A communal meal this time?

Yang Yong nodded, grabbed a little food to fill his stomach, then set off with the convoy.

They stopped and started along the way. At every fork, Cao Xianming would stop, scribble and sketch in his notebook, and calculate the probabilities of moving forward.

Yang Yong could not understand how a Data Master's ability actually worked, so he could only watch from the sidelines.

In any case, traveling with the main group was much safer than blundering through the apocalypse alone.

After all that winding travel, the convoy finally reached an inhabited place toward evening.

More precisely, it was not a convoy, but a fleet.

They met beside a large river. Dozens of wooden boats and rafts floated on its broad surface, rocking gently with the waves.

"Captain! Is this the convoy you mentioned? Why are they all on boats? Those mysterious things show up in rivers too. Aren't they afraid?"

Big Lunk Zheng Xiaofeng looked out over the river and was the first to loudly voice his confusion.

"I don't know either!"

Cao Xianming spread his hands and sighed. "I only calculated that taking this route gave us the highest chance of encountering another convoy! Still, if they can migrate along the river, they must have something special going for them."

Just then, several people came off a boat.

They were actually wearing uniforms, though it was no longer possible to tell what kind, since every part bearing an insignia had been cut off.

"Come on, let's go talk to them!" Old Cao took the lead and walked over to meet them.

Soon, the two sides met.

Yang Yong looked up. Two men and a woman had come down from the other side.

The two men were burly and packed with muscle, while the woman was a particularly petite, cute young woman.

The man in front stepped forward and held out his hand to Old Cao. A thin layer of calluses covered his palm, and dark green slime still clung between his fingers.

"Hello. We're the Drifting Boat Fleet. I'm the captain, Li Min, Pathfinder Sequence."

Old Cao was all smiles too as he reached out to shake his hand. "Hello. We're the Survival Convoy. I'm the captain, Cao Xianming."

After that, Li Min invited everyone aboard for a chat.

By unspoken agreement, neither man introduced his teammates. They simply led their people onto the boat.

Once inside the cabin, the two got straight to the point and began discussing trading supplies.

But everything they said was evasive, circling around without a single concrete word.

Yang Yong grew a little irritated listening to them, so he simply stood up and began examining the boat himself.

Plenty of dried fish had been laid out on the Drifting Boat Fleet's boats, but their eyes were an eerie grayish white. It looked as though they probably made their living by fishing.

But there were at least fifty people in this group. How had they lasted this long on fishing alone?

He glanced around. Most of the people aboard were sturdy men with dark skin, yet their outer ears were so thin they were almost transparent. At a glance, they were clearly people who had spent years making a living on the water.

In the apocalypse, there were at least as many Eerie in the water as on land. There was definitely something strange about this fleet surviving on the river until now.

Yang Yong carefully surveyed the area, but everything around him looked normal.

The sunlight was intense right then. In theory, no Eerie would dare show itself at a time like this.

Yet somehow, the back of his neck kept feeling cold, as though something slimy had fixed its gaze on him. That gaze carried the fishy smell of river water and clung to his back, impossible to shake off.

Was it his imagination, or...

His gaze fell on the fleet's formation. All the boats were linked together with thick ropes, like a long, winding snake.

Only the boat Li Min had invited them onto was moored separately to one side. It sat absurdly deep in the water, as though carrying something terrifyingly heavy.

On shore, Lao Zhang and the survivors were still waiting where they were. Without orders from Captain Old Cao, they did not dare act on their own. Whether they left or stayed depended entirely on Old Cao's decision.

Before long, Xiao Ma, the convoy's assistant, came down from the boat.

After reaching shore, he exchanged a few quiet words with Lao Zhang. His face was pale, and even his steps were a little unsteady.

Immediately afterward, the convoy began setting up camp along the bank.

Were they going to spend the night here?

Yang Yong's heart tightened, and his gaze involuntarily turned toward the seemingly calm water.

Something seemed to be swimming slowly beneath the surface. Sunlight could not penetrate that murky layer of green, and only tiny glimmers of phosphorescence flashed and vanished.

He kept feeling that hidden currents were surging beneath the water, concealing something he could neither describe nor explain.

But when he focused and looked closely, there was not even a ripple on the surface.

Yang Yong made up his mind. He could not stay on the boat any longer.

No matter how good a swimmer he was, in these apocalyptic waters, any Eerie that emerged could kill him.

Wasn't it better to stay alive?

Without further hesitation, he turned and headed ashore. But he failed to notice a strand of dripping black hair slowly hanging down from the shadows along the gunwale, brushing the hem of his clothes.

Yang Yong returned to his van and was just about to light his stove to cook when he heard Lao Zhang, the convoy's manager, shouting through a megaphone, "Everyone's having a communal meal today! The captain traded for fish!"

His voice carried throughout the convoy, and everyone grew excited, especially the survivors who never knew where their next meal would come from.

Because it meant that everyone would get to eat, no matter who they were.

This seemed to be a first for the convoy.

All the survivors grew excited, and cheers rang out across the camp.

Under the convoy manager's direction, a large pot was set up, and soon they began heating water.

The women in the convoy were called together to clean the fish and start cooking.

With Lao Zhang making the arrangements, everything proceeded in an orderly fashion.

Following Captain Old Cao's instructions, Xiao Ma traded the convoy's supplies for various kinds of fish from the fleet, soon acquiring a whole vehicle-load.

The first fish brought out to cook was a snakehead as large as a person.

Everyone was stunned.

Since the apocalypse began, plants and animals had undergone all sorts of changes, but no one had expected an ordinary fish to grow this big.

Before the apocalypse, they had only heard of some large fish in the Yangtze growing to over two hundred jin after a ten-year fishing ban. Yet now, even this ordinary river had fish weighing over two hundred jin.

This world was far too surreal.

Yang Yong stood at a distance, silently watching the scene.

He carefully sensed the huge fish but felt nothing special. It was just an ordinary big fish, except for its rather unusual eyes. They were an eerie white, as though it had lived for years in deep, sunless darkness and its eyes had degenerated.

But this river was not very deep. It was just an ordinary little river, no more than four meters at its deepest point. Before the apocalypse, it had not even qualified for a place on the map.

Yang Yong thought about it, then shook his head.

In a world where even Eerie existed, what was impossible?

Soon, the water boiled, and the fish went into the pot.

Yang Yong kept silently watching it all.

In all the days since he had joined the convoy, there had never been a communal meal. Everyone had always eaten separately.

Yet this time, they were having a communal meal. Everything about it felt strange.

It was the apocalypse. There was no harm in being extra careful about everything.