Chapter 190 — New Base Rules
Due to the threats looming in the sky, Luo Xun and his team didn’t dare make any loud or dramatic movements. Every time they left the building to gather crystals, they did so under a sheet of metal Yan Fei had formed, holding it up like a massive umbrella. The back of this metal umbrella was connected to a metal corridor that allowed them to sprint back to safety at any moment.
Gathering the crystals was a tedious and difficult process. On one hand, they had to be careful not to be spotted by the birds in the sky; on the other hand, they had to worry about stepping into the attack range of the mutated plants. The Devil Vines had incredibly long branches. Every time Luo Xun and the others went out, they had to first test where the absolute limit of the Devil Vines’ attack range was in their target area before they dared bring little Xinran close. Because of this restriction, little Xinran’s maximum collection range had to be cut down even further.
Yet, even though they could only harvest within a tight perimeter, even though her maximum range had been shortened, and even though various reasons kept them from attempting any collection method other than little Xinran’s superpower, they actually managed to gather a staggering several thousand crystals in just a few short days!
Large ones, small ones, in every color, spanning every elemental type, and harvested from all kinds of creatures.
Everything from the lowest-tier transparent crystals to the crystals of high-level zombies and mutated animals was present in their haul.
For a full five days after discovering the crystals, Luo Xun and the team only carved out an hour each day to head down to the edge of the fields, yet they had unearthed such a massive harvest… It had to be said that this mutated farmland was truly a magnificent asset. There was no telling how much “treasure” was still buried beneath it.
Over the final two days, the massive army of migratory birds passing overhead had gradually headed further north. Aside from a few stragglers that had settled down along the way, the rest had completely cleared out of the sky.
The departure of the migratory birds seemed to act as a natural omen. While observing the surrounding area from the top floor, Luo Xun and the others noticed more and more traces of other mutated animals appearing in the vicinity. The entire world seemed to have come alive, as though these lush green plants and distinct, strangely shaped mutated animals were the true masters of this earth.
“Tomorrow is the thirty-first. Is everything packed up?” All the crystals had been categorized and counted. After distributing the relevant elemental types to the superpower users in the team, the remaining crystals were split evenly among everyone according to head count, leaving only a single portion as the team’s public funds. Within the entire team, even the puppy and the recently born baby received a share. Unfortunately, they still didn’t know what elemental class the little baby’s superpower belonged to, so they could only temporarily set aside some strange, unidentifiable crystals for him.
While sorting through the haul, Luo Xun and the team finally discovered a few crystals with colors remarkably similar to the one the puppy had absorbed back then. They handed them to the puppy and let it play with them for quite a while, only to realize that as the old timer played and licked them, the size of those crystals grew smaller and smaller until they vanished.
Sure enough, it also required crystals to replenish its superpower. However, this creature was an incredibly picky eater; it only wanted colored crystals of its own element and showed absolutely zero interest in those transparent, level-one crystals.
The group nodded in succession, indicating that everything they needed to take back had been sorted out, and they could hit the road early tomorrow morning. Truth be told, Luo Xun and the team had been living here for a while now, and the freedom and ease of this place was completely different from the main base. Although they had faced the threat of migratory birds flying overhead midway through, during that time, everyone just had to head back down to the basement, where they could do whatever they pleased without the slightest hint of discomfort.
Over the past two days, their freezers had been stocked with rabbit meat and wild fowl meat, and they could eat whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Even if they threw a barbecue feast every single day, no one would be around to police them. This was a world apart from the main base, where even eating a good meal required acting completely surreptitious.
Perhaps it was a shift in their mindset, but as they prepared to return this time, they felt as though the place they were heading back to was merely a temporary lodging, while this place was their true “home.”
“We need to bring back more supplies on this trip,” Luo Xun said, his fingers tapping lightly against the tabletop. “Let’s drive the truck back this time.” A team with four small vehicles plus a large truck should be enough to haul a substantial amount of things back. The truck they had scavenged didn’t originally have a cargo box, but Yan Fei had fabricated one and mounted it on top, making it look highly similar to a standard container truck.
“We can’t return completely empty-handed either. We at least need to load some things into the truck beds to put on a show; otherwise, it won’t be good if we accidentally expose something,” Li Tie raised his hand to voice his thoughts.
Luo Xun nodded, turning to look at Yan Fei beside him. “We fabricated some things yesterday. Making a few more today to throw inside should be enough to serve as padding.”
“Fabricated what?” Everyone was utterly bewildered. How had they not noticed Luo Xun and his partner tinkering with anything yesterday?
Yan Fei smiled, casually using some metal in the room to fashion a basin that looked exactly like stainless steel. “I made a few items like this, along with some metal racks that take up space but ordinary people wouldn’t want. If we throw them in the truck and run into any danger along the road, they can still be used as weapons.” He naturally needed to carry a stash of metal along for self-defense anyway; it was just that previously, this metal was directly compressed and stored in the vehicle for emergencies. Now, he had simply altered the shapes of these pieces.
“That’s a great method! We don’t have to force ourselves to pack random junk just to make weight!” Although it didn’t strictly matter whether the trucks were loaded, since Yan Fei needed to carry metal anyway, he might as well change its appearance and bring it along.
The group prepared the dry rations they would eat upon their return… That’s right, previously they had to prepare dry rations before heading out, but this time it had flipped to preparing dry rations before heading back.
While everyone was busy, Yan Fei took the opportunity to stuff a few metal racks into every vehicle—things similar to the metal clothing racks used in apparel stores or metal laundry poles. These items took up a lot of space but weren’t of much practical use, making them perfect to leave in the truck beds.
After sorting out their meals, they rose early the next morning to head out. Sealing the entrance to the underground tunnel, the group advanced toward the main base with a total of five vehicles.
As a side note, because the space inside the large truck was substantial, they simply loaded two of their smaller vehicles inside. This allowed them to concentrate their firepower and made it easier for everyone to launch counterattacks in case they encountered danger on the road.
They spent one night camping out in the wild along the way, and by the morning of the first, Luo Xun and the team drove back outside the gates of the main base. Recently, the number of people heading out seemed to have increased compared to before; the traffic flow of vehicles entering and exiting the base had risen significantly. What truly caught their eyes was that a vehicle ahead of them was visibly carrying a mutated animal strapped to its roof!
“People are already capable of hunting mutated animals now!” Luo Xun felt a small surge of excitement in his heart. This meant that even if they occasionally ate meat inside the base, it wouldn’t stand out too much.
“That looks like a military vehicle,” Yan Fei remarked after studying it closely.
“Probably, but this proves the base already knows that the meat of mutated animals is edible.” Luo Xun smiled at him, starting the engine to follow the vehicle ahead.
When Luo Xun and the team’s vehicles arrived at the main gate to register, they discovered that the metal racks Yan Fei had fabricated in advance actually served a significant purpose!
“Inspect the cargo in the vehicles?!” Luo Xun widened his eyes, asking back with a look of confusion.
Although the staff member bore a look of slight impatience on his face, he still explained, “It’s a new regulation from the base, enacted on the twentieth of last month. From now on, all vehicles returning to the base must be inspected along with their cargo. Small bags just need to be taken down and run through the security scanner over there, but someone has to step up and check the inside of the vehicles.”
“Why?!” Luo Xun hadn’t left the base around this time in his past life, so he naturally didn’t know if this regulation had existed back then. And in this life… this was the first time he was hearing about it, alright?
“We’re terrified that someone might smuggle back something foul,” the staff member rolled his eyes. “What if someone secretly brings back a zombie corpse to poison the supply?”
“Has someone actually poisoned the base before?” Luo Xun was instantly derailed by this piece of information and hurriedly tried to fish for details.
“No idea. Let me ask you, are you getting inspected or not? If you don’t allow the inspection, you’re not allowed into the base!” The staff member was visibly flaring up, reiterring the rule with a short temper.
Helpless, Luo Xun exchanged a look with Yan Fei. “Let’s go ahead with the inspection then.”
Everyone stepped down carrying their personal bags, running them through the security machine to the side. Aside from some dry rations and weapons, there was basically nothing else inside these bags. The trucks were packed with a mountain of metal pipes and similar structural items, with virtually nothing else of value. Seeing that there were no practical or valuable goods to be found, the staff member tasked with checking the vehicles didn’t even bother to look closely; he merely pulled open the doors, took a cursory glance, and let them pass.
Once they drove the vehicles back into their residential compound and prepared to head upstairs, Wang Duo stealthily leaned close to Luo Xun’s side and whispered, “Brother Luo, when the cars behind us came in, I saw someone slip something out of a vehicle while they were performing the inspection!”
Luo Xun’s movements paused. He cast a somewhat helpless glance at him, then looked toward Yan Fei beside him. “Fortunately, you only made large metal pieces and didn’t fashion many metal pots or pans.”
The group slowly climbed up to the fifteenth floor, feeling a strange sense of unfamiliarity upon their return. When they reached the fifteenth floor, the main doors showed no signs of trouble. However, when they finally made it up to the sixteenth floor, they discovered—”Damn it! Who smashed the glass?!” Not just one or two apartments had broken glass; almost everyone’s windows had been shattered by someone!
Yan Fei rapidly swept a gaze over the traps and metal conditions on the roof, his face turning dark as he told everyone, “Someone has been up to the roof, and the traps were triggered.”
“Check everything over and see if anything is missing,” Luo Xun said, his temper flaring as he immediately gestured to the group.
Before they left, they had been deeply terrified that someone would come to the house to cause trouble, so Yan Fei had increased the density of the outer metal frame, making it impossible for anyone to slip their hands through. Even if someone could reach the metal plates mounted on the walls, they wouldn’t be able to pry them down. Yet, even under these conditions, someone had actually gone ahead and smashed the glass of their homes!
Upon a meticulous inspection, aside from Luo Xun’s home—which used reinforced tempered glass and thus only bore two window panes spiderwebbed with dense fractures—almost every single household had at least two or more broken windows. Furthermore, two of the apartments bore distinct traces of someone using some kind of tool to hook at the plants resting by the windows.
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