When the two cars made their way to the garrison, the battalion was empty and was left with bodies and blood on the ground.

  It turned out that on that night, Gong Father woke up from his coma and learned that Song Haoran and Lin Wenbo had rushed into the city to find his son. He couldn’t sit still and immediately mobilized the army to go to Kyushu warehouse in the western suburbs.

  The arms purchased by Lin family were not handed over to Gong Xiangyi for safekeeping [1]. Instead, they were secretly place in a Kyushu warehouse belonging to the Lin Group in the western suburbs. If the army wanted to rescue the people in the city, they must first clean up the roads. To clear the roads, a large number of heavy armored vehicles, tanks and trailers were required.

  Although the A province was a big province and was under the Gong family’s control, because of the Song family, their supplies in the army were extremely scarce. There were only 100 tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters which were all sixty years old [2]. Old goods could not be used in actual combat as it was likely to malfunction in the middle of a battle. In the case of a large-scale action, the provincial military region of A province had to borrow second-hand weapons from their neighboring provincial military regions. If this was not the case, Gong Yuanhang would not have been forced to find Old Lin for help.

  After the army was fully assembled in Kyushu warehouse, it immediately proceeded to the northern suburbs along the western suburbs, trying to find Gong Lixin in the shortest time possible. Because Gong Yuanhang knew that since only a dozen of people was with Song Haoran, the chances of finding his son were undoubtedly more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack. He was a soldier, but also a father. Usually, because of his busy military affairs, he ignored his son. But when he was about to lose him, he realized how much his son meant to him in his mind.

  Thus for the first time, Gong Yuanhang, who was normally upright and selfless, decided to find his own son first before rescuing the rest of the survivors in the city. It was the responsibility of the army to protect the country. But now the country was no more, and it was more practical to keep his family safe first.

  When Gong father left, he had some of his manpower to transport the remaining arms to the boot camp at the border of the province, and Old Lin was responsible for supervising the delivery work. Old Lin was nearly eighty years old and could no longer afford to run around on the battlefield.

  Inside the military base, Gong Xiangyi had tried to find her father many times but was driven away by his expressionless face. He was now unwilling to listen to his daughter’s grievances and pleas of innocence. All that could wait until he found his son.

  Gong Xiangyi hurried and sat in a military truck to accompany Grandfather Lin to A province’s border. Looking at the fleet that nearly stretched a kilometer and the dozens of helicopters carrying arms above her head [3], she turned and looked at the old man who had his eyes closed. She wished to please him and thus offered: "Grandfather, so many firearms, why didn’t you store it in my space in the first place?"

  In her space? Her space still had plenty of room and they wouldn’t have had to spend so much effort transporting the arms now. But he knew that he couldn’t put all of his eggs in one basket, which was why they didn’t let her store the firearms.

  Grandfather Lin opened his eyes and his deep and wise eyes faintly looked at her before he slowly opened. "No, I’m Lin Mao. I’ve never been afraid of a little trouble." After his words fell, he closed his eyes again. He obviously didn’t want to talk to Gong Xiangyi again.

  Whether the fact Gong Xiangyi lost Gong Lixin was intentional or unintentional, he and Gong Yuanhang both understood people and could tell at a glance. The other person had just wanted to protect herself so she deliberately drove the younger brother who might mutate into a zombie away from the house. Her method was inferior, her mind was sinister and it did not please Grandfather Lin at all.

  In Grandfather Lin’s view, as long as a family member still had a hope of even one percent of survival, they shouldn’t give up hope. Even if Gong Lixin did mutate in the end and Gong Xiangyi personally killed him, it was much better than abandoning a person before it was confirmed!

  Such a woman who was ruthless was unrecognizable to him. Fortunately she didn’t become his granddaughter-in-law. Fortunately, he had acted cautiously at the beginning and insisted that Lin family hold custody of the arms. Otherwise, if the arms and materials were controlled by such a woman, he didn’t have the confidence in continuing to cooperate with the Gong family. It felt like, if one day, his grandson did not defend himself against Gong Xiangyi’s tactics, she would eventually abandon his grandson! Lin Mao quietly sighed without showing a trace of his emotions.

  He had to find a chance to return the materials that his grandson had given Gong Xiangyi to store. Otherwise, it was truly worrying. Lin Mao thought about it and his expression became determined.

  The army had assembled and moved towards the northern suburbs while the arms were transported to the boot camp. All this work was done in an orderly manner overnight. When the sky became white, the garrison battalion was empty. Without the army guarding it, zombies wandering near the camp immediately approached.

  When Gong Lixin and his party had arrived at the big camp, it was a whole day after the army had evacuated the scene. It really was bad timing, passing by one another.

  "Brother He, isn’t this wrong? Aside from zombies in the big camp, there’s no living people!" Wu Ming said with a determined face. They were parked on the side of the road, looking through the wire mesh fence.

  "Nothing is wrong! One can only say that the army has withdrawn." He Jin frowned, thinking that he would set Gong Yuanhang’s clothes on fire. His son was still outside and he still didn’t know where he was, and the other was still running away with the army without even living a trace of their shadows. If he didn’t want his son, say so now and he would immediately take this person away and be very happy about it!

  "They evacuated? Where did they evacuate to?" Lu Yun whispered while staring at the window.

  "Brother He, there’s no one inside. What do we do? Where do we go?" Gu Nan had driven the Ford car and asked through the open window.

  He Jin looked at the child with scrunched up brows and asked softly: "Lixin, have you heard your father mention where the military would evacuate to after the apocalypse started? If he evacuated with the military, he must have found a better place to stay. Do you have any idea where?"

  Gong Lixin thought about it for a while and nodded after a long while. "I remember that he said that he wanted to place the army in the boot camp opposite Lancang River Bridge."

  The boot camp on the other side of Lancang Bridge? He Jin thought for a bit, That placed was in front of Lijiang River. It was easy to defend and difficult to attack. It was backed by a sparsely populated highway and, in the apocalypse, it would indeed make an excellent military base.

  "This time, it won’t be wrong. We will go there, but it’s already six o’clock and it’s getting dark. It would take us at least seven to eight hours to reach our destination. We are already tired today and for safety reasons, we shouldn’t aim to reach the place tonight. We will instead find a place away from a village or town and rest for one night, then leave in the morning." He Jin yelled out his plan [4].

  If it was in the past, they would find a village to rest in. But now, it was not a good idea. No one dared to approach a village as they were all aware of the dangers the apocalypse had brought.

  All the people answered in unison and immediately hit the road. The boot camp was on the border of A province. To get there, they had to pass several villages and towns, and a large piece of farm land. That area was the planting base for the vegetable basket plan of the province. The villagers were rich and had a large population there. Now though, there were certainly a lot of zombies. It would not be easy to reach the boot camp safely.

  However, the army had already gone ahead and it was necessary to clean up a lot of zombies along the way so the danger should be greatly reduced. He Jin drove while analyzing this in his mind.

  He did not expect that the army did arrive at the boot camp first, but did not use this road but the 319 National Road through the Kyushu warehouse. Therefore, the night was still full of danger.

  The two cars ran on the straight road that was surrounded by vast vegetable fields. At the end of the vegetable fields were rows upon rows of houses which were the towns where the farmers lived. There were still several towns and villages like this one up ahead. If it was the past, if one was tired from driving, one could stop at a nearby town and go out to eat an authentic farmer’s dish and then find a farmer’s home to stay for the night to alleviate their fatigue from their journey. But now, He Jin and his party did not want to go near these towns and villages.

  The sky lights in the west were stacked with layers of fire-red clouds. In the clouds, there was a glimpse of the blood red sun dyeing the sky. Although the evening scenery was as beautiful as ever, it showed that night would be demonic and desolate.

  He Jin increased the car’s speed and rushed down the road, trying to find an uninhabited mountain field before dark. At the beginning, the road was good. The two cars ran smoothly, but not for long. On the road, there were agricultural vehicles, tractors and recreational vehicles that were lying in the middle of the road. From time to time, there were zombies roaming along the roadside too.

  Fortunately, the Gong family’s Hummer H6 was modified; the body was lengthened, the steel plate was thickened and even the horsepower was increased. It was easy to hit the obstructed vehicles into the farmland on both sides.

  "Brother He, the situation is wrong! This road does not look like it had been cleared by the army before. I suspect that the army might have evacuated to another place." Wu Ming said with his eyebrows furrowed.

  "Ah? Going the wrong way?" Lu Yun’s almost jumped up and groaned: "What do we do? What is Gong Yuanhang doing? When is his army the dark guard or Jinyiwei [5]? Where did they go there without a trace? There’s not even a hint of their shadows!"

  Gong Lixin’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked at He Jin, his eyes showed his worries and disappointment.

  He Jin was stunned in his heart and yelled: "Lu Yun, you shut up! This is not the only way to go to Lijiang Bridge. Maybe the army took a different route from ours. In short, wait until we get there. It’s not the time to panic." If the army really was not there, he would leave the province with the child and go directly to Kyoto. Anyways, Gong family had already abandoned the child. Now that he was here, the child was his! [6]

  With such a thought, a touch of darkness slid across He Jin’s sharp eyes. He reached out to pat the child’s head in silent comfort. Gong Lixin swayed under his big hand and the boy returned to Earth.

  He felt that He Jin had a point. The military would not have necessarily taken the same road of retreat. The hearts of the group slightly eased. Another thought was, if the military really was not there, there was the national highway anyways and this highway would lead them back to Kyoto if they directly followed it North. After thinking about it, the tense atmosphere in the car disappeared and the group continued their travel with peace of mind.

  After another ten minutes, the sky gradually dimmed and the houses on both sides of the road increased. This was the largest township in the area, Qingshui Town. After passing through Qingshui Town, there was a large, unrecognized barren mountain ridge on the other side of town where they decided to rest.

  He Jin took a look at the road sign erected by the roadside and the words for Qingshui Town was written on it. He Jin’s thick eyebrows were deeply locked together and his heart was on high alert. There were many houses here and there were many people who inevitably became many zombies. It was a high-risk zone.

  Sure enough, not far away, he saw a Porsche SUV with closed doors and windows. The SUV had hit a large tree on the side of the road and the front of the car was completely damaged and exposed, revealing the engine inside. There was a dead body on the ground and next to the car, a corpse was smashed. The corpse was dressed in a military uniform and the army medals on his shoulder showed he hadn’t been a lowly soldier. A group of zombies with bloody mouths was apparently not full after feasting on the abandoned man and looked at the two women in the car.

  The two women shrieked inside the car and their faces were covered in tears. When they saw a vehicle coming over, they didn’t care about their fear. They quickly opened the window and screamed for help.