War Truck in the Apocalypse

Chapter 20: Searching for Signals

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Shen Cong prepared a cup of water and a good piece of tumor pork for the plastic rabbit, along with a bowl of pig’s blood.

Naturally, this was not because Shen Cong had a moment of guilty conscience and felt that he should make up to the plastic rabbit and the motorcycle for devouring their Activity. Shen Cong would not show kindness to anything apart from himself in the post-apocalyptic setting. He had decided to provide food for the plastic rabbit for a very simple purpose—Activity. 

Titan’s speed in absorbing wandering Activity was still slow, and Shen Cong could not eat that much meat. That was why he might as well rear the plastic rabbit and the motorcycle so that they could become sources of Activity for him. 

He hung the motorcycle at Titan’s end and allowed it to absorb Activity on its own. 

Then, he used ten minutes to experience the benefits he gained after he devoured the motorcycle’s Activity. The amount of Activity Titan possessed had allowed Shen Cong to barely cover 42% of the truck with Activity. Many of the electrical appliances and spare parts had not gone through Alloying just yet, and Titan was still far away from the peak of its condition—85%. But once he devoured the motorcycle once, its Activity had increased until 48.5%. 

That was an increase of 6.5% in terms of Activity, and that was about the same amount as four to five days’ worth of Activity absorbed from nature. 

If Titan managed to become stronger quickly, it would give Shen Cong a lot of benefits. The Activity in his body would also become stronger. He felt that his strength, which was previously at the power of one and a half bulls, had now increased to the strength of two bulls. 

Of course, describing his strength to be at the equivalent of two bulls was very low class, but it was a simple conclusion that Shen Cong came up with, and the strength of a bull was not to be treated as a standard of measurement. In truth, Shen Cong himself did not know just how strong a bull’s strength was. 

However, he did not have professional testing equipment beside him, and he was not able to tell just how strong he was. It was very difficult for him to learn just how much his physical constitution had improved, and he had a hard time making accurate records about his strength, agility, speed, stamina, and resistance. 

Hence, he decided to use the strength of a bull to serve as a simple measurement unit. 

Devouring the motorcycle had given both Titan and Shen Cong great benefits, but there were disadvantages as well. Shen Cong had nearly burst into flames, which was something major. It showed up that devoured Activity was not as gentle as the one gained through the absorption method. 

Besides, Shen Cong detected something abnormal after he carefully sensed the distribution of Activity on Titan. 

There was a slight difference between the frequency of the radiation released from Titan itself and the frequency of radiation released from the Activity that it had devoured from the motorcycle. They were not on the same wavelength. Shen Cong was not able to control it as naturally as he was able to control his own limbs when it came to this Activity that was at a different frequency compared to the radiation released from Titan itself. 

Fortunately, as time passed, the frequency of the Activity from the motorcycle started to get closer to the frequency of the Activity from Titan. 

This gradual change was similar to “digestion”, or rather, “assimilation”, which was an unnecessary process for the Activity absorbed from the world outside or from the Activity taken through flesh. 

But the slight disadvantages were insignificant. In general, devouring Activity had more pros than cons, which was why rearing the plastic rabbit turned into an established fact. 

*****

That night, Shen Cong slept well. 

Before the sun rose, he already got up. He climbed up Titan’s roof, did some morning exercises, and practiced some martial arts. When a sliver of white appeared in the horizon to the east and the red sun emerged from the center of that sliver of white to illuminate the earth, Shen Cong had already finished his morning exercises. 

He had a simple breakfast of two fried steaks made from the flesh of the tumor pig’s ribs and went to check the plastic rabbit and the green-headed flies. 

After resting and recuperating for a night, the plastic rabbit had regained some of its energy. The pork in its cage was completely gone. If this continued, in just a few days, the plastic rabbit would return to normal. 

The motorcycle frame hanging at the end of the truck, however, was recovering much slower. 

After observing it, Shen Cong came to a conclusion.

Perhaps in another half a month, the motorcycle frame would regain its original level of Activity. The plastic rabbit did not have the intellect to guide its Activity, so the motorcycle frame could only absorb Activity on its own, which was a very slow process. 

‘I can devour it once every half a month, and it will provide me with an amount equivalent to the Activity Titan absorbs in four to five days by itself. It’ll help me make pretty decent progress in terms of becoming stronger. I can continue rearing the plastic rabbit, then.’

Shen Cong went to check the green-headed flies. 

One of them had died. Perhaps it had reached the end of its fifteen-day lifespan. 

After feeding the flies with Activity-laced flesh for more than a week, none of the other four had gone through any mutation. They did not retain any Activity in their bodies. It seemed like once the flies ate the flesh, the Activity inside it just scattered away. 

Shen Cong was unable to help the disappointment that surged through him. 

However, he noticed some white spots at a corner of a ball of flesh in the mesh food cover. Those were eggs laid by the flies. This lifted Shen Cong’s spirits. After all, flies were organisms that were very small. Even if he included their lifespan as larvae, their entire cycle of life was just one month. It was very difficult for flies to mutate within such a short amount of time. 

But perhaps the children reproduced by flies could serve as a point of breakthrough for mutation. 

[26th of July, 6:45 A.M.

[I discovered that one of the green-headed flies is dead.]

Once Shen Cong recorded the information he gained from his observation, he concluded his research for the day. 

He walked to the driver cab, opened the sunroof, and let sunlight shine into the truck. 

Then, he picked up a laptop to replace the spoilt display screen. It served as Shen Cong’s navigator and helped him search where he should go next. Based on the path he took in the past, Titan should be located between Wuwei and Chaohu.

Chaohu was originally a prefecture-level city. Once its administrative government was disbanded, it turned into a county-level city under Hefei. Now, it was just Chaohu, a city that encircled one of the five great freshwater lakes and one of the stops Shen Cong had wanted to visit on his way to Hefei.

Shen Cong’s starting point was Wuwei, which was one of the districts governed by Wuhu. However, Wuwei was closer to Tongling. 

Before the apocalypse, Shen Cong had planned three routes. One of them headed east to Wuhu, another one went south to Tongling, while the last one was his current route. It led north to Hefei. After the apocalypse, Shen Cong resolutely gave up on Wuhu and Tongling, because he needed to cross a river if he wanted to head to those two cities. 

With the catastrophe brought by the disastrous apocalyptic storm, Shen Cong reckoned that Yangtze River Bridge would be destroyed. 

His path to the two cities was, thus, blocked. 

‘If I can find Provincial Highway 208, it’ll be easy for me to head to Chaohu.’ 

Shen Cong studied his map. 

Provincial Highway 208 connected Wuwei to Chaohu, and if he found it, he would not be afraid of losing his way. Besides, it was much easier traveling on a government-made road. 

There were far too many pot holes on the current terrain. Even if Titan had special tyres that had a diameter of 1.5 m, it was still only able to stumble about while moving forward. Shen Cong was unable to make it move faster. 

Once he ran into mountain paths, water routes, or hilly regions, it would be even more difficult for Titan to move forward. 

But after thinking about it, Shen Cong sighed a little. ‘Even if I manage to find Provincial Highway 208, most of it might be buried under shattered stones, and it won’t be easy to travel on it as well. Besides, Titan is almost out of fuel.’

When he ran into the prehistoric crocodile, the two fuel tanks by the side had cracked open, and Titan lost a great deal of diesel. 

Titan had around 200 litres of diesel left, and it used up at least 60 litres for each 100 km it traveled. With what was left, it would only be able to travel around 300 km. If Shen Cong needed to use the bulldozer blade to clear the road on top of that, the distance he could travel with the diesel would be even shorter. 

Fortunately, Wuwei was only around 40 km away from Chaohu, and Chaohu was only around 70 km away from Hefei. Even if he could not restock on diesel at Chaohu, if nothing major happened, Titan would still be able to reach Hefei. 

If worse came to worst, he could use the solar power electricity generators to charge up on electricity, then have Titan move for half an hour every day on electricity. Even if the journey would be tedious, he would still be able to bear through it and reach Hefei. 

Shen Cong raised his wrist and cast a glance at his mechanical watch. The time was 7:27 A.M.

He cast aside his frustrations and turned on the radio installed in the truck. 

The radio was repaired along with the dynamical system two days ago. In truth, it would have made no difference even if he repaired it on a later date. After all, Shen Cong did not have a lot of hope about being able to detect any meaningful signals.

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He could not detect any satellites, the radio stations on the ground seemed to have been completely destroyed, and radiation interfered with the signals, which put great limitations on the radio signals. 

“Bzzz… Bzzz… Bzzz…”

Just as Shen Cong expected, even after he searched through all the channels, all he received was white noise. But since he did not have any hope since the beginning, he did not suffer any disappointment. He casually turned the frequency modulation to its highest and made preparations to turn the radio off. 

Then, coincidentally, a few vague Mandarin phrases suddenly traveled through the static. 

“Bzzz… Eastern Theater… Bzzz… Nanjing… If you hear this, please… Bzzz…”