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​ ## 1. Birds

Three gray-green pickup trucks stopped fifty meters outside the factory gate.

After the engine was turned off, the silence of the wasteland enveloped the area again.Lin Shuang stood on the top of the factory building, with the crossbow in his hand and the crosshairs of the scope pointed at the windshield of the first car.Her finger was not on the trigger—not because she didn't want to shoot, but because she wanted to see what the men were going to do first.

Zhang Xiaomei squatted next to her, the binoculars pressed against her eyes.

"The car door opened." Zhang Xiaomei whispered, "A person got out. A woman."

The woman got out of the passenger seat and stood next to the car door without moving forward.She was wearing dark gray combat pants and a black fleece top, with a vest covered with magazine pouches and a walkie-talkie.Her hair is very short, almost touching her scalp, her face is thin, her cheekbones are high, her eyes are small but sharp.

She raised her head and looked towards the roof of the factory.

It was no coincidence - she had known there was someone on the roof.Her eyes accurately locked on where Lin Shuang and Zhang Xiaomei were hiding, then she raised her right hand, spread her fingers, palm facing forward, and shook it left and right.

A common gesture in the wasteland: cease fire, talk.

"System, scan that person."

"Scanning. Target: female, about thirty-five years old. Vital signs are normal, no obvious injuries. Weapons carried: one pistol (on the side of the waist), one dagger (on the outside of the calf). There is a magazine pouch and a walkie-talkie in the tactical vest. Threat assessment: Medium. It is recommended to remain vigilant."

Thirty-five years old.woman.Commander-level equipment and psychological quality.

Lin Shuang put the crossbow down—not completely, but from the aiming position to the ready-to-fire position, with the muzzle facing down and her fingers leaving the trigger guard.She stood up and exposed half of her body, letting the other party see that she had a weapon in her hand, but it was not aiming.

This action is a signal in the wasteland of "I can hit you, but I choose not to hit you."

The woman saw it, nodded, then turned around and said something to the car.The doors of three cars opened at the same time, and about ten people got out - seven women and three men, all wearing similar clothing and carrying weapons.But their weapon configuration is not all automatic rifles like the Reapers, but a variety of types: shotguns, crossbows, machetes, and even a long-range bow modified from a compound bow.

They stood in a row next to the car and did not disperse, did not search, and did not make any military "preparation for attack" actions.Just stood and waited.

The woman walked toward the factory gate alone.

Zhang Xiaomei slid down from the roof and stood behind the iron gate, holding a machete in her hand.Lin Shuang stayed on the roof, and the crossbow's scope was put back on the back of the woman's head - if she made any movement, it would only take 0.3 seconds from Lin Shuang pulling the trigger to the arrow hitting the target.

The woman walked to the iron door, stopped, raised her hand, and knocked on the iron door three times.

"Hello." Her voice was not loud, but it was clear, and she could hear it clearly through the iron door, "I am Fang Qing from the 'Flying Bird' convoy - 'Flying Bird' is the code name of the reconnaissance team of the 'Oasis' settlement in the south. We passed by this area and saw traces of human activity, and wanted to confirm if there are survivors here. If so, we would like to ask if we need help - medicine, food, or moving to a safer settlement."

Zhang Xiaomei did not open the door.She pressed against the iron door and asked in a low voice, "Which department are you from?"

"The wasteland rescue team comes from the south. We have a settlement fifty kilometers north of the Free Market, called the Oasis. There are walls, farmland, and medical stations. We regularly send fleets to search for survivors in the surrounding area and bring them to the oasis."

"What about after you take it there? It's free?"

Fang Qing twitched the corner of her mouth - not politely, but a helpless inertial reaction after being asked this question countless times.

"It's not free. When you get to the oasis, everyone has to work. Farming, construction, patrolling, doing manual work - work is distributed according to ability. Part of the income from labor is used for personal consumption, and part is turned over as public expenditure. The same rules for your survival anywhere - no labor, no food. "

Zhang Xiaomei looked back at Lin Shuang on the roof.Lin Shuang nodded slightly.

Zhang Xiaomei opened the small door on the iron gate - not a large door, but a small door wide enough for one person.

Fang Qing walked in from the small door.

She stood in the yard at the entrance of the factory and glanced around - the barbed wire fence on the wall, the sharpened wooden stakes at the corners of the walls and the horses crossed on the ground, the two fixed crossbows on the top of the factory - the brackets that Lin Shuang welded with factory scraps, the range was twice as long as that of hand-held crossbows, and the traces of carefully placed traps on the ground.Her eyes changed from calm at first to surprise, and then from surprise to something more complex, with a look and calculation expression.

“You built this?” she asked.

"Yes." Lin Shuang came down from the roof and stood in front of Fang Qing.

The two women face each other.Lin Shuang is half a head taller than Fang Qing and has a stronger build.Although Fang Qing was wearing a vest full of equipment, it could be seen that her figure was thin - not from malnutrition, but from being lean after long-term high-intensity exercise, like a cheetah.

"Are you the person in charge here?" Fang Qing asked.

"Yes. Lin Shuang."

"Fang Qing." Fang Qing stretched out her hand.

Lin Shuang didn’t hold on.Her hand held a crossbow.

Fang Qing took her hand back, not embarrassed or angry.

"Can I see your base?" she asked, "It's not reconnaissance, but I want to know your strength. If you are strong enough, maybe we can cooperate - exchange what we have, or jointly defend."

Lin Shuang looked at her and was silent for three seconds.

"You can watch it. But you can't take pictures, draw pictures, or take anything out. "

"Okay."

​ ## 2. Visit

Lin Shuang took Fang Qing for a walk around the factory.

The first thing to look at is the wall.Fang Qing patted the wall with her palm - it was made of bricks with cement mortar on the outside, about thirty centimeters thick and two and a half meters high.She nodded and said nothing.

The next thing we look at is the trap area.Zhang Xiaomei took off several disguises, revealing the deep pit, bamboo stick array and animal trap below.Fang Qing squatted down and touched the tip of the bamboo stick with her fingers - it was sharpened and roasted with fire, making it very hard.

"How many people can these traps deal with?" Fang Qing asked.

"It depends on how many people there are." Zhang Xiaomei said, "Ten or eight is no problem. Any more will not work."

Fang Qing stood up and patted the dirt on her hands.

"Your defense idea is right - multi-layered and three-dimensional. But there is a problem." She pointed to the open space to the north of the factory, "There is a blind spot over there. The wall is only two and a half meters. If someone climbs over the wall with a ladder from the north, your fixed crossbow cannot hit that angle."

Lin Shuang glanced at her.She was right, the open space to the north was indeed a defensive blind spot.But Lin Shuang didn't have time to deal with it yet - there were not enough manpower and the construction schedule could not be scheduled.

"Thanks for the reminder." Lin Shuang said.

The next thing to look at is the water purifier.When Fang Qing saw the system composed of iron buckets and plastic pipes, she was obviously stunned.She squatted down, carefully looked at every interface and every layer of filter material, and then stood up.

"Did you do this yourself?"

"Yes."

"Are you an engineer?"

"I was an engineer."

Fang Qing didn’t ask again.But her eyes stayed on the water purifier for a long time, as if she was estimating how much material this thing was worth.

The last thing we looked at was the vegetable patch.

The seedlings in the low-lying land jumped up again.Two round leaves unfolded, and a new shoot the size of a needle emerged from the middle - so tender and green that when you touch it, your fingertips will feel a little velvet.Fang Qing stood on the ground, looking at the green that was so pale that it was almost invisible, her lips slightly opened.

"Growing things on the waste soil." Her voice was very soft, "We are also planting, but we use greenhouses and nutrient solutions. You are the first to grow in the open air."

"The soil conditions here are okay." Lin Shuang said, "The radiation value is low, the soil is black, a bit sticky when you pinch it, not acidic or alkaline - I have tasted it, and it is not astringent."

Fang Qing turned around and looked at Lin Shuang.

“Do you know what I’m thinking?”

"I'm thinking about how to incorporate us into your 'oasis'."

Fang Qing laughed out loud, briefly, like a gun being reset.This time I really laughed, not a helpless inertia reaction, but a smile with admiration after being seen through.

"Yes. I want to take you all back. Your engineering ability, her military ability -" she pointed at Zhang Xiaomei, "-this vegetable field, this water purifier. You people can play ten times the role in the 'Oasis'."

"But we won't go." Lin Shuang said.

"Why? The 'oasis' has walls, thousands of people, electricity, and a real hospital. You have nothing here. There are more than a dozen people, half of them elderly and children, and the food can't last ten days. How long can you last?"

Lin Shuang looked at Fang Qing, her eyes as calm as a pool of stagnant water.

"We won't go, not because your place is not good. It's because we need our own territory. On other people's territory, others will always have the final say. I need a place where I have the final say."

Fang Qing was silent for a few seconds.

"You," she said, "look like you have been in the army."

"Stayed."

"Me too. XX Group Army, Communications Corps - I'm working on the radio station in the rear, and your engineers are building bridges on the front."

Lin Shuang’s eyebrows moved.

"XX Group Army, Engineering Corps."

Fang Qing stretched out her hand.This time Lin Shuang got it. Page (1/3)