Wasteland Survivalist: A Scientific Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Survival

After hearing these words, Gu Lang nodded slightly.

Judging from Zhao Xun's age, his parents must be quite old, and his child is probably still in elementary school.

"After the outbreak of nuclear war, all communications were completely cut off."

I've tried every possible method, but I still can't get in touch with them.

The only thing that can be confirmed is that the Longhai area was not directly bombed.

Zhao Xun continued speaking, his voice as steady as if he were giving a tactical briefing.

"But it's too close to the lower gate," Gu Lang added, which was the absolute truth.

"Yes," Zhao Xun admitted, "We will definitely be affected by the nuclear bomb, but we don't know the exact extent."

"Since ancient times, loyalty and filial piety have not been able to coexist."

Since the military's mission has been temporarily suspended while awaiting vaccine development,

There was no point in me just sitting there waiting, so I figured I might as well go out and take a gamble.

Even if the worst outcome is found, at least I can collect the body and give my family a proper burial.

After Zhao Xun finished speaking, he fell silent and lowered his head again to check the course.

Gu Lang leaned back in his seat at the machine gun control console, several thoughts racing through his mind.

More than four months have passed since the outbreak of war, and the radioactive contamination in Zhangzhou Port should have decreased to a safe level.

However, describing this kind of search for relatives as finding a needle in a haystack is an exaggeration.

But he didn't say anything; he just stuffed the notebook back into his pocket.

"Okay, let's go to Zhangzhou Port then. I'm heading south anyway, so it's on my way. When we get there, I'll help you find it."

Zhao Xun turned his head and glanced at him, but didn't say anything to thank him; he just nodded.

Between two men, some things don't need to be said too explicitly.

The straight-line distance from Ningde to Xiamen is over two hundred nautical miles.

Based on the economical cruising speed of 14 knots for the Type 022 submarine, it would take at least 15 hours to sail.

This is assuming everything goes smoothly, and the current sea level is far from being a cause for concern.

It was already dark when we left the sea off Huzhou.

Several huge plumes of smoke rose slowly from the depths of the coastline, like black fingers poking into the sky.

Judging from the distance and direction, it should be in the direction of Quanzhou.

In a world that has lost its order, cities burning has become something that no one finds strange.

The two watched the plumes of smoke in silence, neither of them uttering a word, and then anchored on a secluded, uninhabited island.

The next day they continued their journey, passing through another group of floating cargo ship wrecks.

The container ship ran aground on the rocks, and many containers were scattered on the surrounding sea, half-submerged and half-floating.

Most of them have already been looted; you can see cuts made with an angle grinder on the outer shell.

Gu Lang observed through his binoculars and saw that only some rotten cardboard boxes and floating sneakers remained inside.

"They look like they're from Putian. Want me to give you a pair?"

"Let's keep going, don't waste time," Zhao Xun said, stopping Gu Lang's plan to retrieve the shoe.

By noon, the 022 vessel had finally entered the waters off Xiamen.

As is customary, Gu Lang launched a drone for reconnaissance.

The city, which was originally a "garden on the sea" in the picture, can only be described as a living hell now.

The entire island presents an eerie color scheme of scorched black and grayish white, with the vegetation on the mountains completely gone, replaced by large areas of carbonized traces.

In the old town area in the southwest, several huge circular epicenters can be seen, evenly spaced from each other; these are the impact points of the multiple-shot warheads.

The buildings around the epicenter exhibited a radial outward tilting pattern.

Several cross-sea bridges that spanned the sea collapsed, with the bridge decks falling into the sea from the middle.

Only a few crooked bridge piers remain standing on the water, like a row of tombstones.

The port area's dock facilities were completely destroyed, and the wreckage of several large cargo ships lay overturned in the shallow water, their bottoms facing upwards and covered in rust.

Gu Lang slowly turned the camera southwest, aiming it at Zhangzhou Port.

There were no craters from nuclear explosions, and from high altitudes, the ground showed no glassy marks from being scorched by high temperatures.

However, this does not mean that everything is normal; many buildings still suffered serious collapses.

It wasn't the radial collapse caused by a nuclear shockwave, but rather a directionless, overall overturning and sinking.

"The situation is very bad." Gu Lang zoomed in on the image, analyzing the details.

There is a noticeable crack in the ground along the Zhangzhou Port coastline.

Extending from the northwest to the southeast, it traverses a large area almost along the coastline.

The ground on both sides of the crack showed obvious subsidence and horizontal misalignment, like an ugly scar that tore the originally flat ground into two staggered steps.

"An earthquake fault zone," Gu Lang offered his assessment.

"The earthquake triggered by the nuclear explosion was definitely not small in magnitude."

The soil conditions in this area are terrible. It looks like it used to be an alluvial plain and mudflats, with water-saturated sandy soil layers underneath.

When a strong earthquake strikes, this loose, water-saturated sand will liquefy and completely lose its bearing capacity.

Zhao Xun's gaze was fixed on the images on the screen, trying to make out what the collapsed buildings used to look like.

"I'll steer the boat over there and get ready to go ashore," he finally spoke after a long silence.

The 022 vessel parted the murky seawater and sailed into Zhangzhou Port.

The drone was launched again to observe more closely. Although no signs of survivor activity were visible in the surrounding area, there were also no traces of the rampage caused by the madmen.

"It seems that an evacuation operation was organized in the area after the nuclear war."

In addition, the area is entirely mountainous and hilly, with fragmented terrain, forming many relatively independent geographical units.

"Due to the geographical barrier effect, the rabies did not spread on a large scale as it did in the plains," Gu Lang concluded.

Zhao Xun nodded in agreement.

"Hujian Province was historically a rebellious province directly facing the mainland, and maintained a state of war preparedness for a long time."

Given the mountainous terrain, as far as I know, many large-scale permanent fortifications have been built here.

In particular, those hard granite mountains were almost all transformed into fortified strongholds at the tactical and strategic levels.

After a nuclear war breaks out, the survivors who were originally located along the coast will most likely have evacuated to the mountains.

Therefore, the rage virus did not completely spread here.

Zhao Xun moored the boat on the shore of a large real estate complex.

Gu Lang then drove the Lynx assault vehicle, and the two landed on a nearby beach and came ashore.

The streets are completely unrecognizable, with the road surface riddled with cracks like crumpled paper.

In some places, mounds of earth rise more than half a meter high, while in other places they collapse and form pits filled with sewage.

As Gu Lang drove, he observed his surroundings and soon noticed something.

There were many collapsed buildings along the way, some of which had clearly been excavated.

The collapsed floorboards were pried open, and the broken bricks were moved aside and piled into small heaps of rubble.

The excavation was carried out in a very regular direction, always starting from the entrance door of the residential unit and working inwards.

It appears that locals organized a search and rescue operation, as demolition equipment left at the scene can still be seen.