Chapter 82 — A Friend to Women
The two women got off the elevator on the fifteenth floor. After the doors closed and the elevator continued upward, Song Lingling suddenly lowered her voice and asked Xu Mei, who was unlocking the door, “Sister Xu, don’t you think… Brother Yan and Luo Xun… are kind of strange?”
“Strange?” Xu Mei was puzzled. She glanced back at her and kept opening the door. “What’s strange?” Yan Fei had always been that way—if his temperament were what she meant by “strange,” Song Lingling should have said something right after their last collaboration. Was she only noticing his lukewarm attitude now? That reaction time was a bit too long. Besides, if they were talking about strange, which of the men on the sixteenth floor could compare to Zhang Su?
“Well…” Song Lingling tilted her head and thought for a moment, frowning. “They just feel strange when they’re together…” Suddenly her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands. “I just saw Brother Yan with his arm around Luo Xun’s shoulder!”
“Isn’t that normal?” Xu Mei replied casually as she stepped inside. “Don’t Li Tie and the others walk around with their arms around each other all the time?” Compared to Yan Fei, Luo Xun, and Zhang Su, the two of them were actually closer to Li Tie’s group. Ever since getting to know them, whenever they ran into each other morning or night, those guys always had something—or nothing—to chat about for ages.
Song Lingling pressed her lips together in a smile, followed her in, and closed her own door. Leaning in mysteriously, she whispered, “It’s not the same. The feeling with Li Tie and those carefree, thick-skinned kids is different. Those two feel like… a couple.”
Xu Mei halted mid-step and turned back at her in surprise. “That can’t be…”
Song Lingling blinked at her. “Why not? It’s my sixth sense! There are two couples like that in my college class! And there’s even a pair of girls!”
The two women stared at each other for quite a while before Xu Mei finally sighed and frowned in thought. “If that were true, it’d actually be a good thing. Having such a pair in the team…” If the team had an example like that, maybe it could encourage the other men to think along those lines too!
For the two of them—women who had now developed a serious aversion to men—gay men were practically a godsend! Friends to women! The best possible model for bringing peace and harmony to the base!
Completely unaware that he had been crowned a “friend to women,” an ultimate good guy who would absolutely never pose any threat to female safety, Luo Xun dragged his exhausted steps toward his own door. As he unlocked it, he discussed things with Yan Fei: “Let’s eat dinner first tonight before doing anything else, okay?”
Yan Fei had no objections. The two of them had been busy all day, and when they bought dinner in the cafeteria earlier, the aroma of the food had whetted their appetites. Even if they hadn’t been very hungry before, they certainly were now.
What they’d brought back today were all good dishes: braised chicken legs, pork belly, stewed beef… Each dish had some other ingredients mixed in, but overall they were meat-heavy—more than enough to satisfy two grown men.
Almost all of the meat stored in their freezer had been used up. The air-dried meats hanging from the rooftop—jerky, ham, sausages, and the like—could ease cravings, but they never dared eat too much, afraid that if they indulged now, there’d be nothing left when they really wanted some later.
Aside from those, they still had some air-dried beef Luo Xun had made before the apocalypse—air-dried in the truest sense. The cooked beef had been dried until it contained virtually no moisture at all, suitable as long-term emergency rations. It was so dry it was nearly impossible to cut, but if you took out a strip and rubbed it between your hands, the beef would quickly come apart like dried hemp rope.
However, making it had required a lot of beef, and Luo Xun hadn’t had much time back then, so he’d only produced a small bag. Now he was even more reluctant to casually take it out just to satisfy a craving.
When they opened the lunch boxes to eat, Luo Xun looked at the two boxes piled high with meat dishes and pondered seriously for a moment. He looked up and suggested to Yan Fei, “That’s too much meat. Eating it all in one go wouldn’t be great for our stomachs. How about we set aside half and add some vegetables from home?”
Yan Fei nodded with a suppressed laugh. “Sure. I’ll go cook the rice.” To maximize how much food they could bring back, they hadn’t taken any staple foods at all today—both lunch boxes were crammed full of mixed dishes.
Luo Xun hugged the lunch boxes and rushed into the kitchen, then dashed out onto the balcony to pick vegetables for today’s meal. Although they’d sold quite a lot of vegetables today, what they kept at home was still enough to last them for days—certainly until the next batch grew in.
He stir-fried some hand-torn lettuce—round-head lettuce they’d grown themselves. It tasted better than loose-leaf varieties and yielded less, so Luo Xun hadn’t been willing to sell it; he’d kept it all for their own meals.
They picked out more than half of the excess meat and put it into the freezer. Then the two of them sat comfortably on the sofa and dug in. Of course, with a dog at home, leaving the leftover bones for the little guy was simply part of a responsible owner’s mindset.
After eating and drinking their fill, Luo Xun looked at the sky outside the window, now completely dark. The night sky was deep and inky, studded clearly with stars—its visibility far beyond anything before the apocalypse.
“…What work did we plan to do tonight again?” He remembered there were quite a few things, but for the moment he couldn’t recall them clearly.
Yan Fei smiled and tightened the arm around his shoulders. “I think we’re supposed to set up the solar panels.” If they wanted to officially put the neighboring apartment into use, they’d need to fully utilize the pile of solar panels they’d traded for earlier. In fact, Luo Xun still had some panels in storage that hadn’t been put to use, since their current daily power consumption didn’t require that much. Those were being kept as backups.
“Right! But how should we do it?” Luo Xun hesitated. “If we hang them outside the windows, they’ll block the sunlight. It’d be better to mount them on the wall…” If they covered the windows, the panels would block sunlight from coming in. But if they mounted them on the wall, he worried someone might steal them.
Yan Fei chuckled. “Then just cover the entire exterior wall with iron grates. I’ll use my ability to fix all the panels directly to the wall. The grates will block some sunlight, but it shouldn’t be a big problem—and no one will be able to steal them.”
“That’s right! You can fuse the panels to the rebar inside the wall with your ability—who could possibly steal them?” Luo Xun said, laughing quietly himself. And if the wall was covered with iron grates, who would notice what was installed inside unless they looked very closely? “Make the grates wider, too. I’ll need the space to dry things there in autumn!”
“Alright. I’ll do it now.” There was still some metal material left at home. It wasn’t enough to wrap the entire exterior walls of both apartments, but it was more than sufficient to cover the areas around the windows—enough to mount all their solar panels.
Although it was already dark, making the work a bit inconvenient, who was Yan Fei? After all this time practicing and experimenting, he could shape the metal he controlled exactly as he wanted even with his eyes closed. Whether it was light or dark made no difference to him.
Using the remaining metal, he added more metal grates along the sun-facing wall and around their windows. None of the neighbors, nor the people hurrying home downstairs, noticed that the iron grates outside this apartment had expanded in area—or that there were now strange panels mounted inside them. That, too, could be counted as his skill.
Luo Xun happily pulled the wires from the solar panels into the apartment, all the way to the batteries placed in a dark corner to avoid direct sunlight. That way, starting tomorrow, all of their solar panels could be fully utilized to store power for the neighboring apartment!
Later, they’d still need to trade for more batteries. After all, their points just sat there unused most of the time. Going out to do more missions could earn points too, but when they went out, their main goal was collecting crystal cores—and the ones they’d obtained so far, they were reluctant to exchange for points. Sigh. All things considered, they were still short on money.
—And so Luo Xun, already far wealthier than the vast majority of people in the base who were still living in utter misery, sank into this completely unselfaware bout of melancholy.
After working together and making a fuss all night, the two of them set out early the next morning, driving to the entrance of the military camp while the sky was still not fully light. They headed toward the small plaza where the trucks had always been parked for previous assemblies, to meet Captain Guo and the others.
The next batch of vegetables at home hadn’t been harvested yet; the next harvest would be at least a week away. Although their current vegetables had a long growth cycle and low yield, Luo Xun’s goal was to secure a long-term additional channel for exchanging crystal cores, so neither of them was anxious about it. On the contrary, if Yan Fei and the others worked a few more days, the number of crystal cores they needed would increase accordingly, and they would soon be able to gather enough. If Yan Fei really could raise his ability level this time, the two of them were quite curious how many crystal cores it would take to advance to the next level after that.
Not long after they arrived, Captain Guo and his group showed up. Once everyone was present, they boarded the vehicle together, which then headed toward the outer city wall.
“We’ve already had a crane dispatched to us today,” Captain Guo said, frowning and scratching his head as he looked at everyone. “When the time comes, we’ll use it to hoist all the metal materials you need up there. But once the wall is raised, dealing with the zombies outside gets a lot more troublesome. The distance is too far— even if we kill them, it won’t be easy to collect the crystal cores.”
“So I suggested cooperating with the outer-wall patrol unit. We’ll split the crystal cores we get, and we’ll take one-third.”
The number of crystal cores they could get wasn’t all that high. After all, they were the wall-construction team; logically speaking, they weren’t supposed to be handling zombie-killing at all. But Captain Guo could be quite unreasonable in certain respects. Anyone who had worked with him knew his quirks and flaws. Moreover, the patrol squad stationed outside the city that he contacted—from the captain down to the regular soldiers—were all old acquaintances of his, so these matters were easy to negotiate.
On top of that, this patrol unit had previously cooperated with Captain Guo’s team. They knew that lately their marksmanship had been extremely accurate and their firepower strong, which was why they were willing to cooperate. Otherwise, who would have bothered with his proposal?
Luo Xun raised his hand and asked, “Doesn’t the patrol squad have other missions?” If they were just coming over to kill zombies with them, what about their own work? Were they just ignoring it?
Captain Guo smiled and explained to him and Yan Fei, “The outside patrol teams also have daily mission quotas. They’re required to collect a certain number of crystal cores and turn them in. Anything extra they get is theirs to keep. I told them that when we were building the wall before, wasn’t there always a crowd of zombies outside it? If they came along to fight, the numbers would definitely be enough. That’s why they agreed to cooperate.”
“How many do they have to turn in each day?” Luo Xun asked.
“One hundred and fifty a day.” Captain Guo smacked his lips, a trace of helplessness on his face. “That number isn’t hard to meet, but there have been a lot of zombies coming near the base lately. Once they get surrounded, it’s not easy for them to break out, so they haven’t dared to stray too far from the city gate. I told them that we have a crane inside the wall—if there’s real danger, we can hoist their entire vehicle in. That’s when they agreed.”
Even though military units didn’t lack ammunition or weapons when carrying out missions, they still feared getting completely surrounded by large numbers of zombies. Hadn’t there already been reports of level-two strength-type zombies appearing outside? Those things were incredibly strong—if they really smashed a vehicle flat, who would survive? So when someone proposed cooperation, they were more than happy to have extra support.
A soldier asked curiously, “What about the wall-building team with the earth-type ability users? Why didn’t we cooperate with them?”
Captain Guo smiled meaningfully. “Of course they wouldn’t cooperate. From the moment they started building the wall until now, those teams have never thought about killing the zombies under the wall. When they’re building, they don’t even dare to look outside. They just use however many crystal cores are allocated from above—no need to look for partners. Of course, the outside patrol units will still go check on them regularly.”
Most of the people building the outer wall were earth-type ability users among the survivors. Many of them had long since been scared witless. Earth-type abilities didn’t seem to have any particularly good way of dealing with zombies at present, so they were desperate to finish the wall as soon as possible and hoped fervently that the zombies wouldn’t notice them behind it.
As for the soldiers responsible for protecting those earth-type ability users? Once the wall reached a certain height, and once their daily ammunition was strictly rationed, they were even less willing to waste bullets shooting zombies that posed no real threat to them or the ability users. After all, those zombies couldn’t reach them anyway—so what if they were milling around outside?
This difference in mindset was exactly what set the metal-type team apart from the others. They were now practically addicted to killing zombies; even the metal-type ability users themselves sometimes wished they could grab a gun and join in, especially after seeing how much better their former comrades’ shooting had become.
On the east side of the outer base gate, a short stretch of wall clearly stood much taller than the rest—that was the new section built to a height of ten meters. When the group got out of the vehicle and looked at the imposing wall, everyone sucked in a sharp breath. Hearing about it was one thing; seeing it with their own eyes was something else entirely.
On the other side of the towering wall, many people were busy at work—those were the teams primarily composed of earth-type ability users constructing earthen walls. Their vehicles had just arrived as well. After exchanging greetings, their captain and Captain Guo each went about their own work. Although both teams were responsible for similar tasks, the metal team had far fewer people. At the beginning, they might still run into each other, but after working for several days, the distance between the two teams would grow greater and greater, until eventually they were so far apart that they couldn’t even see one another.
Sure enough, a tall crane was parked not far behind the ten-meter wall. It had a very high load capacity—around twelve tons—and could reach a height of at least twenty-five meters. It wasn’t needed yet, but if the zombies outside continued to evolve in stranger and faster ways, perhaps one day the base’s walls would indeed have to be built higher than twenty meters.
“Alright, everyone, go up and take a look first. If there are no problems, we’ll start work. Some metal materials have already been hoisted onto the wall. If it’s not enough, we’ll keep sending more up,” Captain Guo said, waving his hand.
Everyone climbed the wide stairway built by the earth-type ability users.
A wall three meters thick was no joke, and ten meters high was certainly not just a figure of speech. After climbing up, everyone looked down—and anyone with a fear of heights would probably have their legs shaking just from that glance.
“This height is actually pretty good,” Sun Shaoyang said, looking down and patting his chest in relief. “Even zombies with ranged attacks won’t be able to hit us easily.”
“Still, don’t get careless,” Captain Guo warned. “Those responsible for protecting the ability users, stick close to them. Don’t let anyone get caught off guard by some strange zombie—stay sharp! And those handling the zombie suppression, watch your fire. Don’t end up shooting Old Niu and his people or their vehicle when they arrive.”
The “Old Niu” he mentioned was the good buddy he had arranged to farm crystal cores with; they hadn’t arrived yet.
Yan Fei gauged the distance below, then took out a piece of metal and began shaping his metal “pen.” The slender strip of metal extended downward, stretching and stretching, until it touched the metal plate six meters below. Then it continued extending along the outer side of that plate, downward and downward, until it finally reached the ground.
“It’s doable,” Yan Fei said, “but controlling it will be more troublesome. Everyone may need some time to adapt. How deep does the foundation need to go?” Building a wall wasn’t like stacking blocks—you couldn’t just build ten meters high on the surface and be done with it. For stability, however high the wall was above ground, you usually had to dig correspondingly deep below. But this was a perimeter wall, and they didn’t have that much material, so the underground portion probably didn’t need to be too deep.
Captain Guo quickly pulled out a sheet of paper and checked the data on it. “Three meters deep for now.”
“Three meters is enough?” the deputy captain couldn’t help asking. Even if he didn’t fully understand construction, he knew people from the engineering corps. A ten-meter wall with only a three-meter foundation… it didn’t sound very reassuring.
“That’s what the experts recommended. I don’t really understand it either,” Captain Guo admitted. “But the metal wall will be one meter thick—maybe that’ll be enough to support it? Anyway, let’s follow this plan for now. I figure they’re worried about running out of metal, so they set the numbers this way.”
Hearing that, Yan Fei continued adding metal to the rod in his hand. The soil at the bottom was slowly forced aside, bit by bit… “Three meters reached. Everyone else give it a try too. If it’s hard to judge three meters, use that wall down there as a reference. Mark the halfway point on your metal rod—once it’s sunk into the soil, you’ll know when you’ve reached the right depth.”
With their previous experience, the metal-type ability users quickly found their rhythm. Yan Fei, in particular, was especially adept, having long been used to reinforcing the rebar and concrete inside his own walls, so he adapted easily to working deep in the soil. The real problems with building the wall now were, first, the distance was too great—the metal-type ability users had to operate at a length of a full thirteen meters! Not everyone could manage that. And second—
The zombies below were incredibly annoying.
This time, they were laying a new foundation in the soil and expanding outward. The horde of zombies below squeezed toward wherever there were people, and their numbers kept increasing. Several times, they crowded right into the spot where the metal strips needed to extend downward. If Yan Fei could have dragged Zhang Su over, he would have unhesitatingly tossed him down there to blow away those troublemakers.
Worse still, a few zombies relied on their ranged abilities and spat fire, water, and lightning upward. Fireballs and water balls were manageable—now that the wall was higher, if those zombies craned their necks too far back, whatever they launched would fall back down the same way it went up, and in the end, they’d be the ones getting hit ?(?_?)?.
But lightning was a different matter entirely! Metal conducts electricity! Once those bright little bolts struck near the metal they were manipulating, the sensation was… exquisite. Enough to shock a buzz cut into an explosive afro.
Perhaps it was fortunate that these zombies had only just acquired their abilities? Their powers were roughly on par with level-one ability users, so the damage wasn’t yet enough to directly electrocute someone to death. But their behavior seriously interfered with the work.
“Shoot them! Drop every damn one of them!” Captain Guo roared, pulling out a Desert Eagle and firing at a zombie below that had just been discharging electricity.
The gunshot was thunderously loud—much louder than the weapons they normally used. One of the soldiers holding up a shield to protect the ability users flinched, nearly dropping it. The deputy captain’s legs trembled as he pointed at Captain Guo’s gun. “W-where did you get that?!”
Captain Guo shook his wrist, which was buzzing from the recoil, and snorted. “Won it in a bet with Old Meng last time. Damn thing—great to use, but the recoil’s brutal. My whole arm’s sore.” He’d known the recoil was strong, but the bullets were too expensive, so he hadn’t dared test it much in the camp. Thankfully, his skills were solid—otherwise he’d have embarrassed himself with the very first shot.
With Captain Guo taking the lead, everyone else went into a frenzy, spraying fire downward like they’d been injected with adrenaline. Members of the neighboring earth-type wall-building team kept glancing over in astonishment. A few of them muttered under their breath, “What on earth are they doing?”
“The zombies can’t even reach them, so why are they fighting so fiercely?”
“Who knows, maybe we have an abundance of bullets.”
“Look at them, and then look at us. Where are we going to find so many bullets to waste?”
“Showing off…”
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