Chapter 257: Chapter 257: Building the defense
"Han Bang, is everything going well?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
Han Bang instantly recognized the voice and saluted Xiaoyun after he turned around.
"Not really... Chen Bing, you explain the issue."
Han Bang pushed the soldier next to him a little, who was holding a clipboard with a blueprint paper that Xiaoyun requested from the construction department.
"The road is too soft to build a wall, so we're currently adding a layer of foundation first."
Chen Bing replied, with his eyes still focused on the paper.
"Ahem, Chen Bing, look up."
Han Bang cleared his throat as he whispered in a low voice.
"Hm? Oh, good evening, sir!"
Chen Bing instantly saluted Xiaoyun as he finally looked up and saw Xiaoyun standing right before him.
"Good evening, Captain Chen Bing... Well, I'm going to check on the other wall. Tell the logistics if you need more material."
As Xiaoyun headed towards Lingang's outer wall, Han Bang and Chen Bing went back to work.
---
When Xiaoyun arrived at the designated outer wall area, Lingang's first brigade had already built a small outline of the wall on the road.
There were also thousands of soldiers digging moats and small trenches in front of it, with camps being within a hundred feet away from the wall.
"Lingang, everything is going good?" Xiaoyun asked as he walked up to Lingang.
Lingang saluted first, then replied.
"Yeah, everything is going smoothly... Although I feel like we don't really need a week here to build all these."
"A week is needed to make sure everything is consolidated... Besides, there are still more layers to build." Xiaoyun pointed out.
Lingang nodded in acknowledgment.
"Have you sent soldiers to scout ahead?" Xiaoyun asked.
"I already sent the 1st Regiments to check if any zombies are approaching from the city."
As Lingang replied, Xiaoyun noticed Lingang hesitated for a second.
"What's wrong Lingang? You wanted to say something?"
"Sir... What are we going to do after the zombie horde is eliminated from the city?" Lingang asked as his eyes looked a little lost.
Xiaoyun stood in silence as he didn't know how to respond to Lingang's question. But after thinking for a bit, he finally got an answer.
"We won't need to worry about having a massive threat next door. And we'll be able to use all the resources from the city."
"So we aren't going to move into the city?" Lingang asked curiously.
"You want to?" Xiaoyun asked back.
"I... I don't know." Lingang murmured as he contemplated all the things he had experienced in the city.
As the two stood in silence, they both looked toward the city in the distance.
They could see a faint outline of the skyscrapers, covered by a cloudy fog in the distance despite being in the middle of the day.
"Let me give you an answer... We won't be moving in the city."
Hearing Xiaoyun's answer, Lingang felt a sudden relief. But a question arose in his head.
"Why not?" Lingang asked curiously.
"Because there's no point. We already have everything set up in Luoping. We'll just transport as many resources from Guangzhou to Luoping..."
Xiaoyun paused for a second, then asked.
"Besides, do you want to move? I know that I'm not planning to move out of my house."
An awkward silence appeared between the two, with the only sound coming from the soldiers constructing the defenses.
"I don't want to move... I like Luoping." Lingang finally replied.
"Exactly... I'm pretty sure most people don't want to move to the city either. It's just too big for us...
A city for millions of people, but we are still less than one hundred thousand."
As Xiaoyun thought back to the time working in Songming group's skyscraper, he remembered how everything in the city felt so small, yet it was everywhere around him.
It was one of the major reasons he brought the house to the Luoping community. It was just to get away from the busy city life with Leyan.
"Ahem, I'm going to head back to check the logistics... Send the report to the logistics when the scouts come back."
---
As the Xiaoyun began walking all the way back to the logistics, where he parked his car, Kate and Tianci had been following behind him the whole time.
"Xiaoyun, what were you thinking earlier?" Kate asked curiously as she noticed the long pauses that Xiaoyun had when answering Lingang.
"I just didn't know how to reply to him."
Seeing Xiaoyun avoiding her question, Kate got even more curious.
"We had been so long together. Come on, just tell me." Kate asked again.
"When did you become so noisy?" Xiaoyun asked as he looked towards Kate with an irritated face.
"Okay, okay. If you don't want to say it, just say it..." Kate mumbled.
As the three walked past the second layer of the wall that Han Bang was working on, Kate was getting a little bored walking behind Xiaoyun.
"Um, can I call you Miss Tianci since you two aren't the same person?" Kate asked.
"Sure. I don't mind it." Tianci replied.
"Miss Tianci, when is Tianci coming back?" Kate asked as she had been noticing the red iris on Tianci for almost a week at this point.
Tianci paused for a second before answering as she waited for Xiaoyun to say something.
But Xiaoyun didn't turn around at all, as his mind was thinking of something else.
"Um, the other Tianci is a little tired. So I'll be taking over until she's ready to come back out." Tianci replied.
"Oh... Why is she tired all of a sudden?" Kate asked curiously as she felt like there was another reason behind it.
"She just wants to take a little break in her mind." Tianci quickly thought of an excuse to answer back.
As they got to the logistic camps, most of the soldiers there were carrying materials to the two walls in the front or setting up trenches and spikes on the side of the roads.
"Xiaoyun, couldn't the zombies just go around the wall?" Kate asked curiously.
"They could. But when they see the soldiers on top of the walls, they would charge forward rather than go around.
And since this road only goes toward the city, they could only come from that direction." Xiaoyun explained.
"Then what are these spikes and trenches on the side for?"
"Just in case some of the zombies do manage to speak around... But it shouldn't be where the brunt of the attack should be."
As they got back to the HQ tent that had just been set up, Kate got another question.
"How long do we have to stay here for?"
"After the defense is complete, we'll start luring as many zombies as possible from the city until we need to abandon this... So probably around two or three weeks."
Before Kate could ask another question, a scout came in and handed Xiaoyun a report on the area down the road.
"Why don't we just use the wall at Luoping?" Kate asked.
"Because we can't risk it. We can always just drive away from this wall and come back at another time and repeat. But if we triggered too big of a zombie wave, we don't have anywhere to run to at Luoping."
As Xiaoyun started reading the paper report, Kate finally stopped asking questions.
"Hm... A lot of zombies concentrated right at the entrance of the city. Almost as if they are just planning to head towards our town." Xiaoyun murmured.
After thinking for a bit, Xiaoyun began reading the reports from other regiments that the plan had sent out to scout around the entire area nearby.
It was all the same report, with a massive amount of zombies building up near the entrance. Almost as if they were all planning to head out somewhere else.
"Did they run out of food in the city or something?" Xiaoyun thought to himself as he couldn't understand why the zombies would try to leave the city on their own.
Not to mention, the zombie hordes all gathered up together as if they could communicate with each other.
"No mutants in these zombie hordes... That's a relief."
Thinking more and more about it, Xiaoyun realized the zombie's mutants seemed extremely hostile to the zombies themselves.
It is almost as if they don't care about the zombies at all since every single encounter he had with the tank mutants has always been tank mutants running over zombies that stood in their way.
On top of that, Xiaoyun remembered the one time his troops had physical contact with jocky mutants, yet they only got bruises rather than being infected outright.
Compared to normal zombies, who infect and eat humans, it was almost the polar opposite. But still, they tend to come together when humans appear.
"Maybe I should talk to someone about this... Or I'm just overthinking it," Xiaoyun murmured.
"About what?" Kate overhead Xiaoyun's murmured and asked.
"Nothing. Can you two stand outside for a second? I want some alone time to think."
As the two left the HQ tent, Xiaoyun pondered what route to lure the zombies to the walls.