The soldiers who went out on missions together with Xue Ling soon discovered the benefits of having Xue Ling around.

Missions that used to be difficult suddenly became much easier!

In the past, when their squad carried out this kind of mission, they needed to be fully armed, equipped with suppressive firepower, and act quickly, just to advance into parts of the city where the number of zombies was not too high.

If it were just a quick sweep, that would be one thing, but they were not there for sightseeing. They had tasks to complete, and usually could not withdraw quickly, needing to remain in the city for a long time.

They had many people, and once they stayed too long, zombies would gather from all directions.

When there were many zombies, they consumed more ammunition, but in reality the base’s supplies were not abundant, and the weapons and ammunition they could use were limited.

Moreover, the side effect of suppressive firepower was that it was too loud, which would attract even more zombies, increasing the difficulty of their missions.

So although this kind of mission was called a routine mission, it did not mean it was an easy one. Every time, there would be casualties.

But once Xue Ling arrived, she directly took over the most difficult part of the mission.

She proactively had everyone else station themselves on the outskirts, while she drove a vehicle into the city to transport the medical equipment they needed.

At the beginning, when the captain watched her—so small and thin—drive a military truck into the city, he felt a bit uneasy.

But as one truckload after another of materials on the mission list, as well as important scarce supplies not on the mission list, were transported back by her, even the usually steady captain could not help but feel surging excitement.

Every time Xue Ling drove the truck and appeared at the intersection, everyone hurried over to receive it, eager to see what she had brought back. If they were not afraid that the noise would attract zombies, they would have been cheering.

They had never done such an easy mission before!

Xue Ling pushed open the car door and got out, showing the captain the photos and videos she had taken on the tablet. “There are also these devices in this hospital. I don’t recognize them. Do we need to move them back together?”

The captain did not actually recognize them either, but he decisively said, “Move them!”

Don’t be fooled by how well-built the Beizheng Base looked—actually, it lacked everything. Everyone lived frugally, and if they could take more, they would take more.

Xue Ling thought the same. When she used to wander around the city, every time she saw usable items left there gathering dust, she felt it was a waste. Unfortunately, many things were useless to both her and Wen Jiuzhe.

Now that the base needed them, Xue Ling’s urge to shop and hoard also exploded.

That left only one problem.

“Many things are too heavy. I can’t move them.”

Captain: “What’s so hard about that? We’ll teach you how to operate a crane!”

The soldiers chimed in one after another: “We’ll arrange a tow truck too!”

“And an excavator!”

“I can operate a crane truck!”

The captain waved his hand grandly: “Learn them all. Arrange to send the vehicles over!”

Another soldier shouted, “I can fly a fighter jet!”

Xue Ling: “?!”

Really, can you learn fighter jets too?

A fighter jet pilot—sounds so cool. If there’s a chance in the future to fly a fighter jet and take Wen Jiuzhe on a mission, it would definitely scare him.

There was no way to learn that for now, because there was no fighter jet for her to use, but everything else could be learned quickly.

At times like this, no one cared about any zombie certification. As long as a wheeled machine could be driven on the road, there was no need to follow traffic rules. Hitting zombies on the road wasn’t illegal, so it could be driven however one wanted.

With her previous experience learning to drive with Wen Jiuzhe, Xue Ling picked it up quickly this time as well.

In this city occupied by zombies, for several consecutive days there were vehicles recklessly charging through the streets, the noise attracting quite a few aimlessly wandering zombies in the city.

The zombies would excitedly chase the vehicles for a long time, but in the end only one of their own would get out of the vehicle. Sensing no human scent, the group of zombies would then disperse on the spot.

Xue Ling felt that if they were dragged around like this every day, if they could talk, they would probably be cursing people.

Today, Master Xue, who was once again plundering the hospital on a large scale, put on her hat and gloves and began work.

She dragged a small trailer behind her, loaded with more and more tools—generators, impact hammers, electric drills, chainsaws, and the like.

To make it easier to move equipment, she even dismantled several doors.

That noisy, ear-piercing thudding and buzzing echoed throughout the hospital, drawing wave after wave of zombies to come and watch, packing tightly around Xue Ling.

If it were any human standing here, they would have been long gone, but Xue Ling only needed to worry that they were too crowded.

When she started hammering at the walls, Xue Ling felt like she was a renovation worker.

By the time she began transporting the equipment upstairs, taking out the instructional videos and tools the captain had given her and preparing to use a backup power source to restart the elevator, Xue Ling felt like she was an electrician again.

Before going on the mission, when she held an assault rifle she had never seen before, the scene she imagined in her mind was herself, face full of determination, mowing down zombies.

Only after actually going on the mission did she realize that the end of the world was civil engineering.

Xue Ling’s team spent several more days than originally planned before finally returning to the base.

They returned fully loaded. As the overloaded convoy passed through the base’s wheat fields, someone took the lead in singing “Returning from Target Practice.”

Xue Ling also knew this song, but she couldn’t bring herself to sing. She just gently swayed to the rhythm, sitting among them, also infected by their pure joy.

At this moment, she felt a sense of reassurance. She also had this feeling when she was with Wen Jiuzhe, but the two were not the same.

The reassurance Wen Jiuzhe gave her was, “No matter what happens, he will protect me.” The reassurance now was, “I have the ability to protect others.”

Xue Ling excellently completed the mission, bringing back double the supplies listed on the mission list.

Although this mission still couldn’t earn a merit medal, General Hao specially issued her a certificate of merit, and even handwritten a letter of thanks, along with additional material rewards.

While Xue Ling was at the base receiving certificates, rewards, and getting along harmoniously with everyone, Wen Jiuzhe, who had not yet reached Donghai City, was isolating himself from everyone in the action squad.

This forty-man squad was led by Special Forces Captain Shen Zhang. Wen Jiuzhe, as the most important link in the mission and also because of his special status, was arranged to sit among a vehicle full of soldiers.

The soldiers’ faces were solemn, sitting upright. Wen Jiuzhe lay across from them flipping through an instruction manual, also saying nothing. The atmosphere inside the vehicle was heavy, with only the sound of the vehicle driving on the road.

They were on a forced march and rarely stopped. Every time they stopped to eat and rest, Wen Jiuzhe stayed alone in the carriage, not communicating with anyone.

In fact, he had been like this before when he went on missions with convoys, rarely paying attention to others.

But back then, he habitually wore a casual smile on his face, giving people the first impression that he had a pretty good temper and didn’t care much about anything.

Now zombies didn’t smile. With that superficial fake smile gone, the coldness in Wen Jiuzhe’s bones was fully exposed.

Paired with his tall build and the bluish-gray face of a zombie, he easily put pressure on people.

There were several people in the team who had been recruited after passing assessments. When they entered the special forces and learned that they would be carrying out an important mission, they were all proud and arrogant, practically looking down their noses at everyone.

On the first day they saw Wen Jiuzhe in the team, the wariness and rejection on their faces were impossible to hide.

With Captain Shen Zhang keeping them in check, they didn’t dare cause trouble outright, but they deliberately spoke loudly near the vehicle, making snide remarks like, “Will the zombie in the car eat people,” and “I can’t believe a zombie is afraid of being attacked from behind.”

Wen Jiuzhe opened the car window, casually gave them the middle finger, then lay back down and continued reading the instruction manual.

He hadn’t even read two lines of the complicated manual when he thought of Xue Ling. If she ran into something like this, how would she react?

She would probably start looking for her own faults again, feeling miserable inside while pretending that nothing was wrong.

She could only be happy in an environment where everyone liked her. Once she was acknowledged, she would desperately give her all in exchange for more recognition and affection, exhausting herself in the end.

Wen Jiuzhe was completely different from her. Other people’s recognition and liking? What did that even count for.

His goal was simply to cooperate with the mission. He had no intention whatsoever of building relationships with anyone in the team or dealing with interpersonal conflicts.

The few specially recruited talents gathered privately and spoke resentfully about Wen Jiuzhe.

They were the real special talents who had gone through countless hardships, passing test after test to get in, yet here there was someone with even more special treatment—and a zombie at that. How was that supposed to make anyone feel comfortable.

Setting those few aside, the soldiers in this squad also didn’t have a good impression of Wen Jiuzhe, thinking he was too aloof.

“Could it be that he’s too nervous on missions, so he doesn’t interact with people? When I saw him at the base, he wasn’t like this,” one soldier said.

“At the time, there was another zombie around. I saw them holding a tablet and chatting the whole time, they talked a lot.”

They analyzed it behind his back, suspecting that the tablet Wen Jiuzhe used to communicate might be broken, which was why he wasn’t interacting with anyone.

The tablet had been tossed aside by Wen Jiuzhe, its screen black.

The row of soldiers sitting across from him all cast their gazes over, nudging each other with their elbows back and forth, but no one took the initiative to ask.

In the end, after Captain Shen Zhang finished his work, he deliberately sat down next to Wen Jiuzhe and asked him with a serious expression, “If there’s anything you need help with, you can bring it up.”

“No,” Wen Jiuzhe said hoarsely, his eyes never leaving the instruction manual.

Captain Shen Zhang looked at him, then at the tablet, and put away his surprised expression. “So you can speak. That will make communication more convenient for us.”

Wen Jiuzhe neither confirmed nor denied it, flipping a page.

Even after learning that he could actually speak, in the following days, no one saw Wen Jiuzhe take the initiative to chat with anyone.

The only time he spoke up to ask something was to ask how long it would take to reach Donghai City.

“Donghai City is relatively far, it will still take some time,” Captain Shen Zhang said. His inner disposition was much more delicate than his appearance suggested.

He observed Wen Jiuzhe for a while, then asked very directly, “Are you missing Xue Ling?”

Wen Jiuzhe: “……”

Missing wasn’t quite accurate. Worried was more appropriate.

This issue had already shown an increasingly serious trend ever since he reunited with Xue Ling last year.

Wherever Xue Ling went, he had to follow. Otherwise, he couldn’t help but imagine her encountering danger and difficulties.

The longer he stayed away, the more restless he became, to the point that he couldn’t even patiently read the instruction manual he’d been holding all along.

In that state, he was like a large beast pacing back and forth inside a cage, making the surrounding soldiers unable to help but feel tense, instinctively wanting to stay farther away from him.

Amid this low-pressure atmosphere, they finally arrived at Donghai City and prepared to begin the operation.

The Donghai City bridge had been blown up. They needed to cross the river by boat, but many zombies were floating in the river.

These zombies were not yet “dead.” As long as they sensed the presence of living people, they would suddenly start moving.

In a previous operation, the task squad had taken small boats, only to have many zombies cling to them, quickly capsizing the boats.

At the very first step of entering Donghai City, several people had been sacrificed.

This time, they first needed to go to the surrounding areas to look for large ships.

Captain Shen Zhang said, “According to the collected information, there is a shipyard in Hancheng County along the coast. We’ll go to the Hancheng County shipyard first to look for usable vessels. One of the specially recruited talents this time, Jia Hou, is very skilled in shipbuilding and navigation.”

A middle-aged man stood up proudly, but Wen Jiuzhe interrupted them.

“That’s too slow. You go look for ships. I’ll take a speedboat first, cross the river, and go separately.” His voice was dry and hoarse, his phrasing not very smooth. Many people present were hearing him speak for the first time, and were all extremely surprised.

Jia Hou hadn’t even had time to speak before being cut off, and said angrily, “You’re not even the captain, and you want to act over Captain Shen? You really don’t know your place. You think just because you’ve become a zombie you’re omnipotent now…”

Wen Jiuzhe ignored him and only looked at Captain Shen Zhang.

Captain Shen Zhang thought for a moment, recalling General Hao’s instructions before departure, and said:

“This time, you are the core of the mission. You have full autonomy in making decisions. If you think this is better, then we’ll proceed according to your plan first. You set off immediately. We’ll advance slowly from the rear and provide support.”

Wen Jiuzhe stood up, not caring how the others looked at him, and left directly.

“He’s way too arrogant,” someone said in a low voice.

“Can he really complete the mission all by himself? Then what did they recruit all of us for?”

“Maybe he’ll come crawling back for help in a bit.”