Farming Life Starting in Africa

Xia Nan paused for a moment, then quickly corrected herself: "Ah, I'm sorry! My name is Xia Nan, and I'm a reporter for the French newspaper—"

"I can't make that decision," Rosen gestured towards Yang Rui with his chin. "Go find him. He's the captain, he's the one who calls the shots."

"I can't reason with him!" Xia Nan's voice was urgent. "Just help me out, pull me up!"

"I'm sorry then." Rosen flicked his cigarette butt into the empty can next to him. "There's nothing I can do about it."

Rosen stopped looking at her, pulled his hat brim down further, and continued to monitor the progress on the universal platform.

A moment later, Rosen heard a rustling sound coming from the rear fence of the pickup truck.

He peeked out and saw Xia Nan clinging to the metal railing behind the pickup truck, one foot on the mudguard next to the tire, the other kicking wildly in the air.

She gritted her teeth, her face flushed red, and struggled to climb upwards.

Just then, the lead car started moving, and the convoy slowly began to move. Xia Nan struggled for a long time before she could barely hang her upper body on the railing, but her lower body was still dangling outside. She tried for a long time but could not make a complete double-arm pull to lift herself up.

Helpless, Xia Nan could only swallow her pride and call out, "Hey handsome! Help me up! I can't get up..."

The lead car had already driven far away. Rosen pretended not to hear, patted the roof of the driver's cab, and said to Miao Feng below, "Let's go, what are you daydreaming about?"

Miao Feng, in the driver's seat, saw the woman hanging behind the car in the rearview mirror. "That woman..."

"You've taken a liking to her?"

"Ah, no—"

Rosen rolled his eyes: "If you don't have one, why aren't you driving? She won't die from that height. Just don't run her over while backing up."

Miao Feng hesitated for a moment, but then stepped on the gas.

Xia Nan blushed when she heard their conversation, whether from anger or from being tired from hanging outside.

The pickup truck slowly accelerated and followed the convoy away from the supply point.

As the vehicle accelerated, Xia Nan could no longer hold onto the railing. She cried out "Ah!" and fell to the ground, wincing in pain and cursing under her breath.

The cars behind her all drove around her. The machine gunner, Stone, poked half his head out of the window, looked at Xia Nan sitting on the ground, and asked Xu Hong beside him, "Deputy Captain, is this woman crazy?"

Xu Hong didn't respond; he looked out the car window at the towering pickup truck ahead. The advantage of a high truck bed was obvious; it would be really difficult for an average person to get on.

On the way, Yang Rui was reporting his conversation with Xia Nan to Gao Yun via an encrypted line.

"Captain, we just met that reporter at the supply depot. She stated that she currently has no evidence to prove the existence of yellowcake. All her documents and evidence are with her assistant, who has been taken away by Zaka's organization."

There was a two-second silence on Gao Yun's end. "Then let's continue the mission," Gao Yun's voice was calm and clear. "Hostage safety is the priority. The yellowcake issue is not our responsibility."

In the short time that had just passed, the ship's crew had already given him a lesson on yellowcake.

Yellowcake can be freely traded on the international market, provided it is under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, yellowcake cannot be directly used to make weapons. It requires highly specialized technology and equipment for purification, and it consumes a large amount of electricity.

In impoverished regions like Africa, Zarqa's group faces a problem: let alone abundant electricity, even finding people who know how to operate centrifuges is an issue.

The convoy continued eastward, ahead of which lay a complex hilly area.

Gu Shun, the sniper in the car behind, was the first to notice that Rosen and Zhou Weijie were taking turns launching the drone.

He looked up through the car window and saw the small drone flying hundreds of meters above the convoy, but he didn't hear it make any noise.

Gu Shun pressed the communication button: "Captain, I just saw a drone being launched from the pickup truck."

"Understood," Yang Rui's voice came through the walkie-talkie. A moment later, Yang Rui pressed PTT and connected to Rosen's channel: "Why are you launching drones? What situation have you discovered?"

Rosen sat in the truck bed, his eyes fixed on the remote control screen. "The terrain ahead is complicated. We don't have air support. Let me check out the terrain and environment first."

Yang Rui thought for a moment, then asked, "How long can your drones fly?"

"That's enough," I said. I brought plenty of spare batteries; enough to last until we reached the town of Basem.

Yang Rui didn't press further. They could have called in drones from the warship for support, but the distance was too great, and it wouldn't be worthwhile just for this reconnaissance mission.

The convoy moved forward at a steady pace, and the sun rose higher and higher, making the stones on the Gobi Desert feel hot.

By noon, they had entered the foothills.

To the north is a high ground with rocks of varying sizes and jagged shapes.

Rosen controlled the drone to fly north for a while, zoomed in, and slowly scanned every corner of that highland.

The stone forest didn't look particularly special. As the camera panned out, in the far distance, there was a relatively flat area behind the stone forest.

A group of people were squatting on that flat ground, frantically setting something up.

One of them was lying in a crevice of a rock formation, holding a pair of binoculars and pointing them towards the convoy.

Rosen zoomed the drone in a bit, adjusted the focus, and the image became clearer. The group was adjusting the angle of a thick pipe, under which was a disc, and next to it were several pointed, round-bodied shells.

Mortar.

Rosen felt a chill run down his spine. "Stop the car! Captain Yang, I've discovered something!"

Yang Rui's lead car immediately slammed on the brakes, the wheels skidding a short distance on the sand. "What did you find?"

"There's a group of armed men on the middle of the north slope. They're setting up mortars. It's about 1,800 meters away, behind the stone forest, in a very well-hidden location."

Yang Rui sat in the car and picked up his binoculars to look at the distant hillside on his left.

All he could see were piles of stone pillars, stalagmites, and heaps of stone. From his angle, he couldn't tell where the armed men were at all.

But he didn't hesitate. He pressed PTT (a popular Taiwanese online forum) and said decisively, "Everyone on alert!"

After saying that, he pushed open the car door and strode towards the pickup truck.

Rosen set the drone in his hand to hover mode, and then threw the controller directly from the truck bed to Yang Rui.

He casually put on the same Space Marine helmet.

"See for yourself."

Yang Rui reached out and took the controller, then looked down at the screen—the image made his scalp tingle.

Behind the stone pillar, a group of people were assembling a mortar. The barrel was already set up, and there were two other mortars already set up nearby. Some people were squatting down and screwing the fuses onto the tails of the shells, while others were adjusting the firing angle.