Otherwise, after so many days, it would be impossible for the radio on the King Kong to have failed to pick up even a single meaningful signal.

The entire Earth had fallen completely silent.

As quiet as the starry universe itself.

Chapter 6: The Power of the Fanged Dagger

The next day, Brian Sullivan was awakened by the alarm clock; the sun was already up.

He checked the King Kong’s battery—52% remaining. Brian Sullivan carried the solar charging panel up to the roof to charge for a while. He then came back to fry some fang wolf meat; he decided to live on fang wolf meat for the next few days. He had hunted a total of seven fang wolves—if he didn’t eat them quickly, it would go to waste.

There was a lot of meat on the fang wolves, but Brian Sullivan’s favorite was the fatty meat from the wolf’s belly, because it could be rendered into oil.

Once the oil was ready, frying the fang wolf meat in it gave it a unique and delicious flavor.

After eating and drinking his fill, Brian Sullivan started up the King Kong and began slowly roaming the ruins of the county town. He planned to stay here for a few days and re-confirm the route map he had planned before doomsday. On the map Brian Sullivan had drawn up before doomsday, he had marked in detail all the supply points, gun depots, repair shops, and refueling stations in the surrounding counties and provincial capital.

In Wuwei County, there was a waterworks that not only supplied tap water to the county, but also produced bottled water. This water plant had an underground warehouse specifically for storing filled bottles.

It had already been a month and a half, and Brian Sullivan had yet to find a lake in this yellow desert, so he couldn’t replenish his fresh water. His current supply would only last another month.

He never imagined that he would end up unable to find even a water source.

But Wuwei County must have a water source—otherwise, those seven fang wolves couldn’t have survived until now.

The only sound in the silence was the wind blowing the yellow sand.

The King Kong prowled among the ruins like a ferocious beast, its engine roaring especially loudly. The battlefield reconnaissance radar slowly rotated, scanning the terrain of the entire county’s ruins.

This radar had a mapping function. Brian Sullivan imported the original saved map, then imported the radar’s mapping data. By comparing the two, he could determine the original locations of the county’s buildings.

“According to the map, this location is the Unicom Building. There’s a Carrefour supermarket on the basement level. I wonder if the supermarket has been destroyed.”

After confirming the exact location of the supermarket, Brian Sullivan drove the King Kong over, lowered the bulldozer blade, and began clearing away the surface sand and rubble.

This project took twenty minutes before he finally pinpointed the real location of the supermarket.

When he found the entrance to the basement, Brian Sullivan frowned. The entrance barely revealed the original stair steps, but they were already buried under sand and rubble. The supermarket entrance was large, and Brian Sullivan suspected the entire basement might be buried. If it was, it would be much harder to find any supplies.

But after all, he was a self-taught expert who had tinkered alone for six years. He quickly fetched a piece of equipment from the King Kong—a seismic locator, a device that could use surface vibrations to measure terrain. Since it was designed for surface mapping, it wasn’t very accurate for underground measurements.

But Brian Sullivan didn’t need precision—he just needed to know whether the supermarket below was completely buried.

The seismic locator soon brought Brian Sullivan good news: it was hollow underneath, and the empty space was large, indicating the supermarket was still intact. He set up an alarm mechanism on the radar—if it detected any moving targets, it would immediately send an alert to his phone. Although the phone had no signal, both infrared and Bluetooth worked fine within a few meters.

After setting up the alarm, Brian Sullivan, dressed in stab-proof clothing, cut-resistant gloves, and military boots, picked up his entrenching shovel and began clearing the entrance.

Strong as an ox—let’s call it the strength of one ox.

With the strength of an ox, Brian Sullivan wielded the entrenching shovel with great speed. What would take an ordinary person half a day to dig a hole big enough to enter, Brian Sullivan managed in just half an hour, opening up a path down to the supermarket.

Inside, the supermarket was pitch black. All the shelves had collapsed, and various goods were scattered everywhere.

Wearing a headlamp and carrying a backpack, Brian Sullivan began searching through the scattered goods for the supplies he needed. Clothes and food he didn’t even look at—they weren’t urgently needed for survival at the moment. Only drinks and bottled water, as well as alcohol and cigarettes, were his targets.

Drinks and bottled water were, of course, for drinking—he was most in need of these.

Alcohol and cigarettes he planned to stockpile for future trade. It was hard to say if he was the only survivor in this world. If there was trade, items like alcohol and cigarettes, which could numb the mind, would definitely be more valuable than plain food and water.

Well, this was all knowledge he’d picked up from movies and novels.

Soon, Brian Sullivan found the counter where drinks were displayed. The counter had collapsed, and the drinks were all on the floor. Pulpy orange, Nutritional Express, Coca-Cola, green tea—everything was there.

Brian Sullivan picked up a bottle of Nutritional Express, checked the production date—it was still within the shelf life. He twisted off the cap and gulped it down in big swigs.

In less than five seconds, a bottle of Nutritional Express was in his stomach.

He let out a satisfied burp.

For over a month, Brian Sullivan had been so worried about his fresh water supply that he didn’t even dare drink in big gulps. Now, he could finally drink to his heart’s content.