Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 106 A new home in the mountains
"Brother Guan!"

Upon hearing Guan Tong's voice, Chen Na gasped in surprise, not expecting it to be him calling.

Guan Tong asked, "Xiao Na, I saw your car in the development zone parking lot. Didn't you go to Yong'an? By the way, how did your mother's checkup at the hospital go?"

"I, we, Mom—"

Chen Na wanted to say that she hadn't gone to the capital and that her mother's test results were bad, but when the words were on the tip of her tongue, she remembered her short-haired sister.

When the latter said goodbye during their first meeting, he specifically instructed her not to mention anything about them or the assessment to anyone else.

If she finds out the information has been leaked, the previous invitation will be cancelled.

Chen Na could not accept the cancellation, because it was her only lifeline to save her mother.

“Mom is fine… We went to the capital by high-speed train… We don’t need the big truck anymore,” Chen Na said softly.

"Is this so?"

"Brother Guan, I... I have something to do here, so I'll hang up now."

"it is good."

Chen Na quickly pressed the end call button, her face flushed. Even though it was just on the phone, the thought of lying still made her very flustered.

"I'm sorry, Brother Guan..." she whispered, looking at her phone. "I didn't mean to lie to you. I need to get medicine and medical supplies for my mother..."

Meanwhile, Guan Tong, who was in the parking lot, put away her phone, feeling that Chen Na's tone on the phone was a bit strange. She also seemed to be in a hurry to hang up, only saying two or three sentences before hanging up.

But since she said she took the high-speed train to Yong'an, Guan Tong didn't think much of it and said to the parking lot staff, "The owner of this car has already left Yunhua, so the car is probably no longer needed."

"You don't want it anymore? Then I'll have someone take it away later."

Guan Tong returned to her car and continued on her way to her destination.

Along the way, he saw that the villages by the roadside were still in a state of collapse after the snow disaster, and it seemed that no one had cleaned them up for several months.

It seems that due to a shortage of manpower and other factors, the authorities have been doing their best to ensure the supply of materials to the city, the construction of shelters, and the maintenance of public order, and simply do not have the spare capacity to take care of the villages outside the city.

This has resulted in a situation where even villages near cities are now almost deserted, completely lifeless.

However, all the original corpses have disappeared. They must have "come back to life" in the rules of the living dead and gone to attack the city.

There were quite a few cars on the road, but most of them were going in the opposite direction from Guan Tong. Those car owners were probably people who had been evacuated to the outskirts of the city during the Blood Plague Virus event, and some of the survivors began to return to the city after the event ended.

After traveling for a while, Guan Tong arrived at her destination, Mingdao Mountain, around 10 p.m.

Just like the last time he came, this place was still desolate. The only trace of human habitation was the small camp he had built himself.

Yes, his little camp was still there, but the surrounding wooden stakes had all collapsed. Such a makeshift camp wouldn't last more than ten days without maintenance.

It was already dark, so Guan Tong didn't go up the mountain and just spent the night in the car.

The next day at dawn, he drove his car to the woods at the foot of the mountain, and then walked up Mingdao Mountain.

During that snow disaster, he stayed here for so long, but because the mountains were blocked by snow, he never went up, which was somewhat regrettable.

When he went up the mountain this time, he found that it was pretty much as he had imagined. Because it was undeveloped, the ground was covered with weeds, rocks, and some trees that were growing crookedly and haphazardly.

Before the end-of-the-world rule era, hikers would occasionally come here to climb mountains, but after entering the rule era, no one had the leisure to do so anymore.

Guan Tong walked around the mountain for a while, looking for a suitable place to put the shelter. Before long, he found a well-lit flat area and decided to place it there.

However, some processing is required before placing it.

A flash of black light appeared on the pattern of Guan Tong's hoodie, and the giant axe warrior appeared.

He then took out the Corpse Whistle and blew it repeatedly, causing some undead to emerge from the ground.

"The giant axe warriors chopped down those trees, and the undead cleared away the weeds, rubble, and other debris. Then they moved the felled trees away."

After giving the summoned creatures their commands, Guan Tong sat down to the side and leisurely watched them work.

This was the first time he realized that having many summoned creatures had its advantages. At least he wouldn't have to do all sorts of chores and physical labor himself anymore.

If the conditions were as they are now back when the snow disaster rules were in place, he wouldn't need to get up every day and spend half a day clearing the paths; he could just sit in the camp and let his summoned creatures do it.

Soon, the giant axe warriors chopped down the trees that were taking up space, and the undead people also removed the weeds, rubble, and fallen trees, clearing a clean open space.

Guan Tong then took out the [Wordless Book]. Since summoning the giant axe warrior and the undead had consumed a lot of his mental energy, he could only use some of his reserved mental energy to materialize the sanctuary, which had cost him a great deal of mental energy.

As soon as the wooden house was in place, Guan Tong opened the door and Coal Ball jumped out with a whoosh.

"Meow!"

It jumped onto Guan Tong's shoulder, lying down and looking around warily. It seemed that the change in environment was making it a little uncomfortable.

Guan Tong patted its little head: "We'll be living on this mountain for now, so let's get to know our new home."

Standing at the doorway, Guan Tong looked into the house. He had brought so many supplies that there was barely any room left to stand. He had a few undead move some out. It was already October, and the weather was no longer hot, so some supplies could be left out in the open without any problem.

After moving out eight or nine boxes, there were still quite a few left. Guan Tong sighed, "I wonder what the upper limit of mental power needs to be before I can expand this refuge."

His current goal is to have a two-bedroom apartment, which would be quite nice, with one room for living and the other for storage. Unlike now, where there's only one room and it gets very messy when there's too much stuff.

After tidying up, Guan Tong took a shower in the bathroom, then dried her hair with a hairdryer before sitting down at the table and turning on her computer.

In this desolate mountain, being able to use water and electricity without the aid of machinery is undoubtedly the most satisfying thing for him; compared to that, the small space is not a big deal.

Guan Tong first checked the college's online courses, which had not been updated yet.

During the Blood Plague Rules period, the academy naturally suspended classes, and lecturers and students were isolated in their dormitories.

There are certainly quite a few infected people, but the situation here should be much better than in the outside world.

Just as Xu Xiaotian said in the phone call, the authorities attach great importance to the college. As soon as the rules were released, the students received professional-grade protective clothing and oxygen masks, which greatly reduced the probability of infection.

This is understandable, since those who can enter the academy are all Ascended individuals with a mental power limit of at least 80 points. From the official perspective, these are all being cultivated as the backbone of the force, and their failure is certainly not to be tolerated.

Guan Tong then logged into his "Home of Ascendants" website, and was immediately surprised when he opened the backend.

"So many people have registered accounts?"

Previously, besides his own webmaster account, the website only had one registered user, "Mask." But after just two or three days of inactivity, the number of registered accounts has now exceeded eight hundred, nearing the one thousand mark.

He thought that someone might have been diverting traffic, otherwise the number wouldn't have increased so quickly.

Return to the website homepage and open the intelligence section.

His post about the Holy Grail already has over two hundred replies.

"Unlimited mental power? Is that news reliable?!"

"Holy crap! No wonder Shadow Boss was so fierce back then, slaughtering hundreds of contestants like pigs. It turns out he had unlimited mental power!"

"Actually, many participants had discussed this before. They all felt that since there was only one person, it was impossible for him to have so much mental power to keep using the items and abilities. Now it seems that it's because of the Holy Grail's buff."

"I feel like I need the right ability or tool. If I were given unlimited mental power, I definitely wouldn't be able to use it."

"Upstairs +1. My item is actually quite powerful, but it has a cooldown time. Even with infinite mental energy, I can't use it if the cooldown isn't over! Once surrounded, I can only wait to die."

"Where does the site administrator get his information? Does he know the Shadow Boss?"

"Sitemaster, sitemaster, you wouldn't happen to be Shadow, would you? If so, please allow me to express my worship and fawn over you!"

Guan Tong read the users' replies and found that most of them thought his statement was credible, but they were all curious about his source.

Guan Tong won't reveal that he is the Shadow, as that would destroy the mystery. Even if someone suspects he is, as long as he doesn't admit it, it can't be confirmed.

In addition, with more users, they also started posting on the website themselves.

There were already more than twenty posts in the intelligence section. Guan Tong browsed through them and found that most of them were unimportant public information. There wasn't a single one that he wanted to "feature".

Additionally, while there are posts in the commission and trading sections, there are only a few, and they are all questioning the legitimacy of users. They believe it's unsafe for users to commission or trade on such unreliable websites.

Guan Tong was not surprised by this, but he believed that with time, everyone would soon find that his website was indeed secure.

Finally, there's the "Casual Chat" section. Guan Tong clicked on it and found that this section had the most posts, exceeding one hundred.

What puzzled him was that many of the posts were about cybersecurity technology.

He clicked on some of them and finally understood what was going on.

It turns out that over the past two days, a bunch of hackers had tried to crack the website and track down the site owner's IP address, but naturally, they all failed.

Many of these hackers are well-known in the industry and possess top-notch skills. The fact that even they couldn't break through the website indirectly proves its high level of security, which is why some users were attracted to it.

These hackers, believing the website to be very safe, treated it as a technical discussion forum, discussing various related topics.

Even when Guan Tong saw the "mask" who sent him the website optimization package, he stopped pretending and posted a thread about how he tried to crack it with tools and infiltrate it with a Trojan, but both attempts failed.

Guan Tong knew beforehand that this "masked" guy's unusual kindness was ill-intentioned, but given the nature of the shelter's network, she hadn't paid much attention. Now it seems that it was very likely this guy who started it all; he brought a bunch of hackers, and the hackers then attracted some ordinary users.

However, this guy worked tirelessly to create an optimization package and also indirectly helped drive traffic to the website. Guan Tong's evaluation of Masked Man was: Although his original intention was bad, he executed it well.

However, a post caught his attention at that moment.

The post is titled: "Questions about in-site transactions."

After Guan Tong clicked on the link, she found that the poster had expressed confusion in the main text.

"Although the website has just been created and its functions are still very basic, its security is indeed quite good so far."

However, this security only guarantees online transactions. If users want to conduct transactions, offline transactions will inevitably be involved. How can user safety be guaranteed then? Moreover, after the 10th, the country will enter a state of war, and the movement of City Ascenders will be restricted. How can transactions be guaranteed to proceed smoothly then?

(End of this chapter)