1148 North of the Great Wall
It was still the middle of autumn, but a hint of winter’s chillness already lingered in the air.
The Badaling Checkpoint was a tourist attraction more than 30 years ago. Today, more than 30 years later, it had been transformed into a military outpost. With this ancient wall as the boundary, the north was the wilderness, the world of mutants and the south was the ruins, the world of survivors.
In general, survivors in Shangjing were much more fortunate than the survivors in w.a.n.ghai. Although both cities were in ruins, many landmark buildings survived. These well-preserved buildings became the base of survivors and provided shelters for survival.
In addition, as the political center of Pan-Asia Cooperation, the necessities here were more than ten times that of w.a.n.ghai. The necessities here were not just food, clothing, medical supplies, but also raw materials and energy such as steel, rare earth minerals, oil, helium-3, and even well-preserved industrial machine tools.
The industrial machine tools here were different from the hand-built machine tools built by engineers of the Sixth Street through 3D printers. The former was the crystallization of technology, and the latter was the knowledge of the working people.
It was evident how much of a lead the survivors of Shangjing gained in the early days.
Before the establishment of NAC, there were more than a hundred large and small settlements in w.a.n.ghai. In Shangjing, more than a thousand settlements were scattered across the city with hundreds of large survivor camps like the Sixth Street and Liuding Town.
The survivors never unified here. They had made their own rules, such as determining the safe area within the Third Ring Road and prohibiting murder, robbery, and theft. Offenders would be wanted by all survivors.
Another example was the outpost in the Badaling scenic area. In order to prevent extreme mutants with a crystal index of 300 or more from migrating from the north, the survivors of Shangjing jointly contributed to the modification of the city wall of Badaling. They repaired the guardhouse and machine-gun bunker and each settlement took turns guarding.
Even in the harshest winters, this iron law never changed.
“It’s September.”
“Right.”
On the guardhouse, two soldiers stood at each end, leaned against the wall, and gazed into the gray wasteland.
Automatic rifles dangled around their waist and magazines were tied against their body. From their appearance, they were from different survivor camps.
“What date is it?”
“The 15th.”
The one in the blue scarf didn’t seem to enjoy chatting. Only when the survivor next to him asked a question would he respond in a concise manner. Most of the time, he stood there in silence, not moving, and gazed into the distant horizon.
Or dozing off…
“It’s only been fifteen days? Fu*k.” The unshaven man spat out of the guardhouse and grinned. “Do you believe it in another two months, if I spit down, it will turn into ice?”
“…”
The man in the blue scarf barely moved the corner of his mouth and did not speak.
This state continued, and time quickly pa.s.sed by.
The sky gradually darkened, and the distant horizon was covered with a layer of foggy tulle. With the gust of the northern wind, the fog writhed its enchanting curve and gradually climbed over the wasteland. It rose above the guardhouse and covered the concrete-reinforced wall…
“Fog,” the unshaven man said, raising his head and looking into the sky. He then muttered to himself. “The weather is going to change.”
The fog gradually thickened and formed another wall on the distant horizon.
Suddenly, in the heavy fog, a black outline gradually emerged.
The blue scarf man seemed to notice the anomaly in the fog as he frowned. He reached for the binocular on his chest and examined that direction.
“Did you see something?” The unshaven man also noticed something at this moment, but when he reached for his binocular, he did not find anything. Then he remembered that he left it in the barracks.
“…the fog is too thick to see anything.” The man wearing a scarf pressed his eyes against the binocular as he responded. At the same time, he pressed the intercom on his shoulder and spoke. “Something is going on outside.”
“Roger that.”
Four or five soldiers with rifles left the barracks as they yawned and headed to the guardhouse. At the same time, a drone flew out and slowly flew toward the wilderness outside the city wall.
The blue scarf man tossed the binocular at the unshaven man, then he kneeled down and took out a sh.e.l.l about the size of an adult thigh. He picked up a rag and wiped the ash on it before he walked to the deployed cannon.
“If you have seen enough, come and help.”
“Fu*k, the big guy is being loaded. Are we overreacting?” The unshaven snorted and took one last peak with the binocular. Just as he was about to go help, he seemed to catch a glimpse of a bright red emblem from behind the thick fog.
A sickle?
A… hammer!?
The binocular dropped to the ground, and horror immediately overwhelmed him. His lips trembled for a while before he finally squeezed out two words from his trembling lips.
“The… fu*k?”
The earth shook and the steel roared.
The torrent of steel rolled from the boundless wasteland, and the endless roar swept across the wall, swept over the guard tower, and swept through the continent…
That was not fog!
That was the dust picked up by tank tracks!
The moment they recognized the shadow, the expression of everyone in the guardhouse changed. The stones in the corner began to jump in uneasiness. Even separated by a kilometer in distance, everyone could feel the tremor of the earth.
“CCC…P?” Their teeth trembled, and the soldiers in the bunker loaded their weapons while cursing in fear. “CCCP tanks? No, impossible, didn’t the former regimes all get out?”
“Push up the cannons! QUICK!”
“Idiot! Use AP bombs! That one in red paint!”
The entire military outpost began to mobilize like boiling water after they noticed the strange situation outside. The soldiers rushed to battle positions with automatic rifles, and with the cannons loaded, they pushed it to firing position. These fortifications were originally prepared for mutants. No one ever thought that one day it would be used against the polar bears in tanks.
A speaker was extended out from the guardhouse.
“Listen! Whatever you are doing, stop immediately!”
The armored flood continued its advancement with no response.
The commander repeated the same statement in Russian.
It was still silence that responded to them, and the roar of the tank tracks flattened the earth.
The commander smashed the speaker against the ground, took off his intercom, and a glimpse of heroicness quickly appeared on his face.
“FIGHT!”
BOOM!
Five cannons responded to his roar.
The infantry artillery sh.e.l.ls fired and made five orange trajectories in the air. However, against the roaring steel torrent, they were as insignificant as toothpicks.
POOs.h.!.+
The sh.e.l.ls sc.r.a.ped against the front armor of the tanks and plunged into the mud. It left only a shallow dent.
The unshaven man looked at the tank formation outside the guardhouse and was in so much despair that he even stopped moving.
The cannons invincible against mutants were useless. They couldn’t even make the roaring steel monster pause for a second.
The five cannons on the wall seemed to ignite a certain signal.
Above the rus.h.i.+ng steel torrent, a row of icy barrels slowly lifted and pointed in the direction of the guardhouse.
Without the slightest omen, the barrels ignited.
The unshaven man used the last glimmer of light to spot the concrete wall collapsing backward…