66

Yan Fei's captain, who was sitting in a military jeep, loudly called to the people who were climbing the wall to reach their spots. "Just received notice, the earth users have completed two periods of outer wall construction. The higher ups gave them a few days to prepare for the third stage, thickening the wall. Our speed needs to be increased as soon as possible, otherwise the two sides cannot progress together smoothly."

Today's wall was only six metres high with a thickness of about one metre. The outer metal wall only had a thickness of 10 cm and there was still at least half the metal wall to be built.

"Captain, does the metal fence need to be thicker?" A metal user asked while absorbing a crystal nucleus to rest.

"Yes, but not now. The future metal wall must be repaired to a thickness of at least a metre but the base does not have enough metal. Need to wait until more are brought over." The captain sighed and looked towards the inner city. "Not only does the perimeter wall need to expand, the inner wall also needs to be strengthened and thickened."

A fence was a safeguard, although the wall was blocking the zombies with humans stuck inside, only with the protection of a thick wall would people feel at ease.

A soldier laughed. "The next time we fix this wall it will soon become a European castle."

Another soldier smiled and pointed at a surveillance tower. "It's already not too far from that. Yesterday I saw a guardhouse set up a stone bridge and heard that more will be built.

In order to avoid what happened before, the guards completely isolated and surrounded by zombies, the base found a way to erect a brick channel attached to each guardhouse. The thin channels were connected to the wall, each could only let one person walk at a time and looked like an ancient castle guard tower.

From below, the channel resembled a half curved bridge structure, which was the result of collaboration between earth users and experienced base architects. Then metal users were called in to help build them.

More guardhouses would need to be built later and the base had the idea of constructing some channels to facilitate information transmission increase the mobility of support personnel. Luo Xun suspected that the bridges could be used to recover lost ground if the situation came to it.

Plus Luo Xun had a clear memory of his past life, in the near future, the base would build a true castle. The castle was now located at the barracks, near military buildings with tall walls. Unfortunately in his last life Luo Xun had no chance to see what was inside, but in this life...he and Yan Fei would be involved in the work. Well, he would not directly participate but he would certainly help Yan Fei with the task.

After the captain relayed the news, Yan Fei and the others had absorbed most of the crystal nuclei energy, the mornings work was over.

Like before, the two men were ferried back to the barracks, went to the canteen for takeout then drove their car back to their neighborhood.

After the spring festival, less people obviously idled at home, the vast majority went looking for work in order to find ways to exchange for rations. Timid people would find a job on base while the more daring would form a team to collect supplies in the area.

A lot of people had been trying to gather resources and form a real team. The number of stalls on the streets had decreased with the number of tables with recruiting banners increased proportionately.

As the two drove by, some men standing in the middle of the road held leaflets to their windows. Luo Xun asked Yan Fei. "What was written on there?"

He was too lazy to leave the base and prefered to farm at home, work the wall for a living but could not withstand the desire for gossip in his heart. There was no entertainment on base so seeing how various teams were wooing people, if there were any rising stars at this time seemed a very good past time.

Yan Fei looked at the bunch of leaflets, his mouth twitched twice.

"What's up?" Luo Xun was carefully driving since the base streets were often filled with passerbys. The car was not very fast, there were always people who suddenly rushed out or ran past. Carelessly bumping into someone or something while driving was normal.

"Handwritten on plain white paper." Yan Fei carefully looked and found that under the pen appeared to be something printed before the apocalypse.

"Oh, there's a paper shortage." Luo Xun thought this was normal, who could find paper to use, wait another year and see? Everyone would have to use the legendary papyrus.

"...and typos." Yan Fei stared at the written words.

"...Very normal. Everyone uses mobile phone and computers to type, writing errors are normal." Luo Xun forcibly nodded as he silently recalled – it had been a long time since he had written anything...he only used a pen on rare occasions.

After his rebirth, although he sometimes wrote sometime, whenever he could not remember how to write a word he would check his phone...so his writing skills were not bad?

Yan Fei sighed. "I think they must have used old chinese medicine leaflets, it's hard to find the meaning of a lot of these words."

His literary level was quite high, as a child under the supervision of his grandfather, he had copied a lot of books. He could identify orthodox and running script but not these simplified versions. He could only rely on other recognized words to figure out some meaning.

"...What about the rest?" Luo Xun refrained from laughing.

Yan Fei picked out a few to read while Luo Xun listened. "Not very reliable, not so much hiring as teaming up to find supplies."

"Reliable?" Yan Fei smiled as he folded the papers and put them away in the car – it was paper, may be useful in the future and they could not waste anything useful.

"All those flyers? Mid power fire user preferred, but they do not have the ability to draw these people. Just empty words, no stirring of the heart at all."

"Yes, I think they are putting in effort but should go directly to the city gate to find those who want to go out. They might find some suitable people to cooperate with." The two people casually spoke as they entered their neighborhood, there were many people flocking to the car.

Suddenly a person shouted. "Yan...Yan..." It was a woman's voice.

Luo Xun froze and looked out Yan Fei's window to see a plain looking 20 year old woman staring at Yan Fei in horror. This woman looked a little familiar but...who was she? And Yan Fei was still wearing a mask, since he was still recognized...an acquaintance?

Unhappily glancing at Yan Fei, Luo Xun quickly entered the community gate.

Yan Fei only glanced once at the woman before putting the folded pile of leaflets away.

The two people parked the car, with bags and things to set off. Luo Xun saw the woman had secretly followed from the door intersection. She jumped and turned to the gate when seen.

"Who is she?" So she was not an acquaintance? The discomfort in Luo Xun's heart was reduced by a lot.

"Should be part of the first group of people I met after the apocalypse started." Yan Fei's expression was unchanged, seeing Luo Xun was unclear he smiled and explained. "The group of people who broke my ribs, this woman seemed to be among them."

He had profound memories of those guys, there had also been that conspicuous mature woman and a more innocent looking college student – who let those two women stick to his side every day? If he was not mistaken, that girl should have a good relationship with the college student. He did not even remember the names of those two outstanding women, let alone one so inconspicuous?

"Oh! Them!" Luo Xun also remembered, although he had met the group but his attention had been on the boss, the others only left a faint impression. Thinking of that, he looked at the doorway with a trace of murderous intent. "Should we check where they live?"

Yan Fei lightly smiled. "Not urgent right now."

He would not forget this, his heart was very small. In fact, Luo Xun may have not noticed before but they had seen the group several times in the morning for work. But they were far away and also had not talked about this matter so Luo Xun did not know. However Yan Fei could guess their building number.

But recently he had not seen the mature women or the female college students among them. Did they stay at home for housekeeping? Or had they gone their separate ways.

Luo Xun nodded his head while carrying a backpack and other things to their floor. These people could not stay, not just because they had seriously injured Yan Fei. Luo Xun did not believe that those people would not go after Yan Fei with sinister intentions once they knew he was alive.

If this kind of thing was not resolved as soon as possible, they could get involved in an unexpected situation. Luo Xun refused to let such people with likely hidden intentions stay near.

The idea was not complicated, there would be no problem as long as there was an opportunity to get rid of those people. However his crossbow and Zhang Yi's wind power were relatively conspicuous, ordinary people might not notice, but the soldiers who had cooperated with them were very aware of this matter.

A hand hand suddenly feel on his head, Luo Xun looked up to see Yan Fei smiling. "Don't worry, I will solve it." Would not leave anything behind, not too late.

Forget about the others, the leader of the group and a few men were now living together, Yan Fei had not found a chance to deal with them at the moment.

After the spring festival, the weather began to warm up. The sun shone warmly at two o'clock in the afternoon. The soldiers in defensive positions along with those constructing the walls all felt slightly sleepy.

Three of the soldiers hung in midair building walls were glued to the structure as they complained in a low voice. "Such fine weather, the rope feels like a hammock making people feel drowsy."

"Didn't the captain say earth users were going to expand the fence again? I heard that next time you repair the walls it will be 10 metres instead!"

"Isn't six metres enough?" The zombies could not jump up...

"Superior's orders, we can only follow. Anyway, the higher the better."

Several people whispered, from time to time adjusted the rope position, when suddenly...

"Quickly! Pull it up!" People on the wall suddenly shouted, they looked back to see a few zombies had unexpectedly climbed the armored vehicle. Two of them jumped towards the three from the top of the car!

"Ah-!"

"Pull the rope up!"

"Pull! Pull!"

"Another zombie rushed in!!"

"Pull! Hurry up!"

The soldiers on the wall responsible for pulling tugged at the rope, suddenly two of them fell to the group. They pulled the swishing rope but there was no one at the other end...no trace at all!

The zombie raid killed the five soldiers in the vehicle and a metal user hanging from the rope was pulled down by a zombie. Two arms and thigh were torn to pieces. Others also fell to their death but fortunately did not become zombies. However another ability user was bitten on the thigh and turned into a zombie!

The second team of three metal users suddenly lost two...

"Ah ah ah! I can't wait for warm water and electricity!" Li Tie and the others obediently stood at the door while looking at Yan Fei standing in the living room.

The metal in the corner was now flying. Under Yan Fei's control it distorted, deformed, fused from one room to another, gradually the rooms and the aisle were all covered with metal!

All was according to Luo Xun's drawn designs for the valves and the hot water installation. Yan Fei clapped his hands and turned to the door. "Try out the water and electricity."

"Ok!" The crowd cheered, gingerly stepped between the pipe gaps and started to heat some water.

The equipment used the water heater device, the heat pipe was in the inlet and the room would only heated water to pass through. Therefore it would take some time for the entire room to heat up. However the water flow also had a temperature control device, once it reached a certain temperature the heat would be suspended...although there were a variety of issues to be fine tuned, it should be usable for now.

Luo Xun looked in satisfaction as the students busied themselves. Not long after the pipes became warm and the group cheered. He found himself to be quite talented, look, he had designed this sort of thing!

Yan Fei smiled at looked at Luo Xun's face of pride, suddenly had an impulse of carry back, throw to bed and then happily enjoy. Should he put these recently thought up fantasies into action?

However Wang Duo ran over with a flattering smile. "Yan Fei, we are also collecting materials, we'll trouble you after two days."

Yan Fei gave him a hard look. "You guys figured out which room to put it in? The heat pipe – it's something I can't do now."

The heating pipe in Li Tie's room was something they had exchanged for. Luo Xun's home had some – but he was afraid of what would happen if their own water heating pipe got damaged without any replacements? So he had bought two before the apocalypse and brought back a few more from the building materials mall. Luo Xun had some, but how could it support everything?

Wang Duo hurriedly patted his chest. "Rest assured! I'll take care if it!"

Zhang Yi who had heard the words from the door, smiled. "All depends on you. I have to go."

Wang Duo's face instantly turned red, he turned to pull at Zhang Yi's clothes – spoiled. Who told him to go out and buy metal materials only to find he did not have enough points? Or that Zhang Yi had coldy smiled at his coffers?

Luo Xun raised a hand to cover his damaged titanium eyes, he could not look directly at this scene, who was suffering between these two people? How could there be no masculinity to be seen?

Inside 1601, the water circulation system was functioning but Li Tie and the others felt regret after a while. They had to speed up the work for the bedroom or there would be no sleeping spaces! It was a sad story.

The neighbors had to watch the floor, Luo Xun and Yan Fei watched the meeting before heading home to rest. Wang Duo was forcibly kept to help in exchange for help in the future by the other students.

Zhang Yi did not speak or stop, but felt doubt as he turned back to his room, had he chosen the wrong person? Was it really okay to have a boyfriend with low IQ? Obviously he had already talked with Yan Fei, said that the home would use metal in the future. Did not need Li Tie and the others to help out, plus there was only just enough for the bedroom...

Was it too late to kick him out? Besides, the two were already together...

Thinking of these issues, Zhang Yi self reflected. Should he let Wang Duo swoop in the empty period after his ex-boyfriend or lock the door and let him sleep in the corridor...

Luo Xun was locked up in his own home by someone.

"What are you doing?" Luo Xun was shocked, seeing Yan Fei walk up the stairs he dared not struggle in fear of falling and could only let him carry on.

Yan Fei slapped the other's butt, he had been thinking of carrying Luo Xun to bed. There are some things that one must do to move on.

The little puppy looked and thought her two masters were playing a fun game, her tail wagged all the way to the second floor. Then with a clinking sound...she was locked out of the room.

She lifted her paw and scratched at the door, pricked up her ears to faintly hear a few calls from behind the door and hurriedly stood on her hind legs. Unfortunately, neither owner came to open the door, her tail drooped and she went down the stairs back to her nest. Did not want to play... humph!

XXX

Luo Xun sat in the passenger seat and listelessly yawned. In the back of the car the five people also yawned one after another. No other way, they had spent most of the night to finish a bedroom, they still had some rooms left after coming back tonight!

Luckily they had mastered a new skill last night – laying on the floor! Look at the future, they could use this as a skill to find a job!

However, how many people would renovate their houses during the apocalypse?

67

After stopping the car, the pair walked into the barracks together, only to see that someone was outside the truck waving at them.

"What's the matter?" The two people paused then quickened their steps.

"We'll talk in the car, we have to leave early today." Seeing the two people come over, the captain hurriedly motioned at the driver to leave.

"Yesterday afternoon a large number of zombies rushed out of the base, their movements were more flexible than before. When the zombies attacked, five soldiers were killed and two metal ability users..." The captain's eyes were heavy. "...both died."

One had been killed on the spot while the other was injured and became a zombie, so they had to...

The car had a heavy atmosphere, Luo Xun and Yan Fei were silent for a while before asking. "How were they hurt? Did the zombie jump into the base?"

The captain slowly shook his head, before he could speak a metal user other than Yan Fei spoke up. "They didn't repair the wall the way we did! The second team hung outside using the rope! It's how they lost two people!"

Yan Fei and Luo Xun looked at each other. They were surprised but also did understand why the other team would do this. After all, directly manipulating the metal gave better control, or perhaps they could not remotely control the metal.

"Where's Li?" Luo Xun asked another question.

"The higher ups asked us to transfer one person to the second team. I sent him over first." This was one of the reasons the captain was not happy, due to someone else's mistakes, he was forced to split up his own team. Their irresponsible decision was even more annoying!

The whole car was immersed in anger, towards the dead, the ones who had decided the matter and against the crazy zombies outside the base.

Because the second team had a major incident, the ability user who had transferred from the first team would have to act as a guide in using powers over long distances in addition to their regular workload. After all, the reason that the second team had not used the method previously was because they did not have a thorough grasp of it, which would cause a waste of nuclei.

"Captain, there is only one metal user left on the second team, why not just merge the two teams?"

Instead of sending a person over to the second team, why not merge the two teams together? Why so complicated?

The captain had a helpless face. "Fear of ability users having problems over using their powers. Plus the two teams had been working separately, so efficiency factored into the decision."

In fact, the main reason was that the base had not finished studying the crystal nuclei. What would happen if overuse of nuclei had an effect on the body? Like suddenly turning into a zombie? The base dared not allow these people to use their abilities until they could fully verify the situation.

The car soon parked at the edge of the wall. The captain cheered on the rest of the group. "Good, everyone get fired up. Although we now have one less person, our efficiency has been high so far, let's continue our efforts in the future!"

Because there were fewer people, the number of crystal nuclei was more numerous. So long as the two metal users could keep up, there would be no problems.

Yan Fei and the other metal user first climbed the wall. Luo Xun accompanied him, looking out with his crossbow. He sighed in his heart – the number of zombies had increased.