'I'm a monster walking through the apocalypse, with not a shred of morality or kindness.'
'When necessary, I can even abandon anything and everything, just to save my family and myself.'
'This is me—Xie Ning.'
'A person selfish to an unassailable degree.'
'Someone like me must have scared Mom and my little cousin.'
Xie Ning kept her head turned toward the window, not daring to meet their eyes.
None of the three spoke, and the atmosphere in the RV suddenly became extremely oppressive.
"Ningning, are you mad at Mom?" Song You'ai's voice suddenly piped up, sounding timid.
"I've been reflecting on myself, and... and I've been terrible. This... this environment suddenly changing like this, Mom's having a little trouble adapting. But in the future, I'll definitely work hard to adjust."
"Mom, I'm not mad." Xie Ning turned her head, meeting her mother's anxious gaze.
"I'm not mad, really. It's my own fault for not being capable enough."
"Nonsense!" Song You'ai raised her voice slightly. "Our Ningning is already incredible."
"Yeah, Sis is incredible, really incredible." Song Kexin nodded hurriedly.
Her head was still spinning.
'Even though Sis broke her promise again, making me wait for almost an hour instead of twenty minutes, she actually managed to conjure up an RV.'
'Unbelievable!'
She glanced around. The RV was very clean and tidy.
Just inside the door were two rows of booths facing each other. With bunk beds at the front and back, it could accommodate at least five to six people.
It even had a private bathroom and a small, open-plan kitchen. This was practically a little mobile home.
Small as it was, it had all the essentials. This RV was definitely much more comfortable than the small truck.
Song You'ai briefly told Song Kexin how she and Xie Ning had gone into the gas station to look for fuel, just in time to see the RV crash into the convenience store.
Her mood sank at the thought. "Ningning, he was bitten by his own mother, wasn't he?"
Xie Ning gave a soft "mhm."
Song You'ai pulled a blood-stained notebook out of a half-open storage compartment. "Have a look."
Xie Ning silently opened the notebook and flipped through it, page by page. "They were on a trip. He was a filial son; for the past six months, he'd been taking his eighty-year-old mother on a tour all over the country."
"That's why this RV was fitted with a reinforced chassis bumper and top-notch shock absorption. There was even a retractable wind-powered generator installed on the roof."
The man was truly the most devoted and filial of sons to his mother.
But tragically, after a high fever, his eighty-year-old mother zombified.
Having lost her mind, she bit open the blood vessels in her own beloved son's neck.
And then came what they had seen.
Xie Ning closed the notebook and passed it to Kexin in the back seat.
Song Kexin was a girl who was easily moved to tears. She started crying after reading only two pages.
"They had traveled from Yang City all the way here. Their original plan was a one-year tour of Country C."
Who could have imagined something like this would happen.
"Sis, is it going to be like this forever? We can't go back, can we?"
Xie Ning watched the trees retreating outside the window. "Yeah. We definitely can't go back."
'It won't just be like this from now on. It will get worse and worse.'
'When the human world loses order, all the demons and devils will line up to revel.'
Song You'ai gripped the steering wheel tightly and suddenly spoke. "Ningning, can you promise Mom one thing?"
"From now on, if I'm about to turn into a monster, please, you must get rid of me before I can hurt you both."
Xie Ning's heart clenched violently, as if struck by a sledgehammer. The pain was unbearable.
She instinctively squeezed her mother's hand. "Mom, that won't happen. It absolutely... won't."