stonecrandall Chapter 318 Return
Chapter 318 Return
After everyone had searched the berth thoroughly, it was almost evening.
Tashan cleared out a relatively clean area, lit the wood he had just brought back, and prepared dinner.
The atmosphere was somewhat somber, but not oppressive; it was just a kind of weariness that made one not want to speak.
The sense of emptiness brought on by trekking on the mudflats for several consecutive days made everyone lose some of their desire to talk.
It felt like a ship that had been adrift at sea for months, and you were bored with everything.
Fu Xiaojian also noticed this situation.
It seems that since the end of the world, humanity has been gradually losing interest in social interaction.
Even someone as cheerful as Jiao Jiao deliberately avoids excessive social interaction.
This was almost inevitable.
Even if a safe zone is established, even if human society is reshaped.
Fu Xiaojian also felt that this was almost an irreversible process.
The twilight on the riverbank was unique, causing the crowd, who had lost interest in conversation, to quietly gaze at the crimson glow.
Everyone put down their work and looked up at the horizon, giving the scenery the utmost respect.
The firelight flickered across the abandoned parking lot, illuminating the silent faces of the crowd.
The crackling sound of burning firewood became the only vibrant sound in this vast, deathly silence.
As dusk gradually fell, everyone began to attend to their own tasks.
Xu Si sat on the roof of the "Nirvana" car, the Sword of Punishment resting on his lap, his starry eyes half-closed, but a wisp of his consciousness remained, sinking into the faint cocoon of light deep within his sea of consciousness.
Yi Yi's slumber constantly reminded him that power also requires an equivalent exchange.
The night completely swallowed the abandoned parking lot.
Only the emergency lights around the convoy and the faint red glow of the remaining campfire barely carved out a small piece of human territory.
The wind blew from the upper reaches of the dried-up riverbed, stirring up fine sand and dust that rustled against the vehicle.
However, the team members were already used to it, and everyone was so engrossed in their dreams that no one woke up.
……
The blood-red sun had not yet fully risen by dawn.
Everyone was then awakened by the sound of rushing water.
Lin Zhennan and Pei Xiu, who were on night duty, stood on the open ground next to the camp, staring blankly at the river that had suddenly appeared before them.
Overnight, the once dry and barren riverbed has been completely transformed.
The river has swelled to overflowing levels, and the riverbed has long since disappeared.
Even the tourist boats that ran aground on the riverbank were washed further downstream.
The turbid waves crashed against the rusted hull and washed over the dock, the water level rising and filling at a visible speed.
The air was filled with a heavy mist and the earthy smell of churned river silt, yet it smelled so pleasant.
"What... what's going on?" Jiao Jiao rubbed her eyes, finally confirming the reality.
The convoy members gradually gathered at the riverbank, gazing at the river that had miraculously come back to life.
Last night, the riverbed was still deathly still, but now it is surging with waves, as if a sleeping giant has been reborn.
Fu Xiaojian frowned, but his sense of danger did not give him a warning.
This sudden change caught everyone off guard.
"So fast? I thought it would take many days!" Shao Bing murmured, his gaze involuntarily turning towards the cliff.
"If we had continued to rest in the river yesterday, we would have been completely helpless," Yang Fan thought to himself, secretly relieved.
"Yeah, we almost fed the fish!" Tashan was also a little scared. If his bus had really encountered this flood, it would probably have been doomed.
The water was churning with turbid waves, almost surging onto the abandoned mooring area on the shore.
Amidst their astonishment, the convoy members also felt a primal awe of the power of nature.
Then they looked at Xu Si on the roof of the car.
The apocalypse, an era that rivals the power of nature.
They didn't know what Xu Si had done to make this vast, interrupted stream flow again.
The air was thick with moisture, carrying a distinctive earthy smell, yet everyone seemed to radiate an unprecedented "vitality."
Tashan had already started taking off his clothes to prepare for a proper wash.
Others cheered, eager to embrace this unexpected happiness.
After all, first there was the desert, then the mudflats, neither of which are good places to drive.
Not to mention the body odor that accumulates over time.
"Don't go into the water yet, Chen Pei..." Fu Xiaojian maintained his instinctive vigilance as a team leader. He originally wanted to let Chen Pei go into the water to test the waters.
However, Chen Pei's condition had changed drastically at this time.
"Chen Pei?"
He turned his head and saw that Chen Pei's face was as pale as paper, and he could no longer maintain his physical state. Ripples even appeared on the surface of his body.
"Quick, throw him into the water!" Tang Jinxiu shouted, her usual coldness gone.
"Oh!" Tashan, shirtless, grabbed the wet Chen Pei with one hand and threw him into the river like a javelin.
There was a soft "plop" sound, and then there was no more movement.
The river was surging and bottomless; there was no trace of Chen Pei anywhere.
The convoy fell silent instantly, even Tashan froze on the spot, his wet upper body dripping with water, his face showing astonishment.
He glanced at Tang Jinxiu, then looked at the others, and then scratched his head, wondering if he had misunderstood.
"Don't rush! Chen Pei is in the Rain Man sequence, perhaps it's time for him to advance!" Fu Xiaojian's words put Ta Shan at ease.
Before he could finish speaking, something unexpected happened.
Whoosh—!!!
The river, which was originally just flowing gently, was suddenly stirred up by an invisible giant hand, forming a huge whirlpool with a diameter of more than 20 meters centered on the spot where Chen Pei fell into the water!
The vortex wasn't spinning fast, but in the pre-dawn darkness it carried a chilling heaviness.
Xu Si also turned his gaze over.
The river water became unusually viscous in the eddies, and its color quickly changed from a turbid yellowish-brown to a deep, almost inky blue.
The center of the vortex is unfathomably deep, as if it leads straight to the Earth's core.
Even more bizarrely, at the edge of the vortex, countless fine water droplets floated upwards against gravity, suspended in mid-air, refracting the light of the rising blood sun, like a dazzling, solidified, inverted galaxy.
The dense moisture in the air instantly intensified several times over, making breathing feel damp and heavy.
Everyone felt a slight throbbing and suppression stemming from their sequential instincts.
"Back off! Everyone back off!"
Fu Xiaojian shouted sharply, pulling the flustered Tang Jinxiu backward.
The convoy retreated, their eyes fixed on the terrifying vortex that had suddenly appeared.
This is not a natural phenomenon.
This is the resonance of the sequence, the intense resonance between the primal power within Chen Pei, which had been suppressed for too long and finally found an outlet at this moment, and the newly revived river!
At the center of the vortex, in the dark depths.
A faint blue light, like a sleeping star, slowly lit up.
The light was initially extremely dim, almost imperceptible in the pitch-black river water.
But it steadily and tenaciously strengthens, little by little.
In the light, a curled-up human figure could be vaguely outlined—it was Chen Pei.