Chapter 10: Hope Rekindled
Slowly descending the long, narrow stairs into the subterranean space, the crisp sound of leather boots stepping on the ground echoed in the narrow stairwell.
Overhead, a low-power chandelier cast a dim yellow light.
Unmutated flying insects, following their phototactic instincts, tirelessly bumped against the glass shell of the light bulb, their erratic flight paths completely disregarding the cobwebs already thick beneath the lampshade.
Stepping off the last stair, the surrounding space suddenly opened up.
A rusty fence gate blocked the path ahead, its original orange paint mostly peeled off, and its iron body was covered in twisted and dented marks.
And more than ten meters behind the fence gate was a defensive position constructed from cement piers and sandbags.
However, the dozen or so security personnel in the position showed none of the tension expected of guards.
Most of them were sitting around in groups of two or three, gambling, drinking, and chatting.
No one immediately noticed Zhong Jing walking in from the entrance stairs; they had long since cast their duties to the wind.
This scene was already a common sight for Zhong Jing.
She walked straight towards the right side of the fence gate, where a gaunt old man was tremblingly rising from his chair, his hand resting on the controller of the fence gate.
“Please… show your identification.”
The old man spoke with a heavy accent, but even if Zhong Jing couldn't understand, she knew what kind of identification was needed in this place.
Spreading her already prepared second-class mercenary qualification certificate in her palm, the old man glanced at it through the gap in the fence and then pulled down the controller.
The fence gate slowly rose, clearing the way.
With a simple word of thanks, Zhong Jing continued to walk inward, heading towards the deeper parts of this underground space.
At the end of the long corridor was a heavy iron door, from which faint sounds could be heard.
Zhong Jing was all too familiar with this kind of sound—gunshots.
There were many mercenaries and private armed forces in Chu Sheng City.
To deal with the hidden dangers brought about by this situation, the base government’s control over firearms was also very strict.
Individuals needed to register when purchasing firearms.
Personal armed forces were allowed to possess firearms, but only when they needed to go out to perform tasks.
When the task was over and they returned, their guns had to be stored in a designated place by the base government… which was here—the Chu Sheng City Underground Shooting Range.
This place was originally an underground parking lot.
It seemed that during its construction, issues of war protection and strategic material reserves were considered, so it also possessed excellent air defense capabilities, allowing it to be preserved almost completely from the war.
It was discovered and reopened more than a hundred years later.
After a series of expansions and renovations, it became the current Chu Sheng City Underground Shooting Range.
An iron door seemed to separate two worlds, everything inside the door was completely different from the dilapidated state outside.
The bright white lights made people completely unaware that they were tens of meters underground.
The white tiled floor was very clean, and there were tables and chairs neatly arranged in the open area for people to rest.
On the load-bearing pillar in the center of the hall, there were even cathode ray tube televisions hung in four directions, simultaneously playing the few entertainment programs or news broadcasts available in Chu Sheng City.
Although this place was called a shooting range, what the Chu Sheng City Underground Shooting Range offered was more than just weapon storage and target practice.
Military supplies trading, accessory modification, gun maintenance, and so on could all be done here.
The Chu Sheng City Underground Shooting Range was very large.
Although no definite data had been announced, by roughly estimating the distance between the entrances and exits, one could vaguely know that the area of this Chu Sheng City Underground Shooting Range would not be less than five thousand square meters.
Even so, it still seemed a bit crowded here.
Zhong Jing didn’t linger in the hall for too long and immediately, with practiced ease, headed towards her destination…
“This way, please…”
After presenting her mercenary qualification certificate again at the counter in the designated area, Zhong Jing was quickly brought to a small, separate cubicle.
After waiting for a short while, the service staff who had left returned to the cubicle.
This time, he held an item wrapped in dark green oilcloth in his hand.
“It has been modified according to your requirements. This is the finished product. Please inspect it.”
As the attendant spoke, he uncovered the oilcloth, and a gun wrapped in cloth strips gradually emerged from under the oilcloth’s cover.
“Replaced with a new muzzle suppressor and folding stock, added a front grip and an improved extended magazine. I hope you are satisfied.”
Reaching out to pick up the gun lying on the oilcloth, the familiar touch of the cloth strips wrapped around the grip made Zhong Jing feel a sense of reassurance.
‘Chu Sheng City C106’ was the model name of this submachine gun, using standard Chu Sheng City nine-millimeter submachine gun bullets.
It was not widely used among either the standing army or mercenaries, but it was currently the most suitable weapon for Zhong Jing.
Its length of only four hundred millimeters when the folding stock was extended was very suitable for her build.
Its weight of only two kilograms, coupled with extremely low recoil, meant that even the current Zhong Jing had enough strength to handle it.
As for the deficiency in ammunition capacity, it could be compensated for by a thirty-round extended magazine.
Although its effective range of one hundred meters was a bit short, it was sufficient.
Rashly using an unfamiliar new model of weapon might not be rational, but it was Zhong Jing’s only choice.
To retrieve her originally stored weapon, personal information verification was required, but Zhong Jing, in her current state, clearly did not match her original personal information.
Spending money to buy a new gun was also a helpless act of last resort.
The price of buying a gun on the black market might be very low, but reliability was difficult to guarantee.
In this regard, Zhong Jing would never be stingy with money; after all, life was naturally more important than money.
Fortunately, the cost of the ‘Chu Sheng City C106’ was low, and the cost of modifications was not outrageous.
Such a price was within Zhong Jing’s acceptable range.
With the new gun in hand, Zhong Jing was naturally eager to try it out.
According to the regulations of the Chu Sheng City Underground Shooting Range: when purchasing a new gun, twenty free bullets were provided for test firing.
These bullets had already been loaded into the magazine.
The shooting range was nearby.
Walking in the direction of the gunshots, she quickly arrived.
Pushing open the isolation door of the shooting range, the resounding gunshots immediately pounded on Zhong Jing’s eardrums, and the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder.
Taking off the earmuffs and goggles from the rack by the door and putting them on, she found an empty spot and prepared herself.
After pressing the button, Zhong Jing began her test fire.
Pulling the trigger again and again, shell casings were ejected from the chamber one by one.
After firing six shots in semi-automatic mode, she adjusted the fire selector switch to full-auto mode and fired all the remaining bullets in one go.
“Hoo…”
The test firing was over.
The gun in her hand also entered an empty-chamber hold-open state after running out of bullets.
Overall, the test firing process was quite satisfactory to Zhong Jing.
It was enough to meet combat needs.
Spending some time to break it in would not be a problem.
With the weapon issue resolved, the next step was to replenish ammunition and filter canisters.
Putting the purchased items into the carrying gear on her body, she walked towards the other direction of the entrance, which was the exit of the Chu Sheng City Underground Shooting Range.
Returning to the surface via the stairs, although the expense was considerable, all negative emotions were insignificant in the face of her excitement.
The progress in searching for clues had rekindled all hope; spending some money was nothing.
Zhong Jing had to be thankful that she had witnessed that argument.
It suddenly made her realize her oversight: the method of obtaining clues by querying tasks was not wrong, but her search direction had deviated from the truth—the main driving force behind that operation was not the Chu Sheng City base government, but the Chu Sheng City Research Institute.
It was the Research Institute that discovered the Witch's activities in the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area, including the subsequent months of tracking and investigating the Witch's whereabouts.
It was the Research Institute's desire to explore the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area that persuaded the base government to launch that large-scale military operation.
The reason why the development of reality was so different from the dream was very likely that the Research Institute's research on the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area had changed, but the Research Institute must have left traces before.
Thinking of this, Zhong Jing started querying again early in the morning, just as the Special Business Handling Center was opening.
Sure enough, Zhong Jing found a clue: for the past week, a high-level researcher affiliated with the Research Institute had continuously posted tasks with the content: hire mercenaries to assist in the investigation of the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area.
However, because the investigation areas in the tasks were all high-risk central areas of the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area, no mercenaries were willing to undertake the tasks, causing the tasks to expire after a short period.
Just yesterday, this person posted a new task, still with the content of investigating the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area, but this time it was different—investigating Sectors 06 and 04 of the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area.
Zhong Jing was 100% certain that the high-level researcher who posted the task was the Researcher Han Nianling she had seen last night.
It seemed she had rationally given up her obsession and made a slight concession.
Sectors 06 and 04 belonged to the middle and outer peripheral areas of the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area, which were relatively safer.
As of now, four mercenaries had already accepted the task.
Zhong Jing, of course, did not hesitate to become the fifth member of this task, the last mercenary member before the personnel limit was reached.
The assembly time was approaching, which was why Zhong Jing was in such urgent need of a new weapon.
JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area… 06, 04, if she remembered correctly, these two sectors were the first two areas the Witch had entered in the JD Ruined City Nuclear Wasteland Area in her dream.