Chapter 64: You Are All Poisoned

Although she had a commanding presence and a loud voice, it still aroused suspicion among the crowd.

"What is the Haicheng Barrier?"

"When did such an organization appear over there?"

"I don't know. Could it be newly established? Does this mean they're here to collect coal?"

"Quiet!" Liu Mu had to speak up, her face stern. "Those who can stand, line up. Take the wounded with you and walk out one by one."

Liu Mu stood to the side watching their movements. The residents and the outsiders were very united; the wounded and sick among them were either carried on backs or supported as they were led out.

No one was willing to help the few injured thugs belonging to Boss Ma. Their own people tried to mix into the crowd to leave, but were driven out by the others.

"Either take them with you when you leave, or I'll throw you all into the deep pit—bring the corpses too!" The submachine gun in Liu Mu's hand glinted in the flashlight beam, and as soon as those people saw it, they immediately became obedient.

Half an hour later, in front of the unobstructed Mining Tunnel, these people had gathered into three groups again.

The sky was already very dark, but one could barely make out shadows.

Liu Mu stood in front of the crowd in a raincoat, a behemoth behind her, making the already pale faces of the crowd look even more deathly gray.

The flashlights had been turned off, but these people still dared not have any extraneous thoughts.

A few minutes later, a miner with a Sichuan-Chongqing accent stepped forward. "Report, Officer! A total of 68 people: 18 dead, 50 alive, one seriously injured, 20 slightly injured. Report finished!"

The miner stood straight and even gave a slightly comical salute. After finishing, he suddenly knelt down. "Officer, please save our boss. He's not going to make it."

"Is your boss the one who got shot?" Liu Mu saw the man called 'Brother Tian'; he was tough, having taken a bullet to the chest and still not dead.

One had to know that the others who were shot had all perished.

"Yes, he's still breathing. Please save him, and we brothers will listen to you from now on." As the Sichuan-Chongqing man finished speaking, the others also knelt down.

Liu Mu stepped forward to check Zheng Tian's condition. With Niu Boyi lurking nearby, no one dared to play dirty with her.

The bullet had pierced his chest. For a penetrating wound like this not to be fatal on the spot, it must not have hit any vital organs.

However, the chest cavity, being the second most tightly protected cavity in the human body after the brain, contained many organs and even more blood vessels, making the situation extremely complex.

Liu Mu beckoned, "Take him to find Li Gang."

Niu Boyi came over, questions in its eyes.

Liu Mu patted its ear. "Don't worry, they couldn't beat me even if they all teamed up."

Only then did the dog agree, letting those men strap Zheng Tian onto its back.

Once strapped on, it didn't leave, but tilted its head to look at Liu Mu. "Woof, woof, woof! That person? He's dying."

Liu Mu glanced at the young man whose father was begging for medicine. He was only in his twenties, not very sturdy, and his skin wasn't covered in coal dust like the other miners.

"What's wrong with this person?"

Someone who knew his family stepped forward to plead for him. "Officer, this is Yang Pingxi, a college student who came back for the Dragon Boat Festival. His whole family is gone. He helped save people at first and inhaled a lot of waste gas; he's been sick ever since. Please, have your doctor save him."

Liu Mu squatted down to check his condition. His lips were blue-purple, and pale blue veins protruded on his neck. When she lifted his shirt, his sunken abdomen was almost a blue-black color.

"Are there others in the same condition as him?"

Sure enough, a few others with milder symptoms stood out. Liu Mu checked them one by one. "You all have poisoning. Someone will come to pick you up in a while."

They wouldn't die for the time being; it would be faster to let Niu Boyi go find someone.

Niu Boyi left, and Liu Mu let them take shelter from the rain at the tunnel entrance while she went one by one to understand the situation.

In less than an hour, two trucks crunched over the coal slag and arrived at the Mine.

Only then did Liu Mu let them get on the trucks to leave.

Inside the cab, Liu Mu explained the situation to Liu Fugui, wanting to ask for his opinion.

Liu Fugui drove carefully, hesitated for a moment, and probed, "Boss, you aren't thinking of taking them in, are you? With so many people, wouldn't it be better to send them to the Base?"

Regarding this, Liu Mu stated her own view. "I want to keep them in the small town after they're cured, to help me mine coal in the future."

"With just these few people..." Liu Fugui originally wanted to say there were too few miners, but he immediately thought of Liu Mu's intent. "It's not impossible. We can scour around for some homeless Survivors; as long as there is coal, reopening the Mine isn't difficult. It's just the sales channels and the initial food, water, and other supplies that we'll need to figure out."

Liu Mu had already thought about these things when she saw these people. "Get them settled first; these aren't big problems for now. I can find a way on my end."

Hearing her say this, it was basically decided, so Liu Fugui only helped offer suggestions.

Upon arriving at the location, He Qizheng organized those people to settle the injured townspeople into a building they had found that wasn't too severely damaged.

He Qizheng said this was the house of an uncle from his own clan, a house covering nearly two hundred square meters, built with three floors. The exterior had the luxury that coastal villagers pursued for face, but the interior only had traces of former luxury remaining on the first floor.

"Everyone is like this, just for the sake of face. Upstairs is either simple decoration or just a random coat of paint. Some families even have tiles and big glass windows on the outside walls, but it's still just bare concrete inside."

Liu Fugui not only sold hardware but also took on installation and repair jobs, so he had seen quite a few households.

"Are you from this town?" Liu Mu remembered the people in the Mining Tunnel saying this place was called 'Yang Family Town', so she really hadn't thought He Qizheng was from here.

"My home is in a village dozens of miles away, and it doesn't produce coal. I didn't want to dig coal, so I went out to work," He Qizheng explained.

Liu Mu nodded slightly. Adding in what the others had said earlier, she already understood the situation of this mining town.

Perhaps because they were fellow villagers, He Qizheng was very attentive to the few people who were poisoned, asking Liu Mu if they should be sent to the Base for treatment.

At this moment, Li Gang, who had finished dressing Zheng Tian's wounds, spoke up. "It's too far; they won't be able to hold on. Besides, the Base might not be able to treat this kind of chemical poisoning."

Once these words were spoken, the families of those people were instantly plunged into despair.

"Distribute some food and water to them first," Liu Mu thought of her and Niu Boyi's detoxification abilities. "Put those few people in the same room; I'll see if the medicine I brought can be used."

Li Gang wanted to say he had already looked at the medicine and it wasn't very effective, but seeing how agitated these people were, he thought it might be better to leave them a glimmer of hope.

"If you have external injuries, come over and I'll help you treat them," Li Gang wasn't a professional doctor, but he had often been injured during past missions, and most of the time he could only treat himself.

There were specialized courses for treating external injuries during training.

The room door was already deformed; it fell off as soon as it was pulled.

A total of five poisoned people were placed neatly in the room.

The answer given by the system was a Mutated Fungal Colony infection. The pre-apocalypse antibiotics had some effect but not much, only enough to drag it out for a few more days.

Liu Mu stuck the needle into the blood vessel of the dying young man. The blood drawn out no longer had a hint of red; the blue-black liquid was sticky and viscous, just like used engine oil.

She dripped the blue-black blood into a transparent glass bottle, then cut her own fingertip and dripped some of her own blood into it.