206

The group of people cheerfully headed towards base. It was still very early so the sun cast slender shadows behind the roadside trees. On the way back Luo Xun remembered that there was a lot of dead wood while driving. As they gradually approached their home, Zhang Yi spoke through the radio. "...There are mutant animals in the direction of our base."

"Mutant animals? How many? Are they wolves?" The two wolves seemed to be operating hear their base, Luo Xun had met them more than once. So it was strange that Zhang Yi did not tell them any specifics.

"I don't know...there must be more than two types." Zhang Yi had not finished when faint vibrations went through the ground. The team subconsciously parked the car and looked at each other. The same image flashed in their hearts – a group of pigs running in front followed by two wolves...

"No...Its...?" Wang Duo was interrupted, his question unfinished but everyone understood why.

Yan Fei silently changed the trucks into metal plates...then an amazing sight ran in their direction!

"Come on! Is that actually a cow? Are you sure it's not the bull king?!" Li TIe's voice rose while Han Li was either screaming in fear or excitement.

A herd of three-storey cattle with horns on their heads, madly rushed in their direction! Behind them were two familiar wolves, several times smaller than the herbivores.

They really did not know fear, daring to provoke this group of huge cattle. The number was certainly smaller than the pig herd, but the few of them could actually cause an earthquake through their powerful velocity.

Discovering their convoy, the two wolves suddenly changed the direction of their pursuit. But also a few thorns appeared from the ground directing the cattle so that they ran towards the team as well.

Come on, what else would that mean? Even the wolves knew about mutual cooperation. Luo Xun naturally could not stand in place as the cows ran past.

Still metal appeared for a trap together with the sandpits. This time when the cows ran past, two fell and broke their legs.

The two wolves politely pounced on one and dragged it away while ignoring the other one. The other half dead cow was left with the pit while the team stared at Luo Xun.

"...They...intentionally lead the cows to us?"

After a while, someone whispered, "It's possible...when we come back later we need enough metal or I am afraid we will be trampled to death by prey." Luo Xun looked at the hill sized cattle.

How long would such a big cow feed the two wolves? Luo Xun did not know but one was enough for them to eat for New Years. Don't forget, there are several pigs that were uneaten! So they had no need for hunting for the rest of the year.

Yan Fei made a trailer with the metal and several cars pulled the prey into their base. After peeling and waiting for the beef to be processed they wanted to go home early for a break and process the meat.

The two women took a piece of beef into the kitchen. Luo XUn froze the remaining meat and organs. He hung the cowhide and pondered, "After these two busy days, let's make some meat sauce? Along with some beef jerky."

After all there were several pigs still in the freezer at home. It would go bad if frozen for too long. In case of repeated encounters with the two wolves getting the team to help with hunting, their family would always have meat to eat.

What's more, the team has had quails as a source of meat.

"Good, good!"

"No problem, do it!"

The group of gluttons were all excited and wanted to fill up their stomachs with these snacks.

The beef accidentally brought by the two wolves had a small change – stewed, fried and all kinds of beef dishes were introduced into their menu. Of course, the premise was that they time to mess around with recipes. Unfortunately these days everyone needed to hurry out and collect metal.

This was because of the basement renovation and other work which needed to be finished. The satellite photos showed that the zombie tide at the seaside had turned around!

The zombies didn't jump and learn to swim or prepare to explore the unknown depths but turned towards the team. Like a ball hitting the wall and bouncing back.

According to the direction of the rebound, it was estimated that they would soon approach base. Whether is was Luo Xun's new base of the southwest base, they could encounter another zombie siege.

Even more troubling was that there more waves passing by the area, even the ones from abroad would arrive in the near future. They did not know if their small base would trigger a siege but they must be ready before then. In particular they would have to completely close of the basement walls to avoid tunneling zombies, which would be a big problem.

There were also buildings on the ground that needed to be prepared or completely close them off to avoid zombies. So the team changed tactics again, going out a few times to collect metal. They were ready to face the zombies that were approaching.

In less than ten days of work, Luo Xun went out eight times and brought back metal, wood, all kinds of trees. The planting racks were almost all filled!

The last time they went out, they passed a gas station and Yan Fei discovered that there was a lot of gasoline in the tanks!

Song Lingling's ability was able to manipulate any liquid at level four and the range had become much larger. As soon as they made a hole in the pipeline, Song Lingling could extract the gasoline. It would last for a while after being stored in metal containers – enough for a while. There was enough that they could return later – with Song Lingling's ability they could easily pump any encountered vehicles.

"Tomorrow is the end of the month, let's go early and stay in the southwest base for a day and then leave at night." The last time the team came home, they met at the kitchen table.

Now it was the end of May, they would visit the southwest base in early June. THis time they had no intention of visiting their old house or exchanging for gasoline. They would just go explore, get news and sell vegetables or something.

After all, they could not receive a lot of photos and messages from the satellites. But they did not know how ordinary people lived inside the base. There would be time to contact other people.

The team had no objections to Luo Xun's decision and nodded in agreement. Han Li asked with some concern. "Luo Xun, what about the zombies? Will they come in two days?"

They were nervous about collecting metal to build their walls, mainly because the zombie wave was heading towards their direction. If they go out there was a possibility of encountering them, so they did not want to go out now.

"It won't be for a little while, from the speed at which they've been moving forward. They are nearly two weeks away from us and we'll leave tomorrow and come back the day after tomorrow." This was one of the reasons why Luo Xun dared to take advantage of returning to the base at the start of the month.

"That's fine." The others had no opinion.

It was a pity that He Qiankun asked, "The warehouses we found before..." They had been planning on going to those warehouses and other places but had to temporarily revise their plans because of the zombie tide. It was a pity.

Luo Xun was also helpless, "We can only wait until the end of this zombie tide before taking a look."

There was no way, it was an external factor and they had other issues to worry about after securing their base.

Discussing the situation, the team went to their rooms early to rest. Ready to go to the southwest base the next morning. The next day, the convoy set off again and headed towards the base.

207

This time they drove a big truck along with a small one. The big truck was not one they had recently found but the original one that was lost outside the glass factory and then was picked up again.

Although the car was broken, the metal could still be used after slight modification. This time the vehicles were filled with broken shelves, metal devices and some wood – empty barrels, broken tables and chairs. There was not much but when piled up it would hide the tape, pillows and food hidden behind.

The truck floors were much thicker than normal and hid things like vegetables and so on.

After a night, the group of people arrived at the southwest base gate in the morning. They registered, entered the base and swept through baggage check. The people were much more vigilant when inspecting the car compared to before. However since their car was filled with tattered things, only a bucket and a few pieces of wood were taken. He Qiankun and the others almost did not quarrel with the inspectors.

The latter had faces of contempt, "Give it back to you? Fine then don't enter base! With such tattered things, what kind of people are you?"

Everytime the team had to pay five crystal core and the people checking the car would pick something as well. Luo Xun saw that the gate was not willing to let their team enter.

"Really, who are they?"

"The base was not like this before, now they are seeming more gang-like?"

People complained while driving their cars to the exchange market. One reason they were coming to base was to buy salt – the most important seasoning for pickling vegetables and handling dried meat at home.

When they arrived at the exchange window, they were dealt another blow.

Originally after the first zombie wave, due to the new political powers, the original spoiled atmosphere on base had been dispersed, resulting in an enthusiastic staff attitude and public minded department.

But now? The people in charge of these exchanges were once again starting to get greedy. Those responsible for sales would often promote their private business. If one wanted to buy things, they say there is a private exchange window. The price was not much more, if interested they should come with them.

With Luo Xun, he simply rejected the person in charge of guiding them and headed directly to the relevant exchange window. He would be an idiot to go with those people, God knew what strange place he would be taken to? Potentially getting robbed, it would be better to find a fixed stall to buy things!

At the exchange window, they bought the maximum amount of gasoline, salt and other necessities. They also spent a large number of cores on some solar panels and batteries before returning to their cars.

They drove away and met with the teams who needed to buy vegetables. After agreeing on a meeting place, Luo Xun brought the fresh vegetables. Xu Mei and some others brought the rest to if they could sell some things – the shelf life of fresh vegetables was very problematic. So Luo Xun's team would immediately eat anything picked or make stews. This time they would see how sales went at base.

Not long after, the people who wanted to buy food arrived. One of the two chatted with Luo Xun before laughing, "I want a lot of vegetables this time but our car does not have enough room, can you send the things to us? It's not far, just in the neighborhood over there."

Luo Xun had a smiling expression while kindly spitting out, "No."

Before the pair responded, Luo Xun continued with a smile, "You can bring back your stuff then collect the vegetables. I can set it aside for half an hour before other people come to buy." He smiled with regret, "If left too long I won't be able to sell them."

The two exchanged looks and uneasily looked at the passersby – since this was an intersection, there was a high flow of people.

Yan Fei pinched a piece of metal. The two people looked at Luo Xun and saw a sharp dagger like object from who knew where.

The pair exchanged looks again and one rubbed their head in embarrassment. "We'll go back to unload things, be back in a moment."

The two men hurried away into the crowd, Luo Xun sadly deleted the man's contact information and wrote a note in his notepad. "One less team."

Only a fool would not see through the men's idea. Perhaps their original team had been disbanded or that person had left. Whatever the reason, they could no longer contact them for a deal.

The teams afterwards also did not buy all of Luo Xun's vegetables, fortunately he had expected the situation and only opened a few boxes. People passing by would only buy a bit here and there but after a while everything would be sold.

After selling the vegetables, Luo Xu called Xu Mei who were selling dried vegetables at a vacant stand. The others either went shopping or to sell things.

They set a meeting time in the afternoon. Luo Xun also packed a bag and went shopping with Yan Fei to find what they needed. If the price was okay they would buy some.

When the team met in the afternoon, they had a lot of things.

Salt, solar panels, batteries, female clothes and shoes – Xu Mei had sold all of the dried vegetables.

"Captain, our sales today were good, many people inquired when they could buy more. I said at the start of next month we may come to the market." Xu Mei smiled and shook the bag containing crystal cores in her hand while pointing at her backpack. "We also used some vegetables for a set of primary school textbooks, there are also a few high school books for Yu Xinran. In the future, the baby can use them too!"

Although they had found a lot of books, they did not have many specifically for children's learning. Composition and reference books were plentiful but useless without a proper foundation.

He Qiankun took out a large bag of pens, "We saw someone selling these while shopping and spent a level two core for the entire thing."

"Also, we saw someone on the roadside selling dried meat. I don't know what mutant animal it's made from, should we bring some bacon to sell next time?" Wu Xin asked the team.

Luo Xun frowned at the suggestion, "It would not be easy to sell? Meat can be sold but it would be a lot of trouble. Many people dared not to buy – especially a processed product. Even if it looks normal people would doubt the source of meat. Although the carcasses are different, many people are still worried about buying fake meat. Even then the average person would rather buy fresh mutant animal meat."

Dried vegetables not selling as well as their fresh counterpart was for the same reason – people were not sure that nothing had been done to the dried product. Today they had brought a small amount, otherwise how would it get sold so quickly?

After counting their gains, the team loaded their things and were ready to leave base. By the team they reached the gate again, they found a lot of new notices on the walls.

After a closer look, Luo Xun and Yan Fei exchanged looks while leaving base. It was not until the sky was dark and they had returned home that the matter was brought up.

"Just now, when we were leaving base we saw the newest notice." Luo Xun continued while washing his hands. "It said that all teams will not be allowed out of base after the eighth of the month and all teams must be back before then."

"Why?" Wang Duo blurted out without thinking.

Zhang Yi leaned forward and squinted at him. "Zombie wave."

"Yeah, the zombie wave will almost reach this area after two weeks. We and the southwest base are likely to be in range of their movements. The base can also receive satellite photos to predict the zombie's path. Not letting people out after the eighth is to prepare in advance for the attack." Luo Xun sighed at the team, "This time we'll spend the wave in our base and see if we can hold on. There should be no problems."

"Okay!"

"Our stuff is at home, why would we go back?"

"Yeah, nothing will happen to the other bases since they'll be ready in advance."

They only had a dozen individuals and the area was not large, although they were unclear about the power of the mutant plants. They did not know if anything would go wrong during the deadly zombie tide. This was the time to test them and their base's defenses. Fortunately the number of zombies was relatively small. As long as they were not completely surrounded, it would be over within a day or two.

208

The morning of June 2nd, the team drove back to their new base. For safety reasons, Zhang Yi did not focus on the road conditions, instead he checked whether there were any followers behind the car. Although they had mutant plants at their door, tunnels could be made straight to the base. They did not want to have anyone know about their home.

After unloading and packing their things away in a temporary dug out storage room, Luo Xun and the others did rush to start a new round of work.

Previously, they had dug out two underground planting rooms, a parking lot and doubled the size of the original planting rooms. But it was clear that there was not enough space and now they had to dig out a few more basements before the zombie tide arrives or prioritize ground work? Both jobs were very important and the team was hesitant on which to do first? Whichever was only half done when the zombie wave arrived would have a considerable impact on their safety.

Luo Xun worried while sitting at the kitchen table as he analyzed the pros and cons. "The groundwork speed is not slow but if there are earth zombies or fast zombie mice we would be in danger. But there's also a problem with work above ground – we have to paint the metal house by hand. If there is any human scent outside, it would attract wandering zombies..."

After listening to Luo Xun's tangled feelings, Yan Fei helped him make a decision. "Then build the basement first, you can first finish the underground storage room and then connect with the other planting rooms and metal houses. You can also lay the foundation for above ground."

Although he could build buildings directly using metal, it required some foundation. It would keep them out of danger to first finish the underground parts of the buildings then build upwards.

It made sense to hear that, so for the sake of safety they could prioritize the underground storage room and then use satellite photographs to decide whether to continue before the zombie wave arrived.

Now that the decision had been made, the team began work that afternoon. Yu Xinran and Yan Fei were mainly responsible for building the basement while the rest painstakingly carried out the dirt. This time they were prepared to dry out the earth. One reason was that they had enough at home, the second was that their activities would leave traces. Who knew if those mutant plants would get overwhelmed and not be able to stop so many zombies?

This time the dug out sand was directly loaded. Yan Fei formed an imitation truck and would drive it outside each time it was filled.

The place where they dumped the dirt was covered in weeds. Before the end it was a small landfill, so adding earth was not an issue.

The car filled with earth, Luo Xun could also take a short break and collect crystal cores in a more distant section of farmland. It was the best of both worlds – relax while also getting some income through cores.

It did not take long to build the underground storage room. But it was not until the next morning that it was completely dug out and the soil transported to the abandoned farmland. He Qiankun examined several new satellite photos and determined the path, speed, scale and time of arrival for the zombies.