Xiao Fan's actions can be described as swift and decisive. After making up his mind, he immediately took his guard platoon and engineer Ai Yin and went to Yanshan Town train station.
At Yanshan Town train station, a bullet train was parked there, motionless.
The streamlined body, eight carriages, just sitting there without moving.
The zombies in the train station had already been eliminated, and the station was now empty.
Xiao Fan pointed at the train: "Ai Yin, do you know how to drive a train?"
Ai Yin tidied up his coat: "Commander in Chief, do you still not trust your soldiers? Forget about trains, give me a little time and I can even fly a spaceship into the sky."
"That's great. Since that's the case, you go drive the train. We're heading to Chishui County."
"Give me some time. This train may have some problems. I need some time to fix it."
Ai Yin got on the train and started repairing it.
Xiao Fan also took this time to start mobilizing troops.
His goal was to go to Chishui County's train station. That place was definitely full of zombies. It wouldn't be easy to clear out a safe area.
So he only left one platoon in Yanshan Town, and took the rest - 2nd platoon, 3rd platoon, and the engineering platoon - to follow him to Chishui County.
This time they couldn't bring the tanks, because tanks couldn't get on the bullet train. This made Xiao Fan realize that this seemingly luxurious train actually wasn't very practical in the apocalypse.
If he wasn't so pressed for time, maybe it would have been better to add two freight carriages behind the train.
After about two hours, the train was fixed.
Ai Yin and another engineer acted as the drivers, while Xiao Fan led all the troops onto the train.
Ai Yin pressed the train's horn.
The long-unheard horn sounded particularly pleasant now.
The train slowly left Yanshan Town station.
Sitting in the carriage, Xiao Fan felt waves of emotions.
The carriage was full of his soldiers, all sitting neatly in rows with their steel spears glinting.
A sense of pride welled up in him - these were all his troops!
Brave and fearless, unafraid of death, and they didn't even need to be paid.
With such a powerful force, if he still couldn't accomplish something, he would really have let down this chance at life.
Perhaps sensing that the Commander in Chief was lost in thought, Xue Ninger and Sun Feifei next to him also remained silent, just quietly accompanying him.
The train sped along the railway, passing village after village and town after town.
Looking out the window, Xiao Fan felt that everything was bleak and dilapidated. Along the way they could even see some zombies in the distance gnashing their teeth and trying in vain to intercept the train.
Of course, he also saw some scattered survivors along the way.
Some survivors had already fled into the wilderness to survive, building straw huts in the wilds, living as primitively as savages.
Seeing the passing train, some survivors were dumbfounded. They shouted and waved frantically, wanting the train to stop and take them aboard, to escape from this deadly place.
But Xiao Fan would not stop for anyone right now. Maybe in the future when he had more capability he would, but not now.
He could not delay his greater plans for just a few people.
"Take care, all of you. If you can survive a while longer, once my base is built up I will come looking for survivors, but not right now."
The train rushed by them, heading straight for Chishui County station.
The journey was indeed unobstructed the whole way. Xiao Fan even saw an overturned derailed train lying on its side.
If that train had not derailed, it really would have been troublesome.
It was late into the night when the train finally arrived at Chishui County station.
"Commander in Chief, we've arrived at the station."
Xiao Fan looked at the radar map - there were many red dots around, representing zombies.
"Don't get off for now. Have the cooking squad make dinner first. We'll eat, rest, and disembark to fight tomorrow morning."
"Yes sir!"
The cooking squad started making dinner. Everyone ate aboard the train.
After eating, Xiao Fan returned to the window and looked out at Chishui County city in the night.
The huge county city, with its population of millions, was shrouded in darkness.
But there were also some sparse lights here and there, indicating there were still people alive there.
Xiao Fan calculated - it had been a month and some days since the apocalypse began. Many places had lost power already.
When the power was cut, it was usually because a transformer was damaged or a utility pole had fallen, though some places still had electricity.
For example, Yanshan Town still had power because Xiao Fan's people were managing it.
This bullet train also relied on electricity to operate, and the railway facilities were undamaged, so it could still run.
The power here came from power plants, whose equipment could operate automatically, but without people managing them, Xiao Fan knew they could only last about two months at most.
That meant at most another twenty-odd days, and all places would lose power, including Yanshan Town.
"We have to leave as soon as possible, can't delay too long. We can't exceed twenty-five days."
"Now it's not a question of whether I want to leave or not, but we must leave. Once we go past that time and still haven't left, our world will become pitch dark."
"A world without light belongs to the zombies. It would be extremely disadvantageous for humans."
The night passed as Xiao Fan was lost in thought.
The Red Alert soldiers slept soundly. Produced by the system, they had no concept of insomnia - once they slept, they could fall asleep instantly, and they didn't snore.
The next morning at dawn, Xiao Fan's people ate again, and were in high spirits after the meal.
"Move out. Our mission today is to clear a path from the train station to the steel factory, and transport the steel back to Yanshan Town. By noon tomorrow at the latest, I want to see that steel back home!"
"Understood! We'll complete the mission!"
Platoon leaders Shen Guangming and Meng Qiang immediately started organizing the troops to disembark.
"Listen up, everyone. Right now there aren't many zombies on the platform, but look over there - that's the waiting room. As soon as we open that door, at least three thousand zombies will definitely come pouring out. Our mission is to eliminate them all around the door area, to establish a good foundation for the march ahead."
"Second platoon will go first, third platoon stand by."
Thirty soldiers of the second platoon got off the train and set up their heavy machine guns.
Platoon leader Shen Guangming personally led them, rushing over to open the door of the waiting room.
After opening the door, Shen Guangming turned and ran.
While the emaciated zombies inside the waiting room poured out madly, like water from an opened floodgate.