Chapter 169: They are still materials
For some reason, Zhang Xiao Qiang noticed that there were very few zombies. In a small camp that had a pile of materials, he found three to five zombies. The larger camps would have over a dozen to 20 zombies. A few were scattered around abandoned vehicles which were attracted and agitated by Zhang Xiao Qiang’s fleet. They all moved towards Zhang Xiao Qiang separately and when they were 30m away from the fleet, the Combat Team all started shooting at them. Following the sound of the gunshots, more zombies started to head towards the road.
Not long later, the zombies around the construction vehicle were purged. Zhang Xiao Qiang got the chauffeur to bring the Rover over and got off. He saw various excavation machines, dumpers, forklifts and trucks filled with sand. Zhang Xiao Qiang finally felt at ease, he figured that everything in front of him were sufficient for them to build a few perimeter walls. Calculating everything out, he could not finish everything in front of him, even a city would not require so much materials.
Beneath the expressway, the road was segmented into different construction companies, which also meant that the amount of construction, tools and materials piled up here was not little. Much less the safety facilities inside a small ravine, it was not difficult for him to build a county within the inner Great Wall. The men from the Combat Team got off their vehicles and following their respective leaders, they moved in to cleanse the remaining zombies. Wang Le brought two of his subordinates and started inspecting the vehicles that had remained unused for half a year. Old Frank brought his own men and arranged the perimeter safety.
The grit and rocks on the ground caused rustling sounds due to the friction with the road when their soles stepped down, occasionally they would step across zombie corpses littered on the ground which came in various sizes. All of their sizes and appearances were different, the common similarities to them were the bullet holes in their heads, their black and dirty blood and the yellow brain juice that leaked from their heads to their bodies and down to the sandy ground. Zhang Xiao Qiang realized that all of the zombies had started to mutate, a few zombies had become stronger, a few had become faster while a few started to become weaker. In the past, the zombies that Zhang Xiao Qiang encountered were only slightly slower than an average person’s speed of walking, just that the zombies that were turned from elderly grannies would stagger from place to place, but majority of the ordinary zombies had speed that were inferior to the past.
Zhang Xiao interacted with zombies on a daily basis and felt that the zombies were differentiating into two different categories, half of them would turn to D-Type and S-Type while the other half would quickly become weak or eliminated. After Zhang Xiao Qiang realized it, he pushed it to the bottom of his heart, if half of the ordinary zombies died, the world would have 3 billion less zombies. That was considered a joy, but at the same time, 3 billion other zombie would mutate and evolve, that was definitely a devastating news to hear.
Zhang Xiao Qiang did not know why or how it was occurring, so he was in a hurry to store up reserves and reinforce the defence, Aren’t I doing everything I can just to have a little more guarantee in preserving my life? The most crucial thing to Zhang Xiao Qiang was he became uncertain about WH City. WH City was still unknown to him, aside from knowing that there was a gathering at WH City, he knew nothing else. He found a few radios, but aside from the very few information that would appear on the radio regarding the gathering at WH City, there were no other signals about other places. There were times that Zhang Xiao Qiang figured that the virus reach at Hu Bei was the weakest, so the probability of survivors there would be higher, but wouldn’t that mean that people in the other places were doomed?
As he thought about it, he walked over to the side of a makeshift tarpaulin room which was covered with grease and dust. Something suddenly protrude out of the tarpaulin as something seemed to be forcing its way out, shocking Zhang Xiao Qiang. Zhang Xiao Qiang unsheathed the Jing Wei Blade and sliced the tarpaulin in two, where a tanned zombie stumbled out from. Zhang Xiao Qiang sliced its head off and its headless body stumbled to his feet. He used the blade to open the tarpaulin and inspected the inside, the makeshift room had almost no light and he could only vaguely see a few beds and covers. A moldy smell attacked Zhang Xiao Qiang’s nose, causing him to close the cover.
“Get the rest to pay attention, some zombies could be hiding in the houses, get them to enter with shields and blades.” He spoke to Wang Chong behind him.
Wang Chong nodded his head and turned to walk to the group in the distance. Wang Chong was already considered Zhang Xiao Qiang’s pseudo aide-de-camp. Whenever Zhang Xiao Qiang leaves the base, he would follow along. When Zhang Xiao Qiang remained in the base, he would follow Old Frank. Zhang Xiao Qiang had a good impression on him, he looked like a weak and easily bullied man, but when it came to crucial moments, he was always willing to fight with his life and had self respect. He was capable in doing things as well and was considered a capable assistant to Zhang Xiao Qiang.
Under Old Frank’s lead, the rest were already busy, the first thing they moved were the reinforced steel bars on the ground. All sorts of different model reinforced bars were tied tightly together into bundles and loaded up an automatic dump truck. The group of men loading the bars were colored brown due to the rust. Old Frank busied himself to the point of perspiring bucket loads of perspiration, but when he saw the bundles of reinforced steel bars being loaded up the vehicles, he revealed a wide smile. He extended his hand and wiped away the perspiration, the rust and perspiration left marks on his face but he remained oblivious to it and continued bundling up the bars. “Boom boom…” Wang Le had started up an excavator, the orange painted chassis continuous tracks moved the vehicle to the mountain of rocks and slowly extended hits arm into the rock pile. The toothed bucket dug downwards and scooped out a full load of rocks before turning dexterously, some rocks from the bucket dropped to the ground.
“Whooosh…” The bucket raised up and unloaded into a dump truck container behind the vehicle, causing smoke of dust to rise. The excavator moved slowly and continued the same action, digging up, unloading down. The 8-ton dump truck containers as quickly filled. The driver drove the dump truck to the road and stopped. Another dump truck moved to the empty spot where the excavator started to stones. In time, the empty truck was loaded again. Zhang Xiao Qiang was startled, he had brought a total of 10 dump trucks but two of them were already filled. He noticed the amount of materials all around and the countless of abandoned construction vehicles, and decided to camp for a few days.
When all the supply and dump trucks were filled, Zhang Xiao Qiang got a few men to follow Wang Le to make rush repairs to the abandoned vehicles. Prior to moving out, Wang Le had prepared amply, he had brought along all the repair tools that Zhang Xiao Qiang had found and brought back, aside from single-phase generators, he had even brought out a small scale air compressor that could easily inflate large tires.