In the first mission, Gong Lixin killed all the zombies of Yangjia Village, and they then turned Yangjia Village into a safe and plant-based supply base for growing fruits and vegetables.
The military was inspired to develop an operational plan for a city surrounded by the countryside. It took three or four months to clear up the towns and villages around the base, which enabled the safe areas to expand rapidly. The base also officially became self-sufficient. It was a virtuous circle where they no longer had to worry about food issues.
When the stomach was full, life would be settled. The Gong family base became the Garden of Eden in the minds of survivors, attracting many people to come and live there. The team of ability users had also expanded rapidly in just one year. From the original groups of ten to groups of twenty or thirty people.
The members of each group experienced changes due to death, internal conflict and other reasons. But no matter how many times the other groups changed, Gong Lixin’s group still consisted of the original ten people. No one was killed, no one was willing to quit and, following Gong Lixin for life was the common wish of the members.
On a certain day, the military released a new mission, hoping that the team could delve into the city center, to collect fuel from the fuel banks and transport it back to the base. Since the problem of food was solved, it did not mean that all problems had been solved. The problem of fuel had to be solved to continue base operations. A month ago, Lin Mao had warned everybody about the fuel shortage; generators, pumps, helicopters, vehicles and other tools could not be operated. It was as if the base had returned to ancient times where they worked by fire.
The fuel depot for the petrochemical group was located in the eastern suburbs. It was not too close to the city center, but not too far away either. There were more zombies in that surrounding area than in the towns and villages. There were a few second-class zombies with strong abilities. From what the base had experienced, for the most difficult tasks to be successful, a single ability user team was not enough. It took a few teams to work together to create opportunities to fetch the materials. These opportunities were small and the risks were high.
The military also knew that this task was arduous, thus they greatly increased the task reward. In addition to access to enough food and daily necessities, each team would be rewarded with the crystal nucleus of a second-level high-grade zombie.
The second-level zombies appeared as early as six months ago, but second-level high-grade zombies were rare. If one got a crystal nucleus of the corresponding property, it was not difficult for them to break through to second-level high-grade. To be able to break through the first-level low-grade, one needed to absorb five to six hundred nuclei of first-level zombies. The number of first level nuclei needed to break through to the middle-grade would be doubled and the amount needed to advance to first-level high-grade would be ten thousand crystal nuclei.
How long and how much energy would it take for a person to kill tens of thousands of zombies? The difficult road to advancement had discouraged most of the ability users, causing them to stay at first-level mid-grade. But as long as there was a second-level crystal nucleus, the ability user could be directly promoted to second-level, becoming one of the top masters in the base.
The reward from the military was tempting and many ability users began to move about, but the team leaders were still waiting to see, so they all focused on their group leader.
When the military released the task, Gong Lixin was in his room with Wang Tao and Gu Nan. With his eidetic memory, he ruthlessly beat the two hundreds of times in the card game and both their faces were green and blue due to losing so often.
After playing for more than two hours, they hadn’t even won once. They didn’t know why Big Brother Lin and Major General Song liked to play with Young Master Gong. Were they masochists? Wang Tao and Gu Nan secretly fumed.
Once again, Wang Tao and Gu Nan threw away their cards in their hands and dared to say ’I’m not playing anymore’ when Gong Lixin’s communicator rang.
"The military released a new task. I will go pick it up." Gong Lixin looked at the mission information on his phone as he said so to the two. Father Gong was the highest commander in the base. In Gong Lixin’s view, the tasks handed out by the military was a task handed out by Father Gong. As a filial child, Gong Lixin wouldn’t hesitate to pick it up every time.
Knowing this, Father Gong didn’t know whether to feel moved or feel distressed. "Alright, go ahead. I will inform the others." Wang Tao was so relieved that he was gone. Gu Nan also wanted to go, but when he met Young Master Gong’s eyes, he quickly went to pick up the scattered cards on the table and carefully put it into the box. Seeing this, Gong Lixin left with a satisfied expression.
Soon, the news that Young Master Gong took a new task spread through the base. Then, as expected, a second and third group also received the task.
Young Master Gong was responsible for pulling the monsters and defeating them; thus the safety factor of the task would be greatly improved. The other five groups quickly rushed to the military to receive the task, wanting to follow so they could get Young Master Gong’s leftovers. It was a pity that the military department didn’t allow eight groups to work at the same time so they could avoid a situation where all the ability users were annihilated. The sixth and eighth team leaders who had arrived at the military first were lucky enough to grab the last two places.
In the early morning of the next day, the military sent five transport armoured vehicles to transport the five groups to the eastern suburbs safely. In front of the parking lot, the members of the five groups were ready and were only waiting to depart. The five group leaders were gathered together and the final briefing of the task was being held.
"Our group is responsible for fuel tank No.1 and No. 2. The third group is responsible for No.3 and No.4. The sixth group is responsible for No.5 and No.6. The eighth group is responsible for No. 7 and No. 8. The last group is responsible for clearing the zombies in the surrounding area. You have two hours. After two hours, you must gather at the door and evacuate immediately, understand?" Song Haoran pointed at the man and carefully explained.
"Understood." The team leaders nodded.
"Very good, let’s go! Lixin, we have fifteen people and with the ten people in your group, we can get together in one truck. Let’s go," said Song Haoran, as he took hold of Gong Lixin’s shoulder.
Gong Lixin nodded and signalled his team members to get on the truck. Looking at the backs the intimate duo, Lin Wenbo habitually soothed the tingling pain in his heart and walked to the next truck.
Song Haoran’s team originally had ten members, but later, five people joined half a month ago. These five people used to be special force’s soldiers in B provincial military region and their strengths were between first-level mid-grade and second-level mid-grade. Song Haoran appreciated their righteousness and their self-discipline as a soldier and made an exception to recruit them to his team.
Twenty-five people sat face-to-face, on both sides of the truck and the small, empty space made people feel quite bored.
When there were no tasks, Gong Lixin mostly cultivated in his room. In his spare time, he didn’t organize his people to go hunting and killing zombies to collect nuclei. Because the number of nuclei they collected during a mission was enough and, unlike the group next to them, there were always leftovers. Therefore, he spent his time on the base easily and his group had become an existence that the other seven groups loved and hated. Loved them because if they had a mission with them, their safety factor was high; hated them because as long as they were there, the nuclei wouldn’t go to any other people. Their fighting methods were too ferocious and they didn’t even fear zombies anymore.
Therefore, although the five people had come to their base half a month ago, it was their first time actually meeting Gong Lixin. They were very curious about the legendary existence who was the strongest person in the base. From time to time, they would look at the young teenager’s little face with doubt and suspicion in their eyes.
Gong Lixin, who was chatting with Song Haoran, had noticed the five people looking at him and turned to them with a smile.
The youth’s temperament was good, his face was handsome. His pair of dark eyes were very clear and held no darkness or sinister intentions that were common in the apocalypse. It made people feel uncomfortable at first glance. Especially when he laughed and his round cat-like eyes bent up into crescent shapes, making him look pitiful and cute. The bright eyes seemed to contain stars and even the souls of people would be illuminated within.
Five people had flushed cheeks and they couldn’t help but smile back. They secretly thought ’such a boy who was as clean and clear as snow and ice, should be guarded and carefree. He should not be like the peerless powerhouses from the legends and be made to fight hundreds of enemies.’
Reluctant to retract their stares, the five people turned to look at the members of Young Master Gong’s team while keeping the expression on their faces neutral. These nine people didn’t look like average second-level ability users.
Da Liu, who looked boorish and whose face was covered by the unkempt beard, and Ling Yin, who had a sexy body and a glamorous appearance were sitting intimately in a corner, sometimes kissing, sometimes holding hands. They were the very example of the expression ’a flower that was put on top of cow dung’. They hurt passerby’s eyes, and whoever looked over in their direction didn’t want to look twice.
Gu Nan carefully wiped the two blades in his hand and even the nooks and crannies weren’t even missed. His expression was gentle as if it was something precious. These two blades were given to him by Gong Lixin. Although he had the wind ability, it may have been the way he triggered it, but without these two blades, the wind blade he released couldn’t even kill a mosquito. However, with these two blades in hand, he immediately turned into a killing master and was dubbed by other ability users as the ’Blade Warrior’. If you thought of it that way, it was not hard to imagine why the care given to his two blades were better than how one would treat their wife.
Ma Jun and Wang Tao were talking loudly about a beautiful girl with a good temperament in the base. When they talked about her racks, they burst into snickers as they mentioned ’swaying and sex appeal’. There was no one to reprimand them and their attitude became even more outrageous.
Luo Dahai slept on Sun Tiantian’s shoulder and the loud snoring echoed throughout the truck. Sun Tiantian had a bitter expression as she held a hand to his face and constantly helped him wipe his saliva so that her shoulder wouldn’t get wet, but it looked like even the gods couldn’t help her out of this predicament.
Li Dongsheng held a philosophical book in his hand. He didn’t care about the swaying and dim light of the truck. He was very concentrated on reading. If one changed the scene into that of a library, he would be the model of a college student with excellent academic performance.
At the age of eleven, Xiao Sun Jie, who was only 122cm tall, quietly snuggled up next to his sister, holding a can of milk in his hand and drinking it with gusto. Unfortunately, the road was rugged outside and the truck suddenly shook quite a bit, causing the can to buckled over, splashing his neck with milk. This would dye his upper lip and form a milk moustache. He immediately jumped up and wiped himself in a hurry, his expression panicked.
The group of people was easily the epitome of laziness and seemed like they weren’t even going out on a mission, but more like they were going on an outing. Thus, the corner of the eyes and mouths of the five new people twitched at the sight.
After seeing this group of team members and thinking about the mission arrangement of Song Haoran before they left, the five people felt troubled and worried. They hesitated for a long time before one of them looked at Song Haoran and hesitantly asked, "Leader, this group of ten people will be responsible for clearing the surrounding zombies. Won’t this task be too difficult? To ensure everyone’s safety, should we send two more people to help the group?"
His voice just fell and the old team members of Song Haoran group had a sly smile on their face. Where do they need to support such a brutal group? If zombies also had emotions, the sorrows of zombies who fell by that group’s hands would surely flow like a river.
Song Haoran also had a sly smile as he rubbed the top of Gong Lixin’s hair. He said, "No, Lixin will be able to handle it."
"Hn, you only have to go in and look for fuel and don’t have to worry about a thing." Gong Lixin added.
He had a calm tone and expression. It seemed to be very reassuring and had a certain magical power to it. Five people unconsciously smiled at him and felt embarrassed to ask again.
Seeing that the armoured vehicles force into the city, from time to time, some evolved zombies would rush over and scratch the steel plates out the car with the knife-like nails. There were many second-level zombies whose pupils had changed once again by their evolution and watched them closely. The hearts of the five people hung in the air and they felt uncertain. They thought: Thousands of evolved zombies are around the fuel depot. Would ten people be enough?