Chapter Six: The Lost Village

The land of Northwest China is extremely vast. After the squad left the base's support area, they drove for another two hours without any waves or waves, turning the nervous excitement of the new recruits in Qi'an going to the battlefield into a dull and bewildered feeling of seeing the same scenery over and over again.

Yu Shuang, who had been keeping an eye on the newcomer's condition, couldn't help but smile: "Xiao Qi, be cautious but not nervous, just keep observing, we're almost there."

Qi An nodded quickly.

Zhuang Xiao, their driver, was taken aback upon hearing this: "Almost there? Aren't there still more than a hundred kilometers to go?"

Yu Shuang looked again at the portable satellite signal receiver that resembled a tablet computer, which she had placed on her long legs.

"I was just about to update everyone on the mission information," she said.

"Two hours ago, a satellite captured an image of a convoy of fallen insects traveling in the wild."

The convoy consisted of two vehicles, an off-road vehicle and a light truck, and they were located very close to us when the images were captured.

Zhao Bohan's voice came from the walkie-talkie: "Change route?"

Their original intelligence consisted of vague coordinates for two suspected polluter outposts, the closer one being over 200 kilometers away.

The suspected stronghold is far away, and there is insufficient evidence to identify it as such, making the investigation both difficult and dangerous.

Yu Shuang: "Change it."

Su Qingran said, "I agree to change the route."

Zhuang Xiao gripped the steering wheel. "Of course we have to change it! It was filmed two hours ago, the smell hasn't even dissipated yet, wouldn't we have to track and stalk it like crazy?"

Qi An thought for a moment in the back seat before he understood what Zhuang Xiao meant.

Humans becoming polluters cannot be entirely described as a form of degeneration; polluters are still intelligent beings.

Most polluters have an IQ equivalent to that of an 11-13 year old human child, and are able to use tools and execute commands.

Highly intelligent polluters, or "wizards," are no less intelligent than humans and are adept at both cunning and scheming.

The polluters retained human vocal organs and also possessed a low-frequency sound wave language that was imperceptible to human hearing.

They have no independent will. Like the insectoid race in science fiction fighting against the mother insect, or fanatical cultists fighting against evil gods, each polluter submits to a collective will to pollute all living things, thus becoming highly socialized and organized.

Therefore, polluters can also drive cars and use firearms.

If there are polluter convoys in the wilderness, then they must be out on a mission like Team 2, and they will return to the base after completing the mission.

This is a breakthrough point to track down.

"The bugs are really nice, they're like a pillow for you when you're sleepy!" Zhuang Xiao chuckled.

Yu Shuang: "Stay calm and don't be reckless! The coordinates have been synced to the car navigation. There's a village there, which might be where those fallen insects spent the night. We need to investigate thoroughly."

"Okay!"

Half an hour later, they arrived at the outskirts of the village. Zhao Bohan controlled the drone to carefully search the area and, after confirming it was safe, the two vehicles entered the village.

The village is small. From the outside, the walls are collapsed and the houses are crumbling. Rows of bungalows are buried in the overgrown vegetation, like tombstones buried by weeds.

The surroundings were very quiet, even peaceful under the sunlight, but as soon as the car entered the street, Qi An was greatly shocked!

On both sides of the road, all the walls of the bungalows that had not yet collapsed were covered with distorted and glaring unclean symbols!

The terrifying, snake-like lines and the patterns that challenged human cognition, though faded by time, still seemed alive, dripping and spreading red pigment towards them... Qi An immediately turned his gaze away, not to avoid it, but to look at his pollution monitoring bracelet.

Her bracelet was already linked to the pollution data of everyone in the team when she joined. At this time, all six values ​​were still relatively stable, except for Zhao Bohan, whose value increased by 3%.

She realized that only Zhao Bohan was looking at those unclean graffiti!

Everyone was experienced and knew that ruins in the wild that had been visited by fallen insects were likely to contain this kind of graffiti, so they all kept their eyes glued to it. Only the vice-captain, who could be considered a half-purifier, dared to look.

This was clearly a tacit understanding within the team—Zhao Bohan took on all the risks related to pollution.

Zhao Bohan got off the bus, and Qi An hesitated for a moment before asking to get off as well.

Yu Shuang paused for a moment, then immediately pulled up her mask, put on glasses and headphones that could filter out polluting information, and said, "Okay, I'll go down too. More people means faster checks."

Qi An was taken aback.

Although it wasn't explicitly stated, the captain clearly intended to protect her.

She quickly realized that although she was considered capable of taking risks on the battlefield and performed well in the previous night's collaborative training, she was not yet part of the team's combat coordination. In everyone's eyes, she was still like a precious porcelain doll, needing extra protection.

Qi An didn't say anything and silently got out of the car with Yu Shuang.

Once he calmed down, Qi An had no problem looking directly at those unclean symbols, but Yu Shuang still avoided his gaze.

Her mental enhancement level is 4, which is not low, but she will still try to avoid contact with sources of pollution.

"Judging from the fading of the paint, it was painted at least six months ago," Zhao Bohan said. "This village is not far from the base. Last summer, the Northwest Army Corps used this place as a temporary camp during their major attack on the base."

"Any new ones?" Yu Shuang asked.

The drone flew low, skimming over rows of collapsed houses.

“No new ones have been found yet. We can detect a high concentration of insect oil residue in this village, but we haven’t seen any slime.” Zhao Bohan’s voice sounded a little puzzled.

Qi An followed them forward, keeping an eye on Zhao Bohan's pollution levels while trying to understand what they were saying.

"Insect oil" refers to high-energy biofuel extracted from the corpses of contaminated individuals.

Due to its astonishing energy release efficiency, biofuel has become one of the main energy sources for humanity in the post-apocalyptic world.

Many vehicles have been converted to use biofuel engines.

The polluters' cars are mostly stolen from humans; they have their own fuel refining methods, but they don't purify them.

This results in their vehicles emitting exceptionally strong polluting exhaust fumes that can linger in the air for several hours.

High-end reconnaissance drones integrate chemical detection modules, which are specifically designed to "smell" insect oil and identify insects.

This time, their team brought out this kind of high-end stuff!

The strong smell of insect oil indicates that the pollutant convoy had recently stopped here. However, to put it simply, these insects love to "poop and pee everywhere," leaving behind a lot of slimy excrement and unclean graffiti wherever they go, thus spreading pollution.

There are no traces of mucus here. Did they not poop, or did they carefully bury their poop?