Abnormal survival in the end times

Chapter 275 First Arrival in the Southwest
"Damn, it got cold way too fast."

Old Sheng tightened his down jacket and moved closer to Ren Bin, who was using his superpower to help start a fire and cook rice. He squatted down next to Ren Bin and watched Zhang Shaoda make noodles.

"If you dare to spit into the pot, I'll dig a hole and bury you right now."

Hearing a gulp of saliva, Zhang Shaoda cracked eggs into the pan while glancing sideways at Lao Sheng.

Lao Sheng:
No, did cooking make you lose your ear?

"Brother Da, are you sure the saliva you just saw was mine?"

"What? Ren Bin's saliva got into your mouth?"

Lao Sheng:
Why is this getting more and more disgusting?

He turned to look at the culprit, who even raised an eyebrow at him.

Old Sheng gritted his teeth; if it weren't for the fact that he was still controlling the fire, he would have given him a good beating.

It has been ten days since we left Shenzhen, and the journey has not been peaceful.

They had been to the western region after the apocalypse, and the initial deputy base commander was not Hu Ziyi, but Yu Chengping, the former deputy mayor of Yunzhou City before the apocalypse.

They killed him to avenge their brothers.

After that, I heard that there was a major reshuffle in the west. First, Gu Guangxin, the former deputy base chief from the south, was transferred there to become the base chief, and then Hu Ziyi was transferred from Kyoto to become the deputy base chief.

The transfer of personnel from these two locations was not intended to create checks and balances or to allow headquarters to maintain control. On the contrary, although the two were located in the south and the north, they had previously had a good superior-subordinate relationship.

The person above is a man of action.

In this apocalyptic world, survival is difficult for ordinary people. It's best to maintain a stable environment if possible.

Therefore, Hu Ziyi was promoted exceptionally and sent to the west to help Gu Guangxin.

He probably didn't expect that the two people he had specially paired with had already colluded together, secretly providing cover for a foreign force. Zeng Xi used his grandfather's connections to investigate for a few days. Although there was no concrete evidence, the general direction was roughly this result.

Before secretly leaving Kyoto, he met with the highest-ranking official in Kyoto's defense department, and with the person in charge of Kyoto.
At this time, the two groups had not yet met, but on the way to the southwest, no, it should be said that on the eighth day after leaving Pengcheng, when they officially stepped into the southwest territory, they suddenly found that this place seemed to be a different world, completely different from the surrounding areas of Pengcheng and Kyoto.

Almost every 100 to 200 kilometers, they would encounter a small base. Some of them would send women and children to stage accidents to extort money, some would organize dozens of people to rob people on the road, and some would even set up their bases right by the highway, openly soliciting customers for lodging. The lodging fee could be food, daily necessities, or clothing.

Even when they saw that almost all the people in their three cars were men, scantily clad women enthusiastically rushed up to offer them special services.

Each small base doesn't have many people, maybe a hundred or two, and after careful observation, the largest number doesn't exceed five hundred.

After the robbers were beaten up and questioned, they were released.

On the twelfth day, Jiang Minglang and his group checked into a small base near the highway.

This used to be a technical school. Because the classes were not very regular, and the apocalypse broke out close to May Day, the technical school had given an early holiday, so there were not many people in the school when the apocalypse broke out.

This also preserved the classrooms, dormitories, and other areas well. Later, these were taken over by the escapees and turned into their own small base. Then, out of nowhere, they had a sudden inspiration and started using the student dormitories to run a pre-apocalyptic hotel business.

Each dormitory room houses four people in bunk beds, the kind with a bed on top and a desk underneath. Each room has a private bathroom. Aside from being a bit cold and lacking electricity, the conditions are acceptable. After all, this vocational school is supposedly a new campus; the dormitories were only built two years before the apocalypse, so they do look quite new.

The leader of the small base was a middle-aged man in his forties, accompanied by two burly superhumans.

Sensing that Jiang Minglang and his group were no ordinary people, the middle-aged man unconsciously adopted a fawning smile when speaking to Du Qiyan, who had stepped forward as their representative. "Hello, hello, I'm the boss here. You can just call me Lao Sang. We're just a school, not really a base, just trying to make a living. Are you from the Western Base?"

Du Qiyan raised an eyebrow. "Why do you assume we're from the western base? Isn't this place quite close to the southern base?"

"It is quite close, but we ordinary folks have never seen anyone from the Southern Base, right? Only the Western Base's defense department occasionally comes out for a stroll, so I assumed you were the ones there."

Du Qiyan said calmly, "Isn't this part of the Southern Base? Why are people from the Western Base coming here? What? Doesn't the Southern Base care about you?"

In fact, these marginal areas are not clearly defined, depending on where the survivors go. After all, the turmoil of the apocalypse has not yet subsided, and mutated animals and plants are frequently appearing. In addition to the four major bases that have been built relatively solidly, there are also small auxiliary bases like Pengcheng that are considered top-tier and can be used as regular living areas.

As for the others, it's hard to say how long they will last.

Take this vocational school for example. It might be wiped out overnight, perhaps due to heavy rain or snow, or because it has been targeted by some powerful force.

It's obviously temporary and won't last long.

So it's normal that the southern base doesn't come this way, but what's not normal is that the western base, which is farther away, comes here occasionally. What are they doing here?

"Huh? We belong to the Southern Base?"

Old Sang looked bewildered, then shook his head helplessly. "It doesn't matter which one we belong to. Anyway, I've heard those two big bases aren't any good. We're always hungry and cold, and we're constantly working ourselves to the bone with no freedom whatsoever. Why should we go and seek refuge with them? Sigh."

As he spoke, Old Sang let out a long sigh, "It's the apocalypse. We'll live one day at a time. What do big bases and new lives matter? We'll just make do."

When he said these words, Old Sang lost his initial obsequiousness and slickness. Du Qiyan could tell that he really had no hope for life and was just getting by.

Is this the kind of message that both the western and southern bases are conveying to the survivors here? Du Qiyan frowned slightly, then relaxed and continued to ask, "If we don't go to the large bases, can your small base withstand the plant and animal attacks when it rains?"

"We can't take it. If it rains again, half of us will die. And the next time, half of us will die. Look at our school, we used to have over four hundred people, but now there are less than a hundred left. If it rains again, we'll all be wiped out."

"Even so, you're not going to the main base?"

"We can't go. We occasionally go out a little further to find some supplies, but eight out of ten times we never come back. We can't even leave this area. So how do you tell us how to get to that big base in the west or south?"

"Boundary? What boundary?" Du Qiyan adjusted his glasses and revealed some information to Old Sang, "Brother Sang, please speak frankly. To tell you the truth, we're from the Kyoto headquarters."

"Undercover investigation!" Old Sang's eyes lit up, and he interrupted Du Qiyan before he could finish speaking, "I understand. You came from the main base, conducting undercover investigations all the way, just to see the detailed situation of the western and southern bases, is that right?"

Well.
Du Qiyan smiled faintly, not answering his question directly, but saying, "So Brother Sang, don't worry, you can say whatever you should or shouldn't say."

Upon hearing this, Old Sang became incredibly excited and immediately began to talk at length with Du Qiyan. However, most of what he said was useless to them, except for one very strange point.

That's what Lao Sang mentioned before. It's not just their technical school team; other small bases are the same. Many people go missing when they go out. It's like entire teams disappearing without a trace, and their bodies can't even be found.

If they were attacked by animals or mutated plants, even if they were just leftover, mutilated corpses, they should have encountered a few, right? The problem is, they can't be found at all; they've all vanished without a trace, as if they disappeared from this earth.

This is another major reason why these people are unwilling to travel long distances to the large base. The first reason, of course, is the rumors about the base, which makes them hesitate.

Du Qiyan's gaze grew cold. Since the establishment of the four major bases, the Kyoto headquarters had been using radio broadcasts to consistently encourage survivors to go to the nearest major base. With high walls and military guards, their safety was guaranteed, if nothing else.

Why are there such unfavorable rumors about the West and the South?

Is this what the survivors themselves think, or is it something someone deliberately spread?

And what about the missing people?

No matter what, it's impossible for an entire squad to disappear, unless... they were all wiped out.

Du Qiyan then asked in detail which area the people had disappeared in, the specific routes they had taken, how many of the missing people were superhumans and how many were ordinary people. After noting all of this down, he used a bag of flour and ten apples to cover their lodging expenses.

There were quite a few of these things, and Old Sang's face was so happy that the wrinkles on his face all came together. He asked the two young men who were with him to get some clean, non-mold bedding and make up the beds for each of them.

That evening, Du Qiyan shared the information he had obtained from Lao Sang with the others.

Qiao Fei sneered, "No need to ask, they must have been captured by those scumbags. Superhumans do research, and ordinary people experiment with new drugs, just like He Yan."

Zeng Beidao said, "Now it's confirmed that Gu Guangxin and Hu Ziyi from the Western Base have defected. The only question is what role the Southern Base played. The rumors about the difficulty of surviving in large bases are most likely spread by them themselves. After all, entering a base requires registration, and even going out on missions requires records. Moreover, it's unacceptable for too many people to disappear from the base, which means the Defense Department has to investigate the cause."

So if they want to arrest people, it's best to target the survivors scattered outside the base. They can arrest as many as they want; who cares?

Jiang Minglang frowned and asked Zeng Bei, "Do you have the total number of personnel in the western and southern bases?"

Zeng Bei shook his head. "No, because from the very beginning, each base was encouraged to absorb as many survivors as possible, giving them a place to stay. So the numbers are definitely inaccurate. Take the western base, for example. A year ago, they said there were 280,000. What a joke! Is that all there is in the entire west? If you said everyone else turned into zombies and died, who would believe that?"

This number is barely enough to appease people. Even though Pengcheng, a small city, was suppressed, it still housed 100,000 people. Later, a residential area was built in Ancheng, which is right next to Pengcheng. Now, a rough estimate shows that the population is nearly 60,000.

So if your Western Base claims to have only 280,000, do you even deserve to be called "large"?
You provided a headcount statistic a year ago, what happened after that? Were you so busy this past year that you didn't have time to compile statistics or simply didn't have time to provide them?
Zhang Shaoda looked up at Jiang Minglang. A year and a half ago, they had secretly visited the western base. At that time, the base commander was not yet Gu Guangxin, and their walls were not yet fully built, nor was the scale complete enough to be called a 'large base'.

Even so, the situation wasn't much better at the time.

Because they were focused on completing the mission as quickly as possible, they mostly avoided areas with survivor settlements and didn't pay attention to the specific situation in the west. However, my sister-in-law, Green Ivy, had been searching for Yu Chengping in the area, and I remember her saying that there were many people inside, densely packed together.

I just don't know how many people were there in that densely packed area. Compared to now, is it more or less?

Because Zeng Bei was there, Zhang Shaoda naturally wouldn't bring it up. After all, Yu Chengping was a government-sponsored employee of Kyoto. He was secretly killed by his sister-in-law, Green Ivy, and the Minister of Defense, who was at odds with him, happened to be there and conveniently framed him.

To this day, no one knows who killed Yu Chengping.

“Let’s not rush off this time. Tomorrow morning, we’ll take the vocational school students for a tour of the surrounding area. Old Qiao and I will each lead a team, while Old Du, Xi Yu, and Zeng Mei will stay behind. Alright, now go back to your rooms and rest.”

The next morning, Du Qiyan found Lao Sang and asked him to assign two people to lead them to the area where the disappearance was most likely to occur.

At first, Old Sang hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't want Jiang Minglang and the others to go, but that he didn't want them to bring their own people. After all, he only had so many people left, and he felt heartbroken to lose even one.

In the past, we could still attract some new members, but now, there are fewer and fewer people.

"Uncle Sang, I'll take them there."

Old Sang was reluctant to part with his own people, but the young men who followed him were eager to try. His older brother and cousin were among the group that disappeared three months ago, and he wanted to know where they had gone and what had happened to them.

He had thought about going to look for him several times, but Uncle Sang was afraid that something might happen to him again and firmly forbade it.

But things are different now. These people are clearly extraordinary. The young man believes that even if they encounter unpredictable dangers, they will definitely be able to handle them.

I'm sure nothing will happen if I stay with them.

good night!