Chapter 42

Standing in front of the black wall, a person hurriedly held down the button to keep the door open. Several others knocked and clapped against the dark obstacle.

Pushed, no movement. Patted, did not open. Knocked…hands ached!

"Eh!? Looks like metal!"

"So thick! No sound from the knocking!"

"It's the same as the wall."

In order to prevent spying and if too thin it would be easily pried open with a tool, Yan Fei used several steel plates and made an exceptionally thick wall. It had a thickness of a full 20 centimetres, which was a main reason why he had overtaxed himself after finishing the door.

Tinkered for a long time, the elevator did not move for a while. Someone on another floor downstairs pressed a button to start the alarm, a full report for five minutes before they had to stop.

The elevator did not arrive.

Aside from two people who gone out of their way to speak with some associates, the rest were around. Once again got on the elevator, this time did not stupidly go to the 16th instead to the 15th floor, ready to walk up the stairs.

As a result, when they walked up to the corridor and looked up, their eyes bugged out.

"What the hell is this?"

"That door is blocked!"

"It's really metal, eh!"

"Was it done by the ability user yesterday? He made a large pile of floating steel needles."

Although they still did not know exactly what kind of ability, but their power of association was not lacking. They had not seen any metal users in the army but they knew Yan Fei could float a metal needle. Then he simply floated a steel plate to form a block?

As for the details on how he managed that…well anyway they guy was an ability user, who knew what methods he had? And they could only imagine, what would be considered unreasonable?

Could not go up, could not enter. Thinking of the people on the top floor, felt afraid and more reluctant than ever.

Luo Xun and Yan Fei felt that there was not enough metal in their home, thought that there were several large steel plates outside, these people had long gone.

Yan Fei took away some metal first from the stairs and some steel plates from a different floor – anyway there were steel blocking doors, the metal from stairs had no big use. Besides when did the people of the base had anything door-to-door?

There was a place for them to put up any notices, right?

After the steel was thinned, if someone outside knocked at the door, one could still faintly hear some movement. Luo Xun just wanted to prevent thieves from stealing, did not plan to be completely isolated?

Yan Fei took metal plates, the group of five also handled the pipeline and similar things. Two also observed Luo Xun on how to scrape putty.

The job was technical work and needed patience, otherwise the scraping was uneven, the quality of the good was also an issue. The five, after learning for a while, hurriedly carried some putty material back to their own room to experiment.

Seeing that it was almost noon, Luo Xun put down his work and spoke to Yan Fei. "I'll go cook food, it will dry in the afternoon afterwards."

"Sure, you go first, I'll do some more." Yan Fei nodded. The state of his hand and body similar to Luo Xun, dirty, clothes stained with putty.

Fortunately they changed into more dirt resistant clothes before work though Li Tie and the others were still wearing regular clothes that would be thrown out soon.

The group of five busied themselves with scraping putty, when they suddenly smelt a mouthwatering scent.

Wiggling his nose, He Qiankun could not stop the saliva overflowing from his mouth. "Seems to the fragrance of stewed meat. I dreamt of it last night, now I smell it, it's not a dream?"

"Someone can enjoy stewed meat on this day? What a good life…" Han Li's eyes were confused as he stared blankly out the window with an impulse to reminisce.

"Must have bought some frozen meat before the apocalypse and brought it home." Li Tie could not help but go to the window, attempt to smell some more fragrance.

"Hey…I knew we should have bought some meat to keep…" Wang Duo began to feel regret.

"But we don't have a fridge? Even if we did, there is a power outage in the city, would be broken ah!"

Several people were chattering, when they decided to take out some instant noodles. As they were about to open the spice packet, Yan Fei came to ask the group to eat.

"Eat?" Li Tie and the others paused, although they knew Luo Xun's home must have surplus, they never wanted to go over and mooch off others.

"Luo Xun said that these days are filled with physical word, no fear of shortages. We eat a good meal, would the work not go faster?"

Someone was willing to treat, Li Tie and company knew life was not easy but also wanted to enjoy a meal. Especially after the smell of such fragrant stew, chewing their own instant noodles was simply a kind of torture.

And so together all walked through the door of 1603. He Qiankun took the lead with his nose and noticed something. "Hey? The smell of meat is stronger in this place than our home!"

After turning to the living room, the line of people saw the unfinished room was decorated with a steel table with seven simply shaped stools. In the center of the table sat a bowl – if that was not stewed meat then what was it?

"Meat!"

"It's your apartment's stewed meat!"

"I said I dreamt of stew last night and I did not smell wrong!"

Seeing the dish, the five people's eyes were green. Luo Xun placed a big pot of rice on the table. "It was in the refrigerator for a while, any longer and it might go bad. Everyone eat, otherwise there will be nothing."

The pork belly in the fridge was like that but other cuts of meat still had some time however those were used for stir fry. For meat porridge, pork belly was the most fragrant to stew.

"Good, good! Good!"

"Many thanks Luo Xun and Yan Fei!"

"Meat! Meat!"

A large bowl of rice was filled with a spoon then a man ate with a tablespoon of stewed meat. The rice was quickly wolfed down. After they had polished off a large bowl of food, they found other dishes on the table.

Celery scrambled eggs, fried shredded pork with leek and bean curd plus a large bowl of egg soup with fluttering green parsley.

"Luo Xun, do you have any eggs left in your house?" Li Tie asked while taking a bite of a salted egg.

"Had some for a while, I used them all up today." In fact when he found an egg had a smell, he boiled them yesterday evening.

Luo Xun was afraid that the other eggs were going bad so he cooked the rest into vegetables dishes and soup, let Li Tie and others help him eat them up.

There were quails in the house, and after a while they would produce eggs. Their home could have a steady stream of quail eggs and meat to eat.

Several people nodded and gave themselves another bowl of rice.

"Luo Xun rest assured, once we learn to scrape putty, we'll come over and help you two together!" The eaters said shortly, they had nothing to return the favor except manpower.

Luo Xun was not stupidly polite, only smiled and let the people eat vegetables.

Ate and drank enough, the group went back to work. Although everyone ate a lot at noon, there was still some left. Luo Xun let a few people pack it up to take to their home for dinner. As for him and Yan Fei? Did they have a shortage of cooking ingredients at home?

In 1604, the little puppy basked in the sun beside the glass container of quail. A slipper from Yan Fei was under her chin as a pillow and another slipper from Luo Xun was on her belly. There was a little bowl of rice beside her that was empty, though ten minutes ago it had some stewed meat inside.

LIstening to the faint voices next door, the little puppy's ears shook while keeping her eyes closed.

Since the two people came back, the house's big iron plate was opened a bit, a more direct opening instead of a big hole on the other side.

No big iron barrier, now she could stall in the balcony drying fur but also could run and eat those green things.

Of course the first time she ate those things, the taste was unacceptable to the puppy. But the day she jumped past the iron gate, tasted green after green and found she could not go back! Waiting until she felt so hungry but could only pathetically stare at the leaves.

Chewed once felt not delicious, chewed twice felt sour water in stomach, gnawed thrice felt she did not ever want to eat this for rest of life…

But when the two owners came back and rescued, eating a large pile of dog food afterwards, there was a moment where she unexpectedly missed the bitter, crisp things.

Today when she ate some pieces of stewed meat, the puppy once again struck with the idea and quietly ran to the shelf without a barrier. Tore down a piece of green leaves, chewed and swallowed. It was seemingly quite to her appetite?

Suddenly the puppy understood why the owners ate these things. The taste was not as good as meat, but put together the flavor was not bad!

As a chow chow with a high standard of living, she decided to taste these things every day! Anyway there were so many, not all the same. It would be nice to taste test all of them, try a variety of tastes~

A number of cars drove towards the southwest base. People working on wall construction pointed and chatted. "Is that the first wave?"

"I don't know, but there seems to be a lot of zombies coming over."

Now the perimeter fence being built wrapped around original base in the middle. The new wall was a distance away from the original base so only a section was being repaired. After a period of time reported to the garrison in charge of security as to avoid any accidents.

These two days, people responsible for this section of the fence had seen a lot of troops around base.

Some were groups of survivors from base out searching for supplies, others who had escaped from other bases and people who had never dared to leave the city before.

Today they saw a decent sized convoy of cars in the distance.

"Oh, catching up, they're catching up!"

"Someone was pushed out…alas, how cruel."

"What is this? That day we also saw a few people first throw out a person covered with injuries or tied up. The creature sensed the heartbeats, no long before the people torn up by the zombies, the corpse picked clean."

Although the speaker seemed sorry, but did their lively appearance show that they were worried about dead people?

Big events were not common, these days they had to repair the wall said, now was more interesting than before on base.

A team chatted and drove from afar.

"Het, there are tanks!"

"It was sent to the team before, you see! So many cars, must be those VIPS who the officers rescued!"

"Really, there are so many people in A city trapped in buildings unable to be rescued but these VIPs had to be rescued first!"

"What makes a man a magistrate? Who saved them?"

In contrast to the onlookers, the team was led by the officials who were saved, but there were more ordinary people driving their cars, men and women of all ages as well as scientists/technicians from all fields.

When the convoy caught up with people who had found themselves the next target of zombies. *Ping, ping* The sounds of shots, the zombies were soon thoroughly cleaned out and the cars were headed towards the base gate.

These days the base was very lively, Luo Xun could see from their own windows. A lot of people came into the streets and neighborhood. However he did not have time to pry. A day was not enough to tidy up and finish home decoration.

Seven clumsy guys spent a full three days to scrape the first layer of putty on the walls. They thought the speed was pretty fast but just the thought of needing to scrape more than once and painting the floor or something made the whole world feel grey.

"Tomorrow take a day off. Let the bathroom, kitchen and wall thoroughly dry before doing the second layer." Luo Xun knew that if one wanted to renovate well they had to scrape three times if there were no big problems, there were no redoes.

Li Tie and the others knew, they had talked to the military before. They said quickly get started after a few days base construction work, the house would not be withdrawn for another family. Of course work must be guaranteed every month on the dot in exchange.

Otherwise, they would just pack and stay. Knowing that they would live in this place meant they had to work to hard to renovate. Why else would they do all this?

"Good! The day after tomorrow is the usual, we first follow Luo Xun and Yan Fei then go back home to learn." Li Tie proudly beat his chest with a smile on his face. "Our green beans finally sprouted today!"

It was still winter, the temperature was low, the building lost heating long ago. If not for Li Tie grabbing a heater when they went to the supermarket the last time, the mung beans and other plants would have to wait for warmer weather until they germinated.

"Good!" Luo Xun sincerely congratulated them. In a day or two they would be able to fried bean sprouts or keep them for growing.

"We are not willing to eat. Wait until they grow tall so that new seeds can be planted next year!"

Luo Xun asked about mutations and learned that some seeds were mutated but the proportion was not big, about 3:7. A bit more than his own but Luo Xun did not know what caused the mutation rate.

In his past life Luo Xun heard that some people even with natural crops grew inferior variant species.

Finished a whole day's work and went back via 1604. Now they did not go through the main entrance, instead every day go through a metal side door.

As soon as he entered his side, the surrounding temperature rose. Every day Luo Xun used a water purification device to filter out clean water. The heated water made the whole room warm, creating a greenhouse like room.

Took off his dirty coat to throw into a plastic bucket next to the metal door. Luo Xun thought of something and turned to look at Yan Fei. "How to you want the floor next door after preparing the wall and other installations?"

The room on the first floor could use water to maintain temperature but a heater was installed on the terrace to do the same. Although there was enough solar energy, would it be convenient to connect the solar water heater with the floor? Even if the solar heater did not add warmth, it was feasible to switch to homemade electrical plumbing.

He had seen this kind of thing on base during his past life, knew the principle in general, but concrete operation needed Yan Fei's metal ability to find a way.

"A metal tube as floorboards?" Yan Fei raised an eyebrow and thought about the possibility. "The metal I use now is mostly mixed together. If you want to do plumbing, you need bring something like stainless steel back."

His abilities could only control metal and blend, did not allow the metal to change essence, nor decomposed. The best thing would to look for the pure material.

Luo Xun laughed. "Today Li Tie complained that food stores at home are soon finished. Do you want to go out together tomorrow morning to buy some food?"

Everyday spent at home tinkering, he could not lift his arms when he slept. Although Luo Xun usually stayed at home, so staying inside for a long time was no issue but after a while he wanted to go out.

Recently many people had come to the base, not far in the distance one could see newly pitched tents. They could go out and look for anything that could be exchanged.

"Well, let's go out tomorrow and bring something back." Yan Fei nodded in agreement.

He was also tired of staying at home. Although he could tease the little puppy, feed the quail, flirt with Luo Xun before going to sleep but never going out was not his style.

Luo Xun wanted to but he could not only stay at home.