A Boy Seeking Help in the Wilderness

Breaking Dawn.

On the desolate plains, three oddly shaped pickup trucks were kicking up huge clouds of dust as they headed north.

The pickup truck has a silver body with light strips of blue and purple that illuminate the edges of the body, making it look like fireflies in the night.

The pickup truck bed was covered with a waterproof tarpaulin, and underneath it bulged, seemingly full of cargo.

On the side of the pickup truck, the words "City No. 10 and The Wilderness Hunter" are painted, followed by the serial number 0291.

This is a formally registered team of wilderness hunters with valid hunter licenses.

The pickup truck was blasting deafening music, and the five men and two women inside were still in a state of high excitement at this hour of dawn.

But just then, they saw a campfire in a sheltered spot beside a small hill in the wilderness.

Beside the campfire, a boy sat on a rock warming himself by the fire.

On the desolate, gray plains, the orange-red campfire stood like a lighthouse in a black sea, drawing the eye...

The boy sitting there looked extremely lonely.

Upon seeing their vehicle, the boy stood up, walked to the side of the dirt road, and gave them a thumbs-up.

That's a common hand gesture for hitchhiking in the wilderness.

Someone in the pickup truck turned the music down and asked through the walkie-talkie, "Something's not right. Who would be all alone in this wilderness in the dead of winter?"

"It's possible the car broke down on the way. In this awful weather, if the car isn't turned off in time, it's easy for the battery to run out of power."

"Judging from their attire, they should be from the Federation, not from the Wilderness."

"He's at most 18 years old, so the threat level isn't high."

"Should we take him?" someone asked during the evacuation.

"Don't cause trouble, let's just go straight there," a composed young man said through the walkie-talkie in the lead pickup truck. "We have important business to attend to tomorrow, and it's best not to let outsiders know about this."

As the convoy passed the boy, the young man glanced at him.

The boy watched them walk away with helpless eyes.

The next moment, when the young man looked in the rearview mirror, he found that the boy had been lying on the ground at some point, reaching out his hand towards them with difficulty, as if trying to persuade them not to leave.

It looks as terrible as it could possibly be.

Through the car radio, a girl said, "Why don't we help him?"

"But Tuanzi, what if he comes back to the Federation with us and reveals what we're doing tomorrow?" a young man said.

The girl thought for a moment and said, "Chu Ci, we are different from those people. The education we received taught us that we wouldn't stand by and watch someone die."

These people were generally quite young, looking only a year or two older than the boy who had just been standing by the roadside.

But then another young man suddenly said, "It's too cold in the wilderness. We're at least 300 kilometers away from City No. 10. I just checked, and there's no food roasting on his campfire. He must have run out of food in the wilderness this winter. If we don't give him a ride, he might starve or freeze to death in the wilderness."

"Perhaps when we trade with the Wilderness People tomorrow, we can avoid him? We can't just watch him die in the wilderness."

Silence fell simultaneously in all three pickup trucks.

Everyone seemed to be seriously considering something, waiting for someone to make a decision.

The next moment, in the car at the front, a composed young man named Sun Chuci stepped on the brake. "Old Five, you guys cover him, I'll go get him into the car."

At this point, everyone in the convoy seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

Sun Chuci drove back to the boy's side. The girl beside him was holding an automatic rifle on guard, while he stepped forward and said to the boy, "You need a ride, right? To City No. 10?"

The boy stood up and dusted himself off. "Yes, I'm going to City No. 10. Thank you so much. I didn't expect you to be willing to give me a ride."

The boy seemed a little surprised. Most of the people who could Jianghu the wilderness were ruthless and vicious. He hadn't expected anyone to give him a ride; he just thought it would be fun.

Unexpectedly, after the other party had left, they turned back again.

Sun Chuci looked at the boy and said, "I'm sorry, although we are willing to give you a ride, we must search you and confiscate all your weapons before we can go."

The boy nodded, letting Sun Chuci search him.

To Sun Chuci's surprise, the boy was not carrying any weapons, only a basic lighter.

It's normal to bring a lighter. The winter climate is dry, and you can light a campfire even without a fire-starting device like Thor's. Thor's device is designed for wet firewood, and not everyone can afford it.

But it's really strange that someone would come to the wilderness without any weapons.

He asked the boy, "Hello, why are you here alone? What are you doing in this wilderness?"

The boy replied, "My friends and I came from City No. 1 to City 10, but we had a fight on the way. They left me on the road. I thought they would come to pick me up after a couple of days when they calmed down, but they never came back. They even took my gun for self-defense, which I didn't have time to grab."

Sun Chuci and Tuanzi, who was holding an automatic rifle beside him, were both stunned for a moment. "This is outrageous?"

The boy nodded and said, "I still have cash and gold bars in my backpack, and he didn't leave any for me. You can take me to City No. 10, and once I find my friend and get my money back, I can pay you some reward."

The Tuanzi on the other side suddenly said in a very low voice, "Why does this sound so much like that Qin Shi Huang joke? Send me money, and I'll share half with you guys after I find my own imperial tomb."

The lone boy walking in the wilderness didn't change his expression, but he had already taken in all those words.

Sun Chuci didn't respond, but instead looked at the boy. "Hello, how should we address you?"

The boy smiled and said, "Just call me Qing Xiao Tu."

The boy was Qing Chen. With his current hearing, even though the girl in front of him was speaking very softly, he could still hear her clearly.

He immediately realized: This is a team of Time Walker, otherwise how would they know the Qin Shi Huang reference?

It's no wonder the other party was willing to give a ride to a stranger in the wilderness. If someone from the Inner World had started working in society in their teens, they would probably have become accustomed to the wickedness of people's hearts long ago.

These young people in front of us look like they've just started university. The education they've received has always instilled in them the values of helping others and being warm and friendly—the gentle and kind nature of a nation.

The other party probably didn't expect Qing Chen to have such good hearing, and probably also didn't expect that Qing Chen was a Time Walker.

At that moment, two other pickup trucks were parked not far away, with people inside holding automatic rifles and aiming intently at Qing Chen's figure to prevent him from posing a threat to the convoy.

Qing Chen glanced at it briefly. Although the other party was kind, they weren't stupid. At least they had taken the necessary precautions.

He guessed that this might be a Time Walker organization of students at Zhengzhou University, where they gathered together for survival after becoming Time Walker.

The city is too dangerous, so we all came to the wilderness to make a living.

There's a saying Outer World online these days that in cities, not only is it difficult for Time Walker to survive, but even the survival of native inhabitants is often a problem. As the saying goes, you can know a person's face but not their heart. Rather than being schemed against in the city, people might as well go to the wilderness, where wild animals are just fierce, but not as calculating as humans.

Outer World -renowned philosopher once said: I am afraid of ghosts, yet they have not harmed me in the slightest; I am not afraid of people, yet people have left me battered and bruised...

At this moment, Sun Chuci raised his right arm, while curling his index finger and thumb with his right hand, seemingly indicating that the alarms of the other two cars were off.

Qing Chen found this scene quite interesting; the other side even had their own set of tactical hand gestures.

After being searched by Sun Chuci Qing Chen sat in the back of the pickup truck. The air conditioning inside made him exhale a comfortable breath of cool air. "Are you all wilderness hunters?"

In the car, the girl named Tuanzi next to Qing Chen casually asked, "We're the Wilderness Hunters... By the way, what are you and your friend going to City No. 10 for?"

Qing Chen recalled Jiang Yichen's excuse and then explained seriously, "We're going to City No. 10 together to attend a cram school to prepare for Qinghe University's independent admissions in the spring."

Qinghe University is the most famous university in the Federation. The main campus is in City No. 10, and the branch campus is in City No. 18. So every year at this time, ambitious students from all the cities in the Federation will go to great lengths to come to these two cities.

Of course, there is also the Spark Military Academy, which is on par with Qinghe University, but Spark Military Academy does not have an early admission program, so everyone can take the exam in their respective cities.

This excuse is incredibly useful right now.

Upon hearing that Qing Chen was a candidate, Tuanzi paused for a moment, then suddenly said, "I also really wanted to take the entrance exam for Qinghe University, but I failed. Since you say you're a candidate, can I ask you a few questions? Don't overthink it, I just want to confirm your identity."

Although Tuanzi and her friends are wilderness hunters in the Inner World, they are legitimate undergraduate students in the Outer World. Therefore, in Tuanzi's opinion, anyone who tries to pretend to be a good student in front of them is making a big mistake.

As she spoke, the girl kept her hand hidden under her coat, where she was holding a pistol and pointing it at Qing Chen.

Qing Chen was secretly delighted. Wasn't this exactly what he had said to Jiang Yichen back then?

However, he is not a poor student like Jiang Yichen!

Qing Chen smiled and said, "Ask away. If I know the answer, I will definitely answer."

Sun Chuci silently pressed the intercom in the car, while Tuanzi recalled her high school days and asked ten math questions in a row, which Qing Chen answered correctly.

Someone on the walkie-talkie said, "Wow, that's awesome."

Among these ten questions, Tuanzi even included a question specifically on a system of linear equations with finite dimensions, which falls under the category of linear algebra.

This is the only aspect of the Inner World High School that is beyond the curriculum compared to the Outer World High School.

Qing Chen was still able to answer the questions, which indirectly proved that Qing Chen was indeed a high school student preparing for the exam in the Inner World, and even dispelled the Time Walker's suspicions.

After all, high school students in the Outer World don't study this stuff.

Of course, this is not enough to fully prove it.