Chapter 7: Giving You a CD from the Past

That group of goblins like headless flies was soon thrown out of sight.

But the questions in Mali's heart were even more.

He originally thought that escaping the red mist would return him to the normal world, but now the outside world made him even more unable to understand.

First he hit a goblin, and after finally seeing a human, they couldn't communicate.

Mali carefully observed the girl beside him through the rearview mirror in the car.

The things on her body looked like the real deal. Besides the leather armor, short sword, and short bow, there were also riveted metal shoulder guards and a pair of hard leather arm guards, covered with traces left by hacking, looking somewhat shocking. There was also an empty sheepskin quiver tied to her waist.

In addition, her overall hygiene condition wasn't very good. He didn't know how many days she hadn't taken a bath. That chestnut short hair was all knotted, sticking together in strands, stuck to her cheeks, and her face and body were also dirty, with the linen shirt covered in mud spots and blood stains.

But the blood shouldn't be hers, because after a short shock, her mental state was quite good now, curiously looking around.

But if you asked what Mali cared about most, it was her ears.

Because the situation was chaotic when the two first met, Mali didn't notice the pair of pointed ears hidden behind the girl's curly hair.

Those were clearly not human ears.

A name instantly surfaced in his mind—Elf!

Well, with those goblins as a cushion, Mali wasn't that surprised now.

Since Henan could have goblins, why couldn't there be elves?

If you had to say whose painting style was strange, it was actually him, who was currently driving the G300p.

"Whoa, that's the handbrake, don't mess with it!"

Mali caught a glimpse of the chestnut-haired girl excitedly studying the handbrake, seemingly wanting to try pulling it to see, and hurriedly reached out to stop her.

Seeing this, the chestnut-haired girl retracted her hand, but she didn't stay quiet for long before she became interested in the row of buttons on her left hand.

Mali was worried that she would touch things everywhere later, so he simply turned on the car audio. The CD record inside was 90s nostalgic golden hits he grabbed casually in the auto repair shop.

As the prelude to "Twilight" began to play, it indeed captured the chestnut-haired girl's attention.

Surprise burst out in her pupils again, and then she began to look for the source of the sound.

Seeing that she had something to do, Mali breathed a sigh of relief and refocused his attention on driving.

As the off-road vehicle climbed the steep slope of nearly 70° in front, the view finally opened up, and there was no longer any mountain cover.

Replaced by a dense forest.

Mali glanced at his phone and found that there was still no operator signal here.

He found a relatively flat place to park the car and took out the atlas from under the seat again.

Comparing it with the mileage on the dashboard, he used a red neutral pen to continue drawing along the red line from before, finally stopping at a location called Xinzhuangcun.

According to the markings on the map, they should have arrived in Huijiqu, Zhengzhou, very close to Beisihuan.

However, Mali looked around but couldn't see any shadow of highways or city buildings.

This place was simply like the primeval forest of Xishuangbanna, full of wild and savage atmosphere.

Mali looked at the sea of trees in front of him with a blank expression. To be honest, he didn't know where to go next.

Should he go north to the capital to try his luck? Or should he go south to the seaside to search for survivors, or really drive west, all the way to the Qingzanggaoyuan? After all, many doomsday novels treated that place as the last pure land for humanity, and it was also said to hide secret bases built by the government.

Just as he was struggling, a head leaned over.

The chestnut-haired girl was also looking down at the map. Mali's heart moved, and he stuffed the atlas into her hand.

However, the latter picked it up, turned it left and right in front of her eyes, and then returned it to Mali, then pointed to the windshield.

Mali took back the atlas with some disappointment and looked up in the direction she pointed.

The line of sight at night was limited. Even with ARB headlights, he could barely see a range of about one kilometer, and with the dense forest blocking, this distance had to be discounted. Mali saw nothing.

However, he guessed that the chestnut-haired girl's home was likely over there.

He didn't mind giving the other party a ride; anyway, he didn't know where to go right now.

And the place where the chestnut-haired girl lived should also have other people—uh, or elves—maybe he could find someone who could communicate with him.

For Mali at the moment, the most important thing was to figure out what had happened to the world outside the red mist and where the remaining survivors had gone.

After a short rest, the two set off again.

The forest at night wasn't quiet.

Insects were the undisputed protagonists. Crickets were always the noisiest, like tireless rock musicians; katydids were not to be outdone, their calls were high-pitched and loud, while the ones that sounded like electrical leakage were mole crickets.

Moths and other phototactic little insects rushed up early, fluttering and spinning in the beam of light emitted by the car lights.

In addition, Mali also heard the croaking sound like frogs, but it came from the treetops. If nothing unexpected happened, it should be night herons.

Mali didn't like this kind of bird that looked like a penguin before; they were famous for being good at spraying, but seeing them now, he felt a sense of intimacy.

This world had become very strange to him, and encountering familiar creatures was always a good thing.

It was just that not everything in this forest was familiar to him.

Something in the darkness had been following them, not a common wild animal like a fox or a wolf.

Its body size was significantly larger, but its footsteps were very light, almost soundless when walking, and it possessed quite superb concealment skills, always wandering in the shadows.

Even so, Mali still captured its fleeting figure through the rearview mirror.

From the outline, it seemed to be a brown bear.

But ordinary brown bears generally didn't exceed two and a half meters in height when standing. It was said that the brown bears on Kodiak Island could be three meters tall, and the height of the one behind them was afraid to have broken through three meters; the luggage rack of the off-road vehicle could only reach its chest.

And it was walking on its hind limbs like a human.

A chill rushed up Mali's spine. He opened the armrest box at the first opportunity and took out the Type 92 pistol placed inside.

Feeling the friction between the engineering plastic on the grip and his palm, he felt a little more at ease.

Although he wasn't sure how much damage the 9mm bullet could cause to a beast of this size, thinking of this, Mali turned his head to look at the chestnut-haired girl in the passenger seat again.

Since she could set off from home and reach the valley side alone, she should be very familiar with this forest and might know what was following the car. Unfortunately, the two couldn't communicate now, and Mali couldn't even remind her to pay attention to the rearview mirror.

But seeing her holding the short sword at her waist and keeping alert, it was clear that this forest wasn't safe. ===== CHAPTER 8 =====