The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

Su Mu's pupils contracted slightly.

Licker.

He had seen similar descriptions in that diary... gigantic crawlers with tongues that could shoot out several meters, moving at incredible speeds and freely on walls and ceilings.

Level 2 Blue.

He had just killed a giant axe-wielder of the same level in the haunted house today, and knew how terrifying that kind of monster was. 72 points of strength and 65 points of constitution; if it weren't for the chains restricting its movement, he might not have made it out alive.

Although Zhou Zhenguo and his group outnumbered each other, their sheer numbers were useless against a monster of this caliber. The Licker was too fast; ordinary people were nothing more than lambs to the slaughter.

"What about the casualties?" Su Mu asked, then added, "I don't mean anything else, I just want to know roughly how much medicine we need."

"Thirteen are dead." Zhou Zhenguo's message was heavy with exhaustion. "The number of the injured hasn't been tallied yet, but I estimate at least thirty or more."

Su Mu fell silent.

Thirteen people died and more than thirty were injured.

"You escaped?" Su Mu asked. "I want to know, you must have used some special methods, right? So many people, and you managed to retreat from that monster..."

It wasn't that Su Mu looked down on them, but rather that he understood the terror of this monster; the fact that only thirteen people had died was clearly abnormal.

There was a moment of silence on the other end.

Then Zhou Zhenguo sent a message:

"You asked the exact same question as Lin Yuwei."

Su Mu was taken aback.

"Judging from your questions, you must have encountered monsters of this level before, or at least come across related information. Otherwise, a normal person wouldn't ask 'You escaped,' but rather 'How did you fight them?'... After all, logically speaking, with so many people, they should have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers."

Su Mu did not refute.

"We have indeed encountered it," he admitted.

Zhou Zhenguo didn't ask further about their situation, only saying:

"We caused that explosion."

Su Mu's pupils suddenly contracted.

That earth-shattering roar this evening, that fireball shooting into the sky, that shockwave that could be felt several kilometers away...

He initially thought the commotion was caused by the Lickers, or something even more terrifying. After all, that kind of power was beyond the capabilities of ordinary explosives.

Unexpectedly, it was Zhou Zhenguo and his group who did it.

"Can you tell me what kind of explosives you used?" Su Mu asked. "This information can be used to offset part of the value of the medicine. Of course, if you don't want to tell me, that's fine too."

He added, "I saw the explosion before; it was definitely not something an ordinary bomb could do."

Zhou Zhenguo's reply came quickly, and he seemed to have no intention of hiding anything:

"There's someone on our team who knows how to make LPG canister bombs. They're modified from those household LPG canisters; you've seen how powerful they are."

Su Mu: "............"

LPG tank bomb?

Another handmade item?

He had already been shocked by Lin Yuwei's oil lamp once today, and he didn't expect it to happen again so soon.

This world is indeed not just about building things with blueprints. The knowledge and experience accumulated in the real world are equally valuable for survival here.

"I don't have many medicines on me," Su Mu replied, then rummaged through his backpack and pulled out the medicines he had found that day.

Cold medicine, fever reducer, anti-inflammatory drug, antibiotics, iodine solution, band-aids... were scattered in a small pile.

He thought for a moment, kept a few for emergencies, and packed the rest... about twenty copies... and put them in the trading section.

That's all.

There was a long silence on the other end.

At that moment, in a cable car at the other end of the cable, a middle-aged man with a square face and a resolute expression was staring at the medicine that had suddenly appeared in front of him, blood still seeping from the bandage wrapped around his arm.

Behind him, three or four wounded men were crammed into the cramped cable car, all waiting for their medication.

Zhou Zhenguo looked at the more than twenty medicines in the transaction column, and his lips moved.

He had previously searched every pharmacy and house in the town, finding only a few boxes of expired cold medicine and half a bottle of iodine. And this person just casually produced so much...

This is still only "not much"?

This person probably looted all the medicine in the entire town.

No wonder they searched all those houses and found nothing.

"Thank you," he sent a message, just two words.

Su Mu replied quickly: "Normal transaction. Just give me two talismans later. Of course, if you're willing to help me make a liquefied gas canister bomb, I'll provide the canister, and you don't need to give me the two talismans."

Zhou Zhenguo looked at the message and gave a wry smile.

"Let's talk about this later," he replied. "I need to treat the wounded first."

"Okay." Su Mu didn't say anything more.

He knew that the other party must be extremely busy at this time.

Just as I was about to close the chat window, Zhou Zhenguo sent another message:

"By the way, be careful tonight. We... encountered something strange."

Su Mu's fingers paused.

sly.

The word carried entirely different weight when it came from Zhou Zhenguo's mouth. For a veteran who had witnessed mountains of corpses and seas of blood, for something to be described as "bizarre"...

"Could you tell me the details?" Su Mu asked.

"I'm not sure what that thing was either." Zhou Zhenguo's speech slowed down, as if he was organizing his thoughts. "But it looked very strange. The rest of our team thought so too. It appeared after we detonated the liquefied gas tank, standing in the rubble of the explosion, watching us through the flames."

"What kind?"

"An old man," Zhou Zhenguo said. "A very old man, with deep wrinkles on his face as if they were carved by a knife. He was wearing dusty gray clothes, standing in the ruins, surrounded by flames and thick smoke, but he didn't have a single injury on him."

"Is it watching you?"

"Yes. Just staring at it, without moving. The expression on his face..." Zhou Zhenguo paused for a few seconds, "How should I put it, it looked like he was smiling, but not quite. It's that kind of expression... when you see something really interesting, that's how you make it. But that expression on his face was just so creepy."

Su Mu stared at these words, a chill running down his spine.

An old man stood in the ruins after the explosion, staring blankly at a group of people through the flames and thick smoke.

No, not expressionless.

He is laughing.

The kind of smile that only appears when you see something "interesting".

"And then?" Su Mu asked.

"Then we retreated," Zhou Zhenguo said. "That feeling... I can't describe it, it was just that something was wrong with my whole body. Several young men in our team, full of youthful vigor, said that it felt like someone had a gun pointed at the back of your head, but when you looked back, there was nothing there."

"It didn't chase you?"

"No. It just stood there, watching us run. When we looked back after it had run far away, it was gone."

Su Mu remained silent for a while.

"I understand. Thank you for telling me this."

After closing the chat window, Su Mu leaned against the pile of supplies, his mind a jumble of thoughts.

An old man. Ruins. A sinister smile.

What exactly is this thing?