237: Chapter 237 Green-haired Zombies Siege the City! Su Xiaoqi: Can we eat it?

Shen Wanbing cranked the sensitivity of the spectrum receiver to the maximum setting; the waveform on the holographic screen was as thin as the gasping breath of someone on the verge of death.

When Chen Chen pushed open the suite door and walked into the control room, she had already intercepted the fourth complete signal segment.

Mio's projection floated in mid-air, holding the decoded spectrum data in her hands, frozen in place.

She didn't speak for a full seven seconds.

"This isn't right."

Shen Wanbing turned her head.

"What's not right?"

Mio's voice changed channels.

"This isn't from the Gray-White Mechanical Holy Court."

She flicked the decoded results toward the center of the control room. The blue light expanded, and a string of encrypted identifiers floated in mid-air.

Ancient. The kind of ancient that almost no one would recognize.

"This coding system..."

Mio paused for a second. "It's the standard shelter identification code from the Third Era of human civilization."

Silence.

Then her projection began to shake.

"On the Level 3 Map, there has never been any record of surviving ancient shelters."

Mio's electronic voice rose by half a pitch. "They were all dismantled by the Grey-White Sanctuary; they were finished thirty years ago."

Shen Wanbing didn't speak; she overlaid the signal source coordinates with the 3D structural map of the mine storage.

A red dot lit up.

Directly above, in the dome rock layer, at a vertical distance of three thousand meters.

"It's active."

Shen Wanbing pointed her finger at the red dot, her voice steady and low.

"The signal cycles every seventeen minutes and uses directional compressed encoding."

She looked up at Chen Chen. "Automatic transmission—no, someone is operating it manually."

The control room went completely silent.

Chen Chen stared at the coordinates.

Above three thousand meters of dual-shielded rock.

A forgotten human shelter.

The Gray-White Judgment Fleet couldn't scan here, and the bait mine couldn't cover this area—they even had to compress the signal until it was almost inaudible before they dared to send it out.

Afraid of being heard, yet afraid of not being heard by anyone.

"Is it possible," Chen Chen spoke up, "that this path leads outside?"

Shen Wanbing looked at him.

"If it's well-preserved, with independent energy and an ecological cycle—"

Chen Chen continued.

"Then it most likely has an independent entrance and exit passage. A passage that the Grey-White Sanctuary has never discovered."

Mio realized.

"A secret path to escape the encirclement?"

Chen Chen didn't answer this question; he turned and pressed the city-wide communication button.

"Jiang Jiuyou, Yi Chang, to the control room."

Three minutes later, everyone who needed to be there had arrived.

Chen Chen slammed the plan onto the table.

"The city stays here. Keep digging. Don't leave a single grain of source crystal in the mine storage; stuff them all into the Sea Scale's furnace."

He looked at Jiang Jiuyou.

"You handle the city defense. Pull all Shadow Department units back to the perimeter of the mine storage; do not let any abnormal signals leak out."

Jiang Jiuyou nodded.

Chen Chen looked at Yi Chang again.

"Order in the Lower Deck and resource scheduling remain as usual."

Yi Chang's icy blue vertical pupils shifted.

"You are going up yourself?"

"Three thousand meters of rock—no one else can break through that."

Jiang Jiuyou crossed her arms.

"Who are you taking?"

"Jiang Yanxue, Su Xiaoqi."

Chen Chen paused for a moment and added a name.

"Shen Wanxing."

In the distant corridor, something fell to the ground, followed by an extremely faint wail.

...

Lower Deck.

Copper Hammer's army of mining slaves had already gnawed out over a dozen new branch tunnels from the mine storage; the progress was so fast that even Yi Chang had to reschedule everything.

But problems arose as well.

With the triple point coefficient stacked with the Tyrant Totem bonus, one day of mining was worth ten days of previous income.

The red-eyed mining slaves dug frantically as if diving for gold, and the outer walls of the load-bearing pillars in the seventh branch tunnel had already been gouged away by two layers.

Structural warnings flashed three times on Yi Chang's data pad.

"Stop!"

She walked to the entrance of the seventh branch tunnel in her high heels, her icy blue vertical pupils sweeping over the group of mining slaves who were still frantically swinging their pickaxes, and she pressed the punishment panel with one hand.

"Everyone in the seventh branch tunnel: 80% of your points will be deducted, and you are demoted to the outer cleaning zone for three days."

The pickaxes of the few mining slaves in the front hung in mid-air; their faces turned pale.

"Vi-Vice City Lord, we were just one—last—"

"If the load-bearing pillar loses one more layer, you will all be buried inside for me."

Yi Chang hung the penalty notice projection in the most conspicuous spot at the entrance of the branch tunnel and turned to leave.

"When that happens, I'll have to send people to dig up the corpses. Whose work hours will that count towards?"

A chorus of wails came from behind her.

Meanwhile, at the exit of the third branch tunnel.

The proprietress had found a box of tin helmets printed with "High-Grade Mining Safety Helmet" from somewhere and was setting up a small table to hawk them.

"Safety first! A mining essential! Fifty points per helmet, twenty percent off if you buy two!"

Her fluffy red fox tail swayed behind her, and her amber vertical pupils were full of business opportunities.

"Limited time offer, if you miss it—"

Slap.

Yi Chang's high heel stepped precisely onto the abacus.

Beads rolled all over the floor.

The proprietress froze, her ears drooping.

"Where did these hats come from?"

"...Scrap shells discarded by Copper Hammer's side."

"Have they passed safety testing?"

"...They can probably block falling rocks?"

Yi Chang picked up the safety helmet and pinched it lightly with two fingers.

The tin dented inward.

"Fifty points."

The proprietress's tail was completely tucked between her legs, and even her fox ears wilted.

"I'm withdrawing... I'll withdraw immediately."

...

City Lord Tower secret chamber.

Chen Chen was reviewing the parameters of the heavy assault vehicle modified by Copper Hammer when the communication channel flashed.

It was Luo Yunwei's ID.

"Enter."

The door pushed open.

Chen Chen's peripheral vision caught a flash of black and gold—a black and gold cheongsam with a side slit reaching the top of her thigh. The silk clung to her curves, and as she walked, the slit revealed the entire length of her snow-white leg.

Her long silver-white hair hung over her chest, and the neckline was extremely low.

She held a data pad in her hands, walked to Chen Chen's side, and leaned over to place it on the table.

"Lord, the purification progress of the Faith Points."

Her voice was excessively soft, with a lingering, drawn-out tone at the end.

"The second layer of the Faith network has been deployed, and the Lower Deck is producing a stable 4,700 points per hour."

Chen Chen flipped through the data without looking up.

Under the table, the thigh wrapped in the cheongsam quietly edged over, gently rubbing against the side of his military boot.

It was extremely light, extremely slow, and carried a sense of testing.

"I heard you are leading the team up."

Her voice dropped by half a pitch. "The Faith Shield is more concentrated in enclosed spaces; if I stay by your side, the shield's thickness can increase—"

Chen Chen closed the data pad.

He raised his hand.

His fingers directly pinched her chin, which was excessively exquisite.

Luo Yunwei's breath hitched, but she didn't dodge.

She even leaned forward half an inch, her red lips slightly parted, her whole body softening in his palm.

Chen Chen's thumb rubbed over her lower lip, neither too light nor too heavy.

The corners of Luo Yunwei's eyes turned red, and a very faint moan leaked from her throat.

"Lord..."

He pinched her face and pulled her a few inches closer.

His lips brushed past the corner of her mouth, followed her jawline down, and stopped at the hollow of her collarbone for two seconds.

Luo Yunwei was trembling all over.

Then Chen Chen let go and pushed her back.

"Leave the vase in the city to shine."

He stood up and picked up his tactical jacket.

"The expedition doesn't need you."

Luo Yunwei stumbled half a step, holding onto the edge of the table to steady herself.

The cheongsam slit was wide open, her entire leg exposed, and the flush on her face had not yet faded.

She took a deep breath.

"...Yes."

Her voice was hoarse, but her posture was very low.

Chen Chen had already pushed the door open and left.

Luo Yunwei stood in place, her fingertips touching the collarbone where he had bitten her.

It hurt.

But she smiled.

The colder this kind of man is, the more it shows his mind is clear enough.

Only by following someone clear-headed can one survive to the end.

...

Copper Hammer's masterpiece was parked right in the center.

A heavy assault vehicle, matte black throughout, weighing exactly twelve tons, with four layers of composite armor welded to the chassis—it looked just like a crouching armored rhinoceros.

The most eye-catching part was the top—a cylinder with a diameter of two meters towered upward. It was a plasma drill removed from the Sea Scale's secondary battery, violently modified by Copper Hammer into a vertical drilling system.

The entire vehicle exuded a crude aesthetic of "I don't care what's in front, just smash through it."

Chen Chen walked around the vehicle once and tapped his finger against the outer wall of the drill.

"Can it drill three thousand meters?"

Copper Hammer patted the weld, his beard perked high, his face full of pride.

"If it doesn't drill through, I'll stuff myself inside and become the drill."

Mio floated to the side, her projection grayed out a section, her entire electronic face written with "I don't want to talk to these lunatics."

"...You really dare to say that."

Jiang Yanxue was already sitting in the row behind the passenger seat, the Shadow Instant-Kill Blade laid horizontally across her lap, legs crossed, leaning back against the seat with her eyes closed in rest, as if she were about to go on vacation instead of drilling through three thousand meters of rock.

Su Xiaoqi came running from the back, holding a pot of freshly heated bone soup; her twin tails swished like propellers, yet the bone soup didn't even ripple in the pot.

"Brother! I brought food for the road!"

"Get in."

The last one.

When Shen Wanxing was dragged out of the rest cabin doorway by Su Xiaoqi, she was still wearing that silk nightgown.

She was clutching an aromatherapy pillow and a blanket in her arms, with fuzzy slippers on her feet.

Her face wore an expression of utter despair.

"I really am on vacation..."

"If you don't come out and work, the Queen is going to roll up your bed and toss it out."

Jiang Yanxue poked half her face out of the car window.

Shen Wanxing's steps faltered.

In that instant, her grievance turned into a surge of defiance.

She bit her lower lip, and the drowsiness in her eyes was pushed back by a burst of energy.

"...Who's afraid of her?"

Saying this, she shoved the pillow into the carriage and nimbly climbed in herself.

Chen Chen sat in the driver's seat and fastened his seatbelt with one hand.

He glanced back—Jiang Yanxue was resting with her eyes closed, Su Xiaoqi was sitting properly while holding her pot, and Shen Wanxing had wrapped the blanket up to her chin.

He floored the gas pedal.

The plasma drill began to spin.

A blue-white light erupted from the top, and the temperature soared to several thousand degrees within half a second.

The combat vehicle tilted its head up, and at a near ninety-degree vertical angle, it slammed headlong into the mine dome.

No hesitation. No transition.

The twelve-ton steel monster plunged directly into the three-thousand-meter-thick bedrock.

Under the extreme heat, the rock layers turned into orange-red liquid magma, flowing down both sides of the vehicle.

Su Xiaoqi held the pot with one hand and clutched the safety rope with the other, her whole body being shaken up and down.

But her pot of bone soup—not a single drop spilled.

Shen Wanxing was plastered against her safety seat, her face turning green, her hands gripping the armrests for dear life.

"This isn't a car..."

Another massive jolt.

"This is a missile..."

Jiang Yanxue, however, was as steady as could be; she hadn't even changed her sitting posture, and her blade hadn't shifted position.

The drilling speed stabilized at eighteen meters per minute. Three thousand meters would take about two and a half hours.

A long, drawn-out two and a half hours.

During the journey, Su Xiaoqi drank three bowls of bone soup, Shen Wanxing threw up twice, and Jiang Yanxue took a nap.

Then—

The resistance on the drill suddenly vanished.

Chen Chen released the accelerator.

The combat vehicle shot out from the rock wall.

The twelve-ton hunk of iron, having lost its support, hung in the air for nearly three seconds.

Bang!

It crashed heavily onto a gray-white ground.

The impact sent everyone in the cabin bouncing up.

Shen Wanxing shrieked.

Su Xiaoqi's pot lid flew off, and the bone soup finally spilled—dripping all the way down the carriage wall.

"My soup!!"

Compared to the unknown environment, she was clearly more heartbroken over that pot of Tier 6 bone soup.

Jiang Yanxue was the first to kick open the car door.

Her blade was already held horizontally in front of her, her entire body on guard.

Then she stopped.

She didn't put away the blade in her hand, but her steps faltered for a half-beat.

The scene outside—it wasn't right.

A massive bio-glass dome covered the entire space, over two hundred meters high, its curve like an inverted bowl.

The inner walls of the dome were covered in a type of mutated fungus that emitted an eerie green light.

Filamentous colonies hung down from the top, some several meters long, strand by strand, like seaweed, swaying slowly in the windless air.

The air was filled with a damp, rotten, sweet scent.

One whiff and you felt like something was growing in your lungs.

Beneath the dome was a dead city.

Collapsed building complexes. Toppled streetlights.

Rusted vehicle wrecks.

Everything was covered by a thick fungal mat, glowing green, as if it had been swallowed whole by something and then spat back out.

"An ancient shelter."

"It's been abandoned for at least thirty years..."

Mio paused for half a second.

"But the signal was sent today."

As these words fell, the carriage went silent.

Crunch. Crunch, crunch.

The sound came from the depths of the ruins.

Shen Wanxing pulled the blanket over half her head, leaving only her eyes exposed, her pupils widened in fear.

The green light illuminated the things emerging from all directions.

Humanoid. Walking upright.

But their skin was entirely covered in green fungus, thick as if they were wearing a layer of living armor.

Glowing mycelium had grown out of their eye sockets, replacing their original eyeballs, emitting a deathly fluorescent light.

Their joints were bent at unnatural angles—backward-facing knees, necks twisted one hundred and eighty degrees, like broken ragdolls that had been casually twisted and dropped by something.

They were rapidly approaching the combat vehicle.

Dozens. Hundreds.

Human corpses parasitized by fungus.

The entire dead city was moving.

Su Xiaoqi was the first to jump off the car.

She rushed forward in two steps, grabbed the head of the infected creature charging in front, and held it directly in front of her nose.

She took a hard sniff.

Her brows furrowed. Her mouth turned down.

Her entire face twisted into a look of profound disgust.

Then, with a flick of her hand—

The infected creature flew out like a cannonball, smashing into the pile of its kind behind it, knocking down three of them in the collision.

"They're all covered in green fuzz!"

She shouted back toward the carriage, her voice filled with genuine disappointment.

"Mio! Can this thing be eaten?"

Mio's electronic voice cracked.

"That is a highly corrosive fungal spore body! Swallow one mouthful and your entire digestive tract will be colonized by the colony!"

Su Xiaoqi wiped her hands on her pant legs in disgust.

"Can't even eat it."

She sighed, her tone filled with the despair only a carnivore faces when confronted with a table full of vegetarian dishes.

"So useless."

The infected paid no mind to her evaluation and continued to swarm.

More and more appeared, green lights igniting from all directions, turning the entire ruin into a grim, fluorescent coffin.

Jiang Yanxue didn't waste words.

She leaped from the roof of the car, the Shadow Instant-Kill Blade unsheathed.

She plunged into the swarm of infected with killing intent, and the Abyssal Plunderer triggered automatically—

Within thirty meters, all infected touched by that cold killing intent paused simultaneously.

Their movements stuttered for 0.3 seconds.

Enough.

Jiang Yanxue passed through them.

A straight line. The blade flashed only once.

Behind her, seventeen infected were severed at the waist; their upper halves slid off, while their lower halves remained standing, green bodily fluids spraying from the cross-sections and splattering the ground.

A pile of green biochemical crystals popped out from the shattered corpses, clattering and rolling all over the ground.

Su Xiaoqi snatched a metal wrench from the car and rushed into the other side in two steps.

The first strike—smashed a head.

The second strike—swept away three.

The third strike—smashed an entire row of infected along with the abandoned streetlight behind them into spare parts.

The wrench was bent, but she hadn't stopped.

Chen Chen stood beside the combat vehicle, hands in his tactical jacket pockets, his 400-point Spirit tentacles silently extending into the depths of the ruins.

The signal source was in that direction. The people who were still alive were also in that direction.

"Clear a path."

Jiang Yanxue shook her blade, the green liquid flicking off the edge.

"Which way?"

Chen Chen raised his hand, pointing to the deepest part of the ruins—the only building that still maintained its complete structure.

Directly beneath the dome, the gray-white concrete outer walls were covered in mycelium, but the main frame hadn't collapsed.

"There."

Jiang Yanxue nodded, flipped her blade handle, and started walking in that direction.

Su Xiaoqi followed, holding the bent wrench, kicking aside the remains of the infected under her feet as she walked.

Just as they were preparing to advance—

To the left side of the combat vehicle.

In the shadow of a collapsed building, something rolled out violently.

Extremely fast. The movement pattern was completely different.

It was a living person.

A petite figure wearing a tattered old-era protective suit rolled out from the ruins, braced on one knee, holding a rusty, old-fashioned Gauss rifle in both hands.

The muzzle was aimed at Chen Chen's chest.

The protective mask was shattered on one side, revealing a young face underneath.

A girl. About seventeen or eighteen years old.

Her face was covered in dust and dried bloodstains, her short hair a mess.

Her eyes were bloodshot, but they were startlingly bright—the kind of brightness only seen in someone who has been in a desperate situation for too long and is barely holding on by a single breath.

Her hand holding the gun was trembling, but she gritted her teeth and didn't move it an inch.

"Don't move!"

"Are you lackeys of the Gray-White Mechanical Holy Court, or are you monsters infected by the spores?!"

Jiang Yanxue's blade shifted slightly, but she didn't strike immediately.

Chen Chen didn't move either.

Su Xiaoqi, on the other hand—

She tilted her head, looked at the gun, then looked at the girl's dirty, thin little face, and blinked.

"Brother, can this be eaten?"

The whole scene went quiet. Even the infected didn't dare to move.

The girl's hand holding the gun—trembled even more violently.