Apocalypse: Last Traveler

"Yeah."

Lu Xi'an smiled at Yao Wei and nodded.

He could tell that the sincere Yao Wei was not just comforting him, but also telling the truth from her heart, so he said:

"That's right, I really don't want to shove such a big fuel nozzle into my mouth, nor do I want my mouth full of gasoline, take a sip and have to 'pffff' spit it out, and then rinse my mouth afterward."

Yao Wei said, "If there's a time when the fuel machine can't be used, and the oil pump is broken, and there's really no other way, I can do it."

Lu Xi'an responded, "Don't even mention it, the oil pump is in good shape, why talk about it being broken? Are you deliberately hoping for something bad to happen, wanting to try it out?"

Yao Wei could tell Lu Xi'an was joking, so she wasn't upset, saying, "No."

The two of them stopped talking and focused on extracting fuel.

Lu Xi'an was in charge of holding the oil pump, while Yao Wei switched out the filled oil barrels and pots back and forth, then after filling them, poured the fuel into the car's tank.

Extracting fuel this way was naturally not as fast as using a fuel machine.

But thankfully, both Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei had enough patience, slowly collecting, slowly pouring, spending quite some time until the car's tank was full and the gas barrel was filled with gasoline.

Then Lu Xi'an took out the oil pump, held the pipe vertically to let the oil flow back inside, and handed it to Yao Wei.

Yao Wei carefully took the oil pump, looking at the storage tank that seemed not to have a single bit of change in gasoline, she felt a bit reluctant, sighing wistfully, "So much fuel, we can't take it all..."

Lu Xi'an said, "There's no helping it, after all, we're not driving a tanker truck. And even if it were a tanker truck, in this world, we wouldn't dare just drive it everywhere."

Anyway, with the car filled up and the fuel barrel replenished, both of them were still quite satisfied.

Lu Xi'an closed the valve of the storage tank, secured the anti-theft bolts, and then left.

Meanwhile, Yao Wei had already briefly cleaned the oil pump that had played a huge role, and placed it back in the car along with the fuel barrel.

Though crude and rough, these items were incredibly useful and for her, they were essential treasures she could not afford to discard, so she carefully stored them in the car.

Then Lu Xi'an spoke to Gou, "Gou, mark it."

The mechanical dog's eyes lit up, making a mark.

Lu Xi'an glanced at the mechanical dog, sighed, and said to Yao Wei, "If we have the chance to come to this place again in the future, we might need to be more careful.

"I seem to have heard before that storage tanks have requirements regarding air and such, need constant monitoring, if not appropriate, it can get very dangerous, and if the situation is wrong, it can ignite and explode.

"We opened the storage tank without any other measures, simply closed it after extracting oil, in the future, the level of danger might increase sharply.

"I don't know if my impression is correct, but it's better to be cautious."

"Yeah."

Yao Wei nodded, keeping Lu Xi'an's words in mind.

Then she returned to the car, sat in the passenger seat, and opened "World Map One," making a mark on it.

And when marking this gas station, she specifically drew a circle to indicate possible danger here.

Yet Lu Xi'an did not immediately set off.

By now, darkness had fallen, there was no need to rush anymore, and with few people in West Fang Village, it was better to rest here tonight.

He drove the car into the village, parking it between two storefronts in the alley so the car could be shielded by the buildings from view, and should anything happen, he could swiftly hit the road and step on the gas to leave.

Once the car was parked, the sun had set, and the once hazy moon had finally donned its glow.

Seeing night fall, neither Lu Xi'an nor Yao Wei planned to light a fire.

Lu Xi'an asked, "What are we eating tonight?"

Yao Wei took out the specialty procured from Mengxin City and said, "How about trying this? We've never eaten it before."

The specialty was, of course, grass cakes.

People from Mengxin City boiled weeds soft, then shaped them into cakes, roasted them on fire, and dried them under the sun to make stored food.

Such stored food, Lu Xi'an could only see in Mengxin City, but not in Tongzhou County, it seemed people in Tongzhou didn't favor it as food.

Though he surmised Tongzhou County didn't have grass cakes, Chai Xin was quite adept at making them, which was puzzling.

Could it be that Chai Xin learned it in Mengxin City?

Lu Xi'an couldn't figure it out, but he thought Chai Xin was not lying.

On this journey, though Chai Xin hadn't made any grass cakes, she did detail the method, even talked about having a chance to showcase her skills.

She even mentioned some people would purposely add other ingredients to enhance the flavor and texture when making grass cakes.

Such as wolf meat and other animal organs.

Unfortunately, by the time they parted ways, they hadn't tasted Chai Xin's grass cakes...

"Alright, let's eat grass cakes. We should savor the blessings and endure the hardships."

Lu Xi'an agreed, turning to find the grass cakes in the back seat, took one for himself, and gave one to Yao Wei.

"Crunch—"

Taking a bite of the grass cake in his hand, the taste was indeed not great, and the texture was equally poor.

This cake made of grass, neither crunchy nor soft, could only serve to fill the stomach.

Only in this post-apocalyptic world, but in the old world, this kind of thing might not even be digestible.

Hmm...

It's not just that it's indigestible, is it? I'm afraid it's also hard to chew and swallow.

After all, this is a product of a special time and place. In the past, who would have thought of eating something like this?

I wonder if the grass cake Chai Xin mentioned, mixed with meat or animal innards, would taste better or have a better texture?

He quietly ate, then suddenly sighed heavily.

"What's wrong?"

Yao Wei heard Lu Xi'an's sigh and turned to ask.

She had been silently chewing the grass cake with an expression as calm as ever, as if this food, which normal people found hard to swallow, was just another ordinary meal for her.

As Lu Xi'an said earlier, she can enjoy luxury and endure hardship.

A woman with incredible willpower can calmly accept anything beneficial for survival in such a world.

That's why she could quietly chew corn in the morning and now eat grass cakes with ease.

She said, "If you can't get used to eating this, you can leave it for me; I'll eat it tomorrow. Do you want to eat chocolate or compressed biscuits?"

As she spoke, she turned around, trying to find chocolate or compressed biscuits from the back seat to hand to Lu Xi'an.

Lu Xi'an stopped her, laughing, "What kind of person do you think I am? I'm not that finicky. This stuff is still passable to eat.

"We share blessings and hardships together. I can't possibly keep all the good things for myself and make you feel wronged, right?"

Yao Wei felt happy upon hearing the two "together" words from Lu Xi'an. She smiled slightly and said, "It's not aggrieving. It's all food; there's no difference."

Lu Xi'an laughed, "Don't comfort me with that. If you put it that way, why don't we just throw all the food in the car away and only eat grass in the future?"

Yao Wei frowned immediately, "No."

"Of course not."

Lu Xi'an chuckled again, "Relax, I wasn't sighing about how difficult it is to eat these grass cakes, just suddenly remembered Chai Xin.

"Didn't she say she'd make grass cakes for us? But she never did before she left."

"Hmm."

Yao Wei nodded slightly, falling into silence.

She "crunched" two bites of the grass cake then sighed, "I wonder how Chai Xin is doing now, where she's gone.

"Do you think... she might be in danger? Could she run out of food or fail to find any on the road?"

She seemed like a concerned mother worried about her child leaving home.

Lu Xi'an was also lost in thought, worried about Chai Xin in the distance, but hearing Yao Wei's words and seeing her expression, he couldn't help but find it amusing.

"Don't worry, Chai Xin has plenty of food with her. The backpack we gave her is full of food. Besides, Shu is carrying quite a lot of corn."

Lu Xi'an comforted Yao Wei, but he was speaking the truth.

He continued, "When Chai Xin was in Mengxin City, she lived alone for so long, and she wasn't a Neo-Human back then. Now it should be even less of a problem.

"Initially, I was more worried about her safety and whether she'd get lost. But now, these two issues shouldn't be a problem."

"Now that she's become a Neo-Human, and she's learned stealth completely with Shu, as long as she doesn't clumsily get into trouble or provoke others, there won't be any danger.

"And as for getting lost, the path we mapped out for her is a straight line without twisting and turning. It's relatively easy to follow.

"Plus, Shu knows a bit about Pingchuan City, so with Shu helping to navigate, it should be fine."

"Hmm."

Yao Wei nodded, in agreement.

Hearing Lu Xi'an's comforting words, she felt a bit more at ease.

They both finished the grass cakes with "crunch crunch" sounds, looked at the sky, and fell silent, both still thinking about Chai Xin.

Strangely, despite not having traveled together for long or shared life-and-death experiences, why did thinking about that hunchbacked little girl make them miss her so much?

"Do you think her back has straightened?"

Lu Xi'an asked Yao Wei again.

"I don't know..."

Yao Wei thought for a moment and said, "It should straighten up. She cares about this. If she stops curling up to sleep and gradually corrects it, it might get better."

Lu Xi'an glanced at Yao Wei.

It seems it's not just him; this woman also inexplicably cares a lot about Chai Xin. Otherwise, with her personality, why would she be so concerned about Chai Xin's humpback issue?

—Normally, the Yao Wei in Lu Xi'an's memory would just answer "I don't know" to his earlier question without additional comments.

This woman, after all, has become more sentimental.

"What are you looking at?"

Yao Wei noticed Lu Xi'an's gaze and turned to look at him, asking.

"Nothing..."

Lu Xi'an said, then changed the subject, "Let's stop talking about Chai Xin. Since there's nothing else, how about watching some video on the laptop?"