BC Chapter 57

Lu Ziming carefully collected the relatively crucial recorded data and put it into her backpack. Then, she searched the three areas again for a pass card to continue downwards, but unfortunately, she couldn’t find one.

So, she decided to temporarily give up exploring further down and instead wanted to retreat to find a way to contact Yao Jinglin, hoping to bring government investigators to continue the search later. As the plan formed in her mind, she quickly walked back to the outermost area near the entrance door.

However, just as she was about to move forward and turn the corner to see the gate to the third basement level, she suddenly heard scattered footsteps coming from the direction of the gate. She immediately stopped in her tracks, tiptoeing along the wall at the corner towards the edge. Although she didn’t peek her head out to look, to avoid being accidentally discovered, she stood still, trying to slow her breathing and listen to the movements of the footsteps’ owners.

…

“Be careful, judging from the situation on the second floor, intruders must have been here already, and we don’t know if they’re still inside.” At the entrance to the third basement level, five fully armed men and women were spread out on both sides of the gate. The man leading the group and the other four were all wearing deep camouflage combat uniforms, carrying large-capacity black backpacks, and wearing black gas masks. They were also holding FN FAL automatic rifles, which are very difficult to obtain in the country. This rifle uses 5.56 bullets and has a range and firepower superior to the A·K·47, making it popular among mercenaries.

Indeed, these five uninvited guests outside the door were the mercenary group arranged by the research institute’s behind-the-scenes benefactor to destroy experimental data and stored specimens.

The leader of the group was the man who had just spoken, Feng Yi, nicknamed “Madman,” who had a knife scar on the right side of his face inside the gas mask.

Of the remaining four, two men had been with Feng Yi through many life-and-death situations. One, with long hair and a beard, was called Deng Yao, and the other, with dark skin, was called Chen Su.

The remaining man and woman were recruited by Feng Yi for this job by posting a temporary team-up task. The man was called Wu Shengwei, and the woman was called Shao Mingyao.

Of course, the four of them could guess what Feng Yi had just said, so they all cautiously held their guns and leaned against the wall, waiting for their captain Feng Yi’s orders.

…

With everything quiet on the third floor, Lu Ziming had already heard the voices of the people outside.

Intruders?? How laughable, Lu Ziming’s lips curled into a sneer. She was a legitimate researcher at this research institute. Although she hadn’t had the opportunity to access the deeper secrets of the institute, she was still more legitimate than the identities of those people outside.

However, that being said, it was impossible for Lu Ziming to make direct contact with these people. After all, she had returned to search for evidence of the research institute’s crimes. Since the other party had come here so cautiously, they certainly weren’t here to rescue any staff members who might be trapped in the institute. From any perspective, she had to avoid them, otherwise, the information she had painstakingly obtained would be handed over to them for nothing. So, she released the safety on her gun and prepared to fight.

…

Outside the door, Feng Yi gave the other four a hand signal, meaning they should advance in a tight formation, with each direction on alert, paying attention to any unusual movements. Then, holding his rifle, he stepped into the third floor first. The four behind him followed closely according to Feng Yi’s arrangement. The five of them stood close together, moving in unison, holding their weapons and guarding against all directions as they advanced.

For the five of them, this research institute was a completely unfamiliar place, and the reward the benefactor gave for this mission was quite generous, forcing them to tighten their nerves and treat it with caution. After all, there were two unwritten rules in their line of work: first, the simpler the mission description, the higher the danger factor. Second, the more generous the reward, the more likely they would have to risk their lives to earn the money.

And the goal of this mission was only one: to completely destroy this research institute, which had a total of six floors, including five underground floors and one above ground floor. The mission addendum was to bring powerful weapons and protective gear, and the mission issuer from the benefactor’s side also sent Feng Yi the latest version of the internal structural diagram of the research institute when it was built, as well as a relatively safe route map around the city.

Before setting out, the group had silently memorized the general structure of the place. After receiving the identity cards for all floors of the research institute, they took all the equipment they had purchased earlier, rented a helicopter, and directly transported the five of them to the safest location outside Qingshui City near the research institute before letting them off.

During the journey to the research institute along the previously known safe route, the group did not encounter too much danger, nor did they expend too much energy. Because the outbreak of the zombie horde was no longer a secret to the outside world, even cities relatively far from Qingshui City, where communication base stations and network transmission were unaffected, had set up complete armed blockade zones on the outskirts of the city, which were heavily guarded. Therefore, the relatively severely affected and not yet fully controlled cities were only the few that Lu Ziming had previously mentioned: Linfeng, Shengan, Qingshui, Puyang, and Wuning.

…

After so many days of efforts by the government, Puyang City and Wuning City, which were less affected among these five cities, had transferred more than half of their ordinary residents to the surrounding blockaded cities for rescue. It could be said that the rescue operation had begun to show results. After a while, the rescue of the surviving personnel and the eradication of the infected population in the two cities should be completed. After that, the cities would be completely cleaned and disinfected after being blockaded by armed forces. As for the matter of the population returning to their original cities, it would probably be scheduled much later.

Of course, this did not mean that the rescue work in the remaining three cities, Linfeng City, Shengan City, and Qingshui City, was ranked after Puyang and Wuning. In fact, the entry and exit blockades and the rescue work in these five cities were basically carried out simultaneously. However, the population base of each city was different, and the emergency response measures taken by the local government departments were also different. Moreover, the initial spillover of the virus started from Qingshui City, which naturally caused Linfeng and Shengan, which were closest to Qingshui City, to suffer severely as well. So, from the current point of view, these three cities were the most severely affected. As for how many people died in total, the rescue work was being carried out in an orderly manner, and no one would know until the disaster was over.

It’s just that the government definitely couldn’t guess that at the very moment when their rescue work was in full swing, the culprit actually sent a group of mercenaries to the scene of the accident to destroy the evidence.