The next day, Su Tao actually received news from Shi Zijin who had been missing for many days.

His voice sounded a little tired in the communicator:

"We're returning this week. The building materials we found should be enough to last us for about a year. We plan to build the northern section of the city wall first, as we can't really afford to take care of the eastern section."

This harvest is already very good. With the disaster imminent, all bases value their resources very much.

He probably used a lot of tricks and paid a lot of cost to get it.

"Are you all okay? Did you encounter any danger?"

When Su Tao asked this question, her heart was in turmoil, fearing that she would hear the news of someone's death again.

Shi Zijin on the other end closed his eyes and rubbed his eyebrows:

"Xiao Jian was slightly injured. I arranged for him to be taken care of at the Shou'an base. The others are fine."

Su Tao breathed a sigh of relief, but frowned again.

Jian Kaiyu is the one with healing abilities. Zhuang Wan had been thinking of waiting for him to come back and show Chenxi some face, but now she has to figure it out on her own.

"What about you, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just a little tired and want to go home."

"Okay, I've cleaned up your room. Come back and have a good sleep before reporting to work, okay?"

Shi Zijin suddenly felt less tired and smiled lightly, "Okay."

This batch of building materials can be said to have solved the most pressing problem and given Dongyang a chance to breathe.

Pei Dong let out a long sigh and said to the old leader:

"Major General Shi has done a great job this time. With this batch of building materials, the city wall in the west district can be built in as little as six months."

Xing Hongwen's aged voice echoed, "We in Dongyang are still too weak. Without the pioneer army to act as our heart, constantly supplying blood to the base, Dongyang is like a child, unable to walk independently."

"Besides, even if we have these building materials, no matter how hard we try to build, we can't guarantee that those evolved zombies won't take advantage of the situation and sneak in. The danger is far from over."

Pei Dong was silent for a while and said, "Commander, you should move to Taoyang first. Dongyang is full of hidden dangers. You have defended Dongyang for half your life. It is time for you to settle down. Let us continue to defend it for you."

Xing Hongwen asked her in return: "You also live in Taoyang now. Are you feeling stable? Can you let go of Dongyang?"

Pei Dong remained silent.

Xing Hongwen added, "Zi Jin also lives in Taoyang. Didn't he also risk his life for Dongyang? Did you know that this time he went out, he almost lost another brother, and he himself was injured and almost didn't come back? You young people can die for Dongyang without regrets, but I'm an old man with not much time left. How can I be so cowardly as to let you take the lead?"

He spoke excitedly, coughed twice and said:

"I will live and die with Dongyang. I was born here and I will be buried here after I die. I'm not going anywhere."

Pei Dong saluted solemnly: "Commander, I am willing to live and die with you and Dongyang."

——

The weather was good, so Su Tao brought the two furry kids to the office.

Zhuang Wan was amazed when she saw it: "It grows so fast! It's not even a month old and it can already jump up and down. When I first brought it home, it was the size of my palm and couldn't even open its eyes."

As he spoke, Heizhima trotted over and sniffed her. As if he knew she was an acquaintance, he lay on Zhuang Wan's shoes and played with her shoelaces.

The white sesame seeds stuck to Su Tao and wouldn't come off, making everyone look like a bad person to her.

Su Tao smiled: "Black Sesame is the older brother and White Sesame is the younger sister. One loves to play and the other is shy, but they are both very smart. I only taught them once and they already knew how to jump onto the toilet seat and squat to use the toilet."

Elder Mei's eyes widened when he heard this. "Few cats were this smart before the apocalypse. It's already quite good that they could bury their own feces without getting them on their bodies. It's incredible that your two cats, only one month old, have learned to use the toilet."

Su Tao didn't think much about it, she simply thought her furry child was smarter, and said with a smile:

"And it's very worry-free. Once I tell them not to scratch or touch them, they understand. They also don't scratch people when they're bathing. They were just scared when I bathed them for the first time and wanted me to hold them. After I comforted them twice and realized I wasn't going to hurt them, they calmed down."

Old Mei fell into deep thought. This was a little different from the cats he knew before the end of the world.

Zhuang Wan played with Heizhima for a while, then started to get busy again. Before dinner, she handed Su Tao a list:

"This is the shortlist of new tenants. Would you like to take a look?"

Su Tao took it, glanced at it briefly and felt relieved: "Okay, you arrange it. By the way, have the couple who postponed their stay checked in?"

Zhuang Wan frowned when she spoke of this: "They originally said they would come this afternoon, but they told me they needed to think about it again. I asked them what their concerns were, but they wouldn't tell me, and they haven't replied since then."

Su Tao felt a little strange. This kind of situation had never happened before. Everyone was anxious to move in, fearing that the house would be gone.

This couple of tenants seemed to have great concerns about Taoyang and were very hesitant.

Su Tao seemed to have guessed something and asked again:

“Has the number of applicants decreased?”

Zhuang Wan nodded: "Yes, but compared to before, the number of people has been reduced by one tenth, so it has no impact on our leasing."

Su Tao felt something was wrong, so she took advantage of the city defense army's lunch break to call Pei Dong and said straight to the point:

"Sister Pei, are there any people or organizations in Dongyang that have a lot of real estate for rent? I think I might have touched someone's cake and I'm going to be targeted."

Pei Dong paused and said, "Wait a moment. I'll have someone send you some information. If nothing goes wrong, it should be Gu Mingchi, the local boss in the East District."

After the call ended, Zhuang Wan was stunned: "Boss, are you serious?"

Su Tao was very calm: "It's almost certain. Something must be wrong when things are abnormal. I just don't know what means they used to secretly influence the views of some Dongyang people on us."

Half an hour later, Su Tao received an electronic document containing the landlord information of a private property in Dongyang.

She passed the information to Zhuang Wan and said, "Screen it out and pick out all those related to the East District."

But before Zhuang Wan could take any action, negative news about Tao Yang broke out online.

The first person to see the video about the disregard for human life in Taoyang was Qian's mother. She rushed from her room to the bottom of Su Tao's office building and shouted:

"Boss Su! Come out! That damn arsonist Jiang Ze is throwing mud at us again! He said we collected rent and kicked him out, and then beat him up. Ugh! And that old woman surnamed Wen said we disfigured her and abused her!"

"Now, outsiders are saying that Taoyang treats human life as worthless, deliberately harming the survivors and only wanting to make money, just like a bandit's den!"

Without her shouting, Su Tao also saw the news that was on the headlines at the same time: "Eviction! Scam! Disfigurement! Kidnapping! So this is Taoyang - Taoyang's former tenants reveal it to you."