The neighboring team's car had been repaired, but they didn't know how to get out of the desert.
When they went to ask Zhang Jili, he looked at them with a blank expression and pointed at Pei Yufeng inside the car.
He didn't know the way either; he just drove wherever Pei Yufeng told him to.
He liked the feeling of not having to use his brain.
The Boss cast a sympathetic glance at Zhang Jili, who was currently playing with the sand, and went to find Pei Yufeng.
"Bro, are you guys trying to get out of the desert too? Can you take us with you?"
The only response he got was silence.
The Boss was speechless.
The Boss furrowed his brows, as if thinking about something. Then, he smiled at Pei Yufeng and started using sign language in front of him.
Pei Yufeng looked at him with a face full of impatience.
The Boss was very familiar with this look; he had just used the exact same look on Zhang Jili.
Clearly, this man was not easy to talk to. The Boss slinked away in defeat.
He really couldn't be blamed for overthinking things; he had simply never heard Pei Yufeng's voice.
Nor had he really seen Zhang Jili or Shen Jiaxue speak to Pei Yufeng.
Only that innocent and obedient-looking girl ever talked to him, but even then, the Boss had only seen Pei Yufeng's mouth moving without ever hearing his voice.
"Have you guys ever heard that guy speak?" the Boss asked in a low voice.
"Who? Who hasn't spoken?" a teammate asked at the top of his lungs, constantly looking in Pei Yufeng's direction.
The Boss was speechless.
He directly punched him.
The teammate clutched his head and said aggrievedly, "Never heard him."
The Boss furrowed his brows. Could that gloomy-faced man even speak at all?
The desert was much hotter today than in the previous days. There wasn't a single drop of moisture in the air, making every breath extremely uncomfortable.
Ji Zhaoxi was lying in the tent taking a nap. The tent was half open. She hugged a cool jacket, looking a bit dazed from the heat, the stray hairs on her forehead damp with sweat.
Pei Yufeng walked into the tent. He sat to the side and used a damp towel to wipe her face. In her sleep, Ji Zhaoxi impatiently pushed away the towel in his hand and clung tightly to his hand instead.
"Is it really uncomfortable?" he asked, softening his voice.
Pei Yufeng forcibly used his mental energy to interfere with her senses. He started picturing glacier-covered landscapes in his mind, and then thought of the freezing currents of the deep sea...
He didn't possess ice-type abilities, so he could only use this illusory method to make her feel better.
In her sleep, Ji Zhaoxi felt a sympathetic resonance with the images in Pei Yufeng's mind, and her tense body gradually relaxed.
Pei Yufeng looked down at Ji Zhaoxi's flushed face and couldn't resist poking it.
He had poked it before.
Seeing that Ji Zhaoxi hadn't woken up, Pei Yufeng gave a low cough and, like a thief, took a quick, light bite on her cheek. His movements were incredibly fast.
He cast a guilty glance at Ji Zhaoxi. Recalling the sensation just now, he leaned back in the tent, unable to stop the corners of his lips from turning up.
Outside, the desiccated zombies kept howling. Perhaps because of the lack of water in the desert, their roars were much hoarser than those of zombies in other places.
The sounds of continuous fighting drifted in from outside, while inside the tent, the passage of time was peaceful and quiet.
Zhang Jili never expected the desiccated zombies in the central zone to be so frenzied. He really couldn't hold on much longer, his whole body teetering on the verge of collapse.
The ability users from the neighboring team had been in the mountains before and had absolutely no experience dealing with desiccated zombies. They were getting beaten so badly they were jumping all over the place.
Just when Zhang Jili thought they were truly going to die here, the heads of those desiccated zombies were suddenly scorched black, and they fell stiffly into the desert sand.
Zhang Jili wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and muttered, "He only ever makes a move when we're about to die. Does he just not like us?"
Shen Jiaxue said helplessly, "You only just realized that?"
Pei Yufeng wished there were only him and Ji Zhaoxi left in the entire world.
A smug look appeared on Zhang Jili's face. "Let me tell you, I yelled so loudly just now specifically to wake up Sister Zhaoxi. Once Sister Zhaoxi was woken up, he was bound to take action."
Shen Jiaxue looked at him in surprise, not expecting him to actually have the brains for that. Zhang Jili raised an eyebrow.
Right at that moment, a desiccated zombie suddenly stood up.
"Holy crap!" Zhang Jili jumped in fright.
How did one slip through this time?
The desiccated zombie was also startled by Zhang Jili and immediately dropped flat into the sand, attempting to play dead.
Shen Jiaxue was speechless.
She stepped forward and kicked the zombie on the ground. The zombie suddenly let out a hoarse cry, wailing non-stop.
"It has awakened," Shen Jiaxue said, watching it quietly.
Curious, Zhang Jili squatted down and poked it. "If it awakened, why is it still so stupid?"
Shen Jiaxue wasn't very interested in it and walked to the side. "It probably only has memories from the first few years of its life."
Zhang Jili originally wanted to kill it outright, but seeing how it kept digging in the sand trying to bury itself, he decided against it.
He sat back down and prepared to drink some water. But as he drank, he suddenly caught a longing gaze out of the corner of his eye.
"Pfft—"
Zhang Jili locked eyes with those two skeletal sockets and jumped in fright.
He wiped his mouth and silently stared at the desiccated zombie next to him.
The desiccated zombie sat beside him, also silently staring back.
Across from them, witnessing all of this, Shen Jiaxue was speechless.
Zhang Jili tentatively offered the desiccated zombie some water. It actually started drinking, and once it finished, it buried itself in the sand again.
As night fell, the mountain climate cooled down. The dilapidated prison had been largely renovated by now. A sentry tower stood nearby, and the sound of clay bells rang continuously through the mountains.
Yan Jiasui stood in the watchtower. Through her binoculars, she calmly watched the zombies falling into the trench one after another.
This V-shaped trench had been built by the ordinary people in the base. It was about three meters deep, and regular zombies would fall straight in.
Several rows of people stood near the base. Holding crossbows and Molotov cocktails, they relentlessly attacked the zombies in the trench.
Seeing the excited expressions on the faces of those ordinary people outside, Yan Jiasui's eyes filled with a smile.
"I was just too foolish before. I always thought that handing out supplies was what was best for everyone. Now I see that it's better to let everyone participate."
Even in the apocalypse, these ordinary people needed to find their own value.
Wen Ruixin said softly, "No one knows how to do everything right from the start. Sister Jiasui, you're already doing a fantastic job."
Not just anyone could achieve this. Most ability users simply treated ordinary people as meat shields.
Yan Jiasui looked tenderly at Wen Ruixin, her eyes full of hope for the future. "Ruixin, when you lead a team in the future, you will definitely do even better than me."
To be honest, she still wasn't tough enough. If Ruixin hadn't been helping her these past few days, she probably wouldn't have been able to keep those people in line.
The wind gently blew the hair on Yan Jiasui's shoulders, and a few strands of black hair brushed across her brow and eyes.
Wen Ruixin retracted her gaze and looked down at the burning zombies below.
She wasn't going to lead a team, nor had she ever thought about going anywhere else.
