North of the P.F.D.A. testing grounds lay Lihua Mountain.
As its name suggested, Lihua Mountain had once been planted with vast numbers of pear trees. Every spring, the pear blossoms carpeting the mountainside could dye the entire peak snow-white.
The villagers in the two villages at its foot had also escaped poverty and found prosperity by growing pear trees, living comfortable and fulfilling moderately prosperous lives.
But with the arrival of the Eternal Night, all of that had vanished.
All the villagers from the two settlements at the foot of Lihua Mountain had relocated to resettlement camps on the outskirts of Tianfu City. The abandoned villages had become like the set of a rural horror film. Now and then, a gust of sinister wind slipped through the deserted alleys, rustling the straw and firewood piled in courtyards as though Anomalies were whispering.
The pear trees covering Lihua Mountain had all died within half a month after the Eternal Night descended. No sunlight, no nutrients, no care from the villagers, and the sudden plunge in temperature... Taken together, these factors had dealt an almost fatal blow to Lihua Mountain's agriculture.
Only the withered trunks remained standing on the mountain. From afar, they looked like grotesque skeletons—their twisted, gnarled branches like limbs writhing in agony before death, a horrifying sight.
Yao Yu moved through the corpses of those pear trees, gulping down ragged breaths.
A concrete mountain road led from the village at the foot of the mountain to the pear orchards above. He could have driven straight up... but Yao Yu knew that a car was far too conspicuous. Drones in the sky would be able to lock onto his position.
Left with no choice, he abandoned both the car and the paved road, climbing the mountain along an extremely treacherous