Jiang Shian closed his eyes briefly. “Drive my car instead.”
Song Jinhe was taken aback. “Aren’t you going to look for a place to live?”
“It won’t make a difference if I’m two days late.” Besides, he didn’t have anything pressing to do at the moment.
“The tire still needs to be changed. If I need to ram someone again, this car is very suitable for it.”
Before the apocalypse, she had been a timid driver, constantly afraid of losing points on her license or getting into an accident. Now that the world had ended, she didn’t hesitate to ram either people or zombies.
“Give it to me.” Jiang Shian rolled up his sleeves, revealing his pale forearms, and took the tools from her hand. “Your hand is almost healed; don’t strain it.”
Song Jinhe left the blood-stained clothes from before inside the car. If Cheng Yan and the others arrived here, seeing the car and the clothes would let them know she was nearby. She didn’t leave any other signs, fearing they might be exploited by others.
By noon, dark clouds gathered again, and a light drizzle began to fall. This kind of overcast, rainy weather—hovering around two or three degrees Celsius—was the most miserable, being both damp and cold. It was currently mid-May; normally, the temperature in Wucheng would be reaching 30°C by this time.
Song Jinhe threw some scavenged old clothes over her insulated outdoor jacket. Holding a thermos she’d acquired during a “zero-yuan shopping” trip at the supermarket, she steeped some red dates and goji berries. Sitting in the car, she felt quite cozy.
They found a hardware store that was relatively well-stocked. It had hammers, saws, nails, crowbars, and more. Song Jinhe hoarded five crowbars at once. These things were durable—good for smashing, stabbing, breaking windows, or prying doors. Aside from being a bit heavy, they were perfect. She also took two sets of machetes, axes, and woodworking tools.
Jiang Shian noticed that she was very organized and purposeful when taking items. She didn’t just grab everything she saw regardless of utility. It seemed her space capacity was limited. In the space designated for tools, she even included a small iron shovel and a harpoon. She had enough room to take all the anti-inflammatory drugs from the dental clinic, but she hadn’t done so, leaving a margin of survival for others.
The water in the city had receded, leaving behind a thick layer of silt in addition to corpses and debris. Residential areas were no longer fit for living. Previously, when the water rose to the fourth floor, zombies had simply crawled up through the water to reach those levels.
The cold air reeked of an unbearable stench. The supermarkets and pharmacies from before had all been submerged; even if the items inside looked intact, they were no longer safe to consume. Some people had risked going out to scavenge fish or snails stuck in the corners of walls. After cooking and eating them, entire families were gone by that evening, adding more zombies to the buildings.
The surviving onlookers completely abandoned any lingering hopes of scavenging food from the water. Everyone was packing their bags, preparing to head out toward shelters or to seek refuge with relatives and friends.
“The Li family had foresight. They made a boat out of a basin and a tire and paddled out before the water even finished receding two days ago. If I’d known, I would have gone with them. With the roads out there now, what if you step on something and catch a disease?”
“What’s the use of saying that now? Everyone wear thick clothes tomorrow. Bring out all the tall rain boots we have.” A man wearing glasses opened a city map, no longer paying attention to the neighbor his parents had taken in half a month ago.
Song Jinhe still hadn’t found Cheng Yan and the others. The weather was getting colder, even dropping below freezing in the mornings, with a layer of ice forming on the leaves.
Over the past few days, two waves of people had come by to scavenge for supplies, including the people they had encountered at the tavern previously. To ward off the cold, they wore layers of ill-fitting clothes, their hair matted with grease. This time, Song Jinhe saw a familiar face among them: Cai Zheng. He recognized her and was still running with the hospital gang. He mentioned that they were indeed staking out the Nanhe District to corner her.
Song Jinhe pulled up her mask and crouched behind a trash can. She watched them hijack a car, ignoring the driver’s kneeling pleas and cries, and kill them without hesitation.
She was planning to take them out once and for all. She had just pulled out a Molotov cocktail but hadn’t lit it yet when she suddenly felt something slam down from above.
Song Jinhe reacted quickly, shielding her head and ducking under the eaves of a building, pulling the arriving Jiang Shian back with her.
Hailstones as large as ostrich eggs slammed down. A plastic trash can was instantly overturned, and ice shattered across the ground.
Thump! Thump!
The hail continued to fall. A short, chubby man among Cai Zheng’s group had his head split open by a stone, dying on the spot.
“Holy sh*t! Go, quick! Forget about them!”
The group scrambled back into their cars and floored it one after another. One of the cars had a sunroof, which was punched through instantly by a massive block of ice. Shrieks and wails erupted from inside the vehicle. Whatever happened, the driver lost control; the car slammed into the roadside guardrail and flipped over in mid-air.
“Save me, save…” the person in the driver’s seat called out desperately to his companions in the other car.
The people in the other car didn’t even look at him, accelerating away, terrified that if they moved too slowly, they wouldn’t make it back themselves. There were no places to stay the night in the surrounding dilapidated houses. With the hail falling so violently, no one dared to get out and rescue him.
Before long, a layer of ice of varying sizes accumulated on the ground. As time passed, the hail became denser, and the temperature plummeted. The already damaged roof above Song Jinhe’s head became even more riddled with holes, and ice shards splattered against her face.
A nearby zombie tried to come over for a meal but was crushed to death before it could reach them.
The skin near her eyes stung from the biting wind. Song Jinhe tucked her hands into her pockets and stepped closer to Jiang Shian’s side; his height made for a very effective windbreak. Jiang Shian looked down at her subtle movement and her long lashes damp with moisture, then silently shifted his shoulder to block the cold wind from outside.
The hail lasted for nearly half an hour before it stopped.
Song Jinhe walked out. The person who had been robbed earlier was dead. There was still a living person in the overturned car; the vehicle’s body had shielded him from the hail, but he was pinned in the driver’s seat and couldn’t move.
Seeing someone approach, he hurriedly called out for help. “Help… help me…”
“Answer a few questions for me first.” Song Jinhe knelt down with a seemingly kind gaze. “Where did you come from? How many of you are there?”
“Just a bit further ahead, there’s a hotel,” the youth replied urgently. “About a dozen people.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Song Jinhe made a move as if to leave.
“Don’t go! We came from the main urban area. Hijacking people wasn’t my idea; it was those guys! They abandoned me! I’m not like them, I just want to survive.” The youth spoke through a mess of tears and snot, his eyes full of sincerity.
“What did you come here for?” Song Jinhe asked again.
The youth looked out, but he could only see a pair of long legs standing beside Song Jinhe. His voice trembled with uncertainty. “You’re going to save me, right?”
“Of course, as long as you answer truthfully,” Song Jinhe said, her tone unchanged.
“The city is uninhabitable, so I followed them here. Do you have a place to stay? I can join you,” the youth pleaded.
“That’s not right. Didn’t you come out specifically to find someone?”
Amidst the youth’s shocked expression, Song Jinhe gave a faint smile. “Did you find them? This is your last chance.”