Apocalypse Rebirth: 3000 million won at the beginning

Xincai County.

The full moon hangs like a plate, and the stars twinkle in the summer night.

Perhaps it's due to past natural disasters, or perhaps it's the collapse of human industrial civilization and the elimination of various forms of pollution.

The stars in the night sky appeared extremely bright.

The moonlight was so bright that one could see the road without even a flashlight.

This scene reminded Wang Cheng of his childhood memories. He vaguely remembered that when he was a child, he would chase and play with his friends on the ridges of the fields in his rural hometown at night.

They can also play hide-and-seek on the wheat stalks in the wheat field.

There was no television or short videos on his phone at home, but the happiness he experienced back then remains the most beautiful memory of his life.

On the top floor of the mobile building in the center of Xincai County, he leaned against the wall, staring blankly at the moon outside.

The streets are dilapidated. The once bustling roads are now cracked, covered with a layer of mud and garbage, and half-meter-high weeds have grown in the cracks.

The weeds swayed gently in the night breeze.

Wipe—

Suddenly, a sound came from the street.

Footsteps.

Based on his years of experience in the apocalypse, he recognized the sound as footsteps.

He leaned out the window, cautiously peering down at the street below.

The streets were deserted and silent.

These days, they not only have to guard against mutants, but also against normal people, but what they fear most is encountering corpse ghosts.

Although the Corpse Demon has no consciousness and is similar to a zombie, it possesses extremely strong strength and defense.

"What's wrong?" his companion in the room asked, noticing his unusual behavior.

Wang Cheng shook his head and said, "It's nothing, I probably misheard."

Just as he was about to turn his head, he saw a figure appear at the corner of the street.

hiss!
In an instant, his breathing became rapid, and his heart skipped a beat.

Corpse-Rotting Demon!
It's definitely a Corpse Demon. This Corpse Demon moves very slowly, but that doesn't mean the Corpse Demon itself is like that.

Once the Corpse Demon spots its prey, its movements become incredibly fast, as if it's on double speed.

Gudong!

He turned his neck, opened his mouth, but made no sound. He pointed down and mouthed three words.

Corpse-rotting ghost.

The other three companions in the room all had their expressions change drastically.

One of the men, a tall and somewhat unkempt-looking man, crept closer to the window.

He spotted the rotting corpse demon below at a glance.

When he saw the tall, rotting corpse demon, his head felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer.

He quickly squatted down and held up two fingers on his right hand.

He then put his index finger to his lips, signaling everyone not to make a sound.

Wang Cheng was shocked when he saw his actions.

Old Gao held up two fingers, indicating that the corpse-rotting ghost was a level two corpse-rotting ghost.

Level 1 Corpse Demons are already difficult to deal with, let alone Level 2 ones.

Level 2 Corpse Devourers not only possess climbing ability, but their speed, strength, and other comprehensive aspects are also stronger than those of Level 1 Corpse Devourers.

What's even more absurd is that the level 2 Corpse Demon's defense is ridiculously strong; it can't be killed by melee weapons at all.

The skin has a thick stratum corneum, so long swords and spears can't penetrate its defenses at all.

A saying circulates among the mutant population: Better to encounter the Night Demon than to provoke the Corpse Demon!
Night Demon refers to a mutated wall-climbing zombie that appeared when zombies were everywhere.

They are very powerful, but they are even more afraid of the Corpse Demons.

The Corpse Demon has excellent hearing. Once it hears a sound, it will rush over at top speed, ignoring walls and roads.

Within 100 meters, it can dart in front of you in 10 seconds.

Its claws are also very sharp. In the post-apocalyptic world, these houses are dilapidated and the walls are old. Once it finds you, it can quickly dig a hole with its claws to find you.

Everyone in the room knew how terrifying the Corpse Demon was.

They squatted against the wall, not daring to move an inch.

They even deliberately lowered their breathing frequency, trying to keep the sound as quiet as possible.

Wipe, wipe, wipe—

The corpse demon moved very slowly, each step it took felt like a heavy hammer blow to their hearts.

There was a breeze blowing in through the broken window, which was fairly cool, but large beads of sweat were seeping from Wang Cheng's forehead.

The footsteps grew closer.

The Corpse Demon arrived at the foot of the mobile building, seemingly having caught a whiff of its prey.

It suddenly climbed up the wall, its four paws firmly embedded in the wall.

Ruined!
Upon hearing this voice, Wang Cheng's heart tightened, and he gripped the dagger in his hand even tighter.

This is really the end.

No one can survive the clutches of the Corpse Demon.

Oh shit.

I wish I hadn't come to the city.

They had originally planned to collect some items in the city and then, like other mutant groups, trade crystal food with the scavenger teams from the oil city.

But to my surprise, I had such bad luck today, encountering a corpse demon.

It is said that the probability of encountering a Corpse Demon is now much higher than before.

More and more mutants, lacking the crystals to control their physical mutations, continue to consume mutated food, leading to increasingly higher levels of mutation until they become completely mindless, rotting corpses.

Snapped!
Snapped!
Snapped!
The Corpse Demon was still trying to pinpoint the location of its prey's scent, but it was clear that the Corpse Demon was getting closer and closer.

The four people in the room were extremely tense, communicating with each other through eye contact.

But at this point, there was nothing anyone could do.

Hold.

With a determined heart, Wang Cheng decided to stand up and run out to lure the rotting corpse away.

In any case, it's better for one person to die than for everyone to die here.

He took a deep look at Lao Gao, who also had a daughter, and who had once saved him.

This time, he's going to be a hero.

Just as he was about to make a move, a commotion came from the street.

squeak-

A rat crawled out of the sewer and searched for food on the street.

Hearing the noise, the rotting corpse hanging on the wall suddenly turned its head, its scarlet eyes looking down at the rat below.

The Corpse Demon released its claws and jumped down from a height of five meters, lunging towards the rat.

Boom!
A loud noise startled the little mouse.

The sewer was right next to it, and the rat scurried in at lightning speed.

Tatata!
The rotting corpse demon frantically chased after the small rats in the sewers.

However, the sewers have an extremely complex layout, and the rats are very agile, turning left and right.

The Corpse Demon used its claws to pry open the drain cover, but its massive body couldn't squeeze into the sewer at all.

The only option is to track the rats down the street based on their movements.

The footsteps of the rotting corpse demon grew fainter and fainter.

Wang Cheng and his three companions listened intently, and only after half an hour, when they still hadn't heard the footsteps of the Corpse Demon, did they breathe a sigh of relief.

"What was that just now?" Old Gao asked in a low voice, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"I think it sounded like a rat," Wang Cheng replied, still shaken.

Old Gao frowned and said with some doubt:
"Rats? It's strange that there are rats in the city. They haven't starved to death yet."

"but."

He showed a look of relief, and said:

"But it's a good mouse."

A burly man with thick eyebrows and a dark face said with some worry, "We can't stay in Xincai anymore. There are corpse ghosts here. We must leave tomorrow."

Wang Cheng nodded and said:
"Old Hei is right, let's leave tomorrow. But we should also take with us what we've collected these past few days, and keep things quiet tomorrow."

A look of worry appeared on Gao Li's face as he said:

"How do we trade those items?"

As he spoke, a hint of annoyance appeared on his face.

"Those bastards, Tu Laogou and his gang, last time we collected a whole bunch of stuff for them, and they only gave us a pound of grain containing crystals. That's so little, what good is that!"

"We still need to get on the good side of the scavengers in the oil city and exchange crystal food directly from them, so that there's no middleman like Tu Laogou making a profit."

Old Hei scratched his head and asked:
"But we don't know any of the scavengers in the oil city. What if they just kill us if we approach them rashly?"

After thinking for a moment, Wang Cheng suggested:
"Why don't we just go to the main road outside the oil city and wait there? Find a group of scavengers that looks reliable and talk to them directly."

Old Gao sighed, "We can only gamble now. Some scavengers are bastards. I'm afraid they'll want to take the goods too. If they don't give us the goods, they might kill us."

Wang Cheng hardened his heart and said:
"Okay, you guys hide in the woods while I stop the scavengers on the main road. I'll bring some things with me to show them first."

"If they attack me, don't worry about me, just run."

“If they are willing to trade, I will go back into the woods and give them the goods.”

"No."

When Lao Gao heard him say that, he immediately refused:

“We are a team, and we can’t let you bear all the risks.”

Old Hei, who was standing nearby, saw the two arguing and suggested:

"Do you think it's possible for us to directly contact the officials in the oil city?"

"I feel like their control over crystal food isn't as strict as it used to be. Does that mean the Oil City's attitude towards us mutants has changed, and they won't be driving us away like before?"

"I don't think it's appropriate," Old Gao shook his head and said.
"There are ten fortified fortresses around the oil city, with observation posts set up on them and equipped with high-powered telescopes. If we go there, before we even reach the walls of the oil city, the black markings on our faces might be discovered. There's no way to disguise them!"

Wang Cheng said firmly:
"No need to discuss it anymore, I'll go tomorrow, it's settled then."

"sleep."

After saying that, he crossed his arms, propped his bag against the wall, and rested his head against the backpack to sleep.

"Oh, you..."

Seeing him like this, Lao Gao opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.

He had no better solution and looked down at his daughter, who was sleeping in his arms.

He sighed and softly said thank you.

The next day.

A ray of sunlight woke Wang Cheng from his sleep.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Lao Gao's daughter staring at him with wide eyes.

"Xiao Qing, what are you looking at?" Wang Cheng touched his face.

Old Gao's thirteen-year-old daughter, Gao Qing, pointed at his nose, opened her mouth, but made no sound.

Gao Qing had a high fever when she was a child, and she has been unable to speak since then.

But you can hear sounds.

Wang Cheng touched his nose; it turned out he had slept too soundly last night, his face pressed directly against the wall.

His nose and face were covered in the white ash from the dilapidated walls.

He rubbed his face, but instead of removing the white ash, it made his face look like he had applied makeup.

Gao Qing covered her mouth and laughed, her eyes sparkling like little stars when she smiled.

Lao Gao and Lao Hei woke up when they heard the noise.

"Let's go. It's still a bit of a distance from here to the oil city. Let's get there as soon as possible," Wang Cheng said, coughing.

After seeing Wang Cheng's face, Lao Hei laughed:

"How come you're so fair-skinned?"

Wang Cheng was taken aback, and quickly got up to look at the reflection in the window.

Upon seeing that deathly pale face, he quickly wiped his face with his sleeve.

"Dust that I accidentally got on."

The four of them ate something casually in the room.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked out of the mobile building.

On the first floor of the mobile building, there is a tricycle. The cargo bed on the back of the tricycle has been re-welded to create some extra space.

The bicycle was covered with a layer of rainproof cloth.

It was filled with things they had collected over the past few days:

BBU small radio frequency modules, RRU radio frequency units, optical modules, fiber optic transceivers, small switches, couplers and the like.

These items were all found inside the mobile building.

The reason for looking for these things was that I obtained a list of materials that the oil city was collecting from outside from Tu Laogui.

Most people have no idea what this thing is, what it's used for, or where to find it.

Coincidentally, Wang Cheng had worked in the telecommunications industry before, and was a former architect at China Mobile.

Therefore, I understand these things.

For example, a small radio frequency module like the BBU can be assembled into a small cellular base station as long as it has power, which can be used by base walkie-talkies within a range of tens of kilometers to transmit intelligence via short messages without relying on high-power radios.

It has a longer transmission distance than a walkie-talkie, but not as long as a radio.

There are also optical modules, which can be used in the communications field and also in the industrial field. They can be used as signal transmission components for small CNC machine tools.

These items, according to the points redemption price on the list, can definitely be exchanged for a considerable amount of crystal food.

The premise is that the scavenger group they encounter has some conscience.

If you encounter someone who has no conscience, they might only be able to exchange these things for a very small amount of crystal food.

But there's nothing we can do about it, since the pricing power is in someone else's hands.

First floor of the Mobile Building.

Old Hei put the backpack on the truck bed, squatted down, took out the key, and unlocked the rusty iron lock.

Even in the apocalypse, they were afraid that other mutants would steal their tricycle.

This is their only means of transportation.

Old Hei got on the vehicle, ready to ride.

Wang Cheng quickly went over and opened the gate, while Lao Gao and Gao Qing pushed the tricycle behind.

The tricycle's gears were coated with corpse oil, making them very smooth and producing almost no noise.

The tires were also replaced with chevron tires that we found. They are twice as wide as ordinary bicycle tires, with thicker sidewalls and stronger load-bearing capacity, but they have greater rolling resistance and are slower.

They also used scaffolding from the construction site to tie the main beams of the car side by side, which increased the load-bearing capacity to three times that of the original beams.

The bearings, axles, and other parts have also been lengthened and thickened.

In short, they modified this tricycle to an extremely extreme degree. Although the increased weight slowed down the riding speed, it required more effort to pedal.

However, its durability and load-bearing capacity have at least tripled.

This is their most precious possession; in the end times, they will have no access to electricity or fuel.

These pedal-powered tricycles are the most practical for them.

Human intervention is sufficient.

Moreover, it's just the right size for one person to ride, and three people can sit on it and take turns, so it's not tiring.

If you have a lot of things, you can still store more, saving effort.

For people in the apocalypse, the most troublesome thing about long journeys is how to carry supplies.

There's only one bag, so it can't hold much.

This tricycle solved so many of their problems.

After leaving the mobile building, Lao Hei rode a tricycle, with Wang Cheng and Lao Gao pushing it from behind.

The contents of the vehicle, including the backpacks of the four people, weigh at least 250 kilograms.

It wasn't too strenuous, but if no one pushed him from behind, Lao Hei wouldn't be able to hold on for long.

Ahead, Gao Qing skillfully cleared the road, pushing aside anything that might block their way to make room for them.

The four of them worked together very well, maintaining a speed of 5 kilometers per hour as they headed towards the oil city.

(End of this chapter)