Chapter 100: Lurking
Screech——
As the cobbled-together convoy drove over a gentle gravel slope, a crude wall built from shipping containers, concrete blocks, and barbed wire appeared up ahead.
The wall had been painted dark gray, with several searchlights mounted at the top. Since it was daytime, they weren't turned on.
As the convoy approached, two gates welded from steel I-beams slowly slid open to both sides, letting out a heavy grinding sound.
Behind the gates stood a dozen or so armed guards in mismatched clothing, but they moved briskly and held positions with clear discipline.
Unlike soldiers from the military, these men didn't carry that iron-blooded, martial bearing.
They looked more like factory security guards or street thugs, each holding his gun in his own idiosyncratic stance.
The only thing they all had in common was the necklace of dark red beads made from an unknown material hanging around each of their necks.
Behind them, heavy machine guns were mounted on several low watchtowers, their dark muzzles watching every target that came near.
Further off, a few Type 96 main battle tanks could even be seen beneath camouflage netting, only their powerful gun barrels visible, radiating a cold breath of death.
leaned half his body out the window and waved at the people by the gate.
The guards clearly knew him. A dark-faced man at the front nodded, signaling to let them through.
The convoy filed in one after another.
leaned back into his seat, his gaze sweeping over the familiar sights outside the window. Only then did the heart that had been hanging in suspense finally settle a little.
Firepower was the true foundation for surviving in this apocalypse.
Since he was back "home," it was at least considerably safer.
But he soon thought of what had just happened, and instinctively glanced at the drone swarm following the convoy outside the window. A knot of unease tightened in his chest again.
"Leopard Head, good haul this time?" A burly, dark-faced guard walked over and slapped 's door.
He was the man who had just signaled for them to pass. Evidently, he and the scar-faced were on good terms.
He was greeting with his hand, but his gaze had already drifted curiously past the convoy, toward the hundred-plus drones hovering at low altitude.
"Ay, Brother Tao!" hastily poked his head out the window and offered a cigarette. "Don't even mention it. We nearly died on the road. This little bit of stuff was bought with our lives."
"Don't give me that, kid," the guard called Brother Tao said, taking the cigarette and tucking it behind his ear, then pointing at the drones in the sky. "Where'd you get so many drones? These things are real treasure!"
Over a hundred drones held a neat formation, hovering about twenty meters above the convoy. Anyone who saw that display couldn't help but take a second look.
"Found them by the roadside. Saw they weren't broken, so I grabbed them." waved a hand, his tone casual.
"You've got lucky stars!" Brother Tao said, envy written all over his face. "With these things, won't your scavenging trips be like having eyes in the sky?"
"Don't get me started, Brother Tao, you don't know—these things guzzle electricity," leaned against the door, complaining with a pained look. "I'm just using them while they still work. Once the power's gone, I'll keep a few and sell the rest."
Brother Tao pondered for a moment, stroking his chin. "When that day comes, sell me a few too. I can trade you diesel for them."
Hearing this, instinctively looked at the drone formation, as if calculating whether it would be worth it.
A few seconds later, two Soldier Bees suddenly broke away from the formation, landed steadily on the ground by the roadside, their rotors spinning to a stop, and sat quietly on the concrete.
Seeing this, reacted fast. He cracked a grin at once, showing a row of teeth yellowed by smoke. "Brother Tao, aren't you being too formal? Every time I come back, I trouble you to open the gate. What are a few drones? Consider these two a thank-you gift. Take them."
"How could I—"
"Take them. Little things, not worth much."
Brother Tao declined a couple of times, but in the end, he accepted with a smile.
"Right on, you're a real brother! Tonight, I'll bring a few good dishes and the two of us will have a proper drink."
"Then I'll be looking forward to it."
After a round of pleasantries, the convoy started up again and continued deeper into the city.
The convoy entered the outer district of . The further they drove, the stronger the sense of order became.
Vehicle wreckage on the road had been pushed to both sides, clearing a two-lane width for passage.
The buildings along the street had quite a few broken windows, but their main structures were essentially intact—none of the common sights of other cities, like structures toppled by enormous force or blown apart from within.
On the main road, a fixed sentry post stood every two to three hundred meters, and both the number of guards and their equipment kept increasing.
Some of the buildings along the road had been converted into warehouses or workshops, with oil drums, planks, and assorted reclaimed materials piled at their entrances.
Occasionally, small groups of civilians could be seen coming and going from the buildings, carrying things or queuing up to receive something.
Around their necks, without exception, hung that string of red beads.
had long grown accustomed to this sight. He'd found it novel the first time he came, but after a while, it stopped being strange.
When it came down to it, as long as you stayed alive, that was enough. What you believed in didn't matter—especially after he learned what these things did. It wasn't strange at all, really. He just found it extravagant.
drove on, his mood considerably lighter.
Although the "Lingxin Cult" that ran this place was somewhat sinister, they genuinely had real strength.
Relying on the massive military stockpiles left by Linwu Heavy Industry, they had swiftly cleared the city in the early days of the disaster and established order.
Apart from here, felt, the whole of probably couldn't produce a second place that could field tanks just to guard its gates.
It wasn't his fault he was pessimistic—in these days of the apocalypse, he had simply seen too many despairing sights.
A stronghold that had taken so much effort to assemble, easily slaughtered to the last by white bird-men who burst in out of nowhere, their bones strung up on iron fences.
Soldiers who had barely managed to rebuild their numbers, swallowed by the endless . A faction he'd traded with just yesterday, already reduced to ruins when he went there today, leaving only an enormous, terrifying silhouette receding into the distant sky.
So, from the bottom of his heart, felt everyone was doomed—it was only a matter of sooner or later.
The convoy drove another five kilometers or so before a second defensive line appeared up ahead.
This one was far more proper than the outer perimeter.
A concrete wall over three meters tall, topped with barbed wire.
On the wall was painted a huge, hard-to-make-out red symbol—something like a pattern, and yet like script, all winding curves and loops. Most people seeing it for the first time would probably find it rather uncanny.
Behind the wall stood guard towers, also fitted with heavy machine guns, their muzzles covering the entire approach lane.
The convoy stopped before the iron gate.
The people who came out from behind the gate were completely different from the guards at the outer perimeter.
Seven or eight men, all bare-chested, their bodies covered in dense tattoos.
Those tattoos weren't the usual azure dragons or white tigers. They were dark red, winding, writhing lines—like worms crawling beneath the skin, or veins surfacing from under the body.
The lines stretched from their spines to their chests, spread from their shoulders to their wrists, and gave off an unnatural luster in the sunlight.
Around their necks hung three strings of red beads—two more than the people outside.
A bald man at the lead raised his hand expressionlessly, and the convoy came to a stop.
Seeing these men, the ease on 's face vanished in an instant, replaced by extreme seriousness.
rolled down his window, picked up a handwritten list from the passenger seat, and handed it out.
The bald man took it, scanned it, then walked a full circle around the convoy, his gaze passing over the truck beds loaded with food and corpses. Only then did he give a slight nod.
Afterward, he raised three fingers.
understood at once. He directed his men to drive the three trucks loaded with food, along with all the trucks carrying corpses, into the inner city.
The remaining vehicles, including 's lead truck, turned around on the spot.
No extra exchange, no pleasantries. The bald man didn't even give a single direct look.
didn't mind. He had long since adapted to these rules—if anything, it was best that nothing came up.
If they really did approach him about joining the church, he wouldn't know how to answer. After all, he was only seeking shelter, not planning to change his faith.
Afterward, the convoy turned around and drove back along the same route to the outer district.
The outer district was the area where "outsiders" like them were allowed to move. The rulers of had divided the city into two sharply distinct layers, inner and outer.
The inner circle was the living area of the believers and the so-called "envoys." Outsiders were not permitted inside.
The outer district was an open zone. As long as you could hand over enough supplies or corpses, you could exchange them for weapons, ammunition, medicine, and the most important thing of all—the redwood bead strings.
These bead strings, made from an unknown wood, carried a mysterious power. As long as you wore them, the vast majority of zombies and mutants that weren't too large would simply ignore your existence.
had been half doubtful when he first got one, until he personally experienced a walking past him from less than two meters away without turning its head even once, as if he didn't exist. Only then did he fully believe.
This was simply the most broken cheat in the apocalypse.
But the effect wasn't permanent. The beads would slowly "volatilize" over time—the red on their surface would gradually fade, and once they turned completely grayish-white, the effect was gone.
Depending on the size of the beads, the effective period ranged anywhere from one week to a month.
So you constantly had to exchange supplies for new bead strings.
That was the operating logic of .
You want protection, you want bead strings—then hand over supplies and zombies.
With this simple, crude, yet highly effective order, together with the believers' formidable military firepower, attracted a flood of survivors fleeing westward from the east, and its population snowballed to seven or eight thousand.
That was easy to understand. Compared with the precarious life outside where every day could be your last, this place—apart from the strange things those in charge believed in—was practically paradise.
***
The convoy returned to a gas station in the outer district that had been converted into a temporary camp—the regular stopping point for 's crew.
A few spare vehicles sat in the yard, barbed wire welded to the perimeter wall—barely enough to count as a safe haven.
"We're home! Unload, then eat!"
jumped out of the vehicle and stretched. His crew members also got out one after another to loosen up.
Some went to light a fire and heat up canned food, others checked the vehicles. The camp suddenly became lively.
" , you think... why does the cult want so many corpses?" During the meal, a young member who had recently joined sidled over while munching on a cracker, his face full of curiosity. "I heard Old Zhou next door say—those believers, they're not... eating the corpses, are they?"
"Shut your stinking mouth!" 's eyes bulged, and he slapped the young man on the back of the head. "Eat when you eat and stop pondering that rubbish. Say one more crazy thing and I'll throw you out myself!"
The young man shrank his neck and didn't dare make another sound.
To the side, on the camp's open ground, the drone swarm sat quietly.
silently listened to their whole conversation. Through his optical lenses, he took in everything inside .
Yet in his field of vision, the entire city remained shrouded in boundless red fog, visibility no more than a few dozen meters.
But these people carried on as if nothing were wrong, speeding through the dense fog, lighting fires, cooking.
And besides this one abnormality, there were even more bizarre things in the sky.
The drone's camera slowly tilted upward, piercing through the thinning fog, gazing higher.
At about thirty meters of altitude, the fog grew even denser.
And deep within that fog, thick as blood, something was moving.
It was a translucent, dark red creature.
Its body was enormous—the diameter of its bell canopy was estimated at over three meters—and it resembled a giant jellyfish.
Countless fine, thread-like tentacles hung from the edge of its bell, slowly stretching and contracting in the air.
With every "breath," thousands upon thousands of gossamer filaments shot out from the tips of the tentacles, instantaneously stabbing into the surrounding fog, then snapping back like lightning.
Fully seven of them were within 's visible range. He guessed there were more deeper in the fog.
They were like sea mines suspended above the city, and those filaments that kept shooting out and retracting were probably the culprits that had caused the drones to lose contact before.
But the strange thing was, these airborne "jellyfish" deliberately avoided the humans moving below.
Not only that—this time, not a single filament had shot toward his drones.
It seemed that, owing to having come in together with these people, 's drones had been recognized as friendlies as well.
Some kind of air defense system with friend-or-foe identification? Interesting.
And what cared about most in this place at the moment was still those corpses sent into the inner city.
The quantity was considerable, and this was clearly a routine, ongoing collection.
What were they used for?
That question had no answer for now, but he was quite sure this was probably a ticking time bomb.
At this moment, a bold guess was taking shape in 's consciousness.
Just then, the urgent screech of brakes and a woman's wailing broke the stillness of the factory.
The truck that had driven into the inner city had returned.
A plainly dressed woman jumped out of the passenger seat before the truck had even fully stopped. She scrambled, stumbling, to and burst into heart-rending sobs.
" ! ! Please, help me!"
frowned. "What happened? Tell me slowly!"
" ... they've taken my !" The woman clutched 's pant leg in despair, her fingernails whitening from the force. "They said... they said has the potential to become a ' ,' and they kept her! , what am I supposed to do?! Please, think of a way to save her!"
"What?!" At this, shot to his feet.