Chapter Thirty: Re-election of Little Ba

Back at their quarters, Xie Han got straight to the point, pulling Yang Huaiyuan aside and saying, “Master Yang, do you think you can repair our minibus, maybe even modify it a bit?” Time was running short, and the modifications needed to be finished before nightfall.

Yang Huaiyuan was a little caught off guard by Xie Han’s courtesy. After a moment’s thought, he replied earnestly, “Fixing the minibus isn’t a problem—the key is getting the parts. If we have enough, I can even make some modifications to the engine, get the speed up to about 120 kilometers an hour. But that’s a big project; it’ll affect other components, like the brakes and so on.”

Xie Han wasn’t very familiar with this line of work, but in this post-apocalyptic world, talent was the cheapest thing around. He left Xu Qiang and the others behind and took Yang Huaiyuan out with him. “I don’t know the details, but whatever parts or helpers you need, just go and get them. What I want is for the minibus to be rebuilt before tonight. If possible, use titanium steel to seal up the windows and reinforce the front with an iron plate.”

He had his reasons for this. The minibus’s flimsy body was little better than paper against zombies—a few swipes and they’d tear open a gaping hole. Who knew what would happen if the undead swarmed the bus without enough firepower to fend them off? The minibus was a constant headache for Xie Han. He’d considered renting another vehicle, but his plan involved daily forays out into the wild—so he needed his own vehicle, no question.

He’d already prepared food for bartering parts, just as he had before going to the market previously. Yang Huaiyuan was surprised but didn’t ask questions. Once at the market, Yang didn’t immediately search for parts, but instead studied the introductions on the makeshift cardboard signs at various stalls run by skilled workers. In the apocalypse, mechanical skills were some of the most sought-after. After chatting for a bit with a few people, Yang Huaiyuan quickly hired three highly skilled car mechanics—each for a meal and two compressed cakes.

Xie Han didn’t bother to ask more; he trusted Yang Huaiyuan, who had over forty years of experience repairing cars, to handle everything smoothly.

With their team assembled, the five of them plunged into the piles of parts, picking out everything they’d need for the modifications. Soon, they’d stacked up quite a heap. Xie Han worried whether his remaining compressed cakes would be enough to pay for it all.

Welding machines were still a little bulky by modern standards, but after decades of development, this one was only the size of a handgun. Xie Han couldn’t help but marvel—even a single one of these devices brought back to his own time would make someone fabulously wealthy.

Yang Huaiyuan’s bargaining skills were impressive—the whole pile of parts came to less than twenty compressed cakes, and even the welding machine was just two. Xie Han checked the manual: the welder could work for an astonishing forty-eight hours. That meant it could modify at least ten vehicles, with power to spare.

The minibus had already been brought out of the garage. Only the area near the base’s main gate was open for vehicles, so Xie Han led the group, hauling parts to the gate to begin work. There were at least fifty or sixty others modifying vehicles there. Looking at their cars and then at his own battered minibus, Xie Han couldn’t help but blush—his bus seemed hardly worth calling a vehicle.

But Yang Huaiyuan just smiled at him. “Captain, don’t worry. Once the minibus is finished, it may be a bit slower than theirs, but I guarantee it’ll be much tougher than those other cars.” Xie Han thought he was right—what mattered was safety. As long as they made it back alive, even the ugliest car could be a hero. Why should he care about appearances?

Yang Huaiyuan was truly experienced in car modification. Under his lead, the four of them dove straight into the minibus, tossing out the heaps of old parts. As Xie Han watched the pile shrink, he noticed that, while the exterior hadn’t changed much, inside the minibus a transformation was underway.

The most troublesome part was the engine, which Yang Huaiyuan insisted on handling himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the others; he’d fled here in that very bus and knew it inside and out. The engine was the heart—if they wanted power, it had to be done right.

Once the three new hires finished with the other areas, they began welding titanium steel plates to the bus’s exterior. Only then did Xie Han witness the power of the compact welder. Its use was simple: set the titanium bar in place, touch the sharp nozzle to the joint, and with a flash of dazzling light, the bar was fused tight. Compared to modern welders, this was an entirely different class.

Titanium steel wasn’t common on the market, so they could only seal all the windows. Xie Han thought, if they had enough, they could cover the whole bus and boost its defenses even more. Welding was quick—a window took only a few minutes. As the minibus slowly took shape, a smile appeared on Xie Han’s face. Perhaps the start of his new life in the apocalypse would begin with this minibus—starting tomorrow.

Out by the gate, the minibus stood out as an oddity, especially after they’d welded the windows shut, making it even uglier. Many of the other mechanics roared with laughter at its appearance. Some even shouted, “Buddy, with a wreck like that, you’re better off staying in the base. The outside world isn’t for fools like you!” Their jeers brought another round of raucous laughter.

Xie Han, anger flaring, flipped them off and shouted back, “What’s wrong with my beat-up bus? I can still haul food back with it!” A burly man climbed up on the heavily modified Hummer he was working on and shouted, “You’re full of it! My Hummer King, built in ’50, could ram your wreck once and send it flying into a ditch!” The man burst out laughing.

Damn it—maybe it’s true, but you didn’t have to say it in front of everyone, did you? Xie Han wasn’t offended by the big man’s words; after all, his minibus really was no match for a Hummer King. Unlike in the old world, the Hummer King here was made from the toughest metals available, and was nearly as large as a truck. With its formidable power, as the old ads boasted, it could even collide head-on with a heavy-duty road-cutter. Its strength was terrifying.

Knowing all this, Xie Han could only drool over the Hummer King. But he also understood—anyone who could own such a vehicle in the apocalypse was a force to be reckoned with. The big man was even mounting a heavy eight-barrel rotary machine gun on the roof. Xie Han wondered if, with that gun, the Hummer King counted as a mobile fortress. This was decadence to the extreme—no wonder they mocked his minibus.

Xie Han was interested in the other modified vehicles, and he saw some truly fearsome machines. There was a Raptor truck, for example, with five machine guns on each side of the cargo bed and a twin-barrel rocket launcher on the front—its firepower was even greater than the Hummer King’s. He even spotted a sports car, armor-plated all around with titanium steel, bristling with sharp blades at nose and flanks, clearly designed to mow down zombies at high speed.

But what really caught Xie Han’s attention was the behemoth in the distance—a heavy-duty road-cutter, terrifyingly modified. Its front drill bristled with countless spikes that, when spinning, could shred even a Hummer King to pieces. The five-meter-tall body was fitted with eight heavy machine gun mounts. Xie Han could easily imagine the storm of metal that would erupt once those guns were in place.

His pupils contracted in recognition—that monstrous road-cutter was the very one that had made him and his companions suffer so terribly the day before.