Chapter 378 - 180: The Fall of Ming Pearl

Chapter 378: Chapter 180: The Fall of Ming Pearl

The reason was simple—to survive. Or rather, to live better!

In the early days of the exodus, the survivors of Ming Pearl Port suffered massive casualties. In fact, more people died at the hands of fellow survivors than were killed by zombies.

Bingbing and Zhong’s group had originally been part of a large survivor organization, over three thousand strong. Their leader was a clever man. From the very beginning, he’d set a rule: they would only take weapons, food, and crop seeds, leaving behind all industrial equipment and technical data.

Because those things were too conspicuous.

Industrial equipment was large and heavy, while technical data was valuable. Anyone who saw them carrying such things would want to rob them. Weapons and food, on the other hand, were necessities for survival that everyone had, so they didn’t make you a special target. Crop seeds were inconspicuous but would be useful in the future—the very foundation for rebuilding their homes.

Thanks to this strategy, they traveled light, and as a result, few forces tried to rob them. And so, they trekked nearly a thousand kilometers to the southwest before finally finding a place to settle down.

But even so, the group shrank from over three thousand people to just over a thousand. Countless survivors died along the way from illness, starvation, or zombie bites.

Later, some people from the north passed through their settlement and brought news of Ming Pearl Port.

That massive shelter, once home to over 1.5 million people, had now become a veritable playground for zombies. They were swarming everywhere, packed so densely it was impossible to get inside. The troops that stayed behind to cover the retreat were all wiped out. Not a single one survived.

And just like that, a massive shelter of over 1.5 million people fell.

Silence fell inside the car. Xu Mo leaned back in his seat, digesting this information.

’A massive shelter with over 1.5 million people, capable of dispatching combat units of several thousand to clear out surrounding cities. Its strength far surpassed Jiang City’s. And yet, even a shelter that powerful collapsed in less than a month.’

’It hadn’t lost to the zombies, but to that Fog Zone—the one that endlessly spawned them.’

Xu Mo thought of the Red Star Industrial Zone outside Jiang City, and the fog-shrouded area above Pinggu City. ’Those places... they must be the same kind of thing as the Fog Zone north of Ming Pearl Port.’

’The only saving grace was that the Fog Zone at the Red Star Industrial Zone was small, with limited impact on Jiang City. Pinggu City, however, was a different story. I saw it from a distance as I left, and that Fog Zone was far from small!’

’And if this thing appeared at Ming Pearl Port, Pinggu City, and Jiang City, it meant they weren’t isolated incidents, but a widespread phenomenon.’

’Maybe the entire post-apocalyptic world was riddled with these overlapping zones. Zones that were endlessly generating zombies, constantly pumping death into the world of man.’

’And humanity, to this day, still had no idea what they were, where they came from, or how to fight them.’

’What was even more terrifying was that nuclear radiation caused the zombies to mutate. What did that imply? It meant that if nuclear weapons were ever used, the strength of the zombies they would face in the future would be on a completely different level!’

The fall of Ming Pearl Port was a tragic lesson.

’But does Jiang City know about this lesson? Do the other six major shelters know?’

Xu Mo didn’t know.

He only knew one thing: he had to get this information back.

Perhaps sensing Xu Mo’s silence, Bingbing tried to change the subject.

"Xu, how are things over in Jiang City now?"

Xu Mo snapped out of his trance and briefly explained the situation in Jiang City.

He told them that Jiang City now had over a million survivors and was developing at a steady pace. They had established contact with the other six major shelters, but had never been able to reach Ming Pearl Port or Starfire. Because of this, Jiang City and the other shelters had jointly launched a "saturation messaging" plan. Each had dispatched one hundred Messengers along different routes to Ming Pearl Port to ascertain the situation and establish contact, and he was one of those Messengers.

Hearing this, Zhong and Bingbing were filled with even greater admiration for him.

’One hundred people, and only one or two would make it. The success rate was abysmally low. And the man right in front of them was one of the one percent.’

"So..." Zhong began, choosing his words carefully. "Xu, now that you’ve gotten news about Ming Pearl Port from us, does that mean you can head back to Jiang City and report that your mission is complete?"

Xu Mo just smiled without saying anything.

’Theoretically, yes. I’ve learned about the fall of Ming Pearl Port from its own survivors. If I bring that news back, my mission would be considered complete. I could go back, turn in my report, and stop pushing forward. I wouldn’t have to face any more danger.’

But Xu Mo didn’t answer immediately. He was weighing the situation in his mind.

’Zhong and Bingbing are just members of a small settlement of a thousand or so survivors. The information they provided is probably true, but it’s just a verbal account. There are no documents, no evidence, no physical proof.’

’I haven’t come all this way and faced so much danger just to phone it in. I genuinely wanted to know what happened to Ming Pearl Port. My mission was to bring information from Jiang City to the people of Ming Pearl Port, to build a bridge between the two shelters.’

’Ming Pearl Port itself might be gone, but its people are still out there. The survivors who escaped, the groups that carried off industrial equipment and technical data, the people who rebuilt settlements in new places... they are the true legacy of Ming Pearl Port.’

’If I just go back now with nothing but an oral account, would Jiang City even believe me? And even if they did, what could they glean from the story alone? What lessons could they learn? How could it help them prepare for the crises to come?’

’No. I have to at least find one of the major organizations that inherited Ming Pearl Port’s legacy. I need to pass on Jiang City’s message and bring back something tangible—documents, like Ming Pearl Port’s archives, their records on fighting the Fog Zone, and especially the data and after-action reports on their use of a nuclear weapon.’