Chapter 181 Leaving the City
May 25, 2027.
Lin Xi left Dawn Base for the first time to go to the outer city.
Her only companions on this trip were Lu Wei and many military personnel.
Although Lin Xi had participated in the base's recruitment in his previous life, he died young in danger and had never seen such a scene.
A mature field combat force has now been developed, consisting of not only the main combat personnel, but also professional communications personnel, logistics units, and medical support units.
Lin Xi's original truck had been entrusted to Xiang Xin, but it was later requisitioned by the base. However, the right to use it remained in Xiang Xin's hands, and only Lu Wei and Liang Hui used it occasionally.
Everyone was fully prepared, and Lin Xi was wearing a combat uniform and carrying a gun.
The military elevator took them to the -1 floor, and everyone got into their respective cars. Lin Xi got into her own car.
The old friend that had been out of the public eye for so long had its exterior modified once again. In addition to the original explosion-proof glass, the surface had been reinforced and sprayed with protective color, making it look no different from most military trucks.
But when Lin Xi opened the door, she found that the interior had been transformed into an itasha (decorated car).
A small figure was drawn on the back of each of the four seats in the driver's cab.
Lin Xi recognized herself as the one wearing a white lab coat and holding a test tube. The other three were wearing military uniforms. Among them, the girl was Xiang Xin, and the other two could be distinguished by their expressions as Lu Wei and Liang Hui.
In another corner, there is a group photo of four people, two men and two women, all wearing black tank tops, camouflage pants and black combat boots.
Lin Xi could tell that the "family portrait" depicted them in their previous life, but the poses they were striking with guns were a bit exaggerated, their expressions were too childish, and there were raging flames in the background, along with some passionate slogans that Lin Xi couldn't bear to read.
Many small portraits like these were painted in inconspicuous places, serving a certain decorative purpose without being too flashy and obstructing the view of the people in the driver's seat.
The figures are well-captured and the brushwork is excellent, but perhaps due to insufficient materials, the colors are not very appealing.
Xiang Xin must have put a lot of effort into adjusting it.
For nearly two years, Lin Xi had neither boarded this truck nor left the base, but she always had a place here.
With all external conditions prepared, the convoy left the base in an orderly manner, and Lin Xi saw the outside world again after two years.
The yellowish sunlight made Lin Xi squint, and it took her a long time to adjust.
It is 6:20 pm. The sun is setting, and the orange-red sky covers the distant city.
It overlapped with certain quiet scenes in Lin Xi's memory.
As night fell and there were no lights outside, Lin Xi could only make out a blurry silhouette of the city by the moonlight.
A completely dark world, quieter and more silent than the underground base.
Lin Xi put on night vision goggles and looked out the window at everything: charred walls, broken buildings, and incomplete billboards, all transformed into a deserted wasteland.
The damage to the building was not caused by zombies, but by people clearing out the hardened zombies.
These hardened zombies cannot be killed by gunfire; they must be subjected to cannon fire and high temperatures to directly inactivate the virus. However, this method can only kill the zombie by killing the virus that controls its brain, and the remaining zombie body is difficult to decompose naturally.
The hardened bones of the zombies, with their shrunken flesh losing the support of the zombie virus, slowly rot and disappear, leaving behind a hardened skeleton that cannot be destroyed by ordinary flames.
Zombies with hardened bodies have a hardened outer shell that requires higher-temperature flames and more powerful shells to destroy.
Although Lin Xi didn't go to the battlefield, she knew how difficult the situation outside was just by seeing the zombie samples sent from the laboratory.
And his close comrades-in-arms are still alive.
Lu Wei's mission was to find the materials and energy needed for high-end equipment, and his destination was a high-end manufacturing plant 400 kilometers away from the base.
There were almost no hardened zombies on the highway. Although the convoy encountered some obstacles due to road conditions, it still arrived at its destination in the early morning.
Lin Xi did not choose to stay with the medical team, but got off the vehicle to fight together. She carried a dagger on each side of her belt and a silenced combat gun in her hand as she got off the vehicle with everyone else.
The reconnaissance team broadcasted the situation and precautions ahead through their headsets, and everyone slowly entered the factory in formation under the cover of night.
According to the investigation, there are no living people left here, but zombies are appearing inside the factory.
The zombies that haven't been cleared out yet are all troublesome hardened zombies. Since they need resources inside the factory, shells or fire will damage the buildings and internal resources, making them extremely difficult to clear. The only way to obtain resources is to take advantage of the night when the zombies' eyesight is lower and their lethality is reduced.
The combat team members present were almost all acquaintances of each other. They had hardly ever met Lin Xi, had no experience training together, and had no combat chemistry whatsoever.
Therefore, Lin Xi was assigned to the group led by team leader Lu Wei.
Each team entered the building, and everyone held their breath and moved forward quietly.
They carried silenced guns, but they couldn't be truly silent. Firing a gun would still attract nearby zombies, and people were easily nervous under the ferocious attacks of the hardened zombies. Randomly firing a gun could easily injure their teammates.
However, the search for and transport of supplies will inevitably cause noise, and battles are unavoidable. Everyone should be prepared to engage in close combat and gouge out the zombies' eyes.
Lin Xi has been training for the past two years, but has not actually engaged in combat, and has always maintained a high level of vigilance in coordinating team missions.
The movement of supplies inevitably caused noise, attracting nearby zombies who gathered around. Lu Wei's group provided cover while fighting.
Lin Xi had experienced how difficult it was to fight hardened zombies. Unable to fire his gun and cause a huge commotion, Lin Xi could only maneuver flexibly, looking for an opportunity to stab the zombie's eyes, while also adjusting the angle to ensure that the stab went into the zombie's brain.
This was an extremely risky move. Her dagger was short, making it difficult to directly penetrate the attack range of the zombie's hardened limbs. If she wasn't careful, the zombie would slash her body haphazardly. Under the hardened zombie's claws, the little abrasion resistance of her combat suit was practically nonexistent. Once she was scratched, her skin would break and become infected.
Lin Xi regretted not preparing a long-handled melee weapon, but then she thought that even if she had, she had no experience fighting with long-handled melee weapons, so it wouldn't be of much use.
The zombie was being fought with great difficulty. When the dagger was stabbed diagonally into the zombie's eye, its waving claws and sharp teeth were only centimeters away from Lin Xi's hand.
The zombie was hit in the brain, convulsed a few times, and fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
This shows how stiff the corpse was.
It took a long time to completely defeat the four zombies; the process was arduous.
Lu Wei asked his teammates about their condition with his eyes, and Lin Xi made a gesture like the others.
But there was one person who, when Lu Wei inspected the area, stared blankly at everyone, the bloodstains on his wrists already quite obvious.
“I…” He stared wide-eyed in disbelief, “Major General, I…”
Lu Wei looked at him silently.
The other teammates whispered, "Old Yuan, you do it yourself."
Their tone was calm, as if they had experienced this many times before.
Looking at the wound from afar, dripping blood, he sighed in resentment, then pressed the gun against his temple.
The sound of the silenced pistol was very noticeable in the dark.
-
The search for and transport of supplies were fraught with danger, so they had to fight and transport simultaneously, and as a result, they managed to fill only one freight truck in the middle of the night.
The danger level increases during the day, so the combat teams take turns on guard duty and resting during the day.
Lin Xi had prepared her own food in the truck, so she didn't get out to eat with everyone. By the time Lu Wei returned, she had already tucked herself into her sleeping bag.
The search for and transport of resources took three nights to complete.
Because close-quarters combat was required, Lu Wei had brought only elite troops with him this time, and more than twenty of them had been lost in the past three days.
Almost all of them, after discovering they were infected, ended their own lives by shooting themselves, just like that "Old Yuan".
They had all witnessed how terrifying hardened zombies could be, and in order to prevent themselves from becoming like that and adding to the burden on humanity, this practice had become an unwritten rule among field combat teams.
There was no time for grief on the battlefield, but once things calmed down, the close teammates could not hide their sorrow.
Someone was on the verge of tears: "I thought I had become numb..."
-
After a quick adjustment, the team waited until nightfall to depart and return to base.
Before Lu finished arranging the team handover, he directly told Lin Xi his purpose: "I'm going to see Yang Yicheng."
Lin Xi looked at him.
Lu Wei then asked, "Do you want to go straight back to the base?"
In this life, she no longer felt that deep-seated fear of Yang Yicheng. It wasn't because of the passage of time, but because she was becoming stronger and her stance had changed, so there was no reason for her to be afraid.
Lin Xi already knew that Lu Wei and Yang Yicheng were in contact, and these contacts were mostly about arrangements for the apocalypse.
She said to herself, "I'll go too."
However, Lin Xi did not visit the legendary "Iron Wolf Base," the home of the King of Soldiers. The location of the Iron Wolf Base was very mysterious; even Lu Wei did not know where it was. It was speculated to be located between Xinchuan and Yunxiang.
The trucks met in an open field where visibility was good, so they could spot any approaching zombies in time.
Yang Yicheng, whom Lin Xi hadn't seen for a long time, seemed to have become even thinner, and his face looked somewhat weathered, quite different from the image Lin Xi remembered.
Yang Yicheng brought almost all male soldiers, with only one woman among them.
Unlike Lin Xilu, who was wearing combat uniforms, they were almost all dressed in tight-fitting, simple clothing, with strong limbs beneath their tanned skin.
The girl had a slender build like Lin Xi, and her tight-fitting clothes accentuated her abs. She looked like a girl who could fight, but she was very beautiful, although her skin was rough and dark.
She also glanced at Lin Xi, her eyes darting around.
Lin Xi suddenly realized the obvious difference between herself and them. Compared to them, she was far too fair-skinned after not seeing the sun for two years.
"Female soldiers in the base." Someone whistled from the other side, seemingly thinking Lin Xi was just a pretty face.
Having been reborn several times, Lin Xi was already immune to this kind of gaze that couldn't even be considered malicious.
She came to see Yang Yicheng.
Yang Yicheng didn't react to her at all. He didn't know her at all in this life, so he ignored her. After exchanging a few words with Lu Wei, he sent someone to bring over two zombies that were tied up very tightly.
After a brief meeting, both sides left, with Lu Wei and Lin Xi taking the two zombies with them.
On the way back, Lin Xi asked, "The special zombie that Yang Yicheng caught for us?"
Lu Wei gripped the steering wheel and nodded: "According to the lab's terminology, it's not exactly a special kind of zombie; it just seems to have retained some human abilities."
Yang Yicheng said that one of them had fighting skills, and the other was a zombie with thinking ability who could use some simple tactics.
In the past, these two zombies would have been considered rare, but compared to Lin Jie's half-infected form, they were no longer enough.
Looking at the wasteland they passed through, Lin Xi concluded: "Even the king of soldiers has begun to place his hopes on scientific research."
Yang Yicheng's equipment is not bad, but it is definitely not as good as that of a regular base army.
Even the most arrogant but highly capable elite soldier was helpless against the hardened zombies. Guns or hand-to-hand combat had low success rates, and they couldn't afford to use so many artillery shells.
Whenever they encountered a special type of zombie, they would capture Lu Wei, whom they knew well, and send him to the base laboratory.
After being away for a few days, Lin Xi witnessed firsthand how difficult the situation was outside.
Even so, knowing that she was the only one who could contribute to the breakthrough, Lu Weixiang and Liang Hui never revealed any pressure to her, nor did they force or interfere with her choices.
"After I get back, I'm going to the lab." Lin Xi had mentioned this decision before, but was just waiting for the right opportunity.
When Lu Wei's rank is higher, wait for this trip.
Lu Wei, who already knew about this decision, was not surprised and handed over a new base identity card.
Lin Xi took it; it was the base card for her new identity, "Zhang Sirui".
Lu Wei: "Lin Xi died during the mission. After you return, you will be the new researcher 'Zhang Sirui' at the base."
Song Heng never reported to his superiors that they were actively searching for Lin Xi, so only Song Heng's team knew that Lin Xi had antibodies.
That team was disheartening, but they kept their mouths shut.
But Lin Xi's identity is always related to Lin Jie, and sooner or later other teams will have their eyes on her.
Lu Wei used his authority to report Lin Xi's death, canceling her original identity at the base and obtaining a new identity with matching data.
In the apocalypse, these operations are difficult, but can be done if one has the authority.
Afterwards, the three of them also became Zhang Sirui's supporters.
"Lin Xi." Lu Wei called out to her, and said seriously, "Even if you provide samples to participate in the experiment, it is not guaranteed that a vaccine can be developed. Don't impose the 'hope of vaccine research' on yourself."
Lu Wei seemed afraid that she might be uneasy, so he added, "I've seen your zombie. Actually, it looks no different from an ordinary zombie. Even if you might have antibodies, they might not be as strong as the antibodies in your 'cousin'."
It took Lin Xi a moment to understand what Lu Wei meant. He was saying that making vaccines wasn't easy and that he was advising her not to put too much pressure on herself.
“…Hmm.” Lin Xi held the new identity card in her hand and responded softly.
After a while, she still said, "Thank you."
"..." Lu Wei seemed a little surprised. "You're welcome. We're friends."
"..."
He added, "And I'm a good person."
Lin Xi tried to hold back, but couldn't help and chuckled.
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