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On the third day of the end of the world, it’s 5:40 in the morning.

Lin Yue stood next to the van and checked the equipment one last time.The engineer shovel is inserted into the specially welded slot on the side of the driver's seat - this is Wang Hao's craft last night. It is fixed on the side of the seat with two pieces of angle iron and four bolts, and the shovel handle can be pulled out with one push.On the passenger seat was a mountaineering bag dug out of the cold storage. It contained ropes, crowbars, two bottles of water, four packs of compressed biscuits, a first aid kit and a roll of insulation tape.There was a small gasoline generator in the back compartment - one of the three that was brought back from the warehouse supermarket the day before yesterday - which had been filled with oil and fixed to the anchor point on the floor of the compartment with straps.

Lu Hanshuang walked over from the direction of the sentry tower, carrying her semi-automatic rifle on her back and a matte black dagger at her waist.She did not wear the black tactical jacket today, but changed into a dark gray long-sleeved quick-drying jacket. The cuffs were tightened so that they would not affect drawing the knife or holding the gun.She walked over to the van, opened the door, and threw a small backpack on the back seat.

"I brought two walkie-talkies with me and six spare batteries. *** checked. The route was confirmed for the last time - take the auxiliary road, pass through the old industrial area, go east along the north bank of the river, and climb into the wall on the north side of the biological park. It is four kilometers one way, and the journey is expected to take fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the traffic conditions."

"What should I do if I encounter a zombie?" Lin Yue asked.He asked this question in a casual tone, as if he was asking whether the soy milk this morning was sweet or salty.

"Scattered zombies - kill them at close range, without using guns. When encountering a group of zombies - take a detour instead of charging hard. If the target building is occupied by zombies - give up and go back the way you came." Lu Hanshuang opened the car door and got into the passenger seat, put the rifle on his lap, pointed the muzzle down, and looked forward. "You make the rules. I am only responsible for enforcing them."

Lin Yue walked around the front of the car, sat in the driver's seat, and started the engine.The roar of the diesel engine seemed particularly abrupt in the silence of the early morning - this van burned gasoline, and the engine sound was much lighter than the diesel engine. But in the early morning of the third day of the apocalypse, when there was almost no other mechanical noise, the sound of any engine was like lighting a match in the darkness.

"Has the vehicle power supply system been connected?" Lin Yue shouted in the direction of the power distribution room.

Wang Hao leaned half out from the door of the power distribution room, holding a pair of wire strippers in his hand."It was connected last night! The generator output is connected to the inverter, the inverter is connected to the voltage regulator, and the voltage regulator is connected to the socket - your freezer can be plugged in and used. But Brother Lin, the load should not exceed two kilowatts. The rated power of this generator is two kilowatts, not the peak power. If it burns, don't blame me for not reminding you."

Fang Jing walked out from behind Wang Hao, holding a multimeter in his hand, and added: "I have adjusted the voltage, and the output is stable at two hundred and twenty volts plus or minus three volts. The bumps in the vehicle may affect the voltage. It is recommended to turn on the freezer after arriving at the destination."

Lin Yue glanced at them and nodded.Wang Hao and Fang Jing nodded at the same time, and then they went back to the power distribution room.From yesterday afternoon to now, they stayed in that small power distribution room for more than twelve hours. Wang Hao taught Fang Jing the temper of diesel engines, and Fang Jing helped Wang Hao optimize the wiring of the power distribution cabinet.In less than a day of knowing each other, the two have established a technical tacit understanding that requires no unnecessary words.

When the car drove out of the main entrance of the logistics park, Lin Yue saw Zhao Ming in the rearview mirror.He stood behind the main entrance, standing straight as the engineer shoveled the ground.He didn't wave, and neither did Lin Yue.

The van turned onto the service road and drove east.

The early morning in the north of the city was quieter than any other time in Lin Yue's memory.On both sides of the auxiliary road are continuous old industrial factories. The red brick walls are covered with dried ivy. The broken windows look like empty eyes in the morning light.There were no cars or pedestrians on the road, only plastic bags and dead leaves occasionally blown up by the wind.The road was littered with broken glass and rearview mirror shells that had fallen from an unknown vehicle. Lin Yue held the steering wheel tightly, carefully avoiding those sharp fragments - a flat tire in this environment meant abandoning the car, and abandoning the car meant walking four kilometers through an urban area where corpses might be infested.

After driving about two kilometers, they encountered the first zombie.

It stood at the intersection of a side road and an alley, its back facing the van, its body swaying slightly from side to side.It was a middle-aged man wearing a security uniform. There was a fist-sized wound on the back of his head. It was no longer bleeding, and the edge of the wound was gray-black.It did not sense the car - the sound of the diesel engine had attenuated to the point of being almost inaudible after two buildings, and the low-frequency vibrations of the gasoline engine did not travel as far as the diesel engine.

Lu Hanshuang's hand was already on the door handle.

"No need." Lin Yue said. He turned the steering wheel a little to the right, and the car slid through the three-meter-wide gap to the left of the zombie.The security zombie seemed to sense something when the car passed by and turned its head sharply, but its reaction was too slow - the car had already driven more than ten meters.Lin Yue saw it spinning in place in the rearview mirror, like a radar that had lost its signal, and then started shaking again.

"Its hearing is slower than the batch last night." Lu Hanshuang said.

"It's not that it's more sluggish. It's just that it hasn't been activated yet." Lin Yue turned the steering wheel back to the right position. "The senses of zombies are passively triggered in the early stage. They will not actively search for prey unless stimulated by sound, light or smell. This security guard died in the alley, with no other zombies around. It stood there until something activated it. In the first three months, there were more 'stationary' zombies than 'wandering' zombies. It will be different after three months."

"Why is it different after three months?"

"They will start to search actively. Not by senses, but by - I can't tell. It's like some kind of group memory. When a zombie finds its prey, all the zombies ten kilometers away will move in that direction within a few hours. In the previous life, we called it the 'resonance effect'. No one knows the principle."

Lu Hanshuang was silent for a while, and then said something that surprised Lin Yue: "It's not resonance. It's a swarm. The swarm has no individual consciousness, but has group navigation. The virus may have built some kind of signal relay mechanism in the nervous system of the zombies - it receives chemical signals released by its peers, and then broadcasts its own status."

Lin Yue glanced at her.She was looking out the window at the factory walls passing by, her expression unchanged, as if she was stating a physical law that had nothing to do with her.

"You have talked with Su Muqing." Lin Yue said.

"Last night. She showed me the ganglion sample of the licker." Lu Hanshuang turned around, "She said that the virus was modifying the host's nervous system. What I said was all what she said. That Dr. Su of yours has more things in her head than the pockets of her white coat."

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