Chapter Fifty-Five: Accelerating Development

Don’t be fooled by how easy it is to find supplies now; give it another year or so, and the lack of productive capacity will become a glaring problem. Eventually, the resources in the city will be picked clean.

The absence of electricity is the greatest trouble in this apocalypse.

“Push harder. We don’t have much time left.”

Fang Xia let out a sigh.

The third-tier zombies had already begun to appear quietly. If he hadn’t discovered and killed one himself, who knows—perhaps they’d now be facing an endless siege of zombies.

When that time comes, no matter how strong you are, it will be useless. Even an elephant can be gnawed to death by enough ants, and zombies are far deadlier than ants; a single scratch is enough to spell your doom.

“The teams heading out of the city must stay alert. If you encounter a large number of second-tier zombies in a small area, come back and report to me immediately.”

Fang Xia was uneasy; since the first third-tier zombie had shown up, there was every possibility of a second emerging.

He had no intention of being caught off guard.

“All right,” Liu Rui noted carefully.

“And make sure there are people standing guard every night. Pay special attention to the sky—there’ll be a second zombie rain.”

By now, Fang Xia could no longer rely entirely on the experience of his previous life; all he could do was take as many precautions as possible.

“There’s a second wave?” Liu Rui asked in astonishment.

She wasn’t concerned about how Fang Xia knew these things—she’d already accepted that he was a cheat in human form.

“Yes, a second wave. Second-tier zombies will become the mainstream.”

“That’s fantastic!” Liu Rui actually brightened at the news.

Second-tier upgrade crystals were incredibly rare. Now, they needed a thousand of them to level up. First-tier crystals were almost useless—at most, they served as stamina boosters.

“And another thing: collect weapons. Be it battle knives or daggers, everyone must be equipped with something.”

Hearing this, Liu Rui hesitated.

“That… We don’t even have a hundred weapons right now. And that’s only because we scavenged a huge number of airdrop crates from outside the city. Isn’t collecting more going to cost us too much?”

Weapons like these were now hot commodities, their prices skyrocketing. A single battle knife was going for a hundred upgrade crystals.

That meant, to break even on a knife, you’d have to kill a thousand zombies. If you were unlucky, maybe two or three thousand.

Four hundred knives would cost forty thousand upgrade crystals—a luxury that seemed absurd at this stage.

And there wasn’t even that much stock available on the market.

When Fang Xia heard the price of the battle knives, he was stunned. Was it really that high?

Oddly enough, pre-apocalypse items like food, salt, and chili sauce were dirt cheap, since you could still find them everywhere—any random supermarket run would yield a hefty haul.

Just wait half a year or a year, and the prices will reverse.

Consumables that can’t be replenished—and are essentials for human survival—will skyrocket, while weapons, in the end, will be so plentiful that everyone will have two.

“High price or not, we have to collect them. Only by capitalizing on our early advantage can we secure more resources.”

Forty thousand upgrade crystals seemed a lot now, but once the second and third waves of zombie rain had fallen, there’d be no shortage of crystals.

“All right, but we only have a little over thirty thousand first-tier upgrade crystals.”

Realizing Fang Xia had made up his mind, Liu Rui didn’t try to persuade him further. Her job was simply to get things done.

“Just keep collecting. We still have some time; it’s not like we need them tomorrow.”

The next day.

Because of his physical condition, Fang Xia was not suited to fight at the moment, which left him with a lot of free time.

Bai Xing, on the other hand, was recovering much faster and had already taken a team outside the city again.

As their ranks grew, they needed more reliable leaders.

The original group of thirty young women had all become squad captains, each with her own responsibilities.

A logistics team had also been set up, with Liu Rui as the chief steward.

The combat team fell under Li Xiaochun’s command. If it weren’t for Bai Xing’s lack of interest, she would have taken the lead.

In Fang Xia’s eyes, Bai Xing was better suited to being a deadly assassin rather than a battlefield general.

As he strolled through his own territory, he saw many men hard at work—temporary laborers hired by Liu Rui.

Though their wages were slightly lower than those offered in Dawn City, people were still signing up in droves.

After all, if you could work and feed yourself, who would risk their life outside?

“Good day, Brother Fang.”

The young girl had become the chief foreman, and she played the part well.

“Keep all the buildings low-rise and make them spacious,” Fang Xia instructed, never forgetting the impending earthquake.

Calling it an “earthquake” was just a convenient term—the reality was that every building over five stories would collapse.

In Baicheng, it was hard to find a building under five stories, so the direct result was total destruction.

Fang Xia intended to make good use of this territory in the future; it was a prime location. Once the era came when everyone had to leave the city, he could develop it into a supply station.

Keep the buildings low, and after the quake, a little repair and they’d be serviceable again.

Making a circuit around his territory, Fang Xia saw everyone busy with their tasks and felt a bit embarrassed. He’d been in Dawn City for days without seeing how things were, so he decided to take a stroll, not wanting to dampen everyone’s enthusiasm.

Every day, Dawn City welcomed a flood of new survivors—not only from Baicheng, but from neighboring cities as well.

In the early days of the apocalypse, survivors from smaller cities would instinctively flock to larger cities, hoping they might still find some remnants of government power.

But arriving in Baicheng quickly shattered those hopes, and Dawn City became their only refuge.

Because the city was still in its formative stage, management was far from perfect. Its people were all busy staking claims and competing for resources, with no one to spare for administration.

Now, as Fang Xia walked the streets, chaos was everywhere. Many people wandered in ragged clothes, drifting in groups along the main roads, not knowing what to do or where their future lay, simply surviving day by day.

Those with money went to buy housing rights from Dawn City; those without simply found a corner to sleep in.

The bold would break into empty homes and move in—after all, the city had no energy for enforcement.

The only difference was that if you bought a house, Dawn City would protect you.

In recent days, many had broken into homes that were already purchased, only to be beaten to death and their bodies discarded by the city’s enforcers.

After two or three days of this, even the bold were more cautious—at least checking before forcing their way in. Dawn City had made its point.

It wasn’t far before Fang Xia arrived at the city’s trading hall, which was bustling with all kinds of people.

At the entrance stood more than a dozen guards with battle knives, their sharp eyes sweeping the crowd, ready to act the moment anyone caused trouble.

The trading hall was likely a pre-apocalypse job market, its vast space barely enough for the swelling crowds.