Chapter 95: Two Old Sixes

When Chen Ye finally caught up with the convoy, the Blood Moon hung high in the sky.

A crimson glow saturated the dunes, painting the desert in hues of dried blood.

From a distance, the camp looked far larger than before. On one side, dozens of camels were huddled together on the sand. On the other, the vehicles were parked in a defensive circle.

In the center roared a massive bonfire. Chu Che, Iron Lion, and Sun Qianqian were gathered around it. Smaller fires dotted the periphery, each surrounded by clusters of survivors roasting something over the flames.

A strange, savory meat aroma wafted through the air.

Chug-chug-sputter.

Chen Ye’s Doomsday Pickup limped into camp, drawing the attention of nearly everyone present.

The vehicle groaned to a halt.

Chen Ye stepped out. He looked less like a man and more like a clay statue. From hair to boots, he was coated in a thick layer of gray dust. Only the blinking whites of his eyes and his teeth proved there was a human underneath.

“Ptooey! Ptooey! Ptooey!”

The first thing Chen Ye did was spit a mouthful of grit onto the ground.

Driving without a windshield meant he had essentially eaten sand for the last hour. Every time he patted his clothes, a small dust storm erupted around him.

The Doomsday Pickup was in even worse shape.

Not only was it battered and gray, but both doors were gone. The driver’s side door, already damaged, had been shaken loose by the rough terrain and fallen off somewhere in the dunes. Chen Ye, busy fleeing for his life, hadn’t exactly stopped to pick it up.

No windshield. No doors. The aesthetic was… aggressively rustic.

“Chen Ye?”

A flashlight beam cut through the dark, blinding him. It was Captain Chu.

“Who else would it be?” Chen Ye grumbled, shielding his eyes. “You guys are heartless, running off without me. What if I didn’t make it back?”

“If you didn’t make it back,” Chu Che deadpanned, “I’d consider it ridding society of a scourge.”

“What happened to your car?”

“It’s a miracle it’s still running.”

The tension had eased enough for banter. Chen Ye ignored the jab and walked straight to the main fire.

He had intended to ask about the Artifact they had supposedly looted earlier, but seeing the current atmosphere, he decided to save it for later.

The core group had grown by one.

Ding Dong, the woman from the camel caravan, sat with them. Since they had conspired together to take down the Demon Sequence, they were practically old war buddies.

Chen Ye nodded at her. She returned the greeting politely.

“Smells good. You guys kill a camel?”

Sun Qianqian sniffed the air loudly. “Yeah! I’ve never had camel meat before. Hope it’s good.”

The girl was practically drooling, her eyes glued to the roasting spit. She wasn’t the only one; in the apocalypse, fresh meat was a luxury usually reserved for dreams. Most people subsisted on hardtack or cured jerky.

Iron Lion stared at the roasting meat with intense focus. He acknowledged Chen Ye with a grunt but immediately returned his gaze to the fire. The big guy looked like he was about to cry from hunger.

The Titan Sequence burned calories like a furnace. For Iron Lion, the lack of meat recently had been torture.

“We didn’t have a choice,” Chu Che said, shaking his head. “These camels won’t last much longer. They’re all going to die soon.”

He looked genuinely pained. To a pragmatist like Chu Che, these camels were prime transportation—superior to cars in the deep desert. Eating them felt like burning money to stay warm.

“No feed?” Chen Ye asked, glancing around.

“Zhan Lei was responsible for the camels,” Ding Dong explained, her voice tinged with sadness. “He was a Breeder Sequence.”

“He fed them secret pills every few days. As long as they ate those, they didn’t need food or water for days at a time.”

“But Zhan Lei escaped, and he took the pills with him.”

“Without food, they won’t last long.”

Ding Dong looked down. She had traveled with these animals for a long time; killing them clearly weighed on her. Nearby, survivors were already butchering several carcasses.

Chen Ye nodded, impressed.

Every Sequence really does have its own miracles.

To raise a herd this healthy in the apocalypse was incredible. If that Breeder had enough time and resources, he could probably raise an army of beasts that would crush other Beyonders. Those wolves they fought earlier had been the size of calves.

It explained why the camels carried no fodder. The secret was in the pills.

Unfortunately, without the Breeder, the camels were doomed.

In this environment, a camel needed 4-8 kilograms of hay and 8-10 liters of water daily. The convoy gathered dry wood for fires, but finding that much fodder was impossible. And water? Water was gold. Chu Che wasn’t going to waste precious hydration on livestock.

So, they had to be turned into reserve food.

The convoy had plenty of people who knew how to strip meat and make jerky. It might taste like leather, but it beats starving.

Soon, the meat was ready.

A skewer of roasted camel was placed in front of Chen Ye.

The aroma was overpowering. His mouth flooded with saliva.

However, Chen Ye didn’t pick up his skewer.

Instead, he glanced sideways.

These weren’t ordinary camels. They had been raised on Beyonder drugs by a Breeder Sequence. Who knew what side effects the meat might have?

Just as he looked up, his eyes locked with Captain Chu Che.

Chu Che was also staring at his food without touching it.

The two men exchanged a knowing look. The telepathy was instant.

Chen Ye: You cunning fox.

Chu Che: You sly bastard.

While the two strategists played 4D chess, everyone else dug in.

Iron Lion opened his massive maw and tore into a huge chunk of meat, chewing blissfully.

“Ye-zi, Captain! Why aren’t you eating?” Sun Qianqian asked, her cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk. “It’s delicious!”

Chen Ye grinned. “Ladies first. You guys enjoy.”

Opposite him, Chu Che politely declined, claiming he “wasn’t hungry yet.”

Truly, two “Old Sixes”—cut from the exact same cloth.