Chapter 171: Can't Always Be Plain Sailing

There's no way an accident could occur. If there were to be an accident in this kind of situation, it would show just how chaotic the organization is and how incompetent its capabilities are.

From the decision-makers to the implementers, everyone is intelligent and places great importance on this operation. Under these circumstances, it would be difficult for Gao Yuan to make even a silly mistake, because at any point where he might err, he has undergone numerous rounds of reinforcement training.

He opened another separate safe, revealing a cylindrical sealed canister.

That's the one.

Gao Yuan let out a long sigh of relief.

Actually, one should wear protective clothing to enter this place, but with multiple layers of protection, the radiation here isn't strong, so a short stay and contact with nuclear materials wouldn't be harmful.

Moreover, Gao Yuan couldn't wear protective clothing now.

Without worrying about radiation, and not being one of those duped by anti-intellectualism, Gao Yuan felt no psychological pressure, and he easily lifted the sealed canister.

He placed the sealed canister inside a specially designed frame backpack that was already on the ground and secured it with reinforcing straps. Now the canister was ready to be taken away.

The backpack was also specially made; it certainly wouldn't be damaged or wobble because of the weight, which exceeded a hundred kilograms. In fact, it was a Frame Carrying System. Once the original backpack was removed, it became a carrier specifically for the nuclear material canister.

As for the original items in the backpack, they were now placed on the ground along with the backpack. If they were still useful, Gao Yuan could only carry them or hang them in front of him. If not, they could be directly discarded.

Gao Yuan carried the sealed canister on his back. The canister was not long, shorter than his backpack, so drawing and sheathing his knife was not affected. However, bearing an additional weight of over a hundred kilograms on his back would certainly affect his center of gravity.

With his center of gravity affected, naturally, his combat ability would be impacted.

Carrying the bag in his hand, Gao Yuan left the nuclear storage room.

After closing the door, he took the key, retracted the telescoping iron rod, scrambled the password again, and methodically took care of everything before Gao Yuan returned to the first underground level.

He didn't continue to go up. Gao Yuan wasn't feeling hungry or thirsty, but he still sat down in a chair and opened an Energy Bar, quickly consuming ten bars.

It was like eating a snack since the Energy Bar tasted quite good and was similar to jelly, which Gao Yuan rather liked.

Eating in the National Nuclear Physics Laboratory's nuclear storage room, would he not be the first person to do so since the place was commissioned?

Gao Yuan felt quite proud of it.

Therefore, Gao Yuan did this intentionally, not out of necessity. The difference is that later on, he could boast to others saying, "I've eaten in a nuclear storage room. Have any of you ever done something like that?"

After finishing his snack, Gao Yuan then returned to the surface.

When the elevator doors closed again, Gao Yuan knew that unless someone else absolutely needed to come here, the elevator wouldn't be opened again.

Of course, there was a backup power supply, but the backup couldn't support the system for very long. The power supply here and for the Supreme Command came from the same nuclear power plant. Or rather, the Supreme Command was borrowing electricity from an experimental reactor because the power from the nuclear power plant designated for the Supreme Command wasn't enough to cover the entire headquarters.

So after Gao Yuan successfully entered the laboratory and took what he needed, the power here would be actively shut off.

If the Serpent People hadn't arrived so suddenly, the facilities at the Supreme Command could have been even more refined. However, achieving what they had thus far was already quite remarkable.

These matters couldn't have been accomplished without decades of preparation, so why was the Supreme Command so well-prepared? Because the Supreme Command had originally braced for a nuclear war, envisioning an enemy from within humanity itself.

On a planet where war could break out at any moment, responding to an alien invasion was somewhat more convenient than for those completely at peace—perhaps this was the ultimate interpretation of the saying, "Forget war, and peril follows."

Gao Yuan returned to the surface; he made his way to the outside of the small building, and then, he started to move slowly and carefully.

Carrying nuclear materials on his back was like carrying the future of humanity, his sense of responsibility through the roof.

Leaving the grounds of the National Nuclear Physics Laboratory, he retreated along the carefully cleared route he had taken earlier. It went smoothly, hardly worth mentioning.

Since his arrival hadn't triggered a large gathering of zombies, choosing the familiar route on his return was the most normal and certainly the correct decision.

There couldn't be any accidents, nor should there be any.

But what is an accident? An accident is something unexpected; if everything could proceed as anticipated, the word "accident" would not exist.

Gao Yuan was walking just fine; he hadn't alarmed any zombies, and those he couldn't avoid were quickly taken down with his knife. However, there was one zombie that, without any significant movement, merely brushed against an electric scooter, which then started beeping.

An alarm set to prevent theft was of course loud; the electric scooter's alarm began beeping and tooting incessantly.

In the deadly silence of the night, the sound of the electric scooter's alarm was earth-shatteringly loud.

As for Gao Yuan, he was still dozens of meters away from the scooter.

Thus, this was an accident, completely beyond control, a bafflingly unexpected event.

You might wonder how, after over half a year, the electric scooter still had power, and how sensitive the alarm was to be set off by such a light touch.

Gao Yuan had no time to complain about anything, for as soon as the electric scooter sounded, it attracted all the nearby zombies.

Brains-dead zombies typically operate on a "better to kill wrongly than to miss a threat" basis, and in an instant, all the nearby zombies began rushing over crazily.

Gao Yuan too began to run for his life; there weren't many zombies nearby, and he had to leave as quickly as possible before a massive horde of zombies arrived.

Running at full speed, Gao Yuan held a Shield in one hand and a knife in the other, while his backpack hung on the arm that held the Shield. Moving slowly had been fine, but now, running at full speed, the swinging backpack was a major nuisance. However, the sealed canister on his back was secured extremely well, the straps only swaying slightly on his shoulders.

There was no time to take down the Shield and ditch the backpack; Gao Yuan directly grasped the backpack strap with the hand that held the knife and, with a forceful tug using three fingers, he ripped the backpack straps off, and the backpack fell to the ground.

The Shield couldn't be discarded; even if he threw away the knife and made another one later, he couldn't afford to throw away the Shield.

Gao Yuan didn't even have time to pray for good luck before hundreds of zombies appeared in front of him.

But fortunately, Gao Yuan was not actually afraid of encountering a large number of zombies; rather, his fear was a densely packed, gapless tide of zombies.

Gao Yuan, holding up the Shield, charged directly into the zombies.

During the high-speed collision, Gao Yuan's arm was subjected to immense pressure. Despite his strength, it didn't mean Gao Yuan was made of iron; his shoulder shook violently enough that even his night vision goggles skewed.

Not directly facing the collision head-on anymore, he slightly angled the Shield with each encounter, pushing the zombies aside with an angled surface. Gao Yuan charged straight into the zombie crowd and then immediately out again before the zombies could surround him.