Until the Jeep completely drove out of the silver-white gate, Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong adjusted to the outside light, lowered their right arms, and widened their eyes to look out the window.

Having passed through the initial, indescribable, inexplicable fear, they saw a clear blue sky, white clouds of various shapes, flocks of birds constantly changing formation, and mountain walls shimmering with pale golden light under the sun.

"The sun... the sun!" Long Yuehong shouted at the huge, orange-yellow, fiery ball in the sky.

He stared intently, unwilling to look away even when his eyes stung and tears streamed down.

"Don't look directly at the sun in this state, it'll hurt your eyes! If you really want to see it, here." As Jiang Baimian drove, she rummaged through the glove compartment and handed something back to Long Yuehong.

Long Yuehong, who was趴 (pā) on the glass window, looked back and saw a pair of completely black-lensed glasses.

"...Sunglasses!" He recalled what he had learned and found the corresponding term.

"If you don't wear them, I will." Shang Jianyao turned around and said.

Long Yuehong looked over and saw that Shang Jianyao's eyes were red, as if he would burst into tears at any moment.

"Haha, you stared at the sun too?" Long Yuehong couldn't help but laugh.

The next second, he saw Shang Jianyao snatch the sunglasses and put them on his nose.

"Hey..." For a moment, he didn't know whether to be angry or to reflect.

"There's another pair here." As Long Yuehong was about to pounce on Shang Jianyao, Bai Chen in the passenger seat handed back another pair of sunglasses.

These sunglasses were more exquisite than Jiang Baimian's, like two connected "hearts," and the lenses were not pure black, but with a hint of rose red.

"Don't break them. I exchanged a lot of things for them." Bai Chen instructed.

"Thank you." Long Yuehong sincerely thanked her and put on the sunglasses.

With this "equipment," he could finally carefully observe the sun and compare its differences with the slides.

"This is the sun..." After who knows how long, Long Yuehong said with emotion, took off the sunglasses, and returned them to Bai Chen.

Shang Jianyao also withdrew his gaze and thoughtfully placed Jiang Baimian's sunglasses back in the glove compartment.

"What are you thinking about?" Long Yuehong glanced at his friend.

Shang Jianyao replied with a serious expression:

"I'm wondering where I can get sunglasses?"

People inside the underground building didn't need this stuff at all. Only a few project teams would use it, so neither the "Materials Supply Market" nor the small market in the "Activity Center" on the 495th floor had ever carried such things.

Jiang Baimian, who was driving, sighed:

"I knew you'd focus on the wrong thing."

Bai Chen said with a smile:

"When we pass by the places where the wasteland wanderers gather, we can go in and take a look. Maybe a compressed biscuit can be exchanged for a good pair of sunglasses."

"That's how I got mine!" Jiang Baimian echoed. "Why did you exchange so many things for yours?"

"I exchanged them from a female relic hunter. At the time, she thought they were very beautiful and wanted to use them herself, and she wasn't short on supplies." Bai Chen recalled the situation.

Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong didn't listen carefully. They both趴 (pā) on their respective car windows again, gazing at the scenery outside.

Whether it was the huge trees on both sides or the occasional brown squirrel running by, they could watch with great interest and exclaim in admiration.

"This is not quite the same as the Ashlands environment I imagined..." After who knows how long, Long Yuehong straightened his body and said with emotion.

"What did you imagine?" Jiang Baimian asked casually as she drove the Jeep over the bumpy road.

Long Yuehong tried hard to find adjectives:

"It's, it's..."

Shang Jianyao turned his head and helped him describe it:

"Dim, cold, humid, oppressive, the sky is full of dust, the sunlight can't penetrate the dark clouds, and everything is gray."

"Yes, yes, yes! That's it!" Long Yuehong completely agreed.

Their textbooks didn't describe the environment of the Ashlands in detail. They only talked about the state, the pollution, the diseases, and the famine. This naturally led them to form the impression that the environment above the Ashlands was harsh.

And those employees who had been to the surface couldn't say much due to confidentiality regulations. Even if they occasionally mentioned that some places were sunny and the environment was good, the listening masses would subconsciously ignore it.

Jiang Baimian leaned her elbow on the steering wheel, looked ahead, and chuckled:

"Maybe it was like that when the Old World was first destroyed, but it quickly improved. Only some places are still in a similar state."

"And that also means danger, meaning pollution, disease, and mutation." Bai Chen added from the side.

"I see..." Long Yuehong once again pressed his face against the car window, admiring the beautiful mountain scenery bathed in sunlight.

Shang Jianyao did the same.

Jiang Baimian saw this scene through the rearview mirror, smiled secretly, and pressed a button.

With a beep, the glass windows on the four doors suddenly retracted downwards.

Long Yuehong was startled and straightened his body:

"It, it...

"It can be retracted like this?"

"Let you breathe the outside air." Jiang Baimian pretended that she hadn't been playing a prank just now.

Shang Jianyao's posture didn't change at all. He seemed to be enjoying the feeling of the glass window sliding across his face, looking quite comical.

He then squinted his eyes and took a deep breath.

"How is it?" Jiang Baimian asked with a smile.

Shang Jianyao looked at the outside in a serious manner:

"There's a fresh smell of shit."

"..." Jiang Baimian admitted that Shang Jianyao had a keen sense of smell, but she didn't want to pay attention to him.

Bai Chen, who had witnessed the entire process of Jiang Baimian opening the car window, interjected thoughtfully:

"Team Leader, what year were you born in?"

"New Calendar 23, why?" Jiang Baimian replied casually.

"You're three years younger than me..." Bai Chen was a little shocked.

Long Yuehong was even more surprised:

"Team Leader, you're only two years older than us?

"You're already a D6!"

"This is the benefit of working in the Security Department. It's dangerous, but you get promoted really quickly. After all, your superiors, like me, might die at any time." Jiang Baimian joked.

She paused and added as if casually:

"Also, I've made some contributions before.

"Ah, I forgot to remind you, observing the color of the air is very important. Sometimes you have to wear a gas mask in advance."

In the next half hour, the Jeep stumbled through the mountains and forests. Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong were still like children, focusing on the scenery outside, curious about everything.

Seeing the soil gradually turning black in front of them, the surrounding trees becoming sparse, and the road no longer rugged, Long Yuehong suddenly frowned slightly and said:

"I always feel that the environment outside is not quite right, as if something is missing..."

Shang Jianyao had already straightened his body and said in a deep but not low voice:

"No people."

No people... That's right! Long Yuehong slapped his thigh and said:

"That's right, apart from the people in the few哨所 (shàosuǒ) along the way, there haven't been any humans appearing!"

And the people in the哨所 (shàosuǒ) were undoubtedly employees of the company.

"The people nearby have either been absorbed by the company, or wandered off to places with food, or..." Jiang Baimian changed the subject and said, "After passing through that哨所 (shàosuǒ) ahead and truly entering the Black Marsh Wastelands, we'll have a chance to encounter humans."

"But that might not be what you want..." Bai Chen didn't turn her head and added softly.

"What did you say?" Jiang Baimian tilted her head and asked.

"Team Leader, focus on driving!" Bai Chen restrained her emotions and shouted with a smile.

Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong fell silent, occasionally looking at the increasingly open scenery outside the window.

After who knows how long, Long Yuehong suddenly asked:

"Team Leader, I haven't even told my family that I'm going out for training and won't be home recently. What should I do?"

"The higher-ups will send someone to notify them." Jiang Baimian looked at the road ahead and gently pulled the steering wheel.

Long Yuehong closed his mouth.

Inside the Jeep, there was another long silence.

After passing through the edge哨所 (shàosuǒ) of "Pangu Biology," the terrain ahead became more and more flat.

The soil here was gray-black and relatively soft, with clear and crisscrossing traces of various kinds, some belonging to wheels, some coming from animals, and some originating from humans.

The trees around the road were even sparser, allowing one to see the black swamp in the distance at a glance.

The trunks of these trees were all blackish, and the leaves were dark green. Some were very tall, as high as twenty or thirty meters, and some were very short, only a little over one meter tall. The common point was that they were twisted and grotesque, just like dead monsters, looking dark even under the sunlight.

"On the edge of the Great Swamp, you don't need to be too careful. After going deeper, you must slow down and always pay attention to whether the road ahead has been swallowed by the swamp. If you really drive into it, then decisively abandon the car and retreat." Bai Chen took the opportunity to lecture. "Team Leader, there's a clean water source over there."

Jiang Baimian nodded:

"Okay, let's take a break there and replenish some water.

"Then, while the terrain is open and not too dangerous, let Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong drive.

"I hope you can learn it today."

She turned the steering wheel and drove the Jeep towards a sparse woodland in the wilderness.

An underground river emerged from the ground here, flowed for a few hundred meters, and then returned underground.

Jiang Baimian, holding the solar charging panel and the large-capacity thermos from the top of the Jeep, walked to the river and said to Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong:

"This kind of flowing groundwater is generally fine, but you still have to observe two points.

"One is whether the nearby plants have obvious mutations, and the other is whether the creatures in the water look strange compared to their kind.

"Then, if possible, boil it and fill the water bags. If not, put in 'Biological Cleansing Tablets.'"

After observing for a while, Jiang Baimian squatted by the river and filled a pot full of water.

Then, she placed the thermos on the charged solar charging panel and plugged in the plug.

During this process, she also took out a milky white plastic bottle and poured a small, fingernail-sized white pill from it into the water.

This was a "Biological Cleansing Tablet," a specialty of "Pangu Biology."

Long Yuehong watched with great interest from the side, seeming to want to try it himself.

For him, who needed to go to the "Materials Supply Market" to fetch hot water every day, this was quite new - his family had a relatively large population, the children's energy allocation was limited, and thermos were not cheap things, so he could only take a thermos and go to the hot water room in the supply market to fetch water.

After Jiang Baimian finished her work, she stood up, looked at Long Yuehong, and scolded with a smile:

"At this time, what you should be doing is taking out the 'Ice Moss' to prevent creatures from attacking us or robbing our supplies.

"Bai Chen doesn't need to be told, she's very experienced. Look, Shang Jianyao is also guarding the surroundings."

Shang Jianyao, who had pulled out the "Ice Moss" pistol and was looking at the "source" of the river, suddenly opened his mouth and said:

"Team Leader, there's a shadow flashing over there!"