After the apocalypse, all artificial intelligence went on strike, and agriculture and industry, which originally relied on fully automated systems, regressed to the most primitive methods.
Food must be grown by hand, and clothes must be sewn by hand.
Humans, spoiled by artificial intelligence, have long forgotten how to plant crops, how to sew clothes, and many people can't even cook a decent meal.
Because these were all things that nanny robots used to do, people were used to having everything done for them, and the indoor temperature was always adjusted to the most comfortable range.
Therefore, on a cold winter night, after the air conditioner in the room automatically stopped running after sending out the last wisp of warm air, many people did not survive that winter.
On the run, humans without the ability to take care of themselves either starve to death, kill each other, or are devoured by mutated plants and animals.
In recent years, even filling one's stomach has been a luxury, let alone something as extravagant as eating hot pot in the freezing cold.
They wouldn't even dare to dream of such a thing.
Everyone ate until they were sweating profusely, their lips swollen from the spiciness, yet they still couldn't bear to put down their chopsticks, just like Xu Yaling when she first went to the void space.
The snow wolf was completely devoured by them; unsurprisingly, they were all stuffed.
After the meal, Qi An brought out a lot of fruit. The team members said they couldn't eat anymore, but they still kept stuffing one fruit after another into their mouths.
This is fruit, and some people have almost forgotten what fruit tastes like.
Does anyone know if a tree laden with fruit is a mutated plant?
If it's the other way around, it's hard to say whether they'll eat the fruit or the fruit will eat them.
"Is this what hot pot tastes like in my memory? Oh my god, it's so delicious."
"Hiccup~ I'll eat another apple. Damn it, even if I died right here right now, I wouldn't have any regrets."
During this rare moment of relaxation, everyone patted their bellies and chatted, and tacitly, no one questioned the wonders of Qi An.
In the end times, as long as one can survive, no one wants to cause trouble.
The stronger Qi An becomes, the greater their chances of survival; they wish she were the reincarnation of a powerful and arrogant woman.
Besides, you know the saying, "He who eats another's food is bound to him."
A young man in the group smiled and said, "Sister Yaling, I'll follow you from now on. Just let me know if you need anything."
The others glared at the person who had taken the lead, and then chimed in, declaring that she would be the leader of the team from now on.
Ata scoffed, "Tch, bought off with just one hot pot meal, now they're practically begging to be your lackey. How can these people be so spineless?"
Qi An glanced speechlessly at his "number one little brother," thankfully this little idiot had been following him since birth.
Otherwise, with his innocent and naive nature and brain the size of a walnut, he would probably have been devoured by the Heavenly Dao or those cultivators long ago.
"They're not after this hotpot meal; they're after the strength I demonstrate. They think following me will save their lives, understand?"
Qi An raised his chin slightly, revealing the domineering aura of an ancient ferocious beast: "You let that bookworm treat them to a hundred hot pot meals, and see if they'll acknowledge him as their leader?"
In this perilous post-apocalyptic world, the strong reign supreme.
Ata: "..." Okay, I get it, I'm an idiot.
Cheng Song: Please do not criticize or belittle others, thank you.
After eating and drinking their fill, the group drove off again.
Their car had been destroyed during the chase, and they had run out of bullets; otherwise, they wouldn't have almost been wiped out.
The car they're driving now was brought by the mutants who were chasing them, which conveniently made things easier for them.
Fortunately, the cars manufactured in the past all retained the manual driving system; if they were all intelligent, we would have to embark on a long march.
Many of the team members are former soldiers. The military, relatively speaking, does not rely as much on artificial intelligence, and driving is an essential skill.
The group sat in the carriage discussing Chen Wei's betrayal and speculating about the reasons behind it.
Qi An did not participate and was not interested in it.
As for traitors, she would simply kill them; she had no interest in knowing why they chose to betray.
We had only driven a few dozen kilometers when we suddenly heard a little girl crying outside the window: "Help! Uncle and Auntie, open the door quickly, save me..."
Her voice was soft and delicate, sounding like she was only five or six years old.
On the fogged-up car window, a child's small hand slapped against it, leaving tiny handprints.
The person sitting by the door instinctively reached out to open the window to look, but Qi An stopped him.
"Don't move, keep driving, don't stop."
Upon closer inspection and further reflection, everyone broke out in a cold sweat.
What kind of child could catch up with a car traveling at high speed? And even hang on the car and bang on the window?
The outside world is freezing cold and fraught with danger. If it were a normal five or six-year-old child, it would have frozen to death, starved to death, or been eaten by wild animals long ago. How could it be waiting for them to rescue it by the roadside?
It's not really their fault for being careless. Who would be wary of a soft, cuddly five or six-year-old girl crying and begging for help from her uncle or aunt?
Moreover, these are former soldiers who took it upon themselves to protect their country.
"Look, those little handprints are green, and green liquid is dripping down them. This is definitely not human!" someone exclaimed.
Seeing that no one opened the door for a long time, the little green hand clapped even more urgently, and the voice was still so soft and pitiful, but to everyone's ears, it only sounded extremely eerie.
Suddenly, it giggled and said, "Uncle and Auntie, open the door! I'm so cold! How can you bear to leave such a cute little child to die?"
Cheng Song was curious about just how "cute" it was, so he wiped the fog off the glass and pressed his face against the window to look down.
In the icy and snowy landscape, countless long vines stretched out from the ground, wrapping tightly around the lower half of the car.
The vines bent and disguised themselves as the shape of a child's hand, patting against the car window repeatedly.
Cheng Song silently pulled his head back and moved closer to Qi An.
They couldn't speak, of course, but the vines, now possessing intelligence, learned to imitate, using the frequency of their leaves' high-speed vibrations to mimic the little girl's voice.
Imitation requires examples; nobody wants to know the circumstances under which it was learned.
Seeing that no one was helping it, it abandoned its disguise, its vines reaching under the car and getting caught in the wheels, trying to lift the entire car and throw it high into the air before crashing it down.
When the time comes, everyone inside the car will be smashed into a pulp, and its roots will burrow into that flesh and blood, allowing it to have a delicious feast.
To everyone's surprise, when they tried to lift it, they couldn't budge it.
It strained with all its might, breaking many vines, but the truck remained motionless, as if a mountain was pressing down on it.
It used to be able to easily toss cars three times larger into the air.
Ata suppressed a laugh. You little mutated vine, if you can throw Boss Qi into the sky, you can sit on the throne of the Demon King.
As the vines were filled with confusion and anger, the truck suddenly braked and stopped. The window opened a crack, and a woman's hand reached out.
The vines were overjoyed, and their tips immediately stabbed towards the hand, trying to suck her dry.
Tsk, foolish human women.
The next second, that slender, white hand swiftly grabbed its tentacles.
The vines were taken aback, then tried their best to burrow into her flesh.
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