Arriving seemed to take forever, but leaving was surprisingly quick.
Just three or five days later, Yu Qingxian departed from that place.
As she went further, the bare mountains became more prevalent.
Of course, there were also snow-capped mountains and salt lakes visible everywhere.
Snowflakes began drifting onto Yu Qingxian's nose again.
Well, by normal timelines, it should be winter now.
It was only the erratic weather that made these gentle snowflakes seem unexpected to her.
Originally, this was what normal snowflakes were like.
Now that these snowflakes had become normal, she found them quite abnormal instead.
She hadn't used much electricity lately, and the map showed her current location was nearly seven hundred kilometers away from the nearest base.
She wasn't worried about suddenly encountering survivors, though.
As the snow started falling, Yu Qingxian felt the temperature should have dropped.
She checked the temperature on her phone.
It had decreased by more than ten degrees compared to half a month ago.
Finally, the temperature had dipped below minus fifty degrees.
Although the T-Rex didn't seem bothered, she moved her arms around and didn't feel frozen.
Still, Yu Qingxian decided to stay in a small county town for a while.
There was no rush, after all.
As for the T-Rex's food, despite having finished the last of the dog food,
there were two mountain goats as reserve rations.
Plus, there was a county town ahead, so Yu Qingxian decided to wait and see.
If the snow got heavier, she would stay in this small county town for a while.
With no obstructions around such small county towns, the zombies had probably chased after the living and left.
Some that had nothing to eat had collapsed and decayed on the ground.
As for the zombies still staggering in the streets, Yu Qingxian wasn't sure how they had survived.
Didn't Xing Yuzhou say zombies would slowly decay and die after not eating for three months?
Looking at these lively, bouncing zombies, Yu Qingxian didn't think they seemed about to die.
She felt like she and the T-Rex wouldn't outlive these zombies.
Finding a decent-looking house, Yu Qingxian and the T-Rex moved in.
Since this place was far from the central region, many things needed to be transported in.
After settling the T-Rex, Yu Qingxian went to check out the supermarket.
Many of the food items had expiration dates of three months, six months, or nine months.
But this place did have a lot of canned goods.
These canned goods had longer shelf lives.
Some were over ten months, while others were two years.
Yu Qingxian didn't hesitate to take all these canned goods.
As for the vegetables and such, Yu Qingxian didn't consider them.
They had already decayed completely, and even if they hadn't, she couldn't eat vegetables, nor could the T-Rex.
Yu Qingxian saw new vegetables growing from the pile of decayed leaves.
There were even a few mushrooms underneath the vegetables.
This made Yu Qingxian pick the mushrooms and try to stuff them into her mouth.
Even if they were poisonous mushrooms, they couldn't be more toxic than the zombie virus, right?
Yu Qingxian put the mushrooms in her mouth and chewed them.
They still had no taste at all.
But she couldn't swallow them.
Her mouth was too dry, so she could only take the chewed mushroom bits out while looking in the mirror.
Indeed, not everything was edible.
She took a paper towel and wiped her hands, looking around to make sure no one had witnessed her embarrassment, before leaving with a cardboard box.
After several trips back and forth,
Yu Qingxian had taken away all the edible items from this supermarket.
Back at the house, the T-Rex had expertly smashed all the wooden furniture
and piled it together.
Yu Qingxian picked up some pieces to start a fire.
The room was soon bathed in an orange glow.
The firelight flickered in the T-Rex's black eyes.
Yu Qingxian sat beside it, trying to warm her hands by the fire like a human would.
But she couldn't feel the temperature.
Her body would instinctively retract if the heat became unbearable.
And her head would sting.
So Yu Qingxian scooted back a bit.
Outside, the snow gradually grew heavier.
Yu Qingxian leaned against the T-Rex, watching the snow for a while, before getting up to prepare its food.
However, while standing by the window watching the snow, she noticed two vehicles moving along the horizon.
She grabbed her binoculars to take a look, but aside from the vehicles seeming powerful, she couldn't make out anything else.
She wasn't familiar with those vehicles.
They were clearly ones she hadn't seen before.
Watching the two vehicles head northeast,
Yu Qingxian kept her gaze on them until they disappeared over the horizon.
She took out a map and saw that going in that direction would lead to Q Province.
This made Yu Qingxian think that in many post-apocalyptic novels, the female protagonists would establish their own bases.
And the bases they established would often be chosen in remote northwestern areas.
Especially the highland lakes in Q City, which were prime locations for these heroines to settle down.
Of course, this was just Yu Qingxian's speculation.
Who's to say those two vehicles weren't from a base's team of mutants?
And it had nothing to do with Yu Qingxian anyway.
They weren't coming here.
They were probably just hurrying back to their base due to the snow.
Yu Qingxian stayed in this small county town for several days, but the snow kept falling with no sign of stopping.
The T-Rex couldn't stay cooped up in such a small house either.
It had to go out for a walk every morning and evening.
Yu Qingxian thought about it and took a large roll of someone's greenhouse plastic sheeting to sew an oversized raincoat for the T-Rex.
When the T-Rex put it on, it fit perfectly.
That way, even if snow fell on its fur, it wouldn't get wet.
Yu Qingxian also wrapped up the valuables on the sled, especially her luggage and the rechargeable battery.
After preparing everything, Yu Qingxian and the T-Rex headed towards the palace again.
Sure enough, whenever they started their journey again, the T-Rex's mood would improve greatly.
Although the highway was covered in thick snow, the sled proved very useful.
And with the now much larger T-Rex walking on the snow, it didn't face any difficulties at all.
It even ran around playfully.
Unlike the southern routes full of cars, on these wide-open roads, they might not encounter a single vehicle for dozens of kilometers.
Even the barren-looking hillsides were covered in thick white snow.
To Yu Qingxian, they looked like one cream cake after another.
The dark clouds hung low at this time.
Those clouds were like a heavy hat pressing down on the mountaintops.
As if the mountains were propping up the clouds, preventing them from pressing down to the ground.
Yu Qingxian took a few photos with her camera.
Then she released her drone to observe the surroundings.
Her main concern was that this stretch was the province's main road.
It wouldn't be good to encounter a base's team of mutants.
Yu Qingxian looked at the image on the remote control and saw that she and the Tyrannosaurus Rex were actually not very conspicuous in this snowy landscape.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex was naturally white in color, and her down jacket was also white.
The color of the sledge was white as well.
So from a distance, it was naturally not easy to see clearly.
However, the drone flew over the hill, heading further away.
Before Yu Qingxian could react, the image on her remote control suddenly began to lose control.
It was only then that Yu Qingxian realized that her drone seemed to have been grabbed by something.
