Chapter 82: At Last, He Could Sleep Peacefully
The location of Shelter Number One was revealed.
Shelter Number One had been built west of the Qinling Mountains. Under ordinary circumstances, it could be reached by plane or high-speed rail in half a day.
But earthquakes, landslides, and the like had rendered all such transportation useless.
In other words, if they wanted to get there, they would have to rely on their own two legs and on boats.
Along the way, they would have to cross the Yangtze, the Yellow River, and countless flood zones, not to mention the mutant creatures that kept emerging from time to time.
“Can you make it there before the blizzard arrives?” Su Miao asked, glancing at the camouflage uniform on Qin Longzhang.
“We cannot guarantee that,” Qin Longzhang said calmly, “but we will definitely deliver you to Shelter Number One. There, you will be in the safest place in the country.”
Su Miao shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean... after the blizzard arrives, the weather will become extremely cold. If you go like this, you’ll freeze to death.”
Qin Longzhang said, “Rest assured. We have supply stations along the planned route, otherwise we would not have been able to reach this place so smoothly.”
“All right,” Su Miao said.
She could feel it: Qin Longzhang and the others had not come here for something as simple as they claimed.
More than that, merely seeing them stirred a sense of trust in her by instinct.
It was a very strange feeling.
Qin Longzhang handed her the waterproof documents. “You should rest first. Once the situation outside stabilizes, we’ll leave.”
Su Miao nodded and took Xia Xiaoan to the room prepared for them.
At last, there was a chance to rest properly here.
“Sister, they sacrificed fifteen people to come here and pick you up,” Xia Xiaoan said softly after closing the door.
Su Miao shuddered. She patted Xia Xiaoan’s head. “Mm. Rest first. You were seriously injured just now—you nearly died.”
Xia Xiaoan nodded. “Mm.”
Clean, unopened camouflage uniforms had been placed in the room.
They had clearly been prepared by Qin Longzhang and the others after seeing that both Su Miao and Xia Xiaoan were soaked in blood.
Since taking things out of her magical space might cause unnecessary trouble, Su Miao took off her coat and changed into the camouflage uniform.
She glanced at herself in the mirror. Not bad at all.
The last time she had worn camouflage was during university military training.
Though most of the time, she had spent that training sheltered in the shade of a tree, watching everyone else.
Later, perhaps because the sun had become too enthusiastic, a classmate set up a divination altar on the playground to pray for rain, and a torrential downpour lasted for two and a half days, leaving everyone to undergo military training in the rain for two and a half days.
It was worth mentioning that the fabric of the camouflage uniform she was wearing now was of an entirely different quality from the one used in military training. The old one had always felt prickly and itchy, while this set was wonderfully comfortable.
Setting her thoughts aside, Su Miao looked at Xia Xiaoan.
The camouflage uniform on Xia Xiaoan had obviously been hastily folded and altered.
As before, it was very loose on her and did not affect her much.
The pants fit her just right, though they made her look a good deal bulkier.
Xia Xiaoan fell asleep on the bed.
Su Miao simply wrapped herself in a blanket on the sofa and slept as well.
These past few days had been filled with the madmen from the company, mutant creatures, and the utterly perverse Chi Wanting; she had not slept well even once.
...
The defensive line of the temporary safe zone.
From time to time, large mutant rats, mutant beetles, and similar creatures still threw themselves against the defenses, though their numbers had decreased greatly.
The special forces soldiers felt much less pressure.
They fired now and then, their bullets striking true every time, killing the mutant creatures that charged at them with precision.
From a high vantage point, one could see the ground covered with mutant corpses everywhere, packed so densely they were chilling to behold.
These mutant creatures possessed a certain intelligence. Seeing that they could not break through the temporary safe zone, they simply shifted their target to the mutant corpses on the ground.
After all, the living two-legged animals in the temporary safe zone looked delicious enough—but they were dangerous.
At the very least, the ones that had just fallen still moved; they were hardly any different from the living.
Thus the poisoned mutant creatures grew more and more numerous, and died more and more quickly.
If Chi Wanting could have been resurrected and seen this scene, she would surely have cursed again: “Witch, your mother—”
According to the plan Chi Wanting had devised, the bait that attracted mutant creatures would be spread out, luring all the nearby mutants to gather and slaughter everyone in the tourist area, turning the place into a hell utterly devoid of life.
That would make her stronger.
Even if she could not reap the final harvest, she could still relish the hellish scene of bones piled high.
Who could have guessed that the highly toxic hallucinogenic potion Su Miao had hurled out would be so terrifying? It did indeed attract all the mutant creatures, but it also made them die even faster.
Standing on high ground, Qin Longzhang surveyed the entire tourist area.
He noticed two centers where the mutant animals were dying:
One was near the ruins of Villa Number 36, where Su Miao lived.
The other was around the company logistics facility by the parking lot.
If nothing had gone wrong, those were the places where Xiong Hui and Lu Xuechuan had said they had poisoned the company supplies.
The people from the Demon Company had had no time to deal with the poison after the incident.
Now it had all fallen into the lap of the mutant creatures that had broken into the tourist area.
Seeing so many mutant creatures dead in heaps, not a single disaster victim dared speak ill of Su Miao again.
Qin Longzhang lowered his binoculars, deeply shaken.
At the same time, he attached even greater importance to the mission he bore.
According to Su Miao’s prophecy, humanity would one day face unimaginable insect plagues and beast tides.
What had happened in this tourist area was merely a small foretaste of that future. Even on this scale, it was already unimaginably terrifying.
Without Su Miao’s poisonous potion, the disaster victims here would likely all have fallen prey to the mutant creatures.
Her toxic potion would hold immense strategic significance for humanity’s survival through the insect plagues and beast tides.
“Instructor,” the soldier responsible for observation said, “by tomorrow, the mutant creatures in the tourist area should be almost dead.”
“Good. Once this disaster passes, we’ll withdraw from here.”
Qin Longzhang lowered the binoculars, then turned to the soldier beside him and asked, “Have the representatives of the disaster victims been found?”
The young soldier said, “Instructor, they’ve already been found.”
Qin Longzhang nodded. “Then call them together for a meeting.”
A few minutes later, Qin Longzhang met the representatives of the disaster victims in a crude conference room.
There were Chang Jieming and Song Yourang from the security team, Tang Ke, the dean of discipline for the student group, three village representatives, and five other group representatives.
“Has Fei Chengqiang not arrived?”
Qin Longzhang checked the roster of representatives and found one person missing from the meeting.
The several representatives exchanged looks.
A soldier went out to inquire, and a few minutes later returned. “Instructor, Fei Chengqiang and the others are nowhere to be found.”
Qin Longzhang frowned.
At that moment, Song Yourang said, “Sir, this Fei Chengqiang gathered a gang in the tourist area to rob the weak, the old, and the children. He burned, killed, kidnapped, and plundered—there’s no evil he wouldn’t do.”
“You can ask the surviving disaster victims about that.”
“He must have fled because he was afraid of being punished by you.”
...
At that time, Fei Chengqiang had brought five brothers and taken a side path to flee out of the tourist area.
At first he had wanted to incite the disaster victims and use Qin Longzhang’s power to punish the murderous witch Su Miao, but he had never imagined things would change so quickly.
Inside this tourist area, he was not afraid of the security team wanting to kill him, nor of Song Yourang wanting to kill him.
Raise your voice a little, frighten the disaster victims, weave a few lies, and maybe he could still trick Qin Longzhang and the others.
But Su Miao wanted to kill him too.
Once the heavy rain began, he had thoroughly offended her.
And from the look of things now, Qin Longzhang and the others had clearly come for Su Miao.
That left him no way to fool Qin Longzhang. Once his earlier deeds were exposed, he would certainly be punished.
Still, when it came to running, Fei Chengqiang had to thank Su Miao.
Without Su Miao killing so many mutant creatures, he truly would not have dared lead his brothers out of the tourist area.
The mutant animals near the tourist area had basically all been drawn here, then poisoned to death in swathes; all they had to do was force their way through a pile of mutant corpses.
The only problem at present was food.
Thus, they gathered their courage and made their way to the logistics cafeteria by the parking lot.
“Boss, that murderous witch is terrifying. She didn’t even need to lift a finger, and all those mutant rats just died,” said one of the underlings following Fei Chengqiang, still shaken.
“Don’t touch those mutant rats. Aren’t you afraid they’re poisonous?” another reminded him.
After approaching the parking lot, they saw the bait-blast zone, where a little mountain formed by densely packed mutant rats and mutant beetles stood piled together. They were almost sick enough to vomit on the spot.
“Quit gawking. Move faster,” Fei Chengqiang shouted, leading them into the cafeteria in the logistics area of Chi Wanting’s company. “Search everywhere. Remember to find preserved grain. Anything already opened, don’t take it.”
“Boss, there’s salt here!” one fearless young man cried. At once he dipped a finger in it and put it in his mouth, savoring it with delight.
“Damn it, are you trying to die?” Fei Chengqiang cursed when he saw this idiot.
He had clearly told them not to take opened food, but who knew this fool would not only take it, but eat it too.
“Boss, am I going to die?” The fearless young man’s face fell. He stared at the salt jar in his hand, then at the brothers searching for food around him, and his eyes were nearly brimming with tears.
Yet after waiting for nearly ten minutes, nothing happened to him at all.
“Boss, this salt doesn’t seem to be poisoned!”
Fei Chengqiang and the others exchanged looks, not expecting this fellow to have stumbled upon a dead rat by sheer blind luck.
They had not tasted salt for many days. Without it, they felt terribly uncomfortable.
“Put it away. Consider yourself lucky,” Fei Chengqiang said.
“Boss, there’s monosodium glutamate here too!” the lucky young man shouted.
The others lit up with excitement.
If the salt was fine, then the seasoning surely would be too.
They launched a fierce condemnation of Chi Wanting’s Demon Company, denouncing how decadent it was for a company like that to even have seasoning powder.
“Pack it up!” Fei Chengqiang said. “Once we leave the tourist area, we’ll enjoy ourselves properly tonight! But remember this: not a single grain of any opened food is to be taken. Don’t forget, this place was poisoned.”
“Don’t worry, boss!”
Thinking of a supper with salt and seasoning, the group was all smiles.
About thirty minutes later, Fei Chengqiang and his five brothers left the tourist area in high spirits.
“Murderous witch Su Miao, huh,” he said with a cold laugh.