Chapter 682: Survivors!

"Comrades, please accept your losses and move forward—the road ahead is long. Please, warriors, rally!"

After finishing his moment of silence, Duan Wu walked over to the five men of Dragon Head Camp and offered comfort, then helped each one to their feet.

When he reached the last man, Shen Linrui, he pulled but couldn’t budge him; Duan Wu didn’t force him, only patted his shoulder and said solemnly, "Comrade Shen, you’re younger than me—I’ll call your wife Sister-in-Law. She passed without suffering; that’s luck. And you’re stronger than I am..."

"On the morning the disaster broke out, my wife was making breakfast in the kitchen—then she turned! I wrapped my wife and my mother in plastic wrap myself, one by one, and sent them off. Do you know what that pain feels like?"

Recalling the image he most dreaded to remember, Duan Wu’s expression grew heavy, but his tears had already dried in those first days; now only deep remembrance remained, buried in the softest corner of his heart, sustained by unyielding will to live and honor his dead mother and wife—not by tears.

Shen Linrui looked up at Duan Wu, drew a shuddering breath of cold air, stood, and embraced him—no words, only a heavy clap on the other’s back. Sometimes, men need no words.

"Uh... how big is this pit exactly? Anyone good at math, can you calculate it?"

Wu Lue sensed the heavy, oppressive mood and deliberately shifted the topic back to the present—thinking of other things eased the grief.

He set the drone to hover, aiming to calculate the pit’s diameter using its altitude and angle of descent—but his pitiful math skills made it impossible.

None of the ten had the ability, so they pooled their wits and came up with a clever trick: have the drone fly at constant speed across the pit. "Holy shit, the diameter’s... three hundred and fifty meters! Radius squared times 3.14... damn, nearly a hundred thousand square meters!"

Wu Lue used his phone calculator, crunched speed and time, and arrived at a conclusion that stunned them all.

A standard soccer field is 7,140 square meters; the pit left by the Venom Zombie’s explosion could hold nearly fourteen soccer fields. If you swapped soccer fields for basketball courts, that’s two hundred and thirty! "Three hundred and fifty meters, a hundred thousand square meters!"

Shen Linrui spoke with grave solemnity, closed his eyes, lips trembling—the cold numbers erased warm lives and souls, leaving nothing but void, wiping out every trace.

"Too terrifying—this power is terrifying!"

Duan Wu shook his head repeatedly, eyes filled with dread, murmuring, "Who mentioned a nuclear blast just now? This thing’s power isn’t less than a nuke! Back then, the old Soviets buried a 140,000-ton TNT nuclear bomb underground and blew a crater four hundred and thirty meters wide and a hundred meters deep—fourteen times the power of Little Boy!"

"How could this pit be small? And I feel the bedrock beneath must’ve been harder—so this explosion must’ve originated from inside the camp. There was a Venom Zombie in Dragon Head Camp!"

Duan Wu muttered to himself as he stared at the screen, noticing a serious phenomenon.

Given the current situation, the blast completely engulfed the entire camp—only an explosion at the very center could achieve that. It has nothing to do with a zombie assault...

"What’s a Venom Zombie?"

Shen Linrui sharply caught an unfamiliar term.

Duan Wu suddenly realized he’d slipped up, but it didn’t matter now—he explained, "A Venom Zombie is one that can extract explosives. While alive, it attacks by spitting a highly corrosive slime, so we call it a Venom Zombie."

The five from Dragon Head Camp looked bewildered—they had no idea such a thing existed in their camp.

But as reconnaissance team members, there were countless things they didn’t know about their own camp.

"Damn it, someone must’ve set fire to the camp on purpose! They deserve hell, boiling oil, and a million rounds of deep-frying their soul!"

Yuan Huotu cursed through gritted teeth.

Shen Linrui waved his hand: "Don’t think so badly—maybe it was an accident. Anyway, it’s done now. Blaming changes nothing."

"That’s true. The past isn’t worth digging into. Look ahead—wait, I see someone?"

Duan Wu scanned the screen; the moving image passed too quickly to be clear, but he spotted movement. In this world, anything moving deserved attention. "That was definitely a person!"

Lu Yubo also saw it, pointing at the screen to Wu Lue: "Left! To the left—damn, left of where I just spoke, northwest direction—did you see it?"

After adjusting the angle, three figures appeared on the screen...

Shanhai District lay southwest of the massive pit; about four to five hundred meters northwest of the pit, three figures stood atop the ruins. They had already spotted the drone and were frantically waving their arms—someone waved a scarf to draw attention! "Quick, Comrade Shen, come look—do you recognize them?"

Wu Lue piloted the drone, increasing speed to eighty percent; the image rushed closer, revealing three clear figures.

"It’s Ox Frog, Mantou, and Da Chongzi!"

Shen Linrui didn’t even need to see their faces—just by their body shapes, he blurted out their nicknames.

"They’re the guys sent to scout and disrupt the zombie horde in Hulushi... but two are missing!"

Zhou Haiquan explained to the others heading for Shanhai.

"Three survivors is already good enough—great, great... uh, can we talk to them?"

Shen Linrui pointed excitedly at the screen: the three were filthy, disheveled, their work boots the only thing still intact; they were speaking frantically, hard to make out, but clearly begging for help.

Original text viewing!

Wu Lue smiled sharply: "The drone can’t do it, but we can send a walkie-talkie over."

"Yes, yes! Brother Wu is brilliant!"

Shen Linrui praised Wu Lue immediately for providing a solution.

He acted on impulse: the drone’s top speed exceeded three hundred kilometers per hour—four kilometers straight-line distance took less than a minute. It flew back fast, was fitted with the walkie-talkie, slowed slightly, and was ready in three minutes.

Shen Linrui watched through the drone’s camera as they received the walkie-talkie, then pressed the talk button: "Hello, Ox Frog, this is Shen Linrui. Hello, can you hear me?"

On screen, the man holding the walkie-talkie flinched, then stared in shock, said something to his two companions, and all three grew excited. He immediately pressed it to his mouth, looked straight into the drone’s camera, and said in a broken voice: "Comrade Shen, our camp’s gone—all gone. Pi Dan and San Mu are gone too... w-w-w..."

Before he finished, the man nicknamed Ox Frog broke into sobs.

"Don’t cry, don’t cry—we’re back. We just entered the city via Longhai Road, near Nancheng. Cars can’t get through. Come quick—we’ll talk when we meet!"

"Yes, yes, Comrade Shen, we’ll wait for you—wait for us!"

The three of Ox Frog’s group were overjoyed, turned, and ran off, scrambling over the ruins.

Duan Wu patted Shen Linrui’s shoulder: "Comrade Shen, could you ask about the zombie horde?"

Shen Linrui nodded, pressed the talk button: "Ox Frog, what happened to the horde coming from Hulushi?"

"The blast wave diverted the horde—they’re heading northwest."

Ox Frog kept moving forward over the ruins as he replied.

(End of Chapter)