Chapter 1250

「Queue for inspection! No cutting in line! Violators will permanently lose eligibility to enter Long An! 」

Inside the endless line entering the city, a large group of disheveled, beggar-like survivors clung tightly to their bundles, looking timidly at the city guards.

As the checkpoint for entering the outer city, security here is extremely tight.

Besides soldiers standing guard with guns, there are also inspectors wearing white protective gear.

Only after the inspector's device began beeping did they count as having passed the first checkpoint.

Looking up, on the approximately thirty-meter-high alloy wall, large numbers of fully armed Awakened Ones patrolled, leaving them awestruck.

Moreover, the distant core fortress hailed as Long An's inner city, the Land of Hope, shocked them completely.

On the hundred-meter-tall dark crystal metropolis, rotating spirit-energy towers atop each emitted dazzling light; in the massive gunports every ten meters, a constant charge was maintained twenty-four hours a day, and silver-white spheres shot out of the city in the blink of an eye.

Occasionally accompanied by sonic booms, these were the return of sortie cruising fighter jets to the core.

At a glance, Long'an Base, with its four satellite cities built, resembled a metallic war beast overlooking the land.

「Is this Long An?!! 」

「We came to the right place! We really came to the right place! 」

「It's too magnificent... it's far better than the Safe Zone I stayed in before!! 」

Heads raised, newcomers to Long An occasionally exclaimed in awe, and when looking at survivors bearing the Long An insignia, their eyes were full of envy.

「Beep, please place your package in the storage point; after disinfection, retrieve it with your identification. 」

In the long queue, the middle-aged person at the front looked bewildered at the drone hovering before him; his whole body trembled slightly, he huddled together, staring blankly at the gate.

After prolonged hunger and flight, his thinking had grown rigid; seeing the drone before him, he instinctively clutched his backpack.

「No.. 」

「No! I won't give it! 」

His filthy hands, like chicken claws, clutched the backpack as if it held his most precious treasure.

The man let out a beast-like growl, his feigned ferocity suggesting he had been robbed many times before.

「Beep, please place your package in the storage box beneath the drone; refusing disinfection will bar entry to the city. 」

A soft mechanical tone sounded again from the drone, the flashing red dot seemingly scanning the man's package.

Even after the second prompt, despite the crowd behind growing impatient and urging him on, the man at the front stubbornly refused to let go.

Hoarse from shouting, seeing the drone repeatedly warn him, the man simply clutched his treasure and squatted on the ground, wailing loudly.

「Let me in! Let me in! Don't take my treasure! 」

「I got this by trading my wife! 」

Behind the drone's screen, a Long An member looked somewhat helplessly at what was being scanned on the display.

「Obtained by trading my wife... 」

The man's backpack contained nothing important at all—just trash.

A dried-up rotten apple, two clean‑licked dog bones, a large handful of unknown weeds, and besides that, a clump resembling vomit.

It looked as if it had been fished out of a sewer.

「Take him out first, don't let him affect those behind. 」

「He must have starved into stupidity; he knows nothing. 」

「Who knows how many germs are on what he's carrying; without disinfection he can't get in. Forget it, let's disinfect him too. 」

Sighing inwardly, the young inspector quickly issued the order and then said nothing more.

「Ah, I feel like there are hardly any normal people left. 」

Since four days ago, more and more survivors have been streaming into Long An. He has seen far too many situations like this.

As the food crisis and the apocalypse accelerate, the survival difficulty for lower‑tier survivors keeps rising.

For many survivors, a single box of instant noodles can provoke them to fight to the death, selling wives and children.

In such circumstances, survivors often refuse to discard their cherished "treasures," trying to bring them into the city.

「Alright, this one is still relatively normal. 」

「You don't know; the last time you weren't on duty, I ran into a woman. 」

「Damn, do you know what she brought in?! 」

Sitting before another screen, an Awakened One also on inspection duty exaggeratedly made a gesture:

「Placenta! 」

「She brought in two placentas! She said they were her children! 」

「Holy shit, I even saw tooth marks on them up there! 」

「And the day before yesterday! A group of survivors came over; I thought they were savages! Do you know how they got through the zombie tide?! 」

「They pulled feces out of zombie intestines and smeared it on themselves! 」

「That smell—unbelievable! 」

Unable to hold back his complaints, the young man's face collapsed; as someone who has stayed in Long An since the apocalypse broke out, he truly cannot imagine life outside.

「Enough! 」

「Say two fewer lines! Have you forgotten Long An's rules? No discriminating against any incoming survivors! Once they become members, treat them as your own! 」

「If the enforcement squad hears you, just wait for points to be deducted! 」

He pushed open the door; a Second Level Awakened One in a white uniform coldly rebuked his subordinate.

To reduce safety issues from the new batch of survivors joining Long An, this department was just established. The personnel shoved in are far inferior to the guard corps. No choice—as Long An expands, it's inevitable that more relatives of high‑level Awakened Ones will appear.

「Check carefully! Your equipment was exchanged at high cost! 」

「We must guarantee that every person entering is problem‑free! 」

「Look at the data released two days ago! In southern Lingjiang, a small Safe Zone inadvertently took in a survivor who actually carried a Special Event on his person, causing over forty Awakened Ones to drop dead! 」

If you let this kind of person in because of your negligence, just wait to get shot!

Hearing their boss's reprimand, the young people in the monitoring room all shrank their necks.

They saw that document; the information on it was indeed scalp‑tingling.

Compared to humans who stay in the Safe Zone all the time, humans outside the Safe Zone are like wild beasts; no one knows what terrifying things exist on them. Even being infected with the zombie virus is the most "harmless."

After all, once infected with that thing, it mutates in an extremely short time, and you can tell at a glance.

"Boss, if taking in Survivors carries risk, why bother letting them join?"

"I've looked at the records of those who fled here recently; they're basically ordinary people, utterly useless."

"Letting them join is no different from wasting food."

"I see that food crises are breaking out everywhere; outside it's about to descend into chaos."

Timidly asking, in an instant, everyone in the monitoring room couldn't help but look toward their superior.

To be honest, they really don't understand why Long An would "save people".