After a night of rest, everyone slept until late morning before getting up.
Those who woke up earlier, such as Mo Gang and the others, had already gone downstairs to the kitchen to prepare food.
Yin Chengyang looked around the hall and asked, “Where are the boss and Wen Shao?”
Han Ya rolled his eyes and ignored him.
Yin Chengyang scratched his head and smiled awkwardly, then turned to Zhou Quan.
Zhou Quan pursed his lips and kindly explained, “The boss, Wen Shao, and Mo Yan went to X City early in the morning. They took advantage of the reduction in zombies in the city to collect useful things. After we leave here, we probably won’t encounter any large cities, and we’ll have to rely on what we have.”
Those who, like Yin Chengyang, had not seen Xiao Wen and the others until now only learned of their absence.
“Brother Yan, where are we going?” a young man following Lin Yan asked.
Lin Yan looked at Han Ya.
“Our destination is Tibet. We’ll follow the highway directly from here and then find a suitable place to settle down once we enter Tibet.”
After listening to Han Ya’s words, many people nodded in agreement. In this world where zombies roamed freely, the Tibetan region was indeed relatively safe, with a sparse population and a relatively small number of zombies. There weren’t many animals either.
After finishing their meal, everyone started counting the number of people and their abilities. People who were not familiar with each other also began to introduce themselves. In the future, they would all travel together, and knowing each other would make it easier to work together.
During the whole process, Lin Yan didn’t interrupt Han Ya. People who were a little more sensitive could immediately sense that Lin Yan had intentionally made way for Han Ya.
Although the two parties were traveling together, it was actually a disguised merger. Since it was a merger, there was no need for two leaders. Although Lin Yan had more people and more abilities than Xiao Wen’s group, if one were to carefully count, they were just ordinary people before the apocalypse. Even if they were all added up, they were no match for Xiao Wen, Yin Chengyang, and the others.
Now that Lin Yan was willingly giving up his command, it was good for everyone.
Moreover, Lin Yan’s leadership position was forced upon him in the first place. Now that Xiao Wen and Han Ya, who were better leaders, were taking over, he could relax and take it easy.
The people who had been following Lin Yan all this time did not show any signs of resistance or dissatisfaction with this silent transition. They followed the Elder Lin out, but everyone’s common goal was to survive well in this apocalypse. Xiao Wen and his team’s abilities during the zombie outbreak were enough to gain their recognition. Having a stronger leader meant more security for them.
On the other hand, Xiao Wen and his team had already arrived in the urban area of X City. The previous battles had clearly dealt a severe blow to the zombie tide. As the three of them traveled along, they found significantly fewer zombies than when they were with the military last time.
“At present, there aren’t many zombies in X city, so let’s speed up our actions. Once the rescue station eases up, they probably won’t spare this place either,” said Xiao Wen, sitting in the passenger seat.
Behind him, Wen Le nodded silently.
Their main goal this time was to collect building materials and large machinery. The current number of zombies in X city was rare, so if they didn’t take advantage of this opportunity to collect resources, they would be wasting the ammunition they used up during the zombie tide.
“Then let’s head straight to the west district. There are two large building material markets there, and then we can go to the southern outskirts of X city. Large factories and industrial zones are concentrated in the south,” Wen Le pulled out the X city layout map he had obtained from the trading center at the rescue station.
A dark green military jeep entered X city from the east, crossing the entire city with countless zombies attracted by the sound of the vehicle far behind.
After the number of zombies decreased, Wen Le and the others arrived at the building material market on the map in less than an hour.
The number of zombies in the building materials market wasn’t high. After the military jeep entered the market, it slowly circled around the square, occasionally making noise to attract the zombies inside the buildings. When they felt it was enough, the car turned around and drove out of the market. They led all the attracted zombies outside the market, and then quickly drove back inside. Xiao Wen and Mo Yan got out of the car, closed the gate of the building materials market, and Wen Le threw piles of large stones to tightly secure the gate.
After ensuring their safety, the three of them began a thorough search. They didn’t miss anything, whether it was sandbags and glass piled up in the center of the building materials market or scattered materials in the buildings. They also didn’t miss the main and auxiliary materials piled up in the warehouses on the outskirts.
The two building materials markets in the west district were next to each other, making it more convenient for Wen Le and the others to search.
After running for an hour non-stop, the two building materials markets were left empty, with only a few buildings that couldn’t be moved. The same situation occurred again in the X city industrial zone, where all sorts of factories, big and small, including car manufacturers, cement plants, pharmaceutical factories, and even fertilizer factories, were empty just like a ghost town.
After nightfall, as the green military jeep departed from X city, many areas of the city became empty and abandoned. The supermarkets and shopping malls along the way also suffered the same fate.
When Wen Le and his team returned with a full load, the relief station began to pack and organize everything for the upcoming relocation in five days, with the support of Zhang Quanliang despite objections from others. On the second day, Bai Yang’s unit received orders from Zhang Quanliang to head to X city and collect as many supplies as possible.
Meanwhile, Wen Le and his team split into five cars and embarked on their journey to Tibet once again, avoiding X city and taking the Tibet Highway. From X city to the entrance of Tibet, the number of damaged and abandoned vehicles along the road decreased noticeably, and the human settlements became increasingly scattered as they approached the Tibetan region.
Along the way, every encounter with zombies was treated as a training opportunity. The scattered zombies were fought up close by Yin Chengyang and Mo Yan with non-powered ordinary people, without using any firearms, relying solely on close combat to train everyone’s reaction and attack skills. Meanwhile, Wen Le and Xiao Wen and others watched and intervened if anyone was facing a death threat due to a slow reaction. Although this kind of training couldn’t compare to the abilities gained through fighting for life and death, there were two reasons why they still did it: first, their numbers were too small and couldn’t afford to lose anyone, and second, they had only just started systematic training and had plenty of room for improvement in the future. It wasn’t necessary to face death again in a relatively safe environment.
Whenever they encountered dozens or hundreds of small zombie groups, Xiao Wen and Lin Yan led the powered individuals in training.
The constant physical and reaction training, as well as occasional practical exercises, had significantly increased the abilities of the entire convoy by more than double in just over half a month.
Compared to the decreasing number of zombies, mutated animals went from being unseen in the first few days to being encountered almost every day. However, since they were heading towards Tibet, most of the animals they encountered were domesticated ones such as cows and sheep that had been raised by humans for a long time. These animals were more familiar with humans than wild animals, and they were gentle by nature, so they rarely attacked the convoy.
However, there was one time when the convoy encountered an adult female Tibetan mastiff with two puppies during a late-night camp. Perhaps because the puppies had just been born and had not left the den for a long time, they had not undergone mutation due to the Red Moon. However, the mother Tibetan mastiff was vicious by nature and had undergone mutation, so she attacked the place where Wen Le and the others had camped even when it was far away.
What surprised Wen Le the most was that Tibetan mastiffs belonged to the canine family, but their mutation direction was different from that of normal dogs. Whether it was the pet dogs he encountered in X City or the shepherd dogs he met along the way, they all belonged to the fire type, but the Tibetan mastiff was a typical wind type mutation, and it could spit out wind blades that were already formed. In Wen Le’s perception, when the mother Tibetan mastiff attacked, it was about forty meters away from the campsite. One wind blade directly shaved off the top of a tent. If Wen Le had not warned them in advance, it would have been enough to cause casualties among them.
But in the next moment, the bullet fired by Wen Le and the flame emitted by Lin Yan greeted the Tibetan mastiff’s head at the same time, and the two attacks directly killed the Tibetan mastiff.
On this journey, including Bai Yun, Yi Lan, and several other girls, they had already become accustomed to opening the zombie’s skulls to find crystals. Therefore, the Tibetan mastiff’s head also did not escape the fate of being stirred and searched.
The white crystal, which was one circle larger than the average level two zombie’s crystal, was collected by Wen Le into his space. As for the two puppies left behind, they were shot dead by Han Ya due to the girls’ inability to bear to do it.
The loyalty and danger of Tibetan mastiffs are well known to everyone. Although the two puppies were still young, they had witnessed their mother’s death and would only become more hostile to humans in the future. If they happened to undergo mutation due to chance, the danger would be self-evident.
“Let’s go,” Han Ya said into the walkie-talkie.
As soon as the words were spoken, the two parked five-cars on the side of the road started at the same time.
Xiao Wen and the others still led the way in the front car, while Han Ya compared the roadside signs with the map in his hand.
“We should be close,” Wen Le asked.
Han Ya nodded. According to the map, they were very close to the Tibetan region. If there were no special circumstances, they would be able to officially enter the region around noon.
The five cars raced down the flat road, and at this point, it was difficult to encounter any stranded cars on the side of the road, which made everyone gradually feel happier.
The fewer people in the Tibetan region, the safer they would be.
Whether it was the chaos at the beginning of the apocalypse or the Red Moon and zombie siege at the rescue station, they all made them feel exhausted from the bottom of their hearts.
This kind of exhaustion couldn’t be relieved by a short rest. The suppression in their hearts made the exhaustion accumulate more and more, instead of decreasing.
“Look! We’re here!” As noon approached, the co-driver Yin Chengyang suddenly spoke up.
With his words, everyone in the car looked at a huge sign ahead that was getting closer and closer.
The welcome message for the peaceful era made the entire convoy cheer involuntarily. After more than half a month of long journey, they finally arrived at their destination.
“Ah~~~” a clear howl came from the rear vehicle. Without looking, they knew it was Qi Rui, that kid who opened the roof window and cheered.
Wen Le and Xiao Wen clasped their hands tightly together. Although they haven’t found a suitable place to settle down yet, the journey to enter the Tibetan region is finally completed. From now on, they will start to work hard for their future survival ground!
Thanks for the chapter!