Chapter 13: Niu Boyi Picks Up a Person

With hot rice and hot dishes in her stomach, Liu Mu's fatigue from the day suddenly surged up. "Alright, but you all should stay underground for now. It's too hot during the day; I'm just going to walk around and check the situation. The temperature will continue to drop, and some animals should come out, too. When that happens, we can go to the surface to move about."

"By the way, Sister, I have another thing I'd like to ask you. Since it's been hot for so long and the moisture has all evaporated into the sky, will there be heavy rain later?"

Xu Xiaofeng thought about the geography knowledge she had once learned, but she wasn't sure. "Logically, water vapor forms clouds in the sky, and if the cloud layer accumulates too thickly, it will form precipitation. If there are no strong winds, the clouds won't drift away. Now that everything has been burned once, there are all sorts of substances in the air. If it really rains, I'm afraid it will be toxic rain. You must not get rained on while you're outside, and even more so, don't get any wounds. Bring your gloves, boots, and mask. Right, I'll pack two spare sets for you in a moment; don't be stingy with them..."

She was genuinely worried about the situation outside. If it weren't for the fact that she couldn't let go of her younger brother, and Liu Mu had said she was just going to look around, she definitely would have followed her out.

That night, the temperature indeed dropped off a cliff. By the early morning, it was already only a little over ten degrees. If they were inland, it would likely have dropped directly to a few degrees.

Luo Sanlin brought a pack of Compressed Biscuits, eight bottles of water, and surprisingly, a box of Agastache anti-heat liquid and a small bottle of Vitamin C.

If it were one person being frugal, it would be enough for five days. One could tell he had put some heart into it.

Liu Mu slept until eight o'clock before getting up. Xu Xiaofeng and Zhang Xiaoyong had already finished their morning exercise. Hearing her say she was going out again, Zhang Xiaoyong lifted his little face, held his little hands high, and hopped about. "Take me, Second Sister, take me! I can help!"

Ever since they decided they were a family, Xu Xiaofeng was the eldest sister, Liu Mu was the second sister, and Zhang Xiaoyong was the little brother; the three-person family was complete. Xu Xiaofeng took her father's surname. When Zhang Xiaoyong was born, it was a difficult labor, and Uncle Xu felt bad for his wife, so he let his son take his wife's surname, Zhang. As for Liu Mu... she also knew who she was named after; in any case, the Mother Director had called her that since she was little.

Liu Mu pressed down on the hopping child. "You brat! I'll see if I can find out more news about the outside from people today. The rest is to walk around the vicinity more. I'll be back by the latest at yesterday's time. You don't go; don't you still have to learn addition and subtraction today?"

"Oh, I really am a hero with no place to use my skills!" Zhang Xiaoyong sighed extremely dramatically, his black-grape-like eyeballs rolling. "Then if I get all the calculations right, can I go up with you tomorrow? I can also pick up scrap iron, help you collect recyclables, and do the accounts!"

"Yo, impressive. Kid brother, you can do accounts just by learning addition and subtraction?" Liu Mu found it truly amusing and used both hands to pinch Zhang Xiaoyong's little round face into a bun.

Neither of the two adults told him that there was almost no one on the surface; the little guy was single-mindedly looking forward to returning to the surface.

It was unknown if Xu Xiaofeng had said something, but Zhang Xiaoyong was especially proactive in doing things. Now, the hygiene of the constant-temperature room was almost his job. He was energetic all day long like a little spinning top, even more active than Niu Boyi.

"I can!" Zhang Xiaoyong determined that he couldn't follow her out, so he turned and went to find Xu Xiaofeng to learn today's calculations.

Liu Mu looked at his vibrant appearance, and her mood improved by a few degrees. Today, she also brought enough water, food, and spare supplies, plus the equally excited Niu Boyi.

Gouzi had been locked underground for so long that as soon as it was let out, it was like a wild horse that had slipped its bridle. It didn't even stay in the tricycle bucket, just followed along, occasionally digging here and sniffing there—another one who couldn't stay idle for a moment.

However, just like a person, it also wore a specialized filter mask. It panted and wheezed as it ran. Niu Boyi's mask was different from a person's; it was more like a ball. The front half was transparent, and the back half was tied to its neck and front legs with elastic fabric and buckles. A small spare oxygen tank was hung on each side of its back.

This mask was designed by Liu Mu herself. It looked similar to the headgear she had used to go to the surface during the high heat, very much like the astronaut helmet in sci-fi movies.

"You dog thing, don't run around blindly!"

Seeing it digging randomly in the Steel Rolling Mill, Liu Mu was afraid it would cause something to collapse and get buried inside.

"Woof, woof, woof, woof!" Niu Boyi, who was digging the ground, suddenly barked fiercely at a spot it had raked open. Finding that Liu Mu ignored it, it rushed over and nudged her leg with its head.

"What is it? Don't block me from making a fortune. If you don't, I won't give you food later..."

Niu Boyi's strength was truly great; it pushed Liu Mu until she almost stumbled. She couldn't bear to hit her own dog, so she had to pause and go over to take a look.

What was lifted was a prefabricated slab that had shattered into several pieces. The light shining in was full of floating dust, but one could vaguely see a human-shaped figure...

"Damn, there's actually an intact corpse? Stinky dog, why are you finding a corpse for me? Damn it!"

The human body, almost buried by dust, was slumped against the wall. Seeing it so suddenly gave Liu Mu a fright, and she turned around and slapped the dog on the back. Just as she was pondering whether to use broken bricks to build a grave for the person, the 'corpse' inside gave a muffled cough.

Alive?

Liu Mu became even more cautious. In the apocalypse, how many people had been gnawed by mutated Zombies because they sympathized with others?

She reached out and grabbed the Steel Pipe she had been using for the past two days, but it couldn't reach into the hole. She figured it must be that deep, otherwise, it would have been roasted like those outside long ago.

"Should I save them or not?" Liu Mu didn't really want to save anyone. It was still early, and her plan for today was to flip through the two workshops here and collect all the steel that was in processing.

"Woof, woof, woof!" Niu Boyi rubbed its head against her leg and turned to continue raking through the debris; it looked like it wanted to save the person.

Sighing, Liu Mu patted the dog's head. "Xiao A, activate animal communication."

With the improvement of the bond and rapport between Niu Boyi and her, simple dog-language translation was no longer enough. This new feature had appeared just a few days ago and was very useful, but to keep it on long-term, it required some supplies.

【Barrier-free animal communication system activated. Target: Niu Boyi. You can expend one unit (five hundred kilograms) of steel to establish a smooth communication channel. Do you wish to activate it?】

"You didn't say so earlier when you had this function? Now you want things. You, one unit is too expensive. Give me a discount, how about fifty percent off?"

At this moment, Liu Mu could hear Niu Boyi shouting anxiously, "Woof, woof, woof, human, living human, woof, woof, woof, bring them back to watch the door, a gatekeeper!"

Pfft... as expected of her own dog. The black system wouldn't give a discount, so Liu Mu said grandly, "It's just five hundred kilograms, activate it!"

【Barrier-free animal communication system has been activated. One unit of steel collected. Expiration: Long-term effective. Range: Within the host's audible and visible range. Thank you for your patronage, Heitao A wishes you a great fortune today!】

"Niu Boyi, go and fetch me the rope from the cart bucket." As soon as Liu Mu finished speaking, Niu Boyi's head snapped up, its ears twitched, and it stared straight at Liu Mu. "Woof, wow, Boss called so clearly today. She is talking to me, so amazing, I understand so well, going to get the rope, woof, woof, woof."

"This noisy dog," Liu Mu knew Niu Boyi was capable of such blathering. The previous dog-language translator translated the dog's language into human language and then read it to Liu Mu through the system.

And this barrier-free communication conveyed the dog's meaning directly into her brain, skipping the two processes of translation and reading in the middle. The speed was the same as people talking to each other, and the efficiency was too high.

After much effort to pry open the debris, Liu Mu tied one end of the rope to several steel bars protruding from the wall and the other end to her waist. She also used two safety buckles as pulleys before taking the water and food down.

Niu Boyi was actively moving around. Seeing her about to go down, it wanted to bite the rope to help, but was roared back by Liu Mu.

"I don't need you to pull, you silly dog. You are not allowed to take off your mask!"

Lowering down bit by bit, Liu Mu cursed inwardly. If it weren't for the fact that the person kept coughing and occasionally calling for help, she really wouldn't want to suffer this ordeal.

"Brother, you have a big life," she didn't know what kind of hole it was, but it was seven or eight meters deep. It could be seen that before the collapse, it was separated from the top by several layers of materials; she just didn't know if this guy had made it himself or if it was already there.

The reason she said he had a big life was that, besides not being roasted to death, the collapsed things didn't actually hit him much.

Liu Mu used the Flashlight to shine on the person's face and reached out to pat that swollen, somewhat purple face. It was barely recognizable as a man. She called him awake and asked, "Can you drink water?"

He looked to be only in his early twenties, sitting against the wall. Seeing someone come down, his eyes were excited, but he was uncomfortable from being shone on and opened his mouth several times, only saying one word: "Water."

"If you can drink, you should have said so earlier," Liu Mu pulled a tube from the water bag and stuffed it into the young man's mouth. Not caring whether the other party could drink it or not, she urged, "Drink faster, I have things to do!"

Li Gang was still conscious. He was also impressed; did this person want to kill him or save him? He hadn't had a drop of water for two days; couldn't she help him a little?

Obviously, the fact was she couldn't.

He was also unlucky to the extreme. It was only his third day on the job at the Steel Rolling Mill, and he was assigned the night shift, but the factory building was hit by something and collapsed!

No wonder Old Chen under the overpass said his fortune was bad this year; if he had known, he would have listened to the advice and worn red underwear.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

"Don't cough. Don't you see there is dust everywhere? Drink slowly, I'll pull you up in a while."

Seeing the young man acting as if he had never drunk water in his life, Liu Mu was afraid he would choke to death, so she simply pulled the tube out of his mouth and pressed the head that had followed over back down. "I'm talking to you, nod if you can hear me. Do you still want to get out?"

Obviously, this young man already had some consciousness. Liu Mu didn't want to waste too much time. Seeing him nod, she used the rope to tie him up securely.