Jiang Ling yawned at the crisp voice of a young girl beside him, then lit up his terminal again and continued writing, "I updated my equipment a few days ago, and my original protective suit has a hole. I also got rid of the crossbow I brought with me at the beginning, which was a bit troublesome to bring with me. But I got a few new rifles, hehe~ Dad, don't be too curious~"
In theory, selling arms is also punishable by death, but what does this have to do with the weapons Jiang Ling recovered from the battlefield? This is what the arms dealers on the black market say.
This rifle, called the Type 52 Pulse Rifle, is 720mm long and fires the standard Gauss rifle round. Designed and manufactured in a postwar emergency, it utilizes extensive engineering plastics in its construction. The rifle is lightweight, weighing only three kilograms with a fully loaded magazine, and its compact design makes it easy to carry. It holds a twenty-round magazine and can be fired in two seconds in full-auto mode. Each round has a muzzle energy of approximately 25,000 joules, making it a relatively easy target for a Level 2 mutant.
Jiang Ling also bought some gun parts from local workshops. The widespread availability of printers these days has made the parts business a thriving industry. Most gun parts are incredibly cheap, with some even bringing their printers to the market and making them on-site. Jiang Ling only spent a dozen points to fully stock the gun, which was quite impressive if it was just for show.
Of course, she was really just trying to scare people; she wouldn't use this thing. A sharpshooter typically uses tens of thousands of bullets. Just think about it. Normal people are already risking their lives when they touch a gun; mutants don't sit there hundreds of meters away, posing as targets. And these days, practice isn't popular anymore. With just an exoskeleton's fire control core, everyone can be a sharpshooter.
So Jiang Ling didn't buy a few more magazines of bullets. She just went to the ration store and exchanged two boxes to make it look better.
After finishing her email, Jiang Ling started cooking the cured meat porridge. A few days ago, while packing her backpack, she realized that the cured monster meat she'd bought before leaving had been buried underneath and she hadn't eaten it yet. She'd originally thought that the surface temperature was low, so it wouldn't spoil easily, but after smelling it, she decided to chop it up and throw it into the pot.
"How's the situation with the tank?" Ruan Danxin asked when she saw the two people coming back from outside the house.
"The engine and the air conditioner have the same problem." Li Gang placed a metal pipe next to the stove, then shook off the snow on his body and sat on a small stool.
"Didn't they say they added antifreeze? Why is it still so frozen?" Jiang Ling asked.
"It was extremely cold last night. The lowest temperature was probably minus fifty degrees Celsius. Adding in the strong wind, even the most frost-resistant machine couldn't withstand such rapid temperature drop. Ours is not a polar transport vehicle. It was originally designed to cross the sea, and the water temperature in the sea is not that low." Li Gang replied. He wanted to warm his stiff hands by the stove.
Jiang Ling slapped his hand away: "Do you want to exchange for a pair of mechanical hands? Aren't the original ones good enough?"
Li Gang grinned, then put his hands into his clothes and shivered several times from the cold.
Several people gathered around the stove, listening to the sound of the pot gradually boiling.
Zhou Xiangyang said, "I still think it's best to go to Xiangcu City. It's been five days since those cultists started their attacks, and we haven't heard anything along the way. ZJ0102 Station is the closest to the attack site, so a trip there might reveal a lot. And at least we should find out their current location, right?"
"That's true. It's been several days. Even if there are still traces of battle on the surface, they will definitely be difficult to find after yesterday's wind and snow." Jiang Ling agreed.
"That's definitely not possible!" Li Gang retorted. "If we haven't been able to find out anything along the way, then it's pointless to go anywhere. They must be hiding very well. Maybe they've already infiltrated the surrounding stations. If we rashly go and find out, wouldn't that be walking into a trap?"
"Then where do you think they will hide?" Ruan Danxin asked, rubbing her hands.
"Let's analyze it first. The cultists are made up of mutants and ordinary people. Ordinary people certainly can't run far. They will definitely stay where they are and use the looted supplies to protect themselves. Don't you think so?" Li Gang replied.
"Makes sense." Jiang Ling continued to think in this direction. "Mutants are quite powerful. We saw it yesterday, and it forced us to stop on the bridge and hide for a long time. But those people are probably just out for reconnaissance."
"That's right!" Li Gang took out his warmed hands, stretched them a bit, and then placed them on the stove to continue heating. "They won't go to Jinling. The comrades in the Countermeasures Bureau there are enough for them to deal with. And they won't go to the north either. The north is full of large-scale military bases. If they dare to attack, they'll have to be prepared to be bombed by cruise missiles."
The underground system radiating from the Demon City doesn't overlap with the protection zone of the great deity "Hou Tu." The two approximate circles have a discrepancy of approximately fifty kilometers in the north-south direction. Therefore, the northern portion of the Yellow Zone typically contains several older, large-scale infrastructure sites, while the southern portion houses some newly constructed prewar infrastructure sites exposed within the Red Zone. However, due to the artificially altered postwar climate, the defense pressure in both the southern and northern parts of the metropolitan area is far less than in the western part.
"Where will they go then? Are they going to abandon those ordinary people and return to the red zone?" Ruan Danxin questioned. She turned her gaze to the terminal screen lying on Jiang Ling's lap. "We're not going to deal with these ordinary people. Otherwise, what would we need you for?"
Jiang Ling's terminal displayed a downloaded offline map, on which she had marked several possible escape routes. Most of them didn't go far, but one could lead all the way to the southern region. This route had a distinct feature: it would intersect with the highway where everyone was.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com