Finally, the worst of everyone’s situation was greatly alleviated after Bai Mingxi and Li Nan appeared.
It was also after this incident that everyone came to understand even more deeply just how important the usually quiet logistics personnel were to a team.
The water from the spatial dimension worked quite well. Although the children remained unconscious, their high fevers finally subsided.
Quan Xiaoyu had always kept several vehicles inside his spatial dimension. With Bai Mingxi’s help, he also took them out and provided them for the team.
Although everyone was crammed together, their hearts were still filled with relief and joy.
At least they finally had a means of transportation. It was much safer than traveling on foot, and it also increased their speed.
Everyone rested for a day.
The next morning, they set out again.
Their destination was still north, and they were still searching for a safe place to settle.
However, they had only traveled for half a day when, unexpectedly, they encountered another group of people.
“Heh! They really are lucky to still be alive!”
Looking at the group resting ahead, Xiao Ziran smiled.
The smile was filled with unmistakable sarcasm.
The convoy had originally intended to go around them, but the other side actually approached them first and forcibly stopped the convoy.
To be honest, they were all old acquaintances, so Xiao Ziran didn’t have the heart to simply run them over.
Among the people blocking the road, the leader was none other than Cai Yuanhan.
Standing beside him was another old acquaintance—
Lei Shi.
“They actually all managed not to die!”
Xiao Ziran sighed inwardly.
He got out of the vehicle with a cold expression and glared at them with obvious hostility.
Cai Yuanhan was stunned when he saw Xiao Ziran, but immediately afterward, his face filled with a smile.
“May I ask who you are? What happened to that Captain Chu from before?”
Cai Yuanhan asked.
The arrogance he had displayed when he first met Chu Tian was long gone. At this moment, he looked much more like a shrewd merchant.
He simply hadn’t met Xiao Ziran before, so he instinctively looked around for Chu Tian.
Xiao Ziran had originally been willing to tolerate them and hear them out.
However, the moment Cai Yuanhan mentioned Chu Tian, his face darkened.
Chu Tian was now a subject that none of the team members dared bring up.
Let alone Quan Xiaoyu—even the others couldn’t bear to face the possibility that Chu Tian might already be dead.
An annoying person had come over and immediately brought up everyone’s most painful taboo.
Of course Xiao Ziran’s expression darkened.
“A good dog doesn’t block the road. Spit it out! And once you’re done, get the hell out of here!”
Xiao Ziran didn’t bother being polite anymore. He said whatever sounded harshest.
There were four vehicles in the team now, and not a single one had its engine turned off.
The drivers’ feet were already hovering over the gas pedals, as though the moment Xiao Ziran gave the order, they could run these people over without hesitation.
After surviving that brutal battle for their lives and losing so many close companions and friends, they had reached the point where they could no longer hesitate to deal with anyone who obstructed their survival.
Perhaps the overwhelming killing intent radiating from the entire team frightened Cai Yuanhan.
Things were completely different now.
Of the more than a hundred ability users he had brought along, protecting him and fighting their way here, fewer than ten remained.
Cai Yuanhan, who had never directly fought monsters himself, had already become like a frightened bird.
A single sentence from Xiao Ziran was enough to scare him off.
Lei Shi, however, remained relatively composed.
He still spoke in the same tone as always, asking for their help.
Xiao Ziran was already completely fed up with him.
He waved his hand, got back into the vehicle, and all four vehicles immediately drove straight toward the people blocking the road.
They didn’t show the slightest mercy.
The two men had ability users with them, so those people hurriedly dragged them out of the way.
No one was actually injured, but their already miserable condition became even more chaotic.
“What a curse that refuses to die!”
Even after the vehicles had driven far away, Ouyang Jing couldn’t help sighing.
While they were talking earlier, he had taken a quick look at the group behind them.
Yuan Shaohua and Jialun Xu were actually still alive and well among the group, though they looked even more battered than before.
That was why Ouyang Jing had made that remark.
Afterward, along the way, they encountered quite a few people who had escaped from J City.
Without exception, every single one of them had awakened a supernatural ability.
And every one of them had awakened for the first time during this catastrophe.
Xiao Ziran discussed the matter with Ouyang Jing, Bai Mingxi, and Quan Xiaoyu.
Whenever they encountered someone who seemed decent, they gradually took some of them in.
These people were all eager to find a team willing to accept them.
Before the catastrophe, they had all been ordinary people. After surviving the disaster and once again losing their families and homes, they had survived—but they had no direction and were utterly lost.
Having a team gave them new hope and guidance.
After traveling for several more days, the conditions along the way were unexpectedly good.
Although practically all the zombies had now reached Level Three, and Level Four zombies had already begun appearing, their numbers in this area were relatively low. The chances of encountering mutated beasts and zombie animals were also much lower.
As a result, Xiao Ziran began considering finding a place nearby where they could establish a temporary settlement and begin construction.
When he shared this idea with everyone, one of the people who had recently joined them along the way suggested the location that would eventually become Dawn Base.
His name was Lin Li, and he was in his twenties.
He had originally been a resident of one of the small towns. After the apocalypse, he had fled to J City with his family.
Because the two towns had frequently exchanged goods and maintained close ties before the apocalypse, Lin Li was extremely familiar with both towns.
He had lost his mother at the beginning of the apocalypse, and during the recent catastrophe in J City, he lost his father and younger sister.
When he had tried to protect his younger sister, he awakened a plant-type supernatural ability.
So when Xiao Ziran proposed finding a place to settle, he immediately thought of his hometown.
Lin Li was an outstanding young man. He clearly explained to Xiao Ziran the towns’ geographical location, geographical advantages, industrial advantages, and the distribution and structure of their agricultural and industrial resources.
After hearing him out, Xiao Ziran made the decision immediately.
He personally led a group of people, along with Lin Li, to conduct an on-site inspection.
In the end, they made the final decision:
They would settle in the two towns!
And so, everyone worked together, gradually rebuilding the abandoned towns.
Several major events happened during this period.
The first was that as the base gradually took shape, many survivors were attracted to it and came seeking refuge.
Because of this, Xiao Ziran did not accept everyone indiscriminately.
He established several admission criteria and carefully controlled the scale of their development.
Both the tragedy in J City and the decline of Lei Shi’s group had served as warnings to him.
Expanding a team without principles or limits carried enormous uncertainty.
Therefore, he did not blindly expand.
Instead, he planned the pace of their development and kept everything within a controllable range.
The second major event was that after everyone settled down and began building the base, Cai Yuanhan and Lei Shi unexpectedly gathered a group of people as well.
They established another survivor base in a small town thirty kilometers away from Dawn Base.
It was called Tianze Base.
Their ambition was obvious.
Unlike the strict admission standards Xiao Ziran had established, they accepted anyone who came.
Very quickly, they surpassed Dawn Base in sheer numbers.
On the surface, Xiao Ziran acted as though he neither noticed nor cared.
In reality, however, he accelerated the construction of the base’s defensive facilities.
In this world, they had to defend themselves not only against zombies and monsters.
More importantly—
They had to defend themselves against people.
The third major event concerned the children who had developed fevers.
Several days after their fevers subsided, around the time Xiao Ziran decided that they would temporarily settle here, various signs of mutation gradually appeared on the children’s bodies.
Some grew wings.
Some developed thick scales.
Some grew sharp horns from their foreheads.
Fortunately, their minds remained completely clear, and there was an exceptionally intelligent girl leading them, so the situation remained within controllable limits.
Through the girl, Xiao Ziran and the others learned that these children had been injected with an unknown liquid shortly after they were brought into the underground facility.
The twenty-one of them had been the last batch of children sent there.
Among them, those who had received the most injections had been injected three times, while even those who had received the fewest had been injected at least once.
As a result, their bodies were now undergoing varying degrees of mutation.
As for the children who had been brought there before them, the fate they had suffered could be inferred easily from the more than one hundred monsters that had chased them out of the underground facility.
The girl’s name was Lian Bingbing.
She had an exceptionally high IQ and was the leader of the children.
No animal-like mutations had appeared on her body. However, after her fever subsided, the back of her head began to bulge slightly.
Her mutation was heading in the direction of intelligence.
According to Lian Bingbing’s description, they had not been inside for very long.
They had spent every day locked inside that same room, with food delivered to them at regular intervals.
Then, people would come at irregular intervals to inject them.
Everyone inside wore protective suits, so their appearances could not be seen clearly.
Other than that, she couldn’t provide any more useful information.
However, as her intelligence gradually increased, she was slowly able to recall more and more details and then use those details to make increasingly reliable deductions.
The fourth major event was a pleasant surprise.
Half a month after the base was established, Lin Wenxue returned with Ma Jingjing and Lu Jie!