The Invasion Day – Chapter 34

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 34

Aliens were also evolving like humans. To anyone in Yun City who managed to grasp hold of this information, it was undoubtedly bad news.

The signaller immediately got in touch with other locations through the satellite, and then came back with a wary expression that it wasn’t only Yun City. All over the world, this type of evolved aliens had appeared.

Tang Xuhai was even more convinced that the one they found in the garment factory wasn’t the only one in their area. There might be more in Yun City, but they were caught up with hunting for food and perhaps hiding in the darkest corners.

The situation at the central warehouse was getting increasingly critical.

However, no matter how dangerous it was, collecting supplies was still a vital task. At least the few people who had developed a fever needed a lot of antibiotics, which the special operations team must find a way to bring back. But the special operations team couldn’t perform this task by themselves; in fact, if it weren’t for Tang Xuhai being here today, maybe none of them would come back alive.

The soldiers of this special operations team were mutants whose bodies had evolved, so the force was much more powerful now. Yet it seemed that relying on these mutant fighters was no longer enough; they must recruit special ability users.

Right now, no one in the army had yet developed special abilities, while several of them were having a fever due to wound infections, but it remained unknown whether these soldiers would have special abilities when they woke up.

Therefore, recruiting existing special abilities users from civilians to join the special operations team now became an urgent matter.

The government gathered those who had awakened their abilities and explained the current situation. Officials who were good at delivering inspiring speeches described the special operations team as a particularly noble and worthy cause, thus it would be honourable to join this team. Of course, incentives were indispensable: if you joined the special operations team, you would be rewarded with rare resources.

These days, people’s diets had been reduced to the simplest ones, and clothes had become a scarcity.

The rewards thus included cigarettes, alcohol, clothes, canned or vacuum-packed food and others.

Hearing this, people’s hearts fluttered.

Even Fu Shiwu, who was busy helping Wen Zhaoming, felt very excited when he heard that there were sweets and chocolates as part of the rewards.

But, Fu Shiwu could only feel it was a pity that the special operations team only needed special ability users.

Because he wasn’t one.

Although Tang Xuhai and Wen Zhaoming both thought his shooting ability was beyond ordinary people’s, he never went through any fever, so based on what scientific research had confirmed, he wouldn’t be considered an ability user.

Fu Shiwu also felt that maybe he had actually mutated, but instead of having body mutations like others, he mutation was of an unusual type.

Wen Zhaoming stayed quietly with Fu Shiwu at the very end of the group of hundreds of ability users who had been summoned here, his expression calm but his eyes carrying a shade of sorrow.

With his condition, he would be rejected even if he turned up here.

The two frustrated men remained silent, staring at the others who were all thrilled and squeezing together to sign up for the job.

Because they still needed people to guard the central warehouse, the army only wanted to select thirty men for the attack force, which would split into two groups of fifteen. They would take turns to go out with the special operations team to search for supplies.

Wen Zhaoming looked at the crowds that had started to disperse, turned his head and said to Fu Shi Wu: “Shiwu, let’s go back.” 

“Uhm.” Fu Shiwu nodded and took another look at the crowd, then he abruptly stopped in his tracks.

“What’s wrong?” Seeing Fu Shiwu standing still, Wen Zhaoming asked puzzledly, then he looked in the direction Shiwu was gazing at.

The ability users were crowding around the registration table, and standing far away were ordinary people who came to watch the lively scene.

Wen Zhaoming saw several familiar faces, who seemed to be the owners of Heavenly Gardens.

“Did you see an acquaintance? Do you want to say hi?” Wen Zhaoming asked thoughtfully.

Fu Shiwu frowned: “No, there’s no need to.”

He saw Wang Ziping, Liao Ke and the people who travelled to this warehouse with Wang Ziping.

Back in their barricaded room, Fu Shiwu told Tang Xuhai about catching sight of those people.

“Oh?” Tang Xuhai raised his eyebrows while biting on something: “Wang Ziping?”

He spit out what was in his month, which Fu Shiwu glanced over to find that it was half a toothpick.

Fu Shiwu frowned and said nothing. He knew what Tang Xuhai meant.

Sure enough, Tang Xuhai sneered and said disdainfully: “That scumbag!” 

Wen Zhaoming wasn’t aware of the situation, so he asked softly: “This person has a conflict with you?”

“Of course! He doesn’t just have a conflict with us, I think he even has issues with you even though you did nothing!” Tang Xuhai said bitterly: “This scumbag pushed someone else’s car to crash into the median strip, forcing me to slow down. Because of that, we were chased by the alien!”

“So that car belongs to him!” Wen Zhaoming was taken aback.

Back then, he did see the car in front of them run away before the alien rushed over to their car. But he had no idea who the owner of that car was.

“Not only that, this person is very sinister!” Tang Xuhai said. He raised his head and said to Shi Wu: “Do you remember that when we got to the parking lot, he called me aside to talk? Actually he wanted to get me into his car. He definitely wanted to use me to guard his life at critical moments!”

“What? He did that?” Fu Shiwu looked at Tang Xuhai in surprise. It was rather shocking that he almost lost Tang Xuhai to another group. If that had happened, he and Wen Zhaoming would likely be dead by now.

Thinking of this, he felt even more hostile towards Wang Ziping.

“It’s not the first time he has done this kind of thing, wanting to drag me over to take advantage of my strength.” Tang Xuhai pursed his lips: “Earlier, when Wang Ziping and Liao Ke went to fight with the murderers in our building, they were injured. If I hadn’t gone to check on them, they might have ended up crippled. After that, Wang Ziping ran to my door and spilt some seemingly heart-warming nonsense, inviting me to manage the whole building with him. Was he too free? I didn’t go along with his plan.”

Fu Shiwu’s lips stayed flat, showing a certainly not-so-amused mood.

This Wang Ziping was too hungry for power!

Fu Shiwu didn’t know what Wang Ziping had done in the past, since he never had much contact with and lived many floors apart from the man. But this kind of person who loved to do things under the table was likely to always want to compete for the leader’s role, regardless whether it was in a company, a group or even just a classroom.

To put it bluntly, he was viciously ambitious and unwilling to be a mere layman. Privilege and power, after all, were things that could turn people crazy. To obtain such things, a person like Wang Ziping might be willing to use any means.

Wang Ziping pushed the other car to crash into the median strip so that he could escape and arrive at the warehouse earlier than them.

Fu Shiwu said with a bit of confusion: “I actually haven’t seen Wang Ziping these days, so I thought he didn’t manage to get to the central warehouse.” 

“Hm!” Tang Xuhai snorted and said with mocking expression: “Everyone in this central warehouse is here because they have some sort of relationship. Wang Ziping won’t give up on any methods to earn a slot here.”

But Tang Xuhai’s guess about Wang Ziping was incorrect.

By this point, Wang Ziping had already utilised all his skills and become the voice of the warehouse where he stayed, the so-called dignified ‘chief’ — of course he appointed himself to the role. So of course he wouldn’t waste his effort to step into an unfamiliar warehouse, where he held no power.

After diverting the alien’s attention to someone else’s car, Wang Ziping and Liao Ke marched frantically towards the central warehouse. 

For the rest of the journey, luck was on their side and they arrived at the central warehouse without encountering any other aliens and were settled in by the government.

Under Wang Ziping’s ‘subtle suggestion’, the large group that came here with him they were unwilling to disperse to different warehouses. Altogether, they squeezed into a semi-empty warehouse.

Wang Ziping was very satisfied with such an arrangement.

Wang Ziping himself worked in a public institution. This person was incredibly good at office politics and obsessed with authority.

When Wang Ziping hinted to those people who came with him that they shouldn’t be scattered to other warehouses, of course he wanted the group to stay together and rely on their large number to establish a status.

Those who later arrived were small families. Most of them didn’t know each other, so naturally they posed no threat to Wang Ziping’s group.

Wang Ziping took advantage of this and snatched the right to represent the warehouse.

When it was time to receive food and water rations, he actively showed his face, and gradually, the officers would directly approach him when there was something to inform the warehouse.

Wang Ziping was responsible for distributing the rations, so those who were close to him were obviously favoured. Regardless of whether it was tiny or grandeur, they would enjoy some kind of benefit.

Wang Ziping knew that he couldn’t spoil these people too much yet at the same time leave them too derived, so he calculated everything cautiously.

He was good at observing and naturally came to know which of these people should be cast aside or pulled towards his core team. Soon, the stronger people all gathered around him, while the weaker were completely ignored.

But Wang Ziping wasn’t the only person who did things this way. In other warehouses, there was also a representative who was responsible for collecting the rations before distributing it.

The government was willing to let these people take care of such trivial matters, because they had more important things to do. Who would have so much time to distribute food and water to everyone’s hands?

As a result, these warehouses, in one way or another, would end up with certain people holding more authority than others.

Wang Ziping then made friends with these people, united them all together, and after being able to take control of some security incidents, he established a name for himself.

In fact, Wang Ziping was very surprised when Fu Shiwu and Tang Xuhai arrived at the warehouse.

When he didn’t see Tang Xuhai’s car following behind, Wang Ziping subconsciously thought that the three had met their end.

He would never expect that these three men came to the central warehouse a week later, all alive and well.

This truly dropped a bombshell on him.

Moreover, it was said that the army personally settled them down. Only those who had a close relationship with people in the top department were allowed to live in the warehouse with the best conditions. This made Wang Ziping feel that he needed to tread carefully.

He still remembered that he blocked Tang Xuhai’s car, and he wasn’t sure if Tang Xuhai harboured a grudge and wanted to even things out with him.

He was no stranger to Tang Xuhai’s strength. Even if Wang Ziping had learned stick-fighting for a few years back in his younger days, he was definitely not Tang Xuhai’s opponent.

Since the very beginning, Wang Ziping had been uneasy with the fact that Tang Xuhai was and would always be a dangerous factor.

It wasn’t until more mutants appeared that Wang Ziping started to feel confident, at which point he summoned the three gangsters to turn up at the warehouse where Tang Xuhai’s group stayed to snatch their stuff.

He wanted to test the strength of Tang Xuhai now, but before he even got to see Tang Xuahi, he learnt another shocking news that Wen Zhaoming had developed a fire-type ability!

This news completely shut him down, leaving him with no guts to make any other move. Although he had more than a dozen mutants under his control, they wouldn’t be able to take even one strike from a special ability user!

Fu Shiwu’s group barely ever went out of their own warehouse or had contact with other warehouses, so they never learnt of such complicated internal happenings. Although they looked down on Wang Ziping, the man hadn’t personally come to disturb them. Moreover, the representative of this warehouse was someone related to the government, so he naturally disdained Wang Ziping’s suck-ups and flattery. This further ensured that Wang Ziping wouldn’t turn up in this place.

That night, the three were sleeping peacefully.

In the evening, when the sky veil moved atop Yun City, some people would be on guard duty throughout the night while other people were sleeping. As soon as any aliens landed in the central warehouse from the sky, the staff on duty would report through the walkie-talkie and the troops would quickly wipe them out.

The location and the timing at which the aliens landed were unpredictable. Sometimes none would appear the whole night, while sometimes two aliens would crash down consecutively.

A commotion could be heard every time the aliens fell down, which the people in these warehouses gradually got used to after a while.

When Tang Xuhai wasn’t down with a fever, he was way more alert in his sleep than Fu Shiwu.

As soon as there was a movement, Tang Xuhai would wake up before Fu Shiwu could even feel it.

Then he wouldn’t fall asleep again immediately. Only when the movement outside came to a complete stop that Tang Xuhai went back to his restful sleep.

In the middle of that night, there was a loud sound of people shouting from outside. Tang Xuhai opened his eyes and looked at his watch.

It was 1.40 AM.