The Road Out of the City

"Call the factory workers later and tell them to hurry up and move all the supplies."

A few pharmaceutical factory workers guarding the warehouse entrance were discussing.

"With the supplies in this warehouse, we can definitely get through this month even without rescue!"

"Team leader, do you think the police will come after us later?"

"So what! This is an emergency. I've read the law, and this is called self-defense in an emergency. It's not illegal at all!"

"Huh? Really?"

"So that's how it is! Then—"

Thump!

Before the pharmaceutical factory worker could finish speaking, he suddenly felt a pain in the side of his face, a powerful impact struck him, and then he fell to the ground with a clatter, falling into a childlike sleep.

The other pharmaceutical factory workers were stunned. Only then did they realize that it was someone wearing a hood, scarf, and mask who had punched their comrade to the ground.

"Who the hell are you! You wanna die!"

"Damn it, get him!"

"How dare you hit someone?!"

These pharmaceutical factory workers didn't expect anyone to dare to fight them, and their anger flared up. The passers-by who hadn't left were also shocked, not expecting anyone brave enough to step forward and teach these thugs who were hoarding supplies a lesson.

In an instant, six or seven pharmaceutical factory workers surrounded him. However, to everyone's astonishment, the person who made the move seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. Two people tried to sneak attack from behind, but he dodged them all.

And he was fast, incredibly strong, and his movements were swift and decisive. In just a few punches, he had knocked out five people. The remaining three or four immediately panicked, thinking that this masked fellow might be a trained fighter and not someone they could handle.

The small leader, whom the other workers called "Team Leader," had a fierce glint in his eyes. He swung the pair of pliers in his hand forcefully towards the man's head!

A gasp erupted from the crowd. If that hit landed squarely, wouldn't it be fatal!

Thump!

The man dodged in time, avoiding his head. The pliers only hit his shoulder.

The leader's face lit up with joy. Such heavy pliers, even a shoulder hit like this would be unbearable!

However, the next moment, his face was filled with terror.

The person whose shoulder had been hit by his heavy pliers seemed completely fine, showing no signs of injury at all. Not to mention any physical reaction, he didn't even let out a groan of pain. He remained completely silent.

This eerie silence filled the leader's heart with immense fear.

Thwack!

The next moment, the pliers in his hand were snatched away by the person wearing gloves, and then swung back, hitting him to the ground with a single blow.

Seeing their leader fall and bleed, the surrounding people were instantly terrified and shouted, "Something happened! Someone's dead!"

People scattered and fled. The remaining two pharmaceutical factory workers were also scared, dropping the weapons in their hands and turning to run for their lives. In a moment, only the "warrior" was left.

Shadow returned to the milk tea shop where Guan Tong was hiding. After dematerializing, its clothes fell off. Guan Tong put them on, entered the supply point warehouse, and found and took what he needed at the fastest speed.

Food, flashlight, batteries, sleeping bag, multi-tool knife, windproof lighter, electrician's tape, small stove gas canister, small water filter, portable first-aid kit, personal hygiene items, etc.

Guan Tong packed these items into two backpacks, tied them together with the sleeping bag, and slung them over his shoulders. Then he thought for a moment and picked up the leader's "pliers." Shadow had used them quite well just now, so he could take them along.

Then he immediately left the supply point and went to a nearby shared transportation station.

In Guan Tong's previous world, the sharing economy was already very developed. In this world, the sharing economy had developed even better, with everything from bicycles and balance scooters to small cars available at the station.

He casually found a black SUV, scanned the code to get in, and placed his backpacks in the back seat. He sat in the front seat, took off his snow-covered hood, opened the navigation map, and first set the destination to a point on the outskirts of the city.

After pressing the "Go to Destination" option, the shared SUV automatically began to drive according to the navigation.

Guan Tong's own perception was that the technological level of this world was about ten to twenty years ahead of his original world. Within cities with detailed electronic maps, autonomous driving technology could already be used normally.

Therefore, he didn't need to drive himself now. After setting the city outskirts, it would automatically drive there. Once outside the city where autonomous driving was no longer possible, he would take over and drive to his destination, Mingdao Mountain.

The vehicle began to move. The rules had only been in effect for about half an hour. Although it was snowing heavily, there wasn't much snow accumulation on the road yet, so driving and pedestrians walking were not a problem.

There were still quite a few vehicles on the street, likely people heading to their desired gathering points.

About ten minutes later, Guan Tong suddenly heard the sound of a propeller: "Doo doo doo doo doo doo." He poked his head out the window and saw a helicopter hovering in the air, sprinkling something down onto the road below.

"Is it de-icing agent or some chemical to slow down snow accumulation?"

Guan Tong thought. At this moment, he saw a convoy approaching from the opposite lane. It was an open-top armed convoy!

He saw through the car window that the open-top armed vehicles were filled with soldiers, all armed to the teeth. They sat upright, gripping their rifles tightly, as if they had received orders to carry out a mission.

Guan Tong pondered for a moment and understood. The large gathering of people this time could easily lead to trouble. If large-scale conflicts broke out, it would only cause a lot of unnecessary casualties.

But if each gathering point had some armed personnel, at least no one would dare to openly cause trouble.

Just like the self-service supply storage point earlier, if there were armed personnel guarding it, the pharmaceutical factory workers wouldn't dare to take the supplies for themselves with wrenches and axes, even if they had the guts.

Guan Tong thought as he took out his phone and opened the internet.

He searched for the keyword "snowfall amount." As expected, in just over half an hour, someone had already discovered the hidden rules.

A netizen with an IP address from "Nalgeemu" posted a short video showing the snowfall in their location.

On the vast gray land, snowflakes drifted faintly, looking weak and listless. Compared to the overwhelming blizzard in big cities like Yong'an and Yunhua, it was simply described by four words: "peaceful and quiet."

The netizen filming said in the video, "No, is the snow in your mainland areas that heavy? It seems pretty normal here. It's not even snowing as much as it usually does in winter."

This video had already broken tens of thousands of comments and was still rapidly increasing.

"Is this a fake video???"

"Real or fake?! Does anyone know where Nalgeemu is?"

"I remember Nalgeemu being a no-man's-land in the southern Xinjiang region... Wasn't there a news report last year about a team of backpackers trying to cross Nalgeemu and going missing..."

"What the heck? Some places get a lot of snow, and some places get very little?!"

"Holy crap! Why are the Fire Thieves so mean (crying face emoji, crying face emoji), giving us so much snow and so little over there!"

"Could the snowfall vary by region? Has there been an official confirmation?!"

"I just called the official inquiry line! The staff replied that they were already aware of the situation and are currently investigating urgently!"

Guan Tong saw this and turned off his phone screen to save battery.

He knew that the officials had definitely noticed this situation by now. He just didn't know what they would do.

Would they completely reverse the policy of gathering people for rescue and switch to dispersing them separately, or would they continue to firmly implement the original policy?

But no matter what the officials did, Guan Tong knew he had already made his decision.

He glanced at the battery level of his shared car. With a full charge, it could travel up to 1000 kilometers continuously. The distance from here to his destination, Mingdao Mountain, was over 700 li. Considering the power drain due to the temperature drop, it would definitely be enough, and he wouldn't need to charge it midway.

He just didn't know what the situation was like over at Mingdao Mountain.

Guan Tong thought to himself. The reason he chose Mingdao Mountain was that it was an undeveloped wild mountain. Apart from a few backpackers who enjoyed hiking and climbing wild mountains, very few people went there.

After the Apocalypse Rules descended, even fewer people would go there.

Therefore, with Yunhua City as the center, within Guan Tong's driving range, Mingdao Mountain was definitely the place with the lowest population density. All other counties and villages had much higher population densities.

"I hope the snow there isn't too heavy," Guan Tong thought. "That way, I'll have enough food. If I run out of water, I can filter snowmelt. And with Shadow, who is a 'laborer with limited existence time but unlimited stamina,' surviving for a month shouldn't be a big problem."