lcionline Chapter 1398 This is not a rural market
Chapter 1398 This is not a rural market
Outside the joint command center of the Pingxiang forward base
The heavy composite armor door slowly closed behind Li Guangzhong, emitting a dull, airtight sound, completely isolating him from the noisy outside world.
Before him was a relatively narrow, semi-enclosed passageway made of concrete and armor plates, with several explosion-proof lights embedded in the walls on both sides, emitting a soft but not glaring white light.
Above, there are dense pipes, ventilation ducts, and cameras, and red indicator lights flash regularly, like the heartbeat of some kind of creature.
Three meters away was another inner door that clearly required higher privileges to open, and it was tightly closed at the moment.
He was left here.
He waited for someone behind that door, someone who would decide his fate and that of the entire 2nd Division, to decide whether or not to meet him.
The corridor was quiet, with only the low hum of the air conditioning system and the faint sounds of various operations from this vast base in the distance.
But for Li Guangzhong, this silence was a silent torment.
He could feel—no, he truly felt—the gazes coming from all directions.
At the entrance to the passage, two fully armed guards stood like statues, their eyes behind their masks staring straight ahead, seemingly not looking at him.
But Li Guangzhong could sense that the area covered by their peripheral vision was always locked on him.
The red light of the overhead camera flashed like an invisible eye, coldly scanning him.
Deep inside the passage, soldiers in different uniforms and with different armbands occasionally walk by quickly. Some of them will glance at you, while others will completely ignore you.
But whether he looked at him or not, that gaze, or more accurately, the feeling of being placed under some kind of sophisticated "examination system," made Li Guangzhong feel like he had a thorn in his back.
Especially when someone walks by, their gaze naturally falls on the black duffel bag he is struggling to carry and which he has placed on the ground to his right.
That gaze was often brief, and sometimes even devoid of any obvious emotion, but Li Guangzhong felt that it was like an invisible knife, stripping him naked.
Among these people, the gaze of a young lieutenant was particularly piercing to him. The man strode past him from the other end of the passage, his eyes sweeping over the bulging duffel bag as he passed. He didn't stop walking, but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly before disappearing around the corner.
Li Guangzhong didn't fully understand the micro-expression, but he clearly saw the other person's naturally raised chin...
It was a pride and sense of superiority that came from the heart, growing from the very bones...
This made him instinctively clench his fist, then release it weakly...
'The people of Zhou remain as proud as they have been for thousands of years...'
Thinking of all this, Li Guang's anger was fleeting, quickly turning into envy and longing... followed by an even greater sense of inferiority...
This feeling is like when you, who came from a rural area, were invited by a classmate to enter a commercial apartment in a city community for the first time during your student days.
You look at your classmate's modern and comfortable home and feel a bit lost, but as you change into your slippers, your classmate stares in astonishment at your big toe peeking out from a hole in your right sock... The nail on your big toe is long and yellow, and the crevices are filled with black grime...
...
Li Guangzhong subconsciously shrank back, trying to move the duffel bag behind him, as if that would make it less conspicuous.
But the bag was too heavy, and his careful movements were clumsy, producing a slight rubbing sound, which attracted the attention of all the guards in the passage.
Li Guangzhong stood frozen in place.
He looked down at his combat boots, covered in mud and with worn edges, at the stains on his trousers that seemed to have gotten there from somewhere, and then at his hands holding the bag...
There was still some black dirt left in the crevices of his fingernails, and his knuckles were slightly thin and dry due to long-term malnutrition.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of his own blurry reflection on the wall of the passage, in the light-sharp blast door.
A thin man, wearing an old Vietnamese army uniform, carrying a huge duffel bag, stood hunched over in the corner.
What does it look like?
Like... a country bumpkin carrying a snakeskin bag, stepping into a big city for the first time, feeling lost and uncomfortable.
This realization gnawed at his heart like a venomous snake.
Before this, he had never imagined that a person could simultaneously possess a hundred pounds of gold and feelings of inferiority!
Gold! It's wealth, it's power! It's the hard currency that so many people dreamed of before the apocalypse!
That's a whole hundred pounds!
Li Guangzhong had imagined countless times what kind of expression the other party would show when he placed these heavy items in front of them.
Shock? Greed? At least, they'll take it seriously, right?
But now, when these things he cherished were placed in a corner of this steel base, and were glanced at out of the corner of his eye by soldiers in clean uniforms with indifferent eyes, he suddenly felt like a huge joke.
gold?
What use is gold in front of those steel behemoths parked on the roadside, painted with fresh digital camouflage and whose models he couldn't even name?
What use is gold in front of those soldiers who stand in neat rows, tall and strong, with eyes as sharp as eagles?
What use is gold in the face of the endless stream of brand-new equipment he has never seen before?
What use is gold in the face of this fortress-like base, constructed of reinforced concrete and military-grade steel plates?
Le Quang Trung suddenly recalled the matter-of-fact, even slightly smug and relaxed expressions on the faces of the division leaders present when Commander Nguyen Van Hung said "each person will contribute 20 catties of gold" before his departure.
What were they thinking at the time? Were they wondering if this "sincerity" was substantial enough to move the other party?
How ridiculous...
If the division leaders were standing here right now, seeing everything he was seeing, would they still think that a mere hundred pounds of gold could earn them even a second glance from the other party?
Li Guangzhong suddenly felt that the luggage bag in his arms was so heavy that it almost crushed him.
It's not just about physical weight, but also about mental well-being.
That's not wealth, that's... that's the most "precious" thing these "country bumpkins" trapped in the mountains could imagine and offer with their pitiful understanding.
But in the face of this power that represents true civilization and order, what difference is there between this thing and a pile of scrap metal?
He could even imagine the expression on the other person's face if they opened the bag now and saw the gleaming gold bars and the gems shimmering with various colors.
Disdain? Or contempt?
The thought was like ice water poured over his head, chilling him to the bone.
Just then, a slight mechanical sound came from deep within the passage, and the indicator light on the inner door changed from red to green.