This was the quietest afternoon that Langya City had spent in the four days of siege.
Under the warm yellow sunset, Langya City was silent after being burned by the war. The fire in front of the city wall has gradually extinguished, and the air is filled with the smell of burnt rotten flesh, which is nauseating.
According to Fu Lianhe's report, the corpse wave did not leave after retreating. After leaving countless corpses under the city wall, the number of corpse mutants staying at the edge of the Fengwei Mountain jungle still exceeds 600,000. The satellite shows that ten rooms in the sand city are empty, and the last batch of black corpses will rush to Fengwei Mountain in the evening to join the corpse tide. If the zombie horde will launch a general attack, it may be tonight.
In order to deal with the slopes padded with flesh and blood by hundreds of thousands of black corpses, the frontline combat squad directly used a large amount of gasoline without caring about the crystal cores remaining in the black corpses. As the fire spread, the burned ashes gradually floated into the sky along with the heat wave, merged with the clouds in the sky, and finally turned into snow and drifted down. In the evening, gray-black "snow flakes" are covered everywhere on the ground and around the city. It feels greasy when you touch it.
Many rows of white tents under the city wall are also covered with this kind of corpse ashes. This is where nurses from the logistics hospital treat soldiers. There is a single room in the corner, and there is a girl lying on the bed with her eyes closed.
A gray-white wolf cub nervously circled the hospital bed, whining anxiously from time to time.
"Little wolf, be good. She will be fine." Lang Hua picked up the wolf cub and stroked its head comfortingly, but the brilliance in his eyes was dimmer than anyone else's.
"Lily...I'm sorry..."
The girl in the dream is Yang Xiaoxiao. She has been mumbling from time to time since she fell into coma, with her limbs trembling, and large beads of sweat frequently falling on her forehead, which looks very distressing.
Duan Qing sat beside the bed and gently held Yang Xiaoxiao's hand, and the other party gradually became quiet.
"Dean, is Xiaoxiao really okay? Why haven't you woke up yet?" Duan Qing asked.
Chen Xinyan pushed up her glasses: "Don't worry, I've injected her with the antidote. Then she just needs to rest and she can recover slowly. The reason why she hasn't woken up yet is that her spirit was greatly stimulated after the serious injury."
After she finished speaking, she turned around and looked at Lang Hua, as if the other party had something to say to them. There is definitely a reason for Yang Xiaoxiao's situation. Whether as doctors or friends, they have the right to know the truth.
But Lang Hua just shook his head and refused to say more.
"Don't mention what happened in this ward to others. Some things are very strange. I will explain them to you when I figure out the whole story."
Lang Hua breathed a sigh of relief when he learned that Yang Xiaoxiao was okay. After saying that, he put down the little wolf and walked out. There was already someone waiting outside the door.
"Master." "Chief."
The two attendants with swords and swords followed Lang Hua to the military training field in the outer city. The place was crowded, and everyone except the soldiers on duty had gathered. Under Chen Hui's instructions, people lined up in a simple square formation, almost filling the square in front of the rostrum.
After experiencing life and death battles, the temperament of these people has changed greatly. Although the people were all disheveled, they stood upright and lined up neatly, with a faint hint of the iron-blooded army. Only when Lang Hua passed by did a small commotion break out in the crowd.
"Look, the deputy city lord is here."
"It's him, it's really Leader Lang."
"Have you heard that it was the deputy city lord who fought off the zombies and saved us?"
"What's this? I heard that he also beheaded a corpse king."
"Huh? Really?"
"Why are you lying to me? My cousin is the squad leader of the combat squad next door. All this news is on the radio. These guys are leaderless now. Thanks to the timely return of the deputy city lord, we can save our lives."
"To kill the Corpse King in a wave of millions of corpses, this... this is so amazing."
"You must be ignorant, right? The deputy city lord is the most powerful person in our base. Apart from the real heavenly soldiers and generals, who can walk back and forth from the zombie wave intact?"
"What does it mean to be strong? This is what is called strong!"
"Wow, so young. He is so handsome. I really want to marry him."
"Come on, look at your tall and thick appearance, how do you look like a woman?"
"Sister Lan Fang, don't listen to his nonsense, I support you."
"Hahaha, Kui boy, just make fun of me."
…
The sun was setting, the temperature was slightly cooler, and the ground in front of the formation was completely white, with one person sleeping peacefully under many white cloths. His face was calm, his eyes were closed, but he was not breathing.
There is no such thing as missing in the tide of corpses. Dying with no bones left is usually the fate of most people. These corpses are not all the people who died in the previous zombie sieges, but they are all the complete corpses that people can snatch back.
Among those who could not come back, some had relatives and friends still alive, and some of the deceased's clothes were placed on a solitary white cloth. Some are so lonely that they only have a piece of cloth with their name written on it, which is pressed under a stone and fluttering in the wind. There are also some warriors who are usually taciturn and have almost no interaction with the people around them, so no one knows what they were called. Sometimes I know a nickname, and there are only a few big characters on the banner: "Langya City Resistance Fighter ×××".
When their eyes touched these unknown martyrs again, everyone fell silent. Their eyebrows were lowered, with memories, confusion, and a hint of deep mourning in their eyes.
Lang Hua also walked past these remains with a respectful attitude. He climbed all the way to the rostrum, looked at the people in the audience, looked at the more than 4,000 disgraced evolvers, and for a moment he didn't know how to speak.
But people were still waiting for his speech quietly, with expectations, admiration, and uneasiness in their eyes, just like they were waiting for leader Lang Hua's divine soldiers to descend from the sky under the siege of the corpse tide. As ordinary people, their experiences these days have already reached their physical and psychological limits. At this moment, they need Lang Hua to appear, they need Lang Hua to be by their side, they need Lang Hua to do and say something.
Thinking of this, Lang Hua took a deep breath, opened his bright eyes and looked at everyone in the audience.
"Hello everyone, I am your deputy city master Lang Hua."
"Today I stand here to mourn with you all the people who died. In the past few days, everyone in Wolf Cliff City has experienced the darkest time. In the previous battles, I know that many people did not Survive.”
"We should be grateful. It is their sacrifice that allows us to stand here alive, breathe the sweet air, and feel the joy of life. We should always remember that they died for us, gloriously and selflessly. They bravely sacrificed their precious lives on the road to resist the end of the world. We will always miss them, because they are our companions, our relatives, and the belief that we will fight hard from now on."
"To tell you the truth, not long ago, I and a group of ability users made a surprise attack on the rear of the corpse tide and successfully killed a corpse king. This corpse king was only in the early stage of the fourth level, but its strength was stronger than mine. Fortunately, he did not disgrace his life. Lang Hua has cut it off with his sword."
"What I want to tell everyone through this incident is that the black corpses are not so scary, and the zombie tide is not invincible. There are often many factors that influence success or failure in battles. Strength, timing, wisdom, and even belief may all be the key to victory. The decisive factor. And a long-distance attack on the rear of the zombie tide is more often just a manifestation of courage."
"In this shocking battle that unexpectedly attacked the Corpse King, in addition to Captain Yang being seriously injured, two of the accompanying ability users died. In terms of strength and fighter experience alone, they were not outstanding, and their condition at the time was not at its peak, but I admire their courage. Without them, our mission might have failed, and perhaps I, Lang Hua, would have been swept away by the tide of corpses and died."
"We will miss them forever, and I would also like to thank the Battering Ram team, especially Captain Cloak Hammer, for risking his life to retrieve their remains. If we are all still alive after this battle, I, Lang Hua, promise to give him priority in obtaining the research institute's production Star Herbal Potion."
Star Herbal Potion is a treasure that can promote low-level evolvers to mid-level. For a moment, everyone looked at the burly man in the center of the battering ram team. The three members of the team straightened their bodies proudly and gave Lang Hua a not-so-standard military salute.
After returning the gift, Lang Hua began to look into the distance.
He continued: "Although the zombie tide has retreated now, I hope everyone understands that this is only temporary. I think they will come back soon, probably tonight. There are currently more than 600,000 black people outside Langya City. The corpses are watching eagerly, and the best memorial we can pay to the dead is to fight the next battle well, and then survive more people, so as not to let their efforts go in vain."
"If we do well, I think they'll be happy and won't drag us with them to the West."
There was a burst of good-natured laughter from the crowd, and this atmosphere diluted the gloom in people's minds about the zombie siege to a certain extent.
When the laughter subsided, Lang Hua continued: "We miss these brave and fearless people. Similarly, three people also became deserters. Last night, they took advantage of the darkness and while others were risking their lives to fight, They ran away dejectedly from a small road in the back mountain. I think even if they had known earlier that the zombie tide would retreat this morning, they would have run away without hesitation last night. Because these people are like this, they always take their own lives seriously. He is more precious than others and will do anything to survive."
Speaking of this, Lang Hua's eyes became slightly dim.
"Tao is different, I won't force you to stay. Because I know what we need is a strong group, a group that can work together to survive this zombie wave, and can unite and advance together in this apocalyptic disaster. If it is because of lowering It would be my dereliction of duty to plant one "time bomb" after another on the front line."
"In the face of disaster, everyone has their own choice. I have no intention of condemning it. But their mistake was that as commanders, they fled when the battle was at its fiercest; their mistake was that they threw away the trust of their companions in order to survive. The mistake was to leave without saying goodbye when our comrades needed them most, and to hand over their comrades' backs to the enemy!"
"I cannot accept this kind of betrayal."
"During the day, the Ministry of Information handed me a note that recorded in detail the battle damage since the siege of the city by the zombie tide."
"I don't want to hide the contents of this report from everyone, let alone deceive anyone. I think every brother and sister who has fought so far is qualified to read the contents of this battle damage report. And there are some words in it that I I want to read it to everyone here.”
"These are the few words written by Fu Lianhe of the Ministry of Information at the beginning of the report. He wrote: 'After three days of fierce fighting, our army lost nearly half. Among them, there were 1,181 people in Fort No. 3, except Cao Liangsan. Except for the people who fled, the rest of the soldiers were wiped out and no bones were left. The western edge defense line was also affected by this, with numerous casualties and more than half of the troops reduced.'"
Lang Hua pinched the piece of paper, his fingers turning blue due to excessive force, and his eyes almost erupted with substantial anger.
After hearing these actual figures, everyone in the audience was filled with indignation, but some people's eyes were wandering and they looked uncomfortable.
Lang Hua's voice struck the hearts of these people one after another.
"I think everyone is familiar with the three people who escaped. Cao Liang, Qi Jingmin and Jin Youcai. They are the few second-level ability users in Langya City, and they are also the leaders of the autonomous association of non-governmental organizations. Last night they were ordered to serve as No. 3 The commanders and fighters of the bastion are also responsible for supporting the west edge. Many soldiers on the west edge are participating in the battle for the first time, so the command headquarters has arranged most of the ability users in the city here. The overall strength is compared to frontal combat. The No. 1 bastion is half a point stronger, and it is no exaggeration to say that it was the strongest defense line before last night."
"But such an impenetrable defense line was broken through several times by the Black Corpse. All the soldiers were slaughtered and no one survived. The reason is that after Cao Liang and the other three escaped, they were leaderless and the team lost its command. Moreover, under the attack of the third-level ghost monkey It was completely chaotic. Three ability users who were capable of dealing with the ghost monkeys escaped, and the remaining people were naturally unable to resist. By the time the command center noticed the situation here, it was already too late."
"It is not an exaggeration to say that these three people are fully responsible for such a tragedy. They are the murderers, and they single-handedly pushed their comrades who fully trusted them into hell. If there were two, three, and three others on the entire defense line at that time, The consequences for seven or eight people like Cao Liang are simply unimaginable."
Lang Hua took a deep breath and said: "I also heard about what happened in the base a few days ago. I heard that some of you wanted to intimidate the city lord's mansion for your own selfish desires and to compete for supplies and power in the base. To stage a disgraceful coup.”
"At that time, the city defense army was fighting outside, risking life and death to collect supplies for most of you, and clearing away dangerous sources such as wandering corpses nearby. For example, City Lord Yang is still leading the team outside and has lost contact with the base for many days. I don't know. Is it safe? The base officials are working hard to build the city, but some people who get something for nothing are taking advantage of the emptiness in the city to oppress the builders of the city. It really opened my eyes."
Lang Hua's voice was obviously filled with anger: "You are so brave to stick the butcher knife to the necks of your compatriots!"
With a "bang" sound, a fireball flew out quickly, shattering a rockery twenty meters away. And the instigator of it, Lang Hua, raised his right hand in vain, with white smoke still drifting from his fingertips, but his eyes were fixed on everyone in the audience.
For a time, many people heard their throats rolling and swallowing saliva. If this kind of attack were applied to flesh and blood, the consequences would be unimaginable. And this was obviously just a casual blow from Lang Hua.
"Maybe I should have found those people and killed them, but I didn't. I know that most of them have paid the price for their rashness. They followed Cao Liang and carried the banner of the Autonomous Association, and in the end none of them died without landing. On Bastion No. 3."
"I have always been merciless towards betrayers. I also know that some of you have been watching indifferently from beginning to end, perhaps hoping to get some benefits from fishing in troubled waters."
"But I no longer intend to pursue those who survived after the war."
"It's good that I single-handedly created Wolf Cliff City, but I never wanted it to be my private property. I can give you appropriate freedom, but what some of you are doing is hurting other kind and hard-working people. , Brave people. I cannot tolerate this. Let me reiterate for the last time, maggots will never be welcome in Langya City. If you want to be like the capitalists before the disaster and can survive by eating human flesh and drinking human blood, Then please leave here and go somewhere else.”
At this time, some people had already lowered their heads, including most of the free-skilled people. Lang Hua was right. Although they did not directly betray like Cao Liang, they were essentially the same.
"Comrades," Lang Hua clapped his hands to focus people's attention. "At the beginning of the disaster three months ago, which of us didn't struggle to escape from Shashi? Along the way, we experienced close calls, being chased by monsters, and hungry. The severe cold is getting closer and closer, and our compatriots are killing each other. I think no one understands the fragility of life better than us, and no one understands the value of human nature better than us."
"The reason why we can gather here, spend a lot of time and energy, and risk being besieged and annihilated by the zombie tide, to build a city and accommodate more people, for what purpose? Is it to be able to find people in the apocalypse Hope of life.”
"We call ourselves the 'Wolf Cliff City Human Resistance Army'. But have you ever thought about what we are resisting? Is it a hideous monster, the coming famine, the long-lost sense of security, or the inner nature of our human nature?" Weaknesses?"
"Before the catastrophe, we humans had established an unprecedented civilization. We had achieved such lofty glory and so many great achievements, but what about now? A disaster will knock us back to our original shape?"
"Even if the world has changed, beasts with undeveloped intelligence can still live well. The jungle law of the jungle is not so strict that humans cannot survive."
"I believe that even if everything returns to the primitive state, even if there are as many monsters in the world as spring rain, human beings can still survive in a corner without being completely extinct."
"But I want to ask everyone, what happens next? What should we do next? Do we want our children to live in such a world as soon as they are born, experiencing people eating people, monsters eating people, precarious every day, and living like a garbage dump? Cockroaches in there?”
"I think what we want is not just survival, but life. It is the life we once missed day and night. I am thinking that if we can defend this city today, maybe we will be able to defend ten, maybe three, in half a year. After a few years, we will be able to regain a city and return to the home in our memories to see it.”
"Perhaps in the distant future, mankind will be able to rebuild their homes and rekindle the fire of civilization. At that time, our children can live as carefree as we once did, away from war, killing, hunger and death... "
"Friends, it is impossible for people to live without memory. How beautiful life was in the past, but how painful it is now. Life always has to move forward, and human civilization should not end hastily because of this natural disaster."
"But there must always be the first person to take a step, the first person to stand firm and not retreat. Maybe he will be injured, he will die, he will disappear and his soul will return to the dust." Lang Hua's eyes gradually showed light, and he pointed Pointing to one person after another in the team, "But maybe after the first one, there will be a second one, and thousands of people will stand up and pass on the fire step by step."
"Who can tell what will happen in the future? I, Lang Hua, am like everyone else, I don't know how long I can live and how far I will go."
"But I knew it was going to be a long run, a relay that would go down in history."
"This time we decided to fight. We are doing it for ourselves, for our relatives and friends, for our children, and for their, our, and everyone's future!"
"Maybe a thousand years from now, no one will remember your names, but your achievements are destined to last forever!"
