The thoughts of these strangers were of no consequence to Jiang Chen who took a taxi and returned to his hotel.
When Jiang Chen returned, Ayesha, who had been dutifully studying, shyly smiled, transforming her normally expressionless face.
Almost like a newlywed wife.
But the smile made Jiang Chen feel incredibly guilty. Although he hadn’t married her yet, he still felt like a cheating husband coming home to a gentle, understanding wife.
[Maybe I should control myself more? There’s already too much on my plate.]
He laughed nervously, then brought Ayesha out to a nearby restaurant for a delicious meal free of pork. For this lonely girl, he would always treat her gently. He had his own perverted plans for her once she regained her health.
Yes, indeed.
But becoming intoxicated by many beauties was never a good thing; it was time to head back to the apocalypse he worried about.
That night was quiet, without any conversation.
The next morning, after seeing Ayesha off to her language class, he left a pile of bills beside a note that read <If I don’t get back, don’t wait for me to eat> before leaving the hotel to travel back to the apocalypse.
－
“You’re finally back. Which girl did you sleep with last night?” Sun Jiao crossed her arms and stared at Jiang Chen with a mischievous smile.
Jiang Chen laughed nervously before diverting her attention to the base.
Sun Jiao took a deep breath and began explaining the recent developments to the base. Although she had a naughty nature, she understood the priorities.
First, it was basic infrastructure.
The base’s wall had successfully advanced 200 meters in the direction of the underground sewerage, clearing out a plot of land the size of two football fields. The dilapidated wooden mansions in the area were bulldozed, but the foundations could be used right away. The small appliances and furniture were then moved to open ground to see if they could be salvaged or otherwise broken down into usable spare parts.
The chief architect, Lu Huasheng, organized the construction teams to build four simple lounges on the existing foundations. Each simplistic lounge was made to fit thirty people since Jiang Chen planned on increasing the population size in the future.
They had completed the first one while the other three were still being constructed.
Additionally, three-story towers of reinforced concrete were built at the corners of the base. Two were in the backyard behind the mansion while the other two stood in the newly cleared-out land. The watchtowers were equipped with light machinery and covered with a layer of camouflage, each manned by one person.
Because of the remote location, the zombies were not as much of a threat as the more dangerous mutants appeared within the city limits around Sixth Street. Instead, the Fishbone Base was more concerned about defending against malicious survivors. Upon seeing the high walls and machine guns, however, most of the survivors would be deterred from carrying out their plans.
Two months later, this place would be equipped with the four Sentinel machine guns that he had ordered from Zhao Chenwu’s military plant at the price of 300 crystals each. The machine guns were laser-guided and heat-detecting; such handmade, high-tech equipment often cost a fortune because the parts could only be recycled from junks or modified from other gadgets, making them a rare commodity.
Besides constructing defensive equipment, Lu Huasheng followed Jiang Chen’s orders to build a simple community center in the center of the new plot of land.
Currently, building served as the cafeteria and conference room with only one floor, although the plan was to ultimately have three stories.
It was fortunate that the automatic water treatment system in Wanghai City eliminated concerns of drinking water. The city’s water supply system easily connected to the polyethylene pipe, and as long as there were no accidents, the artificial intelligence at the treatment plant would keep it functional.
In terms of power generation, the electrician not only improved the solar panel Sun Jiao had set up but also installed an additional layer of solar panels on the roof; the base could now generate 30 kilowatts of energy per hour.
With proper conservation, this was more than enough to sustain them. The extra electricity was then stored in a K1 battery the size of an oil barrel to provide power for the cold storage.
As for the food Jiang Chen brought back, Sun Jiao had to order Lu Huasheng to construct two large warehouses in the backyard because the quantity was so substantial.
The warehouses were designed to have two levels; the first level stored non-perishable food, and beneath it, a basement was dug out to create an insulated space to store perishables. The space was equipped with the refrigeration system purchased from the Zhao Corporation back in early August. It made the entire basement become a glacial land, forcing them to wear several thick layers before entering. This was where the majority of the power was consumed—in maintaining the refrigeration systems of the two warehouses.
After listening to Sun Jiao’s report, Jiang Chen paused, then asked the foremost concern on his mind, “How’s the trade with the Zhao Corporation?”
“The trade amount since early August amounts to ten thousand crystals, which is similar to the last trade. The exchanged supplies were all critical supplies that the base needed. For example, the refrigeration system, the battery, and other equipment, as well as firearms and construction materials. After the trades, there was a surplus of 2310 crystals.” Sun Jiao took out a tablet and pulled up the ledger, explaining each item thoroughly.
Jiang Chen was shocked, discovering for the first time that she could act like a housekeeper. A smile crept onto his face; he previously thought this audacious girl only knew how to fight, but she also had a detailed side.
“Good, don’t save on base construction. Use all of the crystals that you can—that’s the best use for it right now. At the current stage, we don’t need them as an energy source; we need the necessary construction materials and equipment, as well as lifesaving weaponry!” Jiang Chen nodded as he praised her for her work.
Currently, his public image was as the representative of the Fishbone Food Corporation on a mission to establish a supply station. If he continued to buy construction materials without it, Zhao Chenwu would have grown wary.
If all he said was that he had a trade route with an out-of-province survival base, it made sense to purchase materials locally that would be difficult to transport from faraway. Yet with continuous concrete and steel purchases and construction of walls and houses, it became suspicious.
If a corporation was truly headquartered in another province, some profit had to be transported back, right? If he couldn’t find such an excuse, it would have been difficult to pull this lie through. The trade surplus had to be continuously increased to create the facade that profits were continuously being increased for the headquarters. This way, since the agreement with Zhao Chenwu was based on an inherent lie, it was important to make the lie look as realistic as possible.
Sun Jiao became more cheerful after hearing his praise. She continued, “Another thing is that a survival group nearby had noticed us and attempted to contact us.”
“Survival group?” Jiang Chen frowned.
“Yes, but they’re different from large survival camps like the Sixth Street. Due to the relatively less dangerous environment and fewer damages sustained by their buildings, it only takes a few survivors to create an ample survival space. In the area around our base, there is a total of fifty-seven survival groups, with the smallest comprised of two families and the largest with twenty or thirty family units. Of course, this is only a rough estimation.”
“This many?” Jiang Chen looked at red dots marked on the tablet, his frown even more pronounced.
Survivor groups…
If possible, he didn’t want to engage them yet. At least before the base was equipped with a sufficient amount of combat power, it would be dangerous to contact these people.
With the prodigious supplies he possessed, he had to be cautious, especially with strangers. In the apocalypse, there was no law; a piece of bread could trigger a murder, his base even more so with its ample food resources.
Although the Zhao Corporation would not target Jiang Chen, that was because the president assumed it to be a supply station with the food coming all the way from the Fishbone Food Corporation thousands of miles away. If the ruthless Zhao Chenwu discovered that Jiang Chen was magically creating the food all along, the story would be vastly different.
Different from Zhao Chenwu, the typical survivor would never understand the concept of not killing the egg-laying chicken. If they knew there was food that could last them for years in this place, they would immediately arm up and begin hostile attacks. While the survival groups acted harmoniously most of the time, even going so far as to occasionally contact the neighboring camps, once the topic of food and survival was broached, the deception would be torn down. And without any strength to defend, they would face an endless number of raids.
The good news was that the survival groups all had similar bullet weapons, lacking any power armors, tanks, or anything more technologically advanced. Thus, they contacted them without showing any signs of aggression.
The survival groups were also uncertain of why these individuals had suddenly built a massive base here; essentially, they were guarding against the “odd neighbor” that had come out of nowhere.
Following this, Sun Jiao enforced a number of measures to protect the safety of the base.
For example, food and fire usage were strictly prohibited outside of the cafeteria. All windows had to be shut when eating; this was to prevent spies from knowing about the existence of their food storage.
At the same time, Sun Jiao clearly rejected survivors who requested entrance to the base.
And as for what stance to take towards the groups who contacted them? Everything was waiting for Jiang Chen’s return to be determined.