At 3:22 p.m. on April 1.
On Huai Prefecture Highway 15, eight kilometers before the "Edward Town" road sign, a black SUV slowly pulled over to the side of the road.
The engine died.
The vehicle came to a complete stop and broke down.
Jiang Qiao, sitting in the driver's seat, lit a cigarette and looked out the window.
The snow along the distant ridgeline of the Rocky Mountains was almost painfully white beneath the sunlight. But when viewed from the corner of his eye, some of the mountaintops revealed slight visual distortions, as though they had come alive.
"Boundary effects."
"The supernatural is eroding the real world."
He muttered to himself.
Two hours ago, he had parted ways with Tian Zhuang and the others and driven alone toward the farm. Tian Zhuang and the others had followed the plan and headed to another area to prepare for the subsequent evacuation.
After getting out of the vehicle.
He went to the front, opened the hood, and a plume of white smoke rose into the air.
"Perfect."
Before setting out.
He had asked Tian Zhuang to give the vehicle some appropriate "repairs," ensuring that it would break down when necessary.
"No signal."
He took out his phone and glanced at it.
Jiang Qiao sat by the roadside and began waiting for the fish to bite.
4:40 p.m.
The sun began to drift westward and sink lower, and an engine sounded in the distance at just the right moment.
Soon.
A black pickup truck slowed down and stopped ten meters behind his vehicle.
"Hey!"
"Buddy."
"What are you doing?"
The pickup's driver was a burly man in his fifties. He wore a faded denim jacket and had a face covered in a thick beard. When he got out, Jiang Qiao noticed