CHAPTER 187: CHAPTER 187: ANGEL WITH A GUN

The city wall, when first poured, looked just like a mountain of ice.

Engineers led a unit of engineers, along with a large number of survivors, to conduct quick repairs outside.

The ice piled at the base was cleared away, denying the zombies any steps to climb up.

The smooth wall surface, with an added layer of slick ice, had no place at all that could be climbed.

But inside the city, it was different; ice has a great malleability, and people directly carved out steps that led straight to the top of the wall.

Dust was sprinkled on the ice surface to prevent people from slipping while walking.

This ice wall is a feature of the north, as only such cold winters can allow it to form quickly.

Not only the outer wall, but the walls of the main city district and the core area were also heightened and thickened.

Those watchtowers hidden in the mist were directly sold by Ye Fan, then replaced with 11-meter-high watchtowers.

The watchtowers not in the mist had temporary cloth canopies built around them outside, concealing them, and when they are recovered and rebuilt, the canopies are dismantled in a couple of days without arousing any suspicion.

The speed of pouring the city wall was fast, and things like carving steps were a bit slower, but still not slow.

After all, with over two hundred thousand people working, the speed was incredibly fast.

Ye Fan did not personally participate in the construction; he mainly focused on quickly building the core area.

What Ye Fan is doing now is to add as many buildings as possible in the core area.

The essence of Red Alert buildings lies in the ability to mass produce troops, but that’s in the game, where money is abundant and there’s no use in not producing troops.

In reality, money constraints mean you can’t just produce troops at will.

First, when you produce soldiers, you have to provide them a place to live; after all, Red Alert Soldiers are real people, and you can’t have them sleeping in the snow.

That requires barracks.

Before the zombie horde arrives, Ye Fan is diligently building barracks.

Five barracks, three tank factories, one power plant.

These buildings cost a total of 1.15 million and require about half a month to construct.

Without buildings, the speed of troop production is also slow, and Ye Fan’s production of combat units is mainly constrained by the tank factory.

Producing a dual-linked high machine that costs 5,000 gold takes fifty minutes.

If there were four tank factories, it would only take a dozen minutes.

Once five barracks are built, Ye Fan’s total number of barracks will reach twelve.

Plus, with the virtual barracks, originally producing a conscript took one minute, but once built, it takes only four seconds.

If these buildings are built now, Ye Fan would truly not fear the arrival of the zombie horde.

The only thing lacking is time.

A sudden northwesterly wind brought Ye Fan ecstatic joy.

********

In the fifth month of the apocalypse, by mid-January, a cold snap from the Bolia Plain in the north swept across the northern region.

It might be the greatest cooling event in Northern Qin Han in decades.

A knife-like northwesterly wind mixed with a blizzard swept in overwhelmingly.

This blizzard-laden wind limited human visibility to within fifty meters.

Beyond fifty meters, you couldn’t see anything clearly.

The howling cold wind sounded like a ghost wailing, and the snowflake hitting the skin would cause instant sharp pain, making you lose body heat within ten seconds if your clothing was thin.

Such a wind is called a "Smoke Bubble" in the north!

However, this year’s Smoke Bubble is much worse than previous years.

The temperature, already below minus thirty degrees, plummeted another ten degrees.

The northern chill turned Dawn Army’s city wall into a dark blue-black color.

The newly poured cold ice was as hard as ten thousand-year profound ice.

Daytime temperatures were above minus forty-five degrees, with nighttime temperatures reaching an unprecedented minus fifty-five degrees.

This weather is almost like the Arctic, a forbidden zone for human activity.

Dawn Army’s three power plants were desperately burning coal, and without the supplement from the Burning Corps’ coal group base, the winter coal would have been insufficient.

The ten-meter-high ice walls inside the city played a considerable role, heavily blocking the northwesterly wind.

Streets that were once bustling were now desolate, with only the Red Alert Warriors who continue to patrol being the exception, as hardly anyone dared to venture out.

The exterior of those prefabricated houses was covered with thick plastic sheets, trying to resist the cold wind as much as possible.

Those once feeling aggrieved upon joining Dawn Army from Divine Dragon Army now completely accepted it.

With this level of cold, staying at Divine Dragon Army would even potentially freeze them to death.

At least here in Dawn Army, they didn’t have to worry about that; their only concern was when would the zombies arrive.

Ye Fan is happy because news from the Combat Laboratory suggests that the extreme cold also affects the zombies.

Wang Huining, who has been imprisoned by Dawn Army, is now huddled in a dungeon corner, unwilling to move, mainly demanding a quilt or something.

********

Divine Dragon Army Base.

The room once belonging to Jiang Mountain is now occupied by Little One.

This action took place two days ago.

After devouring an unknown amount of flesh and blood, Little One felt much clearer-minded than before two days ago.

Its mind used to be muddled, only driven to devour flesh and kill, barely understanding who was dangerous and who wasn’t.

But now, things were different.

It felt like it had learned a lot.

It possessed a simple dark wisdom, understanding why it didn’t like staying in cold places—they were uncomfortable.

It understood why it constantly wanted to eat—because it was hungry.

Sitting in this former leader’s chair, swaying back and forth, that sensation was probably called exhilaration.

Even though it couldn’t pinpoint why the word "exhilaration" came to mind, that’s what it felt.

It even recalled the attack on the Divine Dragon Army a few days ago. With its current intelligence, it was confident it could have annihilated that formidable human, preventing their aircraft from escaping.

That ability could be called tactics; its mind now held a simple tactical awareness.

It felt its abilities had significantly improved.

Controlling the 700,000-800,000 zombies under its command posed no mental strain.

Its capabilities had strengthened so much, just like yesterday when a mutant hawk flew overhead, already more than ten kilometers away. With a mere thought, the hawk flew to its side.

A mutant wild boar weighing over a thousand kilograms, only a thought was needed for the boar to come grunting to its side.

That bulky creature’s charging ability was even comparable to a King Kong Zombie.

It could already control large mutant beasts, diversifying its army’s species.

Just as it prepared to expand its forces and seek revenge against humans, an unprecedented massive snowstorm threw everything into chaos.

Animals hibernate because they can’t withstand such cold.

Though zombies are new creatures insensitive to pain, they are still flesh and blood beings.

Without the thick fur and fat layers like polar bears, they struggle against excessively low temperatures.

Minus fifty degrees—that’s the extreme limit zombies can endure.

Beyond this temperature, zombie mobility becomes extremely sluggish, prolonged exposure turning them into ice sculptures.

Helplessly, Little One had to let the zombie army temporarily reside in the Divine Dragon Army’s base.

There’s abundant food here—frozen meat, fish, and a lot of stored human provisions.

Though zombies prefer meat, their physiology is still similar to humans, so Little One’s command for them to eat grain wouldn’t be an issue.

While grain doesn’t enable zombie evolution, it can sustain their life signs.

Little One had no choice but to let the zombies remain here, waiting for the weather to slightly improve.

Once the weather clears, it will leave here and quickly strengthen its troops.

Then, it will settle scores with that human.

********

In the sky, War Hawks couldn’t brave the storm for patrols anymore; only the Hero Level War Eagle Dark Cloud could patrol.

Ye Fan relaxed after analyzing the video footage brought back by Dark Cloud.

This drop in temperature marks the coldest three solar terms of winter.

Winter Solstice, Lesser Cold, Great Cold.

These terms could imply the cold might last for forty-five days.

Forty-five days later, it would be almost time for the New Year.

One could say, before the New Year, Dawn City faces no major threats.

So Ye Fan confidently began building his structures.

He didn’t dispatch his troops outside; the weather was unbearably cold. Now if he wanted to raise funds, two locations remained—Linhai County and Huacheng City—both not feasible for a quick conquest, so he chose to hold back.

As he relaxed, with the anticipated zombie army failing to appear, Dawn City’s atmosphere lightened.

Ye Fan rarely found time to relax, nesting in his room watching TV.

Dawn TV Station was airing old dramas.

Divine Eagle Couple.

The storyline wasn’t very appealing; the male lead is disabled and was cuckolded.

If given a choice, Ye Fan wouldn’t watch this, but he had none.

This was the Dawn Platform broadcast; another available network belonged to the Liberation Army, broadcasting absurd patriotic ads repeatedly, with occasional dramas Ye Fan disliked even more—like mistress-centric romances.

The key was Ye Fan couldn’t handle such stimuli. As a single guy, having no primary relationship, watching mistress-type dramas felt somewhat inflated, didn’t it?

Ye Fan occasionally pondered ways to procure gold, but found no good solutions.

Suddenly, the TV screen flickered.

Buzz... Buzz...!

A beautiful woman appeared on the screen.

In tight black clothing, she looked pure and elegant, yet held a massive grenade launcher.

"An angel with a gun!" That was Ye Fan’s first reaction.

The woman appeared onboard a small helicopter, executing a descent operation.

"Welcome, survivor. I am..."

Before she could finish, the screen’s image vanished, evidently due to immature or unstable technology, disrupting the signal.

Ye Fan was momentarily stunned, seeing the woman sparked his thoughts, and he suddenly pondered a quick method to earn money.