Chapter 572: Chapter 571: Absolutely Shameless

The backpack wasn’t found, there were no travel bags in this house.

However...

Zhao Yu picked up two colorful children’s backpacks from the sofa and asked, "Which one do you want? Although the capacity isn’t big, it’s quite light, not much of a burden."

Mu Qiu closed her eyes, swallowed her words of refusal, and said with difficulty, "Can you cover it with a plastic bag?"

She really didn’t want to walk around with an Ultraman or Snow White backpack, it was too embarrassing.

Zhao Yu put down the two backpacks: "Are you annoying or what? So many demands, take it or leave it."

"...I’ll take it. I want the Ultraman one."

Then both of them endured the embarrassment and put on the kindergarten kids’ backpacks. One carried a bag of dried seaweed, and the other a bag of used tissues.

They were so poor and destitute that even half a pack of tissues was cherished immensely.

After raiding two rooms on the third floor, they prepared to go to another floor.

When they left, Shu Ran and Han Xizheng were already gone; who knows where they went.

Mu Qiu’s eyes darted around, thinking Shu Ran and the others might come back looking for her later.

But this wasn’t very important, the main thing was to give this building a simple search first.

The building wasn’t tall, only six floors, some rooms still had doors closed and were inaccessible, so there weren’t many in total.

Half an hour later, they reached the sixth floor, and once again found themselves on a narrow path with Shu Ran and the others.

Shu Ran was sweating profusely, tearing open a wet wipe, and Han Xizheng had just climbed up from the ground, it looked like he had just done fifty push-ups.

"What a coincidence, fate is so magical," Mu Qiu silently tightened her waistband, casually making a polite remark, "We’ve met again. Comrade Han Xizheng, doing push-ups?"

The push-up doing Han Xizheng: "...Yes. What are you guys carrying?"

Compared to his asking the obvious, Shu Ran was more direct, the mockery value directly maxed out.

"Mu Qiu, do you still want some face? An Ultraman backpack? Even a three-year-old wouldn’t carry this."

"What do you know, this is called finding the last bit of childlike innocence in a scarred post-apocalyptic world."

"I’ll go out and tell others that you ransacked a whole building just to find a backpack to pretend to be young."

"...Let’s talk nicely, don’t threaten people at the drop of a hat, young people don’t understand martial virtue."

She touched her nose, changing the subject.

"What are you guys doing? Don’t tell me you’re copying us?"

Shu Ran: "Copying you guys on what?"

"It’s not unspeakable, looking for an archive card, otherwise all sweaty, what else could you be searching for?"

Shu Ran loosened her arms a bit around her chest, continued to wipe sweat with the wet wipe, clearly more relaxed.

"Exactly. You didn’t find it?"

"If we found it, would we still be here? You guys haven’t found it either, right? The main issue is, we don’t even know what the archive card looks like now, we don’t know how to find it."

Throwing out their anxious topic sparked resonance, as long as the other party responded, they could gain reference information for the next step.

As expected, Shu Ran took the bait.

"What, you’ve been searching for so long and still haven’t found it? You’ve finished checking all the lower floors?"

Mu Qiu’s lips curled into a slight arc: "Yes, finished searching and still didn’t find it. We don’t even know what it looks like, at this rate, I’m afraid our food supplies won’t hold out until we find the archive card."

Shu Ran immediately stared straight at her and Zhao Yu.

To be precise, she was staring at their Ultraman backpacks and work pant pockets.

"You have a lot of food? Any water?"

Mu Qiu smiled mischievously: "Yes, but very little, it’s not on us, don’t bother hoping. I do have peanuts on me though, do you want some?"

Both of them unsurprisingly waved their hands in refusal.

"You definitely have other things."

"I do, but that’s none of your business."

Shu Ran and Han Xizheng exchanged a glance, with Shu Ran speaking first: "What do you want?"

Han Xizheng immediately followed up with another question: "Trying to bait us with food? An alliance or subordination?"

"Of course it’s an alliance," Mu Qiu feigned a scolding expression, like she was saying how could you see me like this,

"What subordination or not, sounds so unpleasant. We can form a cooperative external group, we’ll provide you with food for lunch, you join us in searching for the archive card, and once found, we’ll discuss how to use it together, how about that?"

Shu Ran: "That simple? If we find it, we don’t have to hand it over to you?"

"No need, I’m a rather fair and just person."

"I would believe it if you removed the latter half of the sentence."

"......"

Han Xizheng thought for a moment, still felt the terms were too simple, very unreliable.

"You’re trying to bait us with food, but you’re not the only ones with food, there’s still time until lunch, we can completely search for it ourselves."

And we’re not under their control, by the time we find the archive card, we can keep it entirely to ourselves, why still discuss? Considering how things have gone in the previous rounds with Mu Qiu, there’s a high chance that after discussing, it’ll have to be handed over to her.

It’s best to remain a free agent.

He pulled Shu Ran a bit further back, took a step forward, acting as the spokesperson to talk to Mu Qiu: "Forget it then, we feel there’s no need to form an alliance."

Mu Qiu was not in the least bit anxious, leaning back against the wall, leisurely tossing a small bread roll up and down.

"You can certainly find your own food, after all, there might be some leftover things in some nooks and crannies, but—

isn’t our biggest concern now time? You’d spend a ton of time searching for food and also have to search for the archive card, multitasking, and in the end, the most probable outcome is that you find neither.

And during this time gap, perhaps someone has already found the archive card, and before you know it, they might have started massacring. If that’s the case, odds are you’ll end up in last place.

But there’s no rush, it’s not like we desperately need an ally, take your time to think it over, Zhao Yu and I are heading elsewhere, bye-bye."

After saying that, she stood up straight and, hand in hand with Zhao Yu, turned back and walked away without hesitation or reluctance.

Han Xizheng looked back at Shu Ran, softly asking: "So, do we form an alliance?"

Shu Ran was still hesitating: "What she said makes sense. The time gap is indeed a significant issue, but you know Mu Qiu? Her words are three parts truth and seven parts falsehood, maybe if we agree, we’ll just end up walking right into her trap."

Han Xizheng raised an eyebrow: "I’ve heard as much. So now it’s either devising with a tiger or going solo?

They seem so confident, with food filling their pockets and backpacks, looking determined."

She walked back and forth with her arms crossed for quite a while, thinking and thinking again, she drew out the courage similar to when she took a leap of faith and approached Cheng Zhirang before, saying:

"There’s no fun without risk, let’s go, form an alliance. If they’re trying to bait us, they surely haven’t gone far."

The two of them went outside, leaned on the railing to look down, and sure enough, Mu Qiu and Zhao Yu were sitting down below in the stairway, eating peanuts. Upon hearing the noise, they looked up and smiled at them.

"Hey, alliance?"