Chapter 656
Chapter 656: Base Cities
Before doomsday, many young girls loved the following adage: Time passes quickly like a white pony’s shadow across a crevice. They loved to write that line of text on scented paper to signify how fast time passed.
However, after doomsday, young boys and girls never dared to use that adage. Humanity had gradually found out that one could say such words only at peacetime. When everyday life was like hell and people struggled daily to find food and survive, while enduring hunger and hardships, they felt as if each passing day was akin to a year. As such, adages like that were treated as jokes.
Three years had passed since the virus outbreak, and ever since then, the world had undergone tremendous changes. It was unknown how many people had died. Governments and their military had fallen, while no organization had the power to make or enforce rules.
However, there was still an exception in the new status quo—a mysterious organization called Genesis.
Genesis was unimaginably powerful, and its every member more talented than the other. Moreover, its leader was said to wield the power of a god. Or maybe, he was God!
Genesis had no equal. The few organizations had chosen submission over fighting against them, while powerful individuals had joined their ranks. As a result, within two years, Genesis had almost become the world’s overlord. In other words, in this post-apocalyptic world, no other force could raise its head before them, and even remote areas all belonged to Genesis’ territory.
For the first time in mankind’s history, old and post-apocalyptic, humanity had entered a new era of unification. The unification didn’t mean that there were no wars or killings. Zombies were still raging about, while hunger dominated over humans. That’s why it was impossible to eliminate humanity’s ugly nature.
Under the constant threat of death, pillaging, raping, and bullying were still on the rise. In many people’s minds, the world had not progressed and was still the same stagnated post-apocalyptic hell. Only the strongest would survive and have a better fate. As for weaklings, as long as they didn’t go against Genesis, they could continue leading their miserable lives.
No one could solve such problems, even Genesis was powerless. Or maybe, it was not in Genesis’ best interests to solve them.
Not to be unfair, Genesis had contributed to humanity’s survival by building four vast safety areas located in America, Europe, Africa, and China, respectively.
The safe areas were called Base Cities. They were essentially super-cities with self-sufficient industrial, agricultural, and technological systems.
China Base City included the original Jiangbei and Shenhai Safety Island. Moreover, Genesis had employed lots of laborers and earth-attributed paranormals to build thousands of kilometers-long walls. After all, inside the Base City, everyone would be safe without needing to worry about zombies and mutant beasts.
In addition, Genesis had opened up cultivated land in the safe area to build hydropower stations, factories, and pharmaceutical production bases. They had even created a local area network in small areas so that influential people could get online, bringing enjoyment of legendary proportions.
Building the infrastructure was a huge project. Thus, anyone that entered the safe area had to endure heavy labor in exchange for meager ration. Even so, since there were no mutant beasts, countless people craved to enter. Actually, only inside the Base Cities could they struggle to live. In this post-apocalyptic world, the refugees, who lacked nutrition and had a poor physical condition, were likely to die due to the demanding and heavy labor.
In ancient China, it was unknown how many bones had been buried underneath the Great Wall in order to construct it. Undoubtedly, the current conditions were better than those of the Qin Dynasty.
Initially, everyone believed that the death rate would be outstandingly high, but they were all surprised when their expectations didn’t become a reality.
The reason?
Genesis had studied a genetic evolution serum that could reduce the death rate to lower than 3%. The hungry refugees, who had volunteered to participate in the construction of the city, could get a free injection of Genetic Evolution Serum. As a result, that kind of serum had soon become a must-have.
Not long after, many people got to know that Genesis had mastered the extraordinary biological transformation technology. They could produce genetically evolved drugs that could strengthen a human body without relying on mutant nuclei.
After that, Genesis established a huge point system to register all the paranormals in the world and calculate the points. All who contributed to Genesis could exchange points, and these points could be exchanged with Genetic Evolution Serums.
Naturally, the Genetic Evolution Serum was also divided into different grades. The lowest-level was only for ordinary people, and its cost was meager. It could be used to strengthen the body and cure all kinds of diseases. For example, a dying old man could recover for several days as long as he was injected the serum.
As for the high-level Genetic Evolution Serum, it could provide evolutionary opportunities for paranormals. It was quite common for level-1 paranormals to advance to level-2 after being injected. As a result, the Genetic Evolution Serum became more and more popular. Many teams tried all kinds of methods to gain more liquids.
However, some paranormals were just observing and waiting as they didn’t trust Genesis at all. They were not like those hungry people, whose lives were not worth the money. They cherished their lives very much.
…
In a remote mountainous area in Jiangbei, in a hidden cave surrounded by vines.
When looking from far away, nothing could be found.
At that time, in the open space in front of the cave, a mutant mountain pig lay on the ground, its blood dripping down from its nose. A man was holding a sharp bone knife and cutting the thick pigskin with his powerful hands. The sharp and tough pigskin was as fragile as paper in his hands.
A young man donned in animal skin and holding an AK-47 walked into the cave with eight exceptional paranormals. “Brother Hai, we finally found several evolution serums. Some of them are high-level, but the rest are for normal people. We should test them and await for the results. I feel that those people from Genesis aren’t kind-hearted spirits.”
The man that was dealing with the pig looked up after hearing his words. He stared at the evolution serums, which were shining with blue lights. Then he exhaled and shook his head, “Kunzi, we can kill beasts and cook, but we aren’t good at analyzing these things at all. Alas, if Yuxin was here, things would be easy.”
Of course, the so-called Brother Hai was Zhang Hai, and the so-called Kunzi was Sun Kun. They had been living in that area since Jiang Liushi had gone to Japan because their Type 99 tank couldn’t pass the sea. Moreover, they couldn’t continue burdening their boss, so they had chosen to stay there and build a rear base for Jiang Liushi.
Unfortunately, ever since Jiang Liushi had gone to Japan, they had lost all information about their Shi Ying Squad. Instead, their enemy, Genesis, was becoming more and more powerful. In the end, it was one step away from unifying the whole world.
Zhang Hai and Sun Kun were worried about Jiang Liushi and the others. They had been inquiring about their team all this time, but they had received no news. Another strange thing was that Genesis had not found Jiang Liushi either. All those signs led to the conclusion that Jiang Liushi might be dead.
However, Zhang Hai and Sun Kun refused to believe that. In their minds, Jiang Liushi was unbeatable. They had been fighting alongside him, and no matter how dangerous their enemies might be, Jiang Liushi would always turn the situation and prevail victoriously. They remembered every moment they had spent with their Shi Ying Squad.
Unlike other people, Zhang Hai and Sun Kun, who had experienced the battle of Shenhai, were more than aware of what kind of organization Genesis was. In the face of Genesis’ rule, Zhang Hai and Sun Kun knew they couldn’t resist, so they had to retreat from those cities and hide in this mountain area.
After retreating, they employed guerrillas warfare in the mountain area and absorbed some squads and army remnants that were dissatisfied with Genesis.
As for their guerilla tactics’ effect, Zhang Hai knew better than anyone. They were no different than scorpions on an elephant. However, people lived for dignity. They couldn’t accept to work for Genesis—it was even worse than killing them!
Zhang Hai put down his knife and lamented. “Alas, where is Captain Jiang? It’s been three years…”
Zhang Hai’s team was not to be trifled with, but Genesis’ leaders didn’t put them in their eyes. They might not even know their name…
Plenty of teams in the world would oppose Genesis from time to time because they didn’t want to live under someone else’s rule. Unfortunately, among all the teams, Zhang Hai and Sun Kun’s was just an ordinary one. Who would care for them?
However, the teams that had joined Genesis would likely hunt them just like some scent-sensitive hounds. They would hunt these guerrillas and bring their bodies or heads back to get a reward. They needed many points to exchange for Genetic Evolution Serums.