Chapter 66
Before the cataclysm, New City was a major international metropolis in the Dragon Kingdom, with skyscrapers everywhere. It's unknown what New City will look like after the cataclysm, how it will be eroded by mutated creatures, or whether it will still bear the resemblance to its former metropolis.
Gu Kaizhi glanced at the hill in front of them and frowned, saying, "This hill is also full of mutated plants. Wouldn't it be safer to walk in the low-lying areas?"
Jiang Shan: "I'm not sure, it's just a guess based on the conclusions we've drawn before."
Upon hearing this, the mutant behind Gu Kaizhi scoffed, "You're not sure and you're giving us advice? Do you want us all to die with you?"
Upon hearing this, Jiang Shu immediately became displeased, raising his voice several octaves: "You know it's just a suggestion. Whether you go or not is your own decision. If anyone can guarantee which road is absolutely safe, then go ask them. What are you showing off to ordinary people for?"
Jiang Shu's words made the mutant's face darken.
It seems they never expected that a hothead would dare to embarrass them.
Luo Yonghui, who was standing in front, chuckled. This kid was quite protective of his own. He pretended to scold him, saying, "Who told you to shout so loudly? Don't you have any manners?"
After saying that, he smiled insincerely at Gu Kaizhi and said, "I'm sorry, Captain Gu, the new team member is disrespectful. It's my fault for not educating him properly. I'll teach him a lesson later."
Gu Kaizhi smiled, not blaming Jiang Shu, but also not saying that his team members were wrong.
Standing to the side, Huang Xianming frowned. "Zhang He, Professor Jiang came here specifically to help us. If you say this, how can he give us advice in the future?"
Zhang He, who had just been shouting, changed his expression, then smiled and said, "Colonel Huang, I was just worried about our safety, nothing more."
Upon hearing this, Huang Xianming said nothing more and turned to ask Lin Yuan, "Captain Lin, which direction do you think we should go?"
Lin Yuan said calmly, "Leave professional matters to professionals. I trust Professor Jiang's judgment. If there are any objections, we can decide by voting."
Upon hearing this, Zhang He's expression turned even uglier.
Huang Xianming nodded, "My choice is the same as Team Leader Lin's."
Luo Yonghui gave Gu Kaizhi a meaningful look, "I have no other opinions."
Gu Kaizhi then smiled and said, "Since everyone has no objections, I have no objections either."
Lin Yuan nodded: "Since no one has any objections, let's go from the left. Captain Luo, your team will lead the way today."
Luo Yonghui: "No problem."
After discussing the situation on the hill, the group finally got ready to set off.
When no one was watching, Zhang He gave Jiang Shu a gloomy look.
Jiang Zhi keenly noticed it.
After getting into the car, Chen Shaoting glanced at them.
"You have a conflict with Gu Kaizhi?"
Jiang Shu smiled and said, "Sister Shaoting, please don't say that. We've always been kind to others, how could we have any conflict with him? At most, we just have a feud over the murder of his wife."
Chen Shaoting thought she had misheard: "What?"
Jiang Zhi said, "Sister Shao Ting, do you know the captain of Exploration Team No. 3?"
Chen Shaoting realized: "Was the incident involving Squad 3 related to you?"
Jiang Zhi nodded.
Chen Shaoting murmured, "So it was you who killed that traitor..."
She paused for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, before softly saying, "It's not your fault. Gu Kaizhi used to have a good relationship with his wife. You should be more careful in the future."
The brother and sister exchanged a glance and nodded in agreement.
The car started up quickly; it was their turn to clear the way today, a task that wasn't easy.
In addition, in order to arrive at the agreed location on time, the team must travel 100 kilometers today.
This goal can be considered quite challenging.
Luo Yonghui: "Young Jiang, can you still hold on?"
Jiang Shu patted his chest. "Very good. Uncle Luo, just tell me what you need."
"Use your abilities to check the situation ahead, and try to find the weak points. I'll have Ah Liang and the others clear the way."
Jiang Shu: "It's nothing."
His eyes, combined with his sister's dashboard, can eliminate more than 90% of dangers.
The hill wasn't very high, and although it was a slope, the road was fairly smooth.
Apart from some low-level mutated beasts that can dig holes and some mutated plants that pose little threat, I didn't see any special mutated creatures.
Jiang Shu pointed to a place ahead, "The road over there is relatively smooth, so the vehicle will suffer less damage if we start from there. But there seems to be a mutated plant over there that can attack people, and I reckon it's quite powerful."
Whether it would attack people or not, Jiang Shu didn't know; this was purely a hint given by Jiang Zhi.
Chen Shaoting laughed and said, "As long as it doesn't chase after people, there's nothing to be afraid of."
As he spoke, he and Yan Liang flipped onto the roof of the car. Yan Liang took out a prop and made a gesture in front of them, and a 50-meter cube-shaped barrier immediately covered the area in front of them.
Sparks flew from Chen Shaoting's hand, and then a fire dragon surged out, burning all the mutated plants that Yan Liang had just covered.
The whole process took only fifteen minutes.
Jiang Shu stared in disbelief at their masterpiece, utterly impressed.
It turns out that Chen Shaoting has fire-based superpowers.
The heat of the fire was palpable even through the car window.
Wu Bing glanced at the brother and sister, "So, how about it? Isn't our team's Fire Rose amazing?"
Jiang Shu nodded repeatedly, sincerely saying, "Amazing!"
Sure enough, these mutants who spend their lives fighting in the wild are quite powerful; their lethality is simply phenomenal.
Jiang Zhi assessed Chen Shaoting's condition.
Upon discovering that the other party expended a considerable amount of mental energy to unleash their special ability, he immediately felt reassured.
It seems that the mental energy pools of the mutants in the base are generally not very large.
I don't know if it has anything to do with their usual training methods.
Before long, the area ahead was charred black, revealing a flat slope.
The thick smoke that rose up was sucked in by Chen Shaoting using a special golden item called a "mutated snail".
Apart from the area that was burned black, it did not startle the mutated creatures in the surrounding area.
Chen Shaoting nimbly climbed back into the car through the window. "Any more problems ahead?"
Chen Shaoting's hair was still red after she released her supernatural power, and you could feel the heat emanating from her even from a short distance away.
Jiang Shu swallowed hard and said, "No, that's all."
Luo Yonghui nodded, "Okay, just proceed with the road as usual."
What Luo Yonghui meant by "clearing the way" was actually simply running over these mutated plants with a vehicle.
Knowing there was nothing to scrape the car's undercarriage ahead, Wu Bing chuckled, "I'm the best at clearing roads. If I, Old Wu, say I'm second, nobody dares to say they're first."
These words gave Jiang Shu a bad feeling.
He instinctively gripped the door handle tightly.
Sure enough, the car shot off with a whoosh the next second.
The vehicles they use all have mufflers installed on their engines.
No matter how hard the motor starts,
There was no sound.
The mutated weeds ahead were 1.7 to 1.8 meters tall, and were directly run over by the modified off-road vehicle.
The scraping sound coming from the chassis could be clearly heard inside the car.
The ginger tree was so shaken that it felt dizzy, and the scraping sound made its teeth ache; the experience was simply excruciating.
He couldn't help but ask, "Uncle Wu, won't the chassis break down driving like that?"
Wu Bing laughed, "Don't worry, the chassis of these vehicles are all processed with special metals at the base, they're not that easy to break!"
Jiang Shu covered his mouth, looking pale, afraid that he would be jolted to the point of vomiting.
I only regret that becoming a mutant didn't improve my motion sickness.
The car sped all the way to the top of the mountain.
The car behind was following closely behind.
Once they reached the top, Wu Bing found a relatively flat spot and stopped.
The mutated wild grass on the hilltop is much taller than that at the foot of the hill.
Even the cars are being buried in these leaves.
Chen Shaoting and Yan Liang cleared out a small area.
Everyone got off the car.
A member of the neighboring team jumped onto the roof of the vehicle to check the situation.
The top of the hill was larger than anyone could have imagined.
Most of it was covered by dense weeds, which stretched all the way to a kilometer away from them.
There are a few crooked old locust trees growing over there.
The mutated old locust tree is seven or eight meters thick.
The three trees were tightly intertwined, appearing to have completely merged into one. Their bark was wrinkled and black, and their withered branches were coiled into knots at the bottom. Vines grew wildly around the scar-like tree holes, and even from a distance, they still seemed ridiculously large.
Two kilometers outside these three old locust trees, not a blade of grass grows, not even a weed reaching ankle-deep; only bare earth remains, looking quite eerie.
Jiang Zhi always felt that these old locust trees were not easy to deal with.
However, the dashboard only displays a yellow warning indicating that it is harmless.
While they were pondering, several soldiers got off the vehicle and prepared to scout ahead.
etc……
yellow?
Jiang Zhi realized what was happening.
Something's wrong with this locust tree!
Just as alarm bells were ringing in her mind, the young soldier closest to Jiang Zhi stepped onto the barren land.
At the same time, the mutated locust tree, which was originally displayed as yellow on the dashboard, suddenly turned red!
"—Beep, Level 6 mutated locust tree detected. Possessing the ability Earth Burial. Do not enter the protected area of the mutated locust tree! Do not enter the protected area of the mutated locust tree!"
In the blink of an eye, the bare, flat land suddenly rippled like a lake with stones thrown in.
Jiang Zhi's pupils contracted.
Before everyone could react, Jiang Zhi instinctively pulled the young soldier back.
The next instant, a huge wave of mud suddenly rose from where the young soldier was, but he missed because of Jiang Zhi.
The "mud lake" that had been missed suddenly began to boil like water, with the soil around the locust tree churning and swirling, the hard earth flowing like water at that moment.
Huang Xianming shouted, "Back off!!!"
After everyone realized what was happening, they quickly retreated several meters.
Fortunately, the strange mud lake did not attack any creatures outside the open area.
The group remained on high alert for a moment, and only breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the muddy lake slowly return to calm and show no signs of further attack.
Jiang Zhi looked at the young soldier, "Comrade, are you alright?"
Luo Yuan was still shaken, his face pale with the shock of a near-death experience. "Thank you, Comrade Jiang. If it weren't for you, I probably would have been buried alive by that dirt."
Jiang Zhi smiled at him.
Huang Xianming released his spiritual energy into the muddy lake with a solemn expression, but found nothing.
Luo Yonghui frowned. "This place is very strange. It must be those locust trees that are causing this."
High-level mutated plants often employ attack methods that are far more unpredictable and bizarre than those of mutated beasts.
Fortunately, most mutated plants cannot leave the ground, so as long as they are far enough away, they will not be attacked.
Huang Xianming nodded and instructed his soldiers, "Don't go any closer, go in the other direction."
The west side was completely covered by mutated locust trees, so the group had to change direction.
Perhaps it's because of this mutated locust tree.
Although this area is quite large, apart from a few mutated locust trees, there are only weeds that are one or two meters tall.
Huang Xianming suggested splitting into three groups to explore other directions.
At this moment, Gu Kaizhi suggested, "I remember that Captain Luo has an ability user with enhanced eyes. Why don't we have him take a look at the money situation?"
Jiang Shu opened his mouth, about to speak, but Luo Yonghui stopped him: "Okay, but my teammate is only a level one mutant. I'm afraid he'll use his abilities too much and won't be able to keep up with the pace on the road. How about this, if the team can provide people, each team can take turns providing Speed Yuan Cakes, how about that?"
Gu Kaizhi's lips stiffened slightly.
He glanced at Jiang Shu and finally agreed. "Okay."
Upon receiving a Suyuan cake, Jiang Shu was overjoyed.
After a period of mental training, his mental strength recovered faster than that of an average person.
It's fair to say he made a profit by getting this Suyuan cake.
With benefits in hand, people are more motivated to work.
Jiang Shu glanced around and said to Luo Yonghui, "Captain, we can go north. I saw an abandoned gas station over there."
Upon hearing that it was a gas station, everyone perked up immediately.
Even now, gasoline remains an important strategic resource.
Putting everything else aside, the thing they prepared most in their spacecraft for this mission was gasoline.
Luo Yonghui asked Lin Yuan, "Team Leader Lin?"
Lin Yuan nodded: "Let's go north."
As soon as he got in the car, Wu Bing said, "Young Jiang, you're something else, you've really given our captain face."
Jiang Shu took a bite of the Suyuan cake and chuckled, "No problem at all."
The mountaintop was covered in wild grass, and several jeeps drove over it.
The downhill road is much steeper than the uphill road.
To avoid the road becoming slippery on the downhill slope, everyone had to get out of the car again to add snow chains to the tires.
It's clear that almost everyone in Luo Yonghui's team has car repair skills.
They must have received standardized training.
Jiang Zhi watched as the group quickly put on snow chains and installed bulldozer blades on the vehicle to prevent them from hitting obstacles on the way down the mountain.
I couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
—Those who can stand out among the many exploration teams are no pushovers.
These are all skills honed through years of hard work and survival in the wild; their survival techniques are top-notch.
It was ten minutes later when the car started again.
This time, Huang Xianming led the way.
The bulldozer blade in front of the truck was like a giant iron maw, gnawing at the roots of the bushes on the downhill road, and the gravel it kicked up rolled down the slope with a crackling sound.
The wheels slipped, emitting black smoke, and the car body tilted almost vertically.
Wu Bing slammed his feet on the brakes, sweat dripping onto the steering wheel. Tools in the trunk rattled loudly, and dust mixed with bits of grass kicked up from behind the car fell back down.
This journey was even more dangerous than the ascent, and it took even longer.
After descending the mountain, it was already 7 a.m.
By the time the cart reached level ground, Wu Bing was covered in sweat.
However, this is not the time to rest yet.
They happened to be located on a highway.
The rusty guardrails were crooked and twisted, the asphalt road surface was bulging and cracked, covered with sticky wisteria vines, and there was a half-overturned bus by the roadside, with fuzzy green mold growing on the windows, and a red flower the size of a washbasin stuck in the shards of the windshield, its petals opening and closing as if panting.
This wilderness is so magical, it's like a scene from a 3D movie. Compared to this, the environment inside the base is like an ivory tower.
From the tangled branches and leaves, they could see a dilapidated service area about 1,500 meters away.
At the foot of the mountain, the gas station was surprisingly submerged in a variety of mutated plants.
The surroundings were so quiet that only the chirping of insects could be heard.
Lin Yuan glanced at it indifferently, picked up the walkie-talkie, and said, "Go over there."
The car restarted.
Even though the engine had been fitted with a muffler, the low-frequency "ticking" sound was still particularly jarring in this place full of mutated creatures.
The group arrived at the dilapidated service area.
The sign at the entrance was completely covered by ivy, making the words illegible.
The gas pump sat slumped in a patch of overgrown foxtail grass. From the outside, the convenience store glass was cracked like a spiderweb, and you could vaguely see the shelves inside piled up like dominoes.
It was quiet all around.
Huang Xianming got off the car first.
Their jeep had been modified so that the back seat could accommodate seven or eight people, each of whom was now holding a gun and standing guard.
It's clear that they all work together very well.
Veteran Zhou Tian was the first to move in, following the rusty service area sign, his camouflage pants rustling as they were caught on the thorns.
He hadn't walked two steps when he smelled a strange odor of rotting flesh mixed with engine oil wafting from the service area. He gripped his assault rifle tighter and glanced at the convenience store window out of the corner of his eye.
"Watch out on the right!" Just as the walkie-talkie crackled to life, a spider the size of an adult boar suddenly darted out of the green belt.
Its eight legs were hairy, with grayish spider webs clinging to their joints. Its fangs gleamed coldly, and its belly was bulging, with patterns resembling moldy old cotton wool.
When Zhou Tian met the mutated spider's fist-sized eyelid, his scalp tingled.
The next instant, the mutated spider arched its back and sprayed sticky white silk from its rear end towards Zhou Tian.
Li Qi, who was covering him from behind, pulled the trigger directly, and the recoil made his shoulder go numb.
Even after being silenced, the gun's power remained unchanged; the bullet pierced the spider's swollen abdomen with a "plop," like a balloon bursting.
The dark purple liquid splattered out, splashing onto the metal of the gas pump with a sticky "splat" sound.
The mutated spider's eight legs quickly twitched and curled into a ball, and the mold-like patterns on its abdomen slowly spread.
Seeing that the mutated spider had stopped breathing, Zhou Tian breathed a sigh of relief.
Just as he stepped forward to clean up the mess, three palm-sized beetles suddenly burst through the mutated spider's abdomen and flew towards his face!
Zhou Tian instinctively drew his dagger and held it to his face.
The beetle made a "clang" sound when it touched the dagger.
Li Qi, standing to the side, instructed the people behind him:
"Get ready, you dog!"
The young man called Gouzi spat out a stream of icy water, instantly freezing the three beetles.
After doing all that, the group carefully circled around again, and only after finding no further threats did they let the others follow.
The group worked together seamlessly.
Ordinary people can easily see the shadow of special forces in these people.
Jiang Zhi stared intently at him.
Seeing her interest, Chen Shaoting said, "Colonel Huang's men must be very powerful, right?"
Jiang Zhi nodded vigorously. "Very impressive!"
That skill is truly impressive.
Chen Shaoting laughed and said, "This team isn't all mutants. See the guy at the front? His name is Li Qi. He used to be a top soldier in the special forces."
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