“If you were given another chance, would you choose to return to the Zhu Hong Business Association?” Feng Jun asked after talking with Hu Kun.
Hu Kun was startled when Feng Jun asked him that, then shook his head resolutely. “No, even if I received the retreat message after the Zombie Tide erupted and successfully returned to Huaicheng District, I wouldn't stay there for long.”
Feng Jun was somewhat surprised by this. Hu Kun’s appearance resembled a modern-day otaku, with a height of 1.6 meters and a weight over 200 jin. His simple face combined with this physique made him a typical otaku. Moreover, Hu Kun’s personality seemed stable, and Feng Jun didn’t think he would easily leave a stable environment.
“Heh heh~” Hu Kun smiled smugly, speaking mysteriously; “Actually, someone privately contacted me even before the Zombie Tide erupted. They wanted to poach me with a high salary to work elsewhere.”
“Someone wanted to poach you! Tell me who it was?” Feng Jun said, somewhat surprised.
Hu Kun touched the slave collar on his neck. He always felt like he had lost something after putting it on. “Boss, after I tell you, can you take this collar off me? I’m quite fat, and food always gets stuck in my throat.”
“You don’t seem to have clarified your position yet,” Feng Jun said with some displeasure; “If you can prove your worth in the future, I don’t mind giving you a thicker slave collar. If you don’t tell me, I don’t mind having one more slave doing hard labor on this construction site.”
“How dare I, how dare I. I’ll tell you now.” Hu Kun quickly changed his tune. “The ones who recruited me were none other than Jiang Si Yuan of the Red Hand Mercenary Group and Fang Xinglong of the Blood Bell Gang. Both of them had privately sent people to talk to me, promising me high positions and generous salaries if I joined them.”
Feng Jun said, “So you’ve already chosen your next employer, but that will definitely cause some unnecessary disputes, won’t it?”
No matter how Hu Kun mixed, he was considered an officer-level existence in the Zhu Hong Business Association, and he had good relations among the soldiers. Although he showed insufficient control over the situation after this defection, it was also because the incident happened suddenly. If Hu Kun had prepared supplies and other forces were willing to accept him, these soldiers probably would not have disobeyed his orders.
If Hu Kun really defected to another force in Huai City with a group of soldiers from the Zhu Hong Business Association, then the forces in Huai City would definitely be reshuffled. An internal war would inevitably occur, and then the forces within would be reshuffled.
“Boss, you are a smart person, you know the reasons without me having to say them. I originally planned to go to Jiang Si Yuan, although the price Fang Xinglong offered was not bad, I still feel that Jiang Si Yuan is more reliable. As for Zhu Wenyao, that old man, he is old and incompetent in his work, continuing to work under him will not end well. And I have observed Jiang Si Yuan, he has ideals, courage, and ambition, and he is someone who can achieve great things in the Doomsday.”
“So you planned to betray your old employer, waiting for the right moment to lead people to overturn his old nest?” Feng Jun’s gaze towards Hu Kun was now somewhat cold. Before Hu Kun was captured by Feng Jun, he had always been a free man, and there was no such thing as a slave collar around his neck, not even for those soldiers. To plan betrayal just because of enticement and the charisma of multiple parties, the character of such a person is highly questionable.
Hu Kun instantly understood the meaning in Feng Jun’s words, but he quickly offered his explanation. “I’ve also thought about what you said. Although Zhu Wenyao is quite incompetent now, he was quite reliable in his work a decade ago. When several major Zombie Tide crises came, it was under his leadership that we managed to turn the tide. But perhaps due to his age, and too many life-extension surgeries, his mind has started to decline in recent years. Moreover, even if I don’t betray him, others under him will. Huai City is currently the only large human base around Shangqing City, and internal division has been ongoing for over ten years. If this continues, I’m afraid Huai City will be breached in the next Zombie Tide, and no one inside will escape.”
What Hu Kun said was not without reason. Feng Jun did not say much after listening, but if this were the case, Huai City would likely soon face internal strife.
“When did you and Jiang Si Yuan agree to the defection?” Feng Jun asked.
“The agreement before the New Year was for May after the New Year. The specific date hasn't been set yet, and we're waiting for his notification. Although this plan has been prepared for a long time, there are many variables, so a delay is not unexpected,” Hu Kun said.
After discussing this matter, Feng Jun dismissed Hu Kun. He hadn't expected the situation in Huai City to be far more complex than he had seen. Although the Zhu Hong Business Association was the primary force in Huai City, other forces were not content. And it seemed likely that an internal war would occur in Huai City in the near future, which would truly determine the true ruler of Shangqing City and its surrounding areas.
Feng Jun stood alone on the N1 Tank’s turret, looking at the army in the distance eliminating zombies in the industrial area, and murmured, “Should I get involved in such an interesting matter? But it seems I can’t stay out of it.”
The N1 Tank was enormous, and standing on its turret felt like being on a small warship. After his conversation with Hu Kun, Feng Jun had nothing else to do. He naturally didn't need to personally deal with the zombies, so he sat on top of the turret, watching his soldiers fight zombies to pass the time.
The battle lasted a whole day. Although the exact number was not counted, it could be visually estimated that the area of zombies in Yanqing Industrial Park had decreased by two-fifths. At this rate, in just two days at the fastest, the zombies in the industrial park could be suppressed to a controllable level. At that point, they would only need to build walls around the Blood Nest and capture zombies in fixed quantities daily.
The bodies of the killed zombies naturally couldn't be wasted, although these zombies were all low-level. De Chao and his group of scavengers, who had just joined, were all put to use, assigned to collect the helium crystal from the bodies of the killed zombies. They naturally had no objections to this job; although seventy percent of the helium crystal had to be handed over, these zombies had already been killed, so they didn't have to waste energy or bullets. Most importantly, working for Feng Jun meant “being fed,” and to their fill.
By the next day, subsequent supplies and building materials had also arrived successively. Yan Xin, under Feng Jun’s arrangement, also came to supervise the construction and building of the factory. If everything proceeded smoothly, mass-produced Anti-corpse liquid could be cultivated by the end of this month at the earliest. At that time, soldiers could be equipped with smoke grenades and injection needles made from Anti-corpse liquid.
Feng Jun originally planned to leave after the situation in Yanqing Industrial Park was completely stable on the fourth day, but on the way there, he rescued a little girl who had just come out of a Refuge. At that time, the little girl had already fainted from excessive blood loss. Because he was in a hurry to travel, Feng Jun left her with Song Zhan’s main force. After three days of treatment, she had fully woken up.
The little girl was very calm after waking up and proactively asked to see the person who saved her. Feng Jun, having nothing to do there, went to see her. As soon as they met, the little girl grabbed Feng Jun's arm, buried her head in his chest, and started crying without looking up.
Feng Jun was at a loss for a moment. Finally, when she stopped crying, before Feng Jun could even ask, she began to plead with him.
After a period of comforting, Feng Jun finally obtained the information he wanted from her: there was a newly opened Refuge nearby.
The little girl’s name was Gu Yunyun, and she had come from the QD10096 Shelter. The QD10096 Shelter was originally set to open on the 140th year after the nuclear war, but due to problems with its energy system, it had to open a year early.
The QD10096 Shelter was designed as a dormant Refuge managed by artificial intelligence, with all personnel in hibernation. The Refuge housed 200 people. Unlike Song Zhan’s brothers’ Refuge, QD10096 was a Refuge intended for research and civilian purposes. Most of the hibernating individuals were researchers from society, with a small portion being security personnel responsible for maintaining security after the Refuge opened. Such a Refuge naturally greatly interested Feng Jun, but he learned an unfortunate piece of news from Gu Yunyun. A few days after the Refuge opened, it was attacked by ground forces. At that time, most of the hibernating individuals in the Refuge had already been moved to a temporary camp set up on the surface.
Five nights ago, they were attacked by a group of deformed people. The attackers launched a surprise raid on the camp under the cover of night without any warning. Although the camp was guarded by twenty armed security personnel, they could not withstand the invaders. Approximately one hundred newly awakened hibernators were captured alive or killed, while the remaining half retreated back into the Refuge.
Gu Yunyun was among the group that was abducted. The deformed people directly occupied the camp they had just built and imprisoned them.
They originally thought these people were just bandits from the wasteland, and that being caught by them would only lead to extortion or humiliation. However, this group of deformed people was clearly not the same as the bandits they had imagined. These people generally had ugly and strange appearances, with varying degrees of deformities or mutations on their bodies.
Gu Yunyun's companions tried to communicate with these people and found that their intelligence was also somewhat problematic; what they said was mostly incoherent. After these people occupied their camp, they began to search everywhere within the camp. Although the fusion reactor in the Refuge had insufficient energy due to a faulty component, fortunately, a large amount of food was stored in the Refuge, and much of this food had already been moved to the surface. These deformed people, upon finding the food, were busy fighting over it.
But the food was quickly consumed by the deformed people. It was at this point that Gu Yunyun and her companions discovered something was wrong with this group of deformed people. They began cooking the bodies of the people they had killed a few days prior, and even threw the leftover bones and scraps to the captured survivors.