Night of Despair
Chapter 129 - 129: Hope One

Puff.

In the yard of the mountain safehouse, the phosphorescent grass shone with a pale white light, constantly neutralizing the Red Value radiation permeating the surrounding air.

The gate opened, and Yu Hong led three people in quickly.

"Hurry, get into the wooden house. Outside are the new species of phosphorescent grass I've engineered, meant to counteract the Red Value-like phosphorescent things. They emit negative value radiation, which can cause phosphorescent sickness in humans!"

Yu Hong hastily instructed upon entering.

Li Rushan nodded, holding his daughter, and dashed to the wooden house, pushing the door open.

Zhou Xueguang followed closely behind.

When the three entered the courtyard, they indeed felt a chill that made the hair on their skin stand on end.

It wasn't until they entered the wooden house that they felt somewhat better.

"Actually, even in the house, you'd still be affected by negative value radiation, just at a much lower concentration than outside." Yu Hong added from the doorway, "So if you're going to stay here, you'll have to find your own place to live."

"Alright!" Li Rushan nodded.

Neither he nor Zhou Xueguang asked why they couldn't go inside the cave. Just like Li Rushan never invited Yu Hong into the Pyroxene Secret Room in the underworld shelter.

*In such an environment, the safehouse is one's most basic bottom line, so they tacitly refrained from asking.*

"We owe you for saving us this time; otherwise, we'd be done for," Zhou Xueguang sighed.

"Wait." Yu Hong quickly returned to the cave, fetched iodine cotton swabs, anti-inflammatory medicine, and some cool boiled water, and brought them over to treat each person's wounds to prevent complications.

Then, he sat down inside to understand the situation from the three.

"Tell me, how exactly did you breach the secret room?" He couldn't understand, as those on the front line could rely on the Pyroxene Secret Room to hide themselves and avoid most dangers, so why did it suddenly fail here?

"...Because there were others," Li Rushan drank a hard gulp of water, "Apart from the people behind, there were other Evil Shadows involved. I was broken into the secret room by another Evil Shadow and then chased by the people behind. If you hadn't arrived in time, Nana and I would definitely be done for."

"Other Evil Shadows..." Yu Hong frowned, "Didn't they say there would be an overlay phenomenon between Evil Shadows?" He directed this question at Zhou Xueguang.

"There is, but overlay doesn't mean complete elimination; enslavement and merging could still occur..." Zhou Xueguang replied with a grim look. He turned to watch the white glowing grass outside the window. "Are you sure that the glowing grass in your yard can block Evil Shadows?"

"I'm not sure, but they can create an environment that repels Evil Shadows, making them unwilling to approach without reason. It's like you won't get hurt by a public toilet, but would you want to stroll in one for no reason?" Yu Hong's analogy was quite accurate, instantly making the two understand the role of the phosphorescent grass.

"Then, what do we do now?" Zhou Xueguang exhaled, looking at Yu Hong. "I hope you can help save us, but I know there's no help without reason, so is there anything you need help with?"

"Now, I can't even go back to my side at the post office; I guess I'll be tagging along with you from now on. Just give the word if you need anything," Li Rushan spoke earnestly.

"Alright, first help me with the breeding, and I'll cover food and drink for you. Also, Old Li, how many lizards do you have left?" Yu Hong asked.

"Still keeping about ten. I was going to kill them once back, but now it seems there's no choice. Who knows if the Evil Shadows will get them all," Old Li replied helplessly.

"I'll check it out in the daytime." After the close encounter earlier, Yu Hong was much less worried about the people behind. With radiation hand grenades in hand and Inner Qi within, if he caught a chance, two radiation hand grenades combined with an attack could instantly take out one of the people behind.

He still had three radiation hand grenades, which were barely enough.

"Also, Old Li, when you come over tomorrow, help me contact the post office authorities. I need to confirm if I can still send things. I plan to trade some intelligence about the Evil Shadows for supplies."

*If intelligence can be exchanged for supplies, that would be the best outcome, but the fear is that the external environment is too harsh...*

"I'll try..." Li Rushan wasn't hopeful.

After the conversation, Yu Hong helped treat the three's wounds and brought a heap of nutrient paste for them, then left, returning to the mountain safehouse.

Looking at the communicator that was still on, he sighed.

The stone house at the post office was deserted now, and the communicator was basically useless.

Thinking of this, he placed his hand on the switch, preparing to turn it off.

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" Suddenly, a deep, slightly weary male voice came from the communicator. It seemed the movement of his hands had alerted the other side.

"...Is the signal misaligned again? Hmm... I'll sing a song this time; if anyone hears me, please make a sound." The male voice continued.

"..." Yu Hong didn't respond immediately; in these times, if you encounter an Evil Shadow that can mimic a human voice, you might really be out of tears.

After waiting six seconds, the other party started singing with a hideous crow voice.

He then spoke.

"Who are you? I was just about to turn off the device when I heard you speak."

"Hmm, found another one. Haha, this time I've got good luck," the man laughed heartily, "My name is Guan Cao, mm, living over here in Lushan Town, currently using the base's communicator to search for survivors. Including you, I've found three."

"Lushan Town??!" Yu Hong was taken aback, "I'm in Baiqiu Village; you are at least, let me check..." He quickly rummaged for an old map from the corner and looked it over.

"At least over two hundred kilometers away! What kind of communicator are you using? Amazing!"

Yu Hong was quite shocked, knowing he used a Black Mark-enhanced communicator; the other party couldn't have had the same technical optimization.

But while he was surprised, the other end of the communicator was equally surprised.

"What??! Over two hundred kilometers?! Baiqiu Village?? Village??" The man seemed to have heard something unbelievable. "Isn't it a nuclear refuge base there?"

"No, I just modified a communicator myself," Yu Hong said.

"...Modified it yourself??! The ones I've contacted here are mainly underground nuclear refuge facility signals; the two people before you were a billionaire who built his private facility and an official in charge of an institutional facility for operations. I thought the level of satellite communicators capable of such distances couldn't appear in private hands.... even that billionaire had his own research institute..."

The male voice was filled with incredulity and disbelief as he explained from the communicator.

*...* Yu Hong was speechless, not knowing how to explain.

"Still, no matter how you achieved this, being able to contact another person makes me very happy. This is the purpose of building this platform communication channel," the man said with a smile. "Let me introduce myself again, I am Guan Cao, a veteran."

"Alright, I am Yu Hong, an ordinary survivor," Yu Hong replied. Although a bit inexplicable, hearing another person's voice was comforting.

"Great, I'll pull you into the channel later. Even though the distance is great, having someone to talk to isn't bad, is it?" Guan Cao laughed, "Right."

"It really isn't bad," Yu Hong felt genuinely uplifted. Although danger lurked outside, having someone to talk to dispelled the feeling of empty loneliness.

But fortunately, he hadn't forgotten there was still the threat of the people behind here.

After chatting for a bit, he hung up the communicator and got up to continue making new radiation hand grenades.

Night passed without a word.

Outside the yard was silent, the people behind seemed to have temporarily give up, and didn't attack again.

This allowed Li Rushan and the others to have a good night's sleep.

Early the next morning, as the sky was just beginning to brighten, Yu Hong stepped out to see Li Rushan with his daughter at the edge of the yard, quietly looking towards the post office, seemingly speaking in low voices.

Their faces were sorrowful, perhaps thinking about Lin Haini and Song Wei.

Zhou Xueguang was sitting alone in front of the wooden house, carefully examining the phosphorescent grass on the ground.

It's obvious he was very interested in this stuff.

This guy had one hand broken and bandaged to his chest, but still couldn't help but single-handedly turn over the grass leaves on the ground.

Seeing Yu Hong come out, he stood up.

"Boss." After yesterday, he had decided to throw in his lot with Yu Hong and thus wanted to change how he addressed him.

Yu Hong was taken aback, but soon accepted it. Indeed, he needed someone to help with some tasks like hygiene, breeding, gathering materials, connecting to the outside, etc.

Doing all the odd jobs by himself would waste a lot of time each day.

"Now the radiation in the yard is too heavy; staying in the wooden house isn't enough. So, today's task is to expand the range of the yard and build another house in it."

He could use Inner Qi to extend the coverage area of the phosphorescent grass, but the array under the courtyard wall had a fixed range of coverage.

"Additionally, I plan to make a trip to the post office to collect Old Li's previous breeding crates. Without food, we can only deplete our resources, so..." Yu Hong didn't finish, but Old Li immediately replied.

"I'll go along, and Nana and Old Zhou will help me keep an eye on things." Li Rushan quickly said.

"Okay."

They swiftly divided the work. Yu Hong changed into gear, armed himself, packed the newly fashioned six radiation hand grenades, and departed with Li Rushan.

Once outside the courtyard wall, they instantly felt the chilly breeze wafting through the gray fog.

"The weather is getting colder..." Li Rushan sighed. "I had promised Weiwei and Xiaoyu that I'd teach them woodworking..."

His eyes reddened, and his expression was somewhat dejected.

"*In this world, you couldn't protect them.*" Yu Hong sighed.

"In hindsight, I should have let them leave with the response team," Old Li said helplessly.

"..." Yu Hong didn't know what to say.

Hiss...

Suddenly, a chill surged from his back.

Clack.

"It's here! Speed up!" Yu Hong's expression changed slightly, handing Old Li a Silver Talisman Plate, and sped toward the post office.

He grabbed a small mirror ready at hand, a personal mirror Stammering Yiyi used for grooming.

The mirror reflected the scene behind them.

In the gray mist, a blurry smiling humanoid shape was looming out of the mist, closing in slowly.

"It's that guy... from yesterday!" Yu Hong immediately recognized the approaching person behind.

The marks from when he broke the person's legs yesterday were still there, the footprints on the pants were visible.

"That was quick, revived already... these Evil Shadows are truly disgusting!" He felt heavy-hearted.

"*That's why the front line was helpless, resources couldn't hold, and there were too many casualties.*" Li Rushan panted, keeping up from behind.

The two quickly reached the post office, strangely, the second voice of the person behind hadn't sounded again.

Li Rushan, carrying the Silver Talisman Plate, went down to retrieve the breeding crates, a total of sixteen boxes gradually moved to the first-floor stone house.

The boxes were big, each had the dimensions of a large freezer.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.