Chapter 595: The Truly Frightening Thing
Chapter 595: The Truly Frightening Thing
Since Luo Feifan had always spent time with Zhou Zheng and his men after entering the base, they were very familiar with his abilities—and deeply admired him for them.
So now, each of them widened their eyes, curious to see what was so special about this Zhan Lian. Was he truly on par with Luo Feifan, or just someone who dragged him down?
Holding a map in his hand, Zhan Lian swept his sharp gaze over Zhou Zheng and the others gathered in the living room. He didn’t sit. Instead, he walked straight into the kitchen, spread the map out on the dining table, and beckoned to them.
“Come. Tell me about the situation on the city wall in detail.”
Many assumed that once they joined a collective, the real conflict would always be with the base’s upper echelon. But for Zhan Lian and An Ran, that was Fatty’s business.
Their ultimate goal was simply to find a safe and stable place to settle. And whether a base was truly stable or not depended on its lower-tier defenses.
Clearly, Yaoyang Base’s defenses had completely collapsed. The reason was simple: humanity’s greatest survival crisis was the severe cold. Yet the upper leaders of the Grand Fortune lived by the motto “If there’s wine today, then get drunk today”, doing nothing except handing Zhou Zheng and his wall-guard soldiers a token supply of crystal cores.
But if you couldn’t even survive the winter with those cores, what was the point of laboring and risking your life?
So, a while ago, patrols could still be seen on the streets of Yaoyang Base. But after electricity and heating were cut, the patrols all deserted.
Where did they go? Home—to escape the cold.
Other than the snow disaster, the base faced no other immediate threats. So the city walls were abandoned, leaving fewer than twenty men under Zhou Zheng still holding out. Yet even they were reaching their breaking point.
The frightening thing was that the people in the Grand Fortune were completely unaware that the base’s defenses had already collapsed… No, that wasn’t quite right—Chen Chaofa had noticed. But he hadn’t connected it to the defensive situation at all. Instead, because Zhou Zheng and his men had deceived him, he was determined to have them killed.
Otherwise, Luo Feifan would never have smuggled them out.
As Zhou Zheng and his men gave a detailed account of the situation on the city walls and the patrols within the base, Zhan Lian and the others never once relaxed their furrowed brows.
Zhan Lian, Luo Feifan, and Yun Tao were all soldiers. No matter how harsh the weather, as soldiers they understood deeply: if a base lacked even the most basic perimeter defenses, the consequences could be catastrophic.
It was true that at present the only visible threat was heavy snow. But a soldier’s perspective could never be limited to the present moment. Why else had Zhou Zheng and his men held their posts to the very end? If Chen Chaofa hadn’t turned on them, would they ever have thought of fleeing?
It was because, as soldiers, they knew that unless it was absolutely unavoidable, they could not abandon their duty. The wall guards were, in fact, the most vital element of the entire base.
Yun Tao remained hunched over the table, studying the map they had obtained from Zhou Zheng’s men, which depicted the general terrain and layout of Yaoyang Base.
Meanwhile, Zhan Lian and Luo Feifan had moved aside to confer in low voices.
After a while, Luo Feifan stepped forward, placed a hand on Zhou Zheng’s shoulder, and with genuine respect said: “You’ve done well. For now, you’ll have to endure some hardship and lie low in our neighborhood. Once the storm passes, you’ll be safe.”