Finishing this whole thing cleanly was crucial. If anyone found a trace of what they had done, the consequences would be terrifying. Just think about it. After swallowing over 3,000 tons of goods, they would be facing the full wrath of Austin. It wouldn't just be some slaver flying a helicopter after them anymore. And for some reason, Jing Shu always got a little thrill whenever she saw others being chased. Hah, damn it. When it was her turn, it didn't feel fun at all.
Last time, when Yang Yang got hunted by that slaver in a gunship, the situation had been dire. If he hadn't had You Hao's insane luck helping him pull off that mistake-turned-miracle, he probably wouldn't even be alive to talk now.
"For my own safety!" Jing Shu muttered as she shoveled another load of heavy, damp dirt, her muscles straining with the rhythmic effort. She was carefully following the blasting plan Yang Yang had drawn out. Once all the goods were moved, everyone would retreat through the emergency tunnel. After that, she would blow the whole passage to hell. She would bury everything under tons of rock and dust, making sure the other side couldn't even guess which direction they had escaped in. That was her trick to buy time.
It didn't take much explosive to collapse half a mountain. The key was that there was magma below, glowing with a dull, subterranean heat. All she had to do was blast apart the ring of load-bearing supports under the mountain's base, and the entire slope would sink inward. From above, it would look like a natural "collapse accident." By the time the others came down to investigate, the supplies would have already vanished. Once they realized they had been tricked, checking the site again would only give Jing Shu's team more time to escape.
Besides setting explosives, she also had to keep showing up at the surface every day like nothing was wrong. She would carry out basins full of lush, green herbs from the lab, the scent of damp earth and vegetation clinging to her clothes as she pretended to load them onto trucks headed for the fortress. The trucks would drive a loop, their tires crunching over the gravel, return, and do it all over again. And every couple of days, she would haul out boxes of "converted seeds," letting them pass right before the eyes of the overseers.
Of course, that was all an illusion. The purpose was to make the supervisors think they were just processing resources as usual with the Water of Life, giving off the impression that everything was running smoothly. This kind of quiet psychological cue was the deadliest of all. It wasn't loud or obvious, just subtle enough to make people accept it without question. If you shouted and drew attention, that would only make them suspicious.
The whole setup worked because every little piece connected naturally, and nothing was forced or exaggerated. It matched what everyone already believed about the situation. It was like a scene in a movie where the actor eats during a meal; what they're chewing might not be real food, but no one notices because the audience isn't focused on the plate.
But if the same scene went on too long without the actor touching their food, people would immediately notice something is off. That was the essence of a magician's trick: distraction. What he wants you to see is just the cover for what is really happening. This entire operation was one grand illusion.
Those were some long, nerve-wracking days. Every time another crate left the tunnel, disappearing into the dark maw of the passage, Jing Shu's heart would skip a beat. Now she truly understood what it felt like to have a guilty conscience.
At the tunnel's far end, a crew was waiting to take over, hauling the goods to the cargo ships anchored beyond Austin's borders. That was where Dr. B's and Jing Shu's teams would part ways. Yang Yang managed the whole process. If even one link went wrong, it would be impossible to move all 3,000 tons of cargo. This wasn't like their old black-market runs, where they could just dump everything on a ship and call it done.
Everything had gone smoothly, surprisingly enough, until a bunch of uninvited guests almost ruined everything. Those guests were post-apocalyptic monsters: rats the size of piglets that ate anything they could find. Their fur was matted and patchy, and their eyes glowed with a feral hunger.
Jing Shu had known that America's climate didn't just raise people well; it raised bugs too. Even before the apocalypse, there were huge spiders and freakish reptiles, not to mention rats that grew absurdly big. But she hadn't expected a swarm of them to hit like this.
Maybe it was because Zhen Nantian released all sorts of creatures every day to stir chaos. The overseers, used to that, simply assumed this was another one of Dr. B's experiments. He had warned them before that the Water of Life might attract other unknown lifeforms, so no one took it too seriously. They just killed whatever came. They roasted the edible ones on the spot over small fires and hacked the infected ones to pieces before tossing them aside.
These undead creatures weren't huge like the zombie hippos, but they were enough to keep the guards busy for a while. Still, with so many dead animals piling up, the stench of blood and rot became overwhelming. It hung thick in the stagnant air, drawing in something far worse: an army of rats.
Tens of thousands of giant, virus-infected rats poured toward the mountain entrance. They stuck together in a dense, writhing tide of fur and teeth. Their movement wasn't fast, but wherever they passed, nothing survived. Their target was clear: the mountain mouth. They weren't normal creatures anymore, just mindless bacterial masses moving as one.
Before the apocalypse, scientists had called this the most severe case of species degeneration. Life was devolving back into bacteria. Ironically, those same bacteria might evolve again into new forms perfectly suited to the end times. So congratulations, scientists. You got one point back. By the fifth winter of the apocalypse, when countless species went extinct, these bacterial abominations had successfully evolved into invasive species.
Alarms blared, the sharp sound echoing off the rock walls. Overseers, bodyguards, and the slaver's A-team engineers all froze at the sight. This wasn't a few dozen. It was thousands, tens of thousands, crawling toward them like a gray-black ocean.
"Damn it, kill them! If they reach the supplies, we will lose everything!"
"We need to call for reinforcements!"
"No time! They will be here in under three minutes!"
"Protect the cargo inside!"
The rats weren't scared of gunfire. Someone opened up with a machine gun, the heavy rattle of the weapon shaking the air, but it was like shooting into water. There was no splash, no effect, nothing. The bullets just disappeared into the squirming mass of bodies.
A few men rushed out swinging machetes, the blades flashing in the dim light, only to be tackled and buried under a squirming, squealing wave of gray fur. Their screams echoed for a few seconds before being cut off completely. When the rats finally moved on, scuttling away with wet, red muzzles, not even bones were left.
"What now?!"
Mrs. C grabbed Dr. B's sleeve, her fingers clenching the fabric. "Dr. B, something is wrong! We have got an emergency! We might be exposed ahead of schedule!" She quickly explained the situation, her words tumbling out in a rush. "What do we do? How the hell do we stop those damn rats? We can't let them near the site!
The rats themselves weren't the real problem; they could always run. The real danger was that the chaos would expose their whole setup. The cargo was almost gone, but if someone got suspicious and started investigating, everything would come to light.
And once the enemy sent out planes to patrol, they would quickly spot the ships hiding near the canal. Recovering all the stolen goods would just be a matter of minutes. If that happened, all their effort would have been for nothing.