Ye Fan circled around Wang Hu again and found there was a backpack behind this soldier.
This backpack was different from his own commander's backpack. Inside, there was a sleeping bag, a water bottle, a small pack of compressed biscuits, and a can of meat.
"Is this all you eat?"
"Reporting to the officer, each soldier refreshes a meal ration every day to sustain life. If you want to keep the soldiers healthy, the officer needs to provide more food."
Ye Fan finally understood that the higher the status, the greater the responsibility.
It seems that collecting resources is still necessary to sustain an ever-growing army in the apocalypse.
Since he came to the sixth floor, he naturally couldn't return empty-handed. Ye Fan began to gather resources here.
Money was already useless to Ye Fan; now he needed gold and silver, as well as food.
There was no gold or silver here. After searching the room, Ye Fan found two bottles of white liquor, some rice and flour, some fresh vegetables, and some beef and lamb.
There was even a base for seafood hotpot and some seafood balls; it seemed this family was planning to have hotpot.
In a cubic meter of space, there was only one bucket of water, so Ye Fan simply stuffed all the food inside, taking up about one-third of the space.
He also found a few packs of Tianzi-brand cigarettes and collected them all.
He knew he couldn't stay here forever. Now that he had a private protecting him, he could try to clear out all the residents in this apartment building.
Not for anything else, but searching for gold and silver was key.
"Wang Hu, can you break open a security door?"
"If shooting is allowed, it can be done in ten seconds; without shooting, we would need tools to do it."
"What kind of tools do you need? Lock-picking tools?"
"Reporting to the officer, regular soldiers aren't proficient in lock-picking; they can only violently remove doors. A hammer or a fire axe would do."
Ye Fan thought for a moment. Even though he had a soldier, shooting should still be a last resort.
Because they were in a residential community, there were many zombies nearby. Shooting would definitely attract them.
Using a fire axe in the hallway shouldn't be a big issue, but the key was he didn't have a tool like a fire axe.
Other residences wouldn't have it either; only the property office would have such things.
Ye Fan's community consisted of six old residential buildings. He was in the fifth, and the property office was at the guard post of the fourth building, not far from here.
But looking at the more than twenty zombies in the yard, Ye Fan hesitated a little.
"Without shooting, can we handle these zombies?"
"Officer, I have a bayonet here. You cover me, and I'll try using the stairwell door."
"Okay, let's go."
Ye Fan led Wang Hu down the stairs, all the way to the apartment unit door.
As they passed through the hallway, Ye Fan knocked on each door.
Some rooms immediately echoed with zombie roars, but the doors were locked, and the zombies didn't know how to open them; they could only pat the doors helplessly but couldn't get out.
Some were completely silent, presumably either no one was home, or someone was still alive.
No sound meant no one was home; if someone was alive, they wouldn't dare open the door easily.
Ye Fan marked those quiet houses, deciding they shouldn't be entered easily.
When they reached the second-floor hallway, he glanced down; only two zombies were wandering within a five-meter range at the unit door.
"Officer, you stay by the second-floor window. If zombies attack and get close to me, you can shoot, and we can always retreat back home."
"Okay, be careful."
Wang Hu approached the unit door on the first floor and opened it.
The noise drew the attention of a male zombie, who slowly turned its head.
Upon seeing Wang Hu, the zombie's eyes turned blood-red, and the hunger made it roar and leap forward.
The zombie moved slowly but charged with vigor, making Ye Fan's heart race as he watched from the second floor.
But he saw Wang Hu lift his gun and stab forward with a bayonet!
Accurately hitting the eye socket, the zombie fell silently to the ground.
Wang Hu lifted his foot and kicked the zombie away, the entire process smooth and fluid, taking less than three seconds.
The other older male zombie reacted, stumbling towards Wang Hu.
Wang Hu stepped forward, swinging the bayonet with a standard military stab, killing the zombie with one strike.
The consecutive kills disturbed nearby zombies, and seven or eight of them began heading in their direction.
Wang Hu, not lingering in battle, turned around, closed the door, and returned to the second floor.
Ye Fan's gaze at Wang Hu changed.
The soldiers were supposed to be weak chickens, so how was he so formidable, eliminating zombies with a single stab without firing a shot?
"It's so simple!" Ye Fan found it hard to believe; he struggled to deal with zombies which were solved so effortlessly.
"Officer, zombies move slowly and are sluggish. Apart from their terrifying appearance and viral threat, they're really nothing. As long as you overcome your inner fear and face them calmly, they're not hard to kill."
As a Red Alert Soldier, he didn't know what fear was, naturally not seeing it as dangerous. But Ye Fan felt he might need more practice.
Wang Hu continued, "As our commander, the officer will definitely be much stronger than us."
It wasn't flattery, but a natural admiration and respect a Red Alert Soldier held for the supreme commander.
At this moment, Ye Fan couldn't show weakness; he nodded steadily: "Hmm, of course, no problem. In school, my classmates even nicknamed me the Cold-Faced Killer."
Wang Hu's eyes indeed showed a look of admiration: "Sounds powerful... dare to have such a name, you must have the strength of a special forces member."
Ye Fan nodded, calmly turning away, his face slightly flushed.
The name Cold-Faced Killer did exist, but it was only an abbreviation.
The full name was: Big Bowl Cold Noodle Killer.
An ability to eat five bowls at once, stunning everyone around.
Of course, such a name couldn't be known to subordinates; the wise and heroic image of a commander must be maintained.
Looking down from the second-floor window ledge, the zombies hadn't discovered the two hiding in the stairwell. Instead, they feasted on the corpses of their two companions.
Zombies never seemed to feel full, eating faster than lions. In less than ten minutes, the two zombies had been devoured.
After eating their fill, the zombies returned to a mindless state, continuing to roam the yard.
Ye Fan, having good eyesight, saw two female zombies nearby wearing jewelry on their hands.
"Wang Hu, eliminate these two zombies and take all their jewelry."
"Understood, officer."
Wang Hu left the stairwell again, approaching the two zombies.
The female zombies were relatively smaller. As Wang Hu appeared at the unit door, both zombies lunged at the same time.
Wang Hu once again displayed his formidable personal strength. First, he swept out with his leg, sending one zombie flipping over, and quickly followed up, dispatching one female zombie with a single stab.
By the time the fallen zombie got up, he stepped forward and delivered another stab, killing it on the ground.
Every stab was incredibly precise.
Once the other zombies heard the commotion and were coming over, Wang Hu had already collected all the jewelry from the female zombies and quickly retreated to the stairwell.
Ye Fan took the jewelry with satisfaction, and a prompt from Nana appeared immediately.
"Valuable metals found, can be converted into System Money. Converted successfully, you have gained 62 Money; the officer's total Money stands at 79!"
With the conscript, Ye Fan no longer needed to act personally, and Money began to increase rapidly.
With another 21 Money, he would be able to produce a second conscript. By then, the two of them, working together to get a fire axe, would be very easy.