After clicking into the live stream of the number-one-ranked Zeus Shelter,
the scene suddenly changed, as though it were a full simulation that put viewers right there in person.
The sky was overcast and gloomy. Sheets of rain merged together as they struck the ground with a splattering roar.
Following the camera downward, one could see an endless stretch of mines.
They extended from one end of the horizon to the other, creating an extremely shocking sight.
As the camera drew closer, Su Mo saw a cluster of wooden cabins at the foot of a mountain labeled Zeus Shelter.
Built against the mountain, the cabins were arranged roughly along a north-south axis. There were about twenty or thirty of them.
Apart from the three main buildings in the center, which looked aesthetically constructed, the other rooms looked as though they had been hastily cobbled together, all crooked and lopsided.
Relying on the mountain's terrain, the acid rain naturally flowed downhill after falling, posing no threat to Zeus Shelter.
"The person who chose this terrain is pretty impressive."
Seeing such a massive group of buildings, Su Mo's heart tightened.
With the mine behind it, this terrain could let them weather minor disasters without loss, let alone major ones.
Moreover, with the dozens of people they had gathered by now, once they formed a fighting force, their efficiency in exploring ruins would definitely be far greater than one person's.
It seemed the owner of Zeus Shelter did not care about exposing the shelter's structure to the public and had opened all viewing permissions.
Trying to control the camera himself, Su Mo pulled the view closer.
A blond, bearded man sat in the very center of the main building, talking incessantly about something.
After switching perspectives, the image before Su Mo stabilized and became a fixed camera view like that of a streamer.
"Welcome, everyone, to our Zeus Shelter. This is the safest shelter in the world."
"At present, our shelter has more than eighty people, including over twelve wilderness survival experts and thirty extremely capable fighters with military service experience. We can absolutely guarantee the personal safety of anyone who joins Zeus Shelter."
"Of course, our shelter does not support idlers. Anyone applying to join the shelter must meet the following conditions."
"Men must be at least 175 centimeters tall, and women at least 168 centimeters. Your weight must remain within a healthy range, and you must possess a specialized skill. As long as you can help build a large-scale shelter, we welcome you."
"Of course, technical personnel do not need to participate in hunting expeditions. They only need to remain inside the shelter."
The big-bearded man did not look very eloquent, but once he started talking, he had plenty of polished lines. With the Game Panel's translation, Su Mo had no trouble understanding him.
As he spoke, the big-bearded man made a point of showing off the base's current facilities.
Following his camera to the supply room, Su Mo saw a mountain of Mutated Beast meat.
Roughly one or two tons of beast meat had been processed and piled together. In an apocalypse plagued by shortages of food and water, the sight was quite astonishing.
That was not all. In the three waist-high vats beside it, the big-bearded man lifted the lids to reveal slightly cloudy yellow water.
The sight of the water clearly made the big-bearded man salivate a little. Even so, he merely pursed his slightly peeling lips before covering the vats again.
Next, he went to the weapons room. Inside was a whole row of wooden spears, along with three bows that looked as though they had been made by hand.
Finally, the big-bearded man entered the largest room.
Although the room had windows on all four sides, the fire in its center dispelled all the cold.
Forty or fifty shelter members, men and women alike, sat around the middle of the room singing loudly. From time to time, someone even stood up to perform a dance.
Seeing this scene, absolutely no one would have thought they were living through the apocalypse.
The big-bearded man puffed out his chest, filled with pride.
"This is the strength of our Great America Zeus Shelter. Join us, and you will have enough food and water, as well as the safety you dream of!"
"I see someone in the comments mentioning China?"
"What? What? No way. You actually want to go to a shelter where you have to work for more than fifteen hours a day? You want to go to that China Shelter, where after you risk your life outside to bring back supplies, you still have to support everyone else?"
As the big-bearded man finished speaking, the men and women sitting beside the fire burst into laughter.
"Don't say I'm being harsh. After arriving in this wasteland, everyone should have their own sense of responsibility!"
"Look at your China Shelter. Heh, they're nothing but a rabble, yet they still want to save so many burdens. They'll all be destroyed by the next disaster!"
Hearing the big-bearded man's arrogant words, Su Mo rolled his stiff neck and left the live stream.
"Looks like their shelter philosophies have clashed."
Skipping past the second-ranked live stream, Su Mo clicked directly into the third-ranked China Shelter's live stream.
Once again, the view began with rain drifting down from a gray, hazy sky.
Unlike the mine beside the big-bearded man, the terrain around China Shelter was the same as Su Mo's own shelter: an endless Great Plains.
"United as one, we will fight disaster and rescue those in danger!"
As the view moved downward, Su Mo noticed a banner hanging among this huge cluster of buildings, which was about as large as the big-bearded man's.
The banner was made of white cloth of unknown origin. It hung between the low wooden cabins, with a line of writing drawn on it in charcoal.
"One, two. Ten. Fifteen, twenty-five."
After counting them one by one, Su Mo was surprised to discover that China Shelter had a full forty-three buildings.
Moreover, more than ten of these buildings were wooden cabins generated by the Survival Game's built-in shelter system.
Unlike the big-bearded man's reliance on terrain to withstand disasters, China Shelter had chosen to build embankments and resist the rainwater.
Many winding drainage channels had been dug across the shelter's grounds. Hundreds of people, packed tightly together, wore extremely cumbersome Grass Raincoats and held Grass Rain Umbrellas as they worked desperately to clear the drainage channels.
Looking at the people standing on the land and laboring diligently, Su Mo saw none of the joy that had been displayed by the members of Zeus Shelter.
Yet Su Mo saw another kind of emotion—hope!
Every laborer's face carried hope.
Hope for survival!
Only Chinese people could feel the shock of this sight, and only Chinese people could understand the sense of responsibility this hope required.
He switched to the streamer's perspective.
After the camera turned, it arrived beside the outermost building, where a fire burned inside a room.
"Hello to every Chinese person watching this live stream. This is the front-line command center for earthquake and disaster relief. We are the disaster relief point of the 79th Regiment under the 13th Army of China."
"The live stream's maximum range is fifty kilometers. Any Chinese citizen within fifty kilometers of this relief point may contact the shelter center after the disaster. The shelter will head to your location for rescue as soon as possible. Please wait patiently and do not give up hope!"
"I'll repeat that."
"China has not abandoned rescue efforts for a single citizen. Please stay in your own shelters, survive the disaster, and wait for the beautiful tomorrow that lies ahead!"
"If you are not near China Shelter, please do not panic. At present, forty-two shelters established by the military are known to exist. Do not rashly leave in search of them. Protect yourselves and wait for the military to expand its search-and-rescue range. Do not go into the wilderness on your own!"
"I'll repeat that."
The black-haired woman in charge of the announcement was young, and she kept repeating these four sentences over and over.
Even when speaking had dried and cracked her lips, leaving bloody fissures, she remained completely unaware of it.
"Shen Ke."
With a heavy heart, Su Mo remembered the woman's name and left the China Shelter live stream.
Compared with Zeus Shelter, which only recruited talented people, China Shelter's approach was indeed difficult for people from other countries to understand.
They would certainly never understand why, in the apocalypse, anyone would still protect ordinary people who were powerless, unable to work, and without any special talents.
But at this moment, Su Mo believed that every Chinese person watching the live stream would feel hope rising within the apocalypse.
Natural disasters were heartless!
People had hearts! One day, China would rebuild its homeland across this wasteland! After looking through every live stream, Su Mo abandoned the idea of reaching the top of the disaster relief rankings.
Although starting a live stream would bring unknown airdropped supplies, and it looked tempting, the shelters ranked in the top ten were undoubtedly all small groups.
It was a case of "A common man is innocent, but possessing a treasure makes him guilty!" He had built a shelter that surpassed those established by other groups all by himself. Anyone could tell there was something wrong with that.
Without modern firepower available yet, Su Mo decided to focus on biding his time.
He constantly kept in mind the strategic policy of Ming Taizu: Build high walls, store abundant grain, and delay claiming kingship.
He must not imitate Yuan Shu, the great warlord of the Late Eastern Han Dynasty. After obtaining a jade seal, he dreamed of becoming emperor every day and finally could not resist declaring himself emperor. As a result, he immediately became the target of nearly every warlord's campaign, ultimately dying in defeat and becoming a laughingstock.
"Exposing my coordinates within fifty kilometers right now would be too risky. It would be fine if no one were there, but if someone was, the danger would be too great. No, no, that won't do."
After thinking it over again and again, Su Mo decided that, since he could not see it, he might as well not worry about it and simply closed the live-stream interface.
After watching the construction of the top ten shelters, Su Mo had been deeply affected.
The so-called commoner mentality meant that after arriving in this unknown world, one's every thought centered on how to stay alive, how to upgrade the shelter, and how to survive natural disasters.
As a result, people overlooked the most important improvements to their fighting strength, as well as the need to explore and understand the outside world.
Please recommend and collect this novel, and please keep following it! During the new-book period, my dear readers, please don't stockpile chapters! The editor determines recommendations based on follow-through, and without enough readers following along, the novel may well be left to die!
Before you continue