Chapter 48: Picking Up Steel While Fighting Monsters

The crowd was so shocked they forgot to fire, only to see a figure squeeze in beside that dog's head; before they could see clearly, it drifted closer like a ghost, and screams rang out one after another.

Five soldiers collapsed onto the stairs one after another, their postures twisted, having already lost the ability to act.

Liu Fugui had sharp eyes and recognized who it was immediately, "Boss Liu, have you come to save us?"

"Of course, I haven't received the metal you promised me yet," Liu Mu quickly disarmed the soldiers, threw a few to Liu Fugui, and went to grab other weapons, "Let's go."

Liu Fugui didn't know how to use a gun and wanted to refuse, but immediately thought of the thing chasing them from behind, "Let's go quickly, there's a monster below!"

Liu Mu paused as she reached for a hand grenade and looked over, puzzled, "There's an army down there too, right? Don't worry, they'll handle it."

Liu Fugui was indeed afraid that thing would catch up, but once Liu Mu spoke, he realized the commotion they made while fleeing earlier must have already alerted the people downstairs. Seeing that the monster's sounds were no longer approaching, he immediately believed Liu Mu's judgment.

With Niu Boyi clearing the way in front, neither survivors nor soldiers dared to block them, and the group quickly smashed the locked east gate and left the Stadium.

It was about five hundred meters from the front gate; Liu Mu couldn't bear to leave the truck behind, so she let Niu Boyi lead a few people toward a place with fewer Mutated Animals while she went to drive.

Having fired a few shots with Tan Ziyan and the others before, Liu Mu was no longer a stranger to using guns and cleared away the blocking Mutated Rats and Mutated Cockroaches from a distance.

By the time she caught up in the truck, the group and the dog were surrounded by a squad of soldiers, and Song Yulin, who had been watching from the sidelines, finally appeared.

Liu Mu's eyes turned red instantly, and she drove the truck straight at them, not forgetting to curse loudly, "Song, you motherfucker, you dare to backstab me? Do you believe I'll kill everyone in your entire Base? Damn it, I can even kill Mutated Beasts, can't I slaughter you few little chicks?"

Niu Boyi also roared along, the sound nearly shattering their eardrums.

The little girl Ning Xia had her ears tightly covered by Zhou Shuqin, her eyes looking around helplessly, but she knew the Military Dog and the strange aunt were there to save them, and though tears welled up, she didn't cry out.

Song Yulin and her people dodged the truck but dared not approach again; she knew Liu Mu meant what she said, and if she insisted on keeping this Military Dog today, she feared Liu Mu would truly start a massacre.

In just over half an hour, she had seen Liu Mu's skills clearly; let alone people, even those Mutated Wild Dogs were slaughtered unilaterally before her—this woman was no ordinary person.

"Boss Liu, don't be so hot-headed. I can let you leave and send people to escort you safely back to the Haicheng Barrier," Song Yulin was certain that someone as shrewd as Liu Mu must care more about her own life and the lives of these few people, "As long as you leave this dog behind."

The Haicheng Barrier she spoke of was the post-apocalyptic human survival city that Yang Shuo was still designing.

Liu Mu was so angry she laughed; her hand, hidden by the truck door, silently took out the hand grenade she had swiped earlier from her space, intending to blow this woman to death, "Even Yang Shuo doesn't dare ask me for Niu Boyi, where the hell do you get the face to make such a request?"

That the Base over there would take a fancy to Liu Mu's dog was something Song Yulin had naturally guessed, but she had assumed Liu Mu relied on her friendship with Yang Shuo to keep the Laboratory from taking Niu Boyi for mutation experiments. But now that Liu Mu said this, she couldn't help but frown slightly; if Yang Shuo didn't dare to snatch it by force, that was impossible—if it wasn't for friendship, could it be that he was wary of Liu Mu herself?

Did she have such great ability? Whether because of her trading or the combat ability she had displayed, Song Yulin believed Liu Mu's words were exaggerated.

"I know what you want," Song Yulin said with certainty, "You help that side collect steel; I can have people clear out the steel factory in the suburbs for you. If you have that steel, you will be the top contributor to the construction of the Haicheng Barrier and could even enter the core power layer of the Barrier. Is such a condition enough?"

The number of soldiers was around thirty; if they really fought, Liu Mu and Niu Boyi would certainly be able to retreat unscathed, but the few people they had rescued on the side might not.

Liu Mu opened the truck door and jumped down, a hand grenade flipping in her hand, "A few hours ago I thought you were a somebody, but now I'm very disappointed in you. Leader Song, you don't protect the many people in your Base, instead using all your military force in such inexplicable places, and you even want to threaten a merchant walking in the apocalypse. It seems your level is about the same as these survivors—ignorant of the dangers of the world."

Although her body wasn't considered sturdy now, underneath her clothes were solid muscles; her strength and explosive power were incomparable to the "bamboo pole" of four months ago, not to mention the system's bonuses.

"You're going to fight my people alone?" A trace of uncertainty flashed in the eyes behind Song Yulin's glasses; if Liu Mu really fought to the death, the result would not be worth the loss.

"Are you joking? How could I be alone?" Liu Mu happened to walk to Niu Boyi's side and reached out to pat the dog's head. The dog cooperated perfectly by baring fangs over a foot long. Seeing this mouthful of big white teeth, it was no wonder how it bit those Mutated Wild Dogs to death in one go, and biting a grown man in two was as simple as biting off a bean stalk.

Liu Fugui and the others also subconsciously raised their guns; although their eardrums stung, they couldn't hold her back. Now they only had one path to follow with Liu Mu; being left behind would end the same as being shot now, or perhaps even worse.

"Going to the mountain" was better than staying behind to be humiliated, secretly killed, and thrown into a sewer.

Just as the two sides were in a standoff with neither willing to give way, several screams broke the hair-trigger atmosphere.

The screams came from inside the Stadium; just tens of meters away was the door Liu Mu and the others had smashed open. At this moment, a dozen people ran out, scrambling to escape. Closely following them were people as well, only their limbs were twisted, their walking movements were strange, and they would bite whoever they caught that was running slowly.

This was what ordinary people could see; in the field of vision of Liu Mu and Niu Boyi, besides being strange and attacking people, those people had a layer of red mist almost invisible to the naked eye around their bodies, and there were countless tiny, cracked wounds on their skin, with fine beads of blood oozing out...

And what was even more terrifying was that those who were bitten to death would stand up within seconds of hitting the ground, their state exactly the same as the people before.

"What is going on?" Liu Fugui's voice trembled as he asked the person beside him for confirmation, "Is it the same as that monster underground?"

He Qizheng, who was holding his head wound, had seen the monster at close range and nodded immediately, "The eyes! Look at their eyes!"

As they got closer, besides some eyeballs falling out of their sockets, those newly mutated ones had their eyes rolled back, presenting a deathly gray-white.

Zhou Shuying hugged the child and retreated, instinctively wanting to run, "How is this still contagious to people?"

Amidst the exclamations, the pin was pulled with a crisp sound; the three turned their heads and saw the smoking hand grenade in Liu Mu's hand fly out.

"Get in the car!"

Just as her voice fell, the hand grenade exploded with a boom in the midst of the infected crowd.

Liu Fugui was the first to react, pushing one person with each hand toward the open truck door, "Boss Liu, you come too! There are so many of them, we're no match!"

He had the courage to grit his teeth and fight the soldiers earlier, but now, faced with this person-to-person contagion, he only had one thought: to run.

Liu Mu would certainly not stay behind; she had seen this kind of thing before. Although it wasn't the Complete Form of the Zombie Virus yet, the speed of contagion and mutation was no less, only the physical strength after mutation was greatly reduced.

While letting the few get into the truck, Niu Boyi swept its tail toward the soldiers gathering near the truck, opening a gap for the truck to leave.

"Liu Mu!" Song Yulin shouted sternly, and her subordinates raised their guns.

Liu Mu jumped into the car with the others and started the truck quickly, as if she had experienced countless crises and escapes, "Clean up your own mess! Niu Boyi, kill anyone who blocks the way!"

At her shout, Niu Boyi no longer suppressed its killing instinct and lunged at Song Yulin with its mouth open. The soldiers immediately changed their shooting targets to save their leader first.

But they soon discovered that at such close range, bullets hitting the big dog only knocked off a few strands of dog hair; they couldn't even penetrate its fur.

Even so, Niu Boyi was still stirred into a frenzy by the intense pain and wouldn't stop until it had eaten Song Yulin.

The truck had already left successfully; Liu Mu saw Niu Boyi's state in the rearview mirror and leaned out to whistle at it, "Go! Let them feed the Zombies themselves!"

Song Yulin was carried away in a sorry state by several soldiers, but they discovered in despair that the remaining soldiers couldn't stop Niu Boyi, and the big dog caught up with a single leap.

The female leader was finally frightened pale and shouted regardless of her image, "Let them go, let them go! Retreat back underground, hurry, retreat!"

Niu Boyi, who was about to eat someone, was unwilling to give up and chased after them, pouncing; its bloody maw almost grazed the top of Song Yulin's head, but when it landed, it found the people gone.

Turning back, it saw those people diving into a culvert entrance. Other soldiers followed, jumping down as if fleeing for their lives, fearing they would die in the dog's mouth if they were late, and they didn't even bother to fire at Niu Boyi.

The dog's eyes were blazing with fire; it rushed over, knocked those soldiers aside, and roared into the hole. Its pillar-like big claws dug the entrance open to twice its size, making it impossible for them to close it.

And the soldiers who had been knocked aside wanted to fire again, but suddenly heard a low roar behind them. Looking back, they saw that the infected people had surrounded them at some point.

"Damn dog, if you don't come back, I'll slaughter you and eat dog meat!"

Liu Mu thought that Niu Boyi must have bled after being hit by bullets; if it got infected by the virus on those Mutated Humans and turned into a Zombie dog, it would be too damn messed up.

At this fierce shout, Niu Boyi finally regained a shred of reason, dug another pile of broken bricks into the hole, and then leaped over the heads of the Mutated Humans surrounding the soldiers, chasing after the truck as it left.

After driving a few hundred meters, Liu Fugui looked back with lingering fear, "This, this Base is afraid it's going to be finished."

No one answered him. After such a heart-stopping ordeal, both He Qizheng, with his splitting headache, and Zhou Shuying, holding her daughter, remained silent. In their hearts, they still hoped that so many people wouldn't meet with disaster, but what the military had done was truly inconceivable. The confidence built up during years of peace had finally collapsed today. Thinking of those who had spoken to her just days ago and helped her look after her child, Zhou Shuying couldn't help but wipe away her tears.

"Why cry? These people didn't look like a proper rescue team at all; a day like this was bound to come sooner or later," Liu Fugui said, though he was also distressed. Fearing he would leave a bad impression on Liu Mu, he encouraged them instead, "We are following Boss Liu to that base. As long as we are alive, there will always be a way out. Life has to go on..."

The atmosphere was gloomy. Liu Fugui looked at Liu Mu's expression and was surprised to find the corners of her mouth raised. To be honest, at a time like this, it made him a little afraid.

"Uncle Fugui, can you drive a truck?"

Liu Mu still had things to do; she couldn't just leave like this.

"I can," Liu Fugui had originally wanted to say that He Qizheng was an expert at driving trucks, but his scalp was injured now, and he didn't look very clear-headed. "I can. Do you need me to drive?"

"Yes," Liu Mu stopped the truck immediately. "Follow the dog. It will take you to a safe place. Also, this..."

She fished a loudspeaker out from under the seat and started recording into it, "Brother Sanlin, these few people are ones I saved halfway. Help me arrange for them. Tell Uncle Yang that the base in downtown Haicheng has had an incident. You all must wear biochemical protective suits when you come over; don't go wandering around for no reason. After dropping them off, let Niu Boyi go home by himself. I'll go drive the truck another day."

After recording the message, Liu Mu carefully played it back to ensure the recording was clear.

Giving both the truck and the loudspeaker to the people in the vehicle, Liu Mu explained that Niu Boyi would lead them to the base where Yang Shuo was; she had acquaintances there.

The group didn't dare ask what Liu Mu was going to do. Liu Fugui took the steering wheel with his heart in his mouth, and he even gritted his teeth to let the big dog come close and smell them, saying that this way it wouldn't accidentally hurt them.

Accidentally hurt them how? Liu Mu didn't say, and they didn't dare ask.

"Right," Liu Mu jumped off the truck and patted the door. "There is a first aid kit and emergency food under the back seat. Use them as you see fit."

"Many thanks, Boss Liu," Liu Fugui replied respectfully, breaking into a cold sweat as the big dog looked him over with curiosity.

Liu Mu patted Niu Boyi again and told it that the dog things at that base wanted to get ideas about it, so it should obediently lead the people away, and that when it got home, Big Sister would make it something delicious. Niu Boyi, who had originally wanted to go with her, immediately wagged its tail and led the way in front as soon as it heard there would be good food at home.

At first, Liu Fugui was afraid that Da Gouzi wouldn't be able to keep up with the truck's speed and drove slowly on purpose, but the big dog ran a distance, seemed to realize his intention, ran back to run alongside the truck, and then ran faster and faster.

At the same speed on the same road, once one side was overtaken, the other would habitually accelerate. By the time Liu Fugui was hailed by Zhou Shuying, who was bandaging He Qizheng's wound, he took a look—good heavens, they were already at 130 mph.

And that Da Gouzi was still leading easily, turning its head from time to time to snort contemptuously, as if mocking him for overestimating his own strength.

Liu Fugui then lowered his speed a bit and didn't dare race Da Gouzi anymore. He also discovered that this dog's intelligence was extraordinary, and he said to the two people in the car, "This is what I'm thinking: we'll follow it to that base first, see what procedures need to be completed, and then if you want to stay at the base, you can stay."

"And you?" Zhou Shuying asked immediately. At the same time, she had finished disinfecting and took out a snow-white bandage to wrap He Qizheng's head. "This Boss Liu really has quite a lot of good things."

"That goes without saying; she doesn't look like an ordinary person at all," Liu Fugui was afraid Zhou Shuying would say something bad that the big dog might hear, so he immediately replied, "I'm thinking of working for Boss Liu in the future. She mentioned before that she wanted to run trade everywhere, and I have experience, so I can help out a bit. You also know I'm not someone who can sit idle. I also want to help do things, and maybe one day I'll have a chance to go find my wife and child..."

They all knew he was worried about his family. Zhou Shuying hesitated because she had to take care of her child.

"I'm with the Boss," He Qizheng, whose scalp hurt as if someone were pulling it, made a decision immediately. "My wife is gone too. Boss, you work for Boss Liu, and I'll drive for you all. I can move cargo too. I'm coming with you!"

Hearing her say this, Zhou Shuying glanced at her daughter, who was eating compressed biscuits and drinking milk, and gritted her teeth, "As long as I can be of help, I'll go too. I'm just afraid Boss Liu will think we're a burden."

Neither of them could say for sure, so they just comforted each other by saying they would see once they reached the base.

With Niu Boyi leading the way, they traveled only on cleared roads and were able to avoid most Mutated Animal gathering spots. Even if they encountered one or two, the dog easily dealt with them. Even though the Black Rain was still falling, the journey was unexpectedly smooth.

Furthermore, after Liu Mu left them, she didn't return to the city immediately but went to the Steel Factory nearby.

That's right, the place where she got out of the car was exactly near the Steel Factory. As for Liu Fugui's hardware store, she couldn't go there for the time being.

Just as she had expected, the entire Steel Factory complex was severely damaged, and naturally, there wasn't a soul in sight.

The Black Rain was pouring down, and it was hard to walk even with a raincoat on. Thinking about how she needed to quickly get a set of rain gear for Niu Boyi to go out in, she walked alone into the Steel Mill, which was full of deep pits.

As soon as she entered, the system kept sounding alarms, all caused by the 'Giant Sun' Fragments.

She had originally wanted to collect scrap steel, but Liu Mu found the noise annoying, so she simply focused on finding the deep pits to clear out a wave of 'Giant Sun' Fragments first.

What was surprising was that there was no red substance overflowing from the surface of the fragments soaked by the Black Rain, as if the surface were covered by a film of oil, and there were no signs of energy riots.

The stones of various shapes lay like cooled volcanic rocks, quietly waiting at the bottom of the pits to be unearthed.

The Steel Mill was much larger than the Steel Rolling Mill; the several factory areas stretched for over five kilometers back and forth. It was impossible for Liu Mu to walk through all of this just to collect 'Giant Sun', so she quickly changed her strategy.

If she encountered steel, she collected steel; if she encountered 'Giant Sun', she collected fragments. She didn't let either task delay the other.

The Black Rain kept falling, sometimes heavy, sometimes light, but it showed no sign of stopping. By the time Liu Mu felt hungry, it was already midnight.

She found a half-collapsed factory building, took off her raincoat, and took a portable stove and a pot out of her space. Liu Mu boiled ten packs of Instant Noodles and five boxes of Canned Lunch Meat for herself. After eating, she rested for half an hour, drank two bottles of Energy Drink, and continued to diligently 'pick up trash'!

Scrap steel was hard currency in the apocalypse to her. Of course, even in the past, it was no different from picking up money. She could pick for seven or eight hours like this, eat a full meal, and work continuously without feeling tired at all.

During this time, she also discovered many animal and human corpses. Most of them had undergone Mutation, but they were all dead. According to her inspection, there were only two causes of death: one was being attacked to death; the other was that the body couldn't withstand the energy consumption of the Mutation and exhausted itself to death.

She couldn't help but feel worried: if she collected so many Giant Suns, would the system one day be unable to control this strange energy and cause her to explode and die?

Mechanical labor always made one think about a lot of things in their head. She asked the system if it could give her some protective measures. The system's answer was that unless this body of hers was directly decomposed and annihilated, she wouldn't die even if she were shattered into pieces.

She had momentarily forgotten about that ability with the 15-day cooldown. Of course, the main thing was that she didn't really want to turn into fragments herself.

"Then does every piece of Giant Sun contain a different ability?"

Thinking of the 15 days, she couldn't help but think of her previous experience, but the system couldn't give an accurate answer to this question either, only telling Liu Mu to find an opportunity to experiment herself.

Forget it, she didn't want to lose her life. Using herself for such a dangerous experiment—wasn't it better to stay alive?

Wait... Liu Mu's hand, which was digging for fragments, paused. She cherished her life, but what if she used someone else for the experiment... for example, that Xing Tianyang who was seeking the truth of the universe?

A wicked smile flashed across Liu Mu's face; she even wanted to add a few more fragments to Xing Tianyang while he was in the process of Mutation.

But her smile froze the next second—the tactile sensation was wrong!

The Giant Sun she was pinching felt soft and mushy. She pulled her hand back a distance in a flash, and goosebumps rose in the pitch-black environment. This was equivalent to reaching into a dark box when someone told you it was full of stones, but you touched something cold, slimy, and moving.

With the flashlight shining on it, this was no stone at all; it was clearly a wriggling human head. Liu Mu immediately continued to back away, but the hole dug out by this fragment was narrow and had a turn, so she couldn't increase her speed.

She saw the head illuminated by the strong light; its features were intact, it had no hair, and its eyes and mouth were tightly shut. It was more than twice the size of an ordinary human head.

Whether it was because the light was too strong or because it had been startled by her touch just now, the head gradually opened its eyes. Its originally calm expression suddenly turned vicious, and it opened its mouth to spit out a scarlet tongue that curled directly toward Liu Mu.

Liu Mu didn't want to fight a monster in a narrow hole, so she immediately backed away using both hands and feet. However, the speed at which the scarlet tongue extended was truly too fast; it wrapped around her ankle almost instantly.

Without thinking, she immediately smashed the flashlight onto it, but the flashlight felt like it had smashed into a sponge; there was no point of leverage at all, and even after several hits, it didn't loosen its grip by even a fraction.

Besides that, the tongue had quite a bit of force; in just an instant, it had dragged her back half a meter. She had to abandon the flashlight and pull out her Dog-leg Knife to hack and stab repeatedly. Fortunately, the thing still had a sense of pain; it let out a squeaky, strange cry similar to a rat's, and the scarlet tongue, now covered in several gashes, retracted.

The opened mouth was filled with sharp, thin teeth, and it kept letting out angry, strange cries at Liu Mu. The long tongue retracted into the mouth and disappeared as if it were a rubber band.

Liu Mu was, of course, in no mood to observe; once she gained her freedom, she climbed outward regardless of anything else.

During the crawling process, the flashlight kept shining into the hole, fearing that the thing would launch another attack. Sure enough, after only a moment, viscous liquid like fresh blood welled up from the thing's eyes. The two streams of liquid left the head and, like soft-bodied animals with lives of their own, swam toward Liu Mu along the surface of the slippery mud.

This was truly terrifying. She had a hunch that these two blobs would be even harder to deal with than the strange tongue; if they crawled into her clothes, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to shake them off even if she tried.

When fleeing for one's life, a person's potential is limitless, let alone that she is no ordinary person. Liu Mu put all her strength into her limbs, her climbing speed exceeding that of a normal person by several times, and her posture even became contrary to human anatomy. But, intent only on escaping, she had no leisure to notice this point.

By the time she rolled out from the cave entrance, those two masses were almost at her feet. She rolled several times in the Black Rain, and when she looked again, the tracks of the two masses had been lost.

Just as she suspected that the things had not followed her, she felt a weight on her back.