Chapter 189: Positive Development

Standing on the hill that was overgrown with green bamboos, Zhang Xiao Qiang was able to view the hundreds of survivors busying themselves at the gorge. Zhang Xiao Qiang, dressed in martial attire, stood in the pavilion at the peak of the hill and gazed down. Yuan Yi sat lazily in her rattan chair and enjoyed the breeze blowing on her face, Yang Ke’er and the little girl sat opposite each other with different sized bamboo pipes and blew them, releasing whistle like sounds. The bamboo pipe whistles were made and given to them by Zhang Xiao Qiang, by cutting down a thin bamboo with a segment of it being chipped off squarely by a sharp knife. He left a segment untouched for air to flow through and cut out grooves for the little girls to blow into.

Shangguan Qiao Yun was present as well, hugging onto her Garand Rifle and looked into the distance, the gentle breeze raised her long hair to the side gracefully. No one knew what was on her mind, the relationship between Zhang Xiao Qiang and her had reverted back to its original state, he was still him and she was still her. It was as though the mutual consolation inside the clinic, the support they had for each other was just a dream, and they had forgotten about it after waking up.

There were many real engineers amongst the construction workers Zhang Xiao Qiang brought back. They completely toppled Old Frank’s plan, then blamed him for completely wasting materials. Old Frank did not get angry, instead, he promoted those who scolded him to be his deputies. Old Frank never even attended high school, he did not know that he had to determine what plan to use, what construction engineering, steel engineering, concrete engineering or steel manufacturing. He knew nothing, he had always presumed that it was merely digging holes, burying bars and filling cement.

Old Frank knew his own weakness, so he respected talents even more. He listened to all of their opinions and their jointly formulated [Construction Organisation Deployment], where they divided all the jobs perfectly to headcount and even having appointment holders to address problems. They went through every single detail meticulously and planned out the entire construction project, then had Zhang Xiao Qiang to vet through it. Zhang Xiao Qiang’s attitude was to let Old Frank handle everything, whatever plan or work was delegated by Old Frank. The only opinion he gave was to be not afraid of wasting and to aim for stability. Also, it would be best if they could establish fortifications to that of WWII, to even be able to withstand large caliber artillery shells

“RUMBLE….” a loud sound sounded out from the foot of the hill, followed by a set of tremors. Zhang Xiao Qiang almost fell while Yang Ke’er grumbled by the side. Zhang Xiao Qiang noticed a cloud formed of sand and stone, it was Lu Ren Yi and Wang Chong who detonated a bomb at the foot of the hill with their team. Zhang Xiao Qiang wanted to transform the spring into a camp, but he wanted to transform the camp into an impenetrable fortress. After the emergence of the warehouse full of explosives, Zhang Xiao Qiang found two construction workers well versed in explosives to follow Lu Ren Yi and the rest and clear the entire foot of the mountain, turning the foot into a complete 90-degree angle cliff. Additionally, after using cement to further smoothen the land, much less an S2, even a monkey would not be able to climb up.

A fleet of vehicles drove over from afar with a Beijing Jeep as the head. The machine gunner stationed at the top donned on a pair of black shades, smoking his cigarette while looking around with a murderous look on his face. There were several big trucks behind, with two coaches following behind a big cargo truck, with various other cargo trucks following behind, At the back was an oil tanker with four off-road vehicles full of combat squad members situated to the left and right as protection.

Seeing the fleet in the distance, Zhang Xiao Qiang knew that Three was back. After finding the survivors in the camp previously, Zhang Xiao Qiang knew that there would be more survivors on the expressway, so he got Three to bring a few men to loiter in the area and try to find more survivors, also to retrieve and hoard any supplies or tools on the expressway. Zhang Xiao Qiang decided to repair the outer walls before hollowing out the two small hills and transform them into warehouses. At that time, regardless of what goods they retrieve, they could store them inside. To him, it was the golden time to develop and expand.

When the vehicles arrived, Zhang Xiao Qiang was already at the foot of the mountain. Three jumped down from the Jeep and greeted him, then turned and shouted at the vehicles behind him. The vehicles slowed down and came to a stop, to which the Combat Team Members came down. In their full gear, they scattered and stood at on an elevated platform nearby while taking aim with their rifles. The heavy machine gunners turned their weapons and pointed them at the coaches which finally opened its doors. Slowly, men and women with backpacks and carrying bedding came down.

The men were in tattered and torn clothes, their sleeves and the hem of their shirts had strands of cloth hanging about. One even had a large hole in the back of his shirt but used two nylon ropes to tie and seal the hole, making him look worse than a beggar. The men all looked similar, aside from them being dirty and tired, there were no other problems. Aside from their fear and attempts to avoid the muzzles aimed at them, their complexion was good, they had robust bodies, and anyone could tell that they had not starved.

The women were better off, their clothes looked to be in better shapes, unlike the men who had holes here and there. But all of them looked weak carrying their own belongings, some of them swayed around. All of their cheeks were sunken in, their skin yellow and dry unlike Yang Ke’er, who had an extremely moisturized skin. Giving off the vibe of maturity, they were not as afraid as the men and only held onto their belongings and looked at the empty space in front of them, awaiting the arrangements.

Zhang Xiao Qiang looked at the group of quiet ladies, he knew that there were as many females who had fates as bad as men in the apocalypse and those that encountered the tyrannical males would be even worse off. Zhang Xiao Qiang did not want to dwell much on it, he could not care for them or want to care for them, he could only take care of the subordinates under him and allow the ladies following him to have a bit more self-respect and be well fed.

Zhang Huai An appeared with his men, although he had erupted in anger once before, he became back to his original self after the battle. He enjoyed bragging, enjoyed spreading the word of the close ties between him and Zhang Xiao Qiang and reporting to Zhang Xiao Qiang over the smallest things. With the influx of almost 200 strong laborers, Zhang Huai An did not have to work as a worker like before anymore. He led his men to maintain the stability of the base and assisted He Wen Bin in looking after the additional 200 people. After being in the force for so many years, he had the sufficient skill sets and muscle memory and overseeing over a few hundred people was nothing much to him. He had seen people from all walks of life and was thus usually right on spotting and judging people. Over the course of a few days, he had even grabbed out a murderer out of the construction workers, where even his colleague never imagined himself working with a murderer after so many years. Of course, the murderer was not executed but was recruited into the Combat Team after talking to He Wen Bin.

In fact, the man was actually not some vicious and evil person. After being discharged, his uncle that had raised him and sent him to the army died from anger after being forced to sell his plot of land to developers at a very low price. Yet, the village actually reported his death as a natural cause and simply cremated him. After his neighbor secretly informed him of everything, he flew into a rage and hacked the village chief to death, at the same time locating the hundred thousands worth of dirty money from the sale before running for his life. With him around, Zhang Xiao Qiang’s Combat Team learned alertness and actually gained knowledge on terrain advantage from the murderer.

Upon seeing Zhang Xiao Qiang, Zhang Huai An immediately ran forward and greeted him, then like an unceasing torrent, he reported all the minor details given to him by Old Frank. Zhang Xiao Qiang listened in silence and waited for Zhang Huai An to finish speaking before nodding his head. Satisfied and feeling good, Zhang Huai An took four of his men to check on the survivors and to prepare for invitations.

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