So safe!

The sound of running water in the bathroom stopped.

About ten minutes later, the frosted glass bathroom door gently opened, and warm, damp air carrying the fresh scent of shower gel instantly spread through the cab.

Lin Hui instinctively glanced in the rearview mirror, then his gaze lingered.

The mechanic whose face had been covered in grease was gone.

In her place stood a fresh-faced girl wearing a bathrobe.

With no change of clothes, Su Qingqian could only wrap herself in Lin Hui's spare white bathrobe for now. It was clearly too big for her, its sleeves rolled up several times to reveal a stretch of fair forearm as pale as tender lotus root.

Her formerly filthy hair had been washed black and silky smooth. It hung wet over her shoulders, water still dripping from the ends.

Amid the rising steam, her delicate, palm-sized face emerged.

Without the grease obscuring them, her features had the gentle grace of a woman from Jiangnan. Her eyes were especially clear and lively, their slightly downturned corners giving her a naturally innocent look.

After the hot shower, her fair skin was flushed pink, like a freshly peeled lychee.

Not bad-looking at all.

Lin Hui silently gave his assessment.

Back in his old world, a girl this pretty could have collected a basketful of love letters just by taking a lap around campus.

Su Qingqian seemed uncomfortable in the oversized bathrobe, clutching its collar tightly with both hands. When she noticed Lin Hui looking at her, her cheeks warmed, and she instinctively tucked her neck in.

"Um... I'm done."

"My old clothes were too dirty, so I put them in the washing machine while I was at it. They haven't dried yet..."

Her voice was quiet, with a hint of timidity.

"Yeah, not bad. You look human now."

Lin Hui looked away, his tone flat, showing no unusual reaction.

He casually picked up a blueprint from the passenger seat and tossed it over.

"Now that you're clean, get to work. You have Machinery Specialization. Take a look at this."

Su Qingqian fumbled to catch the blueprint. At first, she thought it might be some contract selling herself into servitude, but when she looked closely, she froze.

It was a complex mechanical schematic.

[Vehicle Advancement Blueprint (Lv.3 → Lv.4)]

[Required materials:]

[1. Lv.3 RV (requirement met)]

[2. High-strength titanium alloy × 200 units]

[3. Precision Electronic Components × 30 sets (requirement met)]

"High-strength titanium alloy?"

Su Qingqian snapped her head up to look at Lin Hui, her eyes full of surprise.

"It already needs high-strength titanium alloy to reach Lv.4? Is this RV really that far beyond normal specs?!"

Lin Hui shifted back into gear, and the vehicle shuddered slightly. "Do you know where to find any?"

He had only asked casually, but to his surprise, Su Qingqian drew a soft breath and answered.

"Titanium alloy... You rarely find it in ordinary wrecked cars. But this used to be an industrial district. I know there's an abandoned Aviation Parts Factory nearby. There should be some there! But..."

She paused, looking out the window with fear in her eyes.

"The terrain there is really difficult. There are collapsed buildings everywhere, and the zombie density is high. I never dared take my tank too far in. If the rubble jammed its tracks, I'd be dead."

"Difficult terrain?"

A wild grin curled across Lin Hui's lips as he lightly tapped the steering wheel.

"There's no such thing as difficult terrain in my dictionary."

"Hold on."

Vrooom!!!

Before his words had even faded, Lin Hui slammed the accelerator to the floor!

The twenty-ton steel beast instantly surged forward with enough force to take her breath away.

Su Qingqian cried out as she was pressed straight back into the leather sofa.

"Where are we going? There's a rubble field up ahead!!"

Watching the scenery race backward outside, Su Qingqian clung tightly to the grab handle beside the window.

Less than five hundred meters ahead lay a sprawling stretch of collapsed buildings. Broken walls crisscrossed one another, concrete chunks and rebar were piled like mountains, and a wrecked sedan sat among them.

On a road like this, forget an RV-even a tank would have to pick its way around carefully.

But Lin Hui...

Not only did he refuse to slow down, he was still accelerating!

80 km/h... 100 km/h... 120 km/h!

"Lin Hui! The tires will blow! We'll roll over!!" Su Qingqian went deathly pale, clutching her seat belt with both hands and squeezing her eyes shut.

Yet the violent collision and fatal wreck she had expected never happened.

Bang! Crash! Crack!

A barrage of dull impacts sounded around her. The vehicle was indeed shaking, but the sensation... was like a road roller crushing a few pebbles.

The tires on Lin Hui's RV were Indestructible Run-Flat Tires, and they also had Terrain Grip, allowing the vehicle to remain steady on any terrain without ever tipping over!

Su Qingqian opened one eye.

A second later, her jaw nearly hit the floor.

Ahead of her, concrete walls that could wreck an ordinary vehicle and abandoned cars blocking the road were as flimsy as foam before the RV's vicious-looking [Alloy Spiked Ram]!

An SUV lying across the road was rammed more than ten meters away, tumbling through the air and breaking apart.

The RV smashed straight through a half-collapsed brick wall. Bricks scattered in every direction, striking the bulletproof windows with sharp clatters.

Meanwhile, Lin Hui sat in the driver's seat with one hand on the wheel, looking as relaxed as if he were strolling through his own backyard.

"This RV... its stability is way beyond normal specs, isn't it?!"

As a mechanic well versed in vehicles, Su Qingqian felt her entire understanding of the world shatter.

She owned a tank.

But even her Type 59 Tank would have had to proceed cautiously through ruins like these, for fear of snapping a track or getting stuck in a pit.

Yet this man...

He was actually playing bumper cars in the rubble with an RV?!

"What are you staring at?"

Just as Su Qingqian began questioning everything she knew, the vehicle suddenly stopped.

Lin Hui pointed at the wreck outside that he had overturned, exposing its chassis and components.

"I'll clear the map. You handle the dismantling."

"Get out there and strip off the useful materials for me. With Machinery Specialization, you should be pretty quick, right?"

Su Qingqian looked at the devastation outside, then at Lin Hui's matter-of-fact expression, and couldn't help grumbling inwardly:

Is this guy a monster? I wouldn't dare drive my tank like that!

But complaints aside, she was now an "employee."

"Got it!"

Su Qingqian wrapped the bathrobe tighter around herself and climbed out with her toolbox.

The next few hours became the most unforgettable "work experience" of Su Qingqian's life.

Lin Hui drove ahead, bulldozing through everything and carving out a path.

Whenever they spotted an abandoned vehicle along the way, Su Qingqian got out and used her [Machinery] specialization to boost the system's dismantling speed, breaking it down with incredible efficiency.

"That armored cash truck on the left. Strip it!"

"There's a machine tool in that half-collapsed factory on the right. Go check whether there's any titanium alloy!"

"Move faster! The zombies are coming!"

Whenever a pack of zombies foolish enough to approach surrounded them, Lin Hui couldn't even be bothered to fire the cannon. He simply swung the rear end around, using the terrifying [Meat Grinder Spikes] on the rear wheels to instantly shred the zombies into a shower of blood.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Su Qingqian watched the black RV plow through the zombie hordes as if nothing stood in its way. Words could no longer describe her astonishment.

So brutal.

So safe.

That overwhelming power to sweep everything aside gave this girl, who had spent four days struggling cautiously to survive the apocalypse, her first taste of what "the world of the strong" truly meant.