Chapter 175 - 174: I’ll Go Too

Chapter 175: Chapter 174: I’ll Go Too

"The photos are in my case. I can show you when we get back..."

Seeing Lin Fan staring blankly, Ye Qingzhou thought she might have described it poorly, so she said,

"Later, we speculated that it was performing some kind of nurturing. Then the Jishan Quarantine Zone was suddenly attacked. When the few of us debriefed afterward, we concluded that the powerful Mutated Zombies that suddenly appeared had to be connected to that ’tree’..."

"I heard on the radio that the monsters are organized and intelligent... what does that mean?"

After confirming that what Ye Qingzhou called the "Corrupted Giant Tree" was indeed that thing, he heard her mention the fall of the Jishan Quarantine Zone. It naturally made him think of one of the few useful pieces of information from the radio, so he decided to ask someone who had been there.

"We did encounter Mutated Zombies when clearing the barracks and nearby houses in the quarantine zone, but they weren’t unbeatable. As long as they didn’t have strange abilities or ranged attacks, we could usually take down the big, strong ones without any casualties.

But we almost never encountered Mutated Zombies outside the quarantine zone’s walls. At first, we even thought they could only spawn indoors.

But that day..."

Ye Qingzhou was completely open with Lin Fan, answering every question he had. She was meticulously filling in the blanks, showing him a side of the world he had never known.

"Dozens of Mutated Zombies and a horde of over a thousand regular zombies suddenly appeared outside the walls...

If it had just been the horde, we could have used heavy weapons to pick off the Mutated Zombies while machine guns and incendiary rounds held back the swarm. We had enough ammunition at the time; we might have been able to hold them off.

But the horde that day was completely different from the smaller ones we’d faced before. The Mutated Zombies weren’t just mixed in with the regular ones.

The first wall was breached in just over ten minutes.

The footage from our drones showed the horde’s movement was just a diversion. Their main objective was to use the fast and powerful Mutated Zombies to quickly eliminate our firing positions... Hu Chen, what was your assessment at the time?"

At this point, Ye Qingzhou suddenly called out to Hu Chen, who was driving. He had clearly been listening to their conversation and immediately picked up,

"It didn’t seem like instinct. After the line was breached, we sent a wave of reinforcements. But as soon as the IFV reached the front line, the enemy immediately adjusted their forces. Even a Mutated Zombie at the very edge of our drone’s surveillance range responded instantly, heading straight for our reinforcements... It was fucking ridiculous. Command’s conclusion was that the enemy had a command hub capable of directing units with frontline precision."

"Didn’t you guys have drones? Couldn’t you find this ’command hub’?"

Lin Fan asked Hu Chen.

"We couldn’t use the drones. Our fiber-optic drones could only fly over unoccupied areas and buildings. If the cable dropped into the horde, any movement from the zombies could easily snap it. We lost two units that way."

When the conversation turned to combat tactics, Hu Chen was in his element. He explained earnestly to Lin Fan,

"It wasn’t just the drones; even helicopters couldn’t fly. The higher they went, the worse the interference got—to the point where the chopper’s own flight control system would fail. But flying low was too dangerous. Even ignoring the inherent risks of low-altitude flight, some Mutated Zombies could jump high or had ranged attacks. They could take down a chopper in a heartbeat."

"Then why could the drones fly? Aren’t their electronic components affected by the interference?"

Lin Fan keenly picked up on the hole in Hu Chen’s explanation.

He’d been wanting to ask for a while why he hadn’t seen a single aircraft since he woke up.

’Fighter jets are one thing, but not even a helicopter? That doesn’t make sense. How could a military base not have a single aircraft?’

But Hu Chen’s words gave him the answer: helicopters’ flight control systems were susceptible to interference upon liftoff, and long-distance, low-altitude flight over the city was nearly impossible.

But he immediately spotted the problem. ’If the flight control of a large helicopter can be disrupted, then a more fragile drone shouldn’t be able to fly at all.’

’If the tethered drones could take off, a pilot flying by line-of-sight shouldn’t lose complete control. The two claims seemed contradictory.’

And so he asked his question.

"We’re aware of that issue, but we don’t have an answer."

When the topic turned technical, Ye Qingzhou took over the explanation. She didn’t hesitate at Lin Fan’s question, which showed they had noticed the discrepancy as well.

"We have a few theories, but right now we lack the equipment and the conditions to test them.

But I have a feeling that Cyan Bird’s ability might be one of the key elements to answering this question..."

The moment she finished, not only Lin Fan, but even Hu Chen in the driver’s seat, turned to look at Ye Qingniao beside him. It seemed this was the first time he’d heard this theory too.

"..."

Seeing both of them looking at her, Ye Qingniao grew uncomfortable and turned away to stare out the window, saying nothing.

The feeling of being treated like a key made her irritable and uneasy.

The two vehicles proceeded slowly to avoid making excessive noise.

Until faint grayish-black ash started to appear on the shattered storefronts and steps.

SCREECH—

The vehicle screeched to a halt in the middle of the road.

The moving figures of zombies were already visible in the distance. To avoid startling them, Hu Chen had to stop the car from a long way off.

The other car pulled up and stopped beside them.

"This is as far as we can go. Any further and the vehicle’s noise will be too loud. We don’t know how many zombies are over there."

Hu Chen said to the two in the back. Meanwhile, Ye Qingniao, in the front passenger seat, had already opened her door and hopped out.

Seeing this, Lin Fan and Ye Qingzhou ended their conversation, got out of the car, and stared into the distance.

"Hey, what were you guys talking about?"

The three from the other car had just gotten out when Chu Zhaozhao immediately sidled up and asked.

"It’s about the quarantine zone. I’ll tell you all about it when we get back..."

Lin Fan wasn’t just answering her, but all three of them; the other two hadn’t asked, but the curiosity was written all over their faces.

"So how are we getting over there? The old route?"

With a practiced motion, Chu Zhaozhao directed the spears from the car into everyone’s hands. She glanced up at the rooftop to the right as she asked.

It was clear she had mentally rehearsed their return to the park countless times since they got back last night.

"Not ’we.’ ’Me.’"

Lin Fan corrected her with a light tap on the head.

"In a little while, I’m going to cross via the rooftops. We’ll stay in touch by radio. The three of you can go ’level up’ in the nearby residential complex. You can pick locks, anyway... If you run into a Mutated Zombie you can’t handle, grab the other two and fly away."

"But I want to go with you..."

Hearing that Lin Fan was planning to leave them behind again, Chu Zhaozhao pouted, her voice tinged with grievance.

"Zhaozhao, there are too many zombies over there... Besides, Lin Fan must have his reasons for not letting you go. Our main goal right now is to get stronger. Only then will we have a chance to actually help him later..."

Su Qing walked over to comfort her.

"Alright..."

Chu Zhaozhao still seemed reluctant, but she knew Su Qing was right. She started poking a small tree by the side of the road with her spear, bored.

Seeing that she had settled down, Lin Fan turned to Ye Qingzhou and her sister.

"If you two are heading back, leave one of the cars for us..."

"Our mission is to observe the zombie horde here..."

Ye Qingniao said, pulling out a pair of binoculars to observe the distant zombie figures.

"Can you take me with you?"

Ye Qingniao hadn’t even finished speaking when Ye Qingzhou interrupted her.