Cave Refuge-Chapter 299 - 285: The Suddenly Intensifying Earthquake

Real life was not as tense and exciting as depicted in films and television series. Although the threat of Giant Scorpions existed in Saxon County, for the camp where Father Dong and Mother Dong resided, there was actually no danger.

Moreover, after over a month of observation, they had found that the physiological structure of the Giant Scorpions was not much different from that of the ordinary scorpions before the disaster. When killing them, it was only necessary to avoid damaging the poison sac inside the body, and to remove the internal organs of the Giant Scorpions during the dissection.

Bug Meat could not only be consumed, but its nutritional value was even higher than that provided by pork, beef, and mutton.

Once this information was confirmed, the members of the special forces in the camp were divided into three groups, rotating shifts according to hunting-patrolling-resting schedules.

With a stable food source, the survivors in the camp no longer panicked and were no longer perplexed about the future.

Zachary’s life now had returned to the peaceful days of old.

He left his parents at the camp in Saxon County and drove the Black Car out of the camp, finding a deserted place to enter the Cave and begin cultivation.

Every eight to ten days, Zachary would return to the camp to check on his parents and also to catch up on some recent intelligence. Of course, to reassure his parents, he would occasionally bring Walker Violet with him for a visit and a chat.

The appearance of this natural disaster seemed as if it was specifically intended to destroy the Refuges built by humans.

At first, the earthquake’s amplitude kept increasing, until it had destroyed all buildings in the Pengcheng area, and then the daily earthquake amplitude began to gradually decrease.

By this time, not only had the urban buildings collapsed due to the earthquake, but the laboratories in University Town also did not escape and were practically wiped out.

However, since everyone now had a wealth of experience in dealing with natural disasters, at the onset of the earthquake, they had already transferred the precise instruments from the laboratories that could still be used after repairs to vehicles.

So, even though the houses and buildings had collapsed due to the earthquake, those precise instruments were preserved.

However, despite the rescue of the precise instruments from the laboratories, this earthquake dealt the heaviest blow to Pengcheng’s scientific research.

In this earthquake, although the casualties among the survivors were very few, the earthquake nearly destroyed all of Pengcheng’s infrastructure.

This state of affairs for Pengcheng was comparable to the damage caused by the initial electromagnetic pulse and could even be considered worse.

After all, at this time, restoring those infrastructures would be incredibly difficult. It needs to be understood that even with China’s construction speed, those infrastructures took almost fifty years to gradually complete.

And this earthquake had virtually shredded a nearly finished painting. Now, it wasn’t about handing you a blank canvas to start a new drawing.

Instead, it was about giving you a pile of grass roots and rotten tree bark, requiring you to start from making paper before you could draw again.

Although the end of the electromagnetic pulse allowed survivors to use various machines to speed up the paper-making process, the initial conversion of grass roots and rotten tree bark into plant fibers still took some time despite the speed.

And because an earthquake would occur every day, no one dared to build factories on a large scale; production could only be carried out in the form of small manual workshops.

Now in the camp, not only did Zachary spend long periods away, not often staying in the camp, but Madeline, after the situation stabilized in the camp and it was confirmed that the Giant Scorpion meat was edible, started her old business again.

This time, she didn’t work alone; instead, she gathered younger generations from the senior group’s members and took them with her to stay in Pengcheng. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Actually, everyone understood that while it was safe here, the location was indeed somewhat remote. The Pengcheng Government was just worrying about how to reduce the influence of the local faction.

Then the senior group moved out directly, vacating many positions in the West City District Command Post.

Just when the Officials were gleefully preparing to find replacements, Robinson William brought the young and strong members of the senior group back to Pengcheng to re-establish the West City District Command Post and reclaim the rights in West City District once again.

Since he had not experienced a higher-grade Spirit Vein, Zachary did not know whether his cultivation speed was fast or slow. However, precisely because he lacked an appropriate reference, Zachary’s state of mind was very stable at this time.

The calm days gradually made one become negligent. Other than two set sessions of accelerated cultivation each day, Zachary rarely undertook active cultivation.

Every day in the Cave mansion, he would either be amusing himself with the black and white round creatures or playing role-playing games with the Canaries. As they had collected many clothes and fabrics, and two of the Canaries were adept at sewing, they made quite a variety of COS outfits, so there was no worry about repetition due to the length of time.

After all, Zachary always played the role of a brutal villain, and every action scene was very intense, including real combat, which meant that the Canaries’ clothes were prone to damage. Most COS costumes were one-time items.

In the blink of an eye, the peaceful life had passed for quite some time. The crops in the fields had matured to the point of harvest, and the troops stationed in Saxon County began to reap the crops in the fields.

The entire harvesting process, besides the daily random earthquake, was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Giant Scorpions from unknown origins.