"I really have a stomachache!" Li Runshan pretended to be flustered and quickly began to write.
"I really twisted my leg!" Yu Hong was not to be outdone, tossing his hands and slapping his thigh after writing hastily.
The two stood face to face, neither willing to back down.
After more than half a minute, Li Runshan ultimately worried about his daughter and decided not to waste any more time, so he straightened his face and opted to go first.
However, he didn't enter the car directly.
Instead, he moved to the side of the vehicle and smashed his stick against the car window.
BANG!
The window shattered, but a wooden plank stuck inside blocked the view, leaving the inside hidden.
Without saying a word, Li Runshan took out a magnesium rod and ignited a torn piece of cloth he found, shoving it into the crack of the window.
Once he finished, he turned and ran, gesturing to Yu Hong.
Yu Hong followed, and the two of them sprinted about fifty meters before turning to look back at the bus.
At that moment, fire clearly blazed inside the bus, glowing a faint red.
"What kind of cloth is that? It's so powerful!" Yu Hong wrote in curiosity.
"Special oil cloth, as long as it works," Li Runshan replied casually, his eyes still fixed on the bus.
Time passed slowly, and the fire grew larger, until flames began to seep out of the doors and windows.
He nodded slightly.
"Let's go to the second vehicle and do the same!" he wrote.
Yu Hong was left speechless.
If they had done this sooner, they wouldn't have had to play pretend by checking inside the bus.
Shaking his head, he followed Li Runshan as they moved from vehicle to vehicle to set them ablaze.
Old Li was evidently well-prepared, stuffing strange oil cloths into the smashed windows, igniting the wood, and watching the flames roar higher until they filled the inside of each vehicle.
It took five buses, and all five were completely on fire without a single sound coming from within.
The vehicles seemed to transform into five torches, illuminating the surrounding woods.
"Let's go," Li Runshan wrote.
"As long as the vessels of the Yuren are completely burned away, we will be safe and can communicate normally. The greatest danger of the Yuren lies in the fact that they can infect others with their words without them even realizing it."
Yu Hong nodded vigorously, in complete agreement.
He understood how dangerous it was to be unaware of such entities.
It's no wonder that the people from Yuhe City who fled all died on the way.
The two waited beside the flames, ensuring that the fire consumed the buses completely, turning all the corpses inside to ashes.
There was no choice; the threat of the Yuren was too great and too hidden.
Before an outbreak, it was easy for anyone to mistakenly believe they were merely experiencing mental issues.
The red value detector showed no reaction, leaving them unable to detect the sound of the Yuren.
‘Perhaps I should enhance the red value detector.
If it could identify the Yuren's sound at once, its threat level would decrease significantly,’ Yu Hong thought to himself.
Standing by the roadside, he gazed quietly at the roaring bus, and suddenly, concern for Xiaojie rose in his heart.
If Xiaojie encountered a Yuren, with her intelligence, she would surely fall victim like he did from the very start.
‘The detector is essential, and the silver rune formation is already struggling against the Yuren's strength.
Is it that the Yuren is growing stronger, or is it that the Yuren itself is more powerful than the Withering Woman?’ Yu Hong couldn't be sure.
He posed this question to Li Runshan.
Li Runshan shook his head.
"The Yuren itself will continuously gain strength through killing and will keep evolving, raising its danger level until it reaches war level, nightmare level, or even despair level. We even suspect that the so-called Yuren could very well be evolving from the Creeping Shadows."
He wrote a longer message, but the paper wasn't enough.
He finished writing and shrugged helplessly at Yu Hong, stopping there.
The two waited for more than an hour, ensuring the five buses were burned to nothing, before turning back on their path.
"By the way, I have a suspicion regarding the Yuren," Li Runshan suddenly thought about when he first met Yu Hong.
The latter had stood at the stone house entrance, seemingly unaware of the paper ball thrown at him, as if he didn't see it at all.
He felt it was something he needed to remind Yu Hong of.
"About earlier..."
Li Runshan began writing.
Boom!
Suddenly, they heard a huge explosion behind them.
The two quickly dove forward, turning their heads to look back.
A brighter fireball erupted in the direction of the five buses, clearly indicating that one of the vehicles had exploded.
"This time it's definitely gone," Yu Hong wrote quickly on the ground, picking up a stone.
“... Mm.” Li Runshan nodded.
Staring into the bright flames, he suddenly thought about whether bringing his daughter from the safe Hope City to this place had really been the right decision.
"By the way, what were you going to say earlier?" Yu Hong wrote on the ground.
"Right, it was about before," Li Runshan replied, also using the stone to scribble on the ground.
He recounted the scene he'd witnessed earlier in detail to Yu Hong.
"I should have already been affected visually since the Zhou sisters arrived," Yu Hong responded.
Li Runshan's reminder jolted him back to reality, realizing just how dangerous his earlier situation had been.
Recalling the moment in the cave, when he wielded the wolf's fang club without effect, it became clear he likely hadn’t even been holding the club.
The Yuren's capabilities seemed more dangerous the more he thought about it.
After a while, the two stood up again, heading back along the path.
They first arrived at Yu Hong's stone house.
"How long after destroying the vessels will we be able to talk normally?" Yu Hong inquired.
"About three days, just hold on," Li Runshan replied.
"You can freely speak in the safe house as long as you don’t listen to any voices from outside."
"Got it," Yu Hong nodded.
"Well then, see you later," Old Li waved and quickly made his way back to the post office.
It was clear he was anxious and worried about his daughter’s safety.
Yu Hong stood in the courtyard, watching as Li Runshan gradually disappeared into the woods, and until he was out of sight, he climbed the stone steps and went inside.
In the next few days, he needed to hurry and repair the rune formations in the safe house and complete the glowstone secret room, so he could finally get some good sleep.
At the door, he glanced at the black, withered glowstone grass outside and sighed.
BANG.
The door slammed shut completely.
The next day, early in the morning, Li Runshan came looking for Yu Hong again, and together they headed to the vehicle area to check, confirming that the cars had been completely burnt down.
Strangely, the inside was empty, with not a single corpse in sight.
Yet without any bodies, how did these cars end up here?
The two were baffled.
But having confirmed the cars were indeed empty eased their minds.
They searched the surrounding area again, ensuring that no bodies were overlooked, before finally feeling at ease.
As evening approached, they went back their separate ways.
The same occurred on the third day.
Yu Hong gradually steadied himself, and of course, the feeling of security came not just from the complete eradication of the Yuren but also from the repairs to the rune formations all over the walls in his safe house.
He had restored the glowstone secret room’s integrity, successfully re-establishing its secretive effect.
At the same time, by using his inner energy to stimulate growth, fresh glowstone grass had quickly sprouted again outside the door, covering the yard in a patch of green.
Though the tender glowstone grass emitted only weak radiation, it filled Yu Hong with a deeper sense of security.
Because the glowstone grass could fend off the black insects and prevent ordinary creeping shadows from disrupting his rest.
On the fourth day, the two maintained their silence, seemingly startled by the Yuren, and didn’t come out at all.
They endured yet another three days.
The day before the supply team’s arrival was bright and clear.
Early in the morning, Li Runshan arrived with a large backpack, making his way to Yu Hong's courtyard.
"Xiao Yu?" He knocked at the door in a regular rhythm and spoke softly.
"Are you there?" he lowered his voice.
Creak.
Yu Hong opened the door, fully dressed and blocking the entrance to prevent Li Runshan from seeing inside.
“Finally can we talk?” he sighed in relief, writing on his board.
“Still need to be cautious. I just got news that Yuhe City has suffered immensely. The sudden outbreak of the Yuren caused over twenty thousand deaths. The entire Hope City has turned into a dead city within days!” Old Li sighed.
“Twenty thousand?” Upon hearing this number, Yu Hong was unable to grasp the enormity of it, but he knew it was a staggering loss in units of ten thousand.
If they were lined up on flat land, just over ten thousand people would stretch out infinitely, filling all sight.
And over twenty thousand...
“If we are unprepared, the Yuren's lethality is indeed unsolvable,” he sighed in response.
“Now Yuhe City is gone, and even the three surrounding Hope Cities are implicated, suffering who knows how many casualties. The joint military headquarters is still in emergency rescue operations,” Li Runshan said helplessly. “The People's Army has been mobilized, and they've lost quite a few members themselves while forming a large isolation zone to curb the Yuren's spread.”
Yu Hong was at a loss for words.
This was just with the Yuren; the danger they'd faced was already among the higher levels, and there were three even more horrifying levels beyond.
In this world... people had no idea how long they could hold on.
“You're here for a reason, right?” he asked, knowing that Old Li usually came to him only if there was something important.
This time, it was clear he had matters to discuss rather than just casual news.
“Right. Given the overwhelming death toll, to curb the rapid spread of the Yuren, they’ve sent more production lines from Silver Tower to make large amounts of glowstone and started mass printing advanced rune symbols. So I won’t be purchasing the large glowstones and symbols you produce anymore,” Li Runshan said seriously.
“Huh?” Yu Hong was taken aback.
It could still be this way?
“Of course, I personally will still need some, but the purchase price will be lowered. After all, the clients consuming the rune formations and large glowstones have suffered so many losses. Plus, further afield, the Hope Cities are getting supplies from above, so it's impossible to buy at previous prices. Previously, the supply teams got large glowstones and formations from me to markup and resell, but now this demand has dropped significantly. The profit doesn't even cover the transport costs, so… you understand.” Li Runshan raised an eyebrow at Yu Hong.
“If that’s the case, I can still repair advanced equipment, weapons, and some small machines,” Yu Hong thought for a moment before responding.
“That also works.” Li Runshan smiled.
"I'm setting up a large underground temperature-controlled breeding farm and need a sterilizing temperature-controlled air circulation machine. I've reserved a faulty one from the supply team; you can help me check if it can be repaired."
“...” Yu Hong was left speechless.
Could this guy really not want anything decent and specifically buy broken items for him to fix?
(End of this chapter)