"Looks like I'm really lucky this time. I actually managed to find someone I know. Otherwise, I really wouldn't know how to get around this." Yun Qi shook off his previous anxiety and relaxed, only to find that his feet were starting to ache.
"Come in first. Should we go and notify your people? But they can't enter the village yet; they can only settle down at the village entrance first." Yao Shu opened the iron gate in the corner and welcomed them in.
Once you go inside, you'll find that the houses in the village are built no less impressive than those in Pinghe Village. A row of blue brick and cement houses, they are a world apart from the villages below.
"May I borrow your lookout tower for a moment?" Si Cheng took out a red flag from his backpack. Yao Shu knew what he meant. It seemed that this young man was also a retired soldier.
"Please go ahead." Only after Si Cheng turned around did he realize that the corners of the walls inside were covered with animal traps. No wonder they were so confident in leaving them outside, not afraid that they would climb over the wall and come in.
"We have a few blacksmiths in our village. They had a lot of pig iron stored up at home before, and these animal traps were made recently." Seeing their surprised looks, Yao Shu explained directly to them.
It was only then that Yunqi remembered that there were such powerful weapons as animal traps. Why hadn't he prepared some before? Even if he didn't put them at the village entrance, he could have set up a defense line on the back mountain. He wondered if he could exchange some with Yaojia Village later.
Si Cheng walked to the watchtower and waved the flag in his hand. Soon there was a response from the other side, so he turned around and came down.
"Are you all from Pinghe Village? It seems like your village doesn't have this many people."
"These are all gathered from several villages nearby, after all, salt is indispensable. Your walls are quite high, you're very well prepared." Seeing their defenses, Si Cheng suddenly felt that Pinghe Village needed to be reinforced further.
"There was nothing we could do about it. You must have seen the village ahead when you came from the front. That village was unprepared and was wiped out overnight by a nearby force. If our village hadn't made preparations in advance, we would have been the ones to suffer next." Village Chief Yao shuddered as he thought of the tragic state of the downstream village.
At this moment, the young man who had been on the observation platform brought over two long benches, and Yao Shu gestured for them to sit down and wait there.
"We went into that village and found only one pregnant woman, but she didn't seem to want to see outsiders." Since the topic had come up, Si Cheng casually asked about it.
“Actually, we don’t know what happened there back then. Some time ago, that group of people came to our village to try to seize it, but we had already built walls around it, so they didn’t succeed. But our village was afraid they would come back, so no one dared to leave the village for a while. Until a few days ago, when Yao Shu was discharged from the army, he passed through the downstream village and found that the villagers there had been in trouble. There were corpses everywhere, which scared Yao Shu to death. He was very worried about the village and ran back without even checking.”
Yao Shu then picked up where Village Chief Yao left off, saying, "My first thought was whether our village would also be affected, so I ran back without looking closely. Fortunately, we made some preparations here, otherwise we probably wouldn't have escaped the calamity either. Later, after hearing about the tragic situation in the downstream village, the villagers felt that the bodies shouldn't be left exposed like that, so they organized people to bury them all together. It was then that everyone discovered a survivor, the pregnant woman you met. I heard her say that her in-laws and their family protected her underneath, and she was so frightened that she fainted and escaped. Our village tried to persuade her to move here, since she has several relatives here, but she refused. She said she wanted to stay there so she could be closer to her family. Our village had no choice but to visit her every now and then, bringing her some supplies, just to make sure she could safely give birth to her baby."
Si Cheng couldn't help but wonder about the woman's motives for saying those last words. Perhaps she wasn't kindly advising them to be careful, but rather trying to scare them away and prevent them from disturbing the village. If these people had been afraid, they probably would have turned back.
Yun Qi also thought of this and couldn't help but reflect on himself. It seemed that he had been living too comfortably for a while and had completely forgotten the wickedness of people's hearts. Fortunately, the woman before had no ill intentions. Otherwise, given her relationship with Yaojia Village, she could have easily caused them trouble by setting up a few animal traps nearby.
"By the way, Uncle Yao, I heard my uncles say that there are people stationed in each place, right? Why is the security here still so chaotic?" Yun Qi called out, following Yun Zhizhong's lead.
"Originally, there were people stationed here, but because most of the residents are from this area, and everyone is busy with their own affairs every day, we gradually had to call them all back. Later, the remaining two or three people weren't enough, so we simply disbanded them." Yao Shu said with a helpless expression. You can't force things like this, after all, everyone has their own responsibilities, and besides, there's no one managing things right now.
“You all need to be extra careful on the journey ahead. Those of us who are discharged take our guns back with us. Although we've all made agreements not to point guns at civilians, we can't rule out the possibility that some people won't keep their word.” Yao Shu himself also brought his service weapon back. Because of this concern, he's now hesitant to leave the village. At least within the village, his presence can have a slight deterrent effect on others.
Si Cheng and Yun Qi exchanged a glance. How come this situation is even more complicated than in their previous life? At least last time, almost all the guns were in the hands of the military, and there was no sign of the safe base to be built here. Could it be that their own butterfly effect has blown everything away?
Actually, it doesn't really concern them much. Although their preparations in the previous life were insufficient, the main forces of each unit remained intact and weren't dispersed. This time, due to the intervention of that reborn individual, although preparations were made, transferring all military personnel back to their registered residence locations—intentionally well-intentioned—unexpectedly accelerated soldier demobilization and homecoming, leading to the disbandment of many units and the flow of weapons into civilian hands, causing widespread chaos and disorder. Rebuilding the military in the future will be extremely difficult, so they are about to face an even more chaotic apocalypse.
"I see that the walls here are very sturdy, and the houses are very well maintained." You should know that Pinghe Village still uses branches and thatch for roofs, while they all use a row of cement slabs, just like the villages before the disaster.
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