Chapter 22: Don't Worry, I'll Ride the Dog

She told Xu Xiaofeng and the others that she had driven the off-road vehicle out earlier and parked it in a dilapidated house, and that the underground parking garage would be Niu Boyi's room from now on.

They took a turn around the "ruins" of the Food Street; while several shops hadn't been burned down, the walls had large cracks, and some floor slabs had collapsed, making them impossible to live in or repair.

What comforted Liu Mu was that there wasn't much left in some of the houses, and many daily necessities had been taken away, which meant that some people had survived and left.

The Scrap Station was a bit of a distance from the Food Street and the further towns; Xu Xiaofeng couldn't see the specific situation of the rescue from the surveillance, only knowing that they had come in a Truck, which meant the road surface must have been cleared.

After wandering around for a while, Liu Mu took the modified off-road vehicle out of her space and loaded a large amount of Compressed Biscuits and Energy Drink into the trunk.

When the vehicle drove into the Scrap Station, the road newly built for the storage yard was still fairly intact; apart from some floating dust on the edges, there weren't many cracks, and it was no problem for a Truck to pass.

Seeing this, Liu Mu admired her own judgment; finding Hu Xing had indeed been the right choice.

When the off-road vehicle stopped in front of the small building, Li Gang was so envious that his eye sockets turned red; he wanted to look it over from front to back, but his legs were truly inconvenient.

"This big vehicle, you modified it yourself? Boss Liu, your skills are top-notch!" Having been familiar with military off-road vehicles, he could naturally see the tricks at a glance.

Although several key parts of the body used eye-catching reflective paint, it was mainly black and green paint overall, but this couldn't make its massive and domineering exterior look low-profile at all; it wasn't called the strongest on land for nothing, let alone the addition of a rugged bumper, roof rack, wire mesh, lighting, and so on.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a small mobile safety fortress; Liu Mu stood in front of the vehicle and patted the hood, "Look, look, is my car awesome? It cost a lot of money; how about it, even Niu Boyi couldn't dent it if he rammed it!"

The three people wearing Filter Mask all gave a thumbs up, but before the words of praise could come out, they heard Zhang Xiaoyong shout: "Niu Boyi, don't ram it! I didn't mean for you to actually ram it!"

Liu Mu turned her head and saw Gouzi sharpening its claws more than ten meters away, clearly gathering strength.

She immediately rushed over and gave it a hard smack on the head, "You dog thing, you want to try everything? If you break it, selling you wouldn't cover the cost!"

"Woo woo woo," Niu Boyi felt wronged and indicated that it could still flip this car if it used some strength, and then it received another slap.

The few of them got into the car, and Niu Boyi followed along. Soon everyone discovered that the speed of the off-road vehicle couldn't keep up with Niu Boyi at all; although the road conditions were worse than before, doing 120 or 130 was no problem with the pedal to the floor, but as soon as Niu Boyi exerted force, it could run fast enough to leave afterimages.

If it weren't for Liu Mu yelling the whole way, they probably wouldn't even have seen the dog's tail.

Thus, the off-road vehicle ran on the road while Niu Boyi rummaged everywhere; once the car had gone a distance, it would catch up in a flash, continuing to look here and sniff there.

The dog was having a blast, but the atmosphere in the car was unusually heavy; Zhang Xiaoyong and Xu Xiaofeng both had red eyes, but they didn't cry out loud. Even though Liu Mu had already prepared them for it, seeing it with their own eyes was still inevitably painful.

Instead, it was Li Gang who felt strange; he had originally thought these people all knew better than him what it was like outside, but now it seemed that among the three siblings, the second sister Liu Mu was the most reckless, and also the backbone of the three.

As for why the three siblings had different surnames... it was clearly a blended family, and he didn't feel it was right to pry too much into their privacy.

It wasn't until they could see the county town that they vaguely saw people moving about. Liu Mu's expression gradually darkened, "Big Sister, you drive; you don't need to drive too fast, but apart from military roadblocks, don't stop for anyone else flagging the car down."

"What about you?" Xu Xiaofeng asked worriedly, "Where are you going? People's hearts are hard to predict now, don't run around."

"Don't worry, I'll ride the dog and follow you," Liu Mu smiled; she didn't need to wear a mask in the car, and her washed-clean face wasn't a sickly white, but rather particularly healthy, looking like she was free of illness and disaster.

Xu Xiaofeng's round face was thinner than before, but that was the result of exercising recently, while Zhang Xiaoyong's chubby face looked quite cheerful.

If it weren't for the current state of the world, the three siblings' appearances could be described as 'prosperous and peaceful'. Especially Liu Mu; when she rolled up her sleeves, her muscles were powerful and defined; a few months ago, she could have posted a short video and attracted a large wave of fitness girls calling her 'hubby'.

Liu Mu got out of the car, and Xu Xiaofeng moved over to the passenger seat; just as she wanted to give Liu Mu a few more words of advice, she saw Niu Boyi lying by the side of the road, and Liu Mu climbed onto its back in a few movements.

The dog stood up, taller than the car, looking truly majestic; Xu Xiaofeng frowned and turned back, "Brother Li, did something happen yesterday? Why did Xiao Mu say she could stop wearing a mask?"

She had originally thought that it was safe to go without protection outside, but clearly, they and Li Gang all had to wear masks; this girl Liu Mu obviously had something she wasn't saying.

When Li Gang heard this, he knew Liu Mu hadn't told them about her Mutation, "I'm not sure either; we were just busy taking care of Niu Boyi. But, didn't little Liu not need to wear a mask to begin with?"

This was naturally a lie, and he analyzed, "Maybe she just got used to it after being outside for a long time; look at those Survivors in the city, they only wear N95s, they aren't as fully equipped as us."

Xu Xiaofeng was half-doubting, but she took the steering wheel. She had gotten her driver's license at eighteen, for no other reason than to help the family restaurant with stocking and deliveries, and Father Xu was a supporter of his children's growth, so he let her take the test that summer vacation.

Now there were no other cars on the road besides theirs; although Xu Xiaofeng was a bit rusty, she quickly found her rhythm and was actually driving much more steadily than Liu Mu.

The county rescue Base was chosen at the largest shopping mall in the city, which had enough underground parking, the buildings were relatively well-preserved, and the space was sufficient.

After Luo Sanlin returned from delivering supplies from the Shengli Waste Station, he would run around with the army for rescues every day, and his parents had also become volunteers at the Base, busy taking care of the wounded and distributing food. Those with a conscience knew that their family of three was contributing, but there were also those who were jealous and envious, ready to make snide remarks at any moment.

The permanent population of the county was less than 200,000, and including the suburbs, it was less than 400,000; after this disaster, there were currently 10,000 people at the rescue Base, and more than half were unwilling to come for various reasons.

The supplies brought by the army were limited, and as the rescue scope expanded, the consumption was visibly increasing.

The Survivors began organizing those in good health to go out and search for supplies today, in teams of twenty, with ten teams going out a day, and rotating the next day.

Luo Mu and her husband both had underlying conditions that required daily medication; logically, they didn't need to go out searching, but Father Luo felt his body was in great shape and didn't want to become a burden to the organization, so he took the initiative to go out.

Luo Mu was worried and saw them off on the road in front of the mall, just in time to run into Luo Sanlin's team returning from an all-night rescue.