Chapter 72

Luo Xun and the four defensive soldiers remained at their respective charges sides while the men began to work. The remaining people moved materials, killed zombies and dug out the crystal nucleus, busy with their own labor division.

Luo Xun did not immediately join the group killing zombies because the one who killed the creature would have to extract the nucleus. If he brought down a dozen zombies while beside Yan Fei it would bring unnecessary trouble. Better to wait for Yan Fei to finish and move before shooting to kill.

Suddenly, Luo Xun's heart jerked, he grabbed Yan Fei and the two squatted down. "Careful!"

All of a sudden a fireball flew past Yan Fei and Luo Xun! Ability! A zombie with powers!

The crowd was also surprised and saw the fireball speed by in a parabolic arch and smash a hole in the ground. Zombies had abilities?! Or was it an attack by a human?

No, incorrect, even if an ability user wanted to attack Luo Xun, they would not shoot fireballs from outside the base!

The captain climbed up the wall with a shield. He cautiously looked out and saw a zombie spit out a ball of fire – the fireball went over the wall!

"Watch out! Zombies have abilities! Can attack remotely!" The captain roared and pointed at the fire zombie. "Shoot! Shoot that one first!"

Zombies evolved to have abilities? This was outrageous! Is it possible that after a few days everyone would go to heaven?

The crowd concentrated fire on the targeted zombie. Yan Fei's eyes flashed with metallic light as he gloomily looked at the scene. He had been careless, if Luo Xun had not been vigilant, he would have surely been hit by the ball of fire!

The sound of gunfire came from a distance, it seemed that there were shots being fired from the direction of the fate. Luo Xun wondered if there was an ability zombie laying siege to the base gate. But the current priority was the zombies under the walls! Who knew how many zombies had abilities in the crowd!

Everyone's luck was neither good nor bad. Although they had met a zombie with an ability, many of the zombies below only needed a head shot to be killed, which made it easier.

The team captain gave priority to the fire zombie, got someone to cut of it's head and sent a soldier directly to the barracks. Report to superiors before sending the head to research division to carry out various experiments.

Luo Xun thought of the leader's wonderful expressions upon opening the box with the delivered zombie head and silently laughed. Meanwhile, the captain commanded two soldiers to take out riot shields.

The shields were equipment used by armed police to maintain security. They had not expected that zombies would develop ranged abilities. Now since there was the threat of a long range attack, they must naturally prepare for prevention. They could not wait for the zombies to develop even further before taking action.

Luo Xun's team was lucky, once they discovered the possibility of long range zombie attacks, two soldiers had driven back with ten full face shields!

Captain Guo stared at the riot shields in surprise and asked, "How did they agree to give you so many?"

A soldier laughed triumphantly, "Reporting Sir, when we got there was no one taking them. These shields were placed in base as spares since equipment had already been allocated to the teams who went out for tasks. We just had to say a few nice words and they gave us some extra."

Another smiled with a proud face, "When we came back to meet with the patrols, they also came to grab some after meeting zombies with ranged abilities but were behind us!"

Some things were like this, when one person asks for something once, the suppliers were naturally happy and did not care about handing out more than usual. But if people were to apply for the item in succession, they would become very stingy.

The two soldiers were not troops out of combat – those teams had already been equipped with protective gear and would only apply for more if there was wear. They were just usually in charge of the walls, not responsible for combat and therefore not equipped with much protective equipment compared to teams that patrolled outside that had more zombies. The soldiers predicted that others would have also encountered a similar situation to Yan Fei before going to apply for similar equipment.

Captain Guo smiled and patted the two clever soldiers. "Good, you two are smart."

The people, including Luo Xun who were responsible for protection on the wall were given a shield. If there was a zombie, he would use the shield to protect himself and Yan Fei in case of another zombie sneak attack.

While the captain sent someone to collect the shields, the four metal users rested behind the wall to replenish their energy. They now had shields and teammates to protect them.

Yan Fei sat upright and pinched Luo Xun's cheek with some strength.

Luo Xun was pinched but since it did not hurt he figured Yan Fei was teasing him. But he did not realize that Yan Fei felt slight fear and annoyance from being protected by Luo Xun. He had not noticed the problem in advance!

As head of the house, the powerful Yan Fei unexpectedly failed to discover danger or find the problem. Yan Fei had a deep feeling of frustration, although he suppressed it, he would not allow his confidence to be shaken a second time!

Each individual was putting in all effort to use the metal materials as quickly as possible in order to increase the power of their abilities. Others were also speeding up the transportation of materials while the remainder were eradicating zombies and digging out nuclei.

Around noon, the dining car arrived at the section of the wall Yan Fei was responsible for. The fragrant smell of wantons flowed out, the busy morning workers became all the more hungry. Upon smelling the food, everyone turned to look at the car.

"Rest half an hour. Work the afternoon with a full belly!" Seeing the dining car, the tired captain waved a hand. Bring people down from the wall, wash hands and then eat.

Yan Fei and Luo Xun gave each other side glances and whispered. "Should we follow them to eat together? Will there be problems with the food?"

"There shouldn't be. The thing yesterday involved outer food sale windows, did not hear of any accidents in the barracks."

"Ah, and after the accident, the barracks will increase area supervision."

The two ended up agreeing that they would continue to eat with the team – the military was not crazy, otherwise it would not have been possible to deal with the army's health care problems after such an event on base. Even if the incident before was not caused by food and water, it could not taken lightly.

The delivered meal only had large, yellow steamed buns and a large pot of stewed leeks. Along with a pot of diluted soup water with a spoonful of rice millet porridge. At the beginning, the hungry people did not express any opinions.

But a few older soldiers started complaining to the orderly who delivered the meals. "The food is getting worse, there isn't any meat in the stew today. Why are there only bones?

The orderlies had no other way and could only laugh. "Since it was stewed for a bit longer, maybe it fell into the pan?"

The captain lightly pushed his bowl and looked up to ask, "I did not find any shredded meat in the dish. Did you put it all into someone else's pot when you were dividing the food?"

"How could that be? It's sent out right after being cooked. It's hard to tell how much meat is inside."

"Tomorrow you will check and increase the amount of meat in our portion. Our work takes a lot of energy, if we have no strength to make the fence there could be accidents." Captain Guo did not dare speak too harshly lest the other party shove them under a bus.

If rations were deducted, they might as well go back to the barrack canteen and get their own food.

"All right, we'll look into it tomorrow and try to get you something nice." The other side could only nod in response and wait for the group of people to finish eating to collect the tableware before driving away.

"Start work. Finish early and go home to rest early!" The captain got up and clapped after the group quickly ate lunch and rested for 10 minutes.

Although it was not good for the stomach to start work immediately after eating, it was fine since all the materials that needed to be physically transported were on the edge of the wall before lunch.

Everyone took their positions, Luo Xun stood in front of two others with the transparent glass riot shield to block zombies in the area. Yan Fei casually broke off a piece of metal, which turned to droplets as the afternoon work shift began.

The busy day continued until three o'clock in the afternoon. The two people returned back to base and drove back to their neighborhood. Different from at noon where there were many people around, the street was now empty. The silent atmosphere persisted as the car drove down the street. There were fewer cars parked on both sides of the road – since the day before yesterday, those who preferred to live in cars and not leave the inner base had changed their thinking. In this post-apocalyptic world, a place with many people was not guaranteed to be safe!

Look at what happened previously, there had been a zombie virus outbreak inside the base. A small number of people were infected and then it spread to other people. As for outside? It was clear and no zombies showed up!

After the zombie virus appeared inside the base, many people had been robbed as well. Robbery and other events had not just occurred in Luo Xun's neighborhood, almost all of the other areas experienced similar things. A woman left at home to watch the house was murdered and knew nothing.

On the contrary, those in the outside base who were always on guard since zombies could break through at any time were unaffected! Those who worked outside the base, went out to collect supplies and returned safely to base on the night of the accident.

With such a stark contrast, people all of a sudden changed their minds. All kinds of people originally confident in the security of the inner base went to support the outer base instead. Since many of the houses in the outer base were empty, people applied and immediately moved out of the crowded area and cohabited with others.

In addition to more inconvenient living, they also had to worry about neighbors breaking in to steal things when not at home. Thieving neighbors was more likely than strangers, why wait to move?

Luo Xun and Yan Fei had come back just in time for the last wave of people leaving, resulting in an empty street.

Some intersections had scattered debris, broken glass and damaged public facilities. Riots had also broken out two days earlier and some places, such as the large gateway had traces of dried blood spread around.

It seemed that previous traces of the dead were concentrated around a similar area. To the paranoid base that had no information about the incident, they believed the zombies to be manufactured with the purpose of eliminating people in the base. People with wild imaginations were secretly discussing and saying that there were intelligent zombies that had planned the incident.

After driving back to the building, the two men wearily walked up the stairs. Similar to outside, the building was silent. Even if someone was home, it was also lunch break so there was less sound than usual.

After climbing all the way up to the 16th floor, the two dragged their tired bodies through the door. The puppy enthusiastically greeted Luo Xun by rearing up on her two front legs and jumping into his bosom. One paw stepped on Luo Xun's poor hip, the sudden action caused him to bend down a bit and then the puppy headbutted his lungs.

Luo Xun coughed twice before pushing the enthusaistic puppy away. He dragged the rest of his body to the sofa in order to lie down.

Yan Fei closed the door and gathered Luo Xun in his arms. "Let's go upstairs to sleep."

"I'll have a rest and then I'll go brush the next room."

"Sleep first, we'll get up together."

Today's workload was significantly larger than usual. If they had not had a rest in the afternoon, the two may not have had the strength to climb up. Yan Fei had exhausted his mental strength, fortunately he slowly adjusted increasing his actions after a short rest over time.

Luo Xun pondered and thought Yan Fei was right. He got up and climbed up to the second floor.

The little puppy watched the two people climb up the stairs. She tilted her head before bouncing back in front of the glass box on the balcony. The puppy and the little quails continued entertaining each other.

The two slept until six o'clock in the evening, they were still somewhat tired but their spirit was much better. Luo Xun hurried into the kitchen to prepare supper.

He removed a slab of bacon hanging from the ceiling, cut off a piece and hung the rest back up. In the kitchen Luo Xun grabbed some pickle jars from the shelves. He washed and diced beans, radishes, green peppers and so on. After washing the slices of bacon, everything was fried together in a pot. The taste of the dish went very well with rice, with some randomly picked vegetables from the balcony, it was enough for two people to eat dinner.

"Huh? There seems to be less lettuce?" Luo Xun confusedly looked at the bottom shelf row of balcony vegetables. The neighbor's leeks seemed to be growing better?

Green and tall, there should not be a lack of leaves. Why did the bottom row of lettuce differ so much from the upper layers?

Luo Xun frowned and put the picked vegetables into the sink. He turned and took out his mobile phone that had seen little use.

He returned to the first floor balcony to take a few photos of the bottom shelf prior to going back to the kitchen to continue cooking. Yan Fei was not here, he seemed to busy in another room according to the sounds. Luo Xun felt pressure at the bottom of his heart and sped up his cooking – the two of them should brush the walls before going to bed this evening.

The garlic was fragrant, the bacon was fried with its own oil, becoming shiny as the aroma overflowed in the kitchen. The assorted, diced kimchi were thrown into the pot, the hot sour scent stimulated people's appetite. Luo Xun's mouth began to water – although he had no appetite after waking up, but became hungry after smelling the food…

The rest of the green vegetables were stir fried under high heat and finished before the soup. Some vegetables did not need to be thoroughly fried to be more crisp and delicious.

The two dishes were removed from the pot, along with a small package of frozen tomatoes from the fridge to make tomato egg soup. There was also rice to accompany the stir-fry. Luo Xun placed the food on the living room table before knocking on a door. "Food's ready!"

Yan Fei raised an eyebrow and put down the brush. "How fast." He was accustomed to Luo Xun's fast cooking speed but today seemed faster than usual.

"There is a room waiting to be brushed." So he had been in a hurry and the food was simple – who had the time to cook complicated dishes during the apocalypse?

Two people wolfed down two bowls of rice with hot and sour bacon fried kimchi. Once the plate of vegetables and pot of soup had been emptied, they quickly packed up the chopsticks and went back next door to brush the walls. The two had not done such work before but fortunately mastered the essentials after some experimentation.

The couple brushed at home, napped to recover spirit, ate dinner to recover physical strength and ignored time with endurance. They worked until a sound came from the outside and they opened the door.

Li Tie and company dragged themselves home with tired footsteps. Wang Duo and Zhang Yi were at the back. Upon seeing Luo Xun and Yan Fei, Wang Duo ran forward. "Yan Fei, we got materials! Can bring back tomorrow!"

Yan Fei realized it was about the metal materials and nodded his head. "Our work time has increased these past two days. When you get back leave it in the corridor, if there's nothing pressing to do when we finish in the evening I'll slowly do it."

Wang Duo quickly nodded. "No problem, do when you have time. Speed does not matter, we have no time to grow vegetables."

Li Tie added from the back. "It will only be busy for now, once all the information has been entered, we'll have more free time."

Zhang Yi yawned and went to 1602 door and sleepily opened the lock. He almost hit his head on the iron gate – the hospital had been packed with bloody fighting patients the past two days, he was exhausted!

Wang Duo hurried forward and escorted his beautiful boyfriend home. When he opened the door, he threw a flattering smile at Yan Fei and Luo Xun before helping his queen home to rest.

Li Tie and the others held back a laugh, waited until the two had already gone in. Wu Xin thought of something and stepped towards Luo Xun. "Forgot to mention, when we came back yesterday, an ability user in the community almost hit us during a fight and Zhang Yi used his ability to block. One of the bosses wanted to recruit Zhang Yi but he was not interested…"

Yan Fei asked in surprise, "A team wanted to pull in Zhang Yi?"

Li Tie nodded and came over. "Yes, yesterday two people were openly fighting. The two captains fighting were both power users, one had fire, the other had lightning. The one who wanted Zhang Yi was the one with lightning powers. There team was named something like Chaos?"

Luo Xun heard the words, choked on his saliva and coughed a few times. The former flame boss was chased by the leader of Chaos? Was this destined? Or had Zhang Yi been recruited in his past life? Luo Xun did not know what happened to cause Zhang Yi to leave and join a different team.

Wait a minute, the team leader who fought against Chaos yesterday seemed to be a fire user. Was it the legendary Flames? Weren't the two in conflict since the apocalypse?

Luo Xun's mind raced, in his last life the two teams had inexplicable relations. He did not think that the two teams were enemies from the beginning on opposing sides. Pondering each day on how to kill each other.