Lu Chensheng was silent for a few seconds, avoiding her gaze and looking down at the tube of nutritional paste in his hand. "...a little tired," he finally said, his tone flat, yet it weighed like a heavy stone on Wen Shifei's heart. "It's like... I had a long nightmare. I woke up, but I haven't recovered yet." He raised his hand and unconsciously pressed his temple, his brows furrowed slightly.
Wen Shifei's heart tightened. She could sense his avoidance and the deep-seated weariness. It wasn't physical fatigue, but the vast void left by a soul repeatedly torn apart. She reached out and gently placed her hand on the back of his, which was pressing against his temple. His hand was cold.
"It's going to be okay," she said softly, but with an undeniable determination. "The nightmare is over. We're gone. This is a wasteland. There are no chaebols, no Pandora, only us." She squeezed his hand slightly, "I'm here."
Lu Chensheng's body stiffened imperceptibly. The warmth in his palm, like a faint but real current, tried to dispel the lingering chill in his bones. He returned the handshake awkwardly, feeling the delicate touch of her skin on his fingertips. He raised his eyes, the dim light falling deep into his pupils, and a faint light seemed to appear on the wasteland shrouded in exhaustion and emptiness.
"Yeah." He looked into her eyes, and this time, there was a hint of indescribable complex emotions in his eyes: gratitude, dependence, and a hint of deep, subtle vulnerability. He nodded, his voice low but clear, "I know."
At that moment, the portable terminal on Wen Shifei's wrist suddenly emitted an extremely faint "beep" sound, almost drowned out by the sound of the wind! On the edge of the screen, a small green dot representing signal reception flashed extremely briefly, then went out, so fast that it seemed like an illusion.
Wen Shifei's nerves instantly tensed! She jerked her hand away and quickly pulled up the terminal's background log. Her fingers darted across the virtual keyboard, her brow furrowed. The signal was so weak and fleeting that the log only captured fragments of extremely fragmented, unintelligible garbled code. The source direction... pointed northeast.
"What's wrong?" Lu Chensheng immediately noticed her abnormality.
"Signal..." Wen Shifei stared at the meaningless garbled code on the screen, her eyes sharp as an eagle. "Just now... received a very weak signal pulse. Direction northeast, distance... unknown. The signal characteristics... are very strange. It doesn't seem like a regular communication frequency band, nor does it seem like natural interference." Her fingertips hovered over the screen, as if trying to capture the fleeting anomaly. "It's too weak, almost impossible to detect, but... it's there."
Lu Cheneng followed her direction, his gaze seemingly piercing the heavy canvas and whistling sandstorms, reaching out into the unknown darkness. "...Remnants of Pandora?" His voice trailed off, and the aura around him instantly became cold and dangerous. His previous fatigue was replaced by an instinctive alertness.
"Unsure," Wen Shifei shook her head, her expression grave. "The signal is too fragmented to analyze its source. But at this time, in this direction... it's too coincidental." She closed the log, but a sense of alarm and suspicion had already taken root in her heart. The wasteland is not a pure land, and Pandora's shadow may never truly be far away.
Lu Cheneng said nothing more, merely clenching his fists again, his knuckles turning slightly white. The warmth he had just absorbed from Wen Shifei's palm seemed to be instantly frozen by this sudden signal. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to relax his tense nerves, but a deeper unease, like a cold vine, quietly entwined his consciousness. The formatted feeling of emptiness seemed to be subtly touched by this unknown signal, rippling through an indescribable ripple.
Outside the shelter, the howling of the storm grew louder.
The light struggled to break through the clouds in the aftermath of the radiation storm, painting the wasteland a sickly gray-yellow. The wind had died down considerably, but the swirling dust still obscured vision, and the air was filled with a pungent earthy smell.
Lu Cheneng and Wen Shifei packed their bags and set out on their journey again. The fleeting, eerie signal from last night pierced their hearts like an invisible thorn. They hadn't discussed it explicitly, but their direction of travel had unanimously veered northeast. Wen Shifei's portable terminal was in constant high-alert scanning mode, its slender antenna slightly extended, capturing any unusual electromagnetic ripples in the air.
Lu Chensheng walked ahead, his steps more steady and powerful than yesterday, his physical recovery evident. But his silence deepened. Behind his goggles, his gaze scanned the terrain sharply, alert for possible danger, yet he seldom exchanged glances with Wen Shifei. The deep exhaustion in his soul seemed to be masked by something deeper and more restrained, like a thin layer of ice, seemingly calm but blocking out warmth.
Wen Shifei trailed a few steps behind him, her gaze constantly fixed on his broad yet utterly lonely back. She could sense his deliberate distance, an invisible barrier between them. This only tightened the string of worry in her heart. She tried to speak, "Shen En, last night..."
"About the signal?" Lu Cheneng didn't turn around. His voice came through the wind and sand, calm and unperturbed. "Continue monitoring. If it's Pandora's Tail, it will eventually show its head." He paused, his tone taking on a subtle... indifference. "The wasteland is vast, but it can't hide ghosts."
Wen Shifei's heart sank slightly. This tone... was too calm, even tinged with a hint of indifference. This wasn't like him. Or rather, it wasn't like him, who had just struggled back from the brink of death. She quickened her pace, walking side by side with him, glancing sideways at his scarf-wrapped jawline. "How are you feeling? I mean... mentally? After the formatting..."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com