Chapter 48 Greater Khingan Mountains - 3 Tang Bufan Returns...
Before coming to this apocalypse, Tang Bufan was very healthy and rarely got sick. After arriving in this apocalypse, although he was often injured and poisoned, he gradually got through it.
Perhaps due to the accumulation of stress over a long period, his body, like a rope that had been stretched for a long time, finally snapped with a "snap".
Lu Yi gave him fever-reducing medicine, but it didn't work. Tang Bufan's high fever persisted, and he couldn't wake up. He seemed to be trapped in a nightmare, lying in bed occasionally muttering to himself, and his eyes would water from the high fever.
Lu Yi was worried and focused all her attention on taking care of Tang Bufan, leaving the control of the RV to Kai Ge.
To help Tang Bufan recover as quickly as possible, Kai Ge turned on the heater, but it had little effect. Even when the temperature inside the car reached 20 degrees Celsius, Tang Bufan still showed no signs of his fever subsiding.
Lu Yi had done everything he could, and could only helplessly lie by Tang Bufan's bedside, watching over him.
After wandering through the mountains for four days, Kai finally found a suitable place for his RV to camp.
It was a cliff halfway up the mountain, connected to a gently sloping hillside. Since there was no road at the end, it wouldn't be the route of the beast tide. There were no trees to block the view, and the RV could be charged when it got out of the sun.
To save on gasoline as much as possible, Lu Yi still cooked by burning firewood outside the RV and carved a small recessed cave in the mountainside next to the RV to store firewood.
By this time, many animals in the mountains had left, but as some left, others came. Lu Yi stood beside the cliff and watched the overwhelming flocks of birds flying south, birds that had flown over from Siberia further north.
Let's cover the roof of the RV with animal hides. Lu Yi thought to himself, otherwise the roof would soon be covered in disgusting bird droppings.
Lu Yi then busied himself hunting animals, skinning them, and chopping firewood, occasionally returning to the RV to check on Tang Bufan's condition.
The man lay on the bed with his eyes closed, his face ashen. The blanket was thick, and he couldn't see any movement. Lu Yi stared at him for a while, then suddenly reached under the blanket and placed his large hand on the thin chest to feel it carefully... Thankfully, his heart was still beating.
Lu Yi always needed this to feel relieved.
“I plan to build a stone wall on the slope tomorrow. Yesterday I went hunting and a group of wild boars rushed over here and started pushing the RV. Kai almost lost control and they pushed you to the edge of the cliff.” Lu Yi said to Tang Bufan while lying next to the iron bunk bed, looking tired. “It’s still not safe here, but the RV can’t go any higher.”
Tang Bufan lay on the bed with his eyes closed, showing no reaction to his words.
Lu Yi reached out and touched his forehead; it was still very hot, and his eyes reddened.
"Teacher, it's been a week, please wake up."
Lu Yi felt so sad that she couldn't help but climb into bed and hug Tang Bufan through the blankets when she went to sleep that night.
He had long anticipated that Tang Bufan would die by his side one day, but when the time actually came, he found that he couldn't accept it.
His mind was filled with memories of the past few months with Tang Bufan: in the scorching red desert, in the star-studded sand dunes, in the rain-soaked wilderness, in the vast green plains... In these past few months, he had traveled the longest and farthest road of his life and spent the freest and happiest time. He could break down each day into several fragments and savor them carefully.
"Wake up, okay?" The orc boy choked back tears as he hugged the man. "I still want to continue walking with you."
Tang Bufan, still unconscious, did not respond to him.
Lu Yi went out to build a wall the next day. The noisy forest seemed even more restless than the day before. While building the wall, Lu Yi suddenly noticed something and looked down the mountain, where he heard the sputtering sound of a motorcycle.
Soon, a black motorcycle emerged from the woods, kicking up fallen leaves and grass clippings, and sped down the hillside toward them.
"Whoosh~" the man on the motorcycle shouted, his silver hair flying, and then he nimbly made a turn in front of the stone wall and came to a stop.
Anderson removed the light-screen glasses from his face, pushed off the ground with his long legs, and looked at Lu Yi with a flippant expression: "I finally found you two. I thought you were dead on the way."
Anderson had been out and about, and he looked great. His face wasn't as thin as it used to be, and his dark circles had disappeared. You could hardly tell that he was a mentally ill person who had been locked up for ten years.
Lu Yi glanced at him indifferently, then lowered his head and continued building the wall without expression.
"Hey, you look terrible, did your wife die?" Anderson teased sarcastically, his gaze sweeping past the stone wall to the RV behind it: "Where's your wife?"
Lu Yi didn't answer him. Anderson raised an eyebrow at his silence, and gloated, "He's not really dead, is he?"
"You're the one who's dead." Lu Yi glanced at him before replying in a low voice, "Teacher... is sick."
After saying that, he felt it was about time to go back to the car and check on Tang Bufan, so he piled up the stones in his hand and turned to walk towards the RV.
Anderson leisurely dismounted from the motorcycle, his slender figure in a leather jacket vaulting over the one-meter-high stone wall, and followed behind Lu Yi.
“This is a nice spot.” Anderson said, looking around at the cliff halfway up the mountain. “Are you two hiding from the beast tide here?”
Lu Yi ignored him and quickly got into the RV. Anderson was about to follow when Kai Ge immediately closed the door.
Anderson took a step back and gave the middle finger to the camera outside the RV.
Lu Yi walked over to the iron bunk bed and squatted down, reaching out to touch Tang Bufan's forehead. The fever hadn't gone down, but he was sweating a little. The RV had the heater on, and Tang Bufan was covered with a quilt, so he was probably too hot.
Is sweating a good or bad thing for a person with a fever? Lu Yi didn't quite understand, as he had never had a fever and wasn't human.
"Knock knock." Anderson knocked on the glass from the outside.
Lu Yi hesitated for a moment, then reached out and pulled back the curtain on that side.
Anderson glanced at Tang Bufan through the glass and felt that the man was looking more and more like a white skeleton. He noticed that Tang Bufan was wearing a silver collar around his neck, so he rolled his eyes speechlessly.
"Are you even capable of this?" Anderson teased Lu Yi. "It's been three months and you still haven't marked him?"
People who get pregnant within three months have already gotten their partners pregnant.
"I..." A struggle flashed across Lu's eyes: "I haven't thought it through yet..."
Anderson was surprised by what he said. He had only said it casually, but he didn't expect Lu Yi to actually respond.
Anderson chuckled and said sarcastically from outside the window, "Oh, so you really like him?"
Lu Yi's face flushed, her heart pounding, and she instinctively retorted, "No, I just..."
He thought for a moment before explaining, "I wanted to save him."
"There was that human boy who threatened to kill himself to force you to mark him, why didn't you save him then?" Anderson sneered. Lu Yi was a controversial figure, and he could hear a lot of news about him even in the mental hospital.
Lu Yi didn't answer. Seeing his silence, Anderson looked meaningfully at the unconscious Tang Bufan again and smiled, "I didn't expect this guy to be so capable. He really managed to catch you by playing hard to get."
Lu Yi disliked Anderson saying such things, as if Tang Bufan were some kind of scheming person, so he frowned and drew the curtains.
After wiping Tang Bufan's sweat with a towel, Lu Yi went to the kitchen to cook meat soup for Tang Bufan.
Tang Bufan was unconscious, making it difficult to feed him. Lu Yi could only chop the meat into minced pieces, mix it with chopped vegetables, add it to water to make soup, and then feed him little by little with a spoon.
It takes about five spoonfuls of food for Tang Bufan to eat one spoonful; the rest just dribbles down his chin. So every time Lu Yi feeds him, he puts a towel under Tang Bufan's chin.
Like a little baby. Lu Yi held Tang Bufan and wiped his chin with a towel. He thought Tang Bufan was really cute and a smile involuntarily appeared on his lips. But soon his tenderness turned into sadness, like sugar fermenting into vinegar, making his throat and chest sour.
Lu Yizhen regretted it a little; why hadn't he asked Tang Bufan for the password to the collar earlier?
"Besides biting the neck... where else on a human can they be successfully mutated by biting them?" Lu Yi asked Anderson, while continuing to build the stone wall outside.
"What, are you getting anxious now?" Anderson sat on the other side of the stone wall, casually looking at Lu Yilei, showing no intention of helping.
"Is it okay to bite your wrist?" Lu Yi ignored his sarcasm and said seriously, "There are arteries in the wrist too."
Anderson rolled his eyes: "You need to understand that mutation is the decomposition and remodeling of human DNA, embedding it into the genes of wild animals. The thyroid gland controls metabolism and also affects enzyme activity, which is why it has to bite people's necks. Injecting toxins into his arteries will only cause him to bleed from his mouth and nose."
The body's true state is not controlled by the brain, but by various hormones. Injecting mutated toxins into the thyroid gland is like inputting a string of code into a central controller. This "central controller" then mobilizes all the body's cells to operate in a new way according to the new instructions.
However, inputting the information into other organs will only cause an "error".
Lu Yi felt even heavier upon hearing Anderson's words. In truth, he wasn't unaware of the situation, but he had held onto a sliver of hope.
"You'd better think about how to remove his collar," Anderson sneered, then jumped down from the stone wall as if it were none of his business.
He settled down in the small cave that Lu Yi had carved out, and casually took two bear skins that Lu Yi had laid out on the roof of the car as blankets.
Lu Yi continued building the wall, preoccupied with his own thoughts, ignoring him.
The next day, a light rain suddenly fell in the mountains and forests, mixed with a little snow.
Lu Yi was awakened by the sound of rain hitting the RV. He pulled back the curtains and looked outside, only to find that it was already bright outside, probably around eight or nine in the morning.
Last night, he slept on the floor for a while, then couldn't help but climb into bed and hug Tang Bufan to sleep, but he couldn't fall asleep. Every now and then, he would reach into the blankets and touch Tang Bufan's chest.
Perhaps because of the rain, the forest was very quiet today, with only the sound of raindrops hitting the leaves.
Most rainwater in the apocalypse is very dirty, and acid rain still falls in some heavily polluted areas, but the rainwater in these deep mountains is already very clean and has almost no odor.
Outside, the peaks rose one after another, shrouded in mist. Although the sky was dark, the mountains were also dark, creating a scene reminiscent of an ink painting. Lu Yi couldn't help but look down with delight, wanting to call Tang Bufan to see this beautiful scenery as well.
But the man lay there quietly with his eyes closed, still in a nightmare.
Lu felt a sudden sense of loss, and her chest tightened.
As usual, Lu Yi reached out and touched Tang Bufan's forehead. He sighed, got out of bed to prepare medicine for him, and piled the firewood outside. Kai Ge opened the car door for Lu Yi, and the cold rain and snow immediately splashed onto Lu Yi's face.
The air was incredibly clear, cleansed by the mountain rain, like icy mint. Lu Yi took a deep breath and felt refreshed.
I really want the teacher to smell it too. Thinking this, Lu Yi turned around as she stood at the car door.
Kai Ge had the heater on, and Tang Bufan lay there quietly under the quilt. The car was warm, but it had a heavy, deathly atmosphere.
Lu turned to look outside again and again. The rain and snow were cold, but the mountains were full of vitality.
Lu Yi's mind suddenly clicked, and he quickly returned to the car. He reached out and carefully pulled the sleeping Tang Bufan into his arms through the quilt, then opened the car window.
"Lu Yi, Xiao Tang's fever hasn't gone down yet..." Kai Ge reminded him worriedly, but was interrupted by Lu Yi.
“I know.” Lu Yi hugged Tang Bufan with both arms, looked at the distant mountains and mist, and exhaled: “But the air outside is fresh, it’s alive.”
A cool wind blew in, carrying a light drizzle. Lu Yi tightened the quilt around Tang Bufan, leaving only his head showing as the man with his eyes closed.
"Teacher, wake up." Lu Yi lowered her head, her golden-green eyes gazing at the man in her arms, her low voice pleading, "I still want to see the scenery of this world with you."
A tiny snowflake drifted into the car on the breeze, rising and falling in the air before gently landing on Tang Bufan's tightly closed eyes.
Those long, thick eyelashes trembled slightly.
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