Surviving the Apocalypse with the Young Miss - Chapter 78

Chapter 78: Car Accident

“It’s a forest fire,” Song Ge said.

Long hours of scorching sunlight, high temperatures, and extremely dry air made it very easy for fallen leaves and withered grass on the forest floor to ignite naturally. Judging by the collective flight of the insects and animals, the fire must have started not long ago.

If they drove through now, there might still be a chance to make it out. Once the wind picked up and the fire spread, the situation would be dire. The sun was just heat, but being surrounded by a forest fire meant literally being roasted alive.

Tong Xiangyu asked nervously, “What do we do now?”

Song Ge replied, “Try to drive through.”

“No,” Tong Xiangyu countered. “We don’t know the situation ahead. How can we take such a risk? What if other mountains are burning toward us?” That would be like driving straight into a sea of fire!

Song Ge asked, “Then what do you think we should do?”

“To be safe, we should turn back first,” Tong Xiangyu said worriedly. She looked at the distant situation and added, “Let’s find a place with a wide view and wait until night to see how it looks. If the fire source is far away, we’ll drive through then.”

“The fire has just started,” Song Ge pointed out. “There are still several hours until dark. Even a small fire will turn into a conflagration by then. There are so many mountains around—if the wind direction shifts and the fire surrounds us, where will we run?”

Tong Xiangyu knew Song Ge was right. There was heavy smoke but no visible flames yet, a clear sign of a nascent fire. She wavered.

Song Ge said, “How about this: we try first, and if it doesn’t work, we come back. Okay?”

Seeing Tong Xiangyu nod in agreement, Song Ge stepped on the gas. The ground full of insects and rats did not scatter; they were crushed directly under the wheels. Occasionally, the car jolted as it ran over larger insects or mountain beasts.

During the swaying ride, Song Ge spoke again, “Fire climbs up the mountains, and smoke rises. Unless a freak wind pushes it down, it shouldn’t affect the road we’re on too much.”

“Mhm!” Tong Xiangyu responded. Despite her intense nerves, with Song Ge by her side, the unknown dangers ahead seemed less terrifying.

The further they went, the more creatures covered the ground. The wheels began to slip because of the sheer volume of crushed insects. Tong Xiangyu felt the surrounding air getting hotter. Even inside the car, the choking smell of smoke began to seep in.

She looked ahead. They had entered a thick wall of rolling smoke that blotted out the sky, thousands of times more intense than the fire at the government building. Even the sunlight was completely blocked, and their visibility shrank.

Though scared, Tong Xiangyu didn’t back down or influence Song Ge’s focus. Instead, she turned on the car’s headlights. The lights cut through, making the road ahead much clearer.

Suddenly, Tong Xiangyu saw the thick smoke surging downward. Her heart sank; wind from the mountain was pushing the fire down. She looked out the window. Visibility was low, but she saw no open flames yet. However, she thought she could hear the crackling of fire consuming the timber.

Black objects began to drift down like snowflakes, settling on the windshield.

“What is this?” Tong Xiangyu asked, eyes wide.

“Ash,” Song Ge replied.

The black ash was already burnt and cooled, but freshly burnt ash carried by the wind could contain sparks. Once these landed on flammables, they could spark another fire. They had to get out fast.

Song Ge accelerated, glancing at the rearview mirror. They were fully submerged in the smoke. The burning forest was likely right nearby. They needed to finish this quickly.

However, the road seemed endless. The yellow smoke grew denser, visibility dropped to near zero, and the choking smell in the car intensified. They were trapped in a dilemma.

Song Ge gripped the wheel tight, her foot never leaving the pedal. For a moment, she felt a flash of regret. If she were alone, she might risk this. But she wasn’t; Tong Xiangyu was with her.

In that brief lapse of focus, she saw Tong Xiangyu suddenly unbuckle her seatbelt. Tong Xiangyu reached into the back seat for a bottle of water. Using two new glass-cleaning towels from the car, she soaked them thoroughly. She buckled back in, then reached over the center console to cover Song Ge’s nose and mouth with one wet towel and her own with the other, preventing carbon monoxide poisoning.

Seeing Tong Xiangyu acting so methodically and calmly, Song Ge’s hesitation vanished. Her resolve hardened. As the temperature rose, Song Ge pressed the accelerator even harder.

The car sped through the darkness. Under the heavy smoke, visibility dropped to zero; they couldn’t even see if the road was straight or curved. But the creatures on the ground had thinned out, and the car felt smoother. This meant they were very close to the mountain where the fire originated.

Tong Xiangyu couldn’t see the road at all. She only knew through the speedometer that Song Ge was driving at 100 km/h. At this speed, if there were any curves or obstacles, they would crash and die before they could react.

Realizing this, her heart raced, but she surprisingly wasn’t afraid. She had calmly accepted the possibility of death. She had faced death several times before, but never with such a tranquil heart.

Looking back at everything that had happened, the memory of Song Ge’s heroism at the traffic light was as clear as yesterday. They were originally from two different worlds. When Song Ge delivered the cake, she had barely looked up while saying “Happy Birthday.”

But when the monsters stormed the classroom, only Song Ge found another escape route and caught her at the bottom. When her mental defenses collapsed and she cried behind a tree, it was Song Ge who found her and drove her home.

Song Ge complained that she was a “trouble,” yet gave her food and clothes, taught her physical training, and stood in front of her when Fan Mingyuan came looking. Song Ge compromised on her unreasonable requests, satisfied her selfishness, prepared gifts, and never lost her temper despite yielding time and again.

Song Ge was an orphan, but she wasn’t the selfish, gloomy “freak” the students rumored her to be. She was a warm, kind person with a soft heart beneath a tough exterior. Without Song Ge, she would have died in that classroom on the day of the outbreak.

So what was there to fear? With Song Ge there, she feared nothing.

Tong Xiangyu became so steadfast that her pounding heart returned to a steady, calm beat. If they died, they died.

With this thought, she saw the blotting smoke ahead begin to thin, revealing the light of the sun. She froze, then became ecstatic—had they broken through?!

Song Ge didn’t dare relax. As the smoke cleared and light appeared, her ears suddenly twitched. In her peripheral vision, a massive, burning tree trunk collapsed and rolled down the mountain, igniting everything it touched! Not only that, the flaming trunk continued to roll down, heading straight for the lane ahead to block their path.

Song Ge’s heart sank. She floored the accelerator!

The speed surged from 60 to 120, then 130 km/h. Amidst the roar of the engine, the smoke thinned further. Just as Tong Xiangyu was about to cheer at their luck, she saw a giant boulder sitting right in the center of the road ahead, surrounded by countless smaller fallen rocks.

“It’s too close!” Tong Xiangyu screamed.

Song Ge had been focused on the burning timber on the mountain. When she saw the road ahead, her pupils shrank. She slammed the brakes to the floor! The sharp screech of the brake pads echoed in the car.

However, they were going too fast. Even with the brakes locked, the car wouldn’t stop in time. Facing an inevitable collision, she had to steer away. Song Ge instinctively started to turn left, but realized Tong Xiangyu in the passenger seat would take the direct impact of the boulder. In a split-second decision, she yanked the wheel hard to the right. The extreme speed combined with hitting the rocks during the lane change caused the vehicle to lose control instantly. It flipped onto its side and careened off the road…

The scorching weather baked the earth. The giant burning log finally crashed onto the road at the foot of the mountain, scattering sparks and charcoal. It ignited the fields on the opposite side of the road, and within moments, a roaring fire started. A hot wind blew, and the forest fire instantly slithered like a fire dragon toward another mountain, beginning to encircle Taiyun City.

When Tong Xiangyu woke up, she spent a long time in a dreamlike, surreal daze. She felt no pain and no heat. Aside from a low ringing in her ears, her senses seemed to have faded entirely.

When she realized she was in a cramped space, the word “accident” finally sharpened in her mind. Remembering the crash, she immediately called for Song Ge. She shouted loudly, but the actual volume she produced was tiny.

She turned to look at the driver’s seat, but the supplies and water piled in the back had all tumbled forward, completely blocking her view of Song Ge.

“Song Ge…” she called out urgently. Hearing no response, she reached out to push the boxes away. But as she touched them, a bloody five-fingered print appeared on the cardboard. She froze dully, looking at her hand, and saw a gash on her arm. Though it had stopped bleeding, the blood had soaked through her sleeve.

Looking down, she saw that apart from her right leg being pinned by the deformed door, she had no other major injuries. She tried the car door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Song Ge, are you okay?” she called again. There was still no response from the left side. Her voice unconsciously took on a sob. “Song Ge! Song Ge!” No matter how many times she called, there was no answer. She took a deep breath, struggled to jam a finger in to release the seatbelt button, and looked at the windshield, which was shattered into a spiderweb. She pushed hard.

It wouldn’t move.

Then she saw the rolling pin. With trembling hands, she used it to jab at the corner of the window. But the thought that something might have happened to Song Ge brought tears to her eyes, and her strength failed. No, she bit her lip, gripped the pin, and pounded the glass again and again. Finally, the loosened windshield cracked. Overjoyed, she wiped her tears, wrapped her left hand in her shirt, and carefully peeled the glass away.

Tong Xiangyu was slender. With the gap opened by the windshield, her pinned leg could finally move a little. She slowly adjusted her body and wriggled out of the car.

The blinding sunlight outside made her dizzy. Without looking at where the car was, she immediately crawled to the driver’s side door. Her hands were shaking violently. The completely deformed door wouldn’t open, and blood was dripping steadily from the gap in the frame. Panicking, her tears fell like rain. She picked up a rock, smashed the four corners of the driver’s window, and tore out the glass.

She reached inside to open the door, but no matter how she pulled the handle, it was useless. The driver’s airbag had deployed, and Song Ge lay motionless against the deflated bag and the steering wheel. Her face was covered in blood, and a steel rod had pierced through her abdomen.

Tong Xiangyu’s vision went dark.

“Song Ge!” She let out a sharp cry of grief but immediately bit it back. She tried desperately to stay calm. Gritting her teeth, she used both hands to pull at the door, but her right hand was sliced by glass and covered in blood, and the door didn’t budge. She didn’t have the strength to open it or rescue Song Ge, who was crushed in the seat.

She wiped the tears from her face, grabbed a rock, and began to bash the door again and again. But no matter how she hammered, the door wouldn’t open. Tong Xiangyu finally collapsed onto the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. She turned to look at the empty road. “Is anyone there? Can anyone help us? Help! Help me…”

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