”

Tong Xiangyu pouted and said she wouldn’t get diarrhea. She took a careful bite of the sweet potato. It was crunchy and naturally sweet; her eyes lit up slightly, and after finishing one piece, she looked at Song Ge expectantly for more.

Song Ge cut another piece for her and said casually, “Don’t eat too much, though. Eating too many sweet potatoes will make you fart.”

Tong Xiangyu was just about to eat the piece of sweet potato when she heard this. She couldn’t decide whether to bite it or not. She glared at Song Ge in annoyance. “You really know how to talk!”

Song Ge was bewildered and looked at her. “What, did I say something wrong?”

“Hmph! I’m not eating it anymore.” Tong Xiangyu handed the sweet potato back to Song Ge.

Song Ge realized what happened now and said, “Who doesn’t fart? I won’t mind you.”

Tong Xiangyu still said, “I’m not eating.”

Song Ge: “Really?”

“Really!”

Song Ge asked, “Are you going to eat the roasted ones later?”

“Not eating those either.”

“What if you get hungry at night?”

“It’s fine, I’m not hungry.”

“So does that mean I don’t need to prepare food for you in the future?” Song Ge glanced at her and said, “Because a beautiful little fairy drinks dew and doesn’t eat the food of mortals?”

Tong Xiangyu was amused by Song Ge’s words and chided her, “You’re talking nonsense~”

“How am I talking nonsense?”

“You know it yourself.”

“Oh, ‘little fairy’—did I say it was you?”

Tong Xiangyu was embarrassed and annoyed. “Song Ge, you!!”

“It’s you, of course it’s you. Who else could it be?” Song Ge gave the piece of sweet potato heart back to Tong Xiangyu. “Eat it without worry, little fairy. This tiny bit won’t matter.”

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