RIACMET chapter 142

 

“She…”

Jiang Nian started to say something but saw Huang Qian and Li Shuhui turn around the corner.

“Let’s keep an eye on her. I think there’s definitely something off about her. She’s been sticking very close to Liang Xiaoyan’s team.”

Li Sheng also understood that some topics weren’t suitable to discuss out here, so he continued.

“By the way, Liang Xiaoyan and her team rented a house in the inner district. Unlike Su Jing, though, they didn’t rent inside that residential community. They rented a three-story building in a regular residential area.”

There were different types of housing in the inner district. The regular residential area wasn’t managed by specialized personnel like the communities were.

Instead, it consisted of single-story houses and buildings ranging from three and a half to five and a half stories tall that were rented out by individuals or small groups. They were square-shaped, plain, and practical—similar to the self-built homes in small urban towns before the apocalypse.

When Liang Xiaoyan’s team was mentioned, Li Shuhui took the initiative to say,

“Liang Xiaoyan called me about the rental situation and asked me to stop by if I had time. She said her teammates have been out on missions lately and that she’s bored staying at the base.”

Ever since her father and older brother gave her instructions, she’d been doing her best to avoid Liang Xiaoyan. Fortunately, she hadn’t run into her while helping Jiang Nian run the shop in the past few days.

Whether to meet with Liang Xiaoyan needed to be discussed with Jiang Nian and the others.

“Liang Xiaoyan’s teammates didn’t bring her along on the missions…”

Jiang Nian seemed to be thinking about something. The situation was lining up with what he’d previously guessed. Liang Xiaoyan didn’t know everything about her team’s actions. But, as someone always full of ideas, didn’t that mean she had her own agenda?

“Liang Xiaoyan has been trying to make contact with other superpowered teams in the inner district lately. She must have her own intentions. I think Xiaohui should meet with her.”

Li Sheng suggested it, and Li Kaiyun and Li Liang agreed.

Cheng Jing and Yang Kai exchanged looks. They were aware of what Liang Xiaoyan’s teammates had been doing. Liang Xiaoyan was ambitious and restless. She could tolerate her team’s treatment of her, which meant that she was probably already looking for another team.

It would be great if he could use her to cause trouble for Xia Weiwei.

“…”

After thinking about it for a moment, Cheng Jing nodded.

“Alright.”

Then he turned to Jiang Nian.

“What do you think, Niannian?”

“Uh…”

Jiang Nian thought it over and agreed.

“We’re back now. There’s no need to worry about her causing trouble. Xiaohui, find a chance to meet with her and see what she wants.”

If she wants to test us, then we can test her. They might as well have some fun with it.

Li Shuhui nodded.

“All right, I’ll ask her out during my lunch break tomorrow.”

Scheduling it during a workday would make it easy to find an excuse to leave during working hours.

Everyone else thought it was a good idea, too—at least they wouldn’t have to worry about safety.

That was the plan. Then, suddenly, Jiang Nian looked at Yang Kai and asked,

“Brother Kai, has Xia Weiwei done anything unusual lately?”

For some reason, Yang Kai’s heart skipped a beat. He felt like Jiang Nian had figured something out. He thought carefully and replied,

“Nothing strange. She’s waiting for the people from S Base and your father’s family to arrive. She’s also been recruiting superpowered individuals from our base. I think that when she heads back to S Base, she’s going to bring quite a few of them with her.”

There were no special privileges when it came to managing and recruiting superpowered individuals at the Nancheng base. Some believed that the strict rules and structure were shackles limiting their development.

In contrast, some shelters that weren’t dominated by the military, like S Base, offered generous treatment to superpowered individuals. Naturally, if someone stirred the pot, people would flock over.

When Xia Weiwei was mentioned, both Zhou Li and Li Sheng looked displeased.

Superpowered individuals often formed their own cliques and factions to build up their strength, but the fact that Xia Weiwei’s actions were orchestrated by S Base made the situation uncomfortable for Zhou Li and Li Sheng.

Xia Weiwei had secretly planted her own people in the Nancheng base for her own reasons. Because of that, the top brass couldn’t openly oppose her, so they could only compete with her in the shadows and avoid a full-blown confrontation.

“…”

Jiang Nian quickly sorted out all the twists and turns, nodded, and said no more. Right now, he really wanted to know where his stepmother and his family were.

With the support of his lover and friends, and his steadily increasing strength, Jiang Nian had thought of many ways to get revenge on those people.

In the end, he decided the best way was to fight fire with fire:

Let them die miserably!

Let them taste the despair, helplessness, and suffering he experienced in his past life.

However, he wouldn’t let them die at the hands of the zombies outside. Wouldn’t it be perfect for them to hug and bite each other as one big loving family?

It would be so easy to infect one of them with the zombie virus!

As for Xia Weiwei, how far would she go to save her lover? And how far would S Base go to get her back?

Jiang Nian thought his thoughts were too dark and didn’t dare tell Brother Jing or his teammates.

If anyone else knew, they would probably scold him. But he didn’t care—he understood.

After all, none of them had been tortured to death and then reborn.

“…”

After discussing the people and issues they were concerned about, they moved on to talking about the measures the base needed to take as the weather grew hotter.

Except for a few individuals with superpowers who were directly recruited by the Resources Department, all survivors who entered the base were now involved in preparations to deal with the extreme heat, as ordered by base officials.

They built reservoirs to store water, added roofs to the prefab dorms, and began renovating the underground shelters built during the base’s early construction with help from earth-type superpowered users.

Plans were in place to provide special shelters for women, children, the elderly, the sick, and people with disabilities to help them survive the extreme heat. However, access was voluntary.

The underground area of Nancheng Base was located on the border between the wasteland and the outer zone.

Originally built as a warehouse, part of it collapsed shortly after construction—rumor had it that it was due to frequent earthquakes during that period.

Any site selected for an underground facility had to undergo repeated testing and evaluation. In situations where the soil was contaminated and there were many unstable factors, the workload was more than double that of surface construction.

After the underground area collapsed, the base didn’t fix it immediately since it wasn’t in use; they just blocked it off with wires.

Although the period of earthquakes had passed, safety precautions were still necessary before reopening and renovating the place. Residents would be exposed to certain risks.

The workload was increasing, and they couldn’t manage it without enough manpower. The base was offering a large number of points to recruit temporary workers with powers related to water, earth, metal, and physical enhancement.

For internal personnel, job rotations and short-term recruitment were underway.

Zhou Li informed Cheng Jing and the others that, in addition to Liao Yu, Lu Ningzhou, Zhao Lei, and Tang Yi would also be temporarily mobilized to participate in the heat protection project.

Consequently, the team split into two temporary groups:

Zhao Lei, Liao Yu, Lu Ningzhou, and Tang Yi were reassigned from the rescue team.

Meanwhile, Cheng Jing, Huang Qian, Zhou Rongbin, and Jian Cheng remained at their posts on standby.

While the team was working, Jiang Nian was responsible for Xiaoqi, and Zhou Rongbin brought him back to the dorm after work.

Their dorm was spacious, and Zhou Rongbin’s room had a small balcony.

Xiaoqi would stay there until he bought his own place and moved out.

“This works. Everyone can look out for each other.”

When Young Master Liao found out that he wasn’t the only one being reassigned, his sour mood lifted, and he finally relaxed.

Since their team still had two days off, Zhou Li told them to rest up before heading to the command center for further instructions.