Cooking Gourmet Meals in the Apocalypse

Chapter 269: Chapter 266: You Can’t Just Use Force, Can You

Just over half an hour after leaving the Zhang Family Safety Zone, the snow was falling so heavily it was almost impossible to see the road.

This was the heaviest snowfall Chen Xing had ever seen.

It was a good thing those pregnant women had been brought to the safety zone in time. Otherwise, they would have surely frozen to death on the road.

After another half an hour of driving through the blizzard, her small RV was already half-buried and completely stuck.

It looked like she would be stranded on this road for a few days.

Chen Xing considered getting out and storing the RV.

But before she could move, she heard the loud sound of a vehicle.

’That doesn’t quite sound like a car!?’

’A bulldozer?’

’That slow, heavy rumble... what else could it be but a bulldozer?’

’A machine like that wouldn’t have much to fear from a blizzard.’

While the vehicle was still out of sight, Chen Xing quickly got out, stored the RV, and hid inside her Jiezhi Space.

The zombies were all High Level now; a commotion that loud was bound to attract them.

Soon, a massive bulldozer appeared around a distant bend.

But what made the scene truly spectacular were the twenty-some Advanced Zombies fiercely battering it.

The bulldozer’s windows had been welded over with thick iron wire, so the zombies couldn’t get in for the time being.

But even the toughest materials couldn’t withstand a zombie’s persistence.

Unless something else drew their attention, once they latched onto you, they would never let go.

Since it had been upgraded, looking outside from the Jiezhi Space was like looking through a one-way mirror.

She could see out clearly, but no one outside could see her.

Inside the vehicle was a man in his thirties.

His expression was indescribable, a mixture of fear and despair.

And yet, despite being so terrified and hopeless, a smile hung on his lips.

’Alright then.’

’You’ve successfully piqued my interest!’

Chen Xing waited for the bulldozer to disappear from view before emerging from the Jiezhi Space.

The snow at the side of the road was already thigh-deep.

However, the road itself had been cleared by the bulldozer, making it quite easy to walk on.

Two minutes later, she and Meng Hu had caught up to the bulldozer.

Upon seeing her and Meng Hu, the Advanced Zombies instantly switched their targets.

Chen Xing didn’t even have to lift a finger; Meng Hu took care of all twenty-some zombies, then obediently delivered their Crystal Cores to her.

Seeing a girl being attacked by zombies, the man in the bulldozer turned the machine around anyway.

But the vehicle was slow. By the time he had it fully turned to face Chen Xing, the zombies already lay in a heap on the ground.

”Th-thank you!” The man was a little stunned.

He struggled to kill even a single one; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been so prepared to die.

He had already resolved that the moment the zombies broke through his door, he would take his own life.

His gun was already loaded and ready.

And yet, she had dealt with them so easily?

”You’re welcome.” The bulldozer’s door was open, and Chen Xing glanced inside.

The cab wasn’t large, but the space around his seat was piled high with supplies.

”This thing is too loud. You’ll attract monsters.” ’It’s practically a mobile beacon for them.’

”I’m in a hurry to get to Huaiyang City. The snow is too heavy for a normal car, so I had to use this!”

’Huaiyang City?’

’That’s on the way to the Western Desert.’

Chen Xing couldn’t help but feel suspicious. ”It’s so dangerous out here. What are you going to Huaiyang City for?”

”I ran into an acquaintance yesterday. He told me he saw my mom in the Huaiyang City safety zone. I was worried the heavy snow would make the roads impassable, so I had to take this!” Zheng Weinan said, his face etched with anxiety.

He was raised in a single-parent household and only had his mother.

When the apocalypse began, he was away on a business trip. By the time he risked everything to get back home, his mother was gone.

He had spent nearly a year searching many places but had never found her.

During that time, he had awakened a superpower, but it was a Water Ability with little offensive power—barely enough to keep himself alive.

He wouldn’t have risked coming out here alone if he hadn’t heard news about his mother.

He didn’t sound like he was lying to Chen Xing.

’But it takes at least a full day to drive to Huaiyang City,’ she thought. ’In a bulldozer, it’ll probably take him three.’

’If he runs into a horde, he won’t be able to escape, no matter how sturdy that thing is.’

Since it was on her way, Chen Xing told him to wait. She ran back the way she’d come and returned shortly after, driving her small RV.

For the next while, the bulldozer cleared a path ahead, with her RV following behind.

The road to the northwest was sparsely populated to begin with; you could travel for a long time before encountering even a small town.

Any zombies they encountered were few and far between, and Meng Hu could handle them on his own.

They expected the road ahead for the next few days to be nothing but a vast expanse of white snow.

But after a day and a night, the blizzard began to show signs of letting up.

As the snow receded, a vast desert slowly materialized before them.

Chen Xing checked her map and did an offline search for Huaiyang City. This was indeed the correct direction.

’To think that since the apocalypse began, no one cares about environmental protection anymore. The desertification in the Western Desert has gotten this bad.’

The bulldozer moved through the desert just as easily as it had through the snow.

Chen Xing’s RV, however, wasn’t having such an easy time.

Worried she’d have to abandon her RV in the desert, Chen Xing told Zheng Weinan to wait for her at the desert’s edge.

Once she was out of his sight, she stored the RV and killed some time in her Jiezhi Space.

’I can’t just drive out in an SUV. It’s not like those are easy to come by. Making him wait a few hours will make it more believable.’

A few hours later, she returned in an SUV to meet him.

This time, Chen Xing didn’t follow the bulldozer.

She took the lead, with the bulldozer following her.

The bulldozer seemed even slower in the desert.

After sunset, the temperature plummeted to over twenty degrees below zero.

Worried about the freezing temperatures, they didn’t dare stop, fighting off sleepiness as they drove through the night.

They finally stopped to rest at dawn as the temperature began to rise again.

Even so, the temperature only rose to a few degrees below zero, and the desert remained bitingly cold.

Still, it was relatively warm inside Chen Xing’s vehicle with the heat on.

Before long, she slowly drifted off to sleep.

After some time, Chen Xing woke up feeling suffocated. The air was thick with the dry scent of sand.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself surrounded by pitch-black darkness.

Sensing something was wrong, she immediately entered her Jiezhi Space.

Only then did she discover that she had been buried alive in the desert. Outside, the sun was shining brightly.

Fortunately, she wasn’t buried very deep. After digging a little, her hands touched the vehicle.

She pulled the SUV and Meng Hu into her space before releasing them both back outside.

The bulldozer was in the same predicament, though because it was so tall, its roof had not yet been completely submerged.

’Guess I’ll have to use brute force.’

With a grab and a pull from Chen Xing, the entire bulldozer, with Zheng Weinan inside, was yanked out of the sand.

A terrified Zheng Weinan watched in astonishment as Chen Xing set his machine down on the surface of the sand.

He had only just been woken up by the sudden jolt.

It took him a long moment to process what had happened. Internally, all he could think was a string of ’Holy shits’ directed at Chen Xing.

’This is insane. She can lift a bulldozer?’

”Th-thank you!”

Chen Xing had no time for his thanks. The SUV she had just brought out was already half-sunk again.

And she herself was slowly sinking as well.