9: The school beauty offered herself! Isn't this pose a bit too much?

The morning mist was like a layer of moldy cotton wool, plastered tightly against the bus windows.

Visibility was less than five meters; the world seemed to have been completely swallowed by this grayish-white miasma, with only the low, faint roars in the distance remaining—the sound of phlegm rolling in a beast's throat, making one's scalp tingle.

Su Chen withdrew his hand from the ignition button, a cold, stinging pain shooting through his fingertips.

The engine didn't respond; it wasn't broken, just too cold.

Although he had fixed the cooling system last night, the damn low temperature had frozen the diesel in the fuel lines into a semi-solid, jelly-like state.

This piece-of-junk bus was now nothing more than an iron coffin.

"Cough, cough..." From the back seat came the heart-wrenching sound of Tang Yurou coughing, sounding like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other.

Her small face was flushed red with fever, her lips cracked and peeling, even oozing blood.

"Water... I want to drink water..."

"There's none left." Zhao Wanting's voice was as cold and hard as a stone.

She stood guard by the yellow plastic bucket, clutching an engineer's shovel tightly in her hand, with only the last half-liter of liquid, resembling murky mud, left at the bottom.

"According to Chapter 3 of the 'Wartime Resource Rationing Regulations'."

Zhao Wanting scanned the pale-faced girls, her gaze deliberately skipping over Su Chen.

"This water must be prioritized for personnel with combat capabilities, or..."

She paused, her eyes sweeping over Tang Yurou.

"Or for those who can provide value to the team. Tang Yurou is a liability right now; giving it to her is just a waste."

The bus was deathly silent, save for Tang Yurou's suppressed sobbing.

Su Chen leaned against the driver's seat, watching the Class Monitor's performance with amusement.

Heh! At a time like this, she was still playing these bureaucratic games. Did she really think this was playing house?

He licked his parched lips; his throat felt like it was smoking.

Although the Extreme Yang Sacred Body was formidable, it also consumed a lot of energy. Last night's car repairs, combined with the outburst while bathing, meant he urgently needed to replenish his fluids.

"I can clean this water."

Su Chen spoke lazily; his voice wasn't loud, but it was like a pebble thrown into stagnant water.

Zhao Wanting turned her head sharply, her face full of mockery: "You? Can you do magic, or do you come with a built-in filter? This mud soup doesn't even have time to settle..."

"Ancient method, the principle of internal Qi vibration."

Su Chen spouted nonsense, dipping his finger into the muddy water in the bucket and drawing a circle on his palm that looked profound but was actually meaningless.

He even deliberately furrowed his brows, pretending to be unfathomable.

"However, my Yang Energy is too intense; direct contact with the water will cause it to evaporate instantly. I need a female with a Yin-natured constitution to act as a 'medium', conducting it through skin-to-skin contact for three minutes."

Even he thought this nonsense was ridiculous. It was purely to disgust Zhao Wanting, and incidentally, to see how low these so-called proud daughters of heaven would lower their bottom lines in the face of life and death.

"Liar!" Zhao Wanting scoffed.

"You just want to take advantage of the situation, right? Such cheap tactics..."

"I'll do it." A cold, clear voice interrupted Zhao Wanting's scolding.

Lin Mengyao stood up from her seat.

In her eyes looking at Su Chen, there still lingered the shock from what she had seen through night vision last night—that pale golden aura, that temperature capable of bringing cold machinery back to life.

If there was anyone in this world capable of creating miracles, it could only be him.

Under the gaze of more than thirty pairs of eyes in the class, this usually aloof chaebol heiress walked straight to the side of the driver's seat.

Su Chen raised an eyebrow; before he could speak, a faint scent of orchids wafted toward him.

Lin Mengyao did not hesitate in the slightest, parting her legs and kneeling directly on Su Chen's lap, facing him.

Hiss— Su Chen gasped.

This position... was a bit too extreme.

Softness, warmth, and the slight trembling caused by nervousness were clearly transmitted through the thin fabric.

Lin Mengyao's face was red enough to drip blood, but she suppressed her shame, cupping Su Chen's mud-stained hand in both of hers and pressing her burning cheek tightly against the carotid artery on the side of his neck.

"Start," she whispered in Su Chen's ear, her voice trembling violently.

【Detected Level 2 Bond target expressing willingness to actively sacrifice, Extreme Yang Sacred Body purification aura has been activated.】

The system's notification sound rang in his mind at just the right moment.

Su Chen felt secretly pleased, but on the surface, he remained calm, mobilizing a wisp of Yang Energy within his body.

A pale golden halo spread from his palm, and the half-liter of murky, filthy mud water began to bubble as if it were boiling.

Strangely, no water vapor rose; instead, the dark brown mud and impurities seemed to be forcibly stripped away by some power, rapidly settling to the bottom of the bucket.

Three seconds. Just three seconds.

The liquid, which had originally been like sewage, had actually become clear and bright, even emitting a hint of sweet fragrance.

"Holy sh*t..." "It... it turned clear?" A chorus of gasps rang out in the bus.

Li Sisi pushed up her glasses, her pupils contracting violently: "This isn't physical filtration, nor does it conform to chemical replacement... Could this be molecular rearrangement induced by some kind of biological magnetic field?"

Su Chen ignored the shock of these nerds. He picked up the now-clear water and took a large gulp himself; the sweet, crisp taste slid down his throat, instantly nourishing his parched insides.

Then, he handed the remaining water to Tang Yurou, who was staring in dumbfounded amazement.

Tang Yurou drank it with trembling hands. Almost visibly, the sickly flush on her face began to fade, and her rapid breathing became steady.

"This is sorcery!" Zhao Wanting suddenly screamed, her finger pointing at Su Chen shaking.

She pulled a worn notebook from her bosom, flipped through it frantically to a page, and held it up in front of everyone.

"My dad's notes wrote about this! In the early stages of the apocalypse, people like this will awaken. They don't cultivate abilities, they specialize in plundering Yin to supplement Yang! This is a 'Plundering Yin to Supplement Yang' evil cultivation method! He is draining Meng Yao's lifespan to charge this water!"

That was quite the accusation. Su Chen almost spat out the water he had just drunk.

It was a real waste that this Class Monitor didn't write fantasy novels.

"Zhao Wanting, was your head caught in a door?" Qin Ya, who had been silent all along, suddenly stood up.

This intellectual and gentle Class Teacher, at this moment, was like a lioness protecting her cubs, blocking directly in front of Su Chen.

"When we were fixing the engine last night, I saw with my own eyes that Su Chen used his own body heat to melt the rubber hose! If it's sorcery, then was saving Tang Yurou from the tentacle monster's mouth also sorcery? When you were so scared your legs went weak back then, this 'sorcery' saved your life!"

Zhao Wanting's face went pale from the retort. She opened her mouth to argue back, but realized the way the surrounding girls looked at her had changed.

It was questioning, dissatisfaction, and even disgust.

Su Chen felt the person in his arms soften.

Lin Mengyao did not get up, still lingering on him. In those cold, clear eyes, the original vigilance and arrogance had shattered into pieces, replaced by a kind of near-blind reliance.

【Lin Mengyao's loyalty has broken through the "Trust" threshold. Current level: Attachment.】

A barely perceptible arc curled at the corners of Su Chen's mouth. Winning hearts is the best strategy; this wave was not a loss!

Just then, a teeth-grinding sound of metal tearing came from outside the bus window, breaking the standoff inside.

Everyone instinctively looked out the window.

In the dense fog, a giant creature the size of a bull slowly emerged.

It had no fur, only festering, pus-oozing muscles, and deep-set eye sockets in which two clusters of eerie green ghost fire burned.

It was the Rotten-faced Dog King.

It was stepping on the corpse of a companion, its sharp claws easily tearing open the chest of its own kind.

Seemingly sensing the gazes from inside the bus, the Dog King abruptly raised its head.

Its eerie green gaze pierced through the fog and the blast-proof film that had cracked due to last night's collision, precisely locking onto the direction of the bus's rear.

There, it was the only weakness of this bus—the fuel tank guard plate that was exposed due to the modifications.

"Thump!" The ground shook violently. The monster bent its hind legs slightly and, like a cannonball fired from a chamber, launched a charge toward the rear of the bus.