Luo Ning ultimately prevailed over reason and suppressed her appetite. If she didn't stop the boy's bleeding and get him away from here as soon as possible, the three of them would soon be surrounded by aliens who could smell blood.
The boy's eyes cleared a little from the pain. He had initially thought he had been saved by a human woman, but when he saw her clear, hazy blue eyes, his gratitude turned into hatred.
Because only the eyes of the alien species are this hateful blue.
Luo Ning was about to use gauze to bandage the boy's wound when she suddenly felt a gust of wind rush past her ear. It turned out that the boy had clenched his fist and was attacking her temple. In the novel, the weakness of the humanoid mutant was the part of the brain near the temple. As long as that area was destroyed, the humanoid mutant could be killed.
She quickly reached out and grabbed the boy's wrist. To her surprise, the boy, who looked thin and weak, was quite strong, and he actually made her arm shake.
The boy's all-out attack failed to injure her. She coughed up another mouthful of blood, her taut body slumped down, and she completely lost consciousness.
"Mom, is he dead?" An Xiaoruo asked anxiously.
“He’s not dead.” Luo Ning deftly tore open the boy’s clothes to disinfect and bandage his wounds, but found a black number 17 and a barcode on his collarbone, which looked like a number someone had put on him.
Luo Ning recalled that there seemed to be no description of such numbering in the novel. However, it was also possible that she hadn't paid much attention to these details when she read the novel. At the time, her attention was focused on the poignant love story between the adult An Xiaoruo and the male protagonist, and she didn't care about any numbering.
She disinfected the boy's wound with alcohol. The boy's brows furrowed in pain, and his dry lips parted slightly to let out a painful groan. Fortunately, he did not wake up, otherwise it would have been another ordeal.
After bandaging the boy's wound with gauze, she fed him some water from the water bottle, and then looked around to see if any aliens had appeared. She found several large pieces of debris not far away, which looked like airplane wreckage, but there were no signs of a plane crash around.
Thinking back to the smell of human blood on the aliens in the abandoned city, and considering the distance from here to the abandoned city, she guessed that the plane must have malfunctioned here first, and then crashed in the abandoned city. The people on board were eaten by the aliens, which is why she could smell the blood.
Upon seeing the fragment, she had an idea. She dragged over a large fragment, placed the boy in the sleeping bag, and then secured the four legs of the sleeping bag to the fragment. She planned to drag the boy back to where she and An Xiaoruo lived in this way.
The sun gradually became scorching, making Luo Ning's eyes feel uncomfortable. Although the mutant's body had evolved and increased in all aspects, its eyes were still as fragile as when it was human. She could only put her backpack on her head to shield herself from the sun.
After doing all this, she asked An Xiaoruo to sit next to the boy and to let her know if he stopped breathing. All she could say now was to try her best to save the boy and prevent him from being eaten by the alien species, but she wasn't sure if he could be saved in the end.
"Xiao Ruo, sit still, I'm going to start running." She put the rope connecting the fragments around her waist and prepared to push off with her legs.
"Sit still." An Xiaoruo gripped the edge of the shards tightly with both hands. Soon, the wind was whistling past her ears as her mother ran as fast as the wind.
The desert was relatively flat, so Luo Ning didn't find it difficult to run. She rested every thirty minutes and by evening she had reached the edge of the desert. In another half day, she could enter the mountainous area, where water and food would be more plentiful.
She glanced at the setting sun and decided not to continue, but to spend the night at an abandoned airport. If it were just her and An Xiaoruo, she probably wouldn't have stopped to rest, because she could see her surroundings clearly at night. But now that there was a seriously injured boy with her, she had to be more considerate.
"Xiao Ruo, is he still alive?" she asked, panting as she held her back.
An Xiaoruo reached out and checked the boy's breath again: "He's alive."
"She's lucky to be alive," Luo Ning muttered.
She dragged the boy into the airport. On the empty tarmac, there were only two or three rusty planes that were no longer usable. On the ground were some human skeletons that had been torn apart by alien species.
An Xiaoruo held tightly to her clothes, and Luo Ning comforted her, saying, "Don't be afraid, these people have been dead for many years."
An Xiaoru shook her head: "I'm not scared, I just feel sorry for them."
“Yes,” Luo Ning sighed, “but those who are still alive are even more pitiful, so you must grow up well and help them.”
An Xiaoruo turned around and looked at the boy in the sleeping bag, nodding heavily. She thought her mother was talking about helping the boy, unaware that another sacred mission awaited her in the future.
Reaching the hangar entrance, Luo Ning made sure there were no aliens inside before going in. After slamming the heavy iron door shut, she took the boy out of his sleeping bag.
The boy's body was burning hot, obviously due to a high fever caused by his injury. Luo Ning took out the anti-inflammatory medicine from her backpack and fed it to the boy, but he was unable to swallow. She had to crush the pills into powder and feed them to him with water.
The water was all gone, but luckily thunder rumbled in the sky, dark clouds began to gather, and soon a torrential rain began to fall.
Luo Ning felt that she was really lucky today. First, she escaped from the hunting range of the alien species, then she picked up a person, and now it was raining so hard that not only was the water problem solved, but the scent they had left along the way was also washed away.
After she and An Xiaoruo had drunk their fill of water, they helped the boy clean up his body. An Xiaoruo wiped the blood and dust off the boy's face, while Luo Ning checked the boy for any other serious injuries.
Fortunately, after a check-up, apart from the wound on his chest, the rest of his body was not serious. However, she found a small box in the boy's pants pocket containing five bottles of blue liquid, the purpose of which was unknown.
An Xiaoruo then wiped the boy's face clean and exclaimed, "Mom, he's so handsome!"
Luo Ning put the liquid into her backpack, then turned around: "Let me see how handsome he is."
She originally thought that An Xiaoruo hadn't seen many people, so her definition of beauty wouldn't be very high. But when she saw the boy's clean face, she realized that some things can be judged without knowing them.
The boy was indeed very handsome, with well-defined facial features, long and thick eyelashes, and a straight nose. Moreover, she had seen his eyes open before, which were amber in color, like jade immersed in a stream.
"She's quite pretty, you have good taste." Luo Ning smiled and ruffled An Xiaoruo's hair. She was now a little curious about what An Xiaoruo's destined male lead looked like, because the novel described An Xiaoruo falling in love with the male lead at first sight.
She carefully examined the boy's wound again. It had stopped bleeding but was still oozing blood. His wound was too deep and needed to be stitched up, and there was also a risk of tetanus.
For some reason, she always felt that the boy's blood smelled sweeter and more pleasant than An Xiaoruo's, and it took her a lot of effort to control herself.
She quickly put the boy back into the sleeping bag and tightened the opening. Then she took out some dry food for An Xiaoruo to eat, and went around the hangar to remove the chairs from the plane and light them to keep warm.
The rainy night was long, and Luo Ning would fall asleep and wake up again and again. Each time she woke up, she would touch the boy's nose to see if he was still alive, just like she had taken care of An Xiaoruo when she had a high fever two years ago. She hoped that this time the boy could also survive as bravely as An Xiaoruo.
Luo Ning woke up at the crack of dawn the next day. The rain had stopped, and she needed to hurry on her way while the sun was still out and the temperature was still low.
After a night of torrential rain, the ground was muddy and unusable, so dragging the boy was no longer an option. Luo Ning placed him on a chair salvaged from the airplane, tied him up, and carried him on her back as they continued on their way.
She knew that the boy on her back might die on the way, and even if he woke up, he would hate her and despise her, but she just couldn't bring herself to abandon him.
Because he was another hope for her in this cruel world...
————
Lu Xinghe woke up to the sound of a clear wind chime. When he opened his eyes, he saw a string of wind chimes made of white conch shells and metal hanging on the window, swaying gently in the wind.
Outside the window is a green mountain field, with lush trees and blooming flowers, as beautiful as an oil painting.
But he remembered that the plane crashed in the desert, so why was he here now? He thought for a moment and finally remembered the female alien riding on him, and he remembered that she told him not to move.
He thought his memory must be messed up; how could a different species talk, unless she was a mutant?
However, based on existing monitoring reports, the number of mutants is not large, and once the mutants evolve into conscious mutants, they will be faster and stronger, and have a greater appetite, so it is unlikely that they can save him.
So someone else must have saved him. Are his companions still alive?
He looked around at where he was sleeping. It was a long, narrow room, but it had a table, chairs, a bed, a television, and even a kitchen at the far end. Everything was clean and tidy. Women's and children's clothes were neatly folded on the chairs, and a bouquet of flowers, with dew still clinging to the petals, sat on the table covered with a white daisy tablecloth.
He tried to sit up, but found that his hands were tied to metal buckles in the wall with ropes. He struggled but could not break free, and his chest ached from the pulling.
Why did the people who rescued him tie him up like this?
Just as he was wondering, a series of light footsteps came from outside, and then the door was opened, and a young woman whose clothes were soaked jumped in.
He immediately closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Everything here was unknown to him, and he wanted to observe it secretly first.
After the woman entered, she walked straight to him, reached out and touched his forehead and nose, and then sighed softly.
Luo Ning looked at the handsome young man on the bed. He had been asleep for three days and three nights. She had used all the medicine she could, stitched up his wounds, and brought down his high fever. She had even made soup for him with the wild pheasant that An Xiaoruo was reluctant to eat. But why was he still not awake?
After looking for half a minute, she picked up clean clothes to change. Just now, she had found a group of fish in the stream next to her whose eyes were not blue, which meant they were not infected. So she jumped in and caught quite a few, and her clothes were soaked.
Just as she was about to take off her clothes, she looked back at the boy. Although he was still asleep, she was still a little shy about changing her clothes in front of him without any covering. So she picked up her clothes and went into the bathroom.
After changing her clothes, she looked at herself in the mirror. In the novel, mutants do not age; they remain the same as when they become mutants.
She had been through this, and she had no recollection of how she contracted the virus. However, no matter how much she was exposed to the elements, her body showed no signs of aging.
"Mom," An Xiaoruo called from outside.
"What's wrong?" she asked as she opened the door.
“The fish jumped out; the basin can’t hold them all,” An Xiaoruo replied.
"I'm here." Luo Ning walked out carrying her wet clothes.
She was completely unaware that the boy who had been unconscious for three days was now awake, his eyes filled with a mixture of shock and hatred.
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