“It can turn invisible?!”
“No, it became transparent!” He Zizhong ignored his meal, put the plate with rice in his hand aside and carefully observed the white ball that suddenly disappeared.
The outline of Tuanzi was still there, but its appearance was barely visible. Because its whole body became like water, it was quite transparent, but this kind of transparency was incomplete. It’s okay if one does not pay attention, but the light distortion and outline is visible when looking carefully.
“Maybe… it works!” The two looked at each other and nodded vigorously.
At midnight, a weird, transparent thing bounced from the villa area towards the south gate.
“Puff, puff, puff…”
“Huh? What sound was that?” A group of soldiers who were patrolling suddenly stopped, picked up their guns and patrolled around.
“Did you get it wrong?”
“Was it a bird?”
“What bird makes that sound? It sounds like something in a video game.”
“Whose playing a game?”
“The base has limited power. Who can play video games in the middle of the night so extravagantly?”
The group carefully searched the surroundings for a long time, but they couldn’t find anything strange. Now the plants in the base are the same as outside, basically all withered. There is nothing in the base except human buildings, and naturally there will be no birds either.
After searching for a long time, they couldn’t find anything weird. These soldiers could only assume they had tinnitus and had misheard. Although a group of people mishearing at the same time was a bit creepy, in the weird world they lived in now, everything is different. With humans turning into cannibalizing monsters, strange sounds are nothing in comparison.
About five minutes after the patrol left, the air in a shadowy corner twisted, and something that was originally unseen suddenly appeared.
The mass of air twisted to the left, looked to the right, and confirmed that there was no one around before it bounced southward with a ‘thump, puff, puff’ sound.
A truck carrying ashes drove from the incinerator to the south gate. Because refugees in the waiting area at the north gate could suddenly become zombies, although the number was not as high as before, the incinerator ran several times a day, and so too would the work of transporting the ashes.
The person in the co-pilot seat rubbed his eyes and looked in the rearview mirror casually. He seemed to vaguely see the air behind the car distort. “Huh?”
“What’s wrong?” the driver asked quickly. They were also survivors from the base. It was only because the work of transporting ashes is more profitable, that they took up this kind of unlucky job. Those “corpses” are very evil, so there was always a particularly creepy feeling at work, and their nerves were always subconsciously tense.
“No… maybe it’s a trick of the light.” The person in the front passenger seat rubbed his eyes uncertainly. After all, he didn’t seem to see anything, but… the air seemed to twist?
“Don’t… don’t scare me. What did you see?” The driver felt his legs weaken. Not being able to explain something is scarier than seeing whatever the heck he just saw!
“No, it’s not that… it’s a bit like a mirage, hot air, water vapor.” The man thought for a while, and patted his leg with certainty. “Yes! That’s the feeling, some times the heating by the window in winter is not good. It’s just a gust of hot air!”
The driver was stunned for a moment, and then his expression distorted. “Maybe it was rain dripping on the window… aren’t you a little too timid? Why are you surprised?”
“Didn’t I already answer? My eyes were blurry for a moment, why did you even bother asking?!” The two quarreled and drove out of the south gate.
Tuanzi squinted his eyes comfortably, and a dull night breeze fluttered over the ashes mountain pulled by the truck. It wasn’t until the car came to a halt and the rear of the car pointed at a large, half-full pit, that it jumped down with a “thump”, hopping a few more times until it found a place where there was no one, and dashed into the space.
“Are you in place?” Nodding its head, Tuanzi squinted his eyes and began to enjoy mama’s gentle touch.
He Zizhong calculated the time. About half an hour later, at about two in the morning, he let Tuanzi out of the space again. After confirming that there was no one outside, it entered the space and took him out to sneak out.
He Zizhong was dressed in black and confirmed that there were no people nearby. Because they transported ashes two days prior, He Zizhong knew the location of several large pits where the ashes were buried. Taking advantage of the darkness, he quietly walked to the vicinity of the ash pit, took off his gloves and started work.
For a whole night, He Zizhong and Fang Hao took turns being taken out of space by Tuanzi, until the two of them completely used up their mental energy. They used the rules of space, and reset the villa ‘waypoint’ each time they exchanged swapped roles. The person who went out swapped with the other person in the villa, and the other person returned to the space to be taken out by Tuanzi at the south gate to collect crystal nuclei.
Each time, the sky above the space would emit a layer of crystal clear brilliance, twinkling like stars in the night sky, like pre-apocalypse fireworks, so bright it looked to be a dream.
What made the two of them a little regretful was that after such a large-scale collection of crystal nuclei, there was no white mist like before. Who knows how many crystal nuclei need to be absorbed before it upgrades again?
It took two full nights for the two of them to barely finish sifting out the large pits outside the base. For two days, both of them stayed in the space during the day to make up for sleep and went out to collect crystal nuclei in shifts at night. The rest of the time was spent dual cultivating, practicing martial arts, and harvesting and processing materials.
Once the vegetables and fruits in the space are harvested, they will be kept busy for a while. Fortunately, although the total harvest was an astonishing amount, the poultry and livestock helped them consume the excess so they didn’t accumulate too much. Fang Hao also took advantage of the sunlight to dry some fruits, and stored them small bags to be eaten outside when it was not convenient to enter the space.
When they went out before, although they mostly act alone, meeting others on the road is inevitable. Fang Hao found it was quite inconvenient whenever they were around other people, particularly when it came to fruit. Although fruit can be cut into small pieces and eaten in an inconspicuous bag, neither the crisp sound nor sweet scent of eating fresh fruit can be fully masked. Only then did he consider drying some fruit for outside consumption.
In addition, he also made a lot of beef jerky, pork jerky, pork floss, and other high-calorie snacks.
The crystal nuclei matter delayed them for a two full days. After two days, they went to the mission hall to see if there were any suitable tasks to do while they went out.
Although there are many teams in the base, most are temporary groups without much training. The number of people in each team is different, and it is difficult to cooperate effectively. The world outside the base is very dangerous and unless it is a mission with the military leading the way, guaranteeing success is difficult.
Fang Hao and He Zizhong looked at the posted tasks on the computer, and Fang Hao finally pointed to one of them. “This requires going to the commercial street in the southern district of the city, which is close to the place we are going.” They don’t lack supplies now, but they do lack a strong crashworthy car and handy weapons. Fang Hao pointed out a task that would pass through a certain auto show center. The task objective is a large supermarket in city A. It seems that the person who organized this task has the key to the supermarket warehouse.
He Zizhong shook his head. “This mission location is too deep into the urban area and it is not safe.” Even if the two of them have a magical space to save their lives, it isn’t a good idea to go deep into the city now. The cars aren’t going anywhere, so as long as no one else steps inside, it will become theirs sooner or later. However, people’s sense of combat and cooperation dealing with zombies has not been honed, and it is too dangerous to go to such a hot zone with strangers.
“Then what task should we take? The task of cleaning the surrounding villages?” There are countless villages and county towns around city A, and many cautious teams have limited choices to go to these places.
He Zizhong searched for a while, only to single one out: “Choose this.”
“A mission to act with the military?”
Although the safety factor of working with the military was much higher, the military will have accompanying logistics personnel responsible for collecting materials from large supermarkets, shopping malls, and other places. Therefore, teams that followed the troops can only go to the residential buildings to collect whatever’s left inside.
How many people store food at home these days? What’s more, the task also required participating teams hand in 70% of their gains.
Rather than doing the military clean up operations, most people preferred to form a team and sweep the surrounding villages and towns, because people there often save more food than urbanites.
After pointing out the mission, He Zizhong turned on his mobile phone and pulled up the records he had saved before. One place was within the scope of this settlement.
Fang Hao looked at the phone screen with his hand, then nodded suddenly. “Okay! Go here!”
A day later, at six o’clock in the morning, He Zizhong and Fang Hao drove to the western gate. Many vehicles were gathered around. At the front were armored vehicles and military trucks carrying live ammunition, and at the rear were scattered squad cars.
The military team in front only just arrived here, and all participating teams assembled in an open space behind the army. The team leaders have to report to the military staff first. Although everyone already registered at the mission hall, the mission requirements during a military operation are relatively high. One of them is – if teams do not arrive and register before the time limit, they will be deemed as automatically abandoning the task.
In addition, non-registered teams are not allowed to join the operation, and all illegal income will be confiscated once discovered. Of course, if someone worked with the military to collect materials, after the operation was over, no one would care if they want revisit the place. But whether they find anything then will depend on luck.
The white dumpling is back!!! 🍙🍙🍙
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