The military convoy led by Xie Anzhou had already driven away.
There were more than a dozen people in their group. They were traveling in three trucks loaded with military supplies.
Su Su was still holding the candies she had taken from the off-road vehicle. Watching the convoy that had already set off, she felt a little regretful.
What a pity. She had not managed to give them to him.
Not far behind her, the corpse of the brown bear had already been dealt with by the military personnel.
The crystal inside the brown bear’s body could not increase an ability user’s powers, but it could help ability users recover their stamina.
In the future, humans would gradually use crystals as a replacement for currency.
Its claws and fangs could also be used to make weapons.
Su Su had played a major role in killing the brown bear.
A few military personnel had just come over carrying the crystal, claws, and fangs removed from the brown bear and handed them to her. They had even thoughtfully placed them in the trunk of her off-road vehicle.
Su Su looked at the candies in her palm and turned around to get into the car.
The military convoy led by Xie Anzhou had not gone far yet. She could still catch up with them.
There was not much farther to go before reaching Dongshan Base.
However, the roads had become terrible after the Apocalypse.
The roads were cracked, and there were many fallen trees scattered across them.
There were also countless obstacles, including vehicles that had crashed into one another.
On top of that, they had to guard against attacks from mutated creatures, mutated plants, and other dangerous entities. The convoy moved very slowly, only slightly faster than a turtle.
When it was time to eat, the military convoy finally stopped to rest.
They were all dressed in matching dark green combat uniforms. Groups of two or three sat together, eating compressed biscuits.
Su Su stopped her off-road vehicle and watched the military camp from a distance.
Xie Anzhou was wiping his gun. Ji Xiao brought Yu Zhan and Tang Ling over to him.
“That little girl has been following the convoy the entire time.”
Ji Xiao handed the compressed biscuit in his hand to Xie Anzhou.
The vigilance ingrained in him as a soldier meant that he had noticed Su Su following behind the convoy almost immediately.
Xie Anzhou looked in the direction Ji Xiao indicated.
Yu Zhan finished the biscuit in his hand in two or three bites and spoke up before Xie Anzhou could say anything.
“Maybe she just doesn’t know the way, so that’s why she’s following us.”
Ji Xiao hesitated for a moment, as if considering something, before slowly saying,
“We’ve encountered… quite a lot on the way here. Should we go and drive her away?”
“Ji Xiao, relax. You’re too tense.”
Tang Ling patted Ji Xiao on the shoulder.
As a companion who had traveled with him all this way, she understood how he felt. But if the string was pulled too tight, it would snap.
Perhaps Tang Ling’s gesture had reassured him. Ji Xiao’s tense back relaxed slightly.
Xie Anzhou put away his gun and opened the compressed biscuit Ji Xiao had handed him. His silver-gray eyes flickered uncertainly.
“Leave her alone. We’re almost at the base.”
The military convoy did not rest for long.
Not long after they finished eating, they set off again.
Su Su drove her off-road vehicle behind them, keeping a moderate distance.
Occasionally, mutated creatures would charge onto the road. Fortunately, the quality of Su Su’s off-road vehicle was good enough.
Even when Su Su simply drove straight into them, they only left a small mark on the vehicle.
“Boss, we’re almost there!”
Yu Zhan stuck his head out of the car window, happily looking at Dongshan Base in the distance, whose outline could already be faintly seen.
The setting sun on the horizon was about to disappear. The fiery-red clouds reflected a blood-red glow.
At the end of their field of vision, where the sky met the earth, the magnificent and imposing Dongshan Base rose majestically among the surrounding mountains.
The towering walls seemed to reach straight into the clouds. In the evening, as the sun set and a thin mist gradually emerged, they looked increasingly mysterious.
The convoy stopped in front of Dongshan Base’s gates.
Perhaps because it was getting late, there were not many people entering or leaving the gates.
However, countless patrol teams showed no sign of relaxing their vigilance. They continuously patrolled back and forth without interruption.
Seeing the laser guns in their hands and the heavy weapons positioned atop the towering walls, ready to launch an attack at any moment, Su Su instinctively swallowed.
She could not let them discover that she was an Otherworlder.
When she saw Xie Anzhou get out of the vehicle, Su Su ran over with the candies in her hand.
She did not know when they would meet again. Su Su wanted to tell him her name.
Before she could get close, however, the military personnel stopped her.
Hearing the commotion, Xie Anzhou gently turned his silver-gray eyes toward her.
Those eyes that could seemingly see through people’s hearts had concealed every emotion at this moment, making them appear somewhat cold and grim.
Xie Anzhou studied Su Su for a moment before walking toward her.
Su Su’s expression immediately brightened. She held out several carefully selected candies.
“For you.”
Xie Anzhou did not take them.
Su Su continued holding out the candies and said,
“My name is Su Su. The Su from su tang, the candy.”
In her previous life, Xie Anzhou had always teased her mischievously, calling her Little Su Tang, Little Su Tang.
Xie Anzhou looked at the brightly colored candies. They were enticing and seductive, almost like poison.
His voice was deep and low, carrying a chill that seemed to reach straight into the depths of one’s heart.
“Go over there and line up. You need to do that before you can enter the base.”
After saying that, Xie Anzhou turned around and was about to leave.
Just as Su Su was disappointed and about to withdraw her hand, Xie Anzhou took one of the pink candies.
His cold voice drifted lightly back to Su Su’s ears once more.
Although he did not speak loudly, Su Su still heard him clearly.
“Xie Anzhou. Xie as in to give thanks, An as in to bring peace to the country, Zhou as in a lone boat.”
Su Su fell silent.
Seeing him walk toward the special passage with the personnel at the city gate, she called out to his back,
“…An as in a lifetime of peace, too!”
Xie Anzhou’s footsteps paused for a moment, but he did not respond to Su Su again.
Su Su watched his upright figure grow smaller and smaller in her vision until it disappeared completely…
The gates of Dongshan Base were thirty to forty meters high and five to six meters thick.
There were three gates in the fortress-like walls.
The exit gate, the entrance gate, and the special passage entrance located right in the middle, which Xie Anzhou had just used when he left.
The special passage was generally not open to the public. Most survivors inside the base entered and exited through the regular gates.
Su Su drove her off-road vehicle to the back of the line at the entrance gate.
Entering the base required extremely strict inspections and questioning. Fortunately, there were not many people waiting in line at the moment.
“Where did you come from? Your name…”
Looking at the patrol officer who had come to her vehicle for the fifth time to ask questions, Su Su simply handed over the temporary pass again.
The patrol officer saw the temporary pass.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
He wrote something down in the notebook in his hand, briefly explained several things she needed to pay attention to, then stopped questioning her and walked away.
Su Su slowly drove the off-road vehicle forward, following the long line through one checkpoint after another.
At the final checkpoint, a worker from the city gate came over, registered her vehicle, and drove it away.
“Please rest assured. Your vehicle will be disinfected and driven into the parking lot inside the base. You can go to the parking lot and retrieve it whenever you need it.”
Hearing the worker’s reminder, Su Su nodded.
After the worker responsible for retrieving the vehicles left, Su Su turned around and walked to the transparent bulletproof glass window behind her.
A woman in a white lab coat was standing on the other side of the window. Two military security personnel carrying heavy weapons stood beside her.
“This is your first time entering the base, so there will be quite a few procedures.”
The woman paused for a moment. A gentle smile appeared in her eyes as she looked at Su Su.
“Please place your blood sample into the slot in the glass window, then enter the scanner beside it for a scan.
“If everything is normal, a staff member will come over shortly and take you to undergo a forty-eight-hour quarantine.”
Su Su held the blood sample in her palm.
It was collected by the staff earlier.
Through the examination, they could determine whether the owner of the sample had been infected or had an Otherworlder parasitizing their body.