Chapter 95 — Aftermath
About five or six minutes later, Yan Fei finally let out a breath and raised his head to look at the two captains waiting nearby. “That should be about it. Captain, do you have any crystal cores? We don’t have the strength left to restore the gate.”
Before he had even finished speaking, several soldiers from logistics, carrying gasoline cans, came running up, panting heavily as they climbed onto the wall. When they’d arrived near the gate earlier and seen that it wasn’t broken, they’d realized nothing had happened to it yet, so they’d just grabbed the gasoline and sprinted up without stopping to ask about the specifics.
“The gasoline’s here—should we… holy crap! What happened here?!”
The towering metal city wall was now slammed flat against the ground. A ten-meter drop was no small thing, but what was even more outrageous was that what should have been a smooth metal slab had been twisted into a huge lump, like a filthy old rag that had been wrung out and tossed aside.
“Where are the crystal cores? Has the logistics department brought the crystal cores yet?! Metal-type ability users need resupply!” Captain Guo had no time to answer their questions and instead shouted urgently at the newcomers.
“B-behind us,” the soldier responsible for transporting the gasoline replied quickly. They’d been worried the wall wouldn’t hold, so they’d let the gasoline carriers run ahead, while the people transporting the other supplies were still following behind.
The officer who had been directing the defense atop the wall immediately sent people down to meet them. Before long, the group delivering the crystal cores came running up with boxes in hand.
The four metal-type ability users didn’t stand on ceremony—each grabbed a handful on the spot and began absorbing them. Once their mental power was finally replenished, they placed their hands back on the wall. Everyone on top of the wall was then treated once more to a scalp-numbing, horrifying sight—the crumpled metal slab wriggled a few times, slowly “unfolded,” shook itself as if flinging off debris stuck to it, and then obediently “stuck” back into place…
The ground was littered with wreckage—zombie rats, along with crushed and mangled car parts.
Cheers instantly erupted, echoing across the entire wall. Luo Xun tugged at Captain Guo, whose face was lit up with joy, and reminded him in a low voice amid the noise, “Not all the rats were gathered at the gate just now. It’d be best to send people to check other areas, just in case.”
Captain Guo quickly suppressed his excitement and went to report the situation to the commander-in-chief.
The feat accomplished by Yan Fei and the others sent the entire wall into a frenzy. He ignored the other three metal-type ability users and didn’t join the cheering crowd. Instead, he waited quietly with Luo Xun. After confirming there were no further issues, they reported briefly to Captain Guo, then slipped down from the wall, returned to the waiting area, retrieved their vehicle, and left. This time, they’d gotten a special pass from Captain Guo, so they didn’t need to undergo blood tests or wait several hours before heading back.
Li Tie and the others were no longer there—their three vehicles, along with the metal materials they’d been hauling behind them, were all gone. It wasn’t until Yan Fei and Luo Xun drove back toward the inner base that they saw the stretch of road where they’d heard about the “traffic accident” on the wall earlier.
Although there were no longer many people gathered around, several damaged and overturned vehicles were still there, pulled to the roadside by troops who’d arrived later. It seemed the military would likely carry out another round of road reorganization within the inner base. Otherwise, similar situations could happen again, and if they affected the safety of the wall’s defense, everyone in the base would end up paying the price.
After returning to their residential compound, they parked their vehicle alongside the ones Li Tie and the others had already left there. Yan Fei then directly guided some of the metal to “float” as they climbed upstairs. When they opened the metal door on the fifteenth floor, Xu Mei’s group—who had already returned—along with Li Tie and the others, all came out to greet them.
After putting away the metal materials, Yan Fei absorbed several more crystal cores that Captain Guo had deliberately stuffed into their hands earlier. It was rare to get an unlimited supply of crystal cores delivered right to them—he’d be doing his reputation for loving small advantages a disservice if he didn’t take a few extra.
Luo Xun smiled at everyone. “Why don’t we go inside and catch our breath first?”
Xu Mei smiled as well. “Come sit at our place. Rest a bit, then everyone can head home.”
By now, night had fully fallen. Xu Mei and the other woman ushered everyone inside. Only a small desk lamp on the table was lit, and along the living room wall by the balcony stood rows of metal racks already set up for planting. The room felt a bit crowded, but it could still just about accommodate the eleven of them.
Yu Xinran was already getting sleepy, leaning against Xu Mei and rubbing her eyes. Song Lingling said softly, “How about letting little Xinran go to bed first?”
Xu Mei nodded, letting her carry Yu Xinran back to the bedroom. Before long, she came back out alone. By then, Yan Fei had already used the metal they’d just brought back to make over a dozen chairs and set them around the room. Everyone took a seat.
Luo Xun explained what had happened at the gate, then sighed at the end. “Zombie rats, of all things. We weren’t too early getting back, but judging by how fast and agile they were, it’s a good thing we didn’t run into them when we were outside.”
Everyone’s expressions darkened. “Good grief—now even rats have turned into zombies? If other animals outside turn into zombies too, how are we supposed to go out anymore?” They’d encountered zombie dogs and zombie cats before, but fortunately, with Luo Xun’s lightning-fast reactions and powerful ability users like Yan Fei and Zhang Su in the team, Luo Xun usually dealt with those situations before the zombie animals could attack. But rats were not only extremely fast—they were tiny and hard to target. If they ran into them outside… it was terrifying to even imagine.
Xu Mei suddenly spoke up. “It’s possible we already encountered them before without realizing it. I remember last time we were out, late at night, it sounded like something was gnawing outside—kind of a squeaking noise—but because there was a big fire burning in the traps outside, we didn’t pay attention…” She looked at Yan Fei with lingering fear. “Good thing Brother Yan built the wall’s foundation pretty deep…”
Whenever they went out, Yan Fei would build a tall wall outside the bank as a protective measure. When constructing the wall, he’d instinctively made the foundation at least a meter deep, just in case Zhang Su’s gusts of wind accidentally blew it over. The above-ground part of the wall would naturally be deliberately dismantled by Yan Fei when they left, subtly blended into the bank’s structure, but he’d never bothered with the foundation. Instead, he’d had Zhang Su spread Yu Xinran’s sand evenly, combine it with Song Lingling’s water, and cover it all up along with the traps.
Now that they thought about it…
Everyone felt a chill creep up the backs of their necks. They exchanged glances, their expressions turning grim.
Luo Xun saw this and comforted everyone. “Even if there are some zombie rats on the outskirts, there probably won’t be many. As long as we can spot them early, it won’t be a problem—and we’ve got very good protective measures.” As he spoke, he looked at Yan Fei with trust and a smile in his eyes.
Yan Fei smiled back and raised an eyebrow at him, the expression on his face full of confidence.
The others all let out sighs of relief as well. He Qianqian was the most easygoing of them; hearing Luo Xun’s words, he nodded in wholehearted agreement. “Exactly! With Brother Yan around, at worst we can even wrap the underground in metal. I don’t believe those rats’ teeth are that sharp!”
His words made everyone laugh. Indeed, if Yan Fei had the time, he could completely build a protective layer made entirely of metal. As long as they didn’t encounter a high-level zombie of the same attribute, or an exceptionally powerful lightning-type zombie, there wouldn’t be much to worry about.
In fact, when Luo Xun had originally asked Yan Fei to lay a deeper foundation while building the wall around the bank, it had simply been to guard against earth-type zombies. Although level-two earth-type zombies didn’t yet have the ability to burrow freely underground, better safe than sorry. Who would’ve thought that this precaution might also have helped them avoid other possible attacks?
After that, they discussed their upcoming work—mainly how to renovate the rooms, which vegetables to plant first, and so on. Only then did everyone stand up and head back to the sixteenth floor to rest and sleep.
Early the next morning, Li Tie and the other four dragged themselves out of bed, miserable and groaning, hauling their aching, exhausted bodies off to work. Thankfully, their work had finally settled into a routine. These days all they had to do was sit in front of computers, typing and editing, without any physical exertion—otherwise, these kids really wouldn’t have been able to hold on.
Luo Xun and Yan Fei slept in, lazily staying in bed until ten in the morning before getting up to make breakfast. When the two of them headed out to go downstairs and bring things back up, they ran into Zhang Su, who was opening his door while rubbing his eyes and yawning.
Seeing the conspicuous marks on his neck, Luo Xun couldn’t help mocking him. “Your stamina’s pretty impressive.” After fighting for their lives nonstop for two days, Wang Duo had actually still had the energy to roll around in bed with him last night!
Zhang Su showed not the slightest trace of shame. His peach-blossom eyes curved with a grin as he patted Luo Xun on the shoulder. “Jealous? Sigh, who would’ve thought your guy would be all show and no substance—already tapped out.”
The “tapped out” Yan Fei narrowed his eyes slightly, a glint of cold light flashing through them, instantly making the hairs on the back of Luo Xun’s neck stand on end.
An awkward cough sounded from the stairwell. Xu Mei covered Xinran’s ears, pretending she hadn’t heard a thing. When she saw that everyone had noticed them, she smiled at Luo Xun. “The little girl’s been clamoring to play with the dog.” —As expected, Zhang Su and Wang Duo really were a pair. She’d been right all along. That made it even easier to think up ways to bend the remaining men!
“Come on, it’s running around happily right now,” Luo Xun said with a smile, turning back toward his own door and opening the door to unit 1603. The little one had been let into this room early that morning—mainly because ever since Xinran started playing with it, whenever the adults weren’t around during the day, the little girl would be the one taking care of it.
Normally, they didn’t let people enter their own place, but now that everyone had officially become one team—and since Luo Xun needed to teach Xu Mei and the other woman how to farm—the door to 1603 was no longer kept locked during the day, just like Li Tie’s and Zhang Su’s homes, making it easier for everyone to come and go to tend the vegetables.
Xinran let out a cheer and toddled inside. The little one was very well-behaved; even with the door open, it didn’t run into the hallway. Wagging its tail like a steady little adult, it waited for Xinran to come over and hug it, then carried the little girl on its back, trotting deeper into the room, prompting her to shriek and laugh at the same time.
The group hurried downstairs, opened the vehicle Yan Fei had sealed up the night before, and began carrying things upstairs. They’d brought back quite a lot this time—the refrigerator they’d gotten earlier was clearly no longer enough, so this trip they’d hauled back two freezers and another fridge. In addition, there was a large amount of wood and metal materials.
Since the elevator still couldn’t be used, they first carried the metal and some smaller items upstairs—for example, the remaining gasoline and small pieces of wood.
Yan Fei once again guided a large mass of metal floating in midair, walking in front, while everyone else followed behind, each carrying different items as they slowly made their way upstairs.
The residential compound was noticeably livelier than usual that day. Although what had happened at the gate the day before had been resolved quickly, the people inside the base were still shaken by the crisis. Some people who normally went out on missions were now staying home, and all sorts of rumors were spreading through the base—claims that the base had been attacked by zombie animals, or that new, even more terrifying humanoid zombies had appeared outside.
Luo Xun and the others ignored all that. Once back upstairs, they began using metal to renovate the rooms. Yan Fei had a total of four rooms that needed complete remodeling, including the one occupied by Xu Mei and the other two women. After some discussion, they decided to fully renovate Xu Mei’s room first and take their time with the others.
While Yan Fei worked on the renovations, Luo Xun led Zhang Su, Xu Mei, and the others in processing the small pieces of wood they’d carried up. He taught them how big each piece should be, how to inoculate the wood with mushroom spores, and what levels of humidity and temperature were suitable for growth.
They worked at it all day. By evening, Li Tie and the others returned and helped Luo Xun’s group carry up all the remaining wood, refrigerators, and freezers from the vehicles. Only then did the day’s work finally come to an end.
Once household tasks pile up, it’s easy to lose track of everything else. So when Luo Xun, supporting his sore waist (why his waist was sore? You guess~), drove back to the military camp the next day and saw Captain Guo standing there with an extremely smug smile, patting several bags full of crystal cores beside him, he suddenly realized—what had happened at the base gate seemed like it had only been the day before yesterday, yet it felt as if several days had already passed.
“These are special rewards from above, for wiping out the zombie rats the day before yesterday,” Captain Guo said mysteriously in a low voice. “Do you know how many zombie rats you smashed in that one move?”
Not to mention outsiders—even Yan Fei and the others involved had no idea how many there were. They were small, after all, like using a flyswatter to smack ants. Who knew how many would die with one smack?
Captain Guo’s smile grew even more meaningful as he raised his eyebrows at them. “More than six hundred! No idea where those rats managed to squeeze themselves into the cars, to end up coming back in such numbers!” Then, under everyone’s horrified gazes, he sighed. “Besides the ones you smashed at the gate, quite a few ran along the wall to other places and started digging holes. Luckily, we caught it early… The teams sent to check had fire-type ability users and gasoline, but even so, they weren’t killing rats nearly as fast as you did!”
After that, he reined in his smugness, his expression turning serious as he addressed the four ability users. “Your abilities have proven to be extremely important for base defense, especially when it comes to guarding it. So yesterday, the higher-ups decided that besides continuing your usual work of building the base walls, you’ll also be assigned to the front lines at critical moments to eliminate zombies that could pose major threats to the base. Everyone should be mentally prepared for that.” He paused, then said to those without abilities, “Our squad is one unit, so when the time comes, the rest of you will need to step up as well. These are supplies from base command—not just for wall construction, but crystal cores for you to use in improving your abilities in daily life. And besides these, there will be more crystal cores given out for future missions…”
This showed how much importance the higher-ups placed on these ability users—but it also meant that, going forward, they might face even more danger.
After finishing this matter, Captain Guo distributed the crystal cores to the four ability users and offered words of encouragement to each of them. Besides the crystal cores, this round of rewards from the higher-ups also included several meal-replacement vouchers for Cafeteria No. 1 for each person, as well as material reward vouchers from the logistics department—something that made everyone even more excited than receiving the crystal cores.
Afterward, Captain Guo led everyone toward the city wall. Halfway there, he deliberately called Yan Fei aside to walk with him and said in a low voice, “When I reported yesterday, I didn’t deliberately single you out. It’s not that I wanted to suppress your contribution—it’s just that… your ability is clearly stronger than the other three. But the stronger the ability, the more likely you are to be sent on even more dangerous missions. That’s why I temporarily kept your situation under wraps and told the higher-ups that the four of you worked together to collapse the wall and crush the zombie rats.”
Although some other soldiers had witnessed it, how exactly the operation had been carried out—and even Yan Fei’s specific role—was known only to their own squad.
Yan Fei expressed his understanding and smiled. “That’s for the best. I understand what you mean.” In fact, not long after he and Luo Xun had first joined the squad, they had already made their position clear to Captain Guo: they were willing to participate in base construction and fulfill their duties as base members, but they didn’t want anything else to disturb the relatively peaceful lives the two of them shared. It was precisely because Captain Guo understood their principles that he made this decision yesterday.
After all, he had asked the other two metal-type ability users who had been cooperating with Yan Fei from the beginning, and learned that during the elimination of the zombie rats it had always been Yan Fei guiding their abilities and controlling the overall situation. Only then did he realize that Yan Fei had likely been holding back all along.
This was a form of self-preservation, and also a sign that Yan Fei didn’t want to get too deeply entangled in the base’s internal affairs. Captain Guo could understand that, but he also hoped to gain greater assistance from Yan Fei because of it. He himself had no great ambitions—being able to live steadily inside the base as he was now was enough. He didn’t worry about being pushed out as cannon fodder by the higher-ups, nor did he fear losing his position to someone else and thereby his foothold.
Because his intentions aligned with Yan Fei’s, he instructed those two to conceal Yan Fei’s true ability level, and likewise hid this fact from the higher-ups when reporting. After all, their squad had been assigned to the logistics department from the very beginning—he had no desire to lead his own soldiers out to die.
By the time Luo Xun and the others followed the squad back to the military camp and prepared to start work, the outer wall of the camp had already been completely finished. Now, the camp was rebuilding all of its internal structures. Yes—all of them. The former dormitory buildings, office buildings, cafeterias, and the like all had to be reconstructed and integrated into the tall, thick defensive walls.
After finishing that earlier discussion, Captain Guo brought everyone back to the work site they’d been at before the break and quietly gave them some instructions. “Orders have come down from above: within one month, the outer walls here at the camp must be completed, and the underground structures finished as well. The goal is to start building the wall between the inner and outer perimeters early next month.”
This accident had made the military camp extremely tense. The fact that those rats had thought of digging tunnels to “burrow” into the base—though they hadn’t succeeded—was something the base had never anticipated before. As a result, the upper-level meeting yesterday had turned into a heated argument. Some suggested sending the metal-type ability users back to the outer walls to further thicken and deepen the metal defenses. Others proposed prioritizing the complete encasement of the military camp in a metal shell, from the surface down into the ground. Still others suggested digging an even wider moat outside the base, pushing the inspection checkpoints outward to the opposite bank of the moat, and only allowing people in after they’d been checked there…
After arguing for an entire day, they finally decided to continue having Yan Fei’s group work on the camp’s perimeter walls. Not only did the walls need to be deep enough, but the underground also had to be fully encased in metal, forming a cup-like structure that would completely wrap the base from three directions. In addition, the trench already dug outside the walls would be widened and filled with water, turning it into a true moat.
The moat naturally had nothing to do with Luo Xun’s team. Their only task was to completely use up the huge pile of metal materials stacked outside the camp.
They worked the entire day. Yan Fei and the other three received noticeably more crystal core supplies than before, on top of their rewards—whether Captain Guo had fought for it or the higher-ups had deliberately allocated it after learning of their combat power was unclear.
After driving home and carrying yet another batch of metal materials upstairs, Luo Xun and Yan Fei began that day’s work.
The sound of sawing wood echoed through the sixteenth-floor corridor. Xu Mei and Song Lingling helped by carrying the sawn pieces of wood into the open doorway of 1602, while passing intact pieces to Luo Xun from the other side.
On the fifteenth floor, Yan Fei was using metal materials to finish laying the floor in 1501. The underfloor heating had already been installed earlier; now all that remained was to set up the flooring, walls, and the like. As for more specific items such as planting racks, those would have to wait until Luo Xun finalized what each room would be used to grow.
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