Chapter 52

He was arrogant, but not foolish.

Wei Wenyuan knew he was no match for Su Hao and Xin Yan. He had never entertained the idea of confronting these two people head-on. The scene of Su Hao crushing the steel pipe into a ball was deeply etched in his mind, shocking and more persuasive than any words.

Moreover, they had a car, guns, and were younger and stronger than him.

But this did not mean he was at an absolute disadvantage —— of course, I can't beat you, but there are people who can kill you, eliminate you, and ruin you!

The wind that blew in his face was slightly cold, but Wei Wenyuan, at sixty-eight, felt his blood boiling. He pedaled his bicycle as fast as he could, his wrinkled face breaking into a smile.

Night fell. The residual heat of the day was quickly dispelled, and the world grew colder.

The roar of engines from the sky dispelled the silence of the mountains and forests. Under the black night sky, some flickering lights gradually brightened, like meteors from outer space. They turned red like the hungry eyes of zombies, growing closer and gradually becoming steady, glaring beams.

These were five "Night Hawk II" helicopters with extremely strong carrying capacity. The red stars on a yellow background on both sides of the rotor blades were clearly visible in the light, indicating that these aircraft belonged to the military.

Li Daoyuan, dressed in a gray-green combat uniform, jumped out of the cabin, looking at the empty ground before him with a complex expression.

This was the KD03 base, a military camp set up in the outskirts of Kunming and later abandoned by Yuan Bin.

The wild grass on both sides of the makeshift airport runway grew tall, blocking the ground-embedded lights that served as navigation markers. The temporary buildings looked flimsy, and the loose doors creaked in the night wind. The camouflage net on the watchtower had long collapsed, like torn rags, caught in the treetops by the wind.

The soldiers who disembarked from the helicopters split up to inspect the base facilities, and the various reports quickly converged before the new commander, Li Daoyuan.

The situation at the KD03 base was much worse than expected —— the ground pipelines were damaged, the solar power system could not supply electricity, the water reservoir was dry, the underground oil tanks were empty, and the rooms were full of dust and debris, making them uninhabitable.

In short, everything needed to be repaired.

Li Daoyuan's face grew increasingly grim. He suppressed the urge to curse, patiently listened to the last soldier's report, and managed to force a smile, nodding lightly and saying, "Start the repair work immediately and try to restore power by tomorrow morning."

Without electronic navigation maps, the helicopter squadron would not have been able to find the abandoned KD03 base, let alone land.

Repairing the base required a large amount of supplies, which the helicopter's payload could not meet. The only solution was to clear the runway as soon as possible, provide power to the ground control tower, and guide the transport planes to land.

All of this would take time.

Thinking of this, the image of Yuan Bin's face, with its sinister smile, floated before Li Daoyuan's eyes. He subconsciously gripped his sidearm, clenched his teeth, and then reluctantly let go.

The loss of the prototype drug caused a stir in the upper echelons of the military. The head of the research department strongly demanded severe punishment for those responsible. Amidst the arguments and curses, the Supreme Guard Bureau detained Yuan Bin and his subordinates upon their return to the central base. After less than two months of detention, an order from the Supervisory Committee released him... Many people found this incomprehensible, many were shocked, and many felt it was to be expected.

After all, he had a father who was a general, and several uncles, aunts, and other relatives who held real power in different departments of the military.

The virus outbreak changed the world, but it could not change the deeply ingrained way of thinking in human minds.

As long as you have support, whatever you do is right.

Li Daoyuan was just an ordinary captain. He could not possibly know these secrets through normal channels.

He had a cousin who served in the "Dragon Tooth" special forces. A few years ago, when they were at the northwest base, a few people had dinner and drinks with Yuan Bin. Because of this connection, Li Daoyuan knew a bit about the anger caused by the loss of the prototype drug within the military research department.

Given his rank and position, he could not possibly know the term "prototype drug." He only knew that Yuan Bin's actions at KD03 violated his military identity, harmed national interests, and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people.

As long as there are humans, there will be conflicts.

The military was not a monolithic entity, and the upper echelons could not be entirely controlled by the Yuan family. Many people were filled with resentment and were indignant about the unfair handling of the Yuan Bin incident. A few generals, powerless to change the current situation, complained at dinner, reportedly even smashing glasses. They tacitly, or rather, allowed the guards who heard these words to spread the conversation privately. Words like "Yuan Bin," "serious crime," "unfair treatment," and "leniency" quickly spread from a few mouths, like a virus, into everyone's ears within a few weeks.

Li Daoyuan had never liked Yuan Bin.

Now, he only felt disgust.

But no matter what, as the successor, he had to get the KD03 base back in operation as quickly as possible.

The military intelligence department carefully studied the reports and videos Yuan Bin brought back, and separately interrogated all the involved personnel. Yuan Bin's decision to change the drug transport route was confirmed to be his personal action. Despite sending a large number of armed personnel to search the square and repeatedly searching along the transport route, the prototype drug remained missing. In the military's high-security archives, the whereabouts of this unique drug were marked with a big question mark.

Like the handling of Yuan Bin, the intelligence department was also divided on whether to invest manpower in searching for the prototype drug.

The former group believed: The KD01 Research Institute had already cracked 80% of the prototype drug's secrets. Based on the transmitted data and information, the central base could already produce immune drugs, first to third-level enhancement drugs, energy drugs, and activation drugs that significantly increased the lifespan of users. Although the production varied, with the gradual addition of new production lines, more survivors could be supplied. In other words, the mission of the prototype drug was almost complete. Although some secrets remained unsolved and some hidden components were not fully understood, in the grand scheme of things, it had little more significance.

The latter group had a completely different opinion. They believed the prototype drug was irreplaceable, and the final part of the secret that had not been solved was far more important than the part that had been. Using this incident, the military opposition began to raise more questions —— why was the prototype drug placed at the KD01 Research Institute instead of being immediately transported to the central base? Why were more security forces not deployed at the KD01 base? As a result, the transfer work of the institute was constrained by Yuan Bin after the virus outbreak, and on the day of the incident, not even a single helicopter was available, leading to the complete annihilation of the over 100-strong security force?

If... if... still if...

The endless arguments were tiring, and almost every department was vying for what they believed should be their due.

Of course, some anger was understandable, but using the issue to further their own interests had to be guarded against. A wide-ranging investigation soon swept through all the bases. Both the pro and anti sides were suppressed to varying degrees, some by their opponents and some by third parties. The search for the prototype drug could only be indefinitely delayed. When the intelligence department held another meeting last week to revisit the issue, everyone indicated that the search plan could not continue.

Time is a terrible medicine.

It can cover and destroy many traces that once existed.

Moreover, the city had long been overrun by zombies. Without a satellite positioning device, finding a single briefcase in a large city was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Zombies would not be interested in a briefcase containing drugs, but they could carry it around unknowingly. Every detail of the helicopter video was magnified, and the intelligence department reviewed hundreds of thousands of photos, but still found no similar object.

Just like the records Su Hao saw in the future world's computer, two days ago, the military began setting up supervision and management bureaus in all cities. This meant that history had not changed and was still following its fixed trajectory.

Li Daoyuan's current position was the commander of the KD03 base and the director of the Kunming region supervision and management bureau.

Like the personnel set up in other cities, his main tasks were two.

First: Assess the strength of survivors in the jurisdiction and distribute immune drugs to the public.

Second: Monitor those with good combat evaluations, provide them with food, weapons, and medicine. After passing the combat assessment, they would be converted to military status and sent to the Chengdu base.

The content was already clear, both in written records and in the personal instructions from his superiors —— Captain Li Daoyuan only needed to be responsible for the living, and there were no orders to clear out zombies. Even the higher department's defense recommendations for the KD03 base were merely "in the event of a zombie attack, call the air force or long-range artillery for support, provided it is safe to do so."

The repair work at the KD03 base progressed faster than expected.

At 10:38 AM the next day, the base control tower was powered up and resumed normal operation. By 7:22 PM, a medium-sized military transport plane from Chengdu began to land, unloading the first batch of supplies requested by the base.

Most of the supplies were communication equipment and ammunition.

Additionally, thirty soldiers arrived with the transport.

Like Li Daoyuan and the other initial base members, they had been injected with immune and first-stage enhancement drugs. This formula, derived from the prototype drug, had no side effects on the human body, but because the bones could not match the muscles, these soldiers were not yet true first-stage enhanced humans.

This situation was similar to when Su Hao first landed at the shopping center a few months ago.

At that time, he had been injected with the immune drug and had taken silver bones, so his bones had first reached the required level of enhancement. If he had not obtained the prototype drug from the dead officer, he would still be an incomplete non-enhanced human.

After all, the concept of "enhancement" refers to both bones and muscles. If only one of them was enhanced, it was impossible to achieve sufficient biological power.

In other words, holding only silver bones or enhancement drugs would make one a "conceptual enhanced human" with only 50% of the power.

Including Yuan Bin, despite his special status and injection of experimental third-stage drugs through alternative channels, he only had muscle strength up to standard, but his bones could not be enhanced simultaneously. This issue was not resolved until a year later when British researcher Luther Cavitz's findings were published.

It was from that point that "silver bones," these magical microscopic particles, truly entered the vision of power holders in various countries, becoming a strategically important resource.

As a result, human research on zombies began to deepen. In addition to bones, these human-infected mutants were extensively dissected. Their skin, hair, flesh, hormones, and bodily fluids became new subjects of study for biologists. Precious items like decay bacteria hormones were gradually discovered.

Su Hao had always kept the secret of the silver bones.

He certainly did not forget the time when the military set up supervision and management bureaus in various cities.

He did not intend to give the honor of "discoverer of silver bones" to Luther Cavitz. Instead, he wanted to use it as leverage to gain more and greater benefits from the military.

This was the right of a time traveler, and no one could take it away.

Unless, you could predict the future.

A heavy armored transport vehicle sped into the city, its wild and destructive presence smashing through several abandoned cars blocking the road, like a raging bull charging from the horizon, roaring as it entered the street.

This was the western part of the city, far from the bank building in the south.

This military transport vehicle was well-armored and powerful. Its specially designed tires could crush any object that dared to block its path. Along the way, zombies staggered from the roadside, only to be caught under the rapidly spinning tires, their bones and flesh turning into a sticky, bloody mess.

The transport vehicle drove into the headquarters of the garrison command, quickly skidding to a stop on the empty parade ground. The driver performed a series of drift maneuvers, aligning the vehicle's front with the gate, and then slowly came to a halt.

The rear doors of the vehicle burst open, and over a dozen fully armed soldiers jumped out.

They split into groups of three, searching the office building and the camp area. The top armor plate of the transport vehicle slowly tilted, and two 12.7 mm heavy machine guns rose from inside. If any abnormalities were detected, these weapons would provide the soldiers with the strongest support.

Wu Guoguang jumped out of the passenger seat and strode to the center of the parade ground. He looked up at the flag on the roof, which had not been changed for a long time and had faded due to sun and rain, feeling a bit nostalgic.

He was tall and robust, with a typical military posture. His sharp eyes and rugged, bearded face easily reminded one of coarse sandpaper or a whetstone.

This city had only one garrison command. Since the virus outbreak, many people had come here. Su Hao was one of the luckier ones; he had broken into the underground armory, taken all the weapons and other supplies, and left nothing behind, not even a pair of gloves or a bullet.

Ten minutes later, the initial search by the various teams was complete. The information gathered was not much different from what was expected: the power equipment was intact, no survivors were found, the electric barriers inside and outside the gates were still usable, and the underground wells were not contaminated.

"What? The underground armory was damaged, and all the weapons and ammunition are missing?"

When he heard this news, Wu Guoguang was surprised.

According to orders, Lieutenant Wu Guoguang and these soldiers were the first to enter the city as supervisors.

They belonged to the KD03 base and had to establish defense and communication systems at the garrison command within 24 hours. The KD03 base would transport supplies and soldiers in batches based on Wu Guoguang's requests, gradually setting up the second, third, and more monitoring stations.

The military had never had a plan to rescue survivors. The purpose of setting up monitoring stations was to select the strong from among the survivors. Just like in history, not only those who took drugs could become enhanced; those who fought in the zombie-infested city could also naturally enhance themselves.

The garrison command was a military-controlled area. The buildings were all built to military standards and were very sturdy. The gates and camp entrances had underground interception walls, which were two three-meter-high steel barriers that even a heavy transport vehicle could not break through, requiring explosives or artillery to destroy.

In a city that had lost order and control, anything could happen.

Wu Guoguang had already prepared himself for the possibility that all the weapons and ammunition would be missing.

However, deep down, he still had a bit of hope. These weapons were not significant to the military, but with this batch of arms, Wu Guoguang could quickly set up several dozen firing points around the garrison command. After all, transporting weapons by helicopter from the KD03 base was troublesome and time-consuming.

As the commander of the first group to enter, Wu Guoguang had carefully studied the structure of the garrison command —— the walls of the underground armory were thick, built to standard with a large amount of rebar. The all-steel doors were extremely strong, only a large impact drill could damage them. Now, even this place had been breached, so what safety could there be in this city?

His mind raced with countless thoughts, and then he called a few soldiers to join him as he headed toward the basement of the office building.

Wu Guoguang wanted to see the damaged door with his own eyes.