Free Web NovelChapter 35: The guarded alliance
The low thrum of the armored SUV’s engine provided a steady, vibrating undercurrent to the thick silence that re-established itself within the cabin.
Outside, the headlights of the lead vehicle sliced through the thinning mountain fog, guiding the small convoy down the winding, ice-slicked northern ridges. The world beyond the reinforced glass was a chaotic wasteland of bone-chilling cold and white mist, but inside the heavy vehicle, the atmosphere was dense with a completely different kind of pressure.
Han Zheng remained motionless in the passenger seat. His dark eyes were fixed on the treacherous road ahead, watching the red tail lights of his vanguard squad’s lead truck dance across the black ice.
Beneath his calm, unyielding exterior, his mind was spinning through a complex labyrinth of calculations and profound cognitive dissonance. Finally, his deep voice broke the quiet, his tone conversational but laced with the sharp, underlying precision of an interrogator.
"Were you headed toward the research center?" Han Zheng asked, his gaze shifting slightly to catch the icy, undisturbed profile of his wife’s face in the faint green glow of the dashboard instrument panel. "Is it a secure facility?"
Internally, his thoughts were highly conflicted, bordering on outright suspicion. The research center was a highly classified, top-secret government facility—a subterranean fortress built deep into the bedrock of the valley, fortified with its own independent power grid, thick blast doors, and automated hydroponic loops.
It was a location that ordinary citizens did not even know existed, wiped completely from public maps years before the apocalypse. He pondered heavily on how a normal housewife, a woman who had spent her days managing a quiet domestic household in the capital while he was away on operations, could possibly possess the exact coordinates to such a secure, restricted sanctuary.
Lin Qing didn’t hesitate for a single fraction of a second. Her hands remained steady, almost relaxed, on the leather-wrapped steering wheel as she smoothly navigated the heavy vehicle into a sharp, descending curve.
"Yes," Lin Qing replied, her voice smooth, level, and dripping with an unyielding aura of absolute confidence that brooked no argument. "I had been near the research center before the world ended for a regional logistics project. I remembered the blueprints and the geographic layout. It’s entirely subterranean, heavily reinforced against external structural trauma, and has its own independent water filtration loop. In a total collapse, it’s an ideal, self-sustaining place to live."
It was a flawless lie. In reality, Lin Qing had never set foot near the facility; the coordinates had been given to her by Han Ye, who had utilized his memories as a regressor to guide them towards this hidden sanctuary. She deliberately fabricated the story to completely shield the boy’s true identity, ensuring that his dangerous, reality-bending secret as a regressor remained buried deeply beneath her own layers of mystery.
Her delivery was so clinical, so entirely devoid of nervous tells or physiological hesitation, that Han Zheng accepted her explanation at face value, though the burning curiosity in his chest remained unextinguished.
"We can discuss the coordinates and the structural layout later," Lin Qing continued, her voice carrying a rare, subtle trace of physical exhaustion that she couldn’t entirely suppress from her tone. "Right now, I prefer to find a place to rest soon. The children are deeply drained from the journey and even I am starting to feel the toll of the drive."
Her statement was entirely pragmatic, stripped of any needless pride. Although her soul possessed the lethal, high-tier reflexes and instincts of a seasoned special forces operator, her physical vessel was still an unawakened, standard civilian body. Driving a multi-ton war machine through a zombie-infested capital, surviving a bridge collapse, and navigating a treacherous mountain pass on black ice had pushed her physical stamina to its absolute limits. freewebnovёl.ƈom
Now, with an elite, eight-man vanguard team guarding her perimeter—including Han Zheng himself, three other highly volatile, powered evolutionary users, and four other heavily armed soldiers, her mind calculated the risk. For the first time since the world ended, surrounded by an overwhelming display of military force loyal to her family, she could finally afford to lower her guard and rest for a brief moment.
Acknowledging the heavy truth in her words, Han Zheng reached into his vest and pulled out a heavily detailed, laminated military map. He unfolded it across his lap, his gloved finger pointing to a specific grid coordinate located just past the base of the mountain ridge.
"There is a hidden military transit section carved directly into the bedrock just ahead," Han Zheng said, his voice dropping into a commanding, operational tone that brought comfort through its sheer certainty. "It’s a reinforced staging depot used for border logistics. My team can breach and clear the interior perimeter first, and then we can securely rest there for a day or two to stabilize the kids and let you recover. I’ll signal the formation."
Lin Qing gave a single, firm nod of agreement, her eyes never leaving the road. Han Zheng instantly keyed the radio on his vest, issuing a series of crisp, authoritative commands that echoed through the earpieces of his seven waiting men. The three vehicles accelerated in perfect, synchronized harmony, plunging through the final layers of mountain fog until they pulled up to the massive, rusted blast doors of the hidden transit depot.
The heavy iron doors groaned under mechanical pressure as the lead vehicle forced them open, allowing the convoy to roll into the vast, cavernous darkness of the underground facility. The moment the vehicles parked and the engines cut out, the flawless operational precision of Han Zheng’s unit took over.
The three powered squad members instantly flared their volatile, crackling energy signatures, their bodies radiating a faint evolutionary warmth as they fanned out into the dark corridors in a perfect tactical sweep to clear the sectors of any hidden biological threats. Meanwhile, the four remaining soldiers stepped out into the damp, cool air, stretching their aching, stiff muscles after hours of high-alert driving.
As the heavy driver’s side door of the SUV swung open, Lin Qing stepped out onto the concrete floor of the depot, her rifle was slung securely over her shoulder. Her movements were fluid, but a slight stiffness in her joints betrayed just how hard she had been pushing herself.
The four soldiers who were stretching immediately gathered around the side of the vehicle, their faces filled with unhidden awe. Having witnessed the terrifying impact on the mountain road from their rearview mirrors, they could no longer control their enthusiasm.
"Sister-in-law, that was an absolute masterclass in driving," one of the soldiers blurted out, shaking his head in sheer disbelief as he looked at the dented steel bull-bar of the truck. "Most veteran scouts would have slammed the brakes and compromised the entire convoy line in that fog, but you turned the Commander’s SUV into a literal guillotine for that mutated wolf. Your nerves are made of absolute steel!"
Lin Qing stood by the door, handling their intense, open admiration with the same cold, indifferent silence she afforded everyone else. She didn’t smile, nor did she boast; she merely adjusted her rifle strap, looking like an ice statue under the dim facility lights. Before the soldiers could press her further or ask where she had acquired such terrifying reflexes, Han Zheng stepped out of the passenger side, his massive frame casting a long, imposing shadow across the concrete floor.
He cleared his throat with a low, deep, and incredibly threatening rumble that vibrated through the cavernous room.
The four soldiers froze instantly, the silent, warning from their commander striking them like a physical blow. Their faces flushed with sudden, rigid discipline, and they hastily dismissed themselves, stammering awkwardly as they retreated toward the back of the SUV to escape his gaze. "We’ll... we’ll get right to work unloading the medical crates and survival supplies, Boss! Moving out!"
Left alone in the quiet, shadowed space between the vehicles, Han Zheng turned his towering frame toward Lin Qing. Throughout the entire treacherous drive down the mountain pass, he had intentionally suppressed his burning questions, recognizing that she required absolute, undivided focus to pilot the heavy armored vehicle across the ice.
But now that they were within a secured, fortified perimeter, he was prepared to demand answers. He wanted to know exactly what kind of extreme trauma little Han Ye and the unconscious girl had endured to leave them so thoroughly, physiologically drained. He wanted to know who she really was.
He took a single step forward, his dark eyes locking onto hers, his mouth opening to voice the interrogation that had been tormenting him since the clearing.
But before a single syllable could leave his lips, the base radio frequency on his chest harness erupted with violent, static-laced urgency. Lieutenant Chen’s tight, breathless voice cut through the damp air of the depot like a gunshot.
"Commander! Western sector, lower storage grid! The sensors just spiked—we’ve found someone inside the facility!"
