Yu Hanjiang and his teammates dug at the ground behind the warehouse. After digging all morning, they finally dug a hole that connected with the city’s underground pipeline system. The underground pipelines were intricate and complicated so Yu Hanjiang was going to investigate them himself.
Xiao Lou looked at the dark tunnel in front of him and was worried. “The ground is damp and cold. It is an environment that the bugs love. Will there be bugs inside? If there are bugs, won’t they rush from all sides to surround us? It will be harder for us to escape if we are surrounded by the bugs in a narrow passage.”
Xiao Lou’s words made sense. The underground passes were crisscrossed and it would be really hard if they were surrounded by the bugs. Yu Hanjiang nodded at him. “Your worry is right. That’s why I want to make some arrangements in advance before the bugs come to the east district.”
Old Mo was curious. “Group Leader Yu, how do you plan to arrange it?”
Yu Hanjiang took out a pen and paper and drew a few lines on it. “We dug a hole in the ground that can be used to escape the warehouse. Then find a manhole within five kilometers as an exit. After finding the shortest path, block all the surrounding forked paths.”
He drew an X over multiple lines, leaving only one path from beginning to end.
Xiao Lou understood immediately and his eyes lit up. “The roads are blocked so even if there are bugs, they can’t surround us.” He looked over at Old Mo. “Old Mo, your S-grade card can be used here.”
Old Mo responded, “Yes, marble! I can use it to block the road.”
He took out Marble Brick, the last S-grade card he had drawn from his card pack.
The advantage of this card was that he could arbitrarily combine and change the shape of the marble. The marble would be built directly into a wall. The wall made of marble was indestructible and even the bugs wouldn’t be able to pass through.
Old Mo just had to use the marble to seal off all the forks in the underground passage. Then only one passageway would be left from the warehouse entrance to the exit found by Group Leader Yu. This way, there wouldn’t be any bugs interfering with them.
The entrance near the warehouse would be closely guarded so that no bugs were allowed inside. In this way, their underground evacuation route was equivalent to a closed secret passage that wasn’t affected by the surroundings.
Ye Qi and the others heard this and sighed. “Once Group Leader Yu takes the lead, we are the most unreasonable underground construction team. Other construction teams open roads while we are responsible for blocking roads.”
Long Sen smiled. “Block all the forks in the road and the bugs can’t come. We will be able to evacuate at the fastest speed. This is a good idea!”
Yu Hanjiang spoke lightly. “Let’s go. Everyone should move as quickly as possible.”
Under Yu Hanjiang’s leadership, the team entered the tunnel.
Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou walked in front. Xiao Lou held the night pearl and his teammates followed.
The city’s drainage pipeline system was very well built. After going down from the location dug by Yu Hanjiang and walking through a few bends, they met a crossroad. Ye Qi saw the long and narrow passages leading in all directions and grabbed his temple in pain. “I can’t distinguish between east, west, north or south. It is like an underground labyrinth!”
Yu Hanjiang firmly pointed to two directions. “This side is the west and this side is the north.”
Ye Qi gave a thumbs up in admiration. “Group Leader Yu, you can still tell the direction despite going in several circles?”
Yu Hanjiang showed the drawing in his hand to everyone. “I’ve been remembering the way.”
Long Sen joked, “A construction team naturally must have a construction route map. Xiao Ye, you are too unprofessional.”
Ye Qi was convinced. “Group Leader Yu is too professional, okay!”
Xiao Lou took a look at Group Leader Yu’s ‘construction route map.’ Group Leader Yu’s sense of direction was indeed very strong. Xiao Lou had made a few circles underground and couldn’t distinguish southeast from the northwest. Meanwhile, Yu Hanjiang had always been marking the direction on the map so that everyone wouldn’t get lost.
At the fork in the road, Yu Hanjiang took out the card Four-way Arrow and left an arrow as a mark.
The sound of water flowing was heard from time to time in the narrow underground passage. There were sounds from drains and sewers and leaking pipes in certain places. The smell was naturally not very good.
He flew up with the light footwork card and lifted the manhole cover. The first exit he found led to a large road. There were many low-rise buildings beside the road and a three storey building with the words ‘Home Expo’ written on them. Obviously, this place was a furniture and buildings material market.
Yu Hanjiang frowned, lowered the manhole cover and returned underground.
Xiao Lou wondered, “No?”
“It isn’t the best choice. Look again.”
Everyone started walking again. This time, Yu Hanjiang found an exit close to a primary school and didn’t hesitate to give it up. The third time Yu Hanjiang lifted the manhole cover, he finally stopped.
Yu Hanjiang threw the manhole cover aside, jumped up and looked around. Then he told his teammates underground. “It’s okay here.” He dropped the white silk down the entrance. “Xiao Lou and Liu Qiao, come up to look.”
Xiao Lou grabbed the white silk and Yu Hanjiang pulled him up with a slight effort.
Liu Qiao had a light footwork card herself and directly flew up next to Xiao Lou.
They looked closely and saw dozens of acres of wasteland surrounded by a blue fence. The blue fence had the words ‘18th construction unit of Bingzhou City’ on it.
This type of land was often found in urban development zones. Developers bought land and fenced it off. It wasn’t suitable for construction in winter so construction wouldn’t start until summer where it became warmer.
Yu Hanjiang’s eyes swept over the place. “We are still in the east district. This neighbourhood is very desolate and this land should be land that the government has just sold. It hasn’t started official development yet. The foundation hasn’t even been laid. There are no residences for the construction team.”
Liu Qiao commented, “It is indeed really empty.”
Xiao Lou looked around and found there were no buildings on this land. The view was clear. He glanced at Yu Hanjiang and said, “This place is deserted and the bugs shouldn’t run here. Shall we use it as the exit point?”
Yu Hanjiang nodded. “It is here. This is the most suitable place out of the other exits nearby.”
The other team members listening underground to the conversation of the three people were relieved.
Ye Qi asked, “Group Leader Yu, what is the situation outside? There are no bugs?”
“Relax, the bugs haven’t had time to run here.” Yu Hanjiang walked to the hole and looked down at his teammates. “Come up and see. We need to make some arrangements at the exit.”
Long Sen and Qu Wanyue’s legs became longer and they directly jumped up. Ye Qi’s teleportation card was only able to move him horizontally, not vertically. Yu Hanjiang quickly pulled him up and everyone stood on the white open space. They all felt that this place was like a vast snowfield. There were no blind spots and no places for bugs to hide. There were also few buildings nearby. It was indeed a good place to escape to.
Yu Hanjiang glanced at Xiao Lou and lowered his voice. “What is the furthest monitoring range of the drone that Mr Tang gave you?”
Xiao Lou took out the card. “It can monitor and take photos for 5 kilometres in a straight line.”
Ye Qi heard the conversation and scratched his head doubtfully. “Who is Mr Tang?”
Xiao Lou looked back and smiled. “For this matter, wait until we go back and I will explain it to you in detail.”
Their teammates didn’t know about Brother Jiu and Director Tang yet. It was time for everyone to know.
Yu Hanjiang nodded at Xiao Lou. “Arrange the drone to monitor the surroundings to ensure we can evacuate from this exit at any time.”
Otherwise, if everyone hurriedly climbed out of the manhole only to find a large number of bugs around…
Wouldn’t they be sheep throwing themselves into the tiger’s mouth?
Group Leader Yu was really thoughtful about these things. Xiao Lou immediately activated the Drone card and placed the delicate drone on a flagpole in the distance. He adjusted the angle and activated the ‘monitoring’ mode. He checked until the drone’s camera could clearly see the surroundings. Then Xiao Lou fixed the drone in place.
This S-grade tool card had two modes, ‘shooting mode’ that could be remotely controlled at any time to take 15 photos continuously or intermittently and ‘surveillance mode’. This was similar to a real-time surveillance camera and could continuously monitor for 30 minutes. Every night at 24:00, the skills would be refreshed.
The purpose of using the skill just now was to adjust the field of view and angle. Once the evacuation was needed, Xiao Lou would remotely start the monitoring function. For 30 minutes, he would be able to see all the movements of the wasteland through the screen of the Drone card. This would ensure that the end point when evacuating was safe.
As Xiao Lou set up the drone, his other teammates scouted around using their displacement card.
Everyone walked around the blue fence and found few buildings nearby. Ye Qi actively reported the results. “There are no buildings for several kilometres around us. This piece of land is obviously in a remote suburb that the government hasn’t developed yet. The bugs shouldn’t be idle and come here. I think it is safe!”
Yu Hanjiang let go of his worries and waited for Xiao Lou to set up the drone. Then he took his teammates back underground and covered the manhole.
Yu Hanjiang had walked while drawing a map so they didn’t have to worry about getting lost when returning. Every time they reached a fork in the road, Yu Hanjiang asked Old Mo to block the other paths with the marble, leaving only one road to the warehouse.
The number of marble bricks available to Old Mo was limited but the underground passage was very narrow. He erected the walls vertically and only needed five or six at a time to make a wall. He just needed to change the marble according to the passage and it was more than enough to block several roads.
Soon, all the roads along the way were blocked and Yu Hanjiang took everyone to the entrance.
The entrance of the underground passage was behind the warehouse and the exit was located in the middle of the wasteland. The distance from the entrance to the exit was around 3 kilometres. The entire road might be a zigzag but all the forks had been blocked. They didn’t need to worry about being surrounded by bugs from the side. They could quickly evacuate with the displacement cards. Yu Hanjiang tried it and found it only took around eight minutes to reach the end.
Even if some bugs followed them down the tunnel, the bugs were restricted in movement in the narrow passage. The team could completely block the road behind them with fire while escaping and isolate the chasing soldiers.
After setting up such an evacuation route, everyone was more confident in clearing the instance. Of course, everyone didn’t want to give up on the warehouse base unless it was a last resort. This back road was just in case.
They returned to the warehouse and Yu Hanjiang used a fruit box and cardboard to block the hole dug behind the warehouse.
It was evening by the time they finished all of this.
Everyone had followed Yu Hanjiang as a construction team and worked all day long. They were all hungry so Xiao Lou suggested that everyone rest and eat.
The warehouse was spacious and safe. There were many boxes that could be used as fuel for a fire.
Xiao Lou used the Old Charcoal Seller skill to set a fire. This way, they could boil water and keep warm.
The security guard saw the ‘construction team’ return and couldn’t help whispering, “You… are you a secret construction team. Going so far as to secretly dig a tunnel, is it to bury explosives in the ground?”
Everyone, “……”
This security guard’s imagination was quite rich. It seemed he really wasn’t parasitized by the bugs.
He had snacks in his duty room and had already eaten. Seeing everyone cooking noodles, the security guard spoke enthusiastically, “There are fresh vegetables in the warehouse. You can grab some to eat. I will pretend not to see you as long as you spare my life.”
Xiao Lou told him helplessly, “We really didn’t come here to steal.”
The security smiled and didn’t speak.
Yu Hanjiang took the security guard back to the duty room and told him, “It will be really hard for you to live if we let you go now. To tell you the truth, there are many lunatics biting people everywhere. Once bitten, you will also go crazy. Think of this as an infectious disease with no cure.”
The security guard’s face changed. “Infectious disease? My wife and children are at home. No wonder why I can’t reach them on the phone. I want to go back and see. What if something happened to them?”
Yu Hanjiang frowned. “There are no cars outside. How far can you walk in the snow?”
“Please let me go back. I have to go home to see if my wife and children are okay…”
Xiao Lou happened to be following them. He heard this and spoke softly, “Let him go. Life or death is his own choice.”
Concern for loved ones could sometimes overcome reason. He knew that it was dangerous outside but the security guard just wanted to go home to see his wife and children. If they didn’t let this person go back, he would probably regret it even if he survived.
They had no obligation to save the locals, let alone when it was the other person’s own request.
Yu Hanjiang cut the ropes binding the security guard. “Go. The infected person’s eyes will turn red. Be careful to avoid them.”
The security guard nodded and walked away quickly.
Ye Qi was worried. “Won’t he lead people over if we let him go?”
Yu Hanjiang replied lightly, “This city is about to fall. No one will care that we occupied a warehouse. In addition, he is going home to find his wife and child… if he is lucky, he can go back. If he is unlucky, he might be infected halfway.”
Everyone was silent.
Ye Qi remembered the security guard’s words about how there were many vegetables in this warehouse. He opened a few boxes. Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, string beans, spinach… all types of vegetables could be seen that made Ye Qi drool.
Previously, they spent money to buy a lesson in the Spades secret room. Shao Qingge had bought breakfast for everyone that caused them to have diarrhea. These ingredients might look very fresh but no one dared to eat them.
Ye Qi was still a bit tempted and suggested, “Perhaps we can check them carefully? Clean them and then roast them? Since the bugs are afraid of fire, won’t they be burned to death even if there are bugs in the vegetables?”
Everyone, “……”
This was really the perseverance of a foodie.
Yu Hanjiang decided. “Put on gloves and cut them to examine them carefully.”
Everyone took action and removed a few boxes of vegetables to check inside them. The potatoes and tomatoes were cut to make sure there were no bug eggs. Xiao Lou let out a sigh of relief and opened his mouth. “We were too cautious. The bug parasites mainly rely on blood and they die without blood. These foods should be fine.”
Everyone let go of their worries and Xiao Lou made a wire ring with the compass. Then the team roasted skewered food such as potatoes, melons and other cut vegetables. Xiao Lou took out a packet of salt from his bag. “Put some salt on them or they will be tasteless.”
Ye Qi was moved. “Professor Xiao, aren’t you too careful? You even bought salt?’
Xiao Lou smiled. “I took a bag from the supermarket because I thought it might be useful.’
The team sighed. They had Group Leader Yu when fighting and escaping and Xiao Lou for a home life!
Every time they went through Spades, it was sometimes thrilling but also sometimes like a vacation in the wilderness. In Liuxi Village, Group Leader Yu roasted rabbit meat for everyone. This time, they roasted vegetables together.
