Chapter 224 - 224 - Broken Pipes
Zou Yue followed the watermarks on the ground, but it only led them to what looked like a boiler room. he glanced around but the watermark just mysteriously ended here.
He even peered up at the roof, searching for some weird creature to just pop out of nowhere but no.
Yue was still confused.
"There's nothing here. There must have been a leak in the roof. That's why the mater must have dripped down," Fan Xui whispered peering at the small holes in the plant ceiling.
Yue shook his head. 'It did not rain though... where did the water come from..' he even checked the boiler and the pipes nearby. They were bone dry. There was no sign of water in there.
The water was obviously coming from somewhere
'But where....'
"Yue," Tian's worried voice came from behind. "did you see something?"
"Tian did you hear any dripping sounds last night?"
"No, I was up all night but I did not hear anything," she shook her head with a confused look on her face. "What's going on? Are you hearing weird noises?"
"Yes... no.. I don't know. Maybe I'm just spooked." Yue massaged his head.
The sleepless night might have been the reason for this auditory hallucination. Even so... Yue glanced at the watermarks. 'Something is hiding so close to us...'
They went back and had their soup dumplings. Everyone woke up at nine and started their work for the day.
Tian took the lead to assigned work for everyone. "Fan, go with the repair guy and take a look at this place. Yue, stay by the door. Hary, go check the storeroom or the manager room here. We need to find an operation manual for this machine."
Everyone agreed on this. But the repairman trembled slightly.
"We... we can't do anything without power. We must go to the dam and first fix the hydroelectric turbines. We can't do anything without it," he briefly glanced at her.
Tian just raised a brow. "Dude, you're standing next to a live electric generator. Take him there and he can power this whole place up. Run the machines once and let me know what is the problem here,"
The man simply stood there, glancing at his feet.
Tian slightly frowned. She gestured for Yue to come to a corner.
"Something's up with him. Every time I suggest for him repair this place He keeps insisting we go to the dam."
Yue glanced at the technician from the head to the toe. "You think he's fake?"
"Maybe.. I don't know. I have zero clues how these mechanical things work,' she shrugged.
"Let's observe him for now. Send more soldiers with them." Yue mumbled softly.
Tian nodded and assigned the two other soldiers to go along with Fan Xui and the repairman.
The repairman hesitantly glanced their way before leaving the room.
Yue silently tugged at Tian's hands. "I'll go with Hary, you stay here,"
He really wanted to explore more of the treatment room and search for that mysterious water stains.
They both got ready with all the weapons and proceeded in. The power supply grid was smack to the right of their tents. It was close and Tian closely monitored them but the so-called Control room was at the end of the factory. They had to go through all the creepy pipes and machines to get there.
Hary and Yue vigilantly moved inside.
"Hey, Yue... ignore what the crack head said?"
"Which crack head?" Yue peered at a particular pipeline. It went down to the ground and there was some water inside.
"That crazy scientist.... ignore what he said," Hary hesitantly whispered.
Yue froze. 'Oh.... it's about that...'
"It's okay, I'll ignore it," he mumbled, squatting down. The pipe shaft definitely went low, and the water looked deep.
There was a weird scent coming from in there. it was a combination of bleach and nasty rotting meat.
Hary sat down next to him. "Thanks.... I assure you.. I don't want to burden you with my feelings,"
Yue glanced at him in surprise. "Hary it's normal to have crushes. You don't have to feel awkward about it."
Even after assuring him, Hary looked hesitant. "Did you.... even for a moment think of me in that light?"
Yue shook his head. "Sorry, I did not feel that connection with you. I was not even attracted to men or gay for that matter but...somehow with Fan... it kinda happened.,"
Hary let out a chuckled. "so he bent you,"
"Quite literally, yes. He's a good guy.….."
"If you hadn't met him you could have met a woman and had a family…. Do you regret that?" Hary mumbled softly
"I don't think I will be a good boyfriend or a husband to any girl. At least that's what the models I used to work with used to say. They said I'm cold and sometimes very detached. Some even joked around that I might be slightly bent,"
"You're not. You're sweet and kind. They just did not know you as I do," Hary mumbled softly, playing with the gun's barrel.
"I guess so....."
Hary looked a little hesitant. He opened his mouth and closed his mouth as if he holding something in.
"What is it?"
"In your past life.... were you in a relationship with Fan? Or.. did you date anyone? You don't have to answer me."
Yue chuckled loudly. "I didn't have the time to date. I was busy scouring for food, working my ass off to survive. Fan was much of a stranger to me. But I saw Tian once though. She employed me and gave me a lot of food,"
Hary curiously looked at him. "What did you work as?"
"Information runner. I gather information, of any kind. Usually, it's was just rich people who want to spy on their wives to see if they are cheating or not. or it's mostly likely something along the lines of finding a missing person..... I used to think I was a detective. The job paid very little and I was bullied. The food got stolen most of the time."
Hary pitifully looked at him. "You were strong then?"
"yes, but my powers became outdated. You have to understand Hary people are evolving. In the future, everyone is going to have powers. Strength and speed, any kind of physical powers became useless because every human developed the same strength and speed by that point. not just that, the zombies grew powerful too, their bodies developed so much that their bones are literally unbreakable."
Just the talk about being weak made his heart pound loudly
Yue stood up, patting the dust off of his hand. "this place needs to be investigated. I'll ask Tian to see what she can do."
This huge tubing was definitely connected to the river.
He carefully glanced at the sides of it. the edges looked broken and there was rubble all around the side.
"Look up there," Hary whispered softly.
Looking up, there was a huge hole in the ceiling. It was about a football-size wide. The edged looked to be slightly burned leaving a black residue there.
"The meteor, this tubing broke because of the meteor shard,"