Chapter 574 - Chapter 574: 362. The Boy Seeking Help in the Wilderness
Chapter 574: 362. The Boy Seeking Help in the Wilderness
Dawn.
On the plains of the wilderness, three unusually designed pickup trucks were kicking up huge clouds of dust as they headed north.
The bodies of the trucks were silver, with glowing strips of blue and purple light at the edges, resembling fireflies in the night.
On top of the truck beds, waterproof tarps were stretched over, bulging as though loaded with cargo.
On the side of the trucks, the phrases “City 10 and Wilderness Hunter” were spray-painted with a serial number 0291 following them.
This was a formally registered Wilderness Hunter team, holding a legitimate hunter license.
Blaring music was playing on the truck, and on board were five men and two women who were still in a state of excitement at dawn.
However, at this moment, they saw a campfire near a small mound on the wilderness, sheltered from the wind.
Next to the campfire, there was a young man sitting on a stone, warming himself by the fire.
On the gray expanse of the desolate plain, the orange-red campfire was like a lighthouse in a black sea, irresistibly drawing the eye.
The sitting youth appeared extremely lonely.
Upon seeing their vehicles, the youth stood up and approached the dirt road, stretching out his hand and giving a thumbs-up.
That was the universal hitchhiking gesture in the wilderness.
Someone in the pickup turned the music down and asked through the vehicle’s intercom, “Something doesn’t seem right. Who would be out here alone in the wilderness during the deep winter?”
“It’s possible his car broke down halfway. In this devilish weather, if he didn’t turn the car off in time, it could easily drain the battery completely.”
“Judging by his clothes, he must be from the Federation, not a wilderness local.”
“He’s no older than 18, threat level isn’t high.”
“Should we take him?” someone asked as they prepared to leave.
“Let’s not bother, just blast past,” a calm young voice in the lead pickup said through the intercom, “We have important things to do tomorrow, it’s best if outsiders don’t find out about this kind of thing.”
As the convoy passed the youth, the young man gave him a glance.
The youth watched them leave helplessly.
The next moment, when the young man looked in the rearview mirror again, he noticed that the youth was lying on the ground, unknowingly extending his hand towards them as if pleading for them not to leave.
It looked as pitiful as it could get.
Through the intercom, a girl said, “Should we help him?”
“But Tuan Zi, what if he follows us back to the Federation and leaks what we’re doing tomorrow?” another young man said.
The girl thought for a moment and added, “Chu Ci, we’re not like those people; the education we received doesn’t allow us to ignore someone in need.”
These people were all relatively young, looking only a year or two older than the youth by the roadside.
Suddenly another young man said, “It’s too cold in the wilderness, and this location is at least three hundred kilometers from City 10. I checked just now; there wasn’t even a bit of food on his fire. He probably can’t find anything to eat in the wilderness in winter. If we don’t take him, he might very well die of starvation or freeze to death here.”
“Maybe we could keep him away when we deal with the wilderness people tomorrow? We can’t just watch him die out here, right?”
Silence fell across the three pickup trucks simultaneously.
It seemed everyone was seriously contemplating something before waiting for someone to make a decision.
The next moment, Chu Ci, the composed young man in the lead vehicle, hit the brakes, “Lao Wu, cover me, I’m going to pick him up.”
It was not until then that everyone in the convoy seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
Chu Ci drove back to the youth. The girl beside him held an automatic rifle on guard while he approached the youth and said, “You want a lift, right? To City 10?”
The youth stood up, brushing the dust off his body, “Yes, I’m heading to City 10. Thanks a lot for offering me a ride, I didn’t expect you would actually agree.”
The youth seemed surprised; knowing the harsh people who roamed the wilderness, he hadn’t really expected anyone to offer him a lift and had merely done it for fun.
Unexpectedly, even after they left, they had turned back around.
Chu Ci looked at the youth, “Sorry, although we are willing to give you a lift, we need to search you and confiscate any weapons you have.”
The youth nodded, allowing Chu Ci to search him.
To Chu Ci’s surprise, the youth carried no weapons, only a basic lighter.
Having a lighter was normal. The dry winter climate made it easy to ignite a campfire without needing something like the Thor, which was designed for damp wood and not something everyone could afford.
But coming to the wilderness alone, and not carrying any weapon on him? That was indeed very strange.
He asked the young boy, “Hello, why are you here alone? What brings you to the wilderness?”
The boy replied, “I was traveling with friends from City 1 to City 10. We had an argument on the way, and they left me on the road. I thought they would come back to get me after cooling off for two days, but they never returned. They even took my gun which I use for self-defense; I didn’t have time to grab it.”
Sun Chu Ci and Tuan Zi, who was holding an automatic rifle, were both stunned, “That outrageous?”
The boy nodded and said, “I still have cash and gold bars in my backpack, but he didn’t leave those for me either. If you could give me a ride to City 10, when I find my friends and get my money, I can pay you some reward.”
Tuan Zi, on the other side, suddenly whispered in a very low voice, “Doesn’t this sound just like that Qin Shihuang joke? ‘Give me money, and once I find my mausoleum, I’ll share half of it with you.’”
The lone boy on the wilderness did not change his expression, but he heard every word.
Sun Chu Ci did not respond but looked at the boy, “Hello, how should we address you?”
The boy smiled and said, “Just call me Qing Xiaotu.”
The boy was indeed Qing Chen. With his current hearing, even if the voice of the girl in front of him was very soft, he could still hear it very clearly.
He immediately realized, “This is a Time Traveler team; otherwise, how would they know about Qin’s mausoleum joke?”
No wonder they were willing to give a ride to a stranger in the wilderness. If it were someone from the Inner World, by their teenage years they would already be accustomed to the evil nature of human hearts.
The young people in front of him seemed to be just starting college. The education they had received had always encouraged being helpful and friendly; this was the gentle foundation of a nation’s character.
The others probably did not realize how good Qing Chen’s hearing was, nor did they suspect that Qing Chen was also a Time Traveler.
At that moment, two other pickup trucks stopped nearby, with people holding automatic rifles aiming steadily at Qing Chen, ready to protect their convoy from any threat he might pose.
Qing Chen glanced over; they were kind-hearted indeed, but not foolish. They certainly had necessary precautions in place.
He guessed that they might be part of a student Time Traveler Organization from Zheng City University. After becoming Time Travelers for survival, they gathered together for safety in numbers.
The city was dangerous, so they had come to the wilderness to make a living.
A prevailing theory in the Outer World suggested that it was hard for Time Travelers, and even the original residents, to survive in the city. “You can know someone’s face but not their heart,” it was said, making it safer in the wilderness where beasts were merely fierce, unlike humans who were deceitful.
A famous philosopher from the Outer World had once said, “I fear ghosts, who have never harmed me. I do not fear people, yet they have hurt me deeply…”
Then, Sun Chu Ci raised his right arm, and his right hand curled up his index finger and thumb, apparently signaling the other two vehicles to stand down from the alert.
Qing Chen found this scene very interesting; they had their own set of tactical hand signals.
After being searched by Sun Chu Ci, Qing Chen sat in the back of the pickup. The temperature of the air conditioning inside the truck made him comfortably breathe out a sigh of cold air: “Are you guys Wilderness Hunters?”
In the truck, the girl named Tuan Zi casually asked, “We’re Wilderness Hunters… by the way, what were you and your friend going to City 10 for?”
Qing Chen remembered the excuse Jiang Yichen had used and explained earnestly, “We were going to City 10 together to attend a tutorial class to prepare for the spring self-enrollment exams at Qinghe University.”
Qinghe University is the most prestigious university within the Federation, with its main campus in City 10 and a branch campus in City 18. Thus, every year around this time, ambitious students from all over the Federation make the arduous journey to these two cities.
Of course, there’s also the Tinder Military Academy, which is as prestigious as Qinghe University, but it does not offer early self-enrollment, so students just take their exams in their own cities.
This excuse was really too useful at the moment.
When Tuan Zi heard that Qing Chen was a student applicant, she was momentarily stunned. Then she suddenly said, “I really wanted to go to Qinghe University too, but unfortunately, I didn’t get in. Since you say you’re an applicant, could I ask you a few questions? Don’t think too much about it; I just want to confirm your identity.”
Although Tuan Zi and the others were known as Wilderness Hunters in the Inner World, they were bona fide undergraduates from first-class universities in the Outer World. So, in Tuan Zi’s view, if someone tried to pretend to be a diligent student in front of them, they would be making a big mistake.
Throughout this conversation, the girl kept her hand under her jacket where she was holding a handgun aimed at Qing Chen.
Qing Chen laughed inwardly; this was exactly what he had once told Jiang Yichen!
But then again, he was not the bad student like Jiang Yichen!
Qing Chen smiled and said, “Go ahead and ask. If I know the answer, I will definitely respond.”
Sun Chu Ci silently pressed the truck’s intercom, and Tuan Zi, recalling her high school material, rattled off ten math questions in succession, all of which Qing Chen answered correctly.
Someone in the intercom said, “Awesome.”
In those ten questions, Tuan Zi even included a problem about finite-dimensional systems of linear equations, which belongs to the content of linear algebra.
This was the only content that went beyond what was taught in high schools of the Inner World compared to those in the Outer World.
Yet Qing Chen still answered it correctly, which indirectly proved he was indeed a high school student preparing in the Inner World, and even eliminated the suspicion that he might be a Time Traveler.
After all, high school students in the Outer World don’t study that stuff.
Of course, this was still not enough to prove completely.
Source: Webnovel.com, updated on N𝘰vgo.co