As the three of them searched for survivors, a faint gasp was heard from beneath a pile of corpses.
Though weak, the sound was enough for Xu An to hear.
Almost immediately.
Xu An rushed towards the source of the sound, looking for who had made it.
"Help... help me..."
The voice came again, weak and as if it would give out at any second.
With this single plea for help, Xu An finally located the survivor.
She shouted loudly, "Come here quickly, there's someone else alive over here."
Zhou Haimai and Qin Chuan were both stunned and rushed towards Xu An as if in a race.
It took the combined efforts of the three to clear all the corpses pressing down on the survivor, and only then did they see the person pinned beneath.
At a single glance, Xu An's mind was filled with a thousand thoughts.
She finally understood why the person had managed to survive the monsters.
On the other side, Qin Chuan, though still trying to maintain his composure, spoke with a barely perceptible tremor in his voice.
"You... you're Zhou Yue?" he asked, his voice filled with uncertain fear.
Upon hearing a familiar voice, the person lying on the ground, who had been on the verge of death, seemed like a drowning person grasping at the last straw.
He mustered all his strength to pry open his eyes and glanced at Qin Chuan.
However, Zhou Yue's throat was too weak to utter a sound; he could only open and close his mouth, forming words.
"Captain..." Qin Chuan understood the silent plea.
The expression he had held back for so long seemed to crumble, instantly breaking.
Taking a step forward, he went directly to Zhou Yue's side and whispered softly.
"Zhou Yue."
Xu An and Zhou Haimai both looked on with pained expressions.
There was no doubt, Zhou Yue's condition was dire.
His limbs had long been bitten off by monsters, leaving only his torso.
Perhaps due to the extreme cold, the blood in Zhou Yue's limbs had clotted, preventing him from dying of excessive blood loss.
But this extreme weather had also frozen the blood vessels throughout Zhou Yue's body, completely eliminating any possibility of treatment.
Qin Chuan picked up a few torn pieces of clothing from the ground and covered Zhou Yue's body.
But everyone knew that these were merely a drop in the ocean for Zhou Yue's current state.
Yet, the remaining warmth seemed to bring Zhou Yue back for a moment, a faint smile appearing on his face.
Xu An poured a cup of hot water from her thermos. While called hot, it was only slightly warmer than the icy surroundings.
Qin Chuan took the cup. Though he said nothing, the hand holding the cup trembled.
He carefully fed the water into Zhou Yue's mouth, and his long-parched throat was finally moistened.
It was like dry fields suddenly irrigated by a stream, with tender sprouts growing in the barren land.
Zhou Yue felt this was the sweetest drink of his life. He hadn't cried when pursued by monsters.
He hadn't cried when he watched his teammates die one by one before his eyes.
He hadn't even cried when the monsters tore off his limbs.
But at this very moment, upon seeing that Qin Chuan had truly returned to find him.
Even though he couldn't shed any tears, it didn't stop him from wanting to cry.
He had been ordered by an opposing faction to Qin Chuan, and he believed that Qin Chuan understood this situation perfectly.
Yet, after receiving the distress signal, the man had still come without hesitation.
He had thought Qin Chuan was long dead, but he never expected Qin Chuan to be alive, and even more so, to have come to rescue him.
He mustered his last breath and gestured for Qin Chuan to come closer.
"Found the oceanic fuel... it's in... the watch... be careful... Yu... not... a person..."
His words were spoken haltingly. Qin Chuan watched as Zhou Yue, after speaking, took his last breath, a sense of sorrow unexpectedly settling in his heart.
In the short two years of the apocalypse.
Qin Chuan felt as if he had lived through an entire century.
He had witnessed countless lives lost through his own hands.
But without a doubt, Zhou Yue's death was the most brutal.
Qin Chuan had always known that Zhou Yue was a spy who had infiltrated the Lighthouse.
But what did that matter?
They were all humans; must they distinguish between friend and foe?
Qin Chuan never participated in factional disputes, but that didn't mean he was ignorant of everything.
He had always known that a group of people had infiltrated the Lighthouse, people who were constantly probing the internal structure of the Lighthouse and attempting to contact the city lord.
But they had never succeeded.
It wasn't until this expedition that some people, using their arena identities, managed to get close to the city lord.
But Qin Chuan still didn't want to concern himself with these so-called political struggles.
In this damned apocalypse, simply surviving was difficult enough.
Why must they still compete and fight amongst themselves?
Qin Chuan didn't understand, but his lack of understanding didn't mean he could remain uninvolved.
Zhou Yue's words were fragmented. She didn't know if Qin Chuan had understood them, but she had clearly heard Chu Yu's name.
A sudden sense of crisis permeated Xu An's surroundings.
Zhou Haimai beside her asked, "What is your teammate saying?"
Qin Chuan's expression remained unchanged, and he said calmly, "He's talking about the ocean's location. Our instruments detected resources on the seabed."
"The Lighthouse has also been contacted; we just need to find a place to wait for them to pick us up."
...
At this moment, the Lighthouse had also entered a state of full alert.
"Are you ready?"
The technician operated the equipment, "Ready. We'll be able to descend shortly."
"As soon as possible, we need to go pick them up!"
The man's eyes held determination, his tone leaving no room for doubt.
"But, Officer, weren't those people originally going to be exiled..."
Before he could finish, the man interrupted him.
"Don't ever say such things again! There is no exile under my command!"
"They are all heroes who searched for resources for the Lighthouse. I don't care where you heard this talk."
"From now on, as long as I am here, this Lighthouse will never have a system of exile!"
With that, the man's face turned red with anger, and he left the command center, his military boots clanking.
Even within the Lighthouse, the significant temperature difference between indoors and outdoors made the interior incredibly cold.
To conserve energy.
The Lighthouse had already canceled central heating a week prior. Now, only those with substantial means could afford heating and electricity.
People living in relief shelters and dark alleys were freezing to death every day.
Lao Shu watched the bodies being dragged out one by one with a blank expression.
No one could discern anything from her face, nor could anyone know what she was truly thinking at that moment.