Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
What was going on? The distance between Jie City and Xiang City should not be that far. It would only take an hour by plane and five hours by bus to reach Xiang City. It had already been two days and one night. Not only did her parents not come, they did not even give her a message?
Could it be that there was no credit in their phone?
Su Su dialed the home phone. The sound was normal and did not prompt her to pay the bill. She dialed her parents’ phone again. It indicated that her parents’ phone had been turned off. They had turned off their phone?!
Su Su frowned and bit her chopsticks. In such a peaceful era, what could happen to her parents? How could they abandon their daughter and gone missing with their phone turned off???
She felt that she should go back to Jie City to take a look. It was not far anyway. If she drove fast enough, she could reach there in four hours.
In her previous life, her parents had died on the way down south in order to find her. In this life, Su Su felt like she should go and find them. She felt that it was a good idea. It was not troublesome at all, and she was willing to endure it.
She started to prepare as soon as she had made up her mind. Su Su brought some clothes with her. She changed into a loose and comfortable yoga outfit, and she wore a jacket. She tied her long hair as she prepared a thermal lunch box with some rice and dishes. Then, she drove her military jeep and sped toward the highway to Jie City.
On the way, Su Su also discovered one of the benefits of her car. This car had a military license plate. Thus, she did not need to pay for highway fees and petrol!
Su Su’s journey was so smooth that she was amazed. In November, there were no major festivals in the country. There were no long holidays as well. There were fewer tourists, and she could drive smoothly at the highway. However, when she was about to reach Jie City, about half an hour away, there was a gas station, and there were a few cars there.
Su Su parked the jeep at the gas station. When she was on the highway, she had already filled up the car with petrol. However, she stopped to fill up the two oil jugs in the trunk. Fuel was a good thing to her, since her military license plate allowed her to fill up for free, why could not she fill up more petrol in case she needed it?
“The road to De City hasn’t been cleared yet?”
The driver in front of her stuck his head out and asked the staff at the gas station. As the staff filled up the tank, he nodded and replied to the driver,
“It hasn’t been cleared yet. The car that entered De City three days ago didn’t even come out by now. It’s better if you don’t go over and trouble yourself.”
“F*ck, what a waste of time. Can our country be more efficient?!!”
Upon the staff had finished filling his tank, the driver cursed a while and left the gas station after he had paid the staff. The gas station happened to be located at the intersection between De City and Jie City. Some cars that wanted to go north would travel faster if they took the road from De City. Similarly, at south, if the road was more congested, it would be a good choice to take the downtown area of De City.
Su Su rolled down the window. She tilted her head to look at the staff and asked casually, “What’s wrong with De City? Why is it so congested?”
“Who knows? It seems that the viaduct over there has collapsed.”
“The viaduct has collapsed and the cars entering De City can’t get out? There’s no news about it.”
“Hmm, this isn’t a good thing. If the viaduct that’s built by the country collapsed, do you think they’ll report about it???”
The staff looked at Su Su as if he was looking at a fool. Obviously, he was deceived by Su Su’s appearance. Su Su raised her eyebrows and curled her lips indifferently. She unfastened her seatbelt and got out of the car, taking out two oil jugs from the trunk and watched the staff fill the oil jugs. A thought appeared in her mind all of a sudden. It seemed like they would not report such a minor disaster in the news before the apocalypse. Even if it might have been reported, Su Su did not care about the those events in her past life. Hence, she would not even know if De City was going to collapse or not.
After filling up the oil jugs, Su Su got into the car and continued her journey. In the night, when she passed by the intersection of the highway toward De City, she even took a glance at it. It was a dark. The dense branches on both sides of the highway were like the tentacles of a monster. When the wind blew, rustling sounds could be heard.
She drove all the way home, and she tried to remember her house number when she was searching for her house. She took out the key under the mat at the door and opened the door. A familiar smell assaulted her face. Su Su’s heart trembled and mixed feelings arose.
In the 12 years of the apocalypse, it was not that Su Su never returned home. Although she had been looking for Xiao Ai, she did not forget to ask about her parents along the way. Even though Jie City was piled with zombies, Su Su had entered JIe City several times. Every time she came back, she expected different things. Sometimes she wanted to see her home. Sometimes she wanted to meet her parents. Sometimes she just wanted to come back and smell the wood fragrance of the old furniture in her home.
In that era, Su Su, who had lost Xiao Ai and her parents, lived like a soulless human being. Wherever she went, her heart was empty. Sometimes she felt so empty that she just wanted to come back and rest. She needed to find some memories of the past to support her as she continued to move forward. This was the only way that she could freshen herself up.
Su Su walked closer to the door and looked around. The house was not big. The two rooms and two living rooms were only about 70 square meters. Her mother was a full-time housewife and her father was a bus driver in Jie City. They did not earn a lot of money, but it was enough for them to survive.
She walked in slowly and walked around the house. Su Su’s fingers swept across the furniture in her house. It was clean, proving that her parents were at home 2 days ago. She bent down to placed her father’s slippers neatly on the shoe rack at the door. She then sat on the small sofa as she started to cry.
It was her fault. She should not have asked her parents to go to Xiang City. Instead, she should have returned to Jie City and personally brought her parents to Xiang City. Her parents disappeared before the apocalypse arrived. The chaotic times were about to begin. Therefore, where was she going to find her parents???
As she cried, Su Su suddenly raised her head and thought of De City!
The most messy part of the road from Jie City to Xiang City was De City. They said that the car that entered three days ago had yet to come out of De City, right? Thus, she would go to De City to look for her parents. De City was still a well-ordered city. No matter how chaotic it was, it could not be more chaotic after the apocalypse. How hard could it be to find them???