Chapter 187 - 166, Mutated Cow_1
After breakfast, Wu Heng saw off Wen Mansha, who had stayed overnight.
Wen Mansha was still somewhat ashamed of the assassination from the day before, after all, she was the one who provided the information about the wanted criminal.
However, this incident wasn’t heavily related to her.
If the assassination was really aimed at her and didn’t occur at this time but at another, it would be more dangerous.
Moreover, last night saw a suitable punishment.
Returning to the living room, Mini and Andre Willow were discussing a serious clean-up of their living quarters that day.
They also wanted to tidy up the front and backyards, planting some flowers and plants.
These few days, Wu Heng had forbidden them from leaving the house, halting the shop operations for a few days as well.
After all, the motive for assassinating one of their own still wasn’t certain.
It was safer for them to stay at home.
He gave them a few instructions before heading directly to the third floor and passing through the boundary door to the Zombie World.
…
Zombie World.
Exiting the office area room.
As he went downstairs, he saw several Alchemy Skeletons.
They had arrived yesterday with the convoy and would be working on alchemy here in the future.
On the third floor, Wu Heng allocated several rooms to the Alchemy Skeletons. All the office furniture inside was removed and replaced with alchemy workbenches.
At the same time, he directed the skeletons to move all the refrigerators and freezers prepared outside and bring them inside.
The refrigerators and freezers were used to store some materials, as well as the concocted potions.
Previous conditions did not permit for this.
Now, with a separate power supply and storage system, coupled with the few people in the prison and the Skeletons not relying on visual senses during their shifts, there was no need for searchlights.
The power inside the prison was more than enough for their basic needs.
Compared to the living conditions in the residential area, this was a significant improvement.
Wu Heng observed as the skeletons brought in and connected the refrigerators and freezers and then instructed them on how to use them.
The Alchemy Skeletons did not talk but they were intelligent and had no issues learning these basic operations.
Once this was all over.
The first Alchemist respectfully handed over two potions made from first-level Corpse Cores.
[Strength-enhancing potion]
(Description: A potion developed from extracted energy from mutated creatures. It has potent enhancement effects on living beings and a slight chance to awaken bloodline power.)
Wu Heng took the potions and directly put them into his storage space.
He didn’t plan to use these two potions immediately but wanted to use them as rewards, distributing them to Li Yahong and Wen Mansha.
The two of them had different tasks, but their own roles were quite significant.
Both were required to manage a group of people.
Especially Wen Mansha, who despite her low level, managed more than a thousand gang members.
If she didn’t have some substantial power, one day there might be issues.
These potions were perfect for them to use.
Wu Heng then left the office building and went downstairs to the residential area.
In a short while, Li Yahong hurriedly came downstairs.
In her hand was an iPad, on which she had opened a digital map, saying, “I found an offline version of the digital map in here.”
Wu Heng took it and flicked through it. Many features couldn’t be used, only the map page could be zoomed in and out, displaying roads and shops.
He tried to search for gold shops, but there was no response.
It appeared it couldn’t be used.
Li Yahong pointed at several locations, “These areas are shopping centers and pedestrian streets where resources are concentrated.”
Wu Heng nodded.
The map could only display some of the buildings and names in the city area.
The search function couldn’t be used either.
Li Yahong pointed at several places, “These locations are shopping centers, grain and oil stores, and can be swept for a lot of resources.”
Wu Heng nodded again.
This digital map was indeed useful, at least it provided clear marking for the environment and roads in the surrounding area.
After some thought, he asked her again, “When you have time, confirm the locations of some of the gold shops and silverware stores.”
“Oh, okay.” Li Yahong responded, and then continued, “Wasn’t it said that we could announce our acceptance of survivors on the radio broadcast? Wang Ke has said her grandmother’s village is nearby. She wanted to ask if you could go and check.”
Wang Ke!
Wu Heng still had some memory of her.
She was the intern saved from the hospital by him.
She was also the first survivor rescued by him and Li Yahong.
Thinking for a while, Wu Heng said, since the plan for the day was to scour for resources, it didn’t matter where they went. They could gather resources from peripheral villages and towns just as well.
They could also go and check on her grandmother.
These were not major issues.
“Alright, let the convoy prepare. We’ll go and check on Wang Ke’s grandma today. We don’t know whether she survived or not as it’s been a while. It’ll give Wang Ke some mental preparation.” Wu Heng said directly.
After all, a few months had passed. Even fit young individuals who could survive were few.
The chances of an old lady surviving were even slimmer.
However, since she was a family member of a survivor, they had to go and check. Whether she was alive was up to her luck.
“Okay, I’ll prepare immediately.” Li Yahong gave her agreement and turned to leave.
…
Half an hour later.
A convoy lined up outside the main gate.
Some people were moving necessary supplies into the vehicles, such as food, car repair tools, and spare petrol.
With the increase in manpower and tools becoming complete, things were getting more standardized.
There were five trucks, three commercial vehicles, and one minivan in total.
The front of the trucks was fitted with bumpers and steel spikes, making them look like ferocious hedgehogs.
The commercial vehicles behind were also modified, with steel bars on the windows and a layer of protection added to the outside of the tires to prevent them from being attacked by zombies.
They appeared far safer now.
Wu Heng directed the skeletons to board the trucks while he got into the minivan driven by Li Yahong.
Apart from Li Yahong, inside the van was Wang Ke, wearing anti-stab clothing and a shared bike blue helmet.
Upon seeing Wu Heng get in.
She immediately stood up and bowed, “Your Majesty, thank you for helping me.”
“No problem, in face of difficulties, we help each other.” Wu Heng replied, taking a seat in the passenger seat.
Li Yahong looked over, “Shall we set off?”
“Let’s go!”
Li Yahong nodded, picked up the walkie-talkie, and directly announced the departure.
The gates opened, the convoy started, and directly left the prison, heading into the distance.
After approximately one hour.
More and more zombies were attracted by the noise of the convoy, rushing onto the road from both sides and crashing into the vehicles.
Meanwhile, a sizeable horde of zombies started to form behind.
Bzzz~!
The sound of electric currents echoed.
“Sister Hong, there are discarded cars blocking the way ahead.” Came a voice from the walkie-talkie.
“Can we ram them?” Li Yahong asked.
“It’s risky, there are too many, we might damage the vehicles.” The voice responded through the walkie-talkie.
Li Yahong looked towards Wu Heng.
Wu Heng said: “Stop the vehicles, exterminate these zombies, then continue to move forward.”
Li Yahong spoke into the walkie-talkie: “Reduce the distances between vehicles, prepare to stop and clear out the zombies. Drivers, lock the doors, stay inside.”
The entire convoy started to close the gaps.
Gradually, they came to a halt in the middle of the road.
Wu Heng turned to the Big Head Skeleton in the backseat and ordered: “Dispatch the skeletons from the vehicles to eliminate the zombies outside.”
Clink! Clank!
All the skeletons jumped off the vehicles.
They advanced to meet the approaching zombie horde head on.
Two waves clashed, the sounds of fighting and raucous roars resounded throughout the entire area.
There were no unexpected events during the fight.
Even the carrier Big Guy, Bawudong and some of the special skeletons did not join the fight.
The levels of the skeleton horde were getting upgraded, and their attributes were also improving.
Given the same numbers, the skeleton horde had higher attributes.
Suddenly, the fight ended.
Li Yahong exited the vehicle, drove a forklift down to clear out the discarded vehicles blocking the way ahead.
Meanwhile, Wu Heng had the skeletons move all the bodies to the sides of the road.
The road cleared quickly.
The convoy restarted, heading forward.
…
It wasn’t until noon.
After clearing out a few incoming waves of zombies on their way, the convoy started to approach the village.
“Sister Hong, we’re about to enter the village market.”
The voice from the walkie-talkie was Qiangzi’s.
The road was getting narrower, limiting the speed of the convoy.
Zombies from both sides of the road lunged towards, and the pounding sound echoed as they hit against the vehicles.
More zombies began to surround the convoy.
Even though it was just a village, the population was much larger compared to the one we saw at the building materials warehouse.
Wu Heng ordered, “Stop. Eliminate the zombies.”
The convoy slowed down and parked on the roadside.
Subsequently, large numbers of skeleton soldiers leapt down from the vehicle.
They formed a spear array at the front to block the surge of zombies rushing from the market.
The remaining Kitchen Knife Skeletons directly attacked the zombie hordes on both sides.
An intense combat began again.
Zombies fell like wheat under a scythe.
The battle ended.
The skeletons returned to standby, and tranquillity descended over the entire area.
The only sound left was the humming of the vehicle engines.
“Clear the bodies!”
The skeletons sprang into action again, clearing away the corpses that were obstructing the road.
The convoy drove into the middle of the market.
Shops of various kinds lined both sides of the road – grocery stores, knitting shops, farming tool stores.
“We should be able to find quite a bit of stuff here.” Li Yahong said as she looked around.
“Right, we’ll head to the village first, and loot this area on our way back.” Wu Heng stated.
The convoy continued to move forward.
They drove out of the market junction.
“Wang, that group of houses over there is Damu Village.”
Wang Ke pointed to a group of single-storey houses in the distance, introducing it to Wu Heng.
Looking over towards the distance, a sizable village came into view. The living conditions appeared to be considerably good, with many houses lined with white ceramic tiles and numerous colorful steel buildings with blue roofs.
“Was the population of the village substantial previously?” asked Wu Heng.
Wang Ke shook his head, “I’m not sure, as I rarely visited. However, I heard that the development here was quite good, both agriculture and animal husbandry received considerable support.”
Recent years seemed to see the development of some surrounding villages.
As for the level of development, he, living in the city, didn’t have much contact with them.
But from the looks of it now, the living conditions didn’t seem inferior to the city’s.
Thoughts of the zombie outbreak and the densely populated areas came to mind, the likelihood of survival seemed minimal now.
“Grandma…” Wang Ke asked softly from behind.
“Stay calm. If grandma wasn’t lucky enough, we’ve done our best.” Li Yahong, who was driving the car, gave a word of consolation.
Wang Ke nodded and didn’t say anything else.
After coming to the prison, he met other survivors.
Only then did he realize how fortunate he was, having been saved by the people at the auto repair shop in the beginning.
If he had fallen into the hands of Chen Jinlong, his fate may have been much worse.
Of course, he hoped his grandmother could have lived, but if he really couldn’t find her, or if she had turn into a zombie…
He would accept it.
After all, his survival already used up all his luck.
The road was getting worse, the bumpy country roads caused the vehicle to sway.
The tools inside the vehicle rattled due to the bumpy road.
This road, according to Wang Ke, had received assistance, without which, it would have probably been a mere dirt road.
About ten minutes of driving brought them near the blue factory buildings.
The buildings here occupied a large area, and on the small concrete buildings near the road, one could see signs indicating a supermarket, a dormitory, among other things. It seemed to be a factory.
Moo!
Suddenly, a strange sound of a cow came from the factory.
Everyone in the vehicle frowned simultaneously.
There’s a cow?
Crash!
Suddenly, with a thunderous sound, the black iron gate of the factory was directly knocked open.
A giant, rotting dairy cow rushed out of the factory.
Under the stunned gaze of everyone, it ran into the middle of a truck.
Crash!
The convoy immediately halted, and the tires stirred up dust on the ground as the vehicles eventually came to a stop.
“What the hell is happening?”
“Seems like we’re under attack.”
“It’s a Zombie Cow, the cow is attacking the convoy.”