After the night passed, it was still night, and in Camp 1123, several kerosene lamps fixed to the wooden poles of the training ground lit up with orange fires, tearing a small hole between this dim world and the world.

Under the light, the snow covering the camp was gradually cleared by the camp scavengers who got up, and piles of small snowy mountains were built on the wilderness outside the camp.

Everyone who cleared the snow was covered in a hot sweat and felt comfortable.

Li Xin's former co-worker slipped the shovel in his hand in one hand and wiped the sweat with the other, full of emotion.

"It's so warm!" He touched the thick clothes and felt the warmth in them.

In the midst of these nine cold days, the cold clothes brought by the leader made the difficult work that used to require great courage to do become incredibly easy and simple.

Clearing the snow, which used to be a life-threatening errand, lacked food to provide calories and no clothing to keep warm, and in this weather where the water turned into ice, before the snow was cleared, several people were almost frozen into ice sculptures.

Perhaps now in other camps, those selected cannon fodder are doing such things, shivering in the cold wind, and finally becoming fresh and refrigerated reserve food, which is like them, sweeping out a sweat.

The man watched contentedly as the last spade of snow was thrown onto the snowdrift by his friend, smiled, and said happily.

"Haha, mission accomplished!"

"yes, it's time for lunch again!" A man who looked a little wooden responded with an honest and honest smile and longing.

"Look at your consciousness, and then look at Li Xin, you can't just think about eating, when we both are clearing the snow here, everyone has become the team leader, we can't lag behind, we have to be a camp, then, what the radio said!" The man with the shovel was so anxious that he only gestured.

"The will and determination to dedicate everything to the better development of the camp?"

"Yes, it is will and determination! But I think if we want to catch up with Li Xin and contribute to the camp, we have to do another thing first! The man with the shovel whispered.

"What?" The man held his friend's hand.

"You're stupid, it's a name, of course it's a name! Li Xin, is that kid like this since he changed his name, so! ”

"Excellent ......," said the man who had learned the word for his friend not long ago.

"Yes, it's excellent, we should have an official name from today, in my opinion......" A cold wind blew, and the sound of their conversation was sandwiched in the heavy snow, and gradually fell silent.

Friend, the word used to be very far away from the scavengers, and in the undernourished camps, there was no friendship, and competition between people was the norm.

However, with plenty of food and learning day after day, the people in the camp are gradually becoming closer to each other.

When the heavy snow in the training grounds was cleared, the scavenger residents took the place of the long-awaited camp soldiers.

Dressed in thick brown winter clothes, they walked out of the camp with a lit fire in a row, and slapped themselves into neat squares in the training ground.

Soon after, while everyone was waiting, Shen Sen also walked out of the warm office, followed by Zhang Ting, who was straight, and the two of them seemed to be talking to each other while rushing in the direction of the camp.

Not long ago, there were lonely homeless people in the wilderness who came to our camp? "What time, how do I not know?"

Shen Sen, who was walking in a hurry, suddenly stopped his steps, and there was some surprise and confusion in his expression.

"Hmm." Zhang Ting nodded, his expression a little ashamed.

"It should have happened during the time we went to the STC factory.

According to Captain Luke, when several scavenger workers in charge of repairing the camp fortifications were moving waste out of the camp that day, they saw a person who had passed out not far from the camp, and when they approached, they found that it was a woman, so they brought him back to the camp.

It's just that the female scavenger was very weak and terminally ill, and she died of an unknown illness only half a day after she brought it back.

This kind of thing, the leader, you used to hand over to Captain Lu to be in charge, so considering that the person was dead, after Luke asked them to bury the body, he didn't pay much attention to it.

When the two of us were chatting, Captain Lu once mentioned this incident, and told me that the female scavenger told her in a daze that she had run out of a camp, and that her subordinates were negligent and didn't care at the time, but they almost missed a big incident. ”

"I see, you don't have to blame yourself, you two didn't do anything wrong."

Shen Sen suddenly realized the reason after learning the reason, he shook his head and stopped Zhang Ting from admitting his mistake.

"Luke is indeed dealing with this matter according to my previous orders, and I only asked about this today for a reason, and I don't blame anyone."

In the final analysis, this matter is Shen Sen's own reason, in the past, there would occasionally be scattered scavengers who fled to Camp 1123, and his general way to deal with this was to take them in after observing for a period of time, as long as they were not people with evil intentions.

Later, he left this trivial matter to Luke, and he no longer paid attention to it, except for a report every two or three months.

In a year's time, there are very few people who can find Camp 1123 alive alone, which is really not a big deal.

Now that I ask about it, it's just because of this selection action.

In the past, due to the expansion of the camp's strength, he had already annexed the four scavenger camps around him that had figured out the situation one by one, and now only one of them was left within a radius of a hundred miles.

Therefore, if you want to take advantage of the selection opportunity of mecha soldiers and circle a wave of people by the way, you must step out of your comfort zone and expand into the unfamiliar areas around you.

The problem is that it is as difficult as looking for a needle in a haystack to find a suitable scavenger camp in the vast wasteland and initiate annexation without the troops being overly dispersed.

Those who are good at fighting, in the midst of strategizing, winning thousands of miles away, the premise of all this is the mastery of information.

But in the absence of a map, let alone a satellite, and with no transportation, it is more difficult to do this.

Originally, Shen Sendu had planned to drive a car to launch a net-like search in the wasteland, but he didn't expect that he had inadvertently mentioned this matter to Zhang Ting just now, and there was hope for a solution so soon.

Shen Sen frowned and asked again with the information just now.

"Did the female scavenger say she came in that direction, the camp is about a few days away on foot?"

Although he didn't expect to learn any accurate terms from the female scavenger, according to the old rules, new scavengers were required to be questioned and registered, and there might be something useful in that.

Shen Sen was worried that if according to the woman's condition, he didn't have time to ask if the person was dead, it would mean that the only clue would be completely cut off.

"It's this thing that the subordinates blame themselves." A trace of annoyance flashed across Zhang Ting's face, and he hurriedly added.

"I heard Captain Lu say that the female scavenger who fled was articulate and spoke unusually. After arranging for someone to let the woman have a full meal, she honestly explained her origin, and the direction was very clear. ”

Wouldn't it be some old man from the former dynasty who was accidentally dug up from the ground?

After listening to Zhang Ting's explanation, this thought suddenly flashed in Shen Sen's heart.

With his clear speech and unusual conversation, he couldn't help but suspect that this woman had the same background as Zhang Ting, the old man of Li.

But it's a pity that he had more important things to do at that time, and he couldn't confirm it in person because he had no evidence to say it.

However, in any case, this is a very important breakthrough point, yes or no, it will not affect him to continue to touch along this line, maybe he will find other scavenger camps smoothly, thinking of this, Shen Sen directly instructed Zhang Ting:

"You go to Luke right now, and ask him to write down the meticulous statement that the woman had said, and then hurry up to the training ground when you're done."

"Yes!" Zhang Ting saluted, and then hurried to find someone.

By the time he returned again, five hundred soldiers had already packed their backs, guns in their hands, and had everything ready.

"Sir, here's all the information I've recorded." Zhang Tingxiao gasped and handed a piece of paper full of words to Shen Sen.

Shen Sen took it and glanced at the paper, and couldn't help but raise his head and glance at Zhang Ting with appreciative eyes.

The good fellow not only wrote, but also drew a simple map of the directions using the camp as a reference.

"The target is in the southeast!"

Shen Sen spread out the paper, compared the camp, and saw a general direction.

In the textual narrative, there seems to be an introduction to the female scavenger's previous survival camp.

There were a lot of people, five or six hundred, well-trained and with plenty of firepower.

The point is also the woman's unintentional sigh: They are very strong, much stronger than you, but what's the use of this, what is lacking in this world is not strength, but knowledge.

This is interesting, if what the female scavenger said is true, it can be seen that the camp on the other side should be doing well.

However, Shen Sen was not too afraid, because at that time he brought five hundred freshly baked soldiers to the STC factory, and what she saw in the camp was not comprehensive, which could lead to a misjudgment of the woman.

However, even so, there were more than 800 people left in the camp, and even if a person with extraordinary conversations could think that 800 people were no match for five or six hundred people, that camp must have some strength.

Strategically despise the enemy, tactically value the enemy.

After Shen Sen silently recited this sentence three times, he had a balance in his heart.

He put away the paper and gave instructions to Zhang Ting: "Tell me to go down, pull out the camp and set up the village, and prepare to go!" ”

"Roger!"

Zhang Ting turned around and trotted into the training ground, he stared at the five hundred soldiers standing solemnly, and conveyed Shen Sen's instructions to all the soldiers.

"The commander ordered, one last time, to start packing and inspecting weapons."

In an instant, the sound of rustling textiles and rubbing sounded, and after a moment calmed down.

"Checked."

"All of them, get in the car and go." With that, Zhang Ting opened the driver's door of the truck and sat down.

Shen Sen was sitting in a pickup truck, the car was at the back, and the snow was too thick for the truck to open the way.

Next to him was the stone who had only learned the driving technique not long ago, and the young man saw that his most respected leader was sitting next to him, and the expression on his face was slightly shy and nervous.

"Don't be nervous, drive steadily, and pay attention to safety." Shen Sen smiled casually and said.

"Yes!" Stone shouted loudly, trying to stand up and salute, but was comically pulled back by his seat belt.

Smiling encouragingly, Shen Sen waved his hand, signaling that he didn't need to be polite, and instead turned his gaze out the window.

The snow has become lighter, but it is still fluttering with fine snowflakes.

This is the second time he has experienced the cold winter of the wasteland, and he doesn't know what it will be like next year.

A world of silver and jade, the whole camp sparkles in the light of stars and candles. The dazzling brilliance seemed to dispel the dark night in the sky.

The stone turned the key steadily, started the engine, and with a buzzing sound, started the car.

Tick!

Didi——!

The pickup truck at the beginning began to whistle, and the four trucks behind echoed in unison.

The convoy began to move slowly, fearlessly heading into the darkness of the distance as the camp watched.

……

How big the entire wasteland was, Shen Sen didn't know before, and he couldn't know.

Even the majority of local waste pickers are unaware of this question.

Humans born in the wasteland after the catastrophe basically perceived the world as the land around them, and in a sense, they were all "frogs at the bottom of the well".

When he first came to this world, Shen Sen didn't know anything about this planet, and out of caution, he had been circling around Camp 1123 without any superfluous thoughts.

It wasn't until the camp was integrated that the remnants of strange buildings, high-tech mechanical exoskeletons, and electromagnetic guns—artifacts that were several eras ahead of Earth—aroused his curiosity about the world.

Shen Sen thought that this was a high-tech wasteland world destroyed by the war, with relics that could revive society.

So after learning some information, he planned a reconnaissance campaign to try to find something useful, resource weapons or some shelter facilities, hoping to help the camp get on a stable trajectory.

But when he is ambitious and ready to expand his territory and explore strange and unknown regions further out, the cruelty of reality then teaches him to be a new man.

The almost disappearing traffic roads, the shortage of food, and the ferocious beasts in the wilderness proliferated by the melting of the snow and ice, even with good preparations, are still struggling.

The threat posed by the natural environment was even more dangerous than the hordes of human wanderers he encountered.

Eventually, during a replenishment event in the green forest, a huge beast hiding in a cold melting pool attacked the exhausted team.

After paying the price of a few lives and hundreds of bullets, Shen Sen declared the mission over.

Since then, the exploration plan has been shelved, and he has been circling a radius of 100 kilometers for almost a whole year.

Luckily, it may have been a good place to be, so it was chosen as the location of some kind of building, and there happened to be a green forest not far from Camp 1123.

As the overlord of the earth among the few forces in the radius, Shen Sen naturally occupied most of the output of the green forest after the cold winter period, and with food, his strength continued to develop like a snowball, and finally annexed several small forces around him.

With a population of thousands and stable camps, going out on an adventure is more than worth the cost. Until Shen Sen obtained the Gate of Time and Space, his exploration scope still hadn't expanded much.

Now his longest travel mission is the experience of driving to the STC factory with 500 recruits some time ago.

Later, with Old Man Li, a relict of the former dynasty, Shen Sen finally had the opportunity to learn general information about this planet.

Although Old Man Li was not an expert on cosmic stars, as a person of that era, his overall understanding of the planet was at least much clearer than Shen Sen and others.

The universe is vast, and the stars in it are difficult to count, in order to accurately assess whether a star is suitable for human survival, Old Man Li and the others have developed a set of evaluation systems that meet their requirements.

In order to make this system more scientific and reasonable, Old Man Li also took into account the scoring criteria of different creatures, and they believed that the habitability of the planet was related to the living habits of the race itself.

For example, for humans, as a race that naturally prefers to live on terrestrial planets, terrestrial planets have a habitability of 60% in their initial rating, and oceanic terrestrial planets with humid climates have the same habitability as jungle planets.

Planets like Earth and Blue Star have self-healing ecosystems. The diverse landscape, the stable atmospheric environment, and the complete and diverse biological chain make it a perfect planet that can be scored as a few hundred percent habitable and extremely rare.

And the wasteland world, according to their classification standards, is only an arid grassland planet with an assessment score of 70% habitability.

Planets slightly larger than Earth have a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere on their surface, and the landscape is dominated by large rocks and plains, with some areas being endless cliffs and canyons.

There are few water sources and only a short rainy season. In addition to a few of the more common weeds on land. Other vegetation is mainly found in areas with milder climates and more water-sourced green forests, where large forests grow and are dangerous areas for predators.

Such a score represents this world, which can barely be developed and utilized after transformation, and the number of mineral resources on it also adds a lot of points to it, so it finally got a higher evaluation than the passing line.

And now, in such a vast wasteland, braving the heavy snow, to find the scattered scavenger camp means that the 500 camp soldiers who participated in the selection must go to unknown and unfamiliar areas to explore.

It's a big challenge!

Four huge trucks drove slowly through the snow, followed by a pickup truck, rolling its tires slowly along the marks that had been rolled out in front of them.

Behind them, five hundred soldiers with marching backpacks on their backs lined up in a long column, trotting briskly, panting after the convoy ahead.

The soldiers in the front rows held slightly worn-out electromagnetic rifles in their hands, while the ranks in the back dozen rows still held Blue Star's AK rifles.

The destination is southeast, an unknown camp whose exact location is unknown.

The more than 100 electromagnetic guns in the camp benefited from the production of the Pioneer mecha, so that they also had the same type of bullets, so the copper and broken iron that were about to retire were once again supported.

Although it is an old model, the performance of the electromagnetic gun is still several times stronger than the traditional AK firepower.

Speed, effective range, accuracy, lethality, just as rifled guns surpassed flintlock guns, electromagnetic guns surpassed rifled guns.

However, they have the same effect on fragile human bodies, requiring only one bullet to kill a person.

After a long time, a voice sounded colder than ice and snow to the soldiers.

"The five-kilometer snow cross-country is over, give you a minute, everyone gets in the car." As he spoke, Zhang Ting, who was standing on the side of the carriage and inspecting the soldiers, began to pinch the seconds.

"Yes." After answering loudly, the soldier who was exhaling white air began to quickly divide into four teams and began to get into the car as fast as he could.

Selection, the word throughout the life of a human being.

Starting from tadpoles, everyone has to be prepared to run all the way down this long route, without stopping even a bit.

Whether it is a primitive or modern society, the instinct of survival and evolution drives humans to become more and more intelligent, but at the same time, the rapidly expanding population also makes their internal competition more and more intense.

To a certain extent, living beings are selfish, and this has nothing to do with morality, but comes from the instinct of genes, and all the contradictions and wars that occur in human society are caused by this contradiction in the final analysis.

But compared to other uncivilized animals, the mysterious soul will of humans has suppressed this impulse, otherwise the weapons they have produced would have destroyed them a hundred times.

There are also selections in the wasteland, but they are cruel and merciless, and those who fail lose not a chance, but their entire lives.

There is a winner in any selection, and he is not necessarily the best, but definitely someone who is willing to accept the environment and make changes to meet the existing needs.

Since this is a selection, there will naturally be no affection.

The strictest, most complex, and highest standards of training have quietly fallen on them from the moment they step out of the camp gates.

The selection of mecha soldiers does not consider a certain ability, but the selection of comprehensive quality.

As spearheads projected into the heart of the enemy, they must have enough ability to ensure their own survival, annihilate the enemy, complete the mission, and rest until death.

This is their mission and their destiny!

Shen Sen looked through the rearview mirror and silently and carefully observed the individual prominent people in the team.

I don't know when, the fine snowflakes turned into goose feather snow again, obscuring the direction outside the front window, causing the convoy to slow down again.

It was cold and there was a lot of snow.

Overnight, almost all areas of the entire wasteland turned into a single color, even if it was a world thousands of miles away.

However, life is a tenacious existence, and as long as they have the opportunity, they will do their best to live.

In the distance, the low and undulating hills and valleys, such a high and cold place, thousands of paths and people disappear, thousands of mountains and birds fly away.

But when you look closely, at the lowest point, there seems to be an abrupt wisp of gray smoke floating high, which seems to be the embers emitted by the burning of firewood.

In the snowy mountains, in the natural environment, it would not have been possible to have such a scene, but since it has appeared, it is extraordinary, indicating that there are scavengers entrenched here.

Pulling the camera into the smoky mountains, between the three brown hills that have gathered together, the mountainside has been covered with white ice and snow, leaving only the slightest wisp of different color at the foot of the mountain, and the faint light of the fire looms.

With a little brilliance, you can see a middle-aged man with a Chinese character face wearing a black and gray patterned combat uniform and short hair on the wooden planks on the bridge at the foot of the mountain, looking at the camp covered by the hills, his eyes are misty.

The mountains are even more cold!

However, this level of weather would hardly affect the normal movements of the most elite artificial warriors in previous lives.

Even in such an environment, hunched over the snow for hours, they could remain motionless, ignoring their stiff bodies in the freezing cold, and killing the first enemy to appear with the bullets in their hands, even at the cost of death.

They are born warriors, and their bodies, their blood and their marrow are the strength to prepare for war.

It is a pity that there is no real war in this barren world now.

"No ...... War"

"So what's our point?"

"Rotting with this desperate world?"

However, even though the physical body is not afraid of the cold, the chill from the spirit seems to be more difficult to accept.

The middle-aged man with the face of the Chinese character has no waves in his eyes, like the pupils of the 10,000-year-old cold pool, which is difficult to dissolve.

But these emotions were quickly suppressed by him, and as a commander with hundreds of lives on his shoulders, he could not show any weakness in the already crumbling camp.

"Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! ”

The sound of the soles of shoes stomping on the snow is particularly loud in the silent valley.

The middle-aged man turned around and looked at the guests who stepped on the bridge, smiling and hiding his exhaustion.

"You're here, how's it going?"

"Not so good!" The visitor was a woman, and a woman with a dignified appearance that was rare in the wasteland.

It's just that the short hair that is slightly longer than the inch head makes it a little less feminine softness and a little more sassy and tough.

"My calculations have come to the conclusion that no matter how much I save on the food supply, there will still be a shortage of food after about 60 days."

"This year, due to the problem of guns and bullets, we have reduced the frequency of hunting, and in order to keep the few ammunition, the crude cold weapons that are often used have greatly reduced the receipts, and it is reasonable that there will be a shortage."

The problem reported was serious, and the difficulties faced by the camp could be described as a desperate situation, but the short-haired woman's expression was the same as before, without the slightest fluctuation.

As a researcher involved in artificial special forces, she foresaw the current predicament before anyone else.

The better the physical fitness, the greater the consumption of materials.

The genes of artificial special soldiers are all selected, and from birth, they develop faster than ordinary people, and when they become adults, they are all comparable to Schwarzenegger fighters.

The tall and powerful body ensures their physical fitness, but it also means that if they want to maintain such a high-performance body, they have to pay several times more heat than ordinary people.

In a technologically advanced world with abundant supplies, this is an advantage, not a disadvantage.

But in a world of hard access to food and extreme shortages, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Ordinary people can eat enough food for one person, but giving these special soldiers can only ensure that they can barely breathe a sigh of relief and not starve to death while minimizing their movement.

But what's the use of knowing that?

Even though she knew it would be like this, there was no solution for it.

Moreover, in a sense, if it weren't for the high-quality special fighters in the early stage, I am afraid that they would be slaughtered as soon as they were dug up, and even if they survived, in this cruel world, if they did not have enough strength, they might not be able to live for a few more days.

If you do something, you will die, and if you don't do it, you will die, and you will die faster.

All of them have no choice, and whatever they do, in the current world, they are just dancing in shackles.

"Sixty days, will the cold winter period end in sixty days?"

The answer is no, and after the middle-aged man asked this question, there was a trace of helpless relief on his stiff face that did not smile.

"If it really doesn't work, let's let another group of people go, let them find their own way!"

"This ......"

The woman didn't answer, she knew that this was already the most merciful choice made by a soldier of the Age of Civilization in the wasteland.

Now, there are only two options before them.

One: Keep everyone, but in order to replenish food, you must brave heavy snow and unknown risks to go out hunting, but the harvest is unpredictable.

Two: no more military control, as in the previous cases, let go of a group of people who left voluntarily, or drive away all the ordinary scavengers who were rescued this year.

Choosing the former, there is no doubt that in order to maintain a high-intensity operation, resources will be consumed at an accelerated pace, and after paying the price of food, in the face of such cold conditions, if they want to find prey to hide, even if they are special soldiers, there may be losses.

And choosing the latter, on the one hand, can save a batch of food, on the other hand, you can save the strength of the main force, as long as you survive this cold winter, next year after the ice and snow melt, the camp will recover again.

As a commander, the decision to choose the second option is undoubtedly the right one.

"I'm afraid there aren't many people who are willing to leave on their own now!"

The short-haired woman's expression finally changed, and she said with some hesitation.

"Oh, it seems that the scholars who ran out didn't find the knowledge they said!" The middle-aged man's face was full of mockery.

"Then give the scavengers three days of food and let them go on their own, if they don't want to, I can only make a choice that no one wants to see......

After saying this, the two of them seemed to have nothing to say, and they all fell silent, watching the snowflakes fall bigger and bigger, and cover the position of the mountainside.

……