The desert night wind sliced through the vehicle window like a knife—that was one reason for his restlessness. Another was the turmoil in his mind. In the darkest hour before dawn, Lu Yuan wrapped himself in a blanket, wide-eyed, staring at the rifle resting beside him. His boot sheath held a knife, his waist a pistol; any slight sound, and he could have fired in an instant.
Nothing happened that night.
As the faint morning light appeared, the all-terrain vehicle set off again. This time, Lu Yuan didn't use the navigation system but gripped the wheel himself, following a hand-drawn map. By noon, he had kept his eyes on the barren, monotonous desert ahead. Compared to idling in the back counting cans, he preferred keeping himself occupied with something meaningful rather than draining the battery pointlessly.
A flash of gray-green suddenly caught his eye at the edge of the window. Instantly alert, Lu Yuan quickly adjusted the drone to double-check—a live plant growing on the surface.
He considered getting out of the car to collect it but thought better of it. Instead, he maneuvered the drone closer to the ground, increasing the rotor speed to stir the plant shaped like a solar ring.
A strong gust lifted the plant's somewhat thick leaves, and, in a flash, a shadow pounced. The drone tilted and crashed. Lu Yuan immediately lost control, and the camera rolled wildly, finally freezing on an upward view of the sky.
Grabbing his rifle, Lu Yuan dashed to the driver's seat, drove closer, deployed a backup drone, and opened the firing ports, scanning through the rifle scope for the shadow that had downed his reconnaissance drone. With nothing visible, he switched to thermal and infrared scanning, but they revealed nothing.
"Damn," Lu Yuan cursed, feeling more frustrated about the loss of a drone than relieved he hadn't gotten out himself. With the area marked off, he had the drone circle back, collecting new data, but no anomalies appeared on the strange-looking plant, whose thick, spreading branches seemed almost like tentacles.
Lu Yuan decided he'd had enough and retrieved the drone, then loaded up with heavy firepower, annihilating the plant in less than a minute. Frustrated by the delay, he fired a small airburst round to finish it off.
After that incident, Lu Yuan knew this seemingly barren desert wasn't truly lifeless. It was, in fact, home to an extremely dangerous ecosystem. Any life thriving in this desolate, harsh environment couldn't be simple or gentle; it had the capacity to take down a reconnaissance drone without warning. Taking down a vulnerable human like Lu Yuan would be child's play.
He stopped conserving fuel and pushed the vehicle to maximum speed. Rifle ready on his lap, all firing ports prepped, he resolved to power through the desert in one go. He aimed to reach a more hospitable region where competition for survival might be less brutal.
If only he had been equipped with a mech suit, he wouldn't have even cared.
He drove for seven or eight hours straight, but the strange green plants only increased in number. He tried running over them with the vehicle's wheels, but they remained unaffected. Fighting off fatigue, he set the vehicle on cruise mode and took a light nap under a blanket in the passenger seat, heart racing at the slightest sound. The night winds shrieked like spirits, making sleep nearly impossible.
At dawn, Lu Yuan grabbed his rifle and dozed a little. The desert was no longer barren; green plants resembling sun halos grew every few meters, making the area more like a wasteland than a true desert. Needing to relieve himself, he decided against stepping outside, unwilling to risk becoming food for some native creature.
Days passed in this way. Sparse shrubs and slender reeds slowly spread across the wasteland, though Lu Yuan never encountered any large predators. Through the drone, he spotted insects hiding among the grass, either swarming in tiny clusters or appearing as large, scythe-clawed beetles. When these met, they battled to the death with a ferocity that made Lu Yuan's eyelids twitch.
Lu Yuan's watch still kept the time on Zeus Prime, serving as little more than a reminder of the days that had passed. By the fifth day after leaving the Xiyun, the desert finally gave way to patches of short grass. Lu Yuan sent the drone with a lightweight spear to test the ground, finding everything normal after several attempts.
Not having left the all-terrain vehicle for days, Lu Yuan was eager to stretch his limbs. Standing on the faintly soft grass, he felt a strange sense of nostalgia. He bent over, snapping off half a broken short blade of grass, then pulled up a stalk to find half-meter-long roots clinging to the soil, only loosening after a firm shake.
Without a word, he climbed back into the vehicle, continuing his journey. He missed Murphy, who, despite being lifeless, at least talked back. Left to entertain himself, Lu Yuan kept up a steady stream of monologues, using the vehicle's loudspeaker to play random chants just to break the silence.
That pack of "Fire Cloud" cigarettes—he still hadn't brought himself to open it. As he refilled the vehicle's radiator with antifreeze, he smacked his lips, thinking he needed a good reason to light one up.
Perhaps his thoughts made it so because, by afternoon, he found his reason.
"Damn it," Lu Yuan muttered, lowering his binoculars and brushing the dust off the lens cap with his thumb, licking his lips.
Two kilometers away, through the binoculars, he could see dozens of twisted trees resembling poplars surrounding a small pool of water, lush with green grass. These were not the eerie sun halo plants but genuine greenery.
Honestly, Lu Yuan wanted nothing more than a bath. He had been too frugal to use his precious bottled water—one sip was one less bottle—occasionally pouring just a capful over his face to freshen up. This oasis was irresistible; he would brave even a pack of Imperial mechs for this.
The all-terrain vehicle roared as Lu Yuan floored the accelerator, cigarette in mouth, both hands on the wheel, barreling straight through the poplar-like trees. He attached warning sensors, grabbed a bucket, and walked straight to the pool, dipping it in.
"Ahh…" He poured half a bucket of cold water over his head, shivering in relief as days of dust and tension melted away. Peeling off his shirt, he scrubbed himself clean, shouting joyfully.
Buoyed by the pleasant surprise, Lu Yuan started thinking about setting up a grill. Roasting some canned beef under the starlight sounded a lot better than crouching in the back of the vehicle.
Chuckling, he checked his cigarette pack—there were still ten or so left. Deciding to celebrate, he tossed his cloth aside and went to the ammunition box to grab a fresh smoke.
In his enthusiasm, he didn't notice the water rippling subtly in expanding circles.