When Xie Shu heard that the group intended to travel to Huangtai Town, he warned them, “No matter where you go now, carry weapons for self-defense. Any ordinary-looking plant or animal could be a predator.”

“My elder brother also told me there are quite a few thugs around the county. Morality doesn’t restrain them anymore, and the law has lost its power. If anything, it only emboldens them to cause even more harm to others. Human nature can be terrifying, so you need to be on your guard against that, too.”

Although the world had changed dramatically, the villagers had never imagined conditions outside were this severe. 

Yan Fei asked, “What about the people still in the county?” 

Looking exhausted, Xie Shu replied, “They’re probably hiding. City residents have no food source other than government relief. Things were already chaotic before, and now with all the changes in plants and animals, nobody knows what the future holds.”

“Yesterday we spent most of the day wandering around the county and only saw a few residents searching for food.”

After the power outage, panic buying had swept through the county. Almost every household had stockpiled supplies, so food had not immediately become a problem. 

But supplies would eventually run out. People could not remain locked inside forever.

While many still placed their hopes in the government, survival would ultimately depend largely on themselves.

At that moment, many of the villagers realized something.

Before all this, they had lived difficult lives as laborers. Yet now that true hardship had arrived, they were actually in a better position to survive than many city dwellers.

After all, they still had farmland.

Hearing how dangerous the towns had become, someone voiced their hesitation. “Maybe we should just go back and forget about going to town.”

Yan Fei glanced at him. “From what Uncle Xie said, it’s obvious that many of these mutated plants and animals have already begun claiming territory. In the future they’ll likely stand in opposition to humans.”

“The plants are still growing and changing. If one day their territory expands into our village, are you going to move away to avoid them?”

His words were harsh, but they carried weight. The future would not allow anyone to retreat. People from the same village needed to stand together. If they shrank back out of fear from the beginning and never learned to face danger, then by the time those plants had fully matured, it would be too late.

Life was like that. If you didn’t move forward, you fell behind.

The man’s face reddened from embarrassment. Still, he was fundamentally a decent person; otherwise he would never have volunteered to come and investigate in the first place. Though awkward, he took no offense. In fact, he felt Yan Fei was right. So he merely laughed sheepishly and scratched his head.

Soon afterward, the group bid farewell to Xie Shu’s family. Their strength had recovered after resting, and they continued toward Huangtai Town.

Before long, they arrived at a crossroads. The left road led to Jinhe Town, the right to Huangtai Town, and the road ahead continued toward another village.

In the past, small supermarkets lined both sides of the intersection. There had also been vegetable stalls, meat stalls, teahouses, and two small clinics. No matter when someone passed through, the crossroads had always been lively and crowded.

Now there was not a single person in sight. The place was eerily quiet.

No one had cleared the grass growing over the road, though traces of previous travelers had created a barely visible path. The winding trail detoured around exposed tree roots and abandoned vehicles left to rot where they had stopped. Some cars had been overturned by roots erupting from beneath the pavement. Others had become hosts for climbing vines, completely entangled beneath layers of vegetation.