Siheyuan: tomb robbing? I am serious about hunting.

Chapter 866 Crouching

Lin Xiaoman stepped on the accelerator. In the dust raised by the wheels, she saw a half-rotten mutant arm hanging on the iron door, swaying gently in the wind. "Bang! Bang! Bang!" She slapped the iron door with all her strength, and her palms were scratched by the rough rust. Ten seconds later, the small window above the door was pushed open with a "creak". A pair of bloodshot eyes looked at her vigilantly, and the barrel of a gun poked out from the gap: "Password!" Lin Xiaoman's heart skipped a beat. The mobile phone accidentally fell during the escape, and the anonymous text message had long disappeared with the mutant's attack. She raised her backpack, her voice trembling with hoarseness: "I came from the city center, with medicine and..." "Bang--" The iron door suddenly opened inwards, and a force suddenly pulled her in. Lin Xiaoman staggered to stand firm, and the iron door behind her quickly closed. The heavy metal collision sounded painful to her eardrums. The light suddenly dimmed, and after a while she adjusted, she could see the man in front of her clearly - he was about 73 meters tall, his camouflage uniform was covered with mud, and there was a hideous scar on his left face that extended from the corner of his eye to his chin. "Remember next time, the password is 'Sunflower'." The man put away his gun and stretched out his calloused hand, "My name is Chen Yuan, one of the leaders of the base." When he turned around, Lin Xiaoman noticed that he was carrying a homemade compound bow on his back, and the arrows in the quiver were made of mutant bones. Passing through the dim corridor, Lin Xiaoman was shocked by the scene in front of her. The huge factory building was converted into a temporary residential area, divided into small spaces by abandoned billboards and waterproof cloth. In the corner, several children huddled on moldy mattresses with cracked plastic kettles beside them; not far away, two old men were using branches to stir a bonfire, and turbid liquid was steaming in the iron bucket on the fire. The air was filled with the smell of sweat, disinfectant and some rotten food. "There are currently 3 survivors." Chen Yuan kicked away the empty cans at his feet. "There are 28 doctors, 1980 young and strong people who can work, and the others..." He paused, and his eyes swept across the white coat figure in the corner who was changing the dressings for the injured. "Either too old or too young." Lin Xiaoman followed Chen Yuan to the warehouse, where there were pitiful supplies: half a bag of moldy rice, several boxes of expired biscuits, and several plastic barrels labeled "medical alcohol", but less than one-third of the liquid was left. "Drinking water depends on collecting rainwater." Chen Yuan knocked on the rusty water tank. "Three days ago, it was completely empty. Now everyone can only get half a cup of water every day." There was a sudden vibration under her feet, and Lin Xiaoman almost fell. Chen Yuan supported her and pointed to the ceiling: "The mutants are hitting the wall. Last night, they piled up the bodies into a ladder and almost climbed over the wall." Following his finger, Lin Xiaoman saw many new scratches on the mottled wall, and some bricks had loosened, revealing the rusted steel bars inside. "We tried to reinforce it with wooden boards, but without cement, it won't hold up at all." Chen Yuan squatted down and picked up a broken brick with the black nails of the mutant embedded in the cracks of the brick. "The food can only last for a week at most. If we can't find a water source..." He didn't continue, but just looked at the night gradually falling outside the window in silence. Lin Xiaoman squatted on the ground and carefully observed the scattered building materials. Rusty steel bars, broken water pipes, and several bags of cement that had expired for an unknown period of time. Her fingers brushed over a piece of concrete fragments, and suddenly remembered the doomsday infrastructure tutorial she saw on the forum before leaving. "Maybe we can use these materials." She picked up the steel bars and drew a simple structural diagram on the ground. "We can build a triangular support, use waste tires and wire mesh as a buffer layer, and then pour concrete..." Chen Yuan raised his eyebrows and interrupted her: "Are you sure? No one here knows about construction. The last time a few young people built a watchtower, it collapsed the next day." There was obvious doubt in his tone, but there was a hint of expectation in his eyes. Lin Xiaoman didn't answer, but walked to the corner of the wall and picked up half a rusty steel bar and a piece of wood. She bent the steel bar into a hook and fixed it on the edge of the board. She also found some hemp ropes and quickly wove them into a simple pulley set. "Try this." She put the device on the water tank and gently pulled it. The tank that originally required two people to move was easily lifted. Chen Yuan's pupils shrank slightly, and he squatted down to carefully examine the device: "Where did you learn it?" "I used to be in the wilderness survival club." Lin Xiaoman wiped the sweat from her forehead, "The key now is the water source." She pointed to the crack in the corner of the warehouse, where a few drops of water seeped out and formed a small puddle on the ground. "There may be a pipe or an underground river in the basement. When the factory was expanded in , the news reported that a deep groundwater system was used." Chen Yuan stared at her for a long time, as if evaluating the credibility of her words. Suddenly, a child's cry came from the distance, followed by chaotic footsteps. "Another mutant is coming." He grabbed the compound bow, "Follow me, if what you said is true, maybe we still have a chance." Lin Xiaoman tightened the backpack strap and followed Chen Yuan to the wall. In the night, the mutants' eyes were like green phosphorescent fire, rushing towards the factory. She touched the homemade Molotov cocktail in her backpack, which was a mixture of alcohol and gasoline. "Wait until they get closer!" Chen Yuan pulled the bowstring, and the arrow shot out of the air, accurately piercing the throat of a mutant. At the moment the Molotov cocktail was thrown, Lin Xiaoman silently calculated the parabola in her mind. The flames exploded in the mutant group, illuminating their distorted faces. She heard the screams of the survivors behind her, not knowing whether it was because of fear or amazement. But at this moment, her eyes were fixed on the cracks in the wall - there, a few loose bricks were shaking under the impact of the mutants. "Chen Yuan! The southeast corner can't hold on!" Someone shouted. Lin Xiaoman looked at the anxiety in Chen Yuan's eyes and suddenly realized that this seemingly strong man was actually on the verge of collapse. She took a deep breath and shouted loudly: "Everyone listen! Collect all the sandbags and planks you can find. We need to build a second line of defense before the collapse!" I don't know who took the lead in responding, and the originally panicked crowd began to act in an orderly manner. The children helped pass tools, and the elders tore the bedding into strips to tie up the wood. Lin Xiaoman and Chen Yuan stood at the forefront, using their bodies to hold up the brick wall that was about to collapse. Sweat mixed with rain flowed into her eyes, but she didn't dare blink, for fear of missing any details. When the first line of defense finally couldn't hold, the second line of simple fortifications had been completed. The wave of mutants hit the makeshift wooden wall, making a deafening sound. Lin Xiaoman looked at the scene in front of her, and suddenly remembered her mother's words before she set off: "No matter what you encounter, survive, and help others survive." She clenched her fists and swore secretly in her heart-this base will definitely become a real safe zone.