A Kind Soul Delivering a Car

Boss, your beauty is gone!

The aftermath of the nuclear blast was indeed spectacular. Xiao Miao glanced at it twice, then withdrew his gaze and began checking the injured.

There was no small amount of work to do. Xiao Miao planned to find a helper first, so he climbed through the shattered windshield into the cockpit and found the unconscious Carlos.

Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap!

After more than a dozen slaps, Carlos's cheeks had turned slightly red, and his eyelids trembled continuously. He looked as if he was about to wake up.

Xiao Miao decisively abandoned Carlos and climbed over to Jill. He pulled the beauty into his arms and carefully checked her over from head to toe. He found that she had only sprained her right ankle and suffered a large bruise on the back of her head; the rest of her body was unharmed.

Xiao Miao breathed a sigh of relief, lowered his head, and kissed her red lips, waking Jill in a gentler manner.

Meanwhile, Carlos slowly woke up. He stared through the shattered windshield at the sky, his cheeks burning as though someone had smacked him with the sole of a shoe dozens of times.

Could a crash really cause injuries like this?

How had that happened?

The question flashed through Carlos's mind before he heard a faint wet sound beside him. Turning his head, he saw Xiao Miao and Jill's heads just pulling apart, a silver thread stretching between them before snapping and vanishing.

Carlos: ...

It seemed like he had woken up at a bad time. What should he do? Pretend to still be asleep?

"Carlos, you're awake." Xiao Miao took the initiative to greet him. "How are you? Anything wrong with your body?"

Carlos moved around a little. "I'm fine. Haven't lost any parts."

Jill had injured the back of her head and was still dazed. Combined with her sprained ankle, she was unfit to take part in the rescue operation, so Xiao Miao carried her over beside Alice to rest.

Carlos had already climbed into the cabin to rescue people. Xiao Miao went in to help, and the two of them only managed to pull out two survivors.

They were Dr. Ashford and his daughter.

The Black guy and the female reporter had gotten themselves killed, leaving Xiao Miao and Carlos feeling regretful. They had overcome so many hardships along the way, only to die in the final helicopter crash. All they could say was that fate was cruel.

The Black guy had died horribly, a broken tree trunk piercing through his chest. Once again, reality proved that Black people and helicopters were fundamentally incompatible; whenever the two met, disaster was sure to follow.

Still, that fit the usual theme of Western movies. There would be a positive Black character serving as comic relief, following the protagonists through every danger, only to die on the eve of victory and force in a final dose of moral value.

The female reporter had been unlucky too. She took a wheelchair falling from the sky courtesy of Dr. Ashford, her chest caving in as she died on the spot.

Dr. Ashford had survived instead, having only broken his lower leg. But he had already been lame, making him naturally immune to the broken-leg debuff. Other than the pain, it had no real effect on him. He had to use a wheelchair anyway.

That was what made sense in reality. In some games, a blind monk could actually be blinded. Who could possibly reason with that?

Planes all had tracking systems, so this was no place to stay.

After Dr. Ashford, Angela, and Alice gradually woke up, the group had no time to bury the Black guy and the female reporter. They treated their injuries with the plane's medical kit and hurried on their way.

Two hours later, several Little Bird helicopters painted with Umbrella Corporation logos swept over the forest. After finding the crash site, they began circling overhead.

Fully armed special forces members rappelled into the forest and surrounded the helicopter wreckage from all directions, only to find two corpses.

Dr. Isaac, who had hurried over, was deeply disappointed. Then news came through his earpiece that the Travelers of All Heavens had vanished into thin air, instantly sending him into a rage as he viciously kicked the bodies.

"Bring in the police dogs and keep searching!"

"Yes!"

On the other side of the Arklay Mountains, Xiao Miao's group crouched beside a mountain road to recover their strength.

Carlos walked over to Xiao Miao and patted him on the shoulder. "Brother, I owe you my life."

Xiao Miao waved a hand. "Don't be like that. Without you, we couldn't have flown the helicopter either. We're even."

Carlos smiled. There was no need for words. He turned and crouched beside Angela, saying something that made the little girl giggle.

Dr. Ashford wore a pained expression, feeling as though there was a risk of someone stealing away his precious daughter. But the girl had gone through such a huge upheaval and truly needed comforting, while he himself was tormented by the pain in his leg and had no mind to care for his daughter.

Carlos had taken that into consideration, which was why he voluntarily took on the task of looking after the child. He might have looked like a rough man, but he was actually more meticulous than Jill.

Xiao Miao stared into empty space. He seemed to be daydreaming, but his gaze was actually focused on the system panel before him.

[Your body has been tempered by fate. Physical Constitution +3]

[You have gained a trace of experience from fate and learned the skill: Heavy Weapons Proficiency lv2]

[You have gained a trace of insight from fate and obtained the talent: Endurance (Green) (You really last a long time!)]

These were the notifications that had appeared after the character card's effect ended.

The process of increasing his Physical Constitution had been extremely gentle. There was neither pain nor itch; a warm current circulated through his body once, and it was over.

It was fast, but quite comfortable. Xiao Miao even somewhat enjoyed the sensation.

The system panel had never provided specific values for the physical attributes represented by Physical Constitution, such as strength, endurance, and neural reaction speed. However, the official source had offered a relatively authoritative comparison chart.

For an ordinary male who had grown normally to the age of eighteen, Physical Constitution generally ranged from 3 to 4 points. For a male in his prime between twenty-five and thirty, it was 5 points.

A human's peak physical condition was roughly four to five times that of an adult male in his prime, yet the corresponding Physical Constitution was only 15 points. This showed that the stat did not grow linearly and was more like an exponential function.

After closing the system panel, Xiao Miao's gaze shifted repeatedly between Carlos, Jill, and Alice.

After this escape and helicopter crash, Jill and Carlos's favorability had both risen to level 4, close friends.

Among them, Jill's card draw cost 20 Fate Points, while Carlos's cost 60 Fate Points, the same as Alice's.

Xiao Miao thought about Carlos's face, trying to remember what movies he had appeared in.

He truly had no impression.

The most memorable scene in his memory was that "most satisfying puff of smoke in the world."

Their rest was very brief. The group continued along the winding mountain road, hoping to catch a ride—one that did not belong to Umbrella Corporation—while discussing their next plan of action.

Several cars passed by one after another, but none showed any intention of stopping. Before long, a muscle car roared in from the distance, ignored Xiao Miao and Carlos waving at it, and braked to a stop beside Jill and Alice.

Five flamboyantly dressed young Black men climbed out of the car, wearing all sorts of gaudy accessories. They looked like street punks, though they also seemed to be gang members.

The five completely ignored Xiao Miao and the other two men, surrounding Jill and Alice instead. One Black man with dreadlocks glared fiercely at Xiao Miao, signaling that he had better behave himself.

"Hey, you two sexy beauties, are you lost in the mountains?"

"Our car's already full, but there's still room on our laps."

"You can sit on whoever you want, or take turns. Hehehe."

"Huh? There's a little girl over there too. This one's mine!"

"You're such a pervert. Don't kill her, or it'll be troublesome."

The five spoke in frivolous tones, their words filled with malice. They clearly regarded the group as fish on a chopping block.

The kind souls delivering a car had arrived!

Xiao Miao, Carlos, Jill, and Alice exchanged glances and tacitly assigned their targets.