Chapter 44: Rescue Intelligence
Seeing the scene before him, Zhan Yun felt a surge of rage. Was his house plated with gold or studded with diamonds? Why did people keep targeting it again and again?!
Near the collapsed section of the wall were craters and bloodstains. It seemed the culprits had been badly blown up by Su Ruizhe’s potato mines—who knew how many of them had been injured.
Zhan Yun’s villa had reinforced security doors and windows. The metal bars outside a ground-floor window had been bent, and one window was shattered. Clearly, the security doors hadn’t been easy to break, so those people must have entered through the window.
There was still firelight coming from the second floor of the villa—those thieves might still be inside!
The second floor housed Zhan Yun’s and Su Ruizhe’s bedrooms. No matter whose room the intruders had occupied, it infuriated Zhan Yun.
Such blatant occupation of someone else’s home—this was beyond tolerable!
Zhan Yun unlocked the front door and rushed inside with Su Ruizhe and the others. The soldiers immediately surrounded the villa, sealing it tight so no one inside could escape.
Inside, the place was in complete chaos. It looked as if someone had vented their anger by smashing everything. All the appliances and furniture were wrecked, the sofa had been stabbed full of holes, and pots and pans were shattered to pieces.
What kind of hatred did this take?
They rushed upstairs, only to find no one there. The firelight in the second-floor room was from a fire that had been deliberately set. Someone had piled all the clothes from the wardrobe into the middle of the room and set them alight. Without any accelerant, however, the flames hadn’t spread very far.
“Damn it!” After putting out the fire, Zhan Yun still couldn’t help swearing.
Su Ruizhe frowned deeply. He already had a rough idea of who would do something like this.
People who knew they lived here, bore a grudge against them, and would come to smash up the house while they were away—there was only one possibility: the group that Zhan Yun and the others had taught a harsh lesson to not long ago.
That group had failed to pry open the door that day and had instead been beaten badly by Zhang Shuoliang and Zhan Yun. After bottling up their anger for days, they must have seized the chance to vent it!
After Su Ruizhe shared his suspicions, Zhan Yun strongly agreed.
“Judging by the fire, they can’t have gone far!” Zhan Yun said through gritted teeth.
“But we don’t know where to find them now, and it’s almost dawn. You should probably find another place to stay for now…” Zhao Bing sighed when he saw the condition of the house. With the place smashed up like this, it clearly wasn’t livable.
Even though Zhan Yun was furious, there was no other choice. They found another vacant villa in the compound and moved in. Zhao Bing and the others stayed nearby as well—plenty of empty houses with simple renovations and furniture, ready to be lived in.
The villa Zhan Yun chose was larger than their original one. Although it lacked reinforced doors and windows and was therefore less secure, the entire villa area was now occupied by soldiers, so overall security was actually much better than before.
Su Ruizhe took out several cases of bottled water and a few empty buckets. After Song Chengshu filled the buckets with water, Zheng Jiahe delivered them to the soldiers. Although the amount wasn’t much, it helped quench everyone’s thirst. They also sent over a good supply of medicine and gauze so the wounded soldiers could properly tend to their injuries.
Because the villa was larger, Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe still took the upstairs rooms, while the others stayed downstairs. With an extra room available, Song Chengshu and Zheng Jiahe no longer had to squeeze together. With Su Ruizhe acting as a mobile warehouse, they quickly set up the place. After Song Chengshu provided water, everyone took turns washing briefly, changed into clean clothes, and then returned to their rooms to rest.
Daylight soon came. The daytime heat was unbearable, so everyone drew the curtains and slept through the day, only emerging again in the evening.
Just after sunset, Zhan Yun and the others heard the sound of military trucks—some soldiers had likely driven out of the villa area. Now that they had shelter, the soldiers still needed food and water, so they had to go out to gather supplies.
Seeing lights come on in Zhan Yun’s villa, someone soon knocked on the door.
When Zhan Yun opened it, he found a tall soldier he didn’t recognize, which surprised him slightly.
“Mr. Zhan, hello,” the soldier said, standing at attention and saluting. “Platoon Leader Zhao asked me to inform you that last night, someone noticed a group of very suspicious people living in a house at the front of the villa area. It may be related to your house being vandalized.”
The night before, the soldiers had moved into different villas. Some had noticed that a house toward the northern side seemed to be occupied. At first, they didn’t think much of it—after all, these were empty, ownerless houses, and anyone could move in. They assumed it might be survivors from outside.
However, they later noticed that when there was movement outside, the people inside that house seemed to be peeking out through the windows in a furtive manner.
After the soldiers had all settled in, the occupants of that house came over to ask questions—whether the soldiers were a rescue force, when they would be taken away, and so on. Upon learning that these soldiers were merely the S City garrison and had lost contact with the government, they were extremely disappointed. They then tried to ask the soldiers for food and medicine. The soldiers themselves had none, so naturally they couldn’t provide any.
The expressions on those people’s faces immediately soured, and they left while cursing.
Out of instinctive wariness toward survivors and professional vigilance, the soldiers began monitoring that house.
Later, when water, gauze, and other medical supplies were delivered, they heard from comrades about how Zhan Yun’s team’s house had been smashed. Although they hadn’t interacted much with Zhan Yun’s group, they all knew that Zhan Yun’s team were their lifesavers, so they naturally despised whoever had vandalized their home. Hearing that there was blood at the scene, they suspected that someone had been injured by the traps Su Ruizhe had set.
Thinking back to how the people in that house had earlier asked for medicine, the soldiers connected the dots. As soon as night fell, they immediately reported it to Platoon Leader Zhao. Zhao then arranged for someone to notify Zhan Yun. He had already heard Zhan Yun say that he knew who the culprits were—whether it was those people in that villa or not, Zhan Yun just needed to go take a look and confirm it.
“Take me to have a look!” Zhan Yun immediately followed the soldier. Su Ruizhe and the others didn’t go along—there were so many soldiers in the villa area, and with Zhan Yun’s own strength, he wasn’t likely to come to any harm.
Zhan Yun returned about half an hour later. The people who had smashed up the house were indeed that same group; about half of them had been beaten up by Zhan Yun and the others last time. Harboring resentment, they had come to vandalize the house while everyone was away to vent their anger. Zhan Yun only said that he had taken care of it and didn’t elaborate further. No one pressed for details, though everyone could more or less guess how he had dealt with them.
By then, Su Ruizhe had already prepared dinner. The cooking gear he used was a very portable cassette stove bought from a supermarket. He had stocked up on several cases of gas canisters, and later even grabbed some more from the supermarket warehouse—enough to last a long time.
He made just two simple dishes: shredded pork with green peppers and scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and cooked two pots of rice. The seven people and one cat enjoyed a comfortable, steaming hot meal. The cat was given fish cans as usual; until they found suitable cat food, the poor thing would have to make do with canned fish.
After the meal, Wu Jing and Zhang Shuoliang went to wash the dishes as usual. They didn’t plan to go out that night, so everyone returned to their own rooms to rest.
Late in the night, the soldiers came back, and judging by appearances, they had had a pretty good haul. Zhao Bing brought them instant noodles, biscuits, drinking water, clothes, and other supplies, as well as two whole boxes of cat food. He said that when they passed a pet store, they remembered that Zhan Yun’s group had a cat, so they picked it up along the way.
Seeing the exhaustion on Zhao Bing and the others’ faces, Zhan Yun’s group could easily imagine the effort behind Zhao Bing’s few casual words. Zhan Yun didn’t refuse the supplies; he simply patted Zhao Bing on the shoulder lightly to express his gratitude.
“Oh, right—there’s more,” Zhao Bing said, his eyes shining. “We’ve received news that the Southern Military Region has already dispatched troops to rescue survivors. They’ve reached N City and should arrive at S City in a few days. When that happens, why don’t you come with us?”
“How did you get that information?” Zhan Yun asked in surprise.
“From the vehicle radio,” Zhao Bing replied. “When we were coming back just now, someone accidentally switched it on and we caught part of a broadcast. It said that the government has established survivor bases across the major military regions, unconditionally accepting all survivors. They’ve also dispatched troops to carry out rescue operations in major cities. Broadcasts go out every day at 8 p.m., midnight, and 4 a.m. to update everyone on the latest information. The most recent broadcast said that the troops sent by the Southern Military Region have already reached N City and should arrive in S City very soon.”
“That’s wonderful!” The rescue they had been waiting for was finally coming. “We’ll go with you when the time comes.”
That had been their original plan: to travel with the military, pick up Cheng Qi and Cheng Jiao when passing through A City, and then head together to a government-established survivor base.
After Zhao Bing and the others left, Su Ruizhe immediately took out a radio and turned it on. After tuning around for a while, he finally heard a gentle, flowing melody on the news channel. The day’s broadcast had already ended, but the station was still playing music—telling everyone that the government was still there, and that hope was still alive.
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