Tang Ye pats his shoulder, his smile revealing the familiar phrase: "You’re a good man."
Perhaps in high spirits, Li Songhua fills his glass with red wine and drinks it in one gulp. His face is flushed, whether from the wine or the mood is unclear.
Tang Ye takes a sip. As zombies taste things differently from humans, he doesn’t enjoy wine the same way. To him, it’s like water, without any particular taste.
Humans drink water to quench their thirst; to zombies, water merely exists, providing no sense of satisfaction. It’s flavorless and empty, even gross.
"Brother Nian, if you ever need anything, ah, feel free to ask me. No matter how busy I am, I’ll help you out!"
The large transport plane has taken off, flying towards Lin City. Tang Ye observes the increasingly magnified ground, and the distant Hua City, as decayed and crumbling as Lin City, and sighs.
From the ascending square, he sees Chen Bieli and Jin Wenyi boarding an armed helicopter with the word "Pingnan". They align in a row, and after Jin Wenyi gets in, Chen Bieli looks up at the transport plane Tang Ye is on.
Throughout the flight, Li Songhua doesn’t stop talking. From his experiences at Qinshan Base to his life before the Apocalypse, his childhood dreams and later experiences, he shares everything. He even sheds tears as he talks, but his enthusiasm only amplifies.
Tang Ye occasionally responds, while most of his attention is on the scenery outside the plane. Not just him, everyone on the plane has their heads buried in the windows, gazing outside.
More than three years into the Apocalypse, the Earth has changed enormously. The green mountains and magnificent trees below look full of life. In contrast, urban areas appear greyish white, as though shrouded in a mist.
In some areas, the woods have turned into a desolate yellow, interwoven with green and gray.
"Report. Anomaly ahead!"
A soldier interrupts Li Songhua’s impassioned speech.
Li Songhua seems displeased. The soldier looks nervous before reporting, "A large flock of birds is up ahead. There are too many, we might collide with them in about a minute."
"Huh? Brother Nian, excuse me for a moment, I’ll be right back." Li Songhua instinctively frowns. In this era of the Apocalypse, unless people have paid a heavy price to pave a safe route, flying is the only way to reach other survivor bases.
But flying isn’t entirely safe either. While ravenous zombies lurk on the ground, zombie birds and flying evolved creatures haunt the sky. Most of them move in groups and appear just as they are portrayed in movies, attacking in massive hordes!
If you encounter them, the sky is the most dangerous place to be!
Tang Ye nods. At the same time, his eyes evolve into insect-like compound eyes. Through the curved armor of the plane window, he sees a cloud of red fog rushing towards them!
People sense something is off when they see the red cloud. The realization sends a shudder down their spines.
Someone exclaims harshly, the birds are known to be very aggressive. Now, everyone on the plane seems to be in peril.
But after a moment, Li Songhua reappears, a smile on his face, assuring everyone, "Don’t worry, these birds aren’t aggressive."
A false alarm raises people’s heartbeat, and soon the transport plane collides with the flock of birds. One by one, red birds flutter past the window next to Tang Ye. At the moment of impact, blood splatters from the numerous birds, splashing all over the transport plane.
Tang Ye realizes that these aren’t just any birds - they are the unique red-feathered birds from the Qinshan Base.
He didn’t know why they would appear here.
Tang Ye then sees an even stranger sight - the flock of red-feathered birds directly collide and pass through the transport plane, but behind them is an armed helicopter carrying Jin Wenyi and Chen Bieli.
After passing through them, the birds split into two groups to avoid a collision with the helicopter.
Tang Ye is left confused, but he doesn’t dwell on it. He never was one to overthink details.
After the startling but harmless incident, people calm down. The transport plane is fast and soon arrives over the territory of Lin City. Li Songhua had tried to strike up a conversation again, but Tang Ye pretends to sleep to dodge it.
He is woken up by the gasps of those around him, caused by the view of the landscape below.
After the fourth stage, he had flown above the Earth and seen the land: the growth of plants and the spread of zombified plants have been rapid. Now, from Zhiyang Lake in Lin City all the way to the southwest, all he can see is a sea of green.
Tang Ye, Li Songhua, and other high-ranking members of the Qinshan Base aren’t surprised by this, as they are used to such scenes. However, those from the Shiwuguan Base and other newcomers are experiencing their first helicopter ride since the Apocalypse and have no firsthand knowledge of the changes that have taken place on Earth.
The sight of everything so unfamiliar evokes breathtaking admiration.
When Tang Ye wakes up, their transport plane is already hovering in midair. Ahead of them is a large ring, approximately twenty meters in width and hundreds of meters in length. There’s no support structure visible below; it’s hoisted at the plane’s hovering height by four helicopters, each five or six times larger than their transport plane, via specially made ropes.
There are many people standing on the ring, both men and women. Some wearing suits, others in military uniforms representing various survivor bases. At present, the door of the transport plane opens, and after Yan Jie gives Tang Ye a reminder, he steps out.
The moment Tang Ye sets foot on the enormous ring, he feels as if he’s standing on solid ground. The ropes holding up the ring are merely as thick as a finger. There’re only four of them, and this human-holding ring is huge. It’s difficult to imagine how these four ropes manage to hold it so securely.
"Has technology advanced to this point?"
Tang Ye feels like a country bumpkin, as if he’d been cut off from the world before the Apocalypse.
"Can those ropes hold?" Tang Ye asks Chen Chaoyang.
"Boss, those aren’t ordinary ropes. They’re pseudo-nanowire ropes made by fusing anti-life materials 26 times. Although they don’t meet the standards of nanotech hardness, they’re still pretty strong."
"Also, look over there."
Chen Chaoyang points in a direction for Tang Ye. Following his hand, Tang Ye sees a row of soldiers standing on the ring on the Lin City side. Unlike the soldiers from before the Apocalypse, they are wearing silver skeletal armor and full-coverage helmets, looking like futuristic soldiers.