Chapter 99 — Blocking the Lock
This nearly empty home contained nothing of note except for the few removable glass windowpanes and some crude, bulky furniture. Those things were of no use at all to the homebody squad now, and hauling them back and forth would only waste time. If those people hadn’t fled but instead gone to get help, delaying things for the sake of a few pieces of furniture would really have been more trouble than it was worth.
However, when the two of them were leaving the apartment, Yan Fei very “kindly” did them a favor—he directly blocked up the keyhole in the front door. For a metal-type ability user, plugging someone else’s lock was ridiculously easy.
Yan Fei had actually considered sealing up all of the apartment’s windows as well. But after thinking it over, he decided that while temporarily blocking someone’s windows and front door might feel satisfying, there would always come a day when they could be forced open again. Once the door was opened, a house with completely sealed windows—aside from being poorly ventilated—would actually be safer. He had no interest in gifting would-be thieves who tried to rob his home a turtle shell they could hide inside. So in the end, he just casually blocked the lock and left it at that.
He had also thought about using metal to completely seal the place shut so that whoever came back wouldn’t even be able to live there, but that would have been far too wasteful of resources. Forget it.
The two returned to the car and reattached the metal to their own vehicle. Luo Xun tossed these rather shabby “spoils of war” into the car and drove all the way back home.
When they reached the fifteenth floor, they were met head-on by Li Tie and the others, who came charging over in a rage, sleeves rolled up, five young men with fury written all over their faces.
“Brother Luo, Brother Yan—where do those guys live? We’re going to beat them up too!”
Daring to bully the only three women in the house while there were no men around—were they tired of living?!
Yan Fei swept them with a glance. “Go where? They’ve already run.”
“Huh?!”
The five stared at each other, wide-eyed.
Luo Xun pointed behind him. “They ran. When we got there, there wasn’t a single person left in the apartment, and all their stuff was gone… Oh, I took their windows off. Let’s check how many panes are broken on our side and replace them quickly.”
With the enemies either caught, crippled, or fled, Li Tie and the others could only droop their heads, carry the stack of windows, and head back to the fifteenth floor to inspect the shattered glass.
In Room 1503, one window had been broken, and two windows in Xu Mei’s apartment had been shattered as well. Fortunately, with plenty of manpower, the windows were replaced before long. Even when the sizes didn’t quite match, they could be patched together temporarily, plus they had glass adhesive stored at home… By the time Zhang Su returned, unless someone pointed it out, he probably wouldn’t even notice that a few panes had been replaced.
After Luo Xun and Yan Fei returned to their own apartment, Luo Xun finally remembered the matter that had occurred to him after hearing Captain Guo’s earlier comment. He quickly reminded Yan Fei:
“When we were repairing the wall before, they joked that if flying zombies ever showed up, would they have to put a lid over the military camp? I think… these days, even rats can turn into zombies. What if there really are flying ones? Maybe I’m overthinking it, but it’s better to prepare in advance.”
Yan Fei raised his eyebrows, somewhat surprised, and looked at him. Seeing that Luo Xun wasn’t joking, he thought it over and nodded.
“Plus what happened today… we really should make some preparations. At the very least, we should reinforce the outside of our walls. But we’ve basically used up all our metal this time. We’ll bring some more back after the next outing.”
Only then did Luo Xun relax. He smiled at Yan Fei and said, “Better safe than sorry. Making our home sturdier doesn’t hurt anyway.”
The incident with the burglary dragged on for another two days. When the military came by, it was mostly during the day, and no one dared to give Xu Mei and Song Lingling—those thorny roses—any trouble. They just asked about what had happened and recorded a routine statement. So life for Luo Xun and the others remained as calm as before.
The perimeter walls continued to grow taller and thicker day by day, and inside the base, large quantities of metal materials were still being transported in without pause. After all the metal-type ability users had advanced to Level Two, this kind of work—which required little technical finesse—became extremely easy for them, and the speed of wall construction far surpassed that of when they’d been building the outer walls.
Just when almost everyone thought life would continue on like this day after day, a piece of news reached the Southwest Base of A City.
Watching several military vehicles roar past, Yan Fei noticed that Luo Xun—who seemed distracted all day—once again took out his phone and checked it. Yan Fei couldn’t help but feel puzzled. They had just delivered vegetables to Canteen No. 1 that morning, and they didn’t need to go again tomorrow. Nothing had happened recently among their group. Although the number of people in the residential complex had been gradually increasing, two thieves had fallen from their building not long ago—surely other petty thieves wouldn’t have the nerve to come looking for trouble again anytime soon.
Li Tie and the others were all working normally, with no reports of recent problems. As for Zhang Su… even if there were any issues, he could handle them himself. And as for Yan Fei, although Captain Guo had mentioned before that higher-ups wanted to personally meet these special metal-type ability users and give some sort of commendation, Luo Xun and Yan Fei had made excuses and declined at the time.
So why did Luo Xun seem so unsettled now?
The question remained unanswered even after they got home. It wasn’t that Yan Fei didn’t want to ask—he had brought it up twice during the day—but Luo Xun’s mind was clearly elsewhere. Even if he asked, Luo Xun would drift off and respond with nothing more than a distracted “Huh?” Ask again, and there’d still be nothing.
So Yan Fei suppressed his doubts. The two of them sat in Xu Mei’s living room, listening to little Xinran sing a children’s song she’d just learned that day—personally taught by the two ladies, the ever-so-“valiant roses”…
Well, the lyrics were decent and the song was quite nice, but was it really okay to teach such a high-difficulty song to a child under ten just for fun?
Luo Xun’s mouth twitched as he listened to the little girl sing the song to the point of being out of breath. He very politely applauded in encouragement—though it would have been even better if the smile on his face had been as sincere as the one on Yan Fei’s.
The two said goodbye to Xu Mei and the others and were about to take the child back upstairs when they ran into Li Tie and his group, who were huffing and puffing as they climbed up. Before the door was even opened, Han Li, who was in front, shouted out:
“Brother Luo, did you hear about it today?!”
“Hear about what?”
“Several city bases are in trouble! They’ve sent distress signals to us. I heard at least two bases have already been completely breached!”
The stairwell instantly fell silent. Xu Mei and Song Lingling widened their eyes and looked at each other. Yan Fei turned to look at Luo Xun beside him. There was a trace of emotion in Luo Xun’s eyes, but unlike the others, he didn’t look shocked. Instead, there was a hint of melancholy, a hint of a sigh.
Some things, even if you know them in advance, can’t really be changed. He could remind the military that using contaminated water might cause humans to turn into zombies, yet lax food sanitation still led to survivors in the base suddenly becoming zombies.
He could tell the scientists at the research institute that mushrooms could reduce the mutation rate of crops, but the crops planted in the fields still underwent large-scale mutations.
He could tell others that today, the M City Base would be breached by zombies. But even if he actually said it, who would believe him? The distance between the two cities was so great—so even if he did say it, nothing could be changed.
Moreover, although in his previous life he knew that more than one base would run into trouble around this time, he hadn’t known that they would all meet disaster on almost the same day!
On his way into A City, he had encountered people from other bases, but the situation at the time was extremely chaotic. No one had time to talk about specifics—everyone was focused on rushing toward A City and finding ways to shake off the zombie hordes along the way. By the time they reached A City, how many people—after living in a daze for so long—could still remember the exact dates?
—M City, X City, and the Second Base of C City: three bases breached in total, with several others sending out distress calls. The atmosphere inside the Southwest Base of A City instantly grew oppressive, and even after the base reinstated permission for people to go out on missions, the heaviness remained.
Even if people were allowed to leave the base, it wasn’t as if only a tiny patch had been blown up before! If everyone wanted to go collect supplies nearby, what were they supposed to do? In the past, they could still check nearby residential buildings or shopping malls—but now? Sorry, your only choices were to go deep into the city proper, or head north to areas that hadn’t been bombed yet.
Smaller teams wouldn’t gain much even if they went out, but if they ventured too deep into the city, they might instead run into large-scale zombie hordes. If they went to the previously bombed ruins, they risked coming back empty-handed. As a result, teams with fewer people—those with around ten members—were finding it increasingly difficult to get by in the base.
Fortunately, the base began recruiting workers at the same time. Even so, the elderly and physically weak who usually stayed inside the base couldn’t earn many points. After a whole day of hard labor, people with low efficiency might not even be able to support themselves. As for younger people with little combat ability, the teams that went out to scavenge didn’t look favorably on them at all, so instead they joined various base construction projects.
What’s more, many teams now only recruited ability users, barely sparing a glance for ordinary people.
Another development that was rather fortunate—and welcome—for Luo Xun and Yan Fei was this: the number of openly, unabashedly gay male couples in the base had skyrocketed.
There was no helping it. In the beginning, there might have been some single women, but after wave upon wave of disasters both inside and outside the base, the women who still dared to move about openly were basically only the fierce types like Xu Mei and Song Lingling. Even women with less-than-stellar looks—or those on the level of “Feng Jie”—had mostly found partners by now.
According to the grapevine statistics compiled by Li Tie and the others, the male-to-female ratio in the base had actually reached 1:4.5. Note carefully: one woman to 4.5 men!
Under such a severe imbalance of supply and demand, aside from those who had acted early enough to secure a wife to keep at home, most men didn’t even get to see women’s faces. As a result, men pairing up and living together became increasingly common.
It was in this somewhat oppressive, gloomy atmosphere that Luo Xun and the others??? the end-of-June mission outside the base.
Because Li Tie and his group had finally managed to secure three days off, after much discussion everyone decided to leave the base on the 27th and return on the 28th. That way, Li Tie and the others could rest for a full day, while Luo Xun and Yan Fei could rest for two consecutive days.
It was worth mentioning that the reason Luo Xun and the others didn’t schedule the outing for the very last two days of the month was entirely due to the previous burglary incident. Although there wasn’t much flexibility, they still avoided fixing their schedule too rigidly, so as not to let others notice a pattern. That was why they chose a different date.
On the evening of the 26th, everyone gathered in Li Tie’s room for a briefing meeting. Everything needed for the outing had already been prepared, and Xu Mei and the others had even readied food for the trip. Luo Xun had also prepared the mushrooms over the past few afternoons. Now there was only one final matter left—planning the route.
“I heard that most of the major buildings in the southern part of the city were blown up in the last military operation. The base we used before probably…” After saying this, Li Tie looked hopefully at Yan Fei.
Yan Fei, however, looked perfectly calm. “Not a big problem. As long as there’s metal along the way, it’ll be fine. Under these circumstances, we can only build temporary bases again.”
“We can go take a look first, then decide where to hunt zombies,” Luo Xun explained to everyone. “The last bombing did reduce the number of zombie hordes near us a bit. But since everyone is now focusing on the northern part of the city, I think it actually benefits us to operate in the south instead. Our objectives are different from others—we don’t need to bring back supplies to the base. The materials we need and can find are available whether we go deep into the city or not. In that case, staying in the southern part is actually advantageous for us: the zombie numbers aren’t too high, but still enough for us to fight. And we can collect metal materials along the way.”
After Luo Xun finished, everyone nodded repeatedly. Their main goals when leaving the base were, first, metal materials, and second, zombie crystal cores.
With Yan Fei—who was practically a human magnet—on their team, there was no need to worry about finding metal. As for zombie crystal cores? Although some zombies in the south had already been killed, the explosions had also drawn even more zombies there. For a team that specialized in killing zombies, that was actually quite convenient.
With their objectives settled, the meeting adjourned and everyone turned in early. Early the next morning, they drove to the city gate, ready to head out.
Their team still consisted of the original four vehicles—no, five—since Luo Xun’s vehicle was a two-in-one, linked together.
But looking at the other teams’ vehicles waiting at the gate—generally speaking, they had at least ten vehicles as a baseline.
The formerly scattered small teams had either been absorbed by others or temporarily banded together. In any case, teams like Luo Xun’s were extremely rare.
Of course, there were also some teams that hadn’t managed to find partners. At the moment, they were waiting at the city gate holding signs asking to form teams, seek cooperation, or travel together. These were mostly squads of around ten people—now wanting to go out but not daring to venture too far, hoping to find others to cooperate with and head north into the city together.
The homebody squad had no intention of cooperating with anyone. They simply joined the queue to leave the city. Before long, they were released together with another massive convoy of at least twenty vehicles.
The earlier explosions had drawn many zombies away from the vicinity of the base. Combined with the base sending people out to conduct large-scale sweeps of the zombies outside the walls, the area outside the base quickly returned to its former cleanliness.
Luo Xun and the others turned onto a direction that hadn’t seen vehicles for a long time, driving toward the southern part of the city—their previous zombie-hunting grounds.
Along the way, they encountered no teams traveling in the same direction, but they did run into two or three convoys heading toward the base from that direction. These were people fleeing after other bases had fallen.
They arrived at the bank that had once served as their base, but now… only ruins and broken walls remained.
Looking at the unrecognizable building outside, Luo Xun couldn’t help letting out a soft sigh. Turning to Yan Fei, he asked, “Can you still get it out?”
Yan Fei nodded, rolled down the window beside him, and began manipulating the metal he had hidden there before.
The reason the bank still had some remnants left wasn’t because it had been especially sturdy to begin with, but because it still contained the metal materials Yan Fei had attached to the walls back then.
Yan Fei swiftly extracted all of those metal materials, including the “metal boxes” from the traps, kneading them into a massive iron ball that rolled alongside the convoy as they set off again. Behind them, the bank—already little more than a partial ruin—collapsed completely.
Since most buildings had been reduced to unrecognizable rubble, they didn’t even consider finding a building to use as a base this time. With Yan Fei around, as long as they had a steady supply of crystal cores, they could turn metal into a temporary base anywhere.
Luo Xun chose a spot from which they could see many zombies wandering in the distance, and had Yan Fei first create a metal wall to block the direction the zombies would converge from. After parking the vehicles, everyone began clearing zombies through the firing ports Yan Fei had deliberately left, while Yan Fei started working on the metal materials they’d brought along, constructing defensive fortifications.
With prior experience laying foundations and sealing bases for the main camp, building defensive works this time was extremely easy. After Xiao Xinran’s sand-type ability advanced to Level Two, she gained additional skills—for example, she could control sand as if it had consciousness, wrapping around enemies and dragging them down into the sand. With Luo Xun’s reminders and training help from Xu Mei and the others, this ability could actually help the team “deliver” zombie heads to them when it wasn’t convenient to go out and retrieve crystal cores.
This was far better than risking going out to pick them up!
Song Lingling’s water-type ability was no longer as gentle and harmless as before. Now she could coordinate perfectly with Li Tie and the others: when they blasted holes in zombie heads, she could control the moisture at the wound! If the wound was close enough to the crystal core, she could even use the water she controlled to pull the core out along with it!! It was an absolute godsend for killing zombies and collecting crystal cores!
Once she pulled a crystal core out of a wound, little You Ran—standing beside her—would immediately use sand to “pick it up.” This method was also very convenient for dealing with already-dead zombies, completely eliminating the risk of reaching out and being attacked by zombies that weren’t quite dead yet.
With this, everyone’s sustained combat capability improved significantly. After clearing the nearby zombies, the metal defensive structure under Yan Fei’s control was basically complete.
It was a bowl-shaped protective structure, with its foundation sunk two meters into the ground, completely enclosing everyone inside. It had a diameter of about twenty meters. After finishing it, Yan Fei began replenishing crystal cores, while Xiao Xinran manipulated the ground in a ring outside the “metal bowl” through an opening Yan Fei had left for her—turning it into sand.
“Do we still have enough metal?” With the zombie assault temporarily slowing, Luo Xun took the opportunity to rotate people for rest and came over to Yan Fei. They had moved their vehicles inside the “bowl” as well, not far from where they stood. All their supplies were in the vehicles, and they could sleep there at night—far better than sleeping directly on the ruins.
Yan Fei nodded. “There’s still quite a bit of metal material nearby. We’ve got plenty left from what we brought.” As he spoke, he glanced out through a firing port, confirming the sensations that represented metal to him.
Luo Xun let out a sigh of relief and stood up, stretching his shoulders sore from too much shooting. “If we have extra, leave more metal around us. Our wall this time isn’t very high—if zombies jump in, it’ll be hard to deal with.”
Yan Fei nodded slightly. He also felt it would be better to add a roof, even if it made ventilation worse. “…If the airflow’s bad, we can just have Zhang Su use his ability.”
Zhang Su, who was using his power to sweep debris—stones, bricks, and glass—from outside the defenses to mow down zombies, turned his head and shot Yan Fei a glare. That glance was so alluring it could almost make someone lose focus. Unfortunately, Yan Fei was completely immune—and not into that type anyway.
Xiao Xinran happily, as if playing a game, quickly turned the surrounding ruins into sand. When Luo Xun judged the situation to be about right, he placed a blood pack atop a pillar Yan Fei had formed. The pillar extended beyond their defenses, and the blood pack was punctured inside the metal “bowl” at the top. The blood didn’t drip down, and soon Yan Fei could even seal the “bowl” completely, preventing any blood scent from leaking out and attracting more zombies. But just that faint trace of blood was enough to drive the nearby wandering zombies—who hadn’t noticed them before—into a frenzy.
“Prepare—attack!”
With no other buildings around to block them, Luo Xun let the blood scent disperse for only a brief moment before having Yan Fei seal it up. When the first wave of zombies charged in, wind mixed with sand heated to a scorching temperature by fire abilities, along with blazing flames, erupted violently in all directions!
Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉
