Chapter 207 — The Cowherds
The group rumbled back toward the base in high spirits. It was still quite early, and the slanting sun cast long, thin shadows of the roadside trees. Luo Xun drove while noting down locations with high concentrations of dead wood along the way. As they gradually drew closer to their base, Zhang Su’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie once more: “…Mutated animals. In the direction of our base.”
“Mutated animals? How many? Is it those two wolves?” Those two wolves seemed to range right around their base, and Luo Xun and the team had encountered them more than once. If Zhang Su had only detected those two, he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to alert everyone, hence the question.
“I don’t know… but there are definitely more than two.” Before Zhang Su’s words could even finish, a faint vibration rippled through the earth. Everyone instinctively pulled over to the side of the road, exchanging wide-eyed glances. The exact same image flashed through their minds—a herd of pigs sprinting in front, with two wolves pursuing hot on their heels…
“Could it be… again…?” Before Wang Duo could finish his sentence, though no one answered him, everyone understood exactly what he meant.
Yan Fei silently manipulated the metal rigged to look like three small pickup trucks, shaping it into solid metal plates that he erected along the outer flank of their convoy. And then… they watched as a thunderous, earth-shaking, staggering army stampeded straight toward their position!
“Holy crap! It really is… Are those cattle?! Are we sure that’s not the Bull Demon King?!!” Li Tie’s voice shot up an octave, and through the walkie-talkie, Han Li, who was sharing his car, could be heard letting out a screech that was a mix of intense excitement and raw nerves.
A herd of cattle, easily three stories tall with horns radiating a terrifying, icy gleam, was charging toward them in a frantic, wild stampede! Pursuing right behind them were none other than their two very familiar acquaintances—the two wolves, which looked several sizes smaller than the cattle!!
Those wolves truly had a death wish, actually daring to provoke a herd of cattle of such monstrous proportions!
The number of cattle wasn’t as vast as the herd of pigs they had encountered a while back—only about three or four in total—but these three or four head of cattle managed to produce the literal effect of an earthquake, which spoke volumes about their colossal mass and ferocious momentum.
Catching sight of Luo Xun’s convoy, the two wolves suddenly altered their trajectory of pursuit. A few earth spikes abruptly erupted from the ground, redirecting the cattle’s stampede, driving them to charge even faster straight toward where Luo Xun and his team were parked.
Well, what else was there to say? When even wolves understood how to leverage external forces and cooperate with humans, Luo Xun and the team naturally couldn’t just stand there like idiots waiting to be flattened by bovine hooves.
As before, a slanting sheet of metal was deployed to let the cattle scrape past them, while traps and sand pits were unleashed in tandem.
When the mad cattle stampeded past this time, they left two behind, both crashing heavily to the ground with broken legs…
The two wolves didn’t stand on ceremony either, lunging forward to clamp their jaws around the neck of one until it drew its last breath. Ignoring Luo Xun and the others standing to the side, the wolves worked together with immense effort to haul the dead bovine backward, leisurely departing with their prize. This left only one half-dead cow, a massive crater smashed into the ground, and Luo Xun’s thoroughly dumbfounded crew.
“…Did they… deliberately drive the cattle… straight toward us?”
After a long silence, someone in the team finally asked in a small voice.
“It’s highly possible… From now on, whenever we head out or return, we must carry a massive stockpile of metal with us. Otherwise, if something like this happens out of nowhere and we have no way to defend ourselves, we might get trampled to death by the prey they drive over.” Luo Xun felt a lingering dread, and as he spoke, he looked at the mountain of a cow still kicking its legs on the ground.
How long would a cow of this absolute size feed those two wolves? Luo Xun and the team didn’t know, but a cow like this was enough to feed their own group until the New Year—let’s not forget, they still had several unfinished pigs stored in their freezers! Combined with this addition, they wouldn’t even need to go hunting for the entire second half of the year, alright?
Yan Fei used the metal they had hauled back to fabricate a sled, and several small cars hitched up at the front to tow the prey back into their base together. Skinning, butchering—by the time they finished processing the beef, they realized that their dream of heading home early to eat dinner and rest had completely dissolved into the hours spent processing meat.
The two ladies took a cut of beef brisket to the kitchen, while Luo Xun froze the rest of the meat and offal. After hanging the massive hide up to cure, he began to ponder. “Once we finish our chores over the next couple of days, why don’t we make some braised beef? We can also make some beef jerky.” After all, they still had several pigs frozen in the freezers, and leaving the meat frozen for too long would ruin it. Besides, if they ran into those two wolves driving prey to seek their assistance again in the future, the meat at home would become completely impossible to finish.
Not to mention that ever since their quails ballooned in size, their household supply of quail meat had also increased exponentially.
“Awesome, awesome!”
“No problem, let’s do it, let’s do it!”
The chorus of gluttons grew thoroughly excited at his words, everyone announcing that they would save space in their stomachs specifically for these snacks.
The beef unexpectedly delivered by the two wolves brought another major shift to the Otaku Team’s dining table. Stewed, stir-fried—all kinds of beef delicacies rapidly crowded onto their shortlist of meals. Of course, that was provided they had the time to study recipes. Regrettably, everyone needed to seize the time to make a few more trips out to gather metal over the next few days.
This was because, for one thing, the basement renovations and the above-ground construction projects were still waiting for them to expedite. For another—the satellite photos from the past few days showed that the exact same zombie tide that had marched all the way to the coast had unexpectedly… turned, around!
Upon reaching the sea, the zombies hadn’t blindly plunged into the ocean to learn how to swim or explore the unknown depths of the deep sea. Instead, the horde flipped its trajectory, behaving exactly like a ball rebounding after slamming into a solid wall!
Judging by their rebound trajectory, it was estimated that they would arrive near the base in a matter of time. When that happened, whether it was the new base Luo Xun’s group occupied or the Southwest Base, they would likely face another zombie siege.
What caused an even greater headache was that this wasn’t the only zombie tide slated to pass through this vicinity. Even the foreign horde they had inadvertently noticed entering the country would arrive in this region in the near future. Whether their small base would trigger a full-scale zombie siege was unknown, but they absolutely had to make complete preparations before that happened. Crucially, they had to finish sealing the metal walls of all the underground rooms before then; if a earth-type zombie managed to burrow in through the soil mid-excavation, it would cause a massive amount of trouble.
Furthermore, regarding the above-ground structures, they either had to reinforce their defenses, seal them off completely, or clean them up thoroughly so the zombies wouldn’t perceive anything. Therefore, the group shifted their tactics once more, heading out multiple times to harvest metal to prepare for the oncoming zombies that would soon descend upon their small base.
In a brief span of less than ten days, Luo Xun and the team went out a whopping eight times. Massive iron chunks, dead wood, and various non-mutated fruit trees in full bloom completely filled the newly excavated rooms that hadn’t been fitted with planting racks yet!
On their absolute final trip out, they even passed a pre-apocalyptic gas station. Under Yan Fei’s subterranean probe, they discovered—the underground storage tanks actually still held a substantial reserve of gasoline!
Ever since Song Lingling’s water ability reached level four, she had gained the capability to manipulate any liquid, and her operational range had expanded significantly. They just had to pierce a breach in the ground-level fuel lines, and Song Lingling could draw the gasoline straight out. Filling the metal barrels Yan Fei fabricated on the spot, this gasoline was enough to sustain them for a very long time! As for the remaining fuel underground, they could easily haul it away on their next visit—ever since Song Lingling’s ability developed this feature, whenever they encountered vehicles out in the wild and wanted to siphon fuel, Song Lingling would step up, guaranteeing the tanks were drained completely dry.
“Tomorrow is the end of the month. We’ll still leave first thing tomorrow morning, spend the entire day after tomorrow inside the Southwest Base, and head back out before evening to return here, how about that?” Returning home from their final, highly lucrative harvest, the group gathered around the long kitchen table once more for a briefing.
It was already the end of May, and Luo Xun and the team planned to stick to their routine of visiting the Southwest Base during the first couple of days of June. On this trip, they had no intention of checking on their old apartments, nor did they need to trade for much gasoline. Their goal was purely to make a run over there to gather intelligence on the base’s current dynamics, while selling some vegetables along the way.
After all, though they could receive satellite images and regional transmissions broadcast between bases, they remained entirely in the dark regarding the actual living conditions and atmosphere among ordinary survivors inside the base. It was vital to touch base with that world from time to time.
The group harbored no objections to Luo Xun’s decision, nodding in unison to signal their agreement. Han Li asked with a trace of concern, “Brother Luo, what about those zombies? Will they arrive over the next couple of days?” The primary reason they had been frantically prioritizing gathering metal to construct shelters and reinforce walls was precisely due to the zombie tide shown on the satellite maps, which was moving in their direction. If there was a risk of running into the zombie tide while out, they wouldn’t want to leave the base under any circumstances.
“They won’t arrive anytime soon. Calculating from their previous marching speed, it will take nearly two weeks for them to reach our vicinity. Leaving tomorrow and returning the day after tomorrow leaves us more than enough time,” this was precisely one of the reasons Luo Xun dared to return to the base at the start of the month.
“Then there shouldn’t be an issue.” Seeing Luo Xun’s calculation, the others set their minds at ease.
He Qiankun, however, asked with a trace of regret, “What about those warehouses we mapped out previously…?” They had been talking about visiting those wholesale warehouses and transit hubs continuously, but they had been forced to temporarily alter their original plans due to the zombie tide’s shift in direction. Thinking about it now left him feeling a bit disappointed.
Luo Xun shared his helplessness. “We can only seize the time to head over and check them out after this zombie tide passes.” There was truly nothing they could do right now; this counted as an uncontrollable external factor. They had to guarantee the absolute security of their base before they could afford the time to consider alternative matters, right?
With their decisions finalized, everyone returned to their respective rooms early to rest, preparing for the trip to the Southwest Base first thing the next morning. At the break of dawn, the convoy set out once more, advancing toward the Southwest Base.
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