Jiang Wan was familiar with this knocking technique: three knocks, then two, then three more. It was Cheng Zhen.

She first lifted the car window curtain to see him, then opened the door to let him in: "What happened?"

Before Cheng Zhen could speak, Yu Fen rushed over, panting, and asked, "Captain, there's a huge field of green onions up ahead, should we gather them?"

In his view, scallions are just a seasoning, not even a vegetable. There's no point in harvesting them; they won't fill our stomachs and will only waste our time!

The snow is very heavy now, and shoveling snow is a huge undertaking!

Cheng Zhen was extremely annoyed, and in a fit of temper, she blurted out, "Ask, ask, ask! You ask me everything! Don't you have a brain?!"

Yu Fen immediately felt wronged, "You're the captain, not me..."

But he cleverly realized that the captain was in a bad mood and it was not a good time to talk to him, so he had an idea: the green onion was fine to do without!

Jiang Wan quickly stopped him: "We need to buy all the scallions!"

"Huh?" Yu Fen was dumbfounded. Who would want to eat something that smells so bad? It's just a condiment at most. In this oxygen-deprived apocalypse, we'll starve to death if we don't eat. We should be fine if we don't eat condiments, right?

"We'll take them all. Green onions are different from scallions; they have very high nutritional value. They can be eaten or used as a seasoning, and most importantly, they also have considerable medicinal value..."

Jiang Wan has an occupational hazard: once she starts talking about plant knowledge, she can't stop.

Helpless, Cheng Zhen quickly interjected, snapping at Yu Fen, "What are you standing there for? Just go and collect it! Stop talking nonsense!"

"oh……"

Yu Fen ran away feeling wronged and resentful. "Did the boss get angry today?"

Jiang Wan looked at him suspiciously: "What's going on with you?"

She glanced back at the two little ones sleeping soundly in the bed inside, and with a push, she was about to push him out of the car. What was wrong with this man? She couldn't let him wake the two children!

Cheng Zhen stepped back to avoid being pushed, then quickly closed the RV door. He lowered his voice and tried to soften his tone, saying, "Something happened in the city. I need you to go back immediately."

Jiang Wan frowned: "Have you found the optics expert?"

Cheng Zhen shook his head: "Not yet, but we have some leads. It's just that the city is in complete chaos right now, and we don't know where this person is."

Why is that?

Jiang Wan looked at him and asked him a question.

"A virus has broken out in the city, and it's spreading rapidly." Cheng Zhen sighed, his face anxious as he looked at his comrades who were sweating profusely as they rushed to collect supplies, his heart filled with worry.

If he wasn't mistaken, the virus in the city originated from this sudden, harsh winter.

His comrades had been freezing in the wilderness for several hours, and he was afraid that some of them might not be able to withstand it, fall ill, and then infect a large number of people.

"Don't scare me like that. If you're sick, just get treatment and take medicine. What's the point of calling me back?"

After Jiang Wan finished speaking, she felt a pang of regret. "Look, now there are infectious diseases. Why was I so stupid to forget to buy medicine?"

"There's no medicine!"

Cheng Zhen spoke with great seriousness.

"How is that possible?" Jiang Wan said in disbelief. "Xiangcheng is such a big city, with so many pharmacies and hospitals. How could they not have any medicine? What kind of virus has broken out? Is it the flu? They should at least have antiviral cold medicine!"

"It's true that there's no medicine. According to reliable sources, Xiangcheng's medical system was paralyzed about half a year before the apocalypse. Many medicines couldn't be supplied. And just yesterday, there was unrest in the city. Pharmacies and hospitals were the first to be affected, and all the medicines were looted. Now, it's considered good if those pharmacies can even get some medicine for sprains and bruises."

"Is this someone maliciously creating unrest, controlling the medicines to profit from the disaster?" Jiang Wan pointed out incisively. "Aren't you going to do anything about it?"

Cheng Zhen was also troubled and helpless. "We don't have enough manpower. You've seen those guys in the inner city; they're cowards and incompetent!"

The mere mention of this made him furious. He had received intelligence that during the unrest in Xiangcheng, the bastards in the inner city camp hadn't sent a single person out. Only a fire brigade from a pre-apocalyptic, oxygen-deprived era, now an unorganized unit of the inner city camp, was sent out to maintain stability, and reportedly suffered considerable casualties.

But Jiang Wan still didn't understand why she needed to go back.

Her major was botany, and she knew absolutely nothing about medicine.

Upon reflection, she suddenly understood: plants! Many plants are actually medicinal!

Cheng Zhen said, "Old Liu didn't specify the details, but I guess he wants you to help him gather herbs."

Jiang Wan had a gut feeling that something was wrong. Which traditional Chinese medicine practitioner doesn't recognize medicinal plants? Why would they need her help?

She shook her head and refused: "I'm not a medicine boy, I'm not going."

Cheng Zhen also disagreed. Jiang Wan was the only botany expert at the moment, and her safety could not be compromised in the slightest. He rushed over here only to remind her that something had happened in the city and that someone was specifically targeting her. He suspected that it was Yu Tongguang.

He suffered greatly here yesterday, and as a result, unrest broke out in the city. Now that he's gone, the city wants Jiang Wan to go back?

Wow, what a coincidence!

Seeing that she was determined, Cheng Zhen was immediately relieved and instructed, "Then you must stay calm and not listen to their slander. Don't turn on your phone, and don't get involved in things in the city."

"Mm." Jiang Wan nodded, then tilted her chin towards the outside of the car, her gaze icy and cold, indicating: You can leave now.

Cheng Zhen touched his nose, twitched the corner of his mouth, and then left.

But this wasn't the end of it. In Xiangcheng, they waited a long time for Jiang Wan to return, so they put pressure on Lao Liu with two cars. Lao Liu then kept calling Cheng Zhen.

Cheng Zhen was furious and extremely annoyed: "Hit me, hit me, hit me until my phone is off! There's no charging station out here in the middle of nowhere, let's see where you're going to find me!"

Old Liu knew he was joking; the entire harvesting force relied on his strategic planning, and besides, with so many generators at his disposal, it was impossible for him to run out of power.

After Cheng Zhen finished venting, he cut straight to the point: "Why isn't Jiang Wan coming back? Is it because you're not letting her go?"

"Don't you have any sense of the bigger picture? You could have just brought her back, and then taken her away after you'd collected all the herbs! You have a portal, it's that easy for you!"

Cheng Zhen sneered: "She is a plant expert, that's true, but there's no reason for her to go and collect herbs for you, is there? Which quack doctor did you run into? You were tricked and deceived by him. He doesn't even know plants and can't collect herbs. How could you trust him?"

Old Liu sighed, "It's not that he doesn't recognize the medicinal herbs, it's that he's afraid to go."

Cheng Zhen sensed something was wrong and asked, "What exactly happened? You'd better tell me the whole truth!"

Old Liu then stopped hiding it from him:

"The city is in complete chaos right now; it's a virus zone. This disease is highly contagious and spreads like wildfire. The entire city has been locked down, and no one inside is allowed to leave. Only our outer city camp is temporarily unaffected, so the responsibility of treating the disease falls on us. But we don't have any doctors here. We happened to meet a traveling doctor who said he could cure the disease, but he refused to go out and collect herbs."