"Rebirth After the Apocalypse" - No Rebirth (Part 11)...
In any intense period of time, people live day by day; there's no way around it, the human body's adaptability is truly amazing.
The apocalyptic disaster is all-encompassing. After surviving the explosion, you will face radiation and viruses; after surviving the radiation and viruses, you will face zombies; and after surviving the zombies, you will face a harsh environment.
Although the post-apocalyptic Earth was severely damaged, its rotation and revolution were not significantly affected, and it still had day and night and seasonal changes.
But the massive haze created by the impact remained suspended in the atmosphere, preventing sunlight from penetrating the thick haze. Every day in the apocalypse was overcast, and the four seasons became two.
After a warm summer with temperatures around 10 degrees Celsius, winter arrives, when water freezes instantly and people are turned into icicles. All activities at the base come to a standstill as everyone focuses on coping with the arrival of extreme cold.
Climate is both a gift from Mother Earth and a weapon of Mother Earth, and it is always more terrifying than any zombie virus.
The Huiyang base was originally a university, and its infrastructure is very well built, with underfloor heating in every building.
But in the apocalypse, of course, there are no such resources to burn fuel to heat the entire base.
Making fire-type ability users spend all day in boiler rooms generating heat for love is a bit too disrespectful to them.
Therefore, everyone adopted very primitive heating methods: living in large communal dwellings, wearing thick clothes, covering themselves with thick blankets, and having a central heating system in one building.
When fire-type ability users have nothing to do, they also go to the boiler room to generate heat; if it consumes people, they shouldn't consume materials.
However, unlike before the apocalypse, the boiler room is actually a good job.
Not only is life leisurely, but it's also a place where you can enjoy warmth throughout the entire heating season.
Since sunlight disappeared from humankind, people have longed to feel light and heat, making the boiler room the most fulfilling job.
Women in the maternal and child health hospital were rushing to make clothes to prepare for winter.
Before the apocalypse, due to the widespread use of heating, humans were not afraid of winter. Their cotton clothes and blankets became thinner and thinner, and the cold-weather supplies they collected were also thinner.
Nowadays, such thin quilts and cotton-padded clothes are not enough to get through the winter, so the women take apart the materials they have collected, take out the cotton and down inside, and sew them back to make thicker ones.
While the summer is still relatively warm, we can rush to make winter supplies so that we can continue doing some needlework at home after the heating is turned on in winter.
In this frigid weather, even the zombies are not out and about, so the production of the zombie vaccine has naturally been put on hold. After disinfecting, the ordinary employees of the pharmaceutical department went back to their dormitory to warm up, while Ye Xiqing was left alone in the detached building.
It's not that she's getting special treatment; it's just that very few people in the entire base dare to approach this "drug girl." Her reputation for being associated with drugs has spread far and wide. If she were to enter the dormitory, probably no one would be able to sleep.
But as a special talent, she naturally receives special care; the base can provide separate heating for her floor of the laboratory.
The entire building is heated, every room is warm, and the floors are heated, with heat exchanged only with the outside through the exterior walls.
The room is heated alone, but the floor, walls, and pillars are all cold, so the heating efficiency is not high; it's only better than having no heating at all.
Upon discovering this, Ye Xiqing simply went out, using the guise of participating in field operations to freeload supplies.
Fieldwork: ...
With the arrival of extreme cold, all activities at the base have come to a standstill, but field operations have not stopped. In fact, now is the perfect time for field teams to go out on field missions.
The biggest threat to the safety of the field team is the elusive, wandering zombie hordes that can be encountered unexpectedly.
Harsh environments can be overcome with equipment, but zombie hordes will chase and attack any living person they see, fearless of death or injury, and their movements are unpredictable.
When you first arrive at the mission location, there might only be one or two zombies wandering around in the distance. As you gather supplies, you'll find yourself surrounded by a horde of zombies without even realizing it.
Even bees swarming together can kill, let alone zombies. Once surrounded by zombies, even the strongest superhumans are in danger, let alone ordinary people.
It's so cold now, the zombies have turned into ghouls, and the biggest threat has vanished instantly.
The base will certainly not lack cold-weather supplies for the field team, and the superhumans have evolved in all aspects, not only being resistant to radiation and viruses, but also having high resistance to extreme weather.
The zombie winter has arrived, but spring has come for humanity.
Ye Xiqing glided freely on the ice. As a former superhuman, she wasn't actually that afraid of the cold. Compared to the hardship of working outside in winter, she felt more joy in skating.
The vast, unobstructed ice surface allows you to glide across it, exceeding the limits of human running speed, like a bird in flight—it's incredibly exhilarating!
Until Mao Hong overtook her from behind: "You've come to have fun, but if you don't do any work, I won't give you any contribution points."
Ye Xiqing was fearless: "Do I look like someone who lacks contribution points?"
In the end times, currency will naturally disappear, and nothing will be more precious than resources.
The basic supplies distributed by the base are only enough to keep you alive. If you want anything extra, you have to exchange it for contribution points, which is why everyone works so hard.
The job that earns the most contribution points is definitely fieldwork. The original owner already had a lot of contribution points, not to mention that she developed so many drugs and zombie vaccines. No one in the entire base was richer than her.
The reason why things were so difficult was that many things in the base couldn't be exchanged for contribution points, and Ye Xiqing didn't need the things that could be exchanged.
No matter how many contribution points you have, it's all just for show.
However, Ye Xiqing was not there for leisure; she wanted to personally take some research samples back with her.
Since arriving in the post-apocalyptic world, Ye Xiqing has stayed in the base and hasn't gone out. Now she can finally take a good look at this world.
Before, in the normal world, I could never imagine a place where there were no people. Now I finally understand the feeling of endless silence.
When there are many people, there are many troubles; when there are few people, there are fewer troubles. Looking at the endless, silent ice field, a sense of loneliness arises spontaneously.
Human beings fear things that have no boundaries, like the universe, like the ocean.
Spending too much time in this silent, snow-covered plain will naturally create a sense of pressure, even without zombies.
Ye Xiqing looked at everything along the way and thought it looked like a post-apocalyptic disaster movie. If she could bring it back to reality and make a movie about it, she wouldn't even need special effects.
Along the way, besides tire tracks and ruins, there were also zombies frozen on the roadside. Ye Xiqing was a little curious whether she could take advantage of the winter to bring a living zombie back to the base for her to study.
Just as she was about to try, Mao Hong grabbed her arm: "What are you doing?"
Ye Xiqing turned around and truthfully explained her thoughts.
Mao Hong: ...
Are you crazy?
Although Ye Xiqing had been researching zombie remains and extracting a vaccine from the zombie virus, raising a living zombie was too outrageous, and Mao Hong didn't even want to talk to her.
"If you want to raise a zombie, you need to report to the base first."
As for now—
Mao Hong pulled out a large machete from behind her back and quickly dismembered the frozen zombie's limbs.
Zombies are incredibly resilient; even after their heads are cut off, their bodies can survive. There are only two ways to ensure that a zombie is incapacitated:
One method is to have fire-type ability users burn them to ashes. Nothing can resist this kind of annihilation in a real sense, including viruses.
One method is to sever their limbs. Even if they survive, they can only lay pupae on the ground with their remains and will not be able to attack.
In terms of completeness, burning to ashes is definitely the most thorough approach, but the base doesn't have that many fire-type ability users, and in the icy and snowy environment, fire-type ability users would also suffer significant energy expenditure.
Therefore, field teams often adopt the simplest method: when winter comes, they take down any zombies they see that are unable to move, thus reducing the pressure for the coming year.
Ye Xiqing watched her actions with great regret.
A question began to linger in my mind: are zombies that can run, move, and attack people considered living beings or dead beings?
The original owner's bracelet space could hold all inanimate objects, so could it hold zombies?
If there weren't people nearby, you could actually give it a try.
But with so many field teams around, it's best to be cautious.
Ye Xiqing followed Mao Hong to their destination, but instead of doing anything productive, she managed to kill a lot of zombies.
Logically speaking, zombies don't reproduce, and they have the weakness of winter, so they should be easy to eliminate.
But there's nothing we can do. Before the apocalypse, there were billions of people in the world. After the apocalypse, only tens of thousands remained. In the ancient world, a single country still had forty million people. The apocalyptic world is not even a fraction of the ancient world's population.
The remaining survivors either evaporate or turn into zombies. The number of zombies far exceeds the number of survivors, and it would take a long time to kill them even if they were lying down.
Mao Hong eventually got tired of cutting things up and simply left it alone, planning to deal with it later as she had other important things to do.
Different superhumans have different field missions, and Ye Xiqing was also very curious about what Mao Hong's field missions were.
Mao Hong arrived at an abandoned building, closed her eyes and concentrated, reaching out her hand as if sensing something.
This was Ye Xiqing's first time witnessing a superhuman use their abilities in person, and she couldn't help but be completely absorbed.
Mao Hong's expression was very serious. Suddenly, Ye Xiqing could clearly feel her exerting force. With a "bang," a steel bar shot out from the abandoned building in the distance.
Ye Xiqing was silent for a moment, then burst out laughing.
"So your field missions for metal-based superpowers are just pulling steel bars? Hahaha!"
Mao Hong: ...
"What are you laughing at? Otherwise, where do you think the base's steel comes from, and what are your claws made of?"
"Hahaha."
Despite saying that, Ye Xiqing still laughed so hard she almost choked.
In the past, when she read post-apocalyptic novels with superpowers, her attention was always focused on the superpower battles. Metal-based superpowers sounded like a very cool and perfect superpower for combat.
I never imagined that in a real apocalypse, it would be used to remove steel bars, hahaha!
Hearing Ye Xiqing's laughter, Mao Hong really wanted to give her a good whack. If she brought Ye Xiqing out again, she'd be a pig!
He shooed them away impatiently: "Get away from me!"
Ye Xiqing was sensible enough to immediately hide far away, and Mao Hong re-entered her superpower state.
In the apocalypse, superpowers also vary in strength. The earlier one awakens their superpower, the stronger they are. Mao Hong wasn't among the earliest group, so she wasn't particularly strong.
The most powerful superhumans can summon elements out of thin air, but Mao Hong cannot; she must "infect" existing metal objects nearby.
Under the perception of his supernatural abilities, the steel bars in this abandoned building appeared clearly, like blood vessels in the human body.
Mao Hong found the most important ones and snapped them off!
Before the apocalypse, most high-rise buildings were reinforced concrete frame structures, relying on beams and columns for load-bearing.
The strength of concrete alone is not enough; the steel reinforcement is the key.
Once the supporting steel bars in the load-bearing columns are removed one by one, and a certain critical point is crossed, the abandoned building instantly collapses in one direction like a directional explosion.
In the apocalypse, houses are no longer important, but the steel inside is still important; it can be melted down and used for other purposes.
Before the demolition, the entire building had been looted by the advance supply team; this was the last remaining asset.
After Mao Hong finished the explosion, he stood aside to recover his strength and waited for the earth-type ability user to carry out the remaining earth-breaking work.
Influencing the steel bars embedded in the concrete from a distance is still quite physically demanding; working with an earth-type ability user makes the task much faster.
They need to complete the mission as soon as possible. In addition to ordinary transport personnel, who cannot withstand long-term outdoor work in the freezing cold, they also need to be wary of people from other bases coming to take advantage of any gaps in their schedules.
Huiyang Base is the largest base, but not the only one.
Even in the apocalypse, steel bars are still fought over.
Mao Hong's superpowered team was pressed for time and had a heavy task. Everyone was making the most of the time to pull out steel bars. Ye Xiqing couldn't be too idle either, so she could still move some steel bars.
Earth-type ability users violently broke through the rocks, while metal-type ability users extracted the steel bars, bent them into shapes suitable for transport, and ordinary people loaded them onto trucks—a highly skilled assembly line operation, indicating they had done it countless times before.
Ye Xiqing had worked as a porter before, but in a world with superpowers, being a porter was quite funny; she would end up laughing at herself while carrying things.
Just as she was diligently working in her usual slacking-off manner, a deep voice came: "Need any help?"
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