The sudden situation with the ancient building had completely caught us off guard.
After standing there staring for a while with nothing we could do, we eventually returned to our cars.
Since branches had fallen earlier and there might be safety risks if we stayed, the convoy had no choice but to get back on the road again.
During the drive, the middle-aged man kept reminding us over the walkie-talkie not to rush.
The highways through the mountains were steep, and he kept repeating that we needed to go slowly and stay steady.
Not long after we started driving, raindrops began to fall onto the windshield.
Within minutes, the rain grew heavier and heavier until it became a torrential downpour.
The huge raindrops drummed violently on the car roof, sounding like endless thunder.
Even though it was still late at night, after what had just happened, nobody could fall asleep again.
The headlights of our cars were dimmed by the heavy rain, looking weak against the pitch-black darkness.
In the backseat, the two kids who had been sitting together were clearly frightened.
Xu Shu handed Xiao Hu to me, and Tingyun climbed into Uncle Gazi's arms.
Yangyang glanced nervously out the window, then turned to me and said, "Sis, can you ask Brother Suo Tian how Rongrong's doing?"
I looked back at Yangyang, knowing he was worried, and nodded.
I turned on the walkie-talkie and asked, "Suo Tian, how's Rongrong? Is she awake or asleep?"
Maybe it was the heavy rain interfering with the signal, but it took a long while before the reply came through, full of static and distortion — I couldn't make out a single word.
I tried asking again, "Can you hear me clearly? Hello? Hello? We can't hear you."
Still, only the crackling and hissing of interference came back.
Feeling a little discouraged, I put the walkie-talkie down and told Yangyang, "Looks like the rain's messing with the signal. We probably can't use it for now."
"Don't worry," Han Xue said, patting Yangyang on the shoulder.
"I'm sure everything's fine. Rongrong's a good kid — she won't make trouble. And Suo Tian's right there with her, so relax."
Yangyang sighed and nodded. "Yeah… she's not close to me anymore. All she does is cling to Brother Suo Tian. She doesn't see anyone else."
Hearing that, Jun Di chuckled. "Exactly. Rongrong's Suo Tian's biggest little fan. When Xiao Yin and I first joined you guys, she was curious about us for maybe two days, then went right back to sticking to Brother Suo Tian like glue."
Maybe enough time had passed since Xiao Yin's tragedy, or maybe after all the horrors we'd been through together, Jun Di had become numb — his face showed no particular emotion as he mentioned her name.
Han Xue suddenly laughed and looked at me. "So, Chen Yang, doesn't that mean you've got yourself a little love rival now?"
"Oh, yeah, that's true," Jun Di said, joining in with a grin.
I rolled my eyes at the two of them. "If Rongrong ever tried to compete with me for Suo Tian, I'd lose for sure. Look at those two — she's been glued to his arms this whole time and hasn't even thought of leaving."
Hearing that, everyone in the car burst into laughter.
Xiao Hu and Tingyun, who had been sitting stiffly and staring at the dim light from the headlights illuminating the road ahead, turned their small faces toward us.
Even though they didn't quite understand what was funny, they started giggling along with everyone else.
"What are you laughing at? Do you even know what we're talking about?" Chen Pu tapped Tingyun lightly on the head.
Uncle Gazi chuckled, raising his voice in a playful imitation to answer for Tingyun: "How could I not know? My Yun'er is real smart—she knows everything."
The car continued to move along the road at an unhurried pace.
The rain was still pouring hard, showing no sign of stopping.
Gradually, we got used to the pattering sound against the car.
The walkie-talkies still weren't working, and without the lively conversation from earlier, the atmosphere inside the vehicle slowly fell into silence.
Xiao Hu and Tingyun eventually drifted off to sleep.
Xu Shu leaned over, took Xiao Hu, and laid him down on the makeshift bed next to Tingyun.
With the rain bringing a chill, it'd be easy to catch a cold if we weren't careful—better to cover them up with a blanket just to be safe.
Letting out a small sigh, I leaned back against the seat, staring at the taillights of the car ahead for a long while.
Holding the useless walkie-talkie in my hand, I looked through the curtain of rain and felt, in a daze, that our vehicle—carrying just a few of us—was completely cut off from the world.
A strange sense of loneliness slowly crept through my chest.
Darkness pressed in from all sides.
We huddled inside this iron box, trying to escape the wind, the rain, and the hopeless desolation of the apocalypse outside.
"Chen Yang, what are you thinking about?" Shen Feng, sitting in the driver's seat beside me, must have noticed my expression and asked.
At his words, I glanced at him, then raised my hand and pointed outside.
"I just don't like this feeling," I said.
Shen Feng followed my gaze, staring into the heavy darkness outside for a moment.
After thinking it over, he gave a faint chuckle. "It is rather suffocating, isn't it?"
"Isn't it?" I steadied myself and continued, "Moments like this make you realize just how small and fragile we really are. Combine that with the mess we're in now… it's hard not to feel powerless."
People always need to live within the illusions their minds create.
Take us, for example—we have to convince ourselves that the walkers are easy to deal with, that we can handle them.
It's a way to boost our courage and confidence when facing them.
But if you expand the picture—imagine all the walkers in the world gathering together and surrounding just us few—it becomes utterly despairing.
It's the same kind of situation we're facing now.
Sometimes, when the disparity in power is too great, it's better not to stare it straight in the face.
Shen Feng thought over my words for a while before speaking softly again.
"Actually, if you don't think about it that way, the rain outside is kind of amazing. It's been ages since we've had such a fierce, exhilarating downpour."
He cleared his throat and added, "You know, there are many things in life that you just can't think too deeply about. Take this for example—why do people live? Before, we could say it was for pleasure, for money, for success. But if you ask one more question—after you've achieved all that, then what?—you suddenly lose all motivation and hope. You start wondering what you're even doing now. Right? Why do we do all this? What's it for?
"But really," he continued, "if you just focus on what's right in front of you—doing what you want and what you need to do—that's enough. Do you get what I mean?"
I understood most of what Shen Feng was trying to say.
I nodded slightly to him, then turned my gaze back to the window.
Shen Feng was right.
He deliberately steered the topic away from the situation at hand and, from a deeper angle, told me that there was no need to fear or worry about things that hadn't even happened yet.
As long as we were still fine right now, we should just take it one step at a time.
Taking a deep breath, I rubbed my temples.
People who tend to overthink really do have a way of trapping themselves inside their own thoughts.
Just as I was lost in thought, the silent walkie-talkie in my hand suddenly crackled with a burst of static—zzzz, zzzz—as if someone was trying to say something.
But the signal interference was too strong; I couldn't make out a single word.
While I was straining to catch any hint of sound through the static, the vehicle ahead of us suddenly sped up.
Before we even had time to react, it slammed on its brakes and came to an abrupt halt—then, without warning, started reversing at full speed.
Shen Feng was completely thrown off by the sudden, erratic behavior of the car in front.
He turned his head toward me, seemingly about to ask what was going on—but before he could speak, a thunderous BOOM exploded from up ahead.
The sound was far louder than the one from when the roof of the ancient building collapsed earlier—it shook the entire valley.
Even inside our vehicle, we could feel the car tremble from the sheer force of it.
The car in front kept reversing frantically, swerving left and right in panic.
The road was only two lanes wide—there was no way for us to get around them.
Shen Feng had no choice but to throw our car into reverse as well.
The rumbling continued, relentless and deafening.
The noise woke Tingyun and Xiao Hu, who both started crying in fright.
Han Xue and Uncle Gazi immediately tried to calm them down, urging them to stay quiet so as not to distract Shen Feng.
The vehicle ahead still showed no sign of stopping, backing up recklessly without a thought for us behind.
Shen Feng's brows were furrowed tightly, his entire face tense, every ounce of focus poured into controlling the car and keeping it steady so we wouldn't collide.
I gripped the handrail tightly, squinting to try and see what was going on in front of us.
But the headlights of the lead car didn't reach far—beyond a few meters, there was only thick, impenetrable darkness.
A strange doubt crept into my mind.
We should be able to see the taillights of the car even farther ahead, I thought.
Why does it look like there are only our two cars left with their lights on?
Before I could think further, another, even stronger rumble tore through the air.
The entire highway seemed to shudder beneath us.
Combined with the never-ending torrent of rain and the dim, yellowish glow from outside, I suddenly felt as if, in that very moment, we were truly witnessing the end of the world.
We kept reversing for several kilometers before the earth-shaking roar finally began to fade, gradually quieting down until it ceased altogether.
The road and the vehicle stopped trembling.
Shen Feng, nearly pushed to his limits by the chaos ahead, managed to steady the car just enough to keep control in the storm and avoid crashing into the reversing vehicle in front.
During that time, the walkie-talkie in my hand kept sputtering with static.
Through the noise, I could faintly make out a couple of words—barely catching one clear word: "Quick!"
The rest was completely lost to interference.
Still dazed from everything that had just happened, I noticed the car ahead had finally begun to slow down.
Snapping back to my senses, I grabbed the walkie-talkie and pressed the transmit button, trying to reach them.
"Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me? The car in front—can you hear me talking? What happened? Why did you suddenly reverse? What was that noise just now?"
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