Chapter 415: Jin Province Military District
“What do you say?” Ning Yuan asked.
“The PLA soldiers here never carry guns when they go out, and they certainly wouldn’t point one at a farmer,” Liu Laoliu looked past them. “Plus, your clothes are too new. You don’t look like you’re from around here… Are you—”
His eyes widened, and he exclaimed in shock, “You’re from the outside, aren’t you?”
Ning Yuan glanced at Lu Weiyi and nodded, “Yes.”
“Really? From outside?” Liu Laoliu looked toward the towering cliffs in the distance and choked up. “Is the government here to rescue us? The country still remembers us, doesn’t it?”
“You’re PLA too, right? Come with me to my house. I’ll have someone notify the soldiers here—they’ll definitely be glad,” Liu Laoliu wiped his face and gestured for them to follow.
Lu Weiyi signaled for the team to move. Ning Yuan quickly lowered his weapon and apologized, “Uncle, I’m really sorry. We’ve encountered a lot of danger on the way and didn’t know the situation here, so we were just being cautious. We’re soldiers—we’d never hurt civilians.”
“I understand, I understand. I could tell right away you’re military—the way you carry yourselves, the way you move. You’re clearly well-trained,” Liu Laoliu led them down a wide dirt road into the village. The little girl he held turned around curiously to look at them.
Lu Weiyi took a handmade malt candy stick from his space and handed it to her. Then, scanning the group, he chose Li Qing from among all the big men.
Li Qing twitched his mouth but accepted his fate, forcing a kind smile and using the candy to entertain the girl while casually asking about the village.
After several kilometers, the houses they had seen earlier came into view. They could faintly hear the clucking of chickens, the quacking of ducks, snorting pigs, and barking dogs.
Ning Yuan had already gathered some intel. When the major earthquake struck, the sinkhole here happened immediately. Other than the compression from the surrounding terrain, there was little additional damage.
There were four villages in the area, with a combined population of around 15,000—7,000 of them survivors from the nearby military base. Right after the disaster, they organized efforts to rebuild. After realizing they couldn’t leave, they attempted to send distress signals, but received no response. And so, they carried on to this day.
Even more unbelievably, there had never been a single zombie outbreak here. No ability users had appeared, and no mutated creatures had ever been seen. Everything remained exactly as it was before the apocalypse.
It was as if they had been forgotten by the march of time.
“Village chief! Old Sun! Everyone, come quick—the government’s here to rescue us!” Liu Laoliu bellowed the moment they entered the village.
Soon, people started peeking out from their courtyards. Some scolded Liu Laoliu for making noise, but the moment they saw the newcomers, their words froze.
Compared to people outside, these villagers looked like they belonged to an era before the apocalypse. Their clothes were faded and patched, some wearing handmade hemp garments—it looked incredibly primitive.
But none of them had the distressed or hopeless expressions of those struggling to survive. Everyone appeared well-fed and healthy, not suffering from hunger at all.
“Hello there. I’m Liu Jianguo, village chief of Liujia Fort,” said a man in his sixties, stepping forward to shake hands.
“Hello, I’m Ning Yuan, Special Operations Officer,” Ning Yuan didn’t know how to break the news that the outside world was in complete chaos, so he chose to start by asking, “Could you take us to your military headquarters? We need to exchange information with them first.”
“Of course! The main PLA force still lives at their original base. They rotate guards every two weeks. Their base is located in the center of the four villages. Normally, if we need anything, it’s the soldiers who help us. I’ll have someone take you there,” Liu Jianguo looked around, then settled his gaze on Liu Laoliu.
“Laoliu, take the comrades over.”
“Got it, Uncle.”
“Grandpa, I’ll go too! I was planning to visit Wang Qing anyway—I’ll guide the soldiers,” said a young woman with a high ponytail. As she spoke, she pulled along a short-haired girl by the wrist.
The short-haired girl glanced their way, then quickly looked down, her face turning red.
The village chief didn’t seem overly cautious and simply said to the two girls, “Alright, you two take them.”
“Okay,” the ponytail girl replied cheerfully. She turned to Ning Yuan and said, “I’m Jin Sui, and this is my best friend Mu Wan. What should we call you, soldier brother?”
“Ning Yuan,” he answered. Then he looked around to see that everyone was completely at ease leaving the two girls to escort them—none of the villagers showed the slightest worry about this group of heavily armed men.
On both sides of the road, people poked their heads out to watch the commotion, but no one seemed alarmed by it.
Along the way, Jin Sui chatted with Ning Yuan about the village and greeted curious onlookers with, “The government came to rescue us!”
“These people are from the government!”
Lu Weiyi and the others felt a bit embarrassed by the praise.
“Doesn’t your village worry we might be bad people?” Once they were out of the village, Ning Yuan finally asked.
Jin Sui giggled, like she had just heard a joke. “We have a police station here, and we have the PLA too. Besides, if you really did anything, the government would punish you. This is Huaguo, after all.”
Her tone carried pride, making a trace of sorrow appear in Ning Yuan’s eyes—he didn’t know how to tell her that the country she was so proud of had already fractured into pieces, with morals and law completely erased.
Jin Sui didn’t notice his reaction and continued talking about the local situation. There were a total of four villages in the area, including Liujia Fort. Together, the population didn’t exceed 8,000.
After the earthquake, the surrounding terrain changed somewhat, but thanks to the help of the PLA, there weren’t many casualties. Later, when they realized the area had sunk underground, they tried climbing out, but the soil was too loose, and after getting injured a few times, they were forced to give up.
Once communication was cut off, this place became completely isolated from the world. Their only hope was that the government would eventually come to their rescue.
“I really thought the country had forgotten about us,” Jin Sui sighed after chatting nonstop for a while.
“…” Ning Yuan didn’t know how to respond.
No one said anything, but she didn’t feel awkward. Instead, she looked at Ning Yuan curiously and asked, “Brother soldier, how old are you? Are you married? Got a girlfriend?”
The topic shift was so abrupt that no one reacted at first, but luckily Ning Yuan had plenty of experience with flirty conversations. Smiling, he replied, “Not married, no girlfriend. What, are you trying to set me up?”
“Yep!” Jin Sui responded without hesitation and pushed the previously silent Mu Wan into the middle of the group. “Look at my bestie—22 years old, used to study dance at Southeast University before the quake, never had a boyfriend before. First love!”
“Sui!” Mu Wan glanced at Ning Yuan in panic, her whole neck turning red. She reached out to tug at Jin Sui, clearly embarrassed enough to cry.
“That won’t work—we have rules. No dating before discharge,” Ning Yuan fibbed quickly.
“What kind of unit has rules like that? Why didn’t Wang Qing mention it?” Jin Sui eyed the others suspiciously. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“Since when does our special forces have foreigners?” Jin Sui suddenly seemed to realize something. “Don’t tell me… you’re mercenaries or assassins or something?”
Antonio met her gaze and shrugged. “Congratulations. You guessed right.”
Mu Wan’s face went pale instantly. Jin Sui barely kept her smile, but her eyes grew cautious.
“He’s joking. Don’t mind him,” Ning Yuan glared at Antonio, then tried to ease the tension. “Wang Qing—is he your boyfriend?”
“Mm,” Jin Sui replied more tersely now, trying to stay calm. “He’s stationed here with the military. He’s a captain.”
Ning Yuan didn’t know which military unit was stationed here. He looked toward the others for help. Li Qing thought for a moment, then whispered to Li Yan, “Jin Province Military District?”
Li Yan nodded. “Central Theater Command. Jin Province Military District. 52nd Division.”
Jin Sui immediately turned her gaze toward him—clearly, he got it right.
She was young and couldn’t hide her emotions well, visibly relaxing a little. She asked which unit they belonged to.
“That’s classified,” Ning Yuan said.
After some detailed questioning, the group was finally convinced: this place truly hadn’t been affected by the apocalypse. Everything remained just as it was before.
Lu Weiyi had never heard of a place like this in his previous life and was a little stunned upon discovering it now. But what interested him more was the reason.
They were all on the same planet—was it just this one place that remained untouched, or were there others like it? And what was the reason this one had stayed safe?
Could it really be because of the sinkhole?
His gaze casually drifted to Jin Sui and Mu Wan walking ahead. Or was there something about them—something different?
After walking for nearly half an hour, the group finally saw a courtyard-style building in the distance. The bricks were red and blue, many partially exposed—clearly built after the quake. Farmland surrounded the area, and several men were irrigating the fields. A woman held a crying baby in her arms.
“Sui, you here to see Captain Wang?” a man in the fields grinned broadly at them, his teeth starkly white against his tanned skin.
But the moment he saw the people behind her, his expression changed, and he quickly stood up and rushed over, warning, “Come over here.”
The sudden change in demeanor startled Jin Sui and Mu Wan, who carefully moved behind him.
“You are…?”
“We’re from the outside,” Ning Yuan answered before he could ask further, reporting his former unit number. He jerked his chin toward the soldiers behind him. Li Qing and the others also smoothly reported their unit numbers. “We want to meet your commanding officer.”
“I’m him,” a man in his thirties walked out from the courtyard, sizing them up. “Captain Wang Qing of the 52nd Division, Jin Province Military Command.”
“You’re… the highest-ranking officer?” Li Qing asked.
