Chapter 161 The Eerie Emptiness

The entire Lost City was built upon the foundation of the Southern Heavy Industry Park, combined with a portion of survivors who had escaped from Wangtian City at the time, thus forming the Lost City that Xie Han now saw. Wu Zongchun was originally an executive at the Southern Steam Turbine Factory and naturally knew everything about the place inside and out. However, the situation he described pertained to the era before the apocalypse; as for the period after the outbreak of the X virus, he could only make rough speculations.

For Xie Han, this Southern Heavy Industry Park absolutely had to be brought under the control of New City. Since Wu Zongchun lacked precise intelligence, he had to thoroughly figure out everything inside for himself. Over two hundred thousand zombies—neither too many to handle nor too few. The caravan's explosive medicine had already been mostly exhausted, so launching an attack on this Southern Heavy Industry Park meant he could not rely on the caravan.

In Xie Han's view, this was undoubtedly a rare opportunity. Not only would it bring the Lost City—a city of technology—under the banner of New City, but it would also provide New City with invaluable experience in urban warfare. Although the buildings in the industrial park were at most twenty-one stories high, such a massive heavy industry park functioned just like a small city, complete with comprehensive residential and industrial infrastructure.

At this moment, Xie Han was leading an intelligence-gathering squad consisting of twenty soldiers, one guide, and five Hummer Kings, driving toward the Southern Heavy Industry Park. Along the way, small groups of zombies could be seen here and there. The engine roar of the Hummer Kings was loud enough to attract them, and one by one, the zombies pursued the rear of the vehicles. Compared to the crisp sound of gunfire, the deep, reverberating roar of the engines traveled a much shorter distance, so Xie Han and his men chose to outrun them using speed rather than eliminating them with bullets.

Upon their departure, Wu Zongchun had not only introduced a quick-witted guide but had also handed Xie Han a map of the industrial park. Thanks to this map and the guide, as the Hummer Kings approached the Southern Heavy Industry Park, the guide, whose name was Wang Haidong, said, "Team Leader Xie, we must stop right here. If we drive any further forward, it will be very easy to alert the zombies ahead."

Xie Han took out the map and calculated their position, noting that they were still two kilometers away from the Southern Heavy Industry Park. "Why do we need to stop?" The map showed no building markers ahead.

Wang Haidong laughed and said, "Team Leader Xie, you should know that over two hundred thousand people lived in the entire Southern Heavy Industry Park, and some peddler markets would naturally have formed around its periphery. Ahead is just such a peddler market, stretching almost continuously across these two kilometers. We can abandon the vehicles and bypass the peddler market ahead by cutting through some wasteland. That way, the probability of running into zombies will be much smaller. If we encounter a small number, we can eliminate them without alerting the other zombies."

There was no other choice. Xie Han had the soldiers stop the Hummer Kings and led the squad, guided by Wang Haidong, to detour away from the main road and onto a small path beside it. This path led into a sizable patch of woods. Wang Haidong said with a touch of nostalgia, "We used to call this woods the Romance Forest because it was practically a paradise for lovers."

Compared to Wang Haidong's nostalgia, Xie Han found himself wishing more and more for Moli, the mechanical spider. Had he known the situation here was this complex, he should have just sent Moli to scout the situation in the heavy industry park. After all, the mechanical spider was equipped with a recording system that could automatically store everything it saw and play it back whenever needed.

However, regrets were useless now. Xie Han could only hold his Tiger's Teeth dagger behind his back as he followed Wang Haidong through the sizable woods. This place certainly lived up to its name as the Romance Forest, for there were numerous concrete-paved paths winding toward secluded spots. The design of the benches here, in Xie Han's view, resembled single beds more than anything else; combined with the dimly lit illumination system, one could easily imagine that the couples coming here every night harbored the absurd notion of treating it as a free hotel.

Since the infection swept through Wang天市 (Wangtian City) during the night, the woods here were far from safe. It was common to see couples who had turned into zombies wandering the paths together. Naturally, there were solitary ones as well—zombies that Xie Han estimated had survived by preying on each other.

Wang Haidong pulled a pistol from his chest holster and pulled the trigger on a few zombies blocking the path. Xie Han was somewhat surprised. Wasn't he afraid the gunshot would alert the zombies? Yet, the gunshot from Wang Haidong's pistol was barely audible as it blew apart the heads of several zombies. Wang Haidong remarked, "With the technological capabilities of our Lost City, manufacturing this kind of silencer is extremely simple."

Xie Han looked speechlessly at himself and his twenty soldiers; the automatic rifles in their hands lacked even a silencer, making attacks very likely to alert other zombies. As if to prove a point, when they encountered another seven or eight zombies shortly after, Xie Han stopped Wang Haidong from raising his gun again. He flicked the Tiger's Teeth in his hand and charged forward swiftly. To the onlookers, it was merely a blur of blades and shadows. Before those seven or eight zombies could react, their heads had already been cleanly severed.

"This... this..." Wang Haidong was stunned, finding it hard to believe Xie Han's previous action could have resolved those seven or eight zombies so quickly. Compared to firearms, this was truly the silent delivery of a fatal blow.

After emerging from the woods, a small, overgrown trail indeed bypassed a vast expanse of dense, low-rise buildings. Wang Haidong brushed aside the wild grass covering the path and said, "Following this path will lead us directly outside the perimeter wall of the heavy industry park."

The work of clearing the path was naturally left to Xie Han. With the sharpness of the Tiger's Teeth, a mere sweep of the blade was enough to cut down the wild grass. Their forward progress was not slow, and no zombies were encountered along this path, allowing them to reach the outer wall of the heavy industry park smoothly.

Xie Han perked up his ears and could still hear the occasional sound of zombies wandering about inside. He signaled the soldiers to be on alert, then retreated a dozen paces. With a single sprint, he scaled the wall and cautiously peered inside. What met his eyes was a street running parallel to the perimeter wall, littered everywhere with discarded plastic bags that blew and scattered in the wind. A few zombies wandered aimlessly along the street like lost souls.

In the far distance, large groups of zombies could be seen flashing past from time to time, though their destination was unknown. Overall, the number of zombies in the immediate vicinity was not very large. Therefore, Xie Han gestured to the alert soldiers, vaulted over the wall, and dropped lightly into the interior of the industrial park.

According to the data in his watch's database, zombies had extremely acute hearing, and their eyesight had not failed entirely; rather, it functioned like nearsightedness, where close targets appeared as a mass of bloody red, while distant ones might not be seen at all. The few zombies wandering on the street were not far from Xie Han, so almost the moment he landed, they detected him and moved toward him silently.

Zombies had this advantage: they could not produce loud, distinct noises. Upon spotting a human, they would simply charge forward like a heroic suicide squad rather than calling for a larger horde to fight collectively. Thus, although these few zombies discovered Xie Han, they only focused on rushing blindly at him. To Xie Han, no matter how many zombies there were, they weren't worth a second glance, let alone these few stragglers.

The Tiger's Teeth flashed a few times, and under Xie Han's brutal efficiency, several zombie heads tumbled onto the street. Xie Han tossed a rope outward and sprinted toward a small shop on the street. All twenty soldiers possessed formidable martial prowess, and a little over a minute later, they had all gathered inside the small shop. Not a single person was free from tension now that they had penetrated deep into a zombie nest.

"Alright, your task is to reach the roof of this dormitory building to provide cover for my entry and exit." Xie Han smashed open the back door of the small shop, which connected to the stairwell of an eleven-story dormitory building. "Remember, be as careful as possible and do not alert the zombies." After the twenty soldiers and Wang Haidong vanished up the stairwell, Xie Han took a deep breath, whispered, "I can do this," and dashed out of the small shop.

Xie Han's objective was the Southern Steam Turbine Factory located at the center of the entire heavy industry park. His task was to rush there, utilize the steam turbine's alarm system to attract the zombies, and stir up the entire industrial park to test whether any high-level zombies existed within. This place could be considered a maze of urban warfare; unlike the open wilderness, the lethality of a specialized mutant here was far greater than outside. It could fully utilize the terrain to move about freely, occasionally hiding behind obstacles to launch surprise attacks when one least expected it.

If they rashly launched an attack and the troops became bogged down inside, any mutant present would undoubtedly spell disaster for the advancing soldiers. New City could no longer afford heavy casualties. Because of this, Xie Han wanted to rely on his own abilities to lure out any mutants and use the GGB biological agents stored in his spatial inventory to eliminate them.

After rushing out of the small shop, Xie Han rounded a corner, and a broad industrial transport avenue came into view. Numerous cargo trucks and private cars were parked on both sides, and swarms of zombies wandered along this industrial transport avenue. Xie Han did not stop; instead, he ran forward at full speed. His speed was astonishing, rushing down the avenue like a gust of wind. Many zombies that spotted him only reacted after he had already left them far behind.

The deeper he penetrated, the more zombies he encountered. They were a mixed group of men and women wearing various work uniforms, all of them tattered, bearing the printed names of different factories on them; some even still had work badges hanging around their necks. On both sides were primarily factory workshop zones. The originally closed iron gates had been smashed open by zombies, offering a direct view into massive workshop complexes.

"If small factories here are on this scale, just how large is this Southern Steam Turbine Factory?" Xie Han couldn't wrap his head around this question because, driven by his movement, the zombies gathered in increasing numbers, pouring out of the factories and rapidly forming a zombie torrent that pursued the direction where Xie Han had vanished. With this simple run, the entire industrial transport avenue was thoroughly thrown into chaos.

According to the markers on the map, as long as one ran forward along the industrial transport avenue and reached the end, the Southern Steam Turbine Factory would be there. However, what caused Xie Han to frown was that ahead on the industrial transport avenue, several large dump trucks had been overturned in the middle of the road, and crowds of zombies completely blocked the avenue.

"What kind of force could possibly overturn these large dump trucks?" Xie Han showed no intention of stopping. In the middle of a frantic sprint, with a flying leap like an agile leopard, he jumped five or six meters high and clung to the window of a three-story workshop zone.

Without pausing, under the immense strength of his muscles, the Tiger's Teeth in his hand was fiercely stabbed into the workshop wall and then violently pulled out, gouging out a large patch of concrete debris. Through such a repeating cycle, Xie Han forcefully carved out climbable handholds on the dozen-meter-high workshop wall. Reaching the roof of the workshop, Xie Han flipped himself up and continued sprinting forward across the rooftops.

The zombies that had originally been surrounding and blocking Xie Han below, upon losing his target, surprisingly did not scatter chaotically like other zombies; instead, they gathered together in an organized manner and moved toward the Southern Steam Turbine Factory.

Xie Han, of course, knew nothing of these anomalies. It wasn't until he sprinted across the workshop rooftops that he noticed a massive circular architectural complex appearing in the far distance. It gave him the impression of Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium. However, the volume of this circular complex was more than a dozen times larger than the Bird's Nest. Needless to say, this was the pride of Wu Zongchun—the Southern Steam Turbine Factory, composed of over a hundred buildings.

"I truly never imagined that within just a few decades in Wangtian City, this place could be transformed from nothing into a heavy industry park." Xie Han, who was familiar with Wangtian City, naturally knew that years ago, the Southern Group had merely planned to invest in a large steam turbine factory in Wangtian City. Who could have imagined that over several decades, this steam turbine factory would expand into a gigantic enterprise, driving the relocation of hundreds of nearby factories and enterprises to form an integrated supporting industrial system.

A sudden bound and a rapid sprint provided Xie Han with enough momentum to span a gap of over a dozen meters between factory buildings and leap into another workshop zone. The further inward he went, the denser the factories became, and the denser the zombies below. As he approached the Southern Steam Turbine Factory, the surrounding streets were already entirely occupied by zombies, forming a dense, solid mass.

Xie Han stopped at the edge of the workshop zone. Separated by a street lay the perimeter wall of the Southern Steam Turbine Factory. There were countless zombies here, swarming like spring insects. After taking a few glances and confirming the distance, Xie Han pulled a grappling hook from his spatial inventory and threw it with all his might over sixty meters away, snagging the roof of a fifteen-story dormitory building inside the Southern Steam Turbine Factory. Testing it to ensure it was secure, Xie Han sprinted forward and leaped, swinging across the wide street below.

Driven by this momentum, Xie Han easily cleared the wide street and landed inside the Southern Steam Turbine Factory. To Xie Han's perplexity, peering through the glass of the dormitory building's first floor revealed a small cafeteria inside. It was completely empty, with nothing inside at all. Xie Han tried circling around to the back of the dormitory building, but the small sports field in front of it was equally devoid of anything.

"Strange. Wu Zongchun said this Southern Steam Turbine Factory had over fifty thousand employees, but now there isn't even a ghost in sight. What on earth is going on?" Although Xie Han couldn't figure it out, it didn't halt his objective. After rushing out of this dormitory area, he finally reached the massive factory zone.

The space here was unimaginably vast. The entire factory zone was designed on an urban model, with various streets intersecting orderly among the factory zones, and the roadsides lined with tall ornamental trees. Yet, this place was equally empty.

If it could still be understood that the dormitory building was deserted, the complete absence of a single zombie in this factory zone defied easy explanation. Xie Han sensed that something was amiss. He swept his gaze around. "Could all the zombies here have run outside? But that shouldn't be the case either; the gates leading outside are wide open—why wouldn't any zombies wander in here?"

This unknown pressure accelerated Xie Han's heartbeat. He took a deep breath and muttered to himself, "Let's check a bit further ahead. If there still are no zombies, I'll retreat immediately." Xie Han broke into a mad sprint, leaping agilely and scaling a single-story workshop in a few bounds, running across its roof as he pressed deeper into the Southern Steam Turbine Factory.

When Xie Han finally reached the center of the entire Southern Steam Turbine Factory, standing before a twenty-one-story administrative building—the tallest in the entire Southern Heavy Industry Park—the entire massive plaza was also completely empty. A deathly silence surrounded the area; apart from the rustling sound of wind blowing through leaves, there was not a single other sound. This situation was the most eerie scene Xie Han had ever witnessed. Clearly, the entire heavy industry park held hundreds of thousands of zombies, yet this place was like a sanctuary, devoid of the expected zombies. Had the grass not grown over half a person's height due to long periods without trimming, Xie Han would have almost thought this was a utopia.

Just as Xie Han's internal unease reached its peak, a rumbling sound echoed from not far away, and a workshop building tilted and collapsed without warning, kicking up endless dust and smoke. As if this served as a horn, the familiar collective movement noise of a zombie horde reached his ears.

"Could it be..." The moment this thought arose in Xie Han's mind, he startled himself. Refusing to dwell on it any further, he frantically began backtracking along his original route. However, just as he finished running past this row of workshop zones, he discovered with horror that the originally empty workshop area was now filled with surging zombies, forming circle after circle of zombie rings with himself at the center.

"When zombies lie in ambush, they make not a sound because they do not need to breathe and feel no numbness in their body muscles. Zombies possessing neither awareness nor thought are natural ambush masters." This passage from the database naturally surfaced in Xie Han's mind, but he knew that such a massive zombie ambush this time was definitely not as simple as it looked on the surface.

Involuntarily, those overturned dump trucks from his arrival floated back into Xie Han's mind, sending cold sweat prickling across his skin. It seemed he had thought of a possibility...

*(Another case of the legendary power outage, frustrating! Two chapters combined—readers who subscribed, remember not to miss the previous chapter! By the way, a reminder: where are the monthly tickets? Cast them for me!!!!)*