Abnormal survival in the end times

Chapter 276 Missing Person
"What's your name?"

"My surname is also Sang, you can just call me Sang Er. Our eldest brother is my cousin."

The young man who volunteered to lead Jiang Minglang and his group to the scene of the incident was nearly 1.8 meters tall. Although he looked thin, he could lift the stone roller weighing over 100 kilograms that was blocking the gate with one hand.

This thing is dusty and looks quite old. It used to be used in rural areas for threshing grain. Later, with the advent of all sorts of machines, it became rare even in rural areas. I don't know where they found it. They put a row of them inside the gate to block it at night.

Sang Er and the young man with him carried the stone rollers one by one to both sides of the gate, and then opened the gate.

The two men would take Jiang Minglang and Qiao Fei out separately, and as payment, they gave each of them a can of meat.

Sang Er tried to give the canned food to Lao Sang, but Lao Sang refused, glaring at him and scolding, "You should keep what others give you, why are you giving it to me? Be more careful when you go out, don't just rush in blindly whenever something happens, and don't do the same to Hei Zi."

While ostensibly a reprimand, Old Sang was actually giving them a pep talk. It was clear from his words that he valued these two young men highly. Whether as family members or among the few superhumans in this small base, he didn't want anything to happen to them.

Jiang Minglang didn't make any promises, he just nodded to Lao Sang. What Lao Sang didn't know was that his nod was a promise.

It can be said that as long as Sang Er and Xiao Hei obediently lead the way and do not cause any trouble, they will bring them back in the same way they were led out.

The two groups started from the technical school and left on foot in opposite directions, east and west.

Western base.

Hu Ziyi hurried to the base commander's office and barged in without even knocking.

"Brother Xin, something bad has happened. Bai Xingye is most likely in trouble. We can't get in touch with him at all."

Gu Guangxin raised her eyes, her brows furrowing slightly. "Wasn't he told to come immediately after withdrawing from Kyoto? Were you ambushed on the way?"

Hu Ziyi was taken aback, suddenly remembering that Bai Xingye had gone to Pengcheng to try to rescue You Junyan and Wen Dien, something Gu Guangxin was unaware of.

Seeing the expression on Hu Ziyi's face, Gu Guangxin slammed his hand on the table. "Tell me, what did he do after leaving Kyoto? Hu Ziyi, you need to think carefully about whose side you're on now!"

"I'm sorry, Brother Xin. Bai Xingye said he was confident he could see Bai Li, and he wanted to confirm whether Jiang Minglang was actually in Pengcheng. This is also very important to us, so I didn't stop him. Who knew..."

Who knew he would disappear? No, rather than disappear, it's more accurate to say he was captured by Pengcheng.

"Nonsense!"

Although Bai Xingye's intentions were good, Gu Guangxin was still very angry. He stood up and slammed his fist on the table. "He thinks he can see Bai Li? If he could, why didn't he see her after going there so many times before? It's obvious that Bai Li doesn't acknowledge his identity as a member of the Bai family. He's really overestimating himself and being incredibly foolish and arrogant!"

Hu Ziyi's expression was also not good. Bai Xingye was an important link between them and that group of people. Without him, it might not have much impact on the other side, but for them, it was a real loss of someone who could speak human language.

After all, he was the one who got along best with that group of people.

"One You Junyan, one Wendion, and one Bai Xingye—a bunch of idiots! Who do they think they are? They all disobey orders and think they know everything!"

After venting his anger, Gu Guangxin quickly asked Hu Ziyi to contact those people, as he felt that Jiang Minglang and the others were very likely already on their way to the Southwest.

Previously, You Junyan insisted on arresting Zeng Mei. Although there was no contact between him and Hu Ziyi in Kyoto, he knew that the two of them must have been exposed.

The reason why Gu Guangxin grits his teeth when he talks about You Junyan is because when You Junyan first said he had discovered a self-healing ability user, he didn't tell Gu Guangxin that the person was the daughter of the Zeng family. If he had known that You Junyan wanted to capture Zeng Mei, he would have stopped him no matter what.

That's incredibly overconfident. Even in this apocalyptic world, with the major families reshuffling, and the Zeng family maintaining a very low profile, that doesn't mean they lack strength. Besides, of all people to target, why did you have to go after their only direct descendant, the daughter of the Zeng family!
It’s simply courting death!

Otherwise, Zeng Xi wouldn't have come in person, and he believed that not only Zeng Xi, but Zeng Dong must have come as well, since Zeng Mei was his own sister.

Now we have Jiang Minglang added to the list.
Gu Guangxin felt his head buzzing and throbbing with pain.

"Brother Xin, don't be too anxious. We have complete control of the Western Base now. So what if Jiang Minglang comes? Two fists can't fight four hands. No matter how powerful he is, he only has a few people under his command. Can he fight against our entire defense department? Unless he brings Wei Lichuan and Ouyang's teams, but is that even possible?"

Hu Ziyi admitted that Jiang Minglang was indeed strong in terms of individual combat power, and even the men he brought with him were all extremely capable. Adding to this the presence of Qiao Fei and Du Qiyan, who had joined him, made him even more formidable.

But so what?
A dozen or twenty people, how could they be equivalent to their entire defense ministry?

No matter how powerful superpowers are, can they be more powerful than guns, cannons, and armor?

Moreover, this is their own familiar territory. Even if Jiang Minglang is a dragon, he has to be coiled up for him here, and if he is a tiger, he has to lie down for him!

No, if he dares to come, I will make sure he doesn't leave alive, his body will be completely destroyed!
But Gu Guangxin was not as optimistic as him. His eyes flickered, and he did not comment on Hu Ziyi's words. He simply said, "Tell them that the hidden forces we prepared beforehand, in addition to lurking on the only road from Kyoto to the southwest, also need to have people guarding this road and this road."

As he spoke, Gu Guangxin pointed to the newly hung satellite map behind him, and one of the two roads he pointed to was the highway right next to the technical school where Jiang Minglang and the others were now.

"right here."

Sang Er pointed to the dilapidated and densely packed old residential area in front of him, and said in a slightly low voice, "Almost every decent-looking residential area and building in the city has been searched. My brother brought people to this old residential area to see if there were any houses that hadn't been searched and if we could pick up some leftovers. After that, we lost contact with them and could never find them again."

"Since no one has gone back, how do you know they disappeared here?"

“My brother said he would come here to look for her before he came out. Besides, I found my sister-in-law’s necklace downstairs in the second unit of the fifth row. It was the only memento my sister-in-law left for my brother. He always wore it around his neck and treasured it like the most precious thing. If it weren’t for the accident, he would never have left my sister-in-law’s necklace behind.”

As he spoke, Sang Er pulled a very ordinary silver necklace from his pocket, with a small gold star hanging at the bottom. He turned the star over, revealing a tiny letter "x" engraved on it. "This is the initial of my sister-in-law's name. The clasp of the necklace is intact, which means that my brother took it off and threw it outside on his own initiative."

After finishing his sentence, Sang Er paused for a moment, then continued, "After Xiao Hei and I found this place, we found nothing except the necklace my brother left behind. We searched the entire building from the first floor to the fifth floor, but we didn't find anything belonging to anyone else. We wanted to search the vicinity and surrounding areas again, but Uncle Sang stopped us. He was worried that we might have met with an accident like my brother and the others, so he forcibly took us back."

Fortunately, Uncle Sang acted decisively and took us away. Later, we heard that at another small base not far from us, their people were searching for something in another location nearby, but they didn't return and also disappeared.

The entire group of people who came out to find supplies disappeared in small groups, which is obviously a deliberate act.

After all, neither mutated animals nor plants could clean up such a mess.

It's now almost certain that these people disappeared because You Junyan and his gang of scoundrels kidnapped them to do experiments.

After searching the neighborhood and finding no further clues, the group decided to return to the vocational school.

Based on the areas previously marked on the map, the experimental base is not in this area; if they capture people, they will only take them back.

Zeng Xi is under intense scrutiny in Kyoto. Although he ostensibly left the capital secretly, those who need to know will find out. Therefore, Gu Guangxin and You Junyan's accomplices should be waiting for Zeng Xi in a state of high alert, and they won't have time to kidnap people around.

That's exactly the result Zeng Xi and his team wanted.

This was a strategy and route planned from the very beginning.

However, as they get closer to their destination, Jiang Minglang decides to change his route.

Sang Er is a native of Southwest China. Before the apocalypse, he drove a truck with his brother. He was familiar with the surrounding cities, as well as the southern and western provinces. Even though the terrain had changed after several earthquakes, he could still recognize the general layout.

Although Lao Sang was unwilling, Sang Er was willing to guide Jiang Minglang and the others.

He realized that the people they were looking for were the same group who had kidnapped his brother and cousin. He was worried about his brother, so he wanted to go with them to see if his brother and cousin were still alive.

The next morning, led by Sang Er, the group changed course and headed west, then south after half a day, and then west again.
This went on for three days. When they stopped by the roadside to eat and rest, Jiang Minglang asked Sang Er, "Have you always had very few mutated plants here?"

The terrain in the southwest is always complex, with many mountains and forests. Logically, there should be more mutated plants and animals here than in other areas. Even if they don't have the strength to dominate a mountaintop, they shouldn't be this quiet.

We encountered mutated plants along the way, but there weren't many of them. Whenever we saw them, they all shrank back, looking quite timid.

There were quite a few mutated animals, but not many large animals, which could also be because they didn't encounter any during the day.

In short, the strangest part is still the plants.

Did those people study mutated plants while researching superhumans? Did they dig up all the mutated ones?
Is that possible?
When Sang Er heard him ask about this, he said, "It should have been the people from the western base who cleaned it up. Didn't they say before that they would occasionally send people from the defense department to patrol? Some of our fellow villagers saw it. Once they drove a big truck and dug up a lot of trees. One of the trees even ate people. I heard that it would wrap people around its trunk with its branches, and then not long after, the flesh and blood on the person's body would be gone."

That tree was dangerous; it had harmed many people. The people from the Western Base dug it up, saving everyone's lives. From then on, everyone thought the Western Base seemed alright, so they wanted to go there together. But before they even set off, they heard rumors that ordinary people living there lived worse than dogs, and those with superpowers fared slightly better, but not much better. Whether the rumors were true or not, they certainly deterred many people. From then on, they banded together for warmth, forming one small base after another—actually, these weren't really bases, just places where everyone had nowhere else to go and were huddled together for survival.

Remove some powerful mutated trees.
Jiang Minglang and the others exchanged glances. They didn't believe that the people from the western base were clearing these trees to save people. After all, if they really wanted to save people, wouldn't it be better to just cut them down on the spot and remove the roots?

Why go through all that trouble to take it away?

They hauled another load, no, perhaps more than one load. Considering they passed through so many mountains and forests without encountering a single mutated plant with any potential for growth, it's highly likely that they dug up everything they found.

The following afternoon, they finally learned what the dug-up trees were used for.

Because of the earthquakes that occurred after the apocalypse, the roads they've been taking lately have nothing to do with the map. If it weren't for Sang Er leading the way, they wouldn't have been able to find these hidden and remote paths at all.

It was precisely because they took this route that they discovered a strange little mountain village.

Five miles away, Xi Yu heard several distinctive "hoho" sounds.

"Boss, there are zombies."

Sang Er, however, said with a normal expression, "In the southwest, apart from the zombies in the cities which are cleared by the military, no one cares about the zombies in some remote mountain villages. The living people who can run away have all run away, but the zombies are left behind. There's nothing strange about that."

Is that right?

Although Sang Er's words made sense, Jiang Minglang and the others still parked the car and sent Lao Sheng and Zhao Kang over to take a look.

Not long after they left, Xi Yu listened carefully again, then frowned and said, "It seems like there are quite a few."

Fifteen minutes later, Lao Sheng and Zhao Kang returned.

"Boss, the area outside that village is full of mutated flowers and trees. They move whenever we get close to them. Damn, someone obviously planted them there on purpose. We didn't see anyone in the village, but we did see two vehicles, both small pickup trucks."

After Lao Sheng finished speaking, Zhao Kang added, "The village isn't big, it looks like there are only a hundred or so households. Most of the courtyard walls have collapsed, and some houses don't even have roofs anymore. Only about a dozen houses in the middle are still in good condition. I ran around the village and found that there was a gap on the back where no mutated trees were planted, like a gate specially left for trucks to enter and exit."

A small village infested with zombies, deliberately surrounded by mutated plants, with trucks coming and going.
No matter how strange it looks.

Thinking of what happened to He Yan and his neighbors, Jiang Minglang narrowed his eyes slightly. Could this be the place where they raise zombies?
good night!