Apocalypse: the Most Ruthless Person

Chapter 363 - 312: The Great Cold Wave

That night, it was bitterly cold. The population in the Celestial Horse Island camp doubled, nearly thirty more people, necessitating two extra hands to keep the boiler burning and for patrol duties.

In the camp, a few chimneys puffed smoke under the night sky, the bodies of zombies and chopped wood burning fiercely in the heater, with hot water racing repeatedly through pipes, providing a comfortable warmth to everyone in the camp.

The night passed quickly, the next day was cloudless and windless, yet still freezing cold.

Zhang Su woke up, and the first thing he did was focus on the issue of the Energy Slot.

He first focused on the Backup Energy Slot, very pleased that the first bar was already full, and the second had accumulated over eighty percent, meaning that overnight, the Backup Energy Slot had restored one hundred and fifty percent!

This speed allowed him to breathe a great sigh of relief; if sleep could restore so quickly, the cooldown time would essentially be a day, which was completely acceptable.

But when he turned his attention to his personal Energy Slot, he immediately furrowed his brow.

Before going to sleep, he clearly remembered it was at eighty-nine percent, but upon waking, it was at ninety-three percent. Did he only recover four percent overnight?

Zhang Su was puzzled; last night before sleep, he hadn’t done any physical exercises or had any scary nightmares. He slept comfortably wrapped in a warm blanket, and yet his body energy only recovered by four percent?

Incomprehensible...

While thinking and tidying up, more perplexing things followed.

"Last night Xiaoxue measured the temperature and found that after the first abrupt drop, it didn’t stabilize but continued to slowly decrease. The minimum temperature reached minus thirty degrees, already breaking Qin City’s record extreme,"

Zhong Xiaoshan walked in from outside, carrying a thick chill, speaking gravely, then continued: "You’re not dressed warmly enough; wear a proper hat..."

She said as she took a thick cotton hat from the wardrobe and handed it to Zhang Su.

Minus thirty degrees isn’t much compared to Northeast China’s minus fifty degrees, but for Qin City, it’s considered an extreme cold disaster. When the houses were built, temperatures this low weren’t considered, so the insulation effectiveness starts to decrease.

Coupled with many facilities now in a state of paralysis, it further tests human survival capability!

The only fortunate thing is that it’s dry cold without snow; otherwise, the situation would be much worse...

They didn’t know that not only Qin City was this cold; the whole planet was experiencing the same climate. In the face of this wave of extreme weather, only the inherently icy poles remain unchanged; all other regions have entered the freezing mode...

People in high latitude regions accustomed to long-term cold fare better, although difficult, not fatal. But those in areas typically above zero degrees, including the tropics, lack even basic frigid weather knowledge, freezing many forever in this deep chill.

To have a comfortable camp like the Celestial Horse Island is rare globally; should more survivors know there’s a safe camp mere twenty kilometers north of Qin City, they’d risk danger to come explore.

"This blasted weather."

Zhang Su frowned, puzzled over the world’s demise, facing a zombie crisis, barely finding a solution only for a cold wave to follow, as if fearing humans might live happily for a few days, pushing them toward doom relentlessly.

"Honey, I think... we need to haul back more zombie corpses from the Cyan Dragon Corps!"

Zheng Xinyu was also dressing, as she still had to work outside today.

"Absolutely!" Zhang Su nodded firmly, "It’s very necessary!"

The main heating energy in the camp now relies on zombie corpses. Previously, in this temperature environment, one furnace could burn one body a night, adding at most a dozen pounds of coal was enough. But faced with the record-breaking cold disaster, hot water in pipes will drastically lose temperature, requiring increased firepower; a furnace might burn two zombie bodies a night!

Once energy is scarce, cold will rob lives faster than food shortages. History’s winters took countless lives as they entered dreams never waking again; truly at minus thirty some degrees, "froze to death" is no longer mere complaint!

Currently, the zombie corpse stock on Celestial Horse Island isn’t ample, fortunately, the barracks hold piles upon piles, merely lacking transportation capability.

"All vehicles roll out today. Let’s go, first, let’s eat!"

Zhang Su decided, today beyond retrieving remaining weapons and food from the barracks, they must haul as many zombie corpses as possible; they’re precious fuel, worthier than coal by weight.

Little Lucky’s restaurant can no longer accommodate more people dining together, considering imminent relocation to other villages, it’s unnecessary to open a new dining hall. The newcomers to the camp silently awaited the second round of dining without any complaints, feeling deeply uneasy for having food without work.

"Ladies and gentlemen."

After eating, Zhang Su did not leave. He waited for the second round of diners to enter the restaurant, then spoke loudly. Seeing everyone look toward him, he continued, "Do you know why the Cyan Dragon Corps attracts a horde of a hundred thousand zombies?"

??

It was a strange question that made everyone present ponder. Most followed Zhang Su’s line of thought, wondering why, while people like Ma Changshou and Pan Guoliang had a sinking feeling and secretly thought, could it be that the one speaking was the instigator of this matter?

"Because..."

"Because zombies can sense humans."

Zhang Su was about to announce the answer directly, but unexpectedly, Xie Yanshan also spoke. He smiled, raised his hand to indicate, "Mr. Xie, please go ahead."

"Then I’ll give it a try..."

Following Zhang Su’s voice, Xie Yanshan saw a vague figure, nodded apologetically, then stood up and said, "Zombies seem to have evolved the ability to sense the human magnetic field. We all know zombies slowly gather. When they reach a certain scale, their sensing ability triggers, and they move toward survivor camps, attracting other zombies along the way."

"We have conducted many experiments and have been lucky to find the critical number at which zombies trigger their sensing ability: 101! You might question this number, as we did initially, analyzing many things, but concluded it’s simply an ordinary prime number. If there’s anything unique, it’s that it is the first three-digit prime number, nothing more."

"When a horde gathers to 101, they trigger the sensing ability, but it doesn’t always trigger immediately upon reaching that number. The fastest it happened was in less than half a day, but sometimes it took much longer. In one group, over ten days passed, and the awareness never triggered even as the horde attacked. There should be some secrets we haven’t discovered!"

Xie Yanshan spoke eloquently.

Most people present were completely bewildered; many didn’t even know what a prime number was, but it sounded impressive.

Zhang Su listened intently. He hadn’t expected the Cyan Dragon Corps’ science department to research so deeply. Although knowing the critical number doesn’t change much, it’s a valuable understanding...

"What about the number of people, Mr. Xie? How many gathered would attract zombies? Is there any data?"

"I’m sorry... We increased numbers up to twenty people without attracting zombies. We later ceased the experiments on numbers, as we deduced the attraction phenomenon mostly occurs on a macro level, needing a long time to form, not a one-day event, making it hard to conclude. One certain conclusion is that the population number is positively correlated with the horde size attracted."

"That’s all I have to say."

Xie Yanshan concluded, then sat down, as if at an academic seminar, quite formal.

After listening to Xie Yanshan, everyone looked at each other, especially the villagers of West Camp Village, who mostly hadn’t considered this problem. Some rarely paid attention and couldn’t make sense of it, but they were surprised to hear such a coherent summary.

No one discussed it; everyone remained reserved, knowing the leaders hadn’t finished speaking.

"I have a question."

Zhang Su frowned and asked, "Since there’s no conclusion on the number of people, how do you determine that when the number of zombies reaches 101, attraction triggers?"

"Oh, right, I forgot to mention!" Xie Yanshan stood again and said, "We chose a closed experimental environment; when the number of zombies was below 101, they dispersed and didn’t form a whole. But when we put the 101st zombie into the warehouse, the horde changed; zombies began to gather, entered a trigger waiting period. You could understand it as them engaging in collective sensing, and once the sensing ended, they started moving in a direction!"

"We thought the horde would move toward the most populated residential area within the camp, but observation revealed no pattern. We later conducted tests but couldn’t successfully attract a horde. I’m talking about using special magnetic fields to attract, not making noise for direct attraction. Please don’t misunderstand. That’s all I have to say."

Xie Yanshan sat down again, very methodical.

"So that’s how it is."

Zhang Su nodded thoughtfully and continued, "Mr. Xie’s research direction aligns with our theory of attraction: the more people there are, the larger the horde attracted. Originally, with the cold weather, I planned to have some people move to Madian Village after spring, but now, with Celestial Horse Island overcrowded, I’ve decided to initiate the Satellite Village plan ahead of schedule!"

After learning that more people attract more zombies, everyone nodded in agreement with Zhang Su’s plan.

Zhang Su pointed at Ma Changshou, "Village Chief Ma, today..."

"Not Village Chief, Boss Zhang, calling me Old Ma is already a compliment. I dare not take on ’village chief’!"

Ma Changshou rudely interrupted Zhang Su, but his message left a good impression.