The Absolute Favorite in the Apocalyptic Rebirth

The next morning, as dawn broke, the two of them got out of bed and got ready. After breakfast, they headed out.

Lou Ling carried a women's travel backpack, her trusty Tang sword in hand. She wore a green camouflage outfit and army boots, her entire body covered except for her face and hands. Lou Dian also changed into a green camouflage outfit. Originally appearing tall and thin, he now looked broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and long-legged in the camouflage, very neat and tidy. His soft black hair fell against his forehead, tucked behind his ears. He was smiling gently, yet inexplicably gave off a sense of pureness that felt almost forbidden.

That kind of impression was what made men sexy!

She didn't know if it was because she had shifted her impression of him in her heart, no longer seeing him purely as family, but recently she often found herself looking at him through the eyes of a woman. She couldn't help but blush again.

Lou Dian had been checking his weapons when he noticed her peeking at him. Their eyes met, and she froze for a moment before looking away nonchalantly. If her face wasn't so red, her ears practically dripping blood, it might have been more convincing.

A hint of pleasant surprise flickered in his heart. Lou Dian tossed the weapon holster back into his spatial storage and pounced.

"Hey, hey, hey… what are you doing?!" Lou Ling exclaimed in shock. He had her pinned to the ground, lying on her back. This position was too dangerous!

Lou Dian held her close, his body pressed against hers. He took a deep breath next to her neck, suddenly feeling that his past self had been a fool.

Wasn't he a fool? In his past life, she had always treated him as family, so he had endured all his desires and impulses, staying by her side in the apocalypse as a good brother. They had supported each other for years, their lives intertwined for years, yet she still hadn't opened her heart to him. When he finally decided he couldn't bear it any longer and made a move on her, she was gone…

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but bite her delicate neck. The saying was right: strike first to gain the advantage, strike later and suffer the consequences. What was his could only be his!

Lou Ling cried out in pain and kicked out, but his strength held her tight. For a moment, she was terrified that he was going to have his way with her right there in the wilderness. It was only when he didn't go any further, instead just holding her close like a possessive beast, that she finally calmed down. She didn't know how long it was before she felt the cold metal of his belt buckle against her stomach and finally relaxed.

After he'd had his fill of nuzzling her, he finally pulled away, satisfied. Lou Ling felt her resolve crumbling. She would probably give in to him willingly soon enough. It wasn't that she refused to be intimate with him, but she still felt awkward. After all, they had spent ten years in a dynamic of a chuunibyou older brother and his violent little sister. It was hard to suddenly shift gears.

The village was located at the edge of the forest. It only took about twenty minutes to walk from the village into the woods.

As they entered the forest, the dense canopy made the air refreshingly cool, but the eerie silence also brought a sense of danger.

Lou Ling pushed aside all other thoughts and went on high alert.

Lou Dian walked ahead. From behind, his posture seemed as casual as ever, but it gave her a sense of security. He held the Tang sword in one hand, clearing the path, and held her hand tightly with the other, as if afraid they would be separated. She couldn't help but hold his hand back.

After an hour of walking, they were completely turned around. The deeper they went, the darker and more dangerous the forest felt.

Lou Dian suddenly stopped. As Lou Ling looked around vigilantly, he put his arm around her waist, jumped, and landed on the trunk of a large tree. Lou Ling wrapped her arms around his waist and looked down. She saw something moving quickly through the undergrowth, like a snake, but longer than any snake she'd ever seen.

At that moment, Lou Dian grabbed a hanging vine, kicked off a tree trunk, and swung across, moving nimbly between the trees as if he had done it a thousand times before. Lou Ling clung tightly to him. At first, she was afraid they would crash into other trees, but after realizing there was no such worry, she began to focus on the danger below.

A emerald green vine snaked through the undergrowth, chasing after them. Occasionally it would lash out, striking the trees they passed with enough force to shake even those ancient giants.

After dodging for a while, Lou Dian finally stopped, placing Lou Ling on a tree and instructing her not to run before jumping down. He landed on the approaching vine, Tang sword slashing.

Lou Ling watched nervously, leaning against the tree trunk. Suddenly, she sensed movement behind her. Without thinking, she grabbed a nearby vine, swung forward, and used the momentum to land back on the ground. Turning, she saw that the spot she had just been standing on was now the target of a different mutated plant, this one with thin, wire-like vines.

Lou Ling drew her own Tang sword and joined the fight.

She didn't know what kind of mutated plant it was that had entangled her, but its vines were like iron wires. Her sword clashed against them with a metallic clang, the vibrations numbing her hand. In contrast to the wire-like vines, its leaves were small and delicate, a vibrant green that was almost pleasant to look at. Lou Ling tried to fight it for a while longer, but realized that brute force was useless. She quickly assessed her surroundings and ran.

On the other side, Lou Dian had already hacked the green vine that had attacked them into countless pieces. Green sap stained the ground. Only one vine, still connected to the main root, lay twitching on the ground. It would take a long time for it to recover.

After dealing with it, Lou Dian rushed back to help Lou Ling, who was being chased in circles by the other mutated vine.

"Brother, this mutated vine is really tough, I can't cut it!" Lou Ling shouted, dodging a lashing vine with a roll and scrambling behind a large tree.

Lou Dian quickly reached her side. Seeing the red welt on her face where a vine had struck her, his eyes flashed, and a touch of ruthlessness entered his demeanor.

Lou Ling saw that he looked ready to set the whole forest on fire and hurriedly stopped him. "Don't! If the whole mountain burns, we'll be in trouble too." Although it was the apocalypse now, and no one would care about "setting fire to the mountain and going to jail", she, a law-abiding citizen both before and after the apocalypse, felt that burning the mountain was wrong, the act of a criminal destroying the natural environment. Besides, if a fire started in the forest, could they escape? There were no fire trucks to save them now.

Lou Dian touched her face and said, "It's fine, we just need to control the fire."

Lou Ling was puzzled, but then he pulled out a can of gasoline. The gasoline ignited when it touched the sparks on the ground, and soon a raging fire was burning. However, the flames seemed to be contained within a certain area and did not spread.

"This is a domain controlled by mental power," Lou Dian explained to the puzzled Lou Ling.

"You really do have a mental ability!" Lou Ling said in realization.

Lou Dian smiled but said nothing. He had never concealed it from her.

As they were talking, the iron wire vine struggled violently in the fire. After using his mental power to locate its roots, Lou Dian specifically poured gasoline around them. One of the downsides of mutated plants was that they couldn't run away, so it could only endure the scorching heat. The vines thrashed wildly, snapping many of the surrounding shrubs and grass in half.

Seeing this, Lou Ling hurriedly said, "Brother, don't burn it to death." She still wanted to get some seeds.

Lou Dian agreed. When the fire had burned long enough, he extinguished it with water from his spatial storage. After the fire died down, an area of about a hundred square meters was left scorched. Only the lonely mutated vine remained, looking as if it had been pulled from the soil and left to dry in the sun, ready to be used as firewood.

Lou Dian took out his Tang sword and cut off the burnt vines. After searching for a bit, he found twenty-five silver-gray seeds, oval-shaped and about the size of a fingernail.

Lou Ling took the seeds and sensed them with her powers. Five of them were lifeless, but the rest still had a spark of life. Worried that the fire had damaged them, she channeled her powers into them. The seeds absorbed her energy and regained their vitality. Perhaps because they were still seeds, their resistance to her power wasn't strong. Once she had them under control, she would be able to use them.

After obtaining the seeds, they didn't bother finishing off the half-dead mutated vine, leaving it to recover and grow on its own. They then went to check on the green vine that Lou Dian had chopped into pieces, finding more seeds among its branches.

Lou Ling carefully put the two types of seeds into her backpack, deciding to study their uses and functions when they got back. After a short rest, they continued on their way.

Although they had left the two mutated plants in a sorry state, they hadn't killed them, allowing them to continue growing. This was a deliberate decision. For a wood-elemental ability user, taming a mutated plant could provide a powerful advantage in battle. In addition, the mutated plants in the forest could also help keep the mutated beasts in check, maintaining a certain balance.

After a morning of walking, they finally made it through the forest and arrived at the foot of the mountain.

Lou Dian surveyed their surroundings and found a clearing to rest and eat lunch.

Lunch was rice balls, flatbread, homemade beef jerky, and roast chicken. These were all made by Old Mo, his unique recipes. The roast chicken was still warm when they took it out. Despite the heat, they had worked up an appetite after a morning of walking. Together, they polished off a plate of beef jerky and a whole roast chicken.

After lunch, they set off again.

There was a small wooden hut at the foot of the mountain, built by villagers long ago as a place for the mountain guards to rest. After the apocalypse, no one guarded the mountain anymore, and the hut was abandoned, covered in dust. After making sure there were no dangerous mutated beasts or plants nearby, they decided to spend the night in the hut instead of returning to the village.

Wrapped in a blanket, Lou Ling sat on the only wooden bed in the hut. Compared to the city, the night air in the mountains was pleasantly cool, perfect for a good night's sleep. However, the dangers were also greater.

"Brother, you take the second half of the night, I'll keep watch for the first half," Lou Ling volunteered.

Lou Dian had already used his mental power to create a barrier around them, which could create illusions, repel mutated beasts and plants, and serve as an early warning system, allowing him to sense any approaching danger. However, seeing her insistence on taking the first watch, he knew she didn't want to be coddled. He smiled and nodded, lying down next to her.

Lou Ling stiffened as he wrapped his arm around her waist, his face pressed against her stomach. She felt uncomfortable, but he said that this was more comfortable for him to sleep, so she didn't object.

Before it was time for his watch, Lou Dian woke up. He pulled the person who was still diligently keeping watch with her mental power into his arms, patted her back, and said, "Alright, it's your turn to sleep. Be good, girls need their beauty sleep."

Lou Ling couldn't help but roll her eyes and touch her face. Her best feature was her clear, fair skin. Even though her features were only considered delicate, her complexion added to her charm. That was why, even though she could be a bit of a tomboy sometimes, she still had a few admirers back in school. Unfortunately, before she even noticed, those admirers had been "invited" for a chat with a certain "brother."

Perhaps because she had been thinking about her school days before falling asleep, Lou Ling dreamed of her busy senior year of high school. Under the pressure of the college entrance exams, there was an unspoken understanding that any boy and girl who sat near each other in class would inevitably develop a bit of a crush. She had also been quite close to a boy in her class who excelled academically. Because they sat at the same desk, one behind the other, they often studied together. They had compatible personalities, and somehow, a hint of ambiguity had blossomed between them. Every day after school, they would walk home together, chatting about their studies, universities, and the future.

And it was at times like these that Lou Dian, her "brother," would come out to make trouble. He hadn't changed a bit from his chuunibyou days, his sharp tongue still as sharp as ever, except now his target wasn't his little sister, but other boys. After a few times, the boy suddenly distanced himself from her. Apart from discussing schoolwork, he no longer chatted with her about anything else.

At that time, she was still naive and oblivious. It wasn't until the celebratory dinner after the college entrance exams that the boy asked her to walk with him around the campus and said something baffling: "Lou Ling, you should be careful of your brother, I think he's a little…"

Poor her, at that time, she had thought that this boy was just another person who had been scared off by Lou Dian. Even though she had a vague understanding in her heart, she attributed it to her brother being overly protective of his little sister.

Warm lips moved across her face. Her long eyelashes fluttered, and she slowly opened her eyes to find that the sky outside was already tinged with the faint light of dawn.

She stared blankly at the man kissing her, his arms still wrapped tightly around her. As she registered their position and the heat pressed against her stomach, Lou Ling instinctively grabbed his chin and pushed him away, scooting backward. However, she forgot how narrow the wooden bed in the hut was. Her upper body tilted back, and she almost fell.

"Why so careless?" he asked, pulling her upright. His voice was gentle, but his eyes told a different story. They were bloodshot at the corners, a clear sign that he was struggling to hold back.

Lou Ling's face twitched. She glanced at his messy clothes, then at her own, the buttons undone all the way down. She couldn't help but curse inwardly: Don't go into heat first thing in the morning!

Author's Notes: Today's goal:

Lou Ling's goal: Must… endure!

Lou Dian's goal: There's no need to endure what you can't endure!

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