Doomsday Cognition Guide

In the following period, the search and rescue team's work entered its final stage. After several weeks of continuous effort, all towns, villages, and scattered settlements within the entire county had been thoroughly searched. Those who could be rescued had all been transferred to the county seat; those remaining were either like the hundreds of people in the temple who refused to relocate, or like the family in the valley who believed they could endure it. When the search and rescue team leader submitted the final inspection report, Deputy Secretary Zhang read it for a long time, but ultimately said nothing.

Li Xuan was correcting the stances of the armed police officers on the training ground. He knew what Deputy Secretary Zhang meant—this old-fashioned man wouldn't shirk responsibility—but he also knew that some people's lives weren't that the government didn't want to save them, but that it couldn't.

During this period, Fourth Uncle's supernatural abilities officially awakened.

That evening, Li Xuan returned from the county town and saw something flying on the platform from afar. A silver light streaked back and forth in the twilight, moving slowly and unsteadily, like a drunken dragonfly. As he got closer, he realized it was his fourth uncle standing in the center of the platform, his right hand raised, palm facing the direction of the swirling silver light in the air—it was a Tang sword.

The blade hovered in mid-air, moving left and right with the movement of Uncle Si's fingers. He twisted his wrist, and the blade flipped over, the edge facing upwards. He pushed his finger forward, and the blade flew forward two or three meters, then suddenly stopped, as if it had hit an invisible wall, hovering in mid-air, trembling slightly.

Li Xuan parked his motorcycle and walked to the edge of the platform. When his fourth uncle saw him coming, he flicked his finger back, and the Tang sword slowly flew back, its hilt aligned with his palm, and landed steadily in his hand.

"When did you awaken?"

"This afternoon," Uncle Four sheathed his sword, his tone tinged with barely concealed excitement, though his face remained his usual stern, dark expression. "I was halfway through laying the bricks when I suddenly felt something was wrong with the steel bar I was holding—before, I had to touch it to control it, but today, before my hand even touched it, the bar moved on its own. I tried all afternoon, and now I can control it without touching it." He pointed to the Tang sword in his hand. "As long as it's metal, within a range of two or three meters, I can make it move however I want."

"How's the control precision?"

"The large items are fine. I haven't tried the small ones yet." Uncle Si picked up a screw from the ground and placed it in his palm. He lifted his finger slightly, and the screw floated up wobbled, tumbled a few times in the air, and then fell to the ground with a thud. He frowned. "Too small, hard to control."

He was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly sighed. "I should have practiced swordsmanship back then. This Tang sword is quite impressive as it flies around, but it always feels like it's missing something. A sword is so much cooler—with a flick of the wrist, the flying sword is drawn, taking a person's head from a thousand miles away."

Li Xuan chuckled. "Try using this move to chop that wooden stake, chop it with all your might."

Without much thought, Fourth Uncle raised his hand and swung the sword. The Tang sword drew an arc in the air, the blade striking the wooden stake with a dull thud. The blade bounced back half a meter, leaving a shallow cut on the stake, without even exposing the core of the wood.

Uncle Si paused for two seconds, stunned. "That's it?"

"That's it." Li Xuan walked over, picked up the Tang sword, and handed it back to his fourth uncle. "Your method of controlling the sword with your qi looks impressive, but the power is actually just throwing the sword at people. It's not even as good as throwing it with your hand. The acceleration distance of two or three meters is too short. The sword will be gone before it even takes off."

Fourth Uncle took the knife, frowned, thought for a while, and nodded. He wasn't the kind of person who would feel embarrassed if someone pointed out his mistakes; he listened to whoever was right.

"Then what's the point of this move?"

"Change to throwing knives," Li Xuan said. "The smaller the knife, the faster it accelerates. Two or three meters is enough for a throwing knife—its small size makes it hard to detect, and its release is concealed. Even if the opponent sees it, it's difficult to judge the landing point. Unlike a Tang sword like yours, which flies by from afar, people can see a flash of silver and easily dodge it by simply sidestepping."

Uncle Si thought for a moment, then rummaged through his toolbox and took out a few steel nails, testing them in his palm. The nails were larger than screws but smaller than a Tang sword, their size just within an easily controllable range. He flicked his wrist, and the nails flew out with a whoosh, embedding themselves half an inch into the wooden stake, their ends humming and vibrating.

"This works." Uncle Si tried a few more times, and each time the steel nails were driven firmly into the wooden stake, but the area they were scattered over was too large—some were off to the left, some to the right, and some flew off completely. He stared at the few crooked nail holes on the wooden stake and muttered to himself, "I still have to divide my attention to control it. Fighting while controlling a throwing knife requires my brain to be split in two."

"You'll get better with practice. At least now you can look cool."

Fourth Uncle glared at him, then laughed first. "Alright, practice more in the future. If this thing can really be used in actual combat, it is indeed more effective than knives and spears—no one can stop a single nail."

A few days later, one evening, Deputy Secretary Zhang's voice came through the walkie-talkie. This time it wasn't a request for help, nor a routine report; his tone was a bit more serious than usual.

"Comrade Li Xuan, there's a situation. We just received an urgent notice from the neighboring county. The cleanup work in their county seat and surrounding towns is still ongoing. Their county is much larger than ours, the county seat is also larger, and the population is several times that of us. There are many more zombies, so the cleanup pressure is immense. We heard that we have basically completed the cleanup of the entire county, and they hope that we can send a team to assist them."

Li Xuan gripped the walkie-talkie, not answering immediately. He knew a bit about the situation in the neighboring county—before the apocalypse, it was the most economically developed county in the area, with a county seat population of over 100,000 and several large towns under its jurisdiction. A large number of zombies meant greater difficulty in clearing them, and also meant the rescue team might face an even larger horde. On the other hand, if the neighboring county couldn't be defended, the zombies would eventually spread towards this area along the highway.

"Do you need me to come over?" Li Xuan asked.

"The county's intention is to hope that you and Comrade Li Lei can lead the team together. After all, you have the most practical experience with zombies and mutated beasts, while the search and rescue team from the neighboring county has not yet officially encountered mutated beasts. However, this is not a mandatory requirement; it depends on your willingness."

Uncle Si was squatting next to the workbench, sharpening throwing knives, when he heard the conversation on the walkie-talkie and looked up. "I'll go."

Li Xuan glanced at him. Fourth Uncle put the throwing knife on the table, stood up, and dusted the iron filings off his hands. "I've been itching to work on the bricklaying lately, and I've been looking for a place to stretch my muscles. Besides, I've been practicing throwing knives for several days now, and I need to find a real-world test. Don't you always say that you can't really hone your skills if you're locked up in the base?"

Li Xuan nodded and pressed the intercom button. "My fourth uncle and I will lead the team. We'll leave first thing tomorrow morning."

The next morning, the two drove the pickup truck out of the mountains. The truck's exterior was still the same dusty, grimy look it always was, with scratches crisscrossing the bed and dents from the previous collision with the mutant bull on the bumper. But lifting the hood revealed a completely different interior—the engine had been replaced with a V6 salvaged from Uncle Si's SUV, the intake and exhaust systems completely modified, and even the driveshaft reinforced with supernatural powers. Uncle Si called this "quietly impressive modification"—it looked unremarkable from the outside, but its power was revealed once you floored the accelerator.

Upon arriving at the assembly point in the county town, almost everyone had already arrived. Li Xuan glanced around; they were all familiar faces. Old Ma stood at the front, carrying his thick shield; Xiao Zhou leaned against the armored vehicle, holding his gleaming rifle; Xiao Liu was squatting on the ground tying his shoelaces. Seeing Li Xuan approach, he grinned, "Instructor, I heard you're leading the team this time?" Several others beside him were familiar faces from when they had cleared the county town together before—twenty men, all present. These men had fought zombie hordes together, encountered mutated bulls, and learned stance training and integrated power generation; their teamwork required little explanation.

Uncle Si parked the car, took the modified Tang sword from the back seat, and tucked it into his back. He then checked the throwing knife sheath at his waist again—twelve steel nails were neatly arranged inside. Old Ma's eyes lit up when he saw the Tang sword: "Captain Li, why is your sword wider than before?" "I added some materials," Uncle Si didn't explain further.

The team was fully equipped. Xiao Liu finished tying his shoelaces, stood up, and dusted his hands off. "Instructor, what's the situation in the next county? I heard their population is several times larger than ours, so are there many, many times more zombies there too?"

"More than us," Li Xuan said.

He didn't explain much. His memory of that county was clearer than anyone else's—not from this life, but from another timeline. Ten years after the apocalypse, he was traveling south from the provincial capital back to his hometown. He didn't turn into the county when he passed through; by then, the county town was long gone, only ruins and weeds remained. He continued east for dozens of kilometers, entering the territory of the neighboring county, only to find the base still there. The watchtower on the mountaintop, the concrete fortifications at the tunnel entrance, the survivors queuing for supplies in the square—everything was still functioning. Even during humanity's darkest years, that base hadn't given up.

He later learned that the base's ability to survive until the later stages of the apocalypse was entirely due to its terrain. The county town was divided into two halves by mountains, an old town on the other side of the mountain, bordering a large river. It used to be a small port town, but gradually developed after the construction of the old railway station. On the new town side, the mountains unfolded like flower petals, with the high-speed rail station and railway station located right in the center of the town, half-embedded in the mountainside, forming a natural semi-bunker. The train lines and highways all connected the old and new towns through tunnels, which crisscrossed within the mountains, turning the entire mountain into a giant three-dimensional fortress. This terrain, which limited the county town's development in peacetime, became the ideal survival base in the apocalypse. More importantly, it was very close to an entrance to the underground nuclear Great Wall. Five years after the apocalypse, the military began to renovate the nuclear Great Wall, turning it into an underground transportation network connecting most of China. The tunnel in the neighboring county was located at a crucial node, making this the lifeline of the entire southwest region. Therefore, the base was preserved until the later stages of the apocalypse.

But that happened later. The neighboring county is still in the most difficult stage of cleanup.

Li Xuan didn't know much about this cleanup operation. On another timeline, their county hadn't even completed its own tasks and hadn't sent anyone to participate in the cleanup in the neighboring county. He had only read a brief account in later documents—the operation was extremely brutal, with thousands killed. The details of how they died and what happened weren't recorded. He deduced from the timeline that the operation should have taken place several months later. Now, because his intelligence had accelerated the county's cleanup progress, the neighboring county's request for help had arrived six months earlier than he remembered.

Thousands of people. In peacetime, this number would be earth-shattering, but in the apocalypse, it's just a hastily recorded account. Who they were, how they died, whether anyone remembered them—the records say nothing. But this life is different. This life, he leads the team. The timeline is six months earlier, and the forces are different—in the previous life, their county didn't send anyone; this life, he brings twenty veterans who experienced the mutated bulls. Those who would have died otherwise, perhaps fewer will perish.

The convoy headed east along the highway. Once outside the county, road conditions worsened significantly—more and more vehicles were abandoned, and in some sections, Old Ma had to get out and push aside the blocking cars to continue. Occasionally, scattered zombies could be seen in the fields beside the road; hearing the convoy, they staggered towards the highway, only to be taken down by a few quick shots from Xiao Zhou. The further east they drove, the higher the density of zombies became, but the terrain also began to change—the plains gradually narrowed, the mountains on both sides became increasingly steep, and the highway snaked through the valleys like a gray serpent.

After driving for nearly two hours, a huge tunnel entrance suddenly appeared on the mountainside ahead. Concrete-reinforced slopes lined both sides of the tunnel entrance, topped with barbed wire. Behind the wire, figures could be vaguely seen moving about. Several rows of barricades were piled on the road ahead of the tunnel entrance, with bells and empty cans hanging from the wire mesh, jingling in the wind. A sentry in camouflage peeked out from behind the barricades, peered at them through binoculars for a few seconds, then waved behind him. The barricades were pushed aside.

As the convoy passed through the tunnel, Li Xuan glanced out the window. The tunnel walls were exposed rock strata, with reinforced arched support structures at intervals, their ceilings adorned with emergency lights that cast a dim yellow glow on the water stains on the rock walls. The echoes of tires rolling over the road reverberated through the mountainside. Emerging from the tunnel, a breathtaking panorama unfolded before them—a city nestled among mountains, sparsely populated but with wide streets and solid buildings. The high-speed rail station's dome rose slightly in the city center, half embedded in the mountainside, the other half exposed, its glass curtain walls reflecting the hazy sunlight. The train line extended from the station, disappearing into the opposite mountainside. A highway spanned the city on an elevated viaduct, beneath which lay empty streets and closed shop shutters. The outlines of several concrete fortifications could be seen on the mountainside in the distance. The searchlights on the watchtowers were not yet lit, but figures were already moving about.

Uncle Si slowed down the car and turned his head to look at the high-speed rail station outside the window. "This place is born to be a base."

The convoy stopped in front of the high-speed rail station. A young man in camouflage was already waiting at the station entrance. Seeing them get off the vehicle, he quickly approached and introduced himself as Chen, the receptionist from command post. He spoke fluently and quickly explained the situation: the support team coming wasn't just from their county; there were five other counties as well. Some were still on their way, while others had already arrived, and they were expected to all be there by evening. The specific action plan would be uniformly arranged by the leaders from above the next morning, and the routes would be divided according to the personnel and equipment of each team. The rest of the day was for rest, familiarizing themselves with the terrain, and checking the equipment.

"Your accommodations have been arranged," Xiao Chen pointed to a three-story building next to the high-speed rail station. "That used to be the staff dormitory, and we've vacated it for you. There aren't many rooms, so you'll have to squeeze in."

Li Xuan nodded. Fourth Uncle patted the truck bed, signaling Old Ma and the others to unload their equipment. Little Liu, carrying a bandage box, jumped off the armored vehicle, counting the windows as he walked towards the dormitory building. After settling into their lodgings and having dinner, it was completely dark. The searchlights at the high-speed rail station came on, their blinding white beams slowly sweeping across the plaza. A few sporadic gunshots occasionally rang out from the direction of the distant tunnel entrance, quickly fading into silence.

Uncle Si stood downstairs at the dormitory building, making final adjustments to the throwing knife sheath around his waist. He looked up at the searchlights on the distant mountainside and suddenly said, "Tomorrow won't be easy."

Li Xuan stood to the side, looking at the high-speed rail station embedded in the mountainside in the night. "Hmm."

"We're not the only team coming to help; it seems this cleanup operation is quite large." Uncle Four inserted the last steel nail into the leather sheath, patted the throwing knife at his waist, and said, "Good. After practicing throwing knives for so long, tomorrow we can finally see the real results."

Li Xuan didn't reply. He recalled those few lines from another timeline: thousands sacrificed. Tomorrow, their fates would take a different path. He withdrew his gaze and turned to walk towards the dormitory building. "Get some rest. We'll assemble first thing tomorrow morning."