Chapter Seventy-Two: Silent Contemplation

After enduring the six-hour quarantine, everyone—already dizzy with hunger—hurried back to their quarters and devoured the dinner prepared by Lu Haiyang and the other two boys. Only when the meal was completely finished did they let out satisfied burps. There was simply too much to do these days, and the task of cooking had fallen to Lu Haiyang and his companions. Fortunately, children raised in the apocalypse had learned self-reliance early; the three of them were perfectly capable of preparing a decent meal.

Of course, Lu Haiyang and his friends were only responsible for feeding Xie Han, Qi Feiwu, and their close group of a dozen or so people. The rest of the subordinates had a dedicated team to prepare their meals.

After seeing Chen Liu off at the door, Xie Han returned to his room and locked the door behind him. By now, everyone was well aware—thanks to repeated habit rather than explicit instruction—that when Xie Han retired to his room after returning, he was not to be disturbed. This was precisely the effect Xie Han wanted: to subtly influence their behavior through habit, sparing himself the need to explain and making it easier to conceal his secrets.

The more explanations given, the more loopholes there are; Xie Han understood this principle well.

For reasons he could not quite explain, Xie Han found that even in the relative safety of the apocalypse, he never slept soundly at night. Only when he returned to the modern world, listening to the clamor of human voices and the shrill honking of car horns, did he feel truly at ease. Thus, he developed the habit of resting for a while each day in the modern era, lying on his apartment bed, allowing himself a brief moment of peace and contemplation.

Once again, as he lay down in his bed in the modern world and closed his eyes, the relaxation of his body did not lull him to sleep; instead, it set his mind racing.

There were simply too many problems to solve in the apocalypse. For instance, if he wanted to establish a new settlement from scratch, there were countless issues to consider. Supplies were desperately scarce—just building a reinforced concrete wall to keep out the zombies required an array of tools, and even though not many would be needed, finding them in a zombie-ridden world was no easy feat.

Xie Han assumed the tools could be scavenged from the base, but cement—the fundamental building material—was far more problematic. He could not simply smuggle vast quantities back from the modern world without raising suspicion. It seemed the only way to obtain the huge amount of cement needed was to seize control of the cement factory in Wangtian City.

His plan, however, was not just about the cement. The real target was the factory’s equipment. From his survey of the restricted area’s terrain, Xie Han knew it met all the requirements for cement production.

Once cement was secured, the next challenge was obtaining steel reinforcement bars. The thought alone gave Xie Han a headache. Only now did he realize just how staggering the demands were to build a human settlement from nothing. There were thousands—tens of thousands—of necessities. A handful of people could never accomplish this alone.

A sustainable settlement required not only a long-term food source but also a self-sustaining production chain—most critically, the manufacture of weapons and ammunition.

If a base aspired to become a city, its greatest need was people, and lots of them. Yet, out of the 800 million survivors in the world, Xie Han had no idea how many remained in the Chinese territories or how many would last through the next three years, nor where they might be scattered. This led directly to the problem of communication.

Qi Feiwu had told him that two years ago, each base could still use simple receivers to pick up satellite transmissions and stay abreast of developments in other settlements. But two years ago, all contact was lost, and the bases were cut off from one another. Later, they tried to set up short-range communication systems, but with limited success. Only bases close to each other could communicate; distant ones could not use these systems at all.

As for repairing the cable network, that was pure fantasy. When the XR virus broke out, panic reigned—no one cared about infrastructure. By the time order was restored, everyone was locked in a struggle for food. With governments fallen and power vacuums everywhere, once people were fed, their thoughts turned solely to intrigue and fighting for power, with no interest in developing the base. The result was always one of two outcomes: either the zombies overran the base, or the settlement stagnated, its people living from hand to mouth.

Sometimes, Xie Han felt a deep sorrow. Even at the brink of extinction, humanity’s basest instincts had not changed; if anything, they had only grown worse. In the face of power, everyone lost their composure, and people turned on each other until only one side remained.

Take the Wangtian base—it was exceptionally fortunate, ruled by former government officials and the military. Only such a force could suppress all the ambitious factions. But how many bases across the country—or even the world—were run by the military? Far more were likely cobbled together by a handful, or even dozens, of disparate teams.

Xie Han’s dream was simple: first, to survive and live well in this apocalypse, without fear of the undead; only then would he worry about saving both worlds.

Yet even this seemingly simple dream would be extraordinarily hard to achieve—perhaps even impossible—but Xie Han knew he had no way out. He could only throw himself into pursuing these goals. As for what might happen after he completed the task of saving two worlds, he had never let himself imagine it. It was simply too far away.

Three hours might have seemed a long stretch, but to Xie Han lost in thought, it passed in a flash—he hadn’t even sorted out half his ideas.

Returning once more to his room in the apocalypse, Xie Han checked the time. It was close to ten o’clock at night. Outside, all was still; his companions, exhausted from the day, had likely gone to bed early. Xie Han wasn’t sleepy, but the base was now on full alert, and no one was allowed out at night. Not that this posed any difficulty for him; with his Level 2 genetic enhancements, no sentry or patrol could spot him.

Xie Han did not leave through the door. Instead, he quietly opened the window in his room and leaped out, landing on a water pipe three meters away. Gripping the pipe, he slid silently down and vanished into the night.