Chapter 6: I’ve Had More Than Enough!
by LhaoziSeeing that the man had woken up, Lu Weiran shifted the flashlight beam away from his face.
“I’m here to rescue you. Try to lie as flat against the sand as you can. I’ll use this wooden stick to pull you out in a moment.”
She was worried he might be too dehydrated and weak to hold on to the stick.
Lu Weiran hung her water bottle from the stick and carefully extended it toward his hand.
“You must be thirsty. I have some water here. Drink a few sips first…” Just don’t die of thirst.
She was terrified that the living, breathing customer she’d finally managed to find would die on her.
Water?!
She was actually willing to give him water—the very thing people needed to survive!
The man licked his cracked lips and clutched the water bottle tightly.
The moment it landed in his hand, he felt its considerable weight and realized it was full. A flicker of surprise and gratitude crossed his eyes.
The cool water flowed down his parched throat, soothing the agonizing dryness. It was like rain after a prolonged drought. He wanted nothing more than to gulp it all down in one go.
Lu Weiran could tell how precious this water was to him.
Although he drank desperately, like someone who hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in days, he didn’t spill a single drop.
She was honestly afraid he’d choke himself to death.
The man forced himself to stop before finishing the bottle. He screwed the cap back on and hung it around his neck.
Then he gripped the wooden stick with both hands. His voice was weak, as though he had barely any strength left, and he spoke in a few short words.
“That’s enough. Pull.”
Seeing this, Lu Weiran pulled with all her might.
Whoosh!
After a great deal of effort, they finally managed to drag the man out of the quicksand pit.
He lay on top of a sand dune, breathing heavily.
Lu Weiran was exhausted, Mushroom was suffering from the heat, and the man needed time to recover from his severe injuries.
“My name is Pei Chiye. Thank you for saving me.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Pei Chiye’s pupils suddenly widened.
The strong backlighting had prevented him from seeing clearly earlier. Now that they were closer, he could finally make out who had rescued him.
It was a woman wearing no thermal protective suit, accompanied by an ordinary golden retriever.
His voice was hoarse from dehydration, yet deep and resonant. There was an unmistakable note of disbelief and gravity in his question.
“How dare you venture into the desert zone alone without wearing a thermal protective suit?”
More importantly… she was still alive!
The meteorite had brought about an extreme-heat catastrophe. Temperatures were so high that a person’s internal organs could practically boil, roasting them alive. An ordinary person without a thermal protective suit couldn’t survive more than forty-eight hours under the sun.
Even he wouldn’t dare venture into the desert alone without one.
And yet this woman…
Her clothes were spotless, without a trace of sand or dust. Her breathtakingly beautiful face was fresh, her lips a healthy, vivid red, and only a thin sheen of sweat covered her forehead. She looked merely a little tired from exertion.
How had she managed that?
Lu Weiran took back the water bottle he offered without saying a word.
She raised an eyebrow, her lively eyes studying Pei Chiye’s face.
Beneath the night sky, faint starlight swept across his sharply defined features, outlining an exceptionally handsome face.
His bold, sword-shaped eyebrows, high nose bridge, and striking bone structure were all perfectly proportioned. His eyes were as dark as ink. Beneath his gentle demeanor lurked a hint of moonlike coolness and a touch of rebellious, roguish charm.
Her gaze slowly traveled downward, stopping at the long black coat he wore. It reached his ankles and accentuated his figure to perfection.
Lu Weiran raised an eyebrow.
Black coat = thermal protective suit?
Pei Chiye misunderstood what she was looking at.
“If you want the thermal protective suit I’m wearing, you can have it.”
“Once my teammates find me, I’ll give it to you. I can’t take it off right now, though. My injuries are too severe.”
He gave her a friendly, almost smiling look, his attitude sincere. When Lu Weiran didn’t respond, he continued:
“Don’t worry. You saved my life. My team will escort you safely to the nearest Shian Base.”
“Wait… You have a team?!”
Lu Weiran immediately perked up. She sat upright and asked excitedly, “How many teammates do you have?”
Pei Chiye was a little puzzled by her reaction, but answered honestly.
“An ability-user team usually has eight members.”
Eight! Perfect. That meant eight potential customers!
Lu Weiran gave him a polite smile.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly. My name is Lu Weiran. I run an inn called Hope Inn in the desert. It has air conditioning, so you can rest comfortably and cool off inside.”
So she really was an ordinary person.
“You’ve already started hallucinating from the heat.”
Pei Chiye sighed, clearly unconvinced. He got to his feet and took a step backward.
An inn… in the desert?!
And it had air conditioning!
That was utterly ridiculous.
The extreme-heat catastrophe had lasted for nearly a century. Plants had withered and died, water sources had evaporated, and the earth had cracked and gradually turned into wasteland. Species across the planet had begun to disappear.
Ordinary animals had long since succumbed to the heat. Only mutated beasts with awakened abilities could survive. Humanity had been forced to retreat to the highlands, where glacial meltwater allowed a small portion of ordinary people to stay alive.
Humans and mutated beasts had become each other’s prey.
The desert zone belonged to the mutated beasts. No one would dare open a shop in the middle of it.
Air conditioning was an even rarer luxury, a relic left behind by the old world.
Seeing him inexplicably take a step back, Lu Weiran was at a loss for words.
“…?”
Was he seriously doing that?
Just then, a black coat was draped over her shoulders.
Lu Weiran froze.
The coat was large but surprisingly light and soft. It wrapped around her completely, blocking most of the scorching heat. She really did feel cooler.
A faint trace of blood suddenly mingled with the dry air, its metallic scent sharp enough to set her nerves on edge.
There was a deep claw wound stretching from the man’s shoulder down to his back. It was so severe that the bone was visible, as though some enormous beast had inflicted it. Blood had soaked through his clothes.
Lu Weiran was so stunned by the extent of his injuries that she couldn’t speak.
An ordinary person would have been long dead from a wound like that. Yet he was still conscious, calmly talking to her without so much as changing his expression.
For a moment, Lu Weiran felt as though she’d stumbled into some bizarre fantasy world. She hurriedly took off the coat and handed it back to him.
“I’m not hot. You should keep it on.”
Then something occurred to her. She lifted the water bottle and gave it a little shake.
“The water you just drank was really cool, wasn’t it? That’s because I added ice cubes to it.”
Of course, the ice cubes in the bottle had long since melted, leaving nothing but ordinary water.
Only then did Lu Weiran notice that half the water was still left. She couldn’t help feeling surprised.
He’d actually managed to stop himself from drinking it all!
“Ice cubes? You’re really starting to talk nonsense now.”
How could there possibly be ice cubes in the desert?!
Ice was even more precious than water!
Pei Chiye furrowed his brows, growing even more skeptical.
Lu Weiran had no intention of wasting time explaining herself over and over while standing around in the desert.
She silently complained to herself.
I must be the first shopkeeper in history to open a business and then have to go out hunting for customers myself!
It’s dangerous!
It’s exhausting!
And now I’m getting questioned on top of everything else!
She’d really had more than enough!
Brushing the sand off her back from where she’d been lying down, Lu Weiran finally lost her patience. She rolled her eyes.
“I’m saving your life here. Do you understand that? And you’re still questioning me?”
“I’ll give you two choices. Either come with me willingly, or stay here, die of thirst, and get roasted into a dried-up corpse. Take your pick.”
With that, Lu Weiran stood up and walked away without looking back.
Watching the woman’s retreating figure, Pei Chiye noticed how resolute her steps were. There was an air of effortless confidence about her, along with an unmistakable domineering streak.
He didn’t believe her claims, but for some inexplicable reason, he felt reassured.
Before he knew it, his feet had begun following her.
He let out a quiet chuckle, so soft that only he could hear it.
“What a formidable woman. Interesting!”
The man picked up the long wooden stick. Mushroom walked alongside him, glancing up at him curiously from time to time.
And so, one man and one dog followed closely behind Lu Weiran.
As they crossed the sand dunes, their little procession somehow managed to look impressively grand.
…
Not long after they had left, a gigantic figure suddenly appeared.
It stopped outside the quicksand pit, near the bloodstained sand.
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