Chapter 101: A New Beginning
Rebuilding Civilization
Xie Han wasn’t sure whether this vast encampment was originally a military restricted area or if it had been constructed later. In any case, this enormous, orderly camp—comprising over a hundred tents, each roughly twenty square meters—still managed to surprise him a little.
It was already half past nine in the evening. The people standing at the camp to welcome Xie Han and Chen Liu back safely were, naturally, the senior executives of the Post-Apocalyptic Company: Qi Feiwu, Chu Tianhe, Xu Qiang, and the three elders and three juniors. Seeing Xie Han jump down from Chen Liu’s Hummer King, Chu Tianhe rushed over first, giving Xie Han a warm embrace and shouting joyfully, “Boss, you’ve finally returned! Damn, I have to admit your foresight. Without it, even if we all managed to escape, we’d just be a bunch of homeless wanderers.”
Xie Han found Chu Tianhe’s enthusiasm a bit overwhelming and pushed him away with a smile, teasing, “Your flattery is downright sickening. Aren’t you worried others might laugh at you?” Chu Tianhe smirked and then playfully turned to Chen Liu, only to receive an unceremonious kick to the stomach. Though clearly a joke, the kick still made Chu Tianhe clutch his belly and cry out embarrassingly, “Chen Liu, I’m not your enemy, you know! You’re a bit rough, aren’t you?”
Chu Tianhe’s comedic antics lightened the mood, breaking some of the tension caused by the destruction of their base.
The temporary camp was manned by just over four hundred of Chen Liu’s people, along with nearly two hundred from Xie Han’s company. Initially, everyone worried about the challenges of rebuilding the base, but the more than three thousand people Xie Han had brought back solved that problem quite well. Among the hundreds of trucks they’d previously hauled back, aside from supplies, the food stockpile could sustain nearly four thousand people for a month. This meant that as the population grew, food pressure would increase significantly, and at least in the early stages, hunting expeditions like those conducted at the Wangtian base would have to be resumed.
Like Wangtian base, the camp operated a six-hour quarantine system. The difference was that the quarantine area was within the camp itself. Due to the haste of their construction, the defenses were less than a tenth as effective as those at Wangtian base. Each tent had a guard armed with a gun, authorized to shoot on sight any signs of mutation without needing to report first.
Xie Han didn’t believe anyone among the three thousand-plus were infected; the only contact they’d had today was with an R3. But could they have been infected by the R3? Considering R3’s lethality—anything it touched was usually torn apart or smashed to pieces—infection seemed a far less likely outcome. Besides, the entire journey had taken over ten hours, and if anyone had been infected, they would have succumbed long before reaching the camp.
Still, rules were rules, and procedures had to be followed. So even leaders like Xie Han and Chen Liu were not exempt from the six-hour quarantine. Their treatment, however, was different: each had a private tent, fully furnished, where they could spend the night comfortably.
After bidding Chen Liu farewell, Xie Han returned to his assigned tent, where Qi Feiwu had already prepared a delicious meal—if it could still be called dinner at nearly ten o’clock. Qi Feiwu was still there, tidying the bedding when Xie Han arrived.
Seeing Qi Feiwu’s gentle and virtuous demeanor left Xie Han a little flustered, but he quickly understood the reason for her transformation. Before meeting him, Qi Feiwu had struggled to find a core sense of purpose. Survival in this post-apocalyptic world left no room for sentimentality, so she had learned to be cold and ruthless. Since encountering Xie Han, as if finding a safe harbor, she had shed that icy mask and revealed her true self—this tender side he now saw.
Feeling somewhat embarrassed—they had only shared occasional intimacies, nothing formal—Xie Han stepped forward and took the bedding from Qi Feiwu, saying, “Let me do it.”
Qi Feiwu shot him a glare and tugged it back, quickly folding it with a few deft movements. “Some things just aren’t fit for you men to do. Like this…”
Xie Han chuckled awkwardly and retreated to the dining table, choosing not to argue.
Qi Feiwu sat opposite him, watching him eat, and asked softly, “Are you going to eat?”
Xie Han responded with a sound, picked up his chopsticks, and began to eat vigorously. Truth be told, having Qi Feiwu here still made him feel a bit uneasy, though he wasn’t quite sure why.
After hurriedly finishing the meal, Xie Han set down his bowl and said, “I didn’t expect you to manage to organize this place so neatly in such a short time. You’ve worked hard.”
His change of topic was successful. Qi Feiwu’s eyes brightened as she replied, “It wasn’t so much hard work as it was thanks to the company’s computer experts. If they hadn’t cracked the military experimental base’s intelligent system in just three days, we wouldn’t have this situation now.”
She smiled mysteriously and said, “You know, there’s actually a lot of good stuff here. These large tents were all found inside.”
Xie Han asked, “Isn’t this still some distance from the actual military experimental base?”
Qi Feiwu nodded. “Yes, another five kilometers ahead is the real base.”
She paused, then continued, “That’s what Qiangzi thinks. He believes such an important area as the military experimental base must be firmly controlled by us. Only then can it be used to deter and control the entire base, leaving no chance for anyone with ill intentions to exploit. Qiangzi also said that as the base grows, more people will come seeking refuge, and the military experimental base can serve as our military headquarters, separated from the civilian administration, creating a military-led governance model…”
Xu Qiang’s vision was indeed far-reaching. Once the base was stable, military forces shouldn’t be too visible within it. That’s when the civilian administrative departments could function effectively. Meanwhile, the military forces stationed in the base could maintain absolute control and provide rapid response when dealing with external threats.
Xie Han was surprised; he hadn’t expected such a rough-looking man like Xu Qiang to have such a subtle, thoughtful side. What was more important, under these measures, everything in the military experimental base remained hidden and confidential, an immense deterrent to those seeking refuge. Military restricted zones like this held an aura of mystery and pressure that ordinary people found overwhelming.
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(P.S.: At this moment, there’s thunder and lightning here, and the power keeps flickering, so I’m updating this chapter earlier than planned, which was originally scheduled for 8 p.m., to avoid blackout! The updates have been slow these past few days because my five-month-old baby has had to receive IV drips every day from 8 a.m. to about 1 p.m. Today the IV site often swelled up, and the needle had to be inserted six times before the medication was finished. It’s heartbreaking—over a dozen needle marks on his head, and he’s only five months old!)