Chapter 91        Shelter

After four days of hard work, they finally got paid!

With the a.s.sistance of the light from a glow stick, a tall and strong woman stood out from the crowd of people. She walked forward and put her hands on Zhou Qingfeng’s shoulders, then said with a low voice, “Thank you, Victor Hugo. I’ve never been in such a terrible situation. I owe you my life.”

When Zhou Qingfeng heard Katrina Riven’s praise, he laughed bitterly and said, “Actually, I nearly gave up, but I thought it’d be unfortunate if a pretty lady like Miss Riven was dead, so I forced myself to do it for your sake.”

“It’s not funny. But I accept your compliment.” Katrina patted Zhou Qingfeng’s shoulder and walked away.

It was Butcher’s turn next. The heartless Butcher was slightly injured, and his favorite PKM machine gun had disappeared. He walked toward Zhou Qingfeng with his dislocated arm and laughed hoa.r.s.ely. “It feels so good to be alive. I think you’re a reliable teammate now.”

The third person who walked forward was a little younger than Butcher, but bigger in size. His face looked like it was carved in stone, yet the way he stared at Zhou Qingfeng was rather friendly. He only said, “We are now friends.” The combat engineer, Mox, was a man of few words.

The fourth one that came out was a walking machine. Its size was akin to a cow’s, but without a head, with four huge limbs and a simple appearance. It must be the Walker. Two people lay on the platform of the machine. Weakened terribly, Angie stared at Zhou Qingfeng. She opened her mouth, but could not speak.

“It’s all right, don’t talk. I know you have no energy,” Zhou Qingfeng comforted her.

The other person was Tony Parker. He was pretty miserable at that moment as well. He waved his hand as he said, “Hi,” then put his hand down straight away.

After that, the people who were stuck came out one by one. They staggered through the tunnel opened up by Zhou Qingfeng. Their eyes brimmed with grat.i.tude as they looked at Zhou Qingfeng. Some of them even cried as they were being saved; they kept on praying to G.o.d.

However, some of them could not get out immediately; they had stayed too long underground and might be blinded by the strong light outside. Zhou Qingfeng and Jenny had no choice but to provide them food and drinks in the tunnel.

“How’s it going out there?” Katrina drank some water and swallowed the bread softened by water. She recovered a bit of her energy and started to ask Zhou Qingfeng questions.

“I don’t know.” Zhou Qingfeng had worked on the tunnel for four days. Consequently, he lost connection with the outside world for four days. Other than greeting Lena Fox everyday through the wireless phone, he did not know anything else. “I don’t hold any hope of conquering the headquarters anymore. It’s probably already overtaken by someone else.

“So, how did you guys manage to survive for so long?” Zhou Qingfeng asked.

“As a habit, we always bring food and drinks with us. We shared them and managed to survive.” Katrina glanced at the people who were saved and mumbled, “Some of us weren’t that lucky.”

The food and drinks Zhou Qingfeng collected a few days ago had basically been completely consumed by hundreds of the survivors. Zhou Qingfeng looked at the people and asked, “I thought you said there were thousands of people? The people here are a lot less than that.”

“There were originally around two thousand people who survived through the obstructed subways in the vicinity. We got trapped in the town hall station, then we found them when we got through the tunnel from another direction.

“The time they’ve been stuck here was even longer than ours. Before you got here, the weak ones died one by one. The people who survived had gone through hards.h.i.+ps and had managed to survive. Some of them even ate the corpses to survive.”

“Ate the corpses?!”

Zhou Qingfeng became terrified. He looked around and found out, indeed, that the survivors were mostly young and strong men; extremely few were female. He saw Butcher gobbling down a can of spam, his arm injured, and asked, “How did Butcher get hurt?”

Katrina turned to look at Butcher and laughed bitterly. “Angie once shared her food with a kid who was already starving and on the brink of death. It caused a riot and hundreds of people came after us.

“Butcher instantly fired at them. Unfortunately, he only had two hundred bullets. He used his gun to smash the people once his ammo was gone. The people backed off in the end. His machine gun broke and his arm got injured.”

Butcher looked at Zhou Qingfeng and cackled as he heard Katrina. “Victor, it’s a shame that you weren’t there. You have no idea how awesome it felt to rain people with bullets!”

“Eat your stuff! Stop talking nonsense. I think being stuck for four days wasn’t enough for you,” Zhou Qingfeng said sarcastically.

Zhou Qingfeng led the people he rescued back to the ground as they recovered and adapted to the light. It was already the seventh day since the start of the cataclysm.

It had just been seven days, but the entirety of Manhattan was already gone. Every single building showed the signs of damage. Huge amounts of vehicles and building floors had been destroyed, and smoke billowed everywhere.

Compared to the day before Zhou Qingfeng went into the tunnel, the illegal immigrants and the people from lower society now had started large-scale organizations among themselves. Their fights against one another turned even worse. Hundreds of them fought on the streets just for the authority over a building.

As Zhou Qingfeng led hundreds of people out of the tunnel, the rogues and villains were shocked. They felt even more baffled when they saw how down-and-out the survivors looked.

“Alright, everyone, stop dreaming! Follow me, we need to find a place to take a break at.” Zhou Qingfeng brought Katrina and the survivors to the house where he parked his mobile command vehicle.

Hundreds of the survivors hopelessly looked around at the ruined Manhattan, then trailed after Zhou Qingfeng. They could not wait to contact their families and return to their homes. Unfortunately, following Zhou Qingfeng was their only choice at the moment.

In the past four days, Zhou Qingfeng’s mobile command vehicle was occupied by a group of gangsters. However, the vehicle was still there and instead, more resources appeared within the vehicle. They were collected by the gangsters from robbing.

They easily got rid of the gangsters in the house with a tear gas grenade, and waiting for them outside was a ruthless rain of bullets from a few cold-blooded men. As Zhou Qingfeng returned to the house, he found a damaged bed and lay on it.

“If you encounter any problems, settle them among yourselves. I haven’t slept for four days and I’m freaking tired. I’m gonna take a nap.” Zhou Qingfeng did not even change his clothes; he fell asleep very quickly.

That was the best thing about having partners; you could sleep without worry.

After sleeping for a few hours, Zhou Qingfeng suddenly received a message. “Ten days in Wasteland have been completed. You are granted three days of resting time in your original world. You can take with you a limited amount of one gram of loot from this world as a reward.”

Zhou Qingfeng was shocked and awakened by the message. He opened his eyes and realized he was still lying on the broken bed. Katrina leaned against a bench as she rested. As she heard Zhou Qingfeng wake up, she opened her eyes and said, “You can continue to sleep for a while. I’ve arranged everything. Mox and Butcher will take turns to guard us over the night.”

“I’m going to the toilet.” Zhou Qingfeng quickly went to the washroom and started looking at the message he received.