Invasion of America

Chapter 133 Insider
Nedved opened his eyes again; twenty-four hours had passed.

He slept so deeply and for so long that, were it not for the slight rise and fall of his chest, he would almost be mistaken for a cold corpse.

He struggled to sit up, his consciousness gradually returning. He found himself in a very familiar place. Looking around carefully, he realized that this was the basement of the "fortress" he had built himself.

The pile of clutter has been mostly cleared away, freeing up a spacious area.

The basements of large American houses are also very large, with four or five rooms for different functions.

The washing machine in the basement was roaring, steam was rising in the bathroom, and the house's water pump was working, drawing groundwater.

A survivor with wet hair pushed open the bathroom door, wrapped in warm, clean clothes taken from the dryer, his face refreshed with the relief of surviving a disaster.

“Mr. Nedved, your basement renovation is really good. I didn’t expect there would still be a water supply at a time like this. It’s really rare.”

Nedved looked bewildered. He only remembered a violent explosion and then his whole family being captured. He asked in confusion, "Where did the electricity come from? My solar panels don't have that much power."

"It's powered by the electric pickup truck outside. The battery capacity is over 100 kilowatt-hours, so it can last a long time." The survivor found a hairdryer to dry his hair and called for the next person to continue showering.

Nedved staggered back upstairs, the scene before him making him feel as if he were at a noisy party.

The once quiet house and its front and back yards were now crowded with twenty or thirty people, who were coming and going busily but in an orderly manner.

His wife and two daughters were chatting and laughing around a young Asian man, and the atmosphere was surprisingly harmonious.

Upon seeing her husband awake, the still-attractive wife exclaimed with delight, "Ned! Come and meet Victor. He's the captain of this expedition team and greatly admires your abilities."

He especially thinks that the well you dug yourself is professional-grade, and plans to establish a small base centered around our house.

He was willing to take us in and even offered us a well-paying job that could support our family of four; it seemed to be related to machinery.

Nedved recalled the sudden explosion again. He stretched out his hand, forced a slightly stiff smile, and spoke first:
"Thank you, Victor. I'm sorry for causing you so much trouble before."

At the time, I was just trying my best to protect my family; I always lacked trust in outsiders. But now… none of that matters anymore.

Zhou Qingfeng smiled gently, said a few words of comfort, praised the other party as a genius in the apocalypse, and then formally extended an invitation: "Mr. Nedved, would you like to join my 'Holy Light' team?"

“Holy Light?” Nedved seemed to remember something. He looked at Zhou Qingfeng’s face again and asked in surprise, “You were the president of the ‘Holy Light’ Group before the virus outbreak?”

Zhou Qingfeng nodded frankly, "That's right, it's me."

Nedved was even more surprised. "I remember you won that billion-dollar Powerball jackpot."

"To be precise, it's over $2.2 billion before tax, and about $1.5 billion after tax that I can control," Zhou Qingfeng said calmly.

The Nedved family of four was stunned. His wife gaped open and asked incredulously, "Before the apocalypse, you were a super-rich man with a net worth of over a billion dollars?"

"Uh... before the global outbreak of the 'X virus,' my personal assets were already over ten billion dollars. I know that sounds exaggerated, but it's true."

Through some special channels, I foresaw the threat of the 'X virus' in advance.

As a wealthy person, I have done a lot of preparation work. For example, everything you see now is the result of my squandering hundreds of billions of dollars.

I've done my best to procure supplies, but unfortunately, I still haven't been able to spend all the money before the global financial system completely collapses; I still have a lot left.

As things stand, my supplies are quite sufficient. Therefore, I plan to leave my shelter and provide some relief to other ordinary people.

These words struck like thunderbolts in the minds of Nedved's family, leaving them stunned for a long time.

They had to acknowledge a harsh reality—the apocalypse had not erased the gap between the poor and the rich; on the contrary, it had widened it to an unimaginable degree.

"So, would you like to join my team?" Zhou Qingfeng asked again.

“Of course!” This time, even Nedved completely let down his guard and doubts, grinned, and quickly agreed: “We are very willing to join the ‘Holy Light’ team.”
-
Zhou Qingfeng's status as a wealthy man is like a golden signboard, especially after the intimidation of force, which can quickly win people's hearts.

The Nedved family firmly believed that by associating with such wealthy people, their safety and quality of life would improve dramatically, and they had no need to worry about their loyalty in the short term.

In just two or three days, the exploration team took in forty or fifty survivors and consciously promoted those with families and weaknesses to management positions.

Single men are mostly classified as "basic labor force".

As for the harvest of supplies...

Food was almost negligible.

The town was already in a food shortage, and even families like Nedved's, who had some savings, were facing the crisis of running out of food. Otherwise, his wife and daughters would never have chosen to surrender so readily.

There are plenty of furniture, appliances, and vehicles, but the shelters are not lacking in these areas; they are mainly stored together for emergencies.

The seized firearms and ammunition can be described as "all sorts of things".

In a small town with only a hundred or so residents, thousands of firearms and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition were found.

However, these firearms are of various models and calibers, including pistols, rifles, hunting rifles, and shotguns, making them a bunch of "chicken ribs" that are neither useful nor worth discarding.

The exploration team didn't want these weapons, but they couldn't just leave them unattended, so they had to temporarily confiscate them and transport them to the shelter's warehouse using the "Warthog" transport plane.

The confiscation of firearms caused quite a stir, with survivors repeatedly demanding that they retain their weapons, at least their pistols, as weapons for self-defense.

However, after careful consideration, Zhou Qingfeng and Xiao Jinlang resolutely refused—they already didn't trust these 'basic laborers', and giving them weapons would only cause trouble for themselves.

In short, if you want to join the 'Holy Light' team and get a job with guaranteed room and board, you can't have weapons.

However, both Zhou and Xiao were well aware that this could only prevent survivors from possessing weapons openly; clandestine concealment was inevitable, given the abundance of hidden guns in the apocalypse. Therefore, gun control would be a long-term measure and could not be taken lightly.
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On the third day of the expedition team's trip, Xiao Jinlang brought a complete set of simple "homemade oil refining" equipment to the shelter using several heavy trucks.

To put it simply, it consists of three main components: the refining kettle, the heating furnace, and the condenser. From the outside, it looks like a bunch of oddly shaped pipes and pressure vessels, along with fasteners of various sizes.

Installing this equipment requires a certain level of technical expertise. The person in charge was Guo Yi and four or five other engineers whom Zhou Qingfeng had "tricked" into coming from China. They were technicians from the manufacturer that produced this kind of rudimentary oil refining equipment.

These individuals are rare talents in the team who understand refining and mechanics. After being retained by Zhou Qingfeng with high salaries, they stayed for several months and naturally became fellow sufferers in the shelter.

The use of rudimentary oil refining methods is crucial to the growth and expansion of the shelter network, but it causes enormous pollution and certainly cannot be installed inside shelters.

After receiving a report from the exploration team that the situation in the town of "Awoni" was relatively stable, Xiao Jinlang agreed to let Guo Yi bring people to install a "small refinery" to produce some low-quality fuel.

With sufficient fuel supply, Xiao Jinlang dared to send several long-range aircraft from the shelter to contact people in other shelters—the "Warthog" had good performance, but its range and payload were really limited.

Nedved had some mechanical knowledge and was assigned to work under Guo Yi as a mechanic, responsible for assembling and testing oil refining equipment.

Upon seeing the equipment delivered by the electric heavy truck, the latter became even more convinced that Zhou Qingfeng, the wealthy man from before the apocalypse, had made preparations in advance. After all, normal people wouldn't touch something like rudimentary oil refining.

Omar, because of "saying the wrong thing," was assigned by Kangers to the equipment installation team to move those heavy oil refining components.

Due to a lack of specialized loading and unloading tools, the work was not only tiring but also somewhat dangerous. Although there was an extra food ration for those doing the heavy work, the Black man complained bitterly after a day's work.

Seeing that Nedved, the former "holdout," had become a mechanic, he resented the exploration team for deliberately discriminating against him even more.

"I think I understand now. This is a team mainly composed of Asians, or rather, Chinese, and the president of 'Holy Light' is their leader."

I initially thought Congus would be a leader, but now it seems he's just a lackey. We're all Americans, why should we work for yellow-skinned monkeys?

Omar worked hard, sweating profusely, and his discontent grew like weeds in his heart.

Long-term malnutrition left him physically weak, and he was always thinking of slacking off when working, for which he was often scolded.

In less than three days, he realized that continuing was not a solution. During his lunch break, he seized a moment when no one was watching and made a quick getaway without hesitation.

Today, more than half of the town's survivors have joined the "Holy Light" team.

Those who remained were unwilling to become "basic labor" and were secretly plotting whether to unite and fight against the foreign "invaders".

This group desperately needed an informant to know what was going on inside. Omar's escape from the exploration team filled that gap, and he was quickly found and questioned by the assembled survivors.

This time, I've asked the right person.

“That Chinese man named Victor is their leader. I remember he used to be a wealthy tycoon with assets worth over a billion dollars,” Omar described vividly.

"These rich people must have reserves of supplies to deal with disasters. If we can control them, we won't have to worry about food and drink!" Someone immediately thought of something, their eyes gleaming with greed.

Omar nodded and continued smugly, "This is a good opportunity. Victor only has a dozen or so men with him, and their numbers and weaponry don't seem very strong."

Of course, Victor's men are not to be trifled with either; they have armed pickup trucks, drones, and robotic dogs. Capturing him will require some careful planning.

“And I happen to have an idea,” Omar said in a low voice, “We can send some men to infiltrate Victor’s ranks and serve as the ‘basic labor force’ they recruit.”

They're short-handed right now, they'll take anyone. As long as we can get close to them, we'll definitely have a chance to strike, and the probability of a successful sneak attack is extremely high.

"There's another problem: people who go to seek refuge will be searched and cannot carry weapons. But this isn't unsolvable."

Omar paused, then continued, "Those Chinese are hiring people to recycle plastic and other waste. We can hide our weapons in a house that will be searched beforehand and go to them empty-handed."

We'll find the weapons when the time is right. There are only twelve of them; they can't possibly keep an eye on all of us every second.

Like me, it's easy to slip away during lunch break.

There are still forty or fifty survivors who are unwilling to submit to the "Holy Light," and at least half of them have gathered together at this moment, which is quite a large number.

These people are usually at odds with each other and would hate each other to death when they meet, but they manage to unite in the face of greater interests and crises.

Omar recounted his experiences in the exploration team at length, subtly implying that he considered himself the leader.

The others were all opportunists, but after listening to his seemingly logical analysis, they realized that the 'Holy Light' team was very loosely managed and seemed to have a real chance of success, and they were immediately tempted.

“Omar, have you considered that those who have sided with the ‘Holy Light’ might try to stop us?” Scott, a man among the ‘fence-sitters,’ asked.

"How is that possible?" Omar was utterly bewildered. "Once we kidnap that guy named Victor, we'll definitely have a fortune to distribute. At worst, we can give some to those spineless cowards."

For example, Nedved was blown up by the "Holy Light" with explosives, and his wife and daughters were kidnapped. He's bound to harbor resentment. I can try to win him over.”

Scott shook his head, pulled an ID card from his pocket, and threw it in front of everyone. "I also infiltrated here. I was also a 'basic labor force,' but I left before you."

Not everyone is willing to rebel, especially those who are appointed as leaders. They are treated better and have finally achieved a stable life, which they are unwilling to have disrupted.

Therefore, we are not only facing twelve core members of 'Holy Light', but also their lackeys.

We are outnumbered, and outequipped, we are at a significant disadvantage. Your idea of ​​'infiltrating and ambushing' has a very low success rate.

Omar thought about it and it seemed to make sense – Nedved had been working very hard these past two or three days and was being paid much better than him, a 'basic laborer,' and didn't seem to have any resentment at all.

But he was unconvinced and sneered, "Since you think my idea is bad, what can you do about it?"

Scott said earnestly, "To succeed, we need to find more people to join us."

(End of this chapter)