Chapter 661: Found the plane!
In the early morning light, golden sunlight swept across the ridges at the border of Ye Province and Hu Province, casting jagged shadows on the rusted perimeter of Tongren Phoenix Airport.
Phoenix Airport is located in the Wuling Mountain area, about 21 kilometers from Tongren City and 30 kilometers from Phoenix City. It is a typical mountain airport and one of the few inter-provincial airports in China, serving both Ye Province and Xiangxi.
As a 4C-level small and medium-sized airport, the airport covers a total area of 2 square kilometers and has one runway.
Because it is located in the suburbs and in a valley surrounded by mountains, it was selected by the Tongren City officials after the end of the world. Relying on its original building scale, it expanded outward to establish the current Tongren gathering place.
Today, the Tongren gathering place has undergone several expansions, and its total area has reached about 20 square kilometers, accommodating survivors, including not only local survivors in Tongren City, but also survivors who escaped from Hunan Province.
The gathering place for colleagues is surrounded by a double-layer concrete wall, six meters high, with barbed wire and high-voltage electrical devices on top.
There is a watchtower every hundred meters on the wall, with a searchlight and observation point installed on the top of the tower. The tower is covered with vines, as if it is a wrestling arena between steel and nature.
The most eye-catching thing in the gathering place is the former terminal building, which has now been transformed into a steel beehive and is now the management core of the entire gathering place.
To this end, bulletproof steel plates were specially installed on the outer layer of the terminal's glass curtain wall. Only a small amount of weak light can seep through it at night, and safety and concealment are maximized.
At this moment, the solar panels covering the roof of the terminal, under the morning light, look like pieces of metal scales, constantly emitting cold light.
Outside the terminal building, the only runway in the entire airport has been preserved after going through many changes in the gathering place.
The only change is that compared to before the end of the world, there are many more rough traces of repairs, like a pair of pants full of patches.
On the control tower not far from the runway, the two on-duty personnel, Lao Wei and Xiao Zhang, were observing the situation around the gathering place and the sky through the high-powered telescopes as usual.
"Old Wei, do you think this apocalypse will end?"
Xiao Zhang curled up in a chair beside him, with a leather notebook spread on his knees. The edges of the pages were turned amber by oil stains. He kept writing something in his hands, but his tone was full of confusion.
"Remember, at 10 a.m., everything was normal on the north side of the gathering area, and no abnormalities were found in the sky or on the ground."
The 47-year-old Lao Wei is like a piece of weathered basalt, with rough and weathered skin. He has gone through thousands of vicissitudes of life but still has a hint of tenacity.
Hearing this, Xiao Zhang quickly started to write it down.
"Why do you ask this suddenly? Are you stimulated by something?" Old Wei asked while continuing to observe without changing his expression.
"Nothing, I just suddenly felt that our gathering place has been quiet for a long time, as if we were living in a remote corner, with no intention of eliminating the zombies or retaking the city..."
"If this continues, will we be able to see the end of the apocalypse in our lifetime?"
When Kobayashi said this with resentment in his tone, what he was thinking about was the life before the end of the world.
Compared to the life before the end of the world, life now can drive people crazy...
Without the Internet, entertainment, or even enough to eat, I am trapped in this small world every day, just like being locked in a bottomless well, with no hope in sight.
Only the sky is free, the ground is full of high walls, zombies, and mutant beasts...
How could he not yearn for the time before the end of the world?
Therefore, Xiaolin’s inner anxiety is not just his own, but a microcosm of the emotions of the entire gathering place.
Unable to sink to the bottom of the water, unable to float to the surface, the suffocation and anxiety of being trapped in the water.
"What makes you anxious is that the gathering place has suddenly slowed down or even stopped, right?" Old Wei's expression was as calm as an old dog.
“It’s good for young people to be motivated, but stability is what really matters.”
"The prerequisite for ending the apocalypse is to ensure that you and I survive first!" As he said this, Lao Wei pointed at Xiao Lin and himself, his tone somewhat meaningful.
"During the period when our settlement stopped expanding externally, our internal development did not stop. We built military factories, recruited soldiers, and organized farming. Which project was not accumulating strength?"
"So the more critical the moment, the less impatient you should be. Being young is an advantage, but it is also a disadvantage."
"Blind expansion requires a price, and the price is the lives of people, you and me... not the numbers mentioned in history books..."
"You young people today have read too many grand history books and experienced too little cruel reality, so you have no concept of life and even less reverence for it..."
"You only know that the leaders above are weak, but you can't figure out who they are weak for..."
Listening to Lao Wei's words, Xiao Lin couldn't help but fall into deep thought...
"So the root of the problem is that we don't have a mature army, right? So now we are setting up military factories and training the army just to accumulate strength?"
"Then the question is, where is our Zhou State's army? It's been more than half a year, why can't we hear any movement?"
"It's impossible that they were all killed in battle? Or were the troops transferred to protect important cities? To protect the privileged class?"
Thinking of this, Xiao Lin's negative emotions did not diminish despite Lao Wei's advice, but became even stronger.
Everyone understands the truth, but when they are in the situation, how many people can think rationally?
Therefore, Xiao Lin couldn't help but feel a strong resentment towards the disappeared Zhou Bang army.
However, just as Xiao Lin was about to say something outrageous to vent his negative emotions, Old Wei, who was holding a high-powered telescope, suddenly screamed:
"Damn it! Why do I see a plane?!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Xiao Lin instinctively looked in the direction where Lao Wei screamed, and saw a large blue and white plane suddenly appearing in the southwest sky.
The moment it broke through the clouds and appeared in their field of vision, both Old Wei and Xiaolin began to tremble uncontrollably, and their scalps felt tingling!
The silvery-white metallic behemoth is bathed in golden light, stretching its 63-meter-long wings. Its four turbofan engines refract the cold light of titanium alloy in the sun, just like the Titan carrying the sky in ancient Greek mythology.
The morning mist condensed into fine Coanda vortices at the wingtips, dragging out two diamond stardust-like trail clouds, which overlapped with the cumulus clouds surging under the fuselage in a multi-dimensional space.
The posture of the streamlined humpback dome cutting through the airflow reminded Kobayashi of the back of a blue whale leaping out of the sea!
"Plane! It's a plane!!!"
"Where did this plane come from? Could it be that the outside world has been restored?!"
Without time to think, the experienced Old Wei quickly calmed down and quickly picked up the intercom to call the control room:
"Report, plane spotted! Plane spotted!"
