Chapter 22

The armored vehicle not far away suddenly roared with the sound of its engine, rolling over the burning bodies of the guards and stopping. Shen Wanren's voice came from the loudspeaker: "Stop."

The hydraulic lever of the car door groaned like a dying patient, the bulletproof steel plate was lifted up, and black and gold painted tactical boots stepped on the car door frame. Shen Wanren slowly bent down while holding the car door, and walked out of the car slowly and unhurriedly.

"Line up!"

The guards reflexively adjusted their flamethrowers to a 45-degree elevation angle. The sound of their stomping feet echoed in the ruins, and they lined up in an orderly manner and stood at attention.

The tactical boots made a 'crunching' sound as they crushed the debris on the ground until the footsteps stopped at the front of the queue. The captain of the guard stood upright respectfully, but his rolling Adam's apple and the sweat on his temples betrayed his current psychological fluctuations. He looked straight ahead and didn't even dare to look at Shen Wanren.

"It's my fault for not disciplining her properly. Please don't mind, Miss Liu." Shen Wanren turned to face Liu Xia, but there was no emotion in his voice. "Even if the queen's core is gone, it's not your fault, Miss Liu. You successfully killed the mutant queen, and the terms we agreed on are still valid."

Liu Xia didn't say anything, just looked at him quietly.

A gunshot rang out, and a large hole was blasted on the guard captain's head, which was bleeding. A variety of complex emotions flashed in his eyes, and before he could even utter a word, he fell to the ground and died.

Shen Wanren's movements were so fast that even Liu Xia could barely see him draw and put away his gun. The guard captain who had just been so arrogant died without any resistance.

This man had been in one of the armored vehicles from the beginning, observing everything that had just happened. Even the guards present did not know when he got on the vehicle.

Is Shen Wanren's purpose to establish his authority? Or is it to intimidate his subordinates?

Liu Xia didn't know. She knew very little about the lord of this underground city and all the information she had heard from others.

She only retained the memories of the real world and after she came here. She had no idea what had happened to this body before, and she didn't even know why she was in the Colosseum.

But one thing is certain, this hive is not as disciplined as it seems on the surface. The people inside also have their own plans, and the water is very deep. She couldn't understand Shen Wanren, and the thought of whether to continue returning to the hive was spinning in her mind.

"Then let's say goodbye." Liu Xia said calmly.

Shen Wanren was stunned for a moment, and looked at Liu Xia with confusion, as if he didn't expect her to say that: "Are you planning not to go back to the hive with me? You can't survive in the outside world. The radiation level in the garbage dump is even more serious than that in the hive. It's not so easy to survive."

Liu Xia helped He Tianlin, who had broken several ribs, up with one hand. She remembered that He Tianlin liked the beehive very much and might want to stay and live there. Then she looked at Shen Wanren and said seriously, "Can my friend stay?"

"Sister Xia!" He Tianlin immediately interrupted Liu Xia, his face flushed with anxiety: "I will follow you even if I die! Little Ding Nier said the same thing!"

Liu Xia smiled softly, waved his hand and said, "Then City Lord Shen, please don't bother."

After saying that, she held He Tianlin tightly with one hand and gripped the trigger of the pistol with the other, and walked towards where Ding Ruotong was.

"You can take the equipment I gave you." Shen Wanren saw that she had made up her mind. He used his eyes to stop the guard who was about to stop her and signaled the guard to hand the iron box with the red cross printed on it to Liu Xia. His ability to kill the mutant queen ant alone was enough for him to do Liu Xia a favor. "Okay, this is the first aid kit. The conditions I offered you before are permanent. I'll be waiting for you at the hive at any time."

"Thank you." Liu Xia took the first aid kit without saying anything else, but continued to move forward firmly. By the way, he picked up the assault rifle that the guard captain had just kicked away and took it with him. There was a pool of bright red mark on the place where the guard captain was, and his eyes were staring straight ahead in the protective shield.

Liu Xia breathed a sigh of relief. Although Shen Wanren seemed to be nice to her, Liu Xia would not take it lightly. She used the terrain to make the two of them disappear quickly from the sight of Shen Wanren's army.

"Sister Xia, where are we going?" He Tianlin limped along with an extremely happy smile on his face. He didn't seem to worry at all about what his future life would be like without the protection of the beehive.

Liu Xia discovered a pattern: every time the garbage was successfully recycled, the time she stayed in reality would increase. Does this mean that the more garbage she recycled, the more likely she would be able to return to reality one day?

So the place with a lot of garbage is where she should go, not the seemingly stable beehive whose depth is unknown.

Killing the mutant queen ant made her realize that this would not give her the power to return to reality. Although the energy in the core made her feel that her strength seemed to have increased a lot, she could only return to reality by killing those evil trash, and where were the most trash?

Liu Xia's face, which had rarely shown any expression since arriving in the wasteland, now wore a smile. This was not only because he had gained freedom, but more importantly, because he had teammates who could fight alongside him. "You should be familiar with the garbage dump. Let's go there to collect the garbage. The bigger, fiercer, and more brutal the garbage is, the more I like it."

He Tianlin showed a look of understanding and said with a smile: "Then you have asked the right person!"

…

"Fuck, what the hell is this?" He Tianlin pulled his tactical boots out of the pile of rotten meat with a look of disgust, and shook off the broken meat on his feet. The noise startled a swarm of flies, and three mutant cockroaches were gnawing at the empty eye sockets of the corpse on the ground.

With Ding Ruotong's help, the first aid kit played a big role. At least He Tianlin could walk freely without being supported.

The first aid kit contains not only medicines for treating fractures, but also adrenaline and many other scarce medicines in the wasteland, as well as a communication device.

The communication device was torn into pieces by Ding Ruotong, and then put back together. It was confirmed that there was no tracker or eavesdropping device inside. He was very sincere and seemed to really hope that Liu Xia could contact him.

I don’t know if it’s because of the nuclear explosion, but the surviving creatures, whether humans or animals, have much stronger recovery abilities.

With He Tianlin's fracture, if it happened in the real world, he would not be able to be full of energy without lying down for several months. How could he be fine like he is now without doing strenuous exercise?

Liu Xia stomped on the mutant cockroaches that were frightened by the noise and scurried to her feet. Yellow-green juice and tissue splattered all over the ground. She had replaced her tattered protective suit with a shiny black leather jacket, and underneath it were two military T-shirts that they had found in an abandoned shopping mall.

After the nuclear explosion, the human population decreased by 90%. Apart from the shortage of food, medicine and radiation protection materials, there was no shortage of daily necessities such as clothing. You could find them by just looking around in any larger shopping mall.

Ding Ruotong used the telescope on his sniper rifle to astutely spot the threat in the distance: "At seven o'clock, there's a bunker formed by four cars on the garbage mountain."

The sound of gunfire interrupted her.

Liu Xia dragged Ding Ruotong into the rusty wreckage of the tanker truck, and bullets carved honeycomb-shaped holes in the steel plates.

Twenty meters away, on the top of a garbage mountain, three scavengers wearing anti-radiation cloths were loading homemade hunting rifles. The "trophies" hanging on their chests made He Tianlin's pupils shrink suddenly. They were necklaces made of human finger bones.