The seven-kilometer rural road wasn't entirely ankle-deep muddy terrain.
Occasionally they would encounter sections of cracked cement pavement. Although covered with spiderweb-like fractures and weathered edges that had already crumbled away, it could barely provide a few solid footing spots.
Unfortunately, cement pavement only had a lifespan of about thirty years.
Beyond this time limit, the road surface would deteriorate year by year, not to mention it had already been eighty years now.
Those remaining cement chunks were embedded in the mud like foam. With just a bit of pressure stepping on them, one could hear a crisp "crack," as if they might crumble to powder at any moment.
Walking from just past ten o'clock until nearly twelve, after two hours of trekking, the ruins of Dapo Town finally appeared as a shadow at the edge of their vision.
Compared to the massive and oppressive ruins of Chuan City, the low-rise building clusters here inexplicably felt welcoming.
Cheng Ye stood gazing into the distance. Through the misty fog, those tilted rooftops and broken walls appeared and disappeared, creating the illusion of returning to an old-era township but taking a few more steps forward and clearly seeing the ghastly cracks on the broken walls and withered vines covering entire walls, that illusion immediately dissipated.
This place had ultimately been abandoned too long in the wasteland, the ruins of civilization!
Jiang Chuan's pickup quickly caught up. He first took out a water bottle from the back seat, helping Cheng Ye simply wash off the mud from his lower body, then handed him a pair of clean high rain boots."New ones, got them this morning according to your size."
"Thanks."
Cheng Ye changed his shoes, tossed the old ones into the rear compartment, and pulled out a map from the passenger compartment glove box for comparison.
Dapo Town was a standard cross-shaped township.
No high-rise buildings existed, the tallest structures were merely a few scattered five-story residential buildings and the four-story government building in the town center.
They were currently standing on East Street. Cheng Ye stood at the street's end looking around, his gaze seeming to traverse time and space, seeing the prosperity of the past.
Townships with this layout often had one characteristic, they would hold a large market every few days.
Surrounding villagers would carry bamboo baskets bringing agricultural and aquatic products to sell at the market to supplement their household income.
Some food stalls and vendor stalls would also take the opportunity to occupy positions, earning small profits from the massive foot traffic but after decades had passed, the roadside shops had long rotted to mere wooden frames, their door boards decayed into dark brown fragments mixed in the mud beyond recognition.
The main street was even more dilapidated, with half-meter-wide gaps cracked between broken cement blocks, wild grass drilling out from the cracks growing taller than people, cutting the road surface into scattered small pieces.
Occasionally one could see half of a telephone pole slanted into the ground, wrapped with withered yellow vines like a crooked scarecrow.
Cheng Ye walked inward with deep and shallow steps, his boot soles crushing broken glass and rotten wood, occasionally producing "crunching" sounds that were particularly clear in the silent curtain of rain.
Soon, he saw the "abandoned grain station" at the eastern end of town mentioned in the materials.
The compound wall built of gray brick had collapsed halfway, exposing the wildly overgrown weeds inside, obviously repeatedly scavenged.
Even the cast iron door hinges outside the compound gate had been pried away, leaving only two gaping black holes like a toothless mouth.
The two walked into the courtyard, waist-high weeds tangling their pants legs. They could only rely on Jiang Chuan's machete in front to hack and slash, forcibly carving out a path.
Suddenly, Cheng Ye spun around sharply, his pistol immediately in his grip.
Two ant wolves half a person's height were standing at the compound entrance looking around. The moment their four eyes met, they let out low "heh heh" growls from their throats, tucked their tails and ran away, disappearing into the fog beyond the wall.
Cheng Ye's hand holding the gun tightened slightly, an inexplicable surge of panic rising in his heart.
The gray sky was drizzling cold rain, the uninhabited courtyard swallowed by weeds.
Though it was clearly noon, the light was as dim as dusk. Except for the pattering rain, not a single other sound could be heard.
No bird calls, no insect chirping, even the wind seemed frozen, leaving only deadly silence.
This scene was too familiar, exactly like when he used to play 7 Days to Die with roommates in university, going as a team to raid zombie towns at night without turning on lights, enjoying the thrill of jump scares but in the game it was thrilling, in reality it became bone-chilling cold.
Even though his strength had greatly increased now and he had transcendent abilities at his side, that fear extending from memory continued to spread.
Seeing him stop in his tracks with a pale face, Jiang Chuan also sheathed his blade and waited quietly nearby without urging.
After a minute or two, Cheng Ye finally slowly exhaled, "Let's go, let's go in and take a look."
No people was also a good thing.
It meant there wouldn't be infected entities suddenly jumping out from some corner for a jump scare.
This kind of abandoned town would at most hide some sleeping infection sources. As long as one was careful, they could be avoided.
The main warehouse of the grain station was relatively well-preserved, built of large blue bricks. Although the white lime in the wall cracks had become mottled, the original sturdiness could still be seen.
Let alone fifty years or a hundred years, even with more years ahead, it wouldn't easily collapse from wind and rain.
However, the iron door had long been removed, leaving the warehouse entrance pitch black like a silent mouth. Large spider webs hung from the door frame, the silk threads dotted with fine dust and grass debris.
Jiang Chuan raised his hand and turned on his flashlight. The moment the light beam pierced the darkness, both men simultaneously held their breath.
A milky white spider the size of a human head was hanging from the central beam of the grain warehouse, its eight legs curled up as if sleeping.
When the flashlight shone on it, it actually reflected a shell-like cold light, emanating an eerie glazed color but it made no movement, not even its pedipalps trembled once, as if it had long died, just hanging rigidly in mid-air.
"It's a Spirit Guardian Spider!"
Counting it up, this was his first time encountering an infection source in the wild, and one in a sleeping state at that.
Cheng Ye immediately found the corresponding infection source description from the inspector's manual in his memory.
Spirit Guardian Spider, a type of special infection source with no active threat to humans.
Even in the transcendent era, they were widely cultivated, infected with S3 virus and used as local guardians.
Where they existed, small creatures like mosquitoes would all be captured by spider webs, unable to breed and cause damage.
After S4 turned them into infection sources, the difficulty of being parasitized by Spirit Guardian Spiders was still quite high.
First, these things never hid themselves, often hanging in the most conspicuous places.
Second, their aggression was extremely weak. Even if people walked past them, as long as they weren't actively attacked, they would mostly be ignored.
Conversely, their parasitism method was very crude.
Whether touching the Spirit Guardian Spider itself or its web, there was a certain probability of infection.
After infection, people would gradually lose reason, becoming wandering guardians in fixed areas, unconsciously patrolling until their strength was exhausted and lifespan ended, finally turning into dried corpses.
To remove parasitism, one had to find something to do before entering the outbreak state.
Big or small matters didn't matter.
As long as it was something that couldn't be completed within seven days, after seven days the parasitism would naturally dissipate.
"What do you say?" Jiang Chuan lowered his voice, his flashlight beam constantly locked on that spider.
"I'll do it!"
Cheng Ye's eyes focused.
Having previously seen parasitic infection sources drilling out of human bodies, this was his first encounter with a wild infection source. He naturally wouldn't miss this experimental opportunity.
If infection sources could also unlock the Collector, Inspector Cheng would likely have to go on a killing spree against "these things" in the future!
He turned back to the pickup to retrieve the Cyclone Spike, quickly attaching it to the spear shaft.
The Spirit Guardian Spider's weak point was at the soft armor beneath its abdomen, where there was no hard shell covering and it connected to the silk glands, making it a vital weakness.
"Be careful, the spider silk has stickiness, don't touch it." Jiang Chuan reminded from the side while gripping his machete tightly, ready to provide support at any moment.
However, what reassured him was that Cheng Ye's performance was indeed worlds apart from a newcomer.
Whether it was the stability of his tactical movements or the control of his steps after entering the warehouse, there was no deformation whatsoever.
After entering the grain warehouse, Cheng Ye lightened his steps, moving along the wall like a cat.
The warehouse was filled with a damp, moldy smell. The closer to the center, the denser the spider webs became. Those silk threads were fine as hair yet unusually tough, gleaming with faint silver light under the flashlight.
About three meters from the Spirit Guardian Spider, he stopped.
After careful observation, through the extremely weak rise and fall of the spider's abdomen, he confirmed it was indeed in a sleeping state.
"Sorry, sleep peacefully. This place won't need guarding anymore!"
Cheng Ye silently recited in his heart, then suddenly exerted force. His form shot out like an arrow, the triangular spear in his hand precisely stabbing toward that soft belly armor!
Squelch.
The spear tip penetrated nearly half an inch, milky white fluid immediately gushing out with a faint almond scent.
The Spirit Guardian Spider immediately awakened, its eight legs suddenly spreading wide, emitting sharp "hissing" sounds. Its abdomen contracted violently, trying to break free but Cheng Ye simply rotated the spear shaft lightly, and a series of "crunching" scraping sounds arose, obviously having crushed its internal organs.
He quickly dropped the spear shaft and retreated, withdrawing to the grain warehouse entrance to avoid the body fluid splashing during the Spirit Guardian Spider's struggles.
Under the flashlight, the spider's legs began convulsing, white foam emerging from the abdominal wound. After struggling for about half a minute, it finally stopped moving completely.
Its body also gradually lost luster, becoming like a dust-covered gray-white stone.
Cheng Ye returned along the original path. Just as he grasped the spear shaft, the panel suddenly popped up a prompt:
[Collector detects dispersing biological information, automatically absorbing]
[Absorption complete, new biological entry recorded: Spirit Guardian Spider]
"Ah?!"
"It can actually collect infection sources!"
Cheng Ye was first stunned, then overjoyed. The trace of fear born from the oppressive environment was instantly washed away by wild joy, leaving only irrepressible excitement.
What did being able to collect infection sources mean?
Analyzing source orbit technology? Characteristics of infection sources merging with Protective Heart Fire? Or directly exchanging for finished products?
Whichever it was, it revealed infinite possibilities that made one yearn.
[Currently Recorded Characteristics]:
Spider Web (8.6%)
Spider Web Binding (3.2%)
Neurotoxin (0.47%)
"Hey, these three characteristics seem pretty good!"
Cheng Ye's eyes lit up.
Malaria mosquitoes provided toxin neutralization and filtering. Unexpectedly, Spirit Guardian Spiders provided the toxins themselves.
Looking at these characteristic collection rates, to gather 100%, he'd probably need to slaughter one or two hundred Spirit Guardian Spiders.
The spider web item seemed most promising to fill up quickly at present.
"If I could exchange spider webs for skills with sufficient shooting distance and strength, wouldn't I be able to cosplay Spider-Man?"
Cheng Ye couldn't help but grin but thinking again, given the current wasteland environment with ruins everywhere, even with real Spider-Man abilities, they probably wouldn't be very useful.
Additionally, his gaze fell on the parasitism probability again. He hadn't expected the Collector to so intuitively display his risk of being parasitized.
"As long as I don't make contact for more than three seconds, there's no problem?"
The improvement in life level indeed directly enhanced his resistance to infection sources but this clear presentation method still made Cheng Ye secretly pleased. This was much more convenient than feeling his way across the river stone by stone, testing safety thresholds bit by bit!
Of course, the prerequisite was killing the infection source to unlock the Collector before being able to see this specific information.
Nearby, Jiang Chuan quickly returned with a handheld flamethrower resembling a spray gun.
He walked into the grain warehouse and pressed the trigger at the spider webs. Light blue flames gushed out. The moment the spider silk contacted the flames, it "sizzled" and melted, turning to ash and drifting away.
This immediately made Cheng Ye realize that the survival supplies he had prepared before were still too ordinary.
It seemed he'd need to get a dedicated vehicle in the future and acquire more tools for exploring the wasteland.
Otherwise, facing such situations, he could only search through ruins, wasting time.
Or...
As expected, while he was thinking, Fire Sprout in his vision had already sensed the flame's aura and "whooshed" out, crouching on his shoulder.
The little guy blinked its round eyes. Having eaten too much this morning, it was currently just curiously watching the firelight in the grain warehouse, not excitedly fluttering like usual but strangely, some very vague thoughts came through the mental link.
"Hey, this little guy doesn't like Jiang Chuan?"
The thoughts were hazy, not like the clear syllables from this morning. Cheng Ye could only barely capture traces of "stay away," "avoid," and "dislike" emotions.
Cheng Ye pondered. These days the flame had occasionally come out to wander and seen quite a few people. Showing such rejection toward someone was the first time.
"Could it be related to Jiang Chuan's Lv5 skill?"
Without more information, he could only make this guess for now.
However, Jiang Chuan seemed to have no perception of the flame, perhaps not having broken through that spatial layer yet, meaning he didn't possess transcendent abilities similar to Soul-Extinguishing Fire.
"Alright, the main spider webs have been cleared. The rest will slowly lose activity over a day, and probably no one else will come here."
Jiang Chuan turned off the flamethrower and clapped his hands.
After clearing the spider webs, the two wandered around the grain warehouse and quickly discovered the so-called underground storage.
As expected, the storage's iron gate had also been pried away, leaving only stone steps extending downward. The edges of the steps were covered with moss, wet and slippery.
If the Spirit Guardian Spider hadn't existed, the path down might have required some trepidation but Spirit Guardian Spiders had extremely strong territorial consciousness and would never tolerate the same species or other infection sources sharing space.
However, the two didn't let their guard down. Jiang Chuan walked in front with his machete held across his chest, Cheng Ye followed closely behind with his short blade unsheathed, both moving down the steps step by step.
Upon reaching the bottom, Cheng Ye couldn't help clicking his tongue. The underground storage area was much larger than imagined, about five meters high, estimated at around four hundred square meters.
The air was filled with heavy moldy smells mixed with earthy odors, more choking than the grain warehouse above.
He instinctively touched the wall, his fingertips encountering dry, hard brick and stone without a trace of moisture.
"The moisture-proofing is indeed excellent."
Cheng Ye nodded slightly. This completely matched the description in the materials that "the grain station's underground storage has excellent moisture-proofing." No matter how heavy the rain outside or how high the humidity, no water droplets condensed on the walls here. It could indeed serve as a supply storage point in the future.
As for the storage's supplies, they had long been completely cleaned out during decades of scavenging.
Only some weathered and cracked nutrition paste bags remained, proving that Happiness City residents had once sheltered here.
"Wait, there seems to be writing there." Cheng Ye suddenly raised his hand, pointing toward the wall deep in the storage.
Jiang Chuan immediately swept his flashlight beam over. Where the light fell, deep scratch marks appeared, dozens of them crisscrossing like someone had clawed them out of the brick wall with fingernails.
Beside the scratch marks, words were crookedly carved, just one character repeated countless times: "Water... water... water..."
The characters were carved extremely deep, with the brick and stone at the stroke edges crumbled, revealing desperate madness.
"It seems quite a few things happened here during the evacuation back then." Jiang Chuan sighed and looked away, "Don't touch these anymore, bad luck."
Cheng Ye nodded and picked up a scattered blue brick from the corner. This counted as taking materials, proving he had indeed explored this abandoned grain station.
He didn't look at those scratch marks again. Some fragments of history, knowing too clearly would only weigh on one's heart.
Returning to the street, the stuffy underground feeling instantly dissipated. Rain threads hitting his face brought cool freshness.
After a brief rest, they continued exploring the Jiajiale Supermarket and the office building in the town center.
The so-called supermarket had long become indistinguishable from surrounding buildings.
The glass-embedded storefront had become a gap, with cement edges frozen and cracked into powder. A step would raise fine dust that mixed with rain fog and choked throats.
When stepping inside, what crunched underfoot wasn't broken glass but plastic powdered by the sun.
Probably old packaging bags that had long lost their original colors.
Looking up, the iron roof had been stripped completely clean, exposing intersecting beams.
The paint on the wood had faded to the same gray as dust, with some areas eaten by insects into dense holes. When wind blew, wood shavings fell like scattered fine bone ash.
The ground need not be mentioned. Everything usable and visible to the naked eye had been thoroughly ransacked by scavengers over the years.
Floor tiles had been pried up to expose even the cement base layer, with pits accumulating yellow earth washed in by rain.
As for shelving, only shallow scratches at the wall base proved there had once been orderly arrangements here.
Walking toward the town center, roadside wild grass gradually shortened, revealing the mottled exterior walls of the office building.
Wall paint curled up in large pieces like torn newspaper, exposing brick blocks swollen from rain. Cheng Ye reached out and rubbed them, causing debris to fall in a shower.
However, being the former government building, the overall materials were still solid.
Except for the outer auxiliary small buildings being demolished beyond recognition, with even steel reinforcement twisted into braids and extracted, leaving only square black holes.
Perhaps due to the main building's demolition difficulty being too great, scavengers only took things that could be removed with wrenches.
"The power of time..." Jiang Chuan stood at the corridor entrance sighing, his gaze sweeping over floor fragments scattered like cookie crumbs, "This building was newer than our inspection station's office building back then, but now it's become like this."
Cheng Ye's gaze fell on the wall, where several lines of writing had been bleached to pale blue by time, like someone had written with fingertips dipped in water, the strokes so blurred they were barely visible.
One could only rely on memory to guess they might be 'for the people' or perhaps 'service.'
Going upstairs, each room only had half a wall remaining, with interior frameworks long destroyed.
Throughout the entire building, not even a piece of iron sheet or glass fragment could be found, as if all objects that could be called "things" had completely vanished with time, leaving only these empty shells slowly weathering into yellow earth in the wind.
Reaching the rooftop terrace, the two stood at the edge gazing outward.
The view here was excellent, taking in the entire outline of Dapo Town at a glance:
Everywhere were rotted old-era houses, collapsed residential rooftops like gnawed bread, wild grass growing madly between broken walls weaving into a green carpet. Extending further were surrounding villages, connected broken-down residences appearing and disappearing in the fog.
However, honestly speaking, this place was still better than pure wasteland, at least retaining traces of civilization, so standing here didn't give one that empty feeling of drawing swords and looking around with confusion.
The key to this trip, Baishui River, lay on Dapo Town's north side.
Rain washed the fog, with visibility about one kilometer.
The broad mainstream converging from Linjiang River was divided into two streams near Dapo Town.
One continued winding northward, about twenty-five meters wide.
The other was diverted toward Dapo Town, about ten meters wide.
The two rivers had distinctly different colors. The one winding away should be Huangshui River, with extremely turbid water obviously mixed with large amounts of sediment.
The Baishui River water flowing toward Dapo Town, as its name suggested, showed a strange blue-yellow color with fine ripples on the surface like scattered broken copper.
"The width is good, but this water level is really high."
Cheng Ye frowned slightly, leaning forward a bit.
Standing high up, he could clearly see Baishui River's surface was almost level with the embankments on both sides. The beaches below the banks had long been submerged, and even surrounding low-lying areas had accumulated water, looking ready to become a swamp.
This was not a good omen.
If the water level rose further, Dapo Town's core area would be soaked in water, making building a satellite city pure fantasy.
To avoid this situation, several solutions immediately flashed through Cheng Ye's mind.
Emergency dredging and temporary diversion were undoubtedly the most direct methods at present.
Deploy engineering machinery to clear Huangshui River's sediment and debris, expanding the main channel's water-carrying cross-section, which would suddenly reduce Baishui River's pressure.
Simultaneously, dig temporary diversion channels outside weak embankment sections to direct overflowing accumulated water toward distant uninhabited wasteland, using natural depressions to buffer pressure.
Once water levels dropped slightly, they could begin reinforcing embankments, even building temporary secondary embankments around them to prevent water flow from scouring embankment foundations and causing breaches.
From a long-term perspective, the best approach was still river rerouting and flood retention area planning.
The Linjiang River system was well-developed but lacked water storage space. Combined with too many bends in both rivers causing poor flood discharge, it would be better to straighten curves and dig new river sections, shortening flood discharge paths while converting original curved river sections into flood retention areas that could actively store floodwater during flood season and supplement groundwater resources during dry periods.
Then water intake pipelines could be laid directly there to meet Dapo Town's needs.
Of course, in modern times, this plan would face enormous troubles just from relocation negotiations and farmland occupation but in the wasteland environment, as long as there was sufficient labor and machinery, it could be easily achieved.
The difficulty lay in gaining support from Happiness City's upper leadership and applying for sufficient budget.
"I definitely can't do it alone, need Wenlu County's participation."
Cheng Ye quietly contemplated.
The water diversion dock Leopard mentioned was built on the embankment about one kilometer north from Dapo Town.
The blue-gray stone wall emerged partially through the fog, its crenellated top gnawed raggedly by wind and rain yet still showing its former sturdiness.
"That must be an excellent fishing spot."
Cheng Ye suddenly chuckled, his gaze falling on the concrete platform protruding from the dock.
This structure extended into the water, perfectly avoiding shoreline shallows, making it ideal for fishing.
However, with current water flow so high and extremely fast, let alone fishing, even casting rods would be difficult to stabilize.
Net throwing might yield considerable catches though.
As for the damaged hydroelectric station, hidden in fog it couldn't be seen, but presumably should be downstream.
"Go down and look?"
"Let's go!"