He had already been dragged out by Cheng Yan, but the wound on his leg was gushing blood. Everyone knew what that meant.
“No… my son, my son… You have to save him! Aren’t you a doctor? You can’t just watch him die! Help him cut his leg off! Yes, that way he can live. I beg you!” Jiang Hongrong grabbed Cheng Yan, sobbing and screaming.
“I don’t have the tools. I can’t help you,” Cheng Yan said helplessly.
Even if they had the tools, the blood loss from an amputation would be so severe that he wouldn’t survive in a place like this anyway.
“This is all because of you! We followed you to the convenience store! If it weren’t for you, nothing would have happened to my son!” Jiang Hongrong pointed at Song Jinhe, her eyes filled with pure hatred.
Fine, fine, Song Jinhe thought. Somehow, this is my fault too.
“I didn’t ask you to follow us. You chose to get out of the car yourselves,” Song Jinhe replied coldly.
If her son had just come out a bit sooner, he wouldn’t have been bitten. He had stayed back because his mother was shouting for him to grab more supplies so “immoral people” wouldn’t take them all.
“You can’t leave him here! Xiao Cheng, I beg you, you must take him with us!” Jiang Hongrong wailed, lost in her panic.
Shen Wu glanced at the approaching zombies, a murderous glint flashing in his eyes. Under the guise of dodging a zombie, he surreptitiously pushed it toward Cheng Yan.
Zhang Yi saw this and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Watch out on your left!”
Caught off guard, Cheng Yan was nearly tackled by the zombie. Thanks to Zhang Yi’s timely warning, he managed to block the zombie’s head with his arm and shove it away with all his might.
The zombie didn’t lunge again; instead, it turned toward the young man wailing on the ground.
“No, no! My son! You people killed my son…”
Jiang Hongrong stood frozen in place, failing to notice the zombie right beside her until it grabbed her hand and sank its teeth in.
“AAAAAH!”
Peng Zhixue looked at the zombies in terror, his voice cracking as he screamed, “If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late!”
Shen Wu knew he wouldn’t be allowed on that car. He suddenly whipped out a knife and lunged at Song Jinhe with a roar. Before his blade could reach her, a heavy blow landed on him.
Song Jinhe was holding a steel crowbar and had struck with lethal intent. With a single blow, she left Shen Wu’s head bloodied and battered.
He screamed in pain, clutching his head as he stumbled back. Suddenly, his eyes widened in horror at two zombies running toward him.
Their faces were hauntingly familiar, wearing the grey, decaying pallor that only the dead possessed.
An icy chill ran down Shen Wu’s spine. No, he had to leave this place, no matter what it took!
He didn’t want to die!
Shen Wu waved his knife wildly in the air. “Either take me with you or we all die together! You choose! Even if I die, I’m taking one of you down with me!”
Song Jinhe looked down and said nothing.
If she didn’t have a weapon, she might have feigned agreement before finding another way. Dealing with a desperate madman with a knife was a good way to get yourself killed.
“You guys get in the car first. I’ll sit on this side with him,” Cheng Yan said, tossing the keys to Peng Zhixue.
“That’s more like it.” Shen Wu, thinking they had surrendered, flashed a smug grin.
In the next second, Cheng Yan lunged forward and grabbed the hand holding the knife. Song Jinhe, sneering, unleashed a barrage of strikes with her crowbar from behind.
Having failed two sneak attacks and being unable to win a direct fight, Shen Wu felt his bones snapping with every hit of the crowbar.
He began to cower and beg for mercy. “I was wrong, stop hitting me… Aah… I just wanted to live…”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t expect the other side to compromise after a failed assassination attempt.”
Song Jinhe had never even killed a fish in her life, but she knew one thing clearly: to survive the apocalypse, you could not be soft-hearted toward someone who tried to kill you and steal your car, no matter how sincere or pathetic their pleas for mercy seemed.
The main horde of zombies had arrived. Shen Wu couldn’t reach his knife in time. Song Jinhe looked away and quickly climbed into the car with Cheng Yan.
A swarm of zombies poured into the convenience store, followed by Shen Wu’s blood-curdling screams.
BOOM!
The burning car exploded. Zombies were sent flying through the air amidst the flames, and billowing black smoke rose into the sky.
As they left the hospital grounds, the aimless zombies on the street immediately roared and swarmed toward them. It wasn’t until the car had driven a significant distance that they finally faded from the rearview mirror.
Trees toppled by the storm remained uncleaned, and trash littered the ground. The silence of the massive city was terrifying.
Song Jinhe said she wanted to rest and let Cheng Yan drive for a while.
Something felt different about her Space. She hadn’t noticed in the heat of the moment back at the hospital, but thinking back, a wave of warmth had radiated from her wrist after she had run over that half-crippled zombie.
Does killing zombies expand the Space?
She didn’t feel like the Space had gotten significantly larger. Perhaps the number of kills wasn’t high enough yet?
People who “awakened” their Talents could increase their level by killing zombies and mutant creatures, but they usually required kills of the same or higher level.
However, her Space wasn’t a standard Talent.
Song Jinhe planned to find an opportunity to test this on a few isolated zombies. Practice was the only way to verify the truth.
The haul from the convenience store had been good. Inside her Space, she now had:
Instant Noodles: Two cases (48 bags total) and one case of cups (12 total).
Bread: One case of 24 bags of toast.
Water: Two and a half cases of mineral water.
Drinks: 35 bottles of soda, juice, and bottled coffee.
Lighters: Five.
Supplies: Two piles of daily necessities and medicine. Just the rolls of paper alone filled four large bags.
Everything was neatly categorized. The remaining space could be used for essentials like clothes and shoes. As long as she could survive the early stages and find a stable residence, she could eventually make many of these daily necessities herself.
On a rooftop not far from the hospital.
A man held a pair of binoculars, staring at the black smoke in the distance. “There are actually survivors in the hospital.”
“They were alive just now; that might not be the case anymore.” A young man with messy, bird-nest hair lit a cigarette. “Unless there’s a Talent User in that hospital.”
In the short week since the zombie crisis began, over fifty percent of the population had turned into zombies during high fevers. Only a very small number of lucky individuals had awakened Talents.
Not only did they possess abilities beyond ordinary people, but their physical fitness and recovery rates were also far superior.
“Brother Wen.” A large man rushed onto the roof to report. “It looks like two SUVs just passed by.”
Brother Wen lowered his binoculars, looking intrigued. “When?”
“Just a few minutes ago. They looked like they came from the hospital direction.”
Brother Wen looked at the short-haired youth with a meaningful gaze. “In this weather, they won’t get far.”
“Brother Wen, you mean…?” The youth exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“We need someone to lead the way inside,” Brother Wen said with a smile. “Even if they aren’t from the hospital, anyone driving two good cars in this mess likely has a camp.”
Peng Zhixue stared at the desolate, ruined city, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.
The car was in his hands. There was food and water in the trunk.
If he just slammed on the gas and drove away, no one could stop him.
After these past few days, watching so many living people being torn apart and eaten by zombies, he had finally understood how things worked.
Cheng Yan and the others wouldn’t have saved that mother and son. If the same thing happened to him, they wouldn’t save him either. That person upstairs crying for help knew Song Jinhe, yet she had ignored them just the same.