◎Happy 94th day: One call, a hundred responses◎
Store more food and water; this is an unchanging truth in the end times.
Because of this strange wind, everyone's enthusiasm and sense of urgency in stockpiling supplies were maximized.
With the extremely high-yield mushrooms as a guarantee of food, we can feel a little more at ease, and more energy is spent on storing water.
The small river they often went to was just a thin and weak tributary, which could not last long under the scorching sun.
If they don't want to start a life of only going out and not coming in, they have to find a new water source.
Nanshi and Yishi are both close to the river. When it comes to finding a new water source, the first thing everyone thinks of is to go directly to the river.
Previously, they had been able to draw water from the creek without competing with anyone because it was, to put it bluntly, a wild river, perhaps even unnamed. Few people knew of its existence, and even fewer happened to draw water from the same stretch as them.
Now this small river can no longer sustain the water. Anyone who wants to get water has to go to larger rivers and lakes, and they will inevitably encounter other survivors.
Everyone knows that for a long time to come, at least in this part of Nanshi, water will only become increasingly scarce. Everyone is here for this precious water resource; there's no room for courtesy.
In the early stages, when there was enough water, everyone could take their own. But after a while, when the rivers and lakes were all dry, no one would try to coexist peacefully with their competitors.
When conflict is likely unavoidable, showing a sufficiently strong stance can actually prevent further trouble. Therefore, their water-collecting team was well-equipped from the outset. Even under the scorching sun, they carried guns, clearly brandishing the message "not to be trifled with" on their faces.
None of them had been to the Yishi Riverside before, so they chose their location and planned their route based on a map. Following the principle of proximity, they decided to head towards the Yangtze River's main stream, which was closest to them.
As usual, two people stayed at home while eight people went out. On the day when they were about to set out to fetch water from the river, it was Wu Xingyue and Zhou Ying's turn to stay behind.
Because they were afraid that they would be delayed too long on the road and would not be able to return at noon, Jiang Muyun and others also brought some food with them.
The road to the riverside is not difficult to walk, but there is a section of the road that requires passing through the urban area of Yi City.
Everything was relatively peaceful before we got close to the periphery of Yi City. Occasionally, we would encounter water-collecting teams carrying containers on the road, and they were basically coming from the direction of the South One Base.
Most of these survivor teams did not have any hot weapons. When they saw Jiang Muyun and his group, they would consciously avoid them. Some even changed direction directly and would rather take a detour to avoid them.
Jiang Muyun and others are not perverts who kill people for fun because they have nothing to do. The other party has no intention of causing trouble, so they certainly will not take the initiative to cause trouble for others.
Of course, there are also people who are ready to take a gamble.
Just like the two skinny and lame teenagers carrying plastic buckets who are following Jiang Muyun and others not far away.
The two of them didn't intend to take advantage of Jiang Muyun and the others, they just wanted to follow them and stay in the safe zone.
Jiang Muyun had seen many people like this in her previous life, and she herself had even been one of them.
Most of these people are weak and not very skilled, and they don't have any decent weapons. Every time they go out of the base to look for supplies, it is a high-risk activity for them.
Jiang Muyun and his men were not easy to mess with, so many teams that did not want to clash with them would avoid them, and naturally were unlikely to fight near them, lest a quarrel break out between the two sides and Jiang Muyun and his men come to mediate and clear the area, and deal with both sides together.
In this way, following Jiang Muyun and others is equivalent to stepping into a "safe zone" demarcated by the deterrent power of Jiang Muyun and others.
As long as the owner of the safe zone doesn't attack them, it will be much safer than for them to run around outside on their own.
As for whether the team will allow them to take over their territory, or will directly deal with them, and when they should consciously stay away from them to avoid annoying the other party, they need to judge and control it by themselves. It can be regarded as a kind of survival wisdom unique to the weak.
Those who are willing to provide shelter to such people, can they identify whether the beneficiaries will pose a threat to themselves, release goodwill on the premise of protecting themselves, and let their kindness grow teeth? This is also the self-protection ability that people who want to do good in the end times need to have.
Wang Qingqing currently does not have such ability, so when she saw the two lame teenagers falling in the distance and heading in the same direction as them, she immediately became alert.
"Just let them follow us all the time?" Wang Qingqing frowned.
When Jiang Muyun and others looked at the two men, their first reaction was to bow their heads and bend over to express their apology, while at the same time tightly gripping the half-handled scissors in their hands and retreating as if to leave.
When they saw that Jiang Muyun and others didn't seem to intend to do anything to them, they continued to move forward cautiously, keeping a distance between them.
Qin Shiwen watched their movements and after a moment of contemplation, he said, "I've seen these two brothers at the South One Base. They don't seem to have bad intentions. Let them follow for a while."
Jiang Muyun also said: "It's okay, it won't cause any trouble."
A person's first reaction can tell a lot.
What Qin Shiwen valued was that the other party had no bad intentions, while Jiang Muyun valued that when the other party faced a life threat, the only weapon he had to protect himself was half a pair of scissors.
These two men posed no threat to them.
In other words, although Wang Qingqing and the others also went to the art market to collect supplies, they lived far away and rarely interacted with other survivors, so they had never encountered such things.
In fact, this kind of behavior of sneaking into the safe zone is quite common near the survivor base, and it is also the best way to judge whether the person in charge of a base is a human or a ghost.
Because the powerful teams that appear near such bases and can form absolute military suppression on other survivor teams are generally formed by the base, and there are not many wild teams.
For a naive base like the Dawn Base, or a base like the South One Base that acts in a more decent manner and truly wants to shelter survivors, the surrounding survivors will naturally have trust in the official team formed by the base, and they will not be killed directly if they occasionally sneak into the team's safe zone.
If someone dares to take advantage of the safe zone of their base team like the West Suburb Base does, that would be weird.
With this calculation, Jiang Muyun was unlucky in his previous life because he was arrested right after arriving in Nanshi and before he had time to understand the situation.
If we give her two days to observe... it seems that nothing can happen. At most, she can run faster, but whether she can escape depends on luck.
After all, that second-generation rich guy drugged her when he caught her. Jiang Muyun didn't even know when she was tricked. The moment she opened her eyes, she was in the cage.
"Let them follow us. It won't interfere with our business anyway." Jiang Muyun sighed.
In her previous life, when her calf was injured and she was unable to move, she had also passed through the safe zone of other teams and received this kind of silent help. So after confirming that the other party could not pose a threat to them, Jiang Muyun did not mind giving them this little protection.
However, this kind of asylum is only valid for a few days.
It’s not the end of the world now.
There are only two or three such kittens left as survivors now, and everyone still has to draw water manually. There is not even a water pump, and they have to rely on throwing buckets into the river to scoop water manually.
This is the Yangtze River.
Even if everyone worked tirelessly to fetch water during this period, it would not have any effect on it.
These survivors are too insignificant in the face of nature.
The river will not dry up a day later because these survivors do not fetch water, nor will it dry up earlier because these people go to fetch water every day.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter if there are more or fewer people fetching water in the early stage, because the water everyone can fetch every day is saturated.
At this time, even if someone could kill all the survivors who came to fetch water, they would still only be able to fetch so much water in a day.
So during this period, Jiang Muyun didn't mind having a few more survivors come to fetch water together.
Not only did Jiang Muyun not mind, but the other people who were drawing water from the river also tacitly agreed to live in peace with each other.
During this period, instead of spending time cleaning up other survivors who come to fetch water, it is better to speed up and make more trips to fetch more water.
When water resources become increasingly scarce and the speed of fetching water is far less than the speed of killing and robbing, it is time for everyone to point the finger at each other.
At that time, if someone who was not clear about his own abilities tried to break into the Shura Field, no one would show mercy.
Jiang Muyun and others set out very early, but since they lived far away, there were already quite a few people at the riverside when they arrived.
I usually search for supplies outside, and if I'm lucky I won't run into any other survivors the whole day.
But now everyone is coming to the riverside. At first glance, there are several people fetching water every hundred meters or so.
The frequency of encountering humans outside the survivor base was so high that Jiang Muyun suddenly thought he had returned to the pre-apocalyptic era.
The two lame boys who followed them were also very smart. As soon as they saw the river from afar, they consciously changed direction and walked to a place where Jiang Muyun and others could not see clearly with the naked eye.
Jiang Muyun and others did not do as they did before, where they all caught a wave of water together, transported it back together, and then returned together to catch the next batch.
They chose to fill a truck with water first, and then four people would transport the water back.
After the four people who went back to deliver water came back, the next group of people set off with water.
This way they can always keep people on the riverside.
The reason was nothing more than to mark their territory and enhance their team's presence in the vicinity.
Take advantage of this peaceful period to encircle the territory and use facts to announce to the survivors operating around them that a group of armed men have been operating in this area. Even if chaos breaks out later, don't have any bad ideas about coming here, because you won't be able to snatch them away.
Maximizing the deterrent effect in the early stages can reduce a lot of trouble in the later stages.
There has been no incident of the outflow of hot weapons around Nanshi. Teams like Jiang Muyun's, where all members are armed with live ammunition, are extremely rare, and normal people would not come to provoke them.
Not only will they not provoke them, but when they occasionally make eye contact or meet them on the street, others will take the initiative to show goodwill to them.
Since he was free anyway, Jiang Muyun also got a lot of information from these survivors.
Living in the mountains is good in every way except that they are not well-informed. In this respect, they cannot compare with the survivors living in the city and the base.
What interested her most was the fact that the Western Suburbs Base was frantically searching for the murderer.
The person who mentioned this to Jiang Muyun was also a young woman named Chang Ling. She was one of the fluorescent heads who fled to the South One Base with her pets when the West Suburb Base was established.
After the two of them chatted, Jiang Muyun found out that it was her idea to use fluorescent paint to create art on the hat to attract the attention of the Nanyi Base.
"The little beast in the family of that old beast was killed by an unknown hero. During this period, he went crazy and asked people who had been to the Western Suburbs at that time. He almost blamed the caravan of our base." Chang Ling had no good feelings towards the Western Suburbs base. When he talked about this, there was no intention of disguising the gloating in his tone.
Jiang Muyun asked curiously, "What's the result? Did they find the person?"
Chang Ling sneered: "Found it."
Jiang Muyun blinked: "Found it?"
Wouldn't someone innocent be used as a scapegoat for her? Jiang Muyun had no intention of implicating anyone else.
Chang Ling laughed heartily. "I heard that old man searched all the surrounding bases and even put out a bounty in the city, spending a lot of supplies. He ended up saying that at least a hundred or eighty people had been to the western suburban mountains that day."
Chang Ling gestured to Jiang Muyun, "A hundred people responded to the call. 'Our team was nearby that day.' 'Our team was nearby too.' 'Into the mountains? No, isn't that your Western Suburbs base? How could we have gone there quietly?'"
"And they're all members of the official teams at each base. None of them can be moved at will. And no one in the city pays any attention to the bounties offered to ordinary survivors, for fear of being robbed by him."
Jiang Muyun was stunned.
She never expected that things would turn out this way.
She and Chu Buwen had just come out of the mountains at that time, and they didn't notice that so many people had come to the western suburbs mountains that day.
Or it is impossible that so many people came.
Jiang Muyun looked at Chang Ling's expression, combined with the meaning of her words, and instantly understood: "Are you trying to fool that old man?"
Chang Ling sneered, "When the sea of fire passed through, there were many survivors in the western suburbs, relying on the protection of the mountains and the thermal blankets distributed by the government to survive. Some of them followed them to do evil things, and some were unlucky enough to be caught by them, but there were more people like us who fought for their lives to escape."
The people in charge of the Western Suburbs Base acted like Japanese invaders entering a village. Anyone who had a bit of brains and could still move around would have run away.
Everyone had survived natural and man-made disasters, big and small, to reach that time. They didn't use force against them because they were no match for firearms. It didn't mean that they were human sacrifices to be slaughtered.
If I can’t beat you, can’t I just run away?
Those who escaped from the western suburbs knew that the group in the western suburbs had guns, so they naturally wouldn't run to the private base. They would either find a place in the city with a wide sky and sea to hide, or go to a base like the South First Base, which had a strong military value and could protect the survivors.
For survivors who dare to go out during the polar night and are able to successfully reach their destination, they must have at least two of the three: brains, physical strength, and luck.
Such people will not have a bad time no matter which base they go to.
It is normal for people like Chang Ling to join the official team of the base. According to Chang Ling, the one who has performed best has become the captain of a team in the North District Base.
The people in charge of the Western Suburbs Base want to kill such people without producing any evidence?
You must be dreaming.
Places like South One Base and North District Base are not afraid of your dozens of guns.
At that time, those who were able to escape with most of their belongings like Chang Ling and others were already a very small number of lucky people.
Many of the survivors had really suffered heavy losses, leaving behind countless supplies and risking their lives to reach the new base.
How could I not remember this grudge?
I know I can't kill you, but you can't kill me directly now either.
I just want to disgust you, what can you do to me?
When Chang Ling and Jiang Muyun talked about this, they were so excited that they wanted to stand up and dance on the spot.
She completely forgot that she initially spoke to Jiang Muyun with the intention of making friends with the big boss so as to avoid being shot by him.
Jiang Muyun smiled meaningfully, "It seems these two bastards have offended quite a few people. But I've heard that the younger one is the eldest son of the old man. At his age, I don't know if he can have another one. How can he be so willing to lose his only child?"
Chang Ling laughed so happily that a breath of wind got choked in his throat.
She spat out the sand in her mouth with two "Puh" sounds and said, "Gan Xin definitely won't accept this. When he came to our South One Base, I even went there to give him a hard time. This old guy is like a madman. I think he wants to run to our South One Base to plant explosives and drag everyone to his grave with his bastard."
Jiang Muyun had a plan in mind.
The only child that he had carefully cared for for more than 20 years was gone just like that. It would be strange if the other party could swallow this.
But without the supplies in the Nanshan Army's arsenal, the West Suburbs Base is now just a small base with only a few hundred people and dozens of guns, and the survivors in the base may riot at any time.
Should we strike first?
Wang Qingqing and three others who had gone back to deliver water came back to take over their shift, and Jiang Muyun and Chang Ling said goodbye.
The most important thing for them right now is to store water. The more water they store, the better. They must not put the priorities before survival.
As for how to deal with this rotten piece of meat in the Western Suburbs Base, it depends on what Captain Yu thinks.
Jiang Muyun brushed off the dust on his body.
If Captain Yu had any ideas, she could provide him with an excellent opportunity with the right time, place, and people.
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