Chapter 155 — A Base That Survived the Crisis?
With a ripping sound, Luo Xun rubbed his eyes as he walked into the kitchen wearing thick pajamas, a newly opened bag of dried noodles in his hand.
These noodles were part of the massive stockpile he had bought before the apocalypse. Some of them had been shoved into deeper storage boxes, and after the apocalypse began, things became so chaotic that he completely forgot about them.
It wasn’t until the recent zombie bird attack—when they needed quick and convenient emergency food—that he remembered these noodles still existed.
And these noodles had been sitting around for… well…
A very long time.
So lately they’d been trying to finish them off quickly to free up storage space.
It was the middle of the night now, around one or two in the morning.
Luo Xun and Yan Fei had returned home around noon. Although they had slept for a while in the container truck the previous night, nobody could possibly sleep well in a cramped truck compartment.
So after returning home, they simply went straight back to sleep.
That “nap” lasted until now.
Sure, their schedule was completely reversed—but at least they had finally gotten proper rest.
After cooking a pot of noodles, Luo Xun carried the little pot outside and saw Yan Fei standing on the balcony.
“The noodles are ready. Anything happening outside?” Luo Xun asked casually as he filled two bowls and walked over.
“Nothing. I haven’t noticed any movement.”
Yan Fei accepted the bowl, and the two simply stood on the balcony eating while watching the outside world.
They couldn’t help it.
The last few days had been far too dangerous.
And judging by the zombies’ bizarre attack patterns, another nighttime ambush was absolutely possible.
As they ate, they casually looked outside.
The snowy scenery that had once been dazzling white was now ruined by the zombie birds, leaving the ground riddled with muddy craters and scars.
Only scattered patches of snow remained untouched in places neither people nor zombie birds had passed through, quietly waiting for warmer weather to melt them away.
But both Luo Xun and Yan Fei knew perfectly well—
those snowdrifts probably would never survive long enough for nature itself to melt them.
These past few days, zombie birds had occasionally dropped zombie rats and smaller zombies into the base. Those creatures would hide inside snow piles waiting to ambush passersby.
Sooner or later, all this snow would have to be cleared away.
The two finished all the noodles in their bowls and were just about to return to the table for seconds when—a sudden flash lit the sky outside.
“What was that?!”
Luo Xun immediately spun back toward the source of the light.
Yan Fei also stopped and looked in the same direction.
A red fireball streaked into the night sky, flying higher and higher before gradually shrinking and finally vanishing.
“A fire-type ability?” Luo Xun frowned.
Having lived through two lifetimes, he was very familiar with that sort of light.
Yan Fei frowned as well.
“It definitely was a fire ability… but that direction and distance…”
It was close.
Definitely not from the city walls.
And after seeing the fireball, they noticed no further abilities launched into the air, nor did they hear any unusual sounds.
“…Rather than someone attacking something, doesn’t that look more like a signal flare?” Luo Xun murmured.
The moment he said it, both of them suddenly exchanged startled looks.
“Could it be what Captain Guo mentioned before…?”
Deep within the night, the banquet hall that had been lively only hours earlier now lay silent.
Corpses littered the hall.
Blood flowed everywhere.
But some people remained alive.
The well-dressed men and women who had earlier chatted and laughed with the guests now stood near the edges of the hall, surrounded by armed soldiers—
and military ability users.
“Report! All targets inside the banquet hall have been confirmed eliminated. Awaiting further instructions.”
“Have the dormitory teams begin operations. Be careful not to alarm people outside the military district. Once the camp is fully secured, have the special operations squads immediately detain all family members related to the targets in the residential district. Finish everything within one hour.”
“Yes, sir!”
The loud response echoed through the hall.
Nearby, several uninvolved neutral parties—people who hadn’t participated but also weren’t among those purged—stood trembling with fear.
They watched the soldiers depart with disciplined speed, then nervously glanced toward the obvious planners behind tonight’s operation.
Most of them were relatively young faces—far younger than the old power-holders who traditionally controlled the base.
Captain Guo sat on the bed in his dorm room.
A half-finished cigarette butt—saved who-knew-how-long—hung from his lips as he absentmindedly stared out the tiny dormitory window.
The window faced the inner part of the base.
Just moments ago, while awake and drinking water in the middle of the night, he had seen a streak of light rise into the sky before slowly fading.
While he sat there lost in thought, soft synchronized footsteps echoed faintly through the hallway outside.
Though quiet, they were perfectly clear to someone still awake at this hour.
Yet Captain Guo did not satisfy his curiosity by opening the door.
He simply stared at it silently.
After a long while, somewhere outside a door opened briefly, then the hallway returned to silence.
He removed the cigarette butt from his mouth and carefully stored it inside a small cabinet beside his bed.
There was barely half of it left now.
Might as well keep it as a memento.
Pulling the blanket over himself, he lay down amid the uneven snoring of his dormmates and muttered softly into the darkness:
“Damn… they actually moved this fast…”
“…Am I some kind of jinx?”
As always, the sun slowly rose over the horizon at its appointed time, casting light across the entire base.
The soldiers who had guarded the walls through the night sighed in relief—fortunately, the zombies hadn’t launched another surprise counterattack.
The survivors inside the base also woke beneath the morning sunlight, yawning as they cautiously checked outside their windows.
Thankfully, none of the zombie rats, scattered zombie birds, or wandering zombies that had entered the base had crept into their homes overnight.
Only the military district and New City felt strangely abnormal.
Even well into the morning, both areas remained eerily quiet, as though everyone had overslept.
It wasn’t until around ten o’clock that nearby residents noticed the military gates standing open as military vehicles drove out toward the city walls.
Everything appeared normal on the surface.
After filling their stomachs in the middle of the night, Luo Xun and Yan Fei had crawled back into bed for another “afternoon nap”—
except this “afternoon” referred to midnight.
When they woke that morning, they chatted briefly with Li Tie and the others, but after observing the base for the entire day and noticing no obvious changes, they could only bury their suspicions and wait for official announcements.
Eventually, announcements did come.
But not about the matters they actually cared about.
Instead, the military simply issued routine notices requesting residents help clear snow from the base and hunt possible zombie rats hiding throughout the area.
The notifications were sent out by text message to all registered teams.
Completing the assignment would count toward monthly team quotas and taxes, making it a fairly worthwhile task overall.
After discussing it together, Luo Xun’s group ultimately chose the glorious and noble task of snow clearing.
Well…
More accurately, they figured that if they accepted a mission requiring them to kill a certain number of zombie rats within a deadline, there was no guarantee they’d even find enough rats.
They weren’t cats, after all.
Of course, while clearing streets they might happen to encounter some zombie rats by luck.
But it would still depend entirely on chance.
To accept the task, they needed to register at the mission hall.
Only after cleaning the assigned area would the mission officially count as complete.
They planned to handle that the next morning.
But before then, they needed one more layer of protection for their lives.
Yan Fei gathered together all the spare metal in the house and prepared to craft soft metal armor.
Actually, the main purpose of this armor was to prevent cuts, bites, and puncture wounds from zombies, rats, or blades.
It couldn’t protect against heavy impact damage.
In other words, if someone stabbed a person wearing it with a knife, the blade wouldn’t pierce the skin—but it would still hurt like hell.
And if a strength-type zombie punched you, your bones would still break.
But in the apocalypse, the most important thing was avoiding bites and infection.
As for everything else…
people could only pray for their own luck.
“Brother Yan is amazing! You even thought of this!”
Li Tie and the others sat in a neat row around Yan Fei like elementary school students, eyes sparkling with admiration.
Yan Fei’s mouth twitched helplessly as he worked on the chainmail-like armor.
Zhang Su and Xu Mei were equally excited.
“Once you finish one, let’s test whether it can block our abilities!”
Luo Xun quickly raised a hand.
“This thing only protects against cuts and scratches—it won’t stop powerful attacks!”
“We know, we know,” Xu Mei waved casually. “We just want to test the abilities.”
Song Lingling suddenly asked:
“But this is metal, right? Wouldn’t lightning abilities conduct electricity through it?”
Luo Xun nodded.
“There’s no helping that. We’ll just have to be careful. If the situation isn’t suitable, we simply won’t wear it.”
Even so, with Yan Fei’s current level of metal control, the armor he created was astonishingly thin.
After Zhang Su and Xu Mei tested it, they discovered that while it couldn’t withstand highly accelerated powerful attacks, it could effectively block ordinary flames and wind blades.
Though after being heated by fire…
it became painfully hot.
Still, it offered decent protection.
And thanks to how lightweight it was, they could even wear it underneath padded winter clothing.
Everyone chatted excitedly, brainstorming ideas.
Some even suggested sewing it into thick socks to prevent surprise bites through footwear.
While they were talking, a phone suddenly rang from inside a coat hanging near the door.
“That’s your phone,” Luo Xun said, glancing at Yan Fei as he got up to retrieve it.
And just like one of the previous calls—the moment he saw the caller ID, Luo Xun raised an eyebrow.
“…It’s Captain Guo.”
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