Chapter 7
Murong Jiao appeared at the place where she entered the spirit courtyard before. She scans her surroundings to make sure there are no zombies or humans around. Seeing that there was not even a shadow around, she walked out of the empty building.
With a thought, she took out an off-road vehicle from the spirit courtyard warehouse. She parked all the vehicles she had obtained before on the floor above the supplies room of the warehouse building. With such a large warehouse, she felt that even a plane could be parked in it. She also knew that as her strength grew, the spirit courtyard would also grow stronger and larger. With such a pace, she didn’t even know if she could fill the supplies room in this life.
Putting her backpack and baseball bat on the passenger seat, she sat behind the steering wheel and started the car. She chose a car with automatic transmission, because her driving skills are not good, and it is tiring to drive a car with manual transmission. Seeing that the navigation was still available, she first locked the navigation system to the nearest gas station.
Now that there are more vehicles available to her, she has to collect enough fuel. After setting her destination, she drove away. When she left the wholesale market street, the moon was already hanging in the dark sky. The moon after the apocalypse is always a blood moon. The red color looks beautiful but gives out a gloomy feeling.
After driving for a while, she arrived at the gas station. Before she could drive in to refuel, she saw a group of soldiers busy filling gasoline barrels. Seeing that there were no zombies around, she drove the car into the gas station. Fortunately, those soldiers cleaned up the zombies before she arrived.
One of the soldiers saw her car, pointed his gun at her and said, “Come out with your hands up.”
She looked at their tensed expressions, raised her hands, and calmly got out of the car. She looked at the man with the gun pointed at her and said, “I just wanted to refuel.”
Seeing that she was only a young woman in early twenties, the soldier lowered his gun. He looked at her car, then at her clean clothes, and said, “You can fill up the car there.”
He pointed to another empty machine. She nodded and said, “Thank you.”
With that said, she got into her car and drove to the empty machine. Seeing soldiers pouring oil to those empty gasoline drums, she took out two empty thirty gallon barrels from her warehouse. She needs some extra fuel just in case.
The soldier saw her fill up the two barrels but said nothing. After filling up the car and two more barrels with gasoline, she pretended to take something out of her backpack. With a thought, she took out a bottle of whiskey from the wine room in the warehouse building.
Walking up to the soldier who was pointing his gun at her earlier, she handed him the whiskey. The soldier looked at the whiskey for a moment, then took it.
“Thanks.”
“It’s for the fuel.” She answered him calmly.
After saying that, she walked back to her car, started it, and left the gas station. Now that she knew that soldiers were also collecting fuel, she couldn’t collect it from normal gas stations anymore. Otherwise she would alarm those soldiers, which is not good for her safety. She looked for the nearest oil refinery on her phone. It is sixty kilometers away from the outskirts of J City.
She zoomed in on the map, examining every place carefully. From where she is now to the oil refinery, she will pass through the warehouse area and factory area on the outskirts of the city. After planning the route, she marks every place she wants to go.
First, she will go to the warehouse area, then to the factory area, then to the oil refinery. These areas are not very populated, and when the end of the world arrives, it’s exactly in the middle of the night. She was sure that there were not many zombies there. At most, there are a few guards. If those guards are lucky, half of them will survive.
Seeing the high profit but low risk route, she put her phone on the dashboard of her car and picked up the pace. She didn’t have much time before the supplies were cleared away by soldiers or other survivors. Besides, there were only a little over eight hours until sunrise. She has to finish everything before then.
Driving at high speed, she soon arrived at the warehouse area. She got out of the car with a backpack and a baseball bat on her back, touched the car and put it back in the spirit courtyard. Before taking action, she first scans her surroundings.
No humans or zombies in sight. This is a good sign. She wasted no more time, keeping her vigilant as she trotted toward the first warehouse in the area. After picking the lock, she pushed open the warehouse, and saw rows of shelves full of boxes in the large warehouse. The boxes were stacked until there was only a small alley in the middle for people to walk around between the shelves.
Seeing the supplies, her eyes lit up. Although she didn’t know what was in those boxes, she still put them away first, and would check them slowly in her spirit courtyard later. With this first warehouse, she began a three-hour non-stop collection. Standing outside the last warehouse, she glanced at the empty room before taking out her off-road vehicle.
After getting in the car, she started the car and drove to the next place. The factory area is not far from the warehouse area. She only needs to drive at high speed for ten minutes to reach the first factory.
The factory area is larger than the warehouse area, and the buildings are larger than the warehouses. Seeing the factory buildings, she smiled happily and drove to the first factory. This is a seed factory, and this brand of seeds is very famous for their high germination rate. These seeds also produce a high quality product in a short harvest time.
After getting out of the car and making sure no one was around, she ran into the factory. When she broke the lock and walked into the factory, she met two zombie guards. With all her strength, she smashed the zombie’s head into paste.
Since it was only two days after the apocalypse, the zombies were still moving slowly. With her physical ability after swallowing the spirit creation pill, as long as she has the courage to fight against the zombies, she can easily kill them. The zombies are dead and nothing can stop her from collecting everything, including those factory machines.
Her principles are simple. She will collect everything because her future is uncertain. Besides, even if she doesn’t need them now, her descendants will be able to use them in the future. There’s no need to hold back when collecting things.
Although the factory area is larger than the warehouse area, there are not many things in the factory area. These machines take up more space than the supplies. In an hour, she finished cleaning the factory area and went on the way to the oil refinery.
After walking for more than twenty minutes, she arrived at the oil refinery. It was the first time she had seen the oil refinery up close. She looked up at the huge oil tanks, and her mouth couldn’t be closed. She wondered how much fuel those tanks could hold.
Walking into the oil refinery in awe, she came to the finished product area, where oil was kept for shipment. Standing in the first oil tank, she looked at the words printed in the tank.
“My god, it’s 10.000 tons of oil….”
Swallowing, she touched the huge oil tank and put it directly into the next empty floor of the warehouse in the spirit courtyard. With her mind, she saw that the huge oil tank was already in the warehouse. She breathed a sigh of relief and started collecting the oil tanks.
She doesn’t care if the tank is empty or not, as she just collects everything. If the tank is empty, she can use it to refill fuel at those gas stations in the future. Looking at the progress of the past few days, she can also guess what will happen in the future.
There is no more production going on, no more clean water to use, no more land to grow, and even the weather is unpredictable. In such a world, she would feel at ease only if she had more supplies in her hands.
After cleaning up the oil refinery to the last drop of oil, she drove back to J City. J City is one of the richest cities with a small population of two hundred thousand citizens only, and she can still collect a lot of supplies from the city. There are lots of supplies with low zombie counts right now. If she left the city without collecting more supplies, she must be stupid.