If you take the Yangning Expressway from Yang City to Ning City, the entire journey is only more than 400 kilometers and the driving time only takes more than five hours. However, now you can basically forget about getting on the expressway, as the expressway is basically full of cars and the traffic is jammed.
Based on the route the army took, the satellite maps Jiang Xiaotian obtained during the invasion, and the information fed back by several drones, he was able to work out the most suitable route, but he didn't know how long the detour would be.
This is a long-distance migration that is expected to last from ten days to half a month.
On January 21st, the third day after departure, the weather was still very cold. In order to save fuel, the air conditioner in the car was not turned on. Lin Tantan was wrapped in a thick down jacket and lying in the passenger seat, swaying slightly as the car moved forward.
Then the car body shook slightly and stopped.
Lin Tantan opened his eyes, glanced at the back of the car in front of him, picked up the intercom and asked, "What's going on?"
Jiang Zhongyi replied loudly, "There's another traffic jam ahead. It'll probably take an hour or two to clear this time."
This is common. When you are walking, the road is blocked again. If it is just ordinary vehicles blocking the way, it is not a big deal. But if the bridge collapses, the road sinks, or the mountain falls, it will be very difficult to deal with.
However, because drones provide early feedback, there are usually people there to deal with the situation long before the main group. If it is determined that the route cannot be taken, the team will be asked to take a detour in advance.
Yesterday, a bridge that collapsed into the river was found to be unreliable. Several people with backgrounds in bridge construction calculated this and that and determined that the bridge could not withstand so many vehicles passing through it at the same time in a short period of time. In addition, Cheng Qinan, a semi-prophet, felt that it was not a good idea to go up the bridge, so they finally took a detour.
Lin Tan looked at the time and saw it was almost noon. He said to Jiang Zhongyi, "Let's take this as our lunch break. Those who need to rest can rest, and those who need to eat can eat."
"Okay." Jiang Zhongyi switched channels and went to relay his orders to the squad leader. Lin Tantan told Qian Kai, who was in the driver's seat, to turn off the engine and rest. He then said to the two people in the back of the car, "Hey, it's time for some fresh air. Get out of the car and move around for a while."
As she spoke, she opened the door and went downstairs. She had been sitting for so long that her butt didn't feel like her own anymore.
People from other cars also gradually got out to take a break, disposing of the waste they had accumulated all morning. The men would just find a place to relieve themselves, while the women were more particular, finding a spot, surrounding it with cloth, and then going in one by one.
Because there were farmlands on both sides of the road today, they simply chose a place far away from the convoy and dug a hole in the ground.
Lin Tan Tan took a sip of water, held the water bottle in his left arm, screwed the lid on with his right hand, and then dragged a box down from the pickup truck behind him.
Qian Kai hurried to help.
"No need, I can do it myself." Lin Tantan dragged the box to the roadside with one hand and opened it. There were sausages inside. As she squatted down, there was a rustling in the grass, and a fat, light gray rat came out, barking continuously, as if urging her to give it food quickly.
Lin Tantan sighed and handed it two sausages. "You're such a big rat now, why do you still need to be fed three times a day? Can't you hunt for yourself?"
"Squeak, squeak, squeak!" The big gray rat took the time to call out. It was always on the road and had no time to hunt.
Then a few more mice came out with a rustling sound, some white, some golden... Lin Tantan distributed sausages to all of them, and the whole box of sausages was soon divided up.
These guys are such big eaters. Fortunately, there were only about ten of them following the big gray rat with her, otherwise she might not be able to feed them all.
But considering that they had helped me stand guard for the previous two nights, I deserved some wages.
She looked at them, all of them were dirty, and said to the big gray rat, "Why don't you get on my car? It will be more relaxing if you don't have to travel by yourself, right?"
The big gray rat slowed down its eating speed, looked at Lin Tan with black eyes, then squeaked and went back to the grass with a dozen of its little brothers.
"Wait." Lin Tantan called out to it and gave it a gold crystal core.
The big gray rat grabbed it rudely, then turned around and crawled away.
This guy is quite cool.
Suddenly there was someone beside him. Lin Tantan looked up and saw an unexpected person, Zhou Li.
She stood up, and Zhou Li said, "So you really did raise a group of mutant rats."
"There are only a few, not a group." Lin Tantan said calmly. It was no secret that she raised mice.
Zhou Li asked, "Is there any secret to raising these mutant animals? I encountered a mutant dog before, but it was very aggressive and impossible to communicate with."
Lin Tan Tan thought, if mutant animals could be raised by humans, wouldn’t humans be invincible?
"There's no secret. I was just lucky and met some easygoing mice."
Easygoing? Zhou Li's mouth twitched. Why did this description sound so strange?
He suddenly said, "Excuse me, do you have any prejudice against me?" He felt that Lin Tantan was generally nice to others, but when he occasionally tried to talk to her, she was always indifferent. "We met on the first day of the apocalypse, which is a rare fate. Shouldn't we be friends?"
Lin Tan Tan paused and said, "I don't have any prejudice. It's just that I'm very busy and probably don't have much time to make friends."
She was thinking, "Being friends with you? Is this such an awkward conversation?"
"I'm going back first. Mr. Zhou is in charge of a large team, so he must have a lot to do, right?"
Due to lack of manpower, Zhou Li also took charge of a battalion, the Seventh Battalion, which was separated from the Fifth Battalion by another battalion. However, this was not the first time that Lin Tantan saw him in the Fifth Battalion.
Lin Tan Tan muttered to himself as he returned to the convoy. Mei Bosheng, looking exhausted, sat on the ground next to the car, chin raised, "Why is that guy here again?"
"Who knows?"
"It seems like he's looking for you every time he comes here. Is he trying to poach me?" He muttered to himself, wondering whether he should report this situation.
"Attention, attention! A flock of birds is approaching from the northwest. Everyone, get in your vehicles. Close the doors and windows, draw the curtains, and maintain silence. I repeat, everyone, get in your vehicles..."
At this moment, Bai Cheng's voice came from Lin Tantan's intercom. Lin Tantan immediately looked up at the sky. Uh, northwest? Which direction is northwest?
Well, there was no need to distinguish, because she had already seen a dark mass in the sky from afar.
She picked up the intercom, but before she could say anything, Jiang Zhongyi shouted urgently, "All the teams from YS05 are here! Captain, quickly arrange for everyone to get on the bus! You have one minute to complete this!"
Soon, the captains of each small guard team began to quickly direct people to get on the bus.
"Those guys over there, come back quickly!"
"We're still short of a few people on the bus, we're about to close!"
"Stop making noise! Everyone on the bus, please sit down! Be quiet! Parents, cover your children's mouths!"
"Bag, bag, bring it up!"
People were in a panic for a moment, but fortunately they had rehearsed for the previous two days, so the overall efficiency was still acceptable. It was just a pity for the person who was taking a defecation in the distance. He quickly pulled up his pants and ran back screaming, which made Lin Tantan look very upset.
She hurried along the convoy, checking on everyone's progress. For trucks, she closed the welded iron door on the back of the truck bed. For buses, she quickly drew the curtains once everyone was aboard, and then quickly closed the matching curtains on the front windows and doors. For cars, those with harnesses quickly sat inside while someone outside helped put the harnesses on.
However, this car cover is also a modified version. People in the car can just stretch out their hands to lift the cover, which will not affect driving in an emergency.
"Team YS0503, all personnel aboard!"
"Team YS0510, everyone aboard!"
Seeing that almost everyone had gotten on the bus and the "dark cloud" in the sky was getting closer and closer, Lin Tantan ran back to his car, closed the door, and pulled the curtains, and the light in the car suddenly became dim.
She came to Jiang Xiaotian and asked, "Can you see what's going on outside?"
"Here, look." Jiang Xiaotian asked her to look at the display screen. This was the picture sent back by the drone. A black flock of birds flew over like an overwhelming mass. Soon they discovered the long convoy on the ground and flew down. Then the sound of flapping wings could be heard outside, followed by the banging sounds of bird beaks and claws hitting the car, as if countless stones were raining down on the car, making people's eardrums hurt.
Small pits soon appeared on the roof of the car, and some cracks appeared on the glass windows.
The quality of this car is still very good, which shows how powerful the weapons of these birds are. Cars of lower quality would be in trouble.
Through the pictures, Lin Tantan discovered that these unknown species of birds should all be mutant birds.
I hope it’s not a zombie bird.
Suddenly, people's cries were heard from far behind. The birds outside the car all stopped, and then there was the sound of flapping their wings and flying away.
"Damn, who is this?" Jiang Xiaotian controlled a drone to follow the direction where the flock of birds left, and then found that the people shouting were from the army in the rear.
If these mutant birds hadn't called out originally, they would have pecked for a while and then flown away. But now that they made a sound, the flock of birds was attracted over, and the large truck that made the sound was quickly surrounded by the flock of birds. The people in the cars in front and behind had to go to help.
Some birds were shot down, some people were pecked by birds, and suddenly, a girl was snatched out of the car by a strong big bird and lifted into the sky, but she fell to the ground because her clothes were torn.
The people watching the scene were silent. Being at such a high altitude, it was definitely dangerous.
Lin Tantan suddenly said, "No! If we keep fighting like this, the smell of blood will only get stronger!"
Mutated birds are not scary, zombie birds are scary, but what is even scarier is the swarm of zombies.
As they were talking, the situation over there became even more chaotic. Vehicles in front and behind were worried about being affected by the flock of birds, so they hurriedly tried to drive away. However, as soon as their cars moved, they were immediately surrounded by the flock of birds, and some people even ran out of the cars.
Jiang Xiaotian cursed: "Did birds eat these people's brains?"
Lin Tantan frowned and suddenly said, "Give me a gun."
"What do you want to do? It's too far away, the gun can't reach it."
Lin Tan Tan pulled out a gun from his waist and asked Qian Kai in the driver's seat to move aside. She went to the driver's seat, lowered the window, and stretched out her hand holding the gun.
She wanted to shoot the biggest bird that could catch a person, but she found that the bird was flying very fast, up and down. How could she shoot it?
Lin Tantan's brows were tightly knitted together, but the gold-type supernatural power continued to accumulate in the bullet, and then he waited for the right moment and fired a shot.
The bullet carrying gold energy dragged out a pale golden light, as if tearing a hole in the air, and instantly reached a height of a thousand meters above where ordinary bullets could not reach.
With a whoosh, golden light passed under the claws of the big bird, tearing apart several mutant birds farther away.
"Oh!" It was almost there, Lin Tan Tan felt very sorry.
"Cry!" The big mutant bird seemed to sense a strong danger. It turned its head and immediately locked onto Lin Tantan and flew towards him.
Come on, come on, I can kill you if I get closer.
Lin Tantan was thinking about it, but at this moment, whoosh, something seemed to pass by and hit the big mutant bird. The head of the big mutant bird suddenly exploded and the whole body fell down.
Lin Tantan was stunned and turned around to see a huge and wild car with four wheels. It was obvious that it had a strong climbing ability, but the car was hollow on all sides, with only some racks and a machine gun. It came rushing over. Ye Xiao was standing on the car, maintaining a shooting posture. With a few shots, he shot down several of the most ferocious birds.
Looking at the effect, it is obvious that it is also blessed with wind-related abilities.
Lin Tantan's eyes lit up.
Ye Xiao took the time to glance at her and said, "Hurry up and sit down. Push up the window."
Lin Tan Tan: "Ye Xiao, do you want to go bird hunting? I'll help you!"
Before Ye Xiao could say anything, she opened the car door, and a belt came out, pulling herself into Ye Xiao's car.
"..." There was no way to stop it, so Ye Xiao had to let her sit still, "Be careful."
"Hey, just shoot yours, don't worry about me." Lin Tan Tan felt a little envious when he saw him shooting one or several people at a time. It was cool to have accurate shooting skills.
She didn't waste her bullets. Some mutant birds discovered the moving car and the people in it, flew over, and entered the attack range of her supernatural power. She then swung out golden thorns and golden blades one after another, and several at a time. Well, it was also very accurate.
In addition to their car, some highly maneuverable vehicles were also driven out from other convoys to help fight the zombie birds through bullet fire or long-range attacks from psychics.
Among them, Zhou Li's attack had the best effect. He sent out a lightning bolt, and after a blue-purple light flashed in the air, it hit a bird and then hit a second one, or the lightning bolt was split into two or three, just like weaving a net in the air. All the birds caught in the "net" fell down with screams. The power was indeed great, and the "special effects" were indeed amazing.
In comparison, Zhao Yidan, who is also a lightning-type mutant, came out to support, but she could only focus on one bird with one lightning strike, and the color and thickness of the lightning strike were incomparable to Zhou Li's.
Lin Tantan couldn't help but take a few more glances at Zhou Li's ability, muttering softly, "It's really quite impressive."
Ye Xiao heard her murmur and looked up at Zhou Li in the distance.
Then he stopped shooting, and happened to be in the range of supernatural powers. He raised his hand, and three hurricanes appeared in the sky for no reason where the flock of birds was densest, tearing the flock of birds apart and sweeping them into the hurricane.
As the hurricane moved, the mutant birds that were swept away were also moved away. As soon as Ye Xiao withdrew his hand, the hurricane stopped, and countless birds fell down with a crackling sound.
Lin Tan Tan: "..."
"Awesome, awesome! Applause!" Lin Tantan clapped her hands, of course, using one hand and her arm to clap. The sound of them blocking her down jacket made a puffing sound. She slapped Ye Xiao on the arm: "Your superpowers have gotten stronger again!"
This is definitely at the second level, maybe even the third level? The definition of supernatural power levels is actually quite vague. Three hundred years later, there will be instruments to accurately detect it, but there are no instruments now, so Lin Tantan is not good at it.
But Ye Xiao is definitely ahead of everyone else.
Ye Xiao smiled and rubbed her head. He didn't think that there was anything to be particularly proud of about having stronger superpowers, but if every progress could make her excited and happy... Ye Xiao felt that he should work harder.
He glanced in Zhou Li's direction and found that he was also looking at this side, so he nodded slightly to him.
The mutant birds were not stupid either. They discovered that there was a person with such a strong ability who could restrain them. When they saw that several leaders in the flock were dead, they stopped fighting and flew away one after another.
If this is a group of brainless zombie birds that only know how to eat, you absolutely cannot do this. You will not be able to leave until you hit the last one.
The flock of birds left, leaving behind a pile of mutant bird corpses. Some people would pick up the corpses to see if there were any crystal cores, and some would try to eat the bird meat. After all, there were still many people who lacked food, especially the more than 200,000 survivors who followed the army.
There were quite a few injured people. When they came to talk to Lin about treatment, she picked out the three who were bleeding the most and quickly stopped their bleeding, and ignored the others.
As for the dead, there were two of them. The human body and the bird body were buried and the bloodstains were dealt with.
While people were busy, Lin Tantan was riding in Ye Xiao's car back, but was stopped halfway through the drive.
"Captain Ye, can we go with you?" A young man ran over to stop the car. He looked tired, but his eyes were bright. "Do you still remember me? You and your men saved my family at the Jiangxi Town Convenience Center. I'm also a person with special abilities. I'm willing to follow any arrangements, as long as my family can go with your convoy."
Ye Xiao asked: "Isn't it good to follow the army?"
The young man smiled bitterly. "They, they don't care about us at all. We just drive behind them. We have to worry about the car behind us cutting in, the driver of the car in front suddenly stopping without any warning, and when we're eating, we have to worry about someone snatching our food. Sometimes we have to be careful about people next to us getting into a fight for no reason and getting hurt. And when we rest at night, we have to be vigilant about being robbed."
His expression was a little grim. He glanced at Lin Tan Tan and spoke in a somewhat obscure way. "Stealing and robbing are still okay. Captain Ye, you don't know. The night before yesterday was fine, but last night there was some trouble. Several women were even dragged out and didn't come back all morning."
Ye Xiao's face changed slightly, and she subconsciously glanced at Lin Tantan. Lin Tantan had an innocent expression on her face and blinked. Why was she looking at her?
Seeing that she didn't understand, Ye Xiao looked away: "No one cares?"
The young man said bitterly, "Those soldiers are so busy guarding against zombies that they basically don't care about anything else. Everyone else is only concerned about themselves. Even if they hear any noise, they won't do anything. There are quite a lot of them. If you provoke one, you provoke the whole group. As long as the noise is small and doesn't attract the attention of the soldiers, no one dares to expose them. For example, I have two cousins and a whole family. If I provoke them, what if they do something when I'm not paying attention..."
Ye Xiao frowned. He had guessed that the situation would not be good due to the lack of management, but he didn't expect it to be so bad.
Lin Tantan finally realized what they were talking about. She also frowned. She knew that there would be many dark sides in the end times, but she had basically never encountered them. The only time was when Cai Chengliang harmed Mei Baisheng. She felt a little uncomfortable when she suddenly heard about such a thing.
Ye Xiao said to the young man, "You go back first. I will talk to Major General Xing later."
There was no request for him to come to this convoy. The young man was a little disappointed, but he didn't say anything else and turned back.
As the car continued on its way, Lin Tan Tan asked, "What do you plan to say to Major General Xing? I don't think he wants to deal with this kind of thing at all, otherwise how could he not have discovered it? Are all his men dead?"
Arrest a few typical cases and execute a few people, and the trend can be suppressed immediately.
There had been troublemakers in the west of the city before, but they weren't as bad as this one. However, they often robbed other people's things and bullied the weak. After being discovered, they were immediately driven out of the west of the city. After that, everyone else behaved themselves.
"I have to give him some advice. Otherwise, if things continue like this, something terrible might happen."
…
After returning to the Fifth Battalion, Ye Xiao put Lin Tan Tan down and went to the front again. Not long after, the people leading the way finally cleared the road and the convoy was on the road again.
After stopping and starting like this for an entire afternoon, they advanced another twenty kilometers. At around four o'clock, the convoy stopped, reorganized on the spot, and prepared to spend the night.
People began to prepare dinner. Those who had the conditions collected firewood and started cooking, while those who didn't could only eat dry food.
Unlike ordinary people, the guards were fed by the government. They could eat directly from the carts of supplies that came with the troops, and they also hired people to help cook. At this time, the cooks unloaded bags of rice and drinking water from the carts, set up large pots, adjusted the ratio of rice to water, and began to cook.
Some people will peel some sweet potatoes and put them into the big pot, and when they are cooked, it becomes a pot of sweet potato rice. Some people will put carrots in, and some people don’t add anything. As for the vegetables, they basically just stir-fry some cabbage or potatoes and stew a big pot of bone soup.
They are all very simple and convenient dishes.
Lin Tantan moved a stool and sat beside them, watching people busy cooking. She helped from time to time and smelled the aroma of food. She felt a little eager to join in, as she was hungry.
"When can I eat?" she asked an old lady.
"It's almost done, the meal will be ready soon." The auntie seemed to keep saying this over and over again.
Lin Tantan sighed and prepared to go for a walk. Just smelling the smell was too depressing.
Then we met Zhou Li again. It was also a coincidence that all the convoys were parked together, and the Seventh Brigade was just opposite the Fifth Brigade.
"Ms. Lin." Zhou Li seemed to be looking for her. He walked over and asked about what happened at noon: "Were you and Captain Ye both injected with superpowers when you fired?"
There was nothing to hide, so she answered directly: "Yes."
"Can I ask you how you did this?"
Since she was asked this, could she say no?
But she could figure this out by herself, right? Ye Xiao never asked her... Oh, when did Ye Xiao start to understand how to inject superpowers into bullets? The effect was surprisingly good.
Lin Tantan was a little distracted, and Zhou Li couldn't help but ask again.
"Ah?" Looking at Zhou Li's sincere look, Lin Tantan thought that this man was quite awesome, but in the end he was killed by his own brother, which was too tragic. If he was stronger, Zhou Yan might not have been in trouble. Thinking of this, she began to speak in detail.
In the distance, Mei Bosheng pulled Jiang Xiaotian aside and whispered, "This is the nth time this guy has come to talk to me again. He must be trying to poach us, right?"
Jiang Xiaotian munched on his biscuits. "It's normal, right? Who doesn't want to chat with Tan Tan? He's just worried about his captain, so he doesn't dare to show it too obviously. But you don't have to keep an eye on him every day. Tan Tan has the freedom to make friends."
"If he really wanted to make friends with Tan Tan, that would be fine, but this Zhou guy is so cunning. Look, he barely showed up in the west of the city. Now that the boss and Lao Bai are busy, he took advantage of the situation and swooped in."
Jiang Xiaotian stopped chewing the biscuit and thought for a moment: "It seems so!"
"Yeah, yeah, look at his methods, they're so dishonest, huh, he has bad intentions!"
"What bad intentions?"
A voice interrupted, and Mei Bosheng was startled. Seeing that it was his boss, he quickly grabbed him and said, "Boss, you're here. Look, that guy is here to talk to you again. You even asked him to be the team leader out of kindness, but he just wants to poach your people!"
The author has something to say: Zhou Li released a special effect of 50 cents, lightning and thunder.
Tan Tan: Well, it’s really amazing.
Upon hearing this, Ye Xiao used his hurricane trick, and the special effects... the special effects weren't very good-looking, but I was buying one and getting two free!
Tan Tan: Applause! As expected, my male god is really strong!
Not long after, Ye Xiao discovered that the guy with the 50-cent special effects was trying to poach his customers. No, he was secretly poaching them.
Ye Xiao: I'm so stupid. I only knew to transfer my own people away, but I didn't expect there were threats from outside. Well, it seems that I have to develop a cool special effect.
…
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