Chapter 54: She, She Has Come Back to Life!

After clinking glasses and downing the liquor, the group finally relaxed, eating meat and gnawing on steamed buns in large mouthfuls.

Midway through, Xu Xiaofeng went to fetch another basin of stir-fried green beans and a basin of egg soup; it wasn't for any other reason, but mainly because the table was too small to hold it all.

Liu Mu planned to wait until Niu Boyi went back to its own den, then clean up the living room and set up the large table from before, so it would look more proper.

That night, Liu Fugui lay in his room, listening to the rain that showed no signs of letting up, feeling anxious in his heart.

What he was worried about, of course, wasn't the fact that they finally had a house to live in, a bed to sleep on, and could eat their fill, but rather that if this rain kept falling, what would they do if the Scrap Station couldn't continue to operate?

Today, Boss Liu Mu had traded the bulk of their goods with the Base for Contribution Value, but that stuff was fickle; if the Base didn't honor it one day, or if it devalued, wouldn't all that cargo just go down the drain?

It seemed that in the future, he should still advise his new employer more; selling on credit was a major taboo in business. Once those people felt Liu Mu was weak and easy to bully, he feared they would pick the Scrap Station clean to the bone.

And the food... Liu Fugui touched his still-distended belly; it was the first time in so many days he had eaten his fill—no, he had eaten until he was stuffed!

Good heavens, even just yesterday, he wouldn't have dared to imagine eating this well. If it were ten days ago, they would have been eating cockroaches and rats they dug out of the ruins, thinking they would starve to death sooner or later...

So, as they say, a person really must follow the right person and take the right path.

Turning over, Liu Fugui yawned and hugged the summer quilt, which surprisingly carried a faint fragrance, feeling more determined than ever to help Liu Mu well.

He Qizheng next door was already snoring like thunder, but he had also used his brain a bit before falling asleep; hehe, it was indeed right to follow the two Boss Lius. As long as he worked hard in the future, he would definitely never go hungry again.

That the two were so grateful was something Liu Mu hadn't expected.

After Xu Xiaofeng and her younger brother returned to their room, she chatted with Niu Boyi on the first floor for a long time, discussing future plans. Of course, she was mostly doing the talking herself, while Niu Boyi drooped its eyelids and let out a soft grunt from time to time to show it wasn't asleep and was listening.

"Tomorrow, those people are all coming to help us repair the house. Once we have weapons, it will be safer for Big Sister and the others to stay at home, and we can go out more. By the way, Grandson, what do you think about us going to look at the coal mine in the mountains? Gasoline and such things should be under control by now; if we can get some coal, it might be of great use in the future."

It was just that she didn't know how badly the coal seams had been burned, but some should still be left.

Niu Boyi let Liu Mu lean against its large head, and it moved its sweaty nose tip, "Woof, woof, woof, it's not good to go when it's raining; go when it's sunny."

"I've discovered you're getting smarter and smarter. It's indeed hard to travel into the mountains when it's raining. Now that the trees are all gone, there might be mudslides," Liu Mu recalled that she had also gone into the mountains in her past life, so she knew where to get coal.

There was still a lot of rain and snow, and solar power couldn't guarantee the Scrap Station's energy supply, especially since there were several large freezers coming up. The current generator burned quite a bit of oil every day, and they could only turn off a portion once the temperature dropped significantly.

If she could get coal, they could use it for heating, though as for using coal for trade, she still had to think it over carefully.

Because the black water was beginning to flood, the buildings in the Scrap Station could not be expanded for the time being. As for the so-called defensive fortifications, after the experts sent by the Base inspected the site, they decided to just install a few shooting positions on the roof of the small building.

The top of the perimeter wall was covered with barbed wire, and the outer wall was thick. Li Gang strongly requested that traps be set up along the inside and outside of the wall, "If anyone can still climb over the wall, they'll break their legs if they step on them."

The escort team and the construction team totaled twenty people. Xu Xiaofeng had been busy in the kitchen since morning, still serving large steamed buns along with a meat dish and several basins of shredded vegetables in cold sauce, all made slightly spicy according to local habits, and finally, she made a seaweed and egg drop soup.

This food would have been considered very good even on a construction site in the past, let alone in this apocalyptic era of scarcity. The workers were originally somewhat unhappy about working in the black rain, but when they smelled the fragrance wafting from the kitchen by mid-morning, they immediately stopped slacking off and became diligent.

Liu Fugui served tea and water to the escort team and the two experts. He Qizheng had originally wanted to go help with the barbed wire and traps, but was called to the kitchen by Liu Fugui to help, "How could the two siblings handle all this work? Even if you can't do anything else, you can at least help with beating eggs and chopping meat. Go quickly!"

It wasn't that Liu Fugui didn't want him to show his worth; having He Qizheng go to the kitchen was mainly out of consideration that the kitchen had a good view, allowing them to keep an eye on the workers' movements while also preventing others from peeking into the kitchen.

They didn't know how much food the Scrap Station had, but nowadays, every bit they ate was a bit less. If they were targeted by someone with ulterior motives, they feared there would be danger at home once they went out to work.

It was the apocalypse; there were few people who could survive who weren't desperate, and who knew what they might do.

As for Liu Mu, she neither helped with the construction work outside nor stayed in the kitchen; instead, she went out after greeting the escort team, while Niu Boyi was left at the Base to protect everyone.

The Haicheng Barrier was being urgently built. Yang Shuo and Xing Tianyang had both gone to the Urban Base, and Tan Ziyan had to stay at the Base to maintain order. The escort team that came this time consisted of several soldiers Liu Mu was unfamiliar with. It wasn't that she didn't trust these people, but one should always keep an ace up their sleeve when it was time to be on guard.

She didn't have any major business going out this time; it was just that she saw yesterday that they were already preparing for large-scale reconstruction over at the shopping mall, and the steel and waste plastic in her hands needed to be sorted.

For this reason, last night after everyone else was asleep, she had also put the plastic she got from recycling rain gear and the two times she traded for supplies into her space. She needed to find a place to use the system to decompose all the steel and plastic, separate out the impurities, and simultaneously erase the original traces on them.

Of course, this could have been done at home, but... it wasn't possible now.

It wasn't that there were more people at home, but that decomposing such a large tonnage of scrap required Liu Mu to provide some cooperation, otherwise the process would be quite long, and during this long process, the black-hearted system Heitao A was still, damn it, "charging by the hour."

And to compress this process to the limit, the system's operation would cause some power to overflow. This so-called "part" was not something an ordinary person could withstand, so she had to find a place far away from the Scrap Station.

This place was the neighboring county in another direction; that's right, it was Chaoxian, where the volcano had erupted.

Because of the volcanic eruption, more people had died here than in other places. Even the Scrap Station on the outskirts had experienced a brief period where the surface temperature exceeded 1,200 degrees. Liu Mu found it hard to imagine how many degrees it must have been at the center of the eruption, which was almost instantly submerged by lava.

As she got closer, the black rain actually became lighter, and the temperature was constantly rising, which showed that the central area must not have completely cooled down yet.

When the car's thermometer showed the outside temperature reached 60°C, Liu Mu stopped the car. She wanted to go a bit further, but the road ahead had been completely destroyed by lava, and there was mist rising, so she could only proceed on foot.

Turning off the engine, just as Liu Mu's hand left the steering wheel, her left eye suddenly emitted a violent and sharp pain, as if someone had stabbed a red-hot iron spike into her left temple.

She immediately realized something, but only had time to turn her head to look out the window. A dazzling, crimson fireball rapidly expanded in her pupils. The signal of danger had just been transmitted to her brain, and before she could even react, the world shattered before her eyes...

A hundred meters away, on a mountain road that had been destroyed until only a dozen meters remained, a small helicopter was parked on the road. Not far away, a tall, muscular man in black had a rocket launcher—often seen in pre-apocalyptic spy films—propped on his shoulder, still emitting white smoke.

"Fire another one!"

Inside the helicopter, a female voice was full of resentment, "I want her to die without even a scrap left, hurry!"

The man in black revealed a mocking smile at the corner of his mouth but did not resist the woman's order. Another rocket hit the target again half a minute later.

"No matter what kind of modified car it is, one shot will blow it down. The people inside will be like eggs shaken in a can; they'll be cooked straight through."

The man tossed the rocket launcher to his subordinate and turned toward the plane, speaking with a heavy coastal accent, "Miss Jiang, two shots and even the car is gone; you saw it, didn't you?"

Jiang Xue, who should have been sent to the north, was still wrapped in bandages. Two hideous scars crawled across her face, which had once been considered quite delicate. Even though the surgeon's suturing technique was high-end, they still looked like two black-red centipedes, and combined with her almost twisted expression, it appeared even more terrifying.

In the binoculars, that truck had indeed become a pile of scrap metal as the man said, and the second rocket had even ignited the fuel tank, with flames burning fiercely in the black rain.

"No! I want to go over there; I have to see with my own eyes that that bitch is dead!"

The man felt it was unnecessary, but since this ugly woman was someone the organization wanted to recruit, he had to give the order to the pilot.

A few minutes later, the helicopter landed not far from the explosion. Four well-equipped men in black got off the plane first, and after confirming there was nothing unusual around, they gestured to the person inside the plane.

"Miss Jiang, please!" The man pulled the cabin door and reached out to support Jiang Xue, to avoid the woman falling to her death in front of him.

This woman had a deep background, otherwise the organization wouldn't have risked exposure to let him personally accompany her to take revenge.

Jiang Xue got off the plane and immediately shook off the man's support, "Stay away from me. I'm a girl from a good family; I'm different from you people!"

"OK! OK!" The man raised both hands, signaling he wouldn't touch her again. But in his heart, he was cursing, *Damn it, ugly bitch, do you think I'd even look at you? *

Jiang Xue always believed that it was Liu Mu who instigated that large dog to harm her like this, just so that she, a love rival, would have to leave Xing Tianyang. For this reason, she must have said many bad things to slander her in front of Xing Tianyang, otherwise she wouldn't have been driven away!

Hatred made her willing to accept the suggestion of the Sky Viper, because she knew that her father, upon seeing her like this, would not only not help her take revenge but would instead abandon her because she had become this way. Anyway, there were several other children in the family, and those bastards had finally waited for their chance!

As long as she could take revenge, prove to the family that she still had value, and snatch Xing Tianyang back, she, Jiang Xue, didn't mind becoming a femme fatale. What she couldn't get by being quiet and gentle before, she would have to strive for by any means necessary in the future.

"You all surround me; I cannot have anything happen to me!"

Although she disliked being touched by any man other than Xing Tianyang, the previous incident forced her to be more careful about her own safety; she absolutely could not be as dismissive of her own well-being as she had been before.

The four men in black followed suit, surrounding a space of about one square meter to protect her as they moved forward slowly. The man in black from before took out his Handgun in a practiced manner and walked at the very front.

The burning continued, and thick smoke billowed amidst the Black Rain, mixed with the sulfurous smell of the Huoshan; if one were directly exposed, it would truly be enough to make a person unable to open their eyes.

The man walked over with long strides, scrutinized the remains of the Truck through his mask, saw the charred body parts on the ground, and slowly lowered his gun.

"Take a look, Miss Jiang, it's really all burned to cinders now, you can rest easy!"

Jiang Xue also saw the charred fragments, and an uncontrollable urge to vomit surged in her stomach; she immediately rushed to the side, took off her mask, and vomited.

Even while vomiting, she was still uneasy: "The head, find the head!"

"With such a big explosion, the head would have been blown to bits long ago," the man in black said with great disdain. "It's good enough that a few pieces of charcoal are left; how could a complete head possibly remain? Let's go, the geology here is unstable, shouldn't we leave first?"

Jiang Xue, however, would not give up, saying to the few people protecting her, "No, you go find it, hurry, I want you to find all the bodies!"

The few had no choice but to leave one behind, while the others split up to search and collect.

The man in black spread his hands, tucked his Handgun into his belt, walked to the side, and lit a cigarette, having no interest in doing such work.

The cigarette was lit, but as soon as he removed his mask, he smelled a stench that was almost lethal, so he hurriedly put the mask back on. He cursed "fuck your mother" at the lit cigarette and threw it away.

His nicotine craving kicked in, and he turned to urge them on, but he did not see the lit cigarette land on a body covered by black mud and rubble.

【Host body reconstruction complete. This function has entered cooldown. Please cherish life, host, and stay away from...】

Before the system's prompt could finish, Liu Mu erupted from under the black mud, and the Curved Blade in her hand sank directly into the back of the man in black; the other party's hand had only just touched the grip of his gun, and he hadn't even had time to turn his head.

In terms of a killer's reflexes, he had been extremely fast, but it was a pity he was too certain that the person had already been killed and lacked even a shred of mental preparation.

Liu Mu didn't even look at his terrified eyes; she pulled out the blade and, amidst the mist rising from the Black Rain, charged toward the nearest of the other men in black.

Borrowing the cover of the Truck fragments and the large fire, she killed two more searching men in black like a ghost, but it was a pity that the distance between the second and third was too close, and the third was alerted.

However, the other party only had time to fire one shot before the arm holding the gun was neatly severed; before the cry of pain could spill from his throat, his neck was also broken.

Amidst the spraying fresh blood, Liu Mu gripped her blade and looked at Jiang Xue, whose vomiting had been scared away, and the other man in black beside her.

The other party fired toward her without the slightest hesitation, and Liu Mu had to dodge, but she also took the gun from the dead man in black and fired back. Compared to her, the terrain on that side was more open; she fired three shots in a row, the last one hitting the man in black in the waist, but the other party was still trying his best to protect Jiang Xue as they retreated, and he continued to fire toward her, having already reached the vicinity of the helicopter.

When the other party's gunfire paused slightly, Liu Mu decisively changed positions and fired, only to see Jiang Xue grab the man in black, who could barely stand, and use him as a shield, while she herself screamed and scrambled onto the helicopter.

The man in black was hit by several shots from Liu Mu, and after Jiang Xue climbed into the cabin, she simply kicked him away and urged the pilot to take off.

The Handgun was out of bullets, and Liu Mu didn't have time to grab anything else; she rushed over directly, and when the aircraft was five or six meters off the ground, she jumped and grabbed the helicopter's landing gear.

Seeing her almost superhuman movements, Jiang Xue immediately shrieked, "Shake her off! She climbed up, hurry, crash into something and kill her!"

The pilot didn't listen to her moronic commands at all, but instead piloted the aircraft to rise continuously while closing the cabin door.

Liu Mu was buffeted by the wind and rain, but her newly reconstructed body was at its peak physical state and was completely unaffected by such minor things; she held the landing gear with one hand, and the Dog-leg Knife in her other hand found the right angle and slashed fiercely, and she heard Jiang Xue let out a miserable scream from above.

Just as Liu Mu wanted to continue climbing up, a section beneath the fuselage moved away, revealing a pitch-black gun barrel; it was a weapon built into the helicopter. The moment the tongue of fire erupted from the barrel, she turned, let go of the landing gear, and dropped directly downward; the bullets flew past, almost grazing her scalp.

The helicopter's takeoff had actually only lasted a short minute, and since that idiot Jiang Xue didn't know to close the cabin door herself, the altitude was only about twenty meters. If this were a normal person, falling with almost no buffer would definitely have meant death, but Liu Mu's physical constitution did not fear it.

She stretched out her body in mid-air and rolled several times upon landing; by the time she stabilized, she only had some external wounds cut by rocks.

Looking at the helicopter moving away in the sky, Jiang Xue, who had one hand severed on the helicopter, was also looking at her—with the same anger, and the same desire to kill the other party!

Until she was certain the helicopter had no intention of circling back, Liu Mu spat a mouthful of bloody black saliva onto the ground and turned to walk toward the Huoshan.

Damn it, they actually used long-range thermal weapons; how was she supposed to defend against that?

Was this person Jiang Xue a psychopath, or just a paranoid love-struck fool? Regardless, this grudge was now settled.

Fearing that Jiang Xue might have other support, Liu Mu had to walk toward the Huoshan; she believed that in an environment her physical constitution could withstand, those people could not. Just from the exchange earlier, if any of them had been a Mutation user, it would not have been so easy for her to succeed, nor would she have been able to get through it like that.

Only after experiencing the years when Awakened humans were everywhere would everyone have the awareness that Mutation users could not be easily killed, and they would be doubly careful.

The mist evaporated from the black water was mixed with a heavy sulfurous smell; even though Liu Mu considered her body to be formidable, she still had to use a Filter Mask in such an extreme environment.

She had been surprisingly calm while killing, but now that she had survived, Liu Mu began to feel her limbs go weak in hindsight.

At the moment she was blown up, death had shrouded her entire body like a shadow blotting out the sky; let alone escaping, she couldn't even move a muscle. The system had not given any prompts. After the fear, both she and the system seemed to have fallen into a void; she did not know how much time had passed until a mechanical electronic "beep" sound awakened her from that state.

She discovered she was like a Seed buried in the soil; after the system obtained her consent to use stored waste to convert into energy, her cells divided rapidly, and the brain, which had not been burned too severely, grew frantically.

Throughout the entire process, she was like a bystander, watching herself recover to wholeness; as her five senses returned, she felt the corpse growing warm.