Transmigrating into a Wasteland Cannon Fodder Slag A [GL Yuri] - Chapter 26.1

At half past five in the morning, Yan An’s eyes fluttered open. She washed up and got dressed in fifteen minutes, then walked out of her room and headed for the fridge.

It was completely empty. It looked like the household robots had cleared everything out after the Gu family left.

“Instant noodles it is,” she thought. She had stocked up on plenty of them in her space. In a pinch, she could pour a bottle of water into the bag and eat them cold. But since they were still home and the power was on, she could actually cook them. It was a shame she didn’t have any eggs, but she did have some sealed braised eggs and sausage, which would make a nice addition.

Just as the noodles were ready, Gu Xia came downstairs. The scent of instant noodles seemed to jolt her, and she felt a sense of disorientation, as if it had been a long time since she’d eaten anything hot. Since the zombie outbreak, they had barely had a full meal until they escaped from the factory. Even then, they hadn’t had a hot one. A tense wire in her mind had been stretched tight, only now slowly beginning to relax after returning home. In the apocalypse, a steaming bowl of instant noodles was something that could make many people cry with gratitude.

Yan An had just dished the noodles into a bowl when she saw Gu Xia. “Come eat quickly. We have to leave after we’re done.”

With hot water, a warm bed, and a hot meal, it was certainly tempting to stay. But countless people had died from living too comfortably, and they knew very well the consequences of lingering.

Yan An sat down and took a third of a sausage in one bite. For someone who had survived in the wilderness by eating things like snakes, this sausage was a delicacy. It had been a long time since she’d had a proper meal, especially considering her days of wilderness survival. A simple bowl of instant noodles actually made her feel happy.

Gu Xia sat across from her and said, “Thanks for all you do.”

“No problem.”

They savored this last bit of comfort. Once they left the villa, there was no telling what they would face. Everything ahead was an unknown.

After they finished eating, it was 6:10 AM. It was still early, but their time was limited.

“Is there anything you need to take? If not, we can go.”

They were on the run, not on vacation, so suitcases were out of the question. Even though she knew Yan An had a spatial ability, Gu Xia still packed her own backpack with food and supplies, just in case. She had also changed out of her school uniform and into a black climbing suit that resembled a windbreaker but was more fitted and looked great on her.

Yan An was really captivated by Gu Xia’s beauty. She was a stunningly mature and radiant woman who, with her hair tied up in a ponytail, looked fiercely untamed. Yan An couldn’t understand how her “past self” could have hurt such a beautiful person. She must’ve been thinking, “If I can’t have her, I’ll just destroy her,” right?

Gu Xia’s backpack was already packed with only the essentials. She took a last, lingering look around the house before her gaze hardened, and she headed upstairs.

Yan An watched Gu Xia’s retreating figure for a moment, then spoke up to lighten the mood. “I’ve never been in a flying car before, Guzi-jie. What if it falls out of the sky?”

A drop into a zombie nest would mean being torn to shreds and eaten.

Gu Xia: It’s bad luck to jinx things, especially right now. Does she have any idea that they need to be extra, extra cautious?

“Guzi-jie, Gu Xia-jie, why aren’t you answering me?” Yan An switched between two different names in one sentence.

Gu Xia, used to her changing nicknames, said, “Just shut up and get in the car.”

“What a mean woman,” Yan An muttered, but she climbed into the car obediently.

Naturally, she wasn’t the one driving. Although she knew how to drive, this was her first time in a flying car, and she wanted to observe before trying it herself. She had looked it up last night. There were only twenty flying cars in the whole city of Pingzhou. They were incredibly rare, owned by only a handful of families, and the Gu family was one of them.

As the car took off, Yan An, who had been amazed by test-drive videos in her previous life, was even more intrigued to be inside one. It was a novel experience, even for someone who had flown and piloted helicopters herself. After a short while, she had a good grasp of the car’s mechanics. It was essentially a regular car with four propellers that allowed it to fly, a hybrid of a helicopter and an automobile. It was much quieter than a helicopter, and it looked like a flying frog in the sky.

Its top speed was 180 kilometers per hour, which couldn’t compete with a car with the pedal to the floor. Its range was only three to five hours, but that was enough to get them to Pingzhou Island. The flying car could also retract its propellers and drive on the ground, so its price was understandably steep. Driving it was easier than a regular car, with fewer controls. The main things to watch out for were birds and power lines. The front windshield acted as a large screen that could map out routes, so as long as they followed the path, they wouldn’t run into any issues. Once a destination was entered, the car would automatically find the most optimal route.

If they weren’t passing by the mall, they probably wouldn’t have gone back and would have headed straight for Pingzhou Island. However, they had been celebrating too soon.

Just like when the outbreak first began, many people had paid a fortune for helicopter rescues, only to have some bystanders, out of malice, shoot the helicopters down. They couldn’t be saved, so nobody else should be either. As soon as the flying car took off, it caught the attention of the survivors on the ground, who began to send distress signals to the car’s frequency.

“SOS!”

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help, but their capacity was limited. There were at least eighty people still alive in the area, but the flying car only had five seats, and they already occupied two of them. If they landed, there was no telling if the car would still be theirs. In the apocalypse, you couldn’t and shouldn’t gamble with human nature.

The constant noise was giving Gu Xia a headache, and she reached out to turn the channel off.

“Don’t!” Yan An shouted.

But before she could finish, Gu Xia had already turned it off. As long as the channel was open, it gave those on the ground a sliver of hope, but with it gone, they would know the car wouldn’t be landing to rescue them, and there was no telling what they might do.

Something wasn’t right with Gu Xia’s state. She should have been able to foresee this. Yan An carefully watched Gu Xia’s expression; she seemed to be spaced out every now and then. Yan An quickly grabbed Gu Xia’s arm and used her restoration ability.

A moment later, Gu Xia came to. “Someone attacked me with an ability.”

It was a psychic ability that could cause mental disorientation and poor judgment. If Gu Xia’s mental power wasn’t a B-class, she would have done something far worse.

At that moment, the car’s intelligent system issued a warning! “Car’s fuel tank has been hit. Energy consumption is accelerating. Forced landing in 20 minutes.”

The flying car had either been hit by a high-precision sniper rifle or an ability just as powerful.

“Go faster!” Yan An took out her own sniper rifle and aimed out the window. Now, they had to use the last bit of the flying car’s power to get out of the area as quickly as possible.

Gu Xia remained silent, her hands working the controls, pushing the car to its maximum speed.

After aiming, Yan An’s mind raced, pinpointing the location that would have allowed someone to hit the car’s fuel tank. Once she confirmed the position, she fired several shots without hesitation. A large pane of glass from a skyscraper shattered and crashed down with a loud bang! The zombies below heard the noise and rushed toward the falling glass.

The person who attacked their car must have been inside that building. Yan An’s shot was a deterrent, a clear message that if they wanted a real fight, the outcome was uncertain. Plus, the sound would draw the zombies into the building, and whether the person could escape was now a matter of luck. “He who kills will be killed.”

The flying car sped away. Yan An tried to open the navigation for a bird’s-eye view, but the feature wouldn’t activate. The red dots on the map were either overlapping or flickering all over the place, indicating a problem. She only put away her sniper rifle once they were out of the area.

“That’s a psychic ability. If you get hit by that, you’ll either die or go brain-dead.”

Yan An had a strange knowledge of different abilities, as if it were all stored in her mind from the start. She figured it might be a result of her memory storage, recalling powers from movies and novels she had read. It could also be related to her skill of knowing her opponent; her talent to see others’ abilities might have given her a subconscious understanding of them.

Someone had definitely used a psychic attack on Gu Xia, but thankfully, Yan An’s restoration skill, which was said to be able to fix anything, had quickly restored Gu Xia’s mind. Gu Xia now understood why she had felt so spaced out and agitated.

“Thank you.” Yan An had saved her again.

“What are you being so polite for? What are we, strangers?” Yan An said with a chuckle, her mood lifting.

Gu Xia: …

What were they, anyway? A couple in name only?

But the big red exclamation mark on the car’s screen remained, warning them that their energy was about to run out. Twenty minutes had already become fifteen. They still needed seventeen minutes to reach the mall. The two-minute difference seemed small, but at their speed, it meant two to three kilometers—a significant distance. Unless Gu Xia went all out, but that was like driving a car at over 200 kilometers per hour. Could they really do it? The flying car’s maximum speed was 180, and pushing it that hard, especially with a damaged fuel tank, would likely ruin it.

But at this point, they had to take a chance.

“Hold on!” Gu Xia said before pushing the flying car to its maximum speed. Even in perfect condition, it probably couldn’t hit 180. With a broken fuel tank, it might only reach 130. To cover 40 kilometers in 15 minutes, they needed to go even faster.

The car shook violently for a few seconds as it accelerated. Yan An grabbed the handle tightly. The shaking eventually stopped, but the car kept vibrating, feeling like it could fall apart at any second.

“It has to be faster,” Gu Xia thought, a hint of madness in her eyes. She floored it, resolving that even if the car disintegrated, she would fly another hundred meters before it fell. Yan An, meanwhile, was trying to fix the car, but she knew it was pointless. She couldn’t repair it, not even by using up all her psychic energy. Trying would only exhaust her, leaving her defenseless if the car crashed.

So, she gave up on fixing the car and turned to Gu Xia. “My ability can’t fix this flying car right now.”

Fixing the other car had already exhausted her. This flying car was on a whole other level. It was better to save her strength.

“Okay,” Gu Xia replied, her voice filled with an extreme calmness.

At this point, everything depended on Gu Xia’s driving skills. Yan An knew worrying wouldn’t help, so she took out a toy telescope and looked down. The flying car was about ten to twenty meters above the ground. She could see the zombies below clearly with her naked eyes.

Through the toy telescope, she saw a building packed with zombies. They heard the car and began to smash the glass, reaching out to grab the vehicle. One by one, they fell from the high-rise. The problem was, this was a hundred-meter-tall building, and the flying car was only a dozen meters from the ground. In a densely packed area of buildings, the falling zombies could easily hit them.

So, to reach the mall where Hei Ye and the others were, distance wasn’t their only problem; they also had to deal with the zombies dropping from the buildings along the way. When the car was in good condition, they wouldn’t have been worried, but the constant alarm from the system was a clear warning that it was about to fail.

“Gu Xia, stay steady.”

Yan An took out her sniper rifle again and aimed at a hot air balloon tied to a nearby building. She fired, and the massive explosion drew the zombies’ attention, changing their target. But the bang was momentary, and the calm returned just as quickly, refocusing the zombies’ attention on the flying car. One after another, zombies fell and lunged at the car. Even with Gu Xia’s speed, they still came dangerously close.

Gu Xia’s eyes turned cold. “Yan An, do you want to play a game?”

Yan An: “?” 

Had their roles just been reversed? She had been about to ask Gu Xia the same thing. Since the other woman had spoken first, she nodded. 

“Sure! Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Next, the car swerved towards a towering building. It was going so fast, there was no way to slow down.

“Wait, is this ‘excitement’ trying to crash into a building? You want to die?”

“Gu Xia!!! Are you crazy?”

The moment Yan An’s words left her mouth, the car zipped through a tiny gap between two buildings, narrowly avoiding the onslaught of zombies. Gu Xia gave her a sidelong glance, her look clearly asking, “Who’s crazy now?”

Yan An hadn’t noticed there was a gap between the buildings. She had thought Gu Xia was about to make a heroic sacrifice. Yan An giggled. “I just thought you were about to sacrifice yourself, to be a martyr, to leave behind a story of undying courage for future generations…”

“Shut up!” Gu Xia couldn’t take her chatter anymore.

“Got it!” Yan An made a zipping motion over her mouth.

Just then, the flying car’s alarm went off. “Warning! Energy depleted. Flying car will fall in 10 seconds. 10, 9, 8, 7…”

“6, 5…”

The car’s AI kept counting down. Only three seconds left. Once the countdown ended, the car would plummet. A fall of a dozen meters would happen in an instant. The resulting explosion would leave no trace of Yan An and Gu Xia.

Yan An didn’t hesitate. She immediately opened the car door and shouted to Gu Xia, “Jump!”

As the car passed over an open-air balcony, she leaped out and grabbed onto the railing. Following her cue, Gu Xia jumped out without a second thought. Since the flying car was only a few meters above the balcony, they would at most get bruised. It wouldn’t be fatal.

The moment they jumped, the car shot forward for several hundred meters in three seconds before dropping and exploding with a tremendous bang. The car’s explosion was far more powerful than the hot air balloon’s. Zombies at the crash site were instantly incinerated.

Yan An was fine. Her restoration ability meant that even though she rolled a few times on the ground to break her fall, cutting her palm on a broken flower pot, the wound quickly healed, leaving only a scar.

“Gu Xia?” she called out anxiously, worried that something had happened. She had seen Gu Xia jump with her.

“I’m here,” Gu Xia’s pained voice replied.

Yan An quickly went over and saw Gu Xia lying on the ground, her face twisted in pain, unable to get up. “It’s that bad!”

“You, don’t move.” Seeing this, Yan An felt a surge of panic. She wasn’t a doctor and couldn’t see what was wrong. She could only ask, “Where does it hurt?”

Gu Xia was in so much pain that she was sweating. She struggled to turn her body to the side, gritting her teeth and uttering only one word: “Back.”

Yan An didn’t care about anything else. She lifted Gu Xia’s shirt and checked her back, only to find it completely red, with a bruise at the center where the skin was about to split. Without waiting to figure out what had happened, Yan An placed her hand on Gu Xia’s back and immediately activated her restoration ability.

“Hold on, it’ll be over soon.” Her palm felt cold where it touched. She could inexplicably feel how much pain Gu Xia was in, so she continued to comfort her as she worked. Thankfully, the restoration was quick. The pain on Gu Xia’s face slowly faded, the bruise on her back disappeared, and her skin returned to its normal pale color.

Gu Xia’s skin was naturally fair. In the sunlight, it was almost glowing. Yan An felt her eyes wanting to linger, but her brain told her not to. Luckily, her hand had already pulled the other woman’s shirt back down, blocking her view.

“Does it still hurt?” Her worry was so clear that it stunned Gu Xia.

“No, it doesn’t.”

Yan An’s restoration ability was incredibly effective. No need for medicine or surgery—it was a complete fix, requiring no recovery time. In the apocalypse, having Yan An by her side would save her life countless times.

Gu Xia felt her body. The intense pain was gone, replaced by a tingling sensation and a lingering warmth from the healing, like basking in the sun on a winter day. It was wonderfully comfortable.

“Thank you.”

When she had jumped from the flying car, Gu Xia had landed straight down without rolling to break her fall like Yan An had. Gu Xia didn’t know that trick. She had simply jumped, and her back had hit a protruding rock on the balcony, which made the pain even worse. Luckily, Yan An was there.

“What’s with the thanks? What are we, strangers?” Yan An said with a wink, pulling out a pistol and attaching a silencer. She gripped it tightly.

Gu Xia was speechless. The girl couldn’t be serious for more than a minute. Yan An then took out a pile of submachine gun bullets and put them in Gu Xia’s bag, completely unbothered by her exasperated expression. “Time to go.”

Their situation was better than she had expected. They were only a thousand meters from the mall, and the explosion had likely caught Hei Ye and the others’ attention. They both had guns. The pistols were good because they had silencers and plenty of bullets, while the submachine gun had no silencer, and the sniper rifle had limited ammo. So, they both instinctively chose to use their pistols first. Gu Xia would only bring out the submachine gun when there were too many zombies to handle.

Thankfully, the explosion a few hundred meters away had drawn most of the zombies, so they were in no immediate danger.

Suddenly, Yan An’s phone buzzed with a staticky sound. She pulled it out and saw it was Hei Ye calling. The call was so garbled that it took her a while to hear the voice on the other end.

“Yan An?” 

Just those two words were full of static. But they didn’t need to say much. 

She simply replied, “Yes,” which was enough.

 Once the person behind the explosion was identified, it was up to the people in the mall to decide how to react. This was a test of trust for their future cooperation.

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