The Ultimate War Of The Apocalypse
Chapter 239 - 235: Shangri-La

Chapter 239: Chapter 235: Shangri-La

The interrogation started quickly and ended just as swiftly, there wasn’t even time to determine if the prisoner’s words were true or false before Gao Yuan decided to head south.

"We’re leaving, what about the prisoner?"

Gao Yuan didn’t want to delay any further, he was worried about enemy pursuit, but just before they were about to depart, he found himself asking what they should do with the prisoner.

After asking, it suddenly occurred to Gao Yuan that he was the leader of the squad, and it should be the others asking him what to do with the prisoner.

Li Yang, without a word, drew his pistol and, just as silently, fired a shot into the prisoner’s head, and then quietly holstered his gun. Amidst everyone’s astonished gazes, he whispered, "Anyone who has seen Gao Yuan’s way of fighting has to die—if there has to be a condition, then it’s the enemy."

After a brief silence, no one responded to Li Yang’s words, and everyone ran towards the waiting vehicles.

"Let’s head south," Gao Yuan said after seeing Zhao Qiang, uttering just that before getting into the vehicle. Zhao Qiang gave up the driver’s seat to Panxin, then whispered, "Can we not get through ahead?"

"Yes, there’s at least a thousand-strong force waiting for us ahead, and they’ve sealed off the entire road with heavy firepower. We can’t get through, but heading south will take us to Dushanbe."

Zhao Qiang immediately said, "All right, we head south, let’s get out of here first and talk along the way."

Gao Yuan held Zhao Qiang back and whispered, "Dushanbe has no virus! The city is completely unaffected by the virus."

Zhao Qiang stiffened, then he laughed softly, whispering, "A utopia indeed. We’ve always wondered if such places existed, and now it seems there really is one..."

He felt strong envy but knew not to be too optimistic, for a city entirely unscathed by the virus might not welcome the arrival of Gao Yuan and his team.

The virus could be airborne, but that didn’t mean it could survive in the air indefinitely. Dushanbe was surrounded by mountains, and as long as the Serpent People hadn’t spread the virus over the city as they had elsewhere, Dushanbe could really remain unscathed from the virus.

But Gao Yuan and his people were carriers of the virus, or rather, potential hosts.

Those who had developed antibodies and would not turn into zombies could still carry the virus, a fact that had been verified. That is to say, if Gao Yuan’s team entered Dushanbe, they could potentially cause a major outbreak of the virus.

"We can’t enter Dushanbe, we shouldn’t cause trouble for them. We’ll just ask for the necessary supplies from Dushanbe and then leave. If the protective measures are in place, our passage won’t impact the country."

After he finished speaking, Zhao Qiang turned to Gao Yuan, "You and Xinghe go to the back vehicle. We’ll definitely need to negotiate with the Tajikistan side. Before that, we need to disinfect our vehicles and personnel and put on protective gear."

Zhao Qiang decided to take self-protection measures without waiting for Tajikistan to demand it.

If Dushanbe was an extremely precious utopia, then they shouldn’t destroy it, preserving a precious city for humanity.

Gao Yuan pulled Xinghe with him, returning to the markedly less comfortable truck.

Liu Chunxiao, on the other hand, was in the lead SUV for the first time.

As Gao Yuan brought Xinghe to the truck, Cao Zhenjiang’s eyes lit up. He quickly moved his folding chair back to give Gao Yuan more legroom.

"That... Captain, how did you do it?"

Cao Zhenjiang looked enthusiastic, then suddenly turned to Lizhizi, who was sitting beside him, "Move over a bit, isn’t it cramped?"

Lizhizi moved her folding chair to the side, looking resigned.

Cao Zhenjiang smiled at Gao Yuan again, "Captain, are you a martial arts master? No, even a martial arts master can’t be possible... How can you fly?"

Gao Yuan thought for a moment, then eventually responded with a bitter smile, "Mr. Cao..."

"Yes, Captain, go ahead."

Gao Yuan sighed and said, "I better not say. Even if I have to tell you why, you’d probably have more trouble afterwards. It’s... better not to know than to know, it should be like that. Just wait, Boss Zhao will definitely want to have a heart-to-heart with you."

Cao Zhenjiang paused, but as the truck started moving, he was jolted slightly. Finally, he replied with resignation, "It’s a secret? If it’s confidential, then... we can talk about it later."

The truck had started moving, and Cao Zhenjiang took a deep breath. He took the drum magazine of his machine gun out of his pouch, replaced it with a full one, leaned the gun to one side, took out the empty magazine, and began refilling it with loose bullets.

"Load up the bullets; we don’t have many drums, so fill them up now. Don’t wait until we’re in the middle of a fight to do it—you two, refill your magazines as well."

Cao Zhenjiang was a mess cook, but now, he seemed to be in charge of everyone.

After finishing, Cao Zhenjiang tossed an empty magazine into the arms of Lizhizi, who seemed to be sulking, and said, "What are you doing idling around? Load the bullets, this will be your job from now on, show some initiative."

Lizhizi took a deep breath, accepted the magazine, opened it like Cao Zhenjiang did, and began loading it with bullets.

Yu Shunzhou said cheerfully, "Taoist Priest Li, Brother Li! Do a divination for us, come on, do a divination."

Lizhizi didn’t want to bother with Yu Shunzhou and said in a low voice, "Either call me Taoist Priest Lizhizi or Brother Zhang, my secular name is Zhang. Can’t you remember that?"

"Okay, Taoist Priest Zhang, if you can divine where we should go, I’ll be convinced."

Lizhizi felt stifled and looked at Yu Shunzhou before finally saying, "I’ve already done the divination. I knew that today’s path would be impassable. When the path is obstructed, change course. According to my calculations, we should head south—in fact, keep heading southeast, it’s only to the southeast that there’s a glimmer of hope for survival."

Upon hearing this, Yu Shunzhou was taken aback for a moment, then he laughed, "Southeast my ass, we are heading south..."

Lizhizi perked up and said, "Really heading south? But we are heading east right now."

"We’re going east now, but we’ll head south later. But your divination is off, as we will need to circle south and then head west. What’s with your southeast then?"

Lizhizi’s face lit up with joy, "Then my divination wasn’t wrong. We are indeed heading south, and you guys didn’t tell me we had to go south."

Cao Zhenjiang said impatiently, "Get moving and load faster. So, you tell me, is heading south good or not?"

Lizhizi hesitated, and Cao Zhenjiang shouted, "Speak up! You say that apart from wasting food, divination is the only use we have for you, and now when you’re needed, you clam up?"

After hesitating for a while, Lizhizi spoke in a low voice, "I did a divination for the journey and the omens don’t look good for us."

There were no outright materialists in the vehicle. Regardless of their identities, they all somewhat believed in divination and fortune-telling, no matter whether they admitted it out loud or not. They would surely not believe it entirely, but deep down, there was a bit of faith.

Seeing everyone looking puzzled yet contemptuous, Lizhizi knew they still wanted to hear something positive.

He was there as a sort of mascot, and saying something optimistic could also serve to boost morale. Conscious of his role and quite observant, he quickly said, "But we are definitely destined to turn our misfortune into fortune. It’s impossible for our journey to be completely smooth, so there will be incidents, but we certainly won’t run into actual disaster."

With just that one sentence, everyone’s expressions visibly improved a bit.

The group chatted idly in the vehicle, though their minds were on Dushanbe ahead, so the conversation soon turned to this unique city.

The drive was slow because they knew there was a military barricade set up by the Tajik forces ahead, meant to prevent anyone from entering Dushanbe. Whether they could even get into the city or simply pass by was still an unknown.

After two hours, the vehicle finally came to a stop.

"Get out! Everyone, get out!"

Li Jingang from the lead vehicle was calling out loudly and everyone jumped out of the vehicle one after another.

Li Jingang was outside the vehicle and shouted, "There’s a turn ahead that leads to the Tajik position. The road is blocked off. Everyone, get out of the vehicles to avoid conflict, and find advantageous terrain to take cover."

Cao Zhenjiang turned to Lizhizi and said, "Hey, Taoist, do you want a gun?"

Lizhizi replied with a pained expression, "I don’t know how to use it. Can I have a knife instead?"

Gao Yuan took a few steps forward to Zhao Qiang’s side and asked, "How’s it looking?"

Zhao Qiang put down his binoculars and replied, "The road ahead is completely blocked. There are soldiers from the Tajik border forces; there must be a lot of them or they wouldn’t have turned back the Uzbek army. I need to go upfront and negotiate."

Gao Yuan didn’t offer to go along because he didn’t speak a foreign language. There was no point in following, but this time things were different. Zhao Qiang glanced at him and took the initiative, "Come with me. This time you can just watch from the side, or better yet, I’ll be your interpreter."

Gao Yuan was quite surprised, but Zhao Qiang called out loudly, "Give me the national flag, and bring the documents. Let’s go."

Carrying the national flag and walking side by side with Gao Yuan, Zhao Qiang said, "I don’t know if we’ll be able to get through. If they don’t let us pass, it’s going to be troublesome. Don’t be too aggressive, we are the ones asking for a favor after all. Try not to ruin the negotiation. And hey, shouldn’t you learn a foreign language? At least you should learn English."

"My English is pretty bad... I can’t learn it."

"It’s not that you can’t learn, it’s that you haven’t had the environment or the need. If you’re willing to study seriously, how can you not learn such a simple language? Look, we’re approaching people."

Several armed soldiers could already be seen appearing behind the roadblocks. Zhao Qiang waved the national flag, then whispered to Gao Yuan, "Don’t get too close to them, to avoid spreading the virus. We’ve been in contact with zombies during our journey. But I expect, since it’s an outpost, there will definitely be people in hazmat suits. They can’t just kill everyone they meet."

As they got closer to the outpost, indeed, a person in full protective gear approached Gao Yuan and his party.