Zhou Haimei stared blankly at the two people in front of her, suddenly feeling like she was completely unnecessary.
After dinner, while washing the dishes, Zhou Haimei pulled Xu An aside and quietly asked, "An'an, did you plan from the beginning to use this antidote to make Qin Chuan work for you?"
Xu An looked at Zhou Haimei's cautious expression and couldn't help but chuckle.
"You don't have to whisper. Qin Chuan knows my intentions. That thing was useless to me. Compared to exchanging it for trade currency, I think it's more valuable to exchange it for Qin Chuan doing three things for me."
She didn't forget to tease, "What do you think?"
Zhou Haimei stood there in a daze. Although she was used to being arrogant on the lighthouse, seeing Xu An openly plotting against Qin Chuan now opened her eyes.
"So, it was all planned by you?" Suddenly, as if remembering something, she asked, "What if Qin Chuan didn't proactively offer to help you?"
Only then did Xu An look at Zhou Haimei's face with a benevolent expression. "Isn't there still you? Can you bear to see others take advantage of me all the time?"
Zhou Haimei: "..." Good heavens, my perception of An'an is refreshed every day.
She left as if in a dream and returned to the wooden house, still wondering where her well-behaved and cute Xu An had gone.
Who was this cunning person, like a little fox?
Back then, when she decided to keep Xu An by her side on the lighthouse to protect her, it was because she was moved by Xu An's pretty and well-behaved appearance.
But after leaving the lighthouse.
Zhou Haimei realized that the Xu An on the lighthouse and the Xu An off the lighthouse were completely different people.
Watching Zhou Haimei leave, Xu An smiled helplessly. This was almost an unspoken understanding.
Only Zhou Haimei thought that they had an extraordinary revolutionary friendship from coming down from the lighthouse together.
But her interactions with Qin Chuan were more than just this. She wouldn't be a good Samaritan and truly say to Qin Chuan, "I saved you without expecting anything in return."
This would be counterproductive.
It was possible that Qin Chuan would even think that Xu An was up to something behind his back and plotting against him in secret.
Putting the condition for saving him on the table like this would make Qin Chuan lower his guard.
After all, their relationship was too subtle; they were neither friends nor enemies, yet they were calculating against each other.
Regardless of what Qin Chuan thought, Xu An felt that some things were destined from the beginning. After their separation in the desert, she knew it would be difficult for them to even be friends.
Qin Chuan, on the other hand, didn't have as many thoughts as Xu An. He was worried if Zhou Yue could safely escort the technician back to their temporary resting place.
After all, the signal tower in the technician's possession was their only means of communication with the lighthouse.
After Xu An finished washing the dishes and tidied everything up, she turned and entered the wooden house.
"It's snowing harder and harder. I'm going to start a fire in the center of the house. The three of us will take turns sleeping. Qin Chuan is injured, so he'll guard the late second half of the night. Sister Mei and I will guard the first half. Does anyone have any objections?"
"I don't have any objections."
Qin Chuan also nodded. "I don't have any objections either."
He didn't push himself. They had no medical facilities here, and Xu An had just saved his life. He didn't want to torture himself.
After everything was settled, Xu An guarded the first half of the night.
Before long, everyone fell into a deep sleep.
Ze Yuan came out when no one was around and said to Xu An, "Are you planning to have Qin Chuan deal with Dr. Xia Jin?"
Xu An snorted with her nose as a reply.
The weather was getting colder and colder. Despite the bonfire, Xu An was still trembling all over. She tucked her chin into her collar and instinctively moved closer to the fire.
Trying to absorb the warmth.
After receiving a positive answer, Ze Yuan remained silent, lost in thought.
As if organizing his thoughts or contemplating something.
"Do you want to save this world?"
"Huh?" Xu An was genuinely surprised. All she was thinking about was helping Ze Yuan reclaim its heart.
She didn't have such a noble goal as saving the world.
Her eyes were firm, with a hint of caution.
"What are you trying to do? We agreed to just help you get your heart back. How did it get related to saving the world?"
Ze Yuan: "..."
"If! If you could save this world and return everything to its original state, what would you do?"
Xu An seemed to be thinking about this seriously for the first time. After thinking for a long time, she still had no answer.
In the reflection of the firelight, her overly long eyelashes drooped, casting small shadows under her eyes, and her entire small face was shrunken.
Although there were two other people in the room, Ze Yuan inexplicably felt a sense of loneliness from Xu An.
"I don't know either. To be frank, I'm just an ordinary person who got a chance to be reborn by chance and was fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy family, gaining some opportunities that others didn't have."
"Now you're asking me what I would do if the world returned to normal, and I don't know."
"Along the way, my hands have been stained with too much blood. I don't know if I can still integrate into normal social life."
For the first time, a trace of confusion appeared in Xu An's voice.
For a moment, Ze Yuan felt that the Xu An in front of him was very fragile.
It really wanted to tell Xu An that she was not ordinary at all, that she was the one chosen by it, and that she was the one who had been kind to it in her past life.
But there were some things Ze Yuan still couldn't say now.
It simply sighed deeply in Xu An's consciousness.
"Actually, the current apocalypse is not a normal natural disaster."
"Not a natural disaster, could it be man-made?"
Ze Yuan nodded, but then remembered that Xu An couldn't see, so he replied.
"I can only say it's partly man-made, and partly due to humanity's endless lack of restraint, which caused disturbances in the magnetic field of the northern and southern hemispheres. Combined with certain reasons, this led to the appearance of natural disasters."
"Are you saying the natural disasters were caused by humanity's destruction of the environment?"
Ze Yuan hummed.
"I can understand you saying that humans destroyed the environment, but what is this magnetic field of the northern and southern hemispheres you're talking about?"
"The magnetic poles are the foundation for a planet's self-rotation. That is to say, the 'door' I told you about earlier, which also maintains the planet's balance. Once the door is destroyed, the planet will activate its self-protection mechanism."
Seeing that Xu An still didn't understand, Ze Yuan also thought for a long time.
Finally, he expressed the matter in a way that Xu An could understand.
"Do you know about a mother being pregnant and giving birth?"