Chapter 56 p2
Changnan Base
It was indeed as Xie Muzhi had guessed. Three districts had been hit at the same time.
More and more people were infected with strange diseases in order to survive. Fever was only the most basic situation. Some had festering all over their bodies, some had pain all over their bodies, and some had splitting headaches… The pain of the illness and the hardship of survival had gradually made them crazy.
In addition, with the incitement and organization of people with ulterior motives, this large group of troublemakers was divided into three teams, each with hundreds of people, mainly heading to the first, second, and third districts. Further back were the places where the poorer survivors lived, and relatively speaking, they attracted less hatred.
The first district had prepared a security team early on and had noticed that something was wrong at the first moment. There were also many owners with guns. More than a hundred people were very scary, but in the face of guns, they were still no match. They fell one after another, and the rest were also deterred by the government and gave up the attack. It was the district with the fewest injuries among all the riot-stricken districts.
Most of the injured were security guards. Only two owners who had guns and thought they were highly skilled but were scratched twice were relatively unlucky. But it was also a minor injury. It was just that the knife wound was rusty, and they needed a tetanus shot, as well as to prevent the possibility of other infections.
The remaining few districts, lacking the deterrent of firearms, had a more tragic end.
Luo Laosan and the others had guns, which was actually considered good, but there were still too few guns. The enemy was numerous, and they simply couldn’t kill them all.
Fortunately, the government had come in time. After they arrived, they did not hold back and directly fired a round, which had made this group of people who had been fooled come to their senses in terror and not dare to move again.
But even so, the base was still in a state of panic.
The survivors, who had already been on guard against each other, could not even sleep peacefully now. They were worried and scared all day, and their suspicions were growing. The conflicts were also increasing day by day. The government was also busy and in a mess because of this, and the staff were getting more and more haggard day by day.
What was even more difficult was that the base had been flooded once.
Even though the water level had quickly dropped again, the after-effects had remained. The number of cockroaches, rats, snakes, mosquitoes, and all kinds of small poisonous insects had suddenly increased. Increasing the frequency of disinfection was still useless. A batch of these guys would die, and in the blink of an eye, another batch would grow.
As a result, many of the daily supplies had been contaminated. The government even had to spare a portion of its manpower to start distributing free relief food. The things were not much, a cornbread that would grind your throat in the morning and evening, and a bowl of thin coarse grain porridge in the morning.
But at present, to be able to receive relief food, you had to meet some conditions, such as living in the fourth or fifth district, and having less than thirty points on your account. There were still a lot of people, and they were extremely busy.
But even so, it still couldn’t stop more and more people with mental breakdowns from choosing to retaliate against society. This kind of single person was still okay. They were just afraid of groups. There was even a curfew. The security guards on duty at night were still easily injured.
After a few meetings, the government was discussing how to solve this matter.
In the absence of medicine, the person who was stirring up trouble behind the scenes and luring the extreme infected to retaliate against society would not disappear. They had to be caught.
But how to catch them?
Someone boldly proposed an idea—lure the snake out of its hole and wipe them all out.
It was dangerous, but it could get a period of peace. Otherwise, with this kind of guerrilla warfare, something would happen here, and another mess would appear there. Each time, one or two people would be caught, and the other party could turn around and fool more people into causing trouble with them.
After all the fuss, the government was exhausted, and the ordinary survivors were all in a state of panic. The number of infected who had a grudge against the base was increasing.
At first, the proposal was not passed, but with the drug research that still had no clue, more and more infected were dying, and the new infected even no longer believed in the base. They were unwilling to go to the places arranged by the base, but instead chose to hide the pathological changes on their bodies, causing more ordinary survivors to be injured and infected.
Finally, this plan was carried out.
For the next ten days, the base was in a strange silence.
Ordinary survivors no longer dared to wander around inside the base. Everyone traveled with familiar and trusted people and were extremely on guard against other strangers around them.
At most, they would run out once a day to hand over the rats and cockroaches they had harvested today, and then exchange for some grain, and then they would hurry back.
During this period, a group of people transported a large amount of supplies and sneaked out.
But in fact, they had been noticed by many people. The main reason was that there were too many supplies, and they were coming and going, so they couldn’t be hidden. So, after some inquiries, some news leaked out.
Many rich people felt that the base was not suitable for survival for the time being. In order to keep these people, the government had found another safe place for them to live. At this time, it was this group of people who were transferring the supplies out.
This time, the base was in an uproar again.
Many ordinary survivors felt that it was unfair and made a fuss, asking the base to treat them fairly.
The base tried its best to appease them, but to no avail. In the end, they simply gave up and informed them: a portion of the people thought that the Changnan Base was too dangerous and had already joined other bases with all their supplies and had withdrawn. The government could not restrict the actions of others. If other survivors wanted to leave, the government would also be willing!
It was actually like this?
The ordinary survivors who were making a fuss were speechless and instead hated those troublemaking infected.
And the troublemaking infected were also surprised, and even more angry and flustered—
This group of people had taken all the supplies and had gone to other bases. Then what about them?!
Especially when they saw the large amount of supplies being transported out every night, they were all so heartbroken. Finally, a riot of an unexpected scale appeared as scheduled.
It was no longer the hundreds of people from last time, but directly thousands of infected who had broken through the management of the building where they were placed. Under the leadership of some people, they had rushed to the first district, the official warehouse, and the official personnel’s residential area.
The person in the lead held a megaphone and led the charge. “I’m going to die anyway. I have to have a good meal! Charge! The grain we snatch will be ours!!!”
The other people who had been persuaded were also extremely excited. “Go! Don’t let them move all the grain away!”
“Charge up! Whatever you snatch is a gain!”
“Go! Snatch a little more, and leave a little more supplies for my child!”
This time, everyone was even more clear. The first district, the official personnel’s area, and the warehouse area. The number of people was also much larger. Not enough weapons? It didn’t matter. They had a large number of people who were not afraid of death to charge in the front.
Everyone rushed forward with their heads down. The thick main door of the warehouse was even shaken loose. The residential area was broken through even faster. A group of people rushed in with a crazed expression. When they saw a house, they would rush in. The first thing they thought of when they broke in was to search for supplies!
They didn’t even notice that there was no one in the house they had broken into.
“Found it, found it! Canned food! Oh my god, there are even canned food here!”
“Ah, ah, ah, there are even two sausages here!”
The appearance of these voices made the others even more excited. “Continue, how come there’s so little? Where’s the cigarettes? Where’s the alcohol?! Where’s the fresh meat?!!!”
And outside the crowd, the snipers who had been waiting for a long time were in position, staring at the agitators in the crowd. With a command from the leader, the sound of gunshots rang out one after another.
Each one caused a riot commander to die.
By the time the group of people who had gotten carried away had come to their senses and noticed that something was wrong, how come all the leaders had fallen?!
“Something’s wrong! There’s an ambush!”
“Run!”
Someone noticed that something was wrong and exclaimed, and quickly turned and ran. But it was a pity. It was easy to come, but when they went back, the main door was tightly closed. Each district was blocked by a high wall. Without tools to help, it was impossible to climb over with bare hands.
Especially since most of the people here were sick and had not eaten well, their physical strength was even weaker.
Just as the rioters were in a mess, the surroundings were suddenly brightly lit, and everything could be seen clearly. The snipers were still staring at them from a high place, and countless red dots were sweeping over them.
At this time, the rioters in the family area wanted to break into the residential houses to hide. Just as they had moved a little, several red dots immediately landed on him. He didn’t believe that the other party would really dare to shoot and continued to flip over. But the moment his legs left the ground, “bang, bang—”
Two consecutive shots landed on him.
Before he could flip over, he had become a corpse and fell down.
The infected who had been shouting at the top of their lungs just now turned pale and retreated, away from the wall. They instinctively shouted, “I’m not causing trouble anymore! Let me go!”
“I’m not causing trouble anymore! I’m not robbing anymore. It was them who scared me! It’s all their fault!!”
“Help—I’m innocent. I was just threatened by them!!!”
Amidst the countless voices of begging for mercy and admitting defeat, a majestic voice finally sounded from the megaphone hanging high up. “Everyone, put your hands on your heads and squat down!”
As soon as these words were spoken, the crowd quickly squatted down, for fear of being targeted if they were a step slower.
The government officials who had been prepared long ago appeared with countless handcuffs.
In the apocalyptic world, there was no such thing as the law not punishing the masses. In order to let more ordinary people live, these people who had disrupted the operation of the base must be severely punished!
Otherwise, it would be a disservice to those who had risked their lives to act and lure the enemy into a trap!
After a whole night of statistics, the number of infected was in the tens of thousands, and the number was about to break one hundred thousand. But only a few thousand had actually been persuaded to do such looting.
This ratio still made the government breathe a sigh of relief. It was much better than expected.
As batches of people were handcuffed, transport ships also appeared at the entrance of the base. After the government officials had handcuffed all the rioters, they were all sent to the ships. The ships also quickly moved away from the base, taking away the bewildered and scared rioters.
Since they have so much energy, they should all go and do hard labor.
It just so happens that there is a pile of dirty and tiring work outside the base that no one is doing.
*
The Next Day
With the efforts of the staff who had worked all night, everything had returned to normal.
The damaged houses had received compensation, the injured had received subsidies, and the dead had received pensions. Then, the entire base seemed to have suddenly been cured of a chronic disease and had become comfortable.
Three days later, this matter was also announced.
The supplies that were transported out were not any survival supplies, but materials for building houses. These things, in those ten days, the construction workers had diligently built some small houses on the top of the mountain, which were now being lived in by those rioters.
Over there, they had to dig soil and collect water every day, which was equivalent to criminal servitude. If they continued to commit crimes during their servitude, they would be directly shot.
After the announcement was made, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, glad that the rich had not moved away, and also glad that the bad guys had been wiped out. “That’s great. The tumor has finally been pulled out!”
“I didn’t even dare to go out these past few days. I was so scared!”
“They were asking for it. No wonder there aren’t so many strange gazes on the street recently. I was so scared before that I was about to have a nervous breakdown…”
Only the relatives of these people were crying their hearts out, but no one paid them any attention.
A stable life was hard to come by, and everyone did not want to be destroyed.
Naturally, they hated the destroyers even more.
After this incident, the base was very relaxed for a few days. However, as long as the specific cure was not researched for a day, and the infected were not cured for a day, everything would still be repeated.
It was also because of this that the base was even busier.
Thousands of infected were not so easy to manage. With so many people sent out, the management of the base was short of many people. Xie Muzhi, this external staff member, was also temporarily requisitioned. He was so busy that his feet did not touch the ground. He could only take the time to drive his assault boat to the halfway point to contact Ji Yang and tell her about what had happened these past few days.
At the same time, he also brought a piece of good news—”There’s already a clue for the specific medicine for the plague! At present, a few patients have shown obvious signs of improvement. It is estimated that in half a month at most, the specific medicine will be completely researched. After so long, we are finally about to conquer one!”
The plague was no longer the plague of memory, but an enhanced version that had evolved through the natural disaster.
But it was a disease that had been conquered before. Now, it was also the first to find a clue. Ji Yang was not surprised. In her previous life, the plague was the first to be solved.
The key was—that was already half a year into the extreme heat!
It was only the flood period now.
The first time the plague had appeared was probably only two months ago!
This was too surprising!
A bright smile appeared on the corners of Ji Yang’s lips. “That’s great. We have to have a good meal to celebrate.”
Xie Muzhi immediately replied, “I can cook whatever you want to eat. No matter how busy I am, it’s no problem to take two hours to go home and cook a meal.”
Ji Yang smiled and also as he wished. “Okay, then what do you want to eat?”
Xie Muzhi hesitated, and finally it turned into two light coughs to cover it up. “Ahem, ahem…”
Ji Yang: “…You can shut up now.”