EoC 7: Successful Persuasion

Li Xuanyuan began to get busy under the light, and continued to add drawings on that piece of paper, with very fast hand speed.

Gongsun Jing explained to them, “The satellite is still operating, but our land signal receiving station may be damaged or it may be out of order, so there’s no way to navigate. But Xuanyuan has a good memory, and he especially remembered the terrain and route in this area before leaving for the mission.”

Hou Ying realized that he was restoring the route map!

That piece of paper was only the size of ordinary A4 paper, but looking at some of the iconic topography above, Hou Ying could vaguely confirm that this small topographic map included at least three provinces!

It’s no wonder that the lines above are so dense that you may feel dizzy if you look at them more. He also knew more about Li Xuanyuan because of this. He must be a very delicate and careful person, otherwise he could not draw such miniature pictures. He now understands how this person stimulated the wood system, it’s related to his ability.

And this kind of work is heavy and mind-consuming, no wonder they choose to stay here for one day to determine the route.

After about an hour and a half, Meng Hanghai, who had been frightened for a day, already entered deep sleep, but the strength of the arm holding Hou Ying did not relax at all.

Li Xuanyuan raised his head, turned his stiff neck, closed his eyes then rubbed it, and pushed the drawn miniature pictures of Yecheng, Jiangcheng, and Hucheng to Jiang Tao and Gongsun Jing. However, when he opened his eyes again, he looked coldly at Hou Ying, who didn’t know if he was in a daze, and said coldly, “What do you look at, damn gay!”

Hou Ying returned to his senses, got angry and said, “Don’t always open your mouth to call me gay insultingly. Homosexuality is not a crime, and you don’t have the right to accuse me.”

Li Xuanyuan wants to fire back but Jiang Tao, who knew he had had an unpleasant experience of being harassed by homosexuals, quickly intervened and said, “Okay stop arguing, let’s focus on the matter first.”

Li Xuanyuan snorted, did not speak, but also gave Hou Ying a warning look.

Hou Ying slandered this guy, with such a handsome face and a hot body, the breath of male hormones could not be concealed even in the apocalypse. Is it a crime for him to glance at him?¹

The three of them then gathered together to discuss, asking Qiao Daye’s opinion through Bluetooth from time to time. While talking, Hou Ying suddenly heard Gongsun Jing chokingly say, “If only the captain is still here.” He was stunned. He didn’t know when Gongsun Jing’s eyes turned red because she’s facing down. After she said this, the atmosphere became heavier.

Hou Ying was a little surprised. He originally thought Jiang Tao was their captain. After all, Jiang Tao is the one often making decisions among these people.

Li Xuanyuan talked first, “Let’s talk about business.”

The sadness revealed in his voice is naturally different from the cold and mean tone that Hou Ying had heard before. It can be seen that the departure of their captain or… death, Li Xuanyuan was no less sad than Gongsun Jing and the others.

But they adjusted their emotions quickly.

During their heated discussion, Hou Ying can tell that they prefer to go to Zhucheng than Yecheng. He knew very well that it was because Zhucheng was far away from the first and second tier cities and had a small population, although it was a long way to the 24th division.

In the end times when zombies are rampant, the more concentrated the population means the greater crisis.

Hou Ying pondered for a while, and fought to explain, “The Zhucheng area is a mountainous terrain and I don’t know if other places have suffered from natural disasters besides the earthquake in Hucheng. If this is the case, it is very likely that there will be road jams in Zhucheng, where landslides often occur. Then you will have to climb over mountains, not just one or two. Besides, what you are driving now is not a tank. When the time comes, the road will be impassable. Are you going to give up your supplies, walk on foot, or go back? “

Several people were silent after hearing this.

Hou Ying made persistent efforts, “Although Yecheng is next to Kangcheng, its population is not large. It is said that Yecheng is a suburb of Kangcheng, but the degree of urbanization there is not high. Many people in Yecheng go to work in Kangcheng by high speed², but the traffic takes too long. Kangcheng has been urbanized for so many years, and the addition of three downtown areas in the city center has made Yecheng’s permanent population drop more than twice.”

“Furthermore, Yecheng is a plain, one of the country’s important food producing areas. It is mostly agricultural land, and it can resist a magnitude ten earthquake. In this way, there must be no shortage of food there, and then… I don’t think the population of Kangcheng, which is more than 23 million, can die in just two or three days. They have more zombies, which means there must be more people who have abilities than anywhere else so there will be many survivors. If these people want to retire, their first choice is to retire to Yecheng. Maybe a survivor management organization has been set up, so it’s easy for you to ask for information.”

He gestured on the road map drawn by Li Xuanyuan, “Not to mention the road from Yecheng to your base is just passing by Kangcheng. You don’t need to go through this city.”

“Although these ring roads outside the city may be very congested, you should not forget that Kangcheng is a coastal city, with waterways extending in all directions. The ships in those ports must have abandoned unowned ships. If you pass through Kangcheng, there will be no other densely populated cities on the way.”

According to the national economic planning, Yecheng is one of the satellite cities of Kangcheng. Originally, the economy of Kangcheng was expected to radiate to pull the surrounding economy. Unexpectedly, the absorption power of Kangcheng is far greater than its radiation power.

Over the years, the population of several satellite cities, such as Yecheng, has been pouring into Kangcheng. As a result, the population load of the city has become heavier and heavier. At the same time, the satellite city has almost become a “retirement place”. The proportion of the elderly and children is even higher than that of young people. The population base is barely a fraction of Kangcheng.

Hou Ying’s hometown is in Yecheng. He has his own car and is willing to get up early to take his nephew to work when there is no traffic jam. Therefore, even though he and Wang Hehe have already achieved success in their careers, they have no plan to move to Kangcheng.

Now it seems that this decision is really fortunate!

Hou Ying, who is well versed in negotiation, justifies the feasibility of this route and deliberately takes the biggest bait out, leaving a lot of room to fantasize.

Refuge, management agency, survivors.

Human beings are social creatures, even if they are all lone rangers in the special forces, they will definitely be moved by such a gathering place for survivors in the last days. At least they need outside information, they need access to the outside world, for whatever reason, Hou Ying did not believe that they would be indifferent to the refuge he speculated.

Sure enough, they all showed loose expressions. Obviously, they were convinced. Gongsun Jing, who also studied psychological tactics, jumped out of the beautiful blueprint described by Hou Ying. She asked, “How sure are you that there’s going to be a base of survivors there?”

Hou Ying is frank about it, “I’ve been stuck on the road for such a long time. Even when the end comes, it’s Meng Hanghai who told me. How dare I boast that I’m sure.”

“You’re inducing us?”

Li Xuanyuan seems to have been poked to the point of anger by him again.

Hou Ying hurriedly defended, “As long as the people in Kangcheng are not dead, there must be survivors gathering in Yecheng! They don’t have a better choice, and they can’t be evacuated before the end of the world, or rescued within two or three days? They must help themselves and unite. I just infer from the facts. Although I want to convince you, there is nothing to deceive you out of nothing, right?”

Hou Ying smiled bitterly.

Several people could see that Hou Ying was more than 60% sure about the existence of a survivor base in Yecheng. It’s not that he pretends to fool anyone, but that he really believes in Yecheng’s relative security, which is also the reason why he believes that Wang Hehe and Ji Yao are still alive and the will to move forward to Yecheng.

The topography of Yecheng makes it a granary, and the high degree of mechanization makes it not require much labor.

The area of rice fields there is very large, because the country’s food base protection policy has not been over-exploited by real estate businessmen like other satellite cities in Kangcheng. It is truly vast and sparsely populated. But Yecheng is next to Kangcheng, the third most populous city. Kangcheng people didn’t like to go to Yecheng, which is full of ‘peasants’ before the end of the world. But at such a critical moment, Yecheng is indeed the best way for Kangcheng survivors, as Hou Ying said.

After Jiang Tao and the others discussed, they determined Yecheng’s route.

Hou Ying breathed a sigh of relief, whether it was for Meng Hanghai or himself, it was profitable and harmless.

That night, he did not dare to waste gasoline and did not use the heating in the car at will. He and Meng Hanghai huddled in the thick cotton-padded army coat provided by Gongsun Jing. Although Hou Ying didn’t sleep well, he was still young and energetic the next day.

Before setting off, Jiang Tao, Li Xuanyuan and others made some modifications to the armored vehicle. They used special materials tied to the bottom of the armored vehicle to arm the car with three layers inside and outside. And on the top of the car, he doesn’t know if it was because of the generator they had disassembled from the construction site and gas station, It was also surrounded and isolated by materials that Hou Ying could not recognize.

Hou Ying couldn’t see the specific doorway inside, but he also knew that the defense index of this armored car must have more than doubled.

Afterwards, they also spent a lot of effort to put Hou Ying’s car to the top of the armored car and fasten it with a rope.

In order to take care of the two weaker survivors, which is also the duty of the soldiers, they arranged Hou Ying and Meng Hanghai to take care of Liu Zhan in the armored car. Qiao Daye drove, Gongsun Jing was on guard with a gun in the co-pilot seat, while Jiang Tao, who was vigil in the middle of the night, is in the car to make up for sleep.

And Li Xuanyuan got on the roof of the car. Hou Ying realized that they had installed isolation materials on it because they would encounter more zombies when they walked out of the blockade road. It was used to isolate the smell of watchmen on the roof.

The armored vehicle moved forward for about two hours before stopping. The roads on this section are all blocked by the local authorities, so vehicles and zombies are rare. They drive very fast. Even if the zombies move with the sound of the car, they have long been left behind, so it is calm.

Li Xuanyuan got out of the isolation cover and jumped on the top of the car. Obviously Hou Ying was assigned a military Bluetooth, and knew that Hou Ying has hearing ability, but he still kicked the car roof unceremoniously, and then said to Hou Ying, “Come down.”

Gongsun Jing angrily scolded him, “Don’t be noisy, Lao Liu is sleeping.”

Li Xuanyuan snorted, “He has slept long enough.”

After a few people took a break, Jiang Tao called them together and analyzed, “There is the last roadblock ahead. There must be a lot of people fleeing after such a big panic. Although this section of the national highway is old, there must be a lot of vehicles and zombies.”

It’s obviously not feasible to clean the zombies first and then push a cart to clear the road, but if not, it’s quite difficult for the car to pass through the blockage and the unpredictable number of zombies.

But he didn’t elaborate on this issue. With the tacit understanding of his comrades-in-arms, he exchanged a look and then went on, “This armored car has been modified, and the tires and car body have no problem with their load-bearing, pressure-resistant and explosion-proof capabilities. Now the weight of this car is about 25 tons, so if we are fast enough, there is no problem opening the way.”

Hou Ying found that he should be very professional about mechanical weapons such as armored vehicles, because these people did not discuss, but completely followed his advice, instead of expressing their own opinions when discussing the route yesterday.

Jiang Tao’s arrangement is not over yet, “Later, Xuanyuan and I will remove the oil cylinder and move it to the top of the car to avoid being impacted and exploding. There are no other problems in other aspects, but the plan of this sprint must confirm that there are no survivors ahead.”

He looked at Qiao Daye, obviously entrusting him with this important task.

Qiao Daye nodded in response, and Jiang Tao considered it from beginning to end again, consciously not missing something, only then clapped his hands and encouraged each other.

Hou Ying heard that they were planning to use the armored car to directly rush through the congested road so he couldn’t help but hesitate. Gongsun Jing saw his worry, smiled and said, “Don’t worry about an explosion. Although our car has a lot of gasoline, the heat insulation and fire prevention effect of this car is very good. Even if it blows up outside, it will not detonate.”

Hou Ying only relaxed after hearing this, but he still said, “Zombies with increased speed have already appeared. What if Qiao Daye encounters a zombie faster than him while exploring the road?”

Translator’s Notes:

侯颖腹诽这家伙长得这么俊性格这么辣，雄性荷尔蒙的气息连末世都掩盖不了了，这么勾人犯罪，被他看一眼怎么了。This one confuses the heck out of me. Maybe it’s because my brain isn’t properly functioning or something but I just couldn’t rewrite this sentence without sounding so awkward.
It didn’t say anything whether it’s railway or what, so I just left it be, it won’t really matter much in the story anyway.

Done! Hope you enjoy this update spree of mine haha! Gosh, I really appreciate those who commented on my posts, it really gives me motivation and appreciation to continue translating stories. Anyway, if you haven’t noticed yet I’m translating two stories, three if I get enough chapters stock in another favorite story of mine, please do check it out. Although I’m having problems with NU because I tried multiple times putting the new story, Lei Feng System, in NU but for some reason, it doesn’t come up when I search it but if I release a chapter, the title name comes up, weird. If you have a time, maybe try putting the story there? If you do, I really appreciate it!!