Apocalypse Escape: Day One of Survival

Meanwhile, a dozen shovels and spades dug in unison toward the dense root system. With each swing, everyone put in every ounce of their strength, using all their might.

Xie Ning watched alongside Zuo Li for a while before turning to see Zuo Li’s furrowed brow and contemplative expression. ”You think there’s a hidden danger?”

Zuo Li nodded. ”It’s too much of a coincidence. Why would a giant flower suddenly appear at the base entrance for no reason?”

Xie Ning couldn’t help but admire how meticulous Zuo Li’s thinking was.

She had her knowledge from a past life, but Zuo Li was operating purely on her intuition and sense for danger.

”Dig. Keep digging deeper.”

”Let’s dig out this flower’s entire root system and see what’s really going on.”

When Zuo Dazhu, Gu Chen, and Lu Wei arrived, they saw a massive pit being dug at the base entrance.

Xie Ning and Zuo Li were squatting by the edge of the pit, while a dozen people swung hoes, spades, shovels, and all sorts of tools nearby.

Gu Chen walked up to Xie Ning and greeted her casually, ”Girlfriend, what are you all up to?”

At that, everyone’s gaze SWISHED in unison to focus on the ”girlfriend,” Xie Ning.

The ”girlfriend” in question, her expression unchanging, calmly stood up, straightened her hair, and pointed to the deep pit. ”The captain suspects the mutated plant’s roots may have spread deep underground.”

”This situation is extremely tricky.”

Gu Chen nodded. ”So Captain Zuo thinks there’s a whole field of mutated plants buried under the ice and snow? That they’ve likely already surrounded the base? Just waiting for the ice period to end before they burst from the ground.”

”What?” Zuo Dazhu was stunned. ”That can’t be possible.”

”That’s exactly what I mean.” Zuo Li gave her unreliable father an expressionless glance. ”While the temperature is holding in the negative teens for the next couple of days, we have to move fast and dig a defensive trench.”

”The walls have already been reinforced. Now, we dig a perimeter along the entire wall. Dig!” At Zuo Li’s command, the assembled base soldiers all shivered.

”The base is running out of time.” Zuo Li’s gaze locked onto her unreliable father, Zuo Dazhu. ”We have to mobilize all available manpower. The base will issue a mission to all Superpower User teams: any team that participates in digging the trench will earn two thousand Contribution Points per person, per day.”

”Ordinary people who think they can handle the cold can join in, but they’re responsible for themselves if anything happens.”

Zuo Dazhu turned his head, dazed, and waved frantically at his secretary. ”What are you gaping at? Do as Captain Zuo says!”

A wave of nervous energy swept through the crowd as everyone sprang into action.

Fortunately, the base had always assigned personnel to clear snow regularly. An inspection revealed only a few root-like plants breaking through the soil, which were promptly uprooted and incinerated.

For two days, Song Youzhi, Song Youyi, and their group toiled with the snow-shoveling and trench-digging teams, working from seven-thirty in the morning until nine-thirty at night.

After two days of hard work by all the Superpower Users in the base, a deep trench was dug along the wall and filled with a layer of flammable oil.

Two days later, the temperature plummeted once more.

This time, aside from the exceptionally talented Ice Ability Users who could still move about outside, everyone else had to retreat into the underground shelters.

Zuo Dazhu set up a temporary computer department in the underground shelters.

In short, anything else could be cut off, but the manually generated power—though intermittent—could not be shut down completely, as they needed the computers for record-keeping.

That old fox issued every survivor a work ID tag. Men, women, old, and young—everyone signed a three-year contract.

As long as they survived the ice period, everyone would become a temporary employee of the base, subject to its work assignments and deployments, all to work off their debt.

Aside from some freely distributed relief rations, everything else had to be redeemed using the Contribution Points registered to each person’s name.

By then, without exception, every survivor’s Contribution Point balance would be in the negative. After the ice period ended, they could slowly pay off their debt by doing grunt work for the base.

Huang Shi Yao, hair disheveled and face grimy, squatted in a dark corner, biting into a dry, rock-hard grass cake as tears of regret streamed down her face.

’She didn’t even know how she had ended up like this.’

’Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that she would one day be just like these refugees, squatting in an underground shelter, gnawing on a dry cake just to stay alive.’

”A Water Ability User from one of the superpower teams is handing out clean water! Hurry and get some!”

Huang Shi Yao scrambled to her feet and ran like a madwoman toward the surging crowd.

At the center of the crowd was a woman with a child.

She wore a white shirt, a black miniskirt, and had her hair cut in a bob.

Huang Shi Yao recognized her at a glance: it was the Swift Leopard Team’s ”Holy Mother,” Xu Yu.

’In the past, she would have coldly watched Xu Yu’s little performance, but now...’

’Xu Yu was clearly having a much better time than her.’

A crowd of people surrounded Xu Yu like fledglings waiting to be fed, eager for her to dispense clean water. Their faces were filled with gratitude, and the moment they received their share, they showered her with thanks and praise.

Huang Shi Yao licked her dry lips, the hatred in her heart climbing higher and higher.

’She truly never dreamed she would one day be reduced to living at the mercy of others.’

Lately, whenever she slept, she dreamed of the Jingxin Study Room. She couldn’t stop thinking about the plate of French toast she had knocked to the floor.

’If only she hadn’t taken matters into her own hands and dispatched the base’s fighter jets... would everything be different now?’

Huang Shi Yao didn’t know if this was divine retribution for wasting food, but in her dreams, she was haunted by the memory of that delicious French toast.

...

On the wide, thick city wall, Xie Ning ran a hand over its surface.

”Here, here, and a few other spots on the side are all fitted with artillery ports. It should be enough to fend off regular zombies. But we’ll have some trouble if we run into mutated birds or the like.”

”I heard you modified a batch of weapons for the base,” Xie Ning said, gazing into the distance from her spot on the wall. ”So you were the one who handled the modifications for those superpower guns too?”

”I just modified a few core components on the schematics the Military Research Institute provided. The institute’s team still did most of the research and development. I don’t have enough time to be holed up in a lab all day.”

Xie Ning felt like he was just praising himself in a roundabout way.

’He made significant modifications in a limited amount of time.’

”If you stay here for the entire ice period, won’t people in the Capital have something to say about it?”

”They won’t.” ’They definitely will,’ he thought, ’but I can just cut off communications and pretend I never got the message.’

’He had already made up his mind when he came here. He wasn’t going back after arriving at Golden City Base.’

’Not only that, he had to work hard to turn the base where his girlfriend and her family lived into the most glorious, exemplary base in the entire Kyushu Continent.’

’His girlfriend would surely be happy about that.’

”I heard from Captain Zuo that the Capital also sent some sort of investigation or inspection team over with you?”

”Are those ’special investigators’ all settled in?”

”Yep, I already sent them back ahead of schedule.” Gu Chen nodded repeatedly. ”Don’t worry, I won’t let them get in the way here.”

Xie Ning nodded slightly. ”As long as they don’t cause any trouble.”

”We still need to do one last sweep of the sewer pipes inside the base in the next two days.”