Chapter 34: They were truly saved.
At first, the street remained deathly silent.
But gradually, an elderly man with a sallow face and gray hair tremblingly poked half his body out, his cloudy old eyes looking with suspicion and uncertainty at the Alliance martial artists who stood straight on the street, not intruding into any private residences.
A few minutes later, the door next door opened too, and a woman holding a small, thin child walked out timidly.
Door after door opened in succession.
Commoners, tattered and haggard, slowly gathered at the street corner.
They listened to the words "Restoring order," "Ensuring safety," and "Relocating to Qinggang" playing repeatedly over the loudspeakers, and looked at the disciplined Alliance members, who were completely different from the Dawn City martial artists who used to beat and scold them at will.
In their deathly silent eyes, a faint light began to ignite bit by bit.
That light grew brighter and brighter.
"Re... really?"
"They... they aren't robbing us?"
"He said... he's sending us to Qinggang? That Qinggang with the great city walls, electricity, and clean water?"
"We... we don't have to be bait anymore? We won't be beaten or killed at will anymore?"
Whispers gradually arose, laced with choked sobs.
Finally, not knowing who first let out a sob suppressed to the extreme, immediately after, crying swept through the entire street!
Countless people knelt on the ground, kowtowing towards the direction of Zhang Fan and the Alliance flag, wailing loudly.
That was not sadness; it was the fear, despair, and humiliation that had been suppressed for too, too long, being completely released at this moment! It was the relief of being treated like a human being again!
"Thank you! Thank you, great ones of the Alliance!"
"Thank you, Minister Zhang of Qinggang!"
"Sob, sob... Dad, Mom, little sister... did you hear that... we... we seem... to be able to live..."
The crying shook the heavens, but it carried the hope of surviving a catastrophe.
Pang Panshi and the other Alliance members, watching the scene of ten thousand people crying and kneeling before them, could not help but have red-rimmed eyes.
For the first time, they intuitively felt the meaning represented by the uniform they wore.
Zhang Fan watched all this silently, then turned around to look at the tallest building in the city center, the original municipal building, which was also the current residence of that Marshal Qin.
The original municipal building was now the residence of Liu Zhenshan and Qin Liang, and also the place where Dawn City's wealth was most concentrated.
The interior decoration was luxurious, but mostly consisted of gold, silver, jewelry, antiques, and paintings from the old era.
In this era of scarce resources and where martial power reigned supreme, these flashy but useless things had plummeted in value.
"Minister, these trinkets take up space and are useless." A team member kicked a box filled with gold bars at his feet and shook his head.
Zhang Fan scanned the area with a calm expression.
He was not surprised by this; the real cultivation resources would certainly not be placed in the main hall.
"Search carefully; there must be a secret room or vault."
Everyone dispersed, carefully tapping the walls and checking the floors.
Soon, on the third basement level, behind a room disguised as an archives room, they discovered a heavy alloy vault door that blended perfectly with the surrounding walls and required a password to open.
There were traces of energy flowing on the door; clearly, it had security measures installed.
"Minister, this door is too thick. I'm afraid it won't work without the password. It will take us about three days to crack the password for this door," reported the team member in charge of technology after inspecting it.
Zhang Fan walked up and reached out to touch the cold door.
"Let me try."
He signaled for everyone to step back.
Taking a deep breath, he activated the Dragon Elephant Body Refining Art, and his blood roared! The muscles in his arms bulged slightly.
The mystic heavy mountain-collapsing hammer appeared in his hand, and with the force of a thousand jun, he ferociously smashed it toward the door hinge connection!
"Boom!"
With the first hammer strike, the alloy door shook violently, spiderweb-like cracks appeared at the connection point with the wall, and the restrictive light flashed wildly before dimming significantly!
"Boom!!!"
With the second strike, the cracks widened, and half the door hinge was sent flying! The door buckled inward!
"Boom!!!"
With the third strike, accompanied by a deafening roar, the entire alloy door, half a meter thick and reinforced with multiple restrictions, along with the three-meter-thick reinforced concrete load-bearing wall behind it, was smashed open, leaving a huge hole!
Dust and smoke filled the air.
Zhang Fan retracted his hammer and stepped inside.
The people behind him watched, dumbfounded, and swallowed their saliva.
This method of breaking down a door was simple, crude, and effective!
The scene inside the secret room made even the knowledgeable Alliance members gasp.
The area was as large as half a basketball court! On rows of alloy shelves, various supplies were categorized and displayed.
The most abundant were crates of gene medicine! From the most ordinary low-grade body-forging potions to mid-grade and high-grade gene optimization fluids emitting powerful energy fluctuations, it was a dazzling array!
Beside them were neatly stacked energy crystals! They came in all kinds of attributes, with the lowest being mid-grade, and there were even a few boxes of high-grade crystals emitting brilliant light!
There was also a special area storing rare metals and various healing potions!
"We're rich! We're really rich now!" The team members' breathing quickened.
These resources were enough to support a medium-sized force to develop rapidly for several years! These, I'm afraid, were all purchased by Liu Zhenshan and Qin Liang from the black market, spending who knows how much wealth.
Zhang Fan's eyes remained calm, but his heart rippled slightly.
With this batch of resources, whether for his own use, exchanging for contribution points, or strengthening the power of his subordinates like Pang Panshi, it would be of great benefit.
"Inventory, crate them up, and transport everything back to the Qinggang branch warehouse!" he ordered.
"Yes!"
The entire team got busy, carefully crating these precious supplies, sealing them, and, under heavy guard, carrying them out of the municipal building box by box to load them onto the heavy transport fleet that had been waiting for a long time.
The fleet was huge, with over twenty heavy trucks fully loaded with the accumulated heritage of Dawn City over many years.
Zhang Fan stood at the entrance of the building, watching the fleet slowly drive away from the square, heading in the direction of Qinggang City.
His gaze was deep as he quietly followed behind the fleet.
He had an intuition that Qin Liang, who had never appeared and had remained hidden, would never be willing to give up this huge fortune.
The fleet was the bait for his fishing.
Sure enough!
When the fleet had driven about ten kilometers away from Dawn City and entered a relatively desolate valley section, a sudden change occurred!
An aura of extreme cold descended without warning! It was as if they had instantly stepped from midsummer into the depths of winter!
The moisture in the air instantly condensed into ice crystals, and the ground was covered with a thick layer of white frost at a speed visible to the naked eye!
"Crack, crack, crack..."
The hoods of the trucks at the very front of the fleet instantly iced over, emitting a harsh grinding sound as they stalled one after another! The tires were frozen to the ground, unable to move!
The entire fleet was frozen in the blink of an eye! It came to a standstill in the valley.
The cold was bone-chilling. The team members tried to circulate their blood to resist, but found their movements becoming incredibly sluggish, as if their blood was about to freeze! Their exhaled breath instantly turned into ice shards.