Chapter 491: Chapter 307: I’m a Coward (Part 2)

The convoy sent out more than twenty people, but none have returned yet.

In the moral landscape of the apocalypse, who knows what the armed train wants from these people?

Yuan Wei’s expression was uncertain.

Suddenly feeling something pulling his foot, Yuan Wei looked down to see his silly neighbor using his foot as leverage to crawl out from under the car.

"Look, I just dug this up, it’s sweet!"

The silly neighbor spread his hand, revealing a white root in his blackened palm.

Yuan Wei glanced at it, changed color suddenly, and slapped the white root out of his hand. Without saying a word, he kicked the fool’s stomach, causing the latter to fall beside the vehicle, clutching his abdomen in painful dry heaves. After a long time, only a little white foam came out.

Yuan Wei grabbed his collar and delivered several heavy slaps, snarling, "Don’t eat random stuff, don’t eat random stuff, are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

The fool trembled with fear, "I... I..." unable to form a complete sentence.

Hearing the urging voices from afar and seeing his neighbor, childlike in fear, bloodshot eyes crawled into Yuan Wei’s eyes, and the wrench in his hand clenched tighter and tighter.

Better to end it for him than let him suffer in this world!

Yuan Wei’s heart hardened, his arm raised, trembling from the force.

"I just wanted... to give you food, your stomach growled..."

"Bang!"

The wrench bashed a dent into the pickup truck, scaring the words out of the fool’s mouth.

Yuan Wei felt as if his bones had been extracted, overwhelmed by an exhaustion that made it hard to stand.

He turned his head in despair and walked ahead.

Crying with his face in his hands, "Yuan Wei, you’re just a damn coward!"

...

"Additional test?"

Su Huan spun around once in the chair, silver and gold earrings floating with gravity.

Hu Shuo replied respectfully, "Yes, after the transaction, some minor forces and scavengers from afar want to have an additional test." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Oh, what are you all here for?"

Su Huan looked curiously at Professor Ma and the others, who instead of grading papers, had rushed over to him.

Professor Ma said softly, "We’ve discovered a remarkable scholar, but something seems off with him..."

Su Huan was very curious, "How off? Bring him for me to see."

The door opened, and Giraffe led in a disheveled person.

The man was in his forties, but lacked the steadiness of an adult, curiously examining the vehicle’s various facilities, even touching the lights on the floor.

Su Huan was stunned, "This guy isn’t possibly a fool, is he?"

Hearing Su Huan’s voice, the man looked up at those on the command platform.

The black pupils slightly centered, with pure bewilderment.

"Are you calling me?"

Damn, nailed it!

Su Huan looked speechless at the genteel scholars around him.

Professor Ma sighed, "His name is Chen Ziliang, a newcomer in the field of mathematics, he’d have had a promising future, but somehow his brain got damaged, now he seems a bit foolish..."

Su Huan frowned, "What level is this newcomer? An academician?"

Professor Ma was immediately stuck.

Vice President Deng smiled bitterly and explained, "Where can we find academicians outside, they’ve all been taken by the organization. Chen Ziliang’s teacher was a top figure in the international mathematics community, and he himself, at a young age, solved... &*%￥#@（&&***&&）... many issues, after returning home he taught at Zijin University. Though I’ve never met him, I’ve heard friends mention this rising star, but who knew, fate is fickle."

Su Huan skipped over the chaotic proprietary terms in the middle.

The ultimate despair of a science student isn’t not being able to solve a problem, but not even knowing what the problem is.

But he could tell that these old guys admired the fool below.

"Alright, since everyone knows him, take him in, as for the test, let’s skip it for now. Clear the path and let them head to Zhijin, we’ll head straight to the Scavenger Market."

Su Huan instructed.

After all, the train now has plenty of resources, taking in a couple of idlers doesn’t matter, who knows, this fool might bring some surprise.

With the train captain’s order given, the train split into two segments, clearing the road.

The convoy, stalled for an hour, could finally move again.

However, the massive crowd divided into two parts.

One part continued with the convoy towards Zhijin, while the other followed the armed train to Neutral Town.

This addition to the train expanded by 210 people, including experts in various academic, military, and medical fields. Apart from a few purely academic talents, most were practical and immediately deployable.

Greatly filling the talent gap on the armed train.

Upon reaching Neutral Town, the train began its second exam.

This time, the number of admissions was much smaller, only forty something, but the generous resources and rewards of the armed train had already spread out.

Everyone had forgotten the dozen shot on the spot for cheating.

This enticed more scavengers to approach Neutral Town.

Originally, around 200,000 scavengers had gathered around Zhijin. According to Black Kite’s plan, they were to slowly approach Zhijin, but now due to the talent exams of the armed train, around 30,000 to 50,000 chose to stay at Neutral Town.

In the following three days, the train quickly held the third, fourth, and fifth additional tests.

However, with each test, the talent acquired was fewer, while the count of those executed on the spot grew.

In the three remaining rounds combined, over a hundred were eliminated.

Yet they kept coming in droves.

...

"June 17, wind calms."

"What’s the point of surviving doomsday if you’re not good at studying?"

Wind and sand howled against the windows. Su Huan stood on the second floor of the dining car, using a telescope shaped like a cannon barrel to look at the convoys running back and forth on the highway outside.

Emitting sounds of amazement from his mouth.

"What kind of principle is this? It can see through sandstorms?"

Next to him, Vice President Deng explained with a smile, "This is a byproduct of our Pan Energy weapon research. Simply put, we used the medium of Pan Energy to capture images after the sandstorm and then reproduced them by some method."

Su Huan stood up and said with satisfaction, "It’s a good thing, just a bit jerky, keeps wobbling."

"This is just an initial product and needs further improvement. But this piece represents a major breakthrough in our research in the Pan Energy domain..."

Seeing Su Huan’s brow furrow further, Vice President Deng quickly switched back to normal speech.

"Professor Ma has proposed that the ’radar’ device could be constructed in advance."

Su Huan raised an eyebrow, was this an accidental gain?

"How far has the third phase renovation plan progressed?"

"The renovation framework has basically been set, they’re negotiating the specific details in the Mechanical Testing Laboratory."

Su Huan was immediately interested, "Let’s go take a look, talk as we walk."

Vice President Deng followed behind Su Huan, saying, "We’ve termed the first phase of the armed train’s renovation as the basic modification stage to meet basic survival needs. The second phase is supplementary modification to fill gaps and improve on the original foundation. In the third phase, after discussion, we think the current goal for the train is to create a three-dimensional attack and defense network."

"Although the train now has many functions, such as amphibious capabilities, electromagnetic warfare, and carriage farms... but all these functions are too dispersed, lacking a system. In the simplest terms, our attack means and defense means can’t be effectively linked."

Su Huan listened with a skeptical eye, although Vice President Deng never deviated far from guns and artillery, the point of lacking a system was well made.

Due to the short time after rebirth, there was no time to prepare, the initial train modifications were just ideas he came up with on the spot.

Often it was simply filling a gap as it was noticed.

Later when Yu Jing joined, there was some semblance of a system, but each design was still based on practicality, without an overall design.

It was only at the Shun’an train manufacturing base, under the hands of the factory director and others, that an overall framework was formed.

————

Silly neighbor

Black Star Convoy begins cleaning Zhijin

The train gathers talent, beginning a new round of upgrades, third phase renovation, Hive, water source,