Chapter 45: Barometer, sign of chaos!

With the experience of mastering the skills, Cheng Ye did not dare to be careless this time when he switched to level 2 talent.

Before entering the main urban area, I called Uncle Dong in advance to ask if there was any nutrient supplement.

Perhaps because the rush to buy goods in the morning almost caused a major riot, the Public Works Department made a rare move to replenish stocks in the afternoon and issued a strict order to all stores to sell at a unit price of 2 coins. If they were found to be reselling at a high price, they would be fined ten times the amount at the least, and their sales licenses would be revoked at the worst.

"I have six boxes here. Don't worry, there's enough."

"good."

Uncle Dong's voice on the phone seemed a little strange, but Cheng Ye didn't have time to think about it.

As soon as we arrived at the entrance and exit between the suburbs and the main urban area, we saw that the road was blocked tightly with sandbags, leaving only a narrow gap.

But when I looked up, the dark clouds in the sky were slowly dispersing, and it didn't look like it was going to rain again...

wrong.

Cheng Ye walked over quickly, feeling a little depressed.

The previous road closure was only to limit the flow of people, and the guards guarding the entrances and exits only served as a deterrent.

But now, there are six armed guards standing ready in front of them, and there are people holding guns in the back, with the black muzzles hidden in the gaps between the sandbags, exuding a solemn and murderous aura that tells people to keep away from them.

"Stop."

Seeing Cheng Ye jogging over, the guards exchanged glances and immediately stepped forward.

"Curfew in the main city area, no one is allowed to enter or leave."

"Anyone?" Cheng Ye said expressionlessly, pulling out his ID badge from his pocket. "Am I anyone?"

The guard was stunned for a moment, then quickly took the badge and swiped it through his defense channel.

Seeing the message displayed above, his tense expression instantly relaxed. "Please come in, Prosecutor. You are of course free to come and go as you please."

"what happens?"

"It's unclear... This is an order from above."

The guard hesitated and pointed towards the inner city. "And it was more than half an hour ago. It was an emergency order."

"Suddenly?"

No wonder when I just took a bus to the chemical plant area, there were no sandbags blocking the road.

Could something big have happened?

After crossing the isolation zone, Cheng Ye quickened his pace again, realizing that something was wrong.

When we returned to the community gate, the big meat canteen had turned off the lights early, which was unusual. Not only had they not prepared food for the next day, they had also reinforced two windows with iron sheets, just like the preparations for coastal areas before a typhoon.

The lights were on in Uncle Dong's store, but the shutter was half-down, leaving only a gap wide enough for half a person to enter.

"Uncle Dong." Cheng Ye stood in front of the rolling door and knocked.

"Don't just stand there, come in."

There was obvious tension in his voice.

Cheng Ye bent down and crawled in, closing the rolling door with his backhand.

The flooded counter has been restored and is now empty; the flooded goods have been cleared away.

Uncle Dong was sitting behind the counter with three guns on the table.

One long and two short.

The long ones are assault rifles, and the short ones are shotguns and pistols.

At this moment, the rifle had been disassembled, and there was an opened bottle of gun oil next to it, which gave off a pungent smell.

"You are..."

Cheng Ye was stunned. This was the first time he saw Uncle Dong like this in three months.

His usual kindness was completely gone, and he exuded a murderous aura.

"Did Station Master He of the Central Station die?"

"You know?"

Cheng Ye was not surprised. The death of the checkpoint chief in the buffer zone was no small matter. Even if the news could be temporarily blocked, there were so many people and eyes, so it could only be concealed for a day or two at most.

It's not surprising that veterans like Uncle Dong have channels to learn about it in advance from other places.

"Around noon, we were attacked by an unknown infected entity."

"The infected entity that attacked Station Master He... was it captured?"

"Um?"

Now it was Cheng Ye's turn to be stunned. "Things like this need to be thoroughly investigated before they can be announced. I guess he's been caught."

"If you don't know, then you don't have any."

Uncle Dong's eyes were as deep as an ancient well, his voice trembling slightly. "The last time a stationmaster died was thirteen years ago. Since then, the buffer zone has been in chaos for two consecutive months, with at least three-digit infected bodies sneaking in."

"And they are all... unknown infected bodies."

"Don't scare yourself."

Cheng Ye's heart skipped a beat, but he consoled himself by saying, "I'm on duty at the North Station today. How could I not know if there were any infected individuals sneaking in?"

"It's different. You are facing the outside world, but internally..."

Uncle Dong said as he opened his defense channel and jumped to the information interface.

Cheng Ye took a quick look and was stunned.

【Winter-4】

[There's a ghost knocking on the door, I've suppressed it. See you at the venue.]

【June 28, 21.07】

?

6.28, is today.

21.07?

Isn’t it?

An image immediately flashed through Cheng Ye's mind. After sending Dai Zun to the car, he casually glanced at the defense communication.

It seems to be 21.02 above?

"It was sent by an old comrade."

Uncle Dong was not surprised by Cheng Ye's reaction. He just sighed and said, "Just over an hour ago, the Gate of Happiness was attacked by an infected entity."

"What?"

Cheng Ye was shocked, and his first reaction was naturally disbelief.

But the next second, all the hairs on his body suddenly stood on end, and a chill like a thorn in his back instantly spread throughout his limbs.

Memories flashed back quickly.

When he escorted Dai Zun to the gate of happiness, there were indeed many prying eyes in the dark. He even glared back at some of them. Could it be that the owners of those eyes were not ordinary refugees, but...

"We weren't able to get in, but there's a good chance a lot of infected people have already sneaked in."

Uncle Dong spoke to himself, his hands assembling the gun barrel without slowing down. "You should understand the principle of darkness under the lamp. When it comes to external inspections, others are not as professional as you inspectors, but when it comes to the slightest disturbance in the buffer zone, we old cowards understand it better than anyone else and know the consequences."

"Well, while many in the buffer zone are jealous of the Inspector's position, everyone knows that the Inspector is the barometer of the buffer zone. If you start suffering casualties, this place... chaos will soon follow."

Click.

After assembling the rifle, Uncle Dong took aim and pointed at the corner of the entrance. "Six boxes, take as many as you want. It's my treat, as always. There's a key to my shabby shop in the top box. Take it. If anything goes wrong, you can hide here. I've reinforced the basement, so it should last you a while, long enough for you to call for help from the checkpoint."

"Also, under the fourth floor tile in the basement, there are six specially made high-explosive grenades. They can easily blow up the large meat canteen next door. Don't throw them around unless it's extremely dangerous."

"You want to go hide outside?"

Cheng Ye was stunned for a moment, then turned to look at the door. Sure enough, there was a long-handled key on the box.

"I'm not hiding, I'm just fulfilling a wish."

Putting down his rifle, Uncle Dong sighed, "When you get old, you're usually very afraid of death, but when it comes to times like this, you're not afraid of death anymore. Maybe... I'll have to close down for a long time."

...

I returned to the room carrying three boxes of nutrient solution.

Cheng Ye locked the door with his backhand, but the flimsy bull-head lock swayed on the door frame, not bringing any sense of security at all, but instead making people feel uneasy.

"Damn, how come the wasteland has become such a mess since I traveled here!"

"This is only my first day working at the express checkpoint. I'm fine, but why do I feel like the sky is falling in the buffer zone?"

Cheng Ye cursed loudly, but he knew in his heart that this mess had nothing to do with him.

The chaos in the celestial phenomena had begun long before he traveled through time, and there were traces of the last chaos, which was exactly when the station chief on duty died thirteen years ago.

The wisdom left by our ancestors is indeed correct. Whenever there is a natural disaster, there will be great chaos.

Xingfu City's migratory bird model can indeed utilize the factory area in summer and autumn to attract the attention of most infected bodies, leaving only a small number of refugees to impact the buffer zone.

But once a natural disaster strikes, this model will immediately become ineffective, and chaos will suddenly occur because many people relax their vigilance.

call.

A gust of wind blew past, hitting the window and making a creaking sound.

Under normal circumstances, Cheng Ye would not care at all, but at this moment he felt inexplicably terrified. He subconsciously tightened the dagger at his waist, and the greedy eyes in the dark in front of the city gate flashed through his mind again.

This damn buffer zone is really not safe at all. No wonder everyone is trying so hard to get to the inner city.

It's okay in peaceful times, but when there is danger, I feel like I'm on edge.

"We can't do this any longer. Let's go buy materials to reinforce the doors and windows tomorrow."

Cheng Long is a workaholic. He usually eats and lives at the checkpoint and is unable to keep any property.

This single room was allocated to him by the checkpoint, and the previous owner had not made any renovations.

Before this, Cheng Ye was busy preparing for the test and had never thought about reinforcing the house.

Now it has to be put on the agenda!

With 3 action points, it may not be enough to transform other objects, but it should be enough to reinforce doors and windows.

After moving the table behind the door, Cheng Ye called Luo Xiaoxue again to explain the situation.

"Then why don't you move in with me? Your house has been reinforced many times by your brother B, so it's absolutely safe."

"No, if things get really chaotic, we'll have to go on duty and check. Going in and out will only lead the infected to you and Yi Yi."

Luo Xiaoxue did not try to persuade him any further, as she obviously knew that Cheng Ye was telling the truth.

It wouldn't matter if she was alone, but with Yi Yi at home, it was indeed unsafe to have someone coming in and out.

After hanging up the phone, Cheng Ye thought about it and simply moved the bed behind the door.

In this way, if an infected body tries to rush in while he is sleeping at night, he will be woken up immediately.

"Iron body...you better be stronger!"

Cheng Yaxin was thinking, and the collector panel automatically expanded and jumped to the personal interface.

Look at the bottom first, the evaluation has not changed from before.

Only behind the skill bar, there was a small purple box with a faint glow.

"Equipment, Iron Body!"

The moment the thought came to mind, the small purple frame suddenly emitted a faint light and jumped from the options column to the skill column.

Hmm, there is no response to the lv.2 talent?

It doesn't seem like a skill. When I equipped it, a memory suddenly forced itself into my brain, creating a series of hallucinations.

The equipment of talent is like the instinct of beasts, which is subtle and silent, without any changes.

But this doesn't bring any bonus?

Cheng Ye was distracted and his eyes suddenly hit the reflection of the window.

The still somewhat childish face in the reflection was now burning red, as if magma was surging under the skin!

Densely packed blue veins bulged out, connecting from the neck to the scalp.

It makes him look not like a normal person, but like an infected body, like a hideous red-skinned monster!

"What am I doing?"

There is no time to think, let alone feel the changes in the body.

boom!

A muffled sound exploded inside his body, as if tens of millions of tons of explosives were detonating at the same time.

It's far from as peaceful as when equipped with skills.

Cheng Ye felt dizzy and the surrounding scenery shattered into blurry light and shadow.

It was like being thrown into the eye of a storm, with all my internal organs being madly crushed and reassembled.

only.

Does it hurt?

It doesn't hurt!

Is it fun?

Cool!

Indescribable feelings came over me in waves, as if I was rolling back and forth on the waves in a kayak.

Under this extreme impact, a stream of strange hallucinations came like a tide:

He saw a clear spring suddenly gushing out from under the dry and cracked pond, moistening every inch of the cracked land.

I saw the ground shaking violently, the soil rolling and rising, and a small hill slowly emerged from the surface like a sleeping beast.

Deep in the soil, I saw a young sprout pushing away the gravel, moving upwards inch by inch, stubbornly drilling out of the hard surface!

Nothing is the same anymore.

Something seems to be awakened within the genes.

The insurmountable gap between the gifted and the ordinary people was now easily crossed by him with just a lift of his foot.

"The changes brought about by the Iron Body are more exaggerated than I imagined..."

A moment later.

Cheng Ye stood up by supporting himself on the bed, his face pale, all the strange phenomena on his body disappeared, leaving only streams of heat rising continuously.

At this moment, the pain sensation has been compressed to only one tenth, and the insensitivity has almost completely disappeared.

He thought he would be very uncomfortable, but in fact, it was just the opposite. The nerves originally used to process pain seemed to be stripped away and reorganized, and could be used to capture and process other information. His five senses became sharper than ever before.

for example...

He reached out and picked up the training dagger beside him.

The moment my fingertips touched the hilt of the knife, a wonderful feeling of "being one" emerged in my head.

With a slight turn of his wrist, the short knife drew a silver arc of light, and suddenly slashed upwards. The cold light burst out along the trajectory, as sharp as frost.

The knife moves completely according to the mind, as easy as controlling the arm.

An unprecedented sense of pleasure rushed straight to Cheng Ye's forehead, as if he had been holding this knife for more than ten years. Every angle of the chop and every trajectory of the force were engraved in his genes, and he was familiar with them as natural as breathing.

"Is this... the world of geniuses?"

...