“What should we do? Jinhe didn’t come out with us!” Zhang Yi turned back to look at the dense, impenetrable horde of zombies behind them, her heart in chaos and unable to sit still.
“She’ll definitely find another route.” Cheng Yan said that, but the worry on his face didn’t lessen. “We can’t turn back. Let’s find somewhere ahead where we can stay overnight and figure it out later.”
“About 6 kilometers ahead on Shahu Street, there’s a training center,” Peng Zhixue said, his breathing drawn out and weak. His symptoms had already started to appear.
Cheng Yan withdrew his gaze, stepped on the accelerator, and turned toward Shahu Street while shaking off the zombies behind them.
Peng Zhixue’s condition could still hold for a while. Before that, they couldn’t leave him behind alone.
Less than half an hour later, three vehicles arrived one after another at the main road. The leading off-road vehicle, upon seeing the sea of zombies ahead, immediately braked, signaled, and quickly turned around.
“What the hell is going on? How are we supposed to get through all those zombies?” the man driving the SUV frowned impatiently. “Neither of the walkie-talkies can get through. That crazy woman with the license plate ending in 886, how did they end up in such a mess?”
“Let’s find somewhere to take shelter first. We’ll deal with it tomorrow when the zombies inside disperse,” said the man in the leather jacket beside him calmly.
Song Jinhe finally managed to get her car, whose bumper was broken and whose balance was unstable, out of the area.
The sky was getting darker. The car couldn’t last much longer, and neither could she.
She slumped over the steering wheel, opening her mouth weakly to catch her breath. There wasn’t a single part of her body that wanted to move.
Night would fall soon. There was no suitable place nearby to take shelter, and zombies were everywhere. The bank she had passed earlier was safe, but she couldn’t get inside.
Looking at the gray, gloomy buildings and the ragged zombies wandering about, Song Jinhe took a sip of water and forced herself to stay alert as she drove into an old alley.
The surrounding buildings were decades old; some even had broken windows, exposing rusted iron bars inside.
From the courtyard, dark green leaves pressed against the blackened outer walls, and the windows looked like deep, ancient wells, gloomy and eerie.
Song Jinhe didn’t plan to get out and enter any of the houses. None of them looked safe. She didn’t have the energy to break doors or clear threats anymore.
Earlier, she hadn’t felt it as strongly, but now that she was alone, needing to spend the night outside, an indescribable discomfort settled in her chest.
She took out iodine, hemostatic powder, and gauze, and wrapped herself in a blanket as she cleaned the cut on her hand.
Night was falling fast, and she couldn’t turn on a light. She could only do a rough treatment for now; she didn’t know how to stitch wounds, and doing it in the dark was impossible anyway.
If she had time later, she absolutely needed to learn wound care from Cheng Yan.
Song Jinhe crawled into the back seat, took out two steaming potatoes, and ate while watching the zombies slowly shuffle past in front of her.
The fragments of zombies on the roof and the pitch-black blood splattered across the car body acted like camouflage, allowing her to stay hidden inside the vehicle without drawing the attention of nearby zombies.
Her body was in so much discomfort that she drifted off without realizing it. In the middle of the night, she was jolted awake after a nightmare in which zombies had crawled into the car.
Outside the window was pitch black, so dark she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Something was moving with faint rustling sounds, but she couldn’t tell what it was. She pulled the blanket tighter around herself to keep the warmth from escaping.
Nights like this were unbearable. Whenever she wasn’t asleep, she was silently wishing for daylight.
On the other side.
The three of them successfully entered the training center.
Pang Zhixue was isolated in a separate room. Chen Yan stood guard through the entire night, and by the next morning, Pang Zhixue was already in critical condition.
His face was sallow, and the blood he had vomited had soaked through the front of his clothes. His gaze was becoming increasingly unfocused.
“You should go. Make sure the door is sealed tightly,” Pang Zhixue said, staring toward the distant flooded streets of Xingfu Community.
The water was starting to recede. He could only return there now.
Zhang Yi and Chen Yan tearfully said goodbye to him, left the room, and closed the door behind them, writing warning words on it with a marker.
As they turned toward the stairs, a faint, almost imperceptible groan seemed to come from inside the room behind them.
“Now there are only the two of us left. We have to survive and find Jinhe,” Zhang Yi said, tightening her fingers.
Chen Yan nodded. “Earlier, she marked a route out of the city and a few fallback points on the map. We don’t have to go through the mall, we can head north first and then detour around. As long as the destination is the same, we’ll eventually meet up.”
At the main road outside the mall, the lead off-road vehicle followed the trail and discovered the wreckage of two cars, along with a burned-out walkie-talkie.
The people who got out of the vehicle immediately looked grave.
“Brother Wen, this…”
They had assumed Old Scar’s group had only run into a bit of trouble, but they never expected a scene like this.
On the ground lay a half-eaten body with charred skin, its head hollowed out by zombies… it was Old Scar.
He was a strength-type ability user, and he even had a gun.
How did he end up like this? What kind of people were they dealing with?
Sun Bingwen glanced at the zombified Qiu Xiang shambling toward them, pulled a military knife from his waist, and killed him without hesitation. His gaze then shifted from the pickup truck to the van, and finally settled on several zombies lying on the ground with their heads blown apart.
“The other side used Molotov cocktails, and an accomplice had an unusual weapon. They detonated that vehicle.”
As he spoke, he squatted down to inspect the wounds on Qiu Xiang’s body. “That’s strange… there are only knife wounds.”
“Brother, what do we do now? Those people have disappeared without a trace,” one of his subordinates asked.
“Report this to the boss first. With equipment this good, they’re a big catch.” Sun Bingwen let out a cold laugh. “They probably haven’t gone far. They came from the mall, there might still be survivors nearby.”
By the time Song Jinhe woke up, it was already past eight in the morning.
After sleeping, her condition had improved somewhat, though the wound on her right hand still hurt badly.
The few wandering zombies outside had not noticed her. With one hand, she roughly folded the blanket and stored it in her space, then pulled out a clean windbreaker and put it on.
The blood-stained clothes from yesterday and the outdoor jacket were better not worn for now, they were too conspicuous. Even the license plate had been discarded.
She still had a few Molotov cocktails left in her space. The materials to make more were there, but she had to conserve them; they wouldn’t last otherwise.
Holding the steering wheel with one hand, Song Jinhe checked the fuel level. Driving out of the city shouldn’t be a problem.
She wasn’t familiar with this area, and the map didn’t mark such fine details.
So she could only follow the roads and figure it out. Staying along the outer perimeter of the western district would reduce the chance of running into those people.
After wandering for a long time, reality proved harsher than her expectations. Looking at the waterline marks left on the walls and the still-flooded road ahead, she knew she had taken another wrong turn.
Living like this, constantly exposed and on the move, placed enormous psychological pressure on her, especially since she still hadn’t left the danger zone. Any slight disturbance kept her nerves constantly on edge.
Not long ago, she had passed a temporary aid station. She didn’t even get close before seeing zombies roaming outside the tents, men, women, elderly, even children. If she had been even a little slower, she might not have gotten out at all.
After two days and two nights, Song Jinhe finally reached the outskirts of the city. Seeing the rolling hills and low houses in the distance, she finally let out a long breath of relief.
She couldn’t delay replacing the tires any longer. Her hand injury kept reopening from fighting zombies, never healing properly.
If this continued, she might really lose the use of her hand. She urgently needed a safe place to recover.