Just how far the siren of an emergency hovercar could carry, and how many zombies it might draw in, that was something Cheng Qian and Wang Yi had no desire to find out firsthand.
Cheng Qian’s face was dark as he stood with his back to Bai Long. “Let’s see just how long she can keep up that arrogance!”
Bai Long had lashed the alarm to her hand with a strip of cloth, making sure it sat at exactly the distance where a single clench of her fist would set it off.
Chi Wan, Chi Zao, and the others crowded around Xu Yunyi, keeping her hidden from Wang Yi, who kept shooting probing glances their way.
“What do we do? Her temperature feels like it’s climbing again.”
Chi Wan withdrew the hand she’d rested on Xu Yunyi.
“Then maybe give her some fever medicine?”
Bai Long fished a handful of pills out of her bag.
“Uh…?”
Chen Lei scratched his head. “If we bring the fever down, can she still awaken her powers?”
“No idea. Want to give it a shot?”
Bai Long handed the medicine to Chi Wan and left the decision to them.
She had bigger things on her mind.
What exactly was Cheng Qian’s trump card?
And where had Sun Jie, An Ran, and all the rest of them gone?
She looked at Cheng Qian, hemmed in at the center of a crowd of shipyard workers.
From where things stood now, his position rivaled the one Sun Jie had held before, if anything, the workers seemed to favor him even more.
But it was obvious Cheng Qian’s people wouldn’t hand that information over to her so easily.
“I’m sorry. We’ve been holding you back.”
A cloud of gloom hung over Chi Zao, like a dejected little puppy with its head down.
He and the other students all understood it perfectly well.
If not for them, Bai Long could have simply turned and walked away. With her strength, the shipyard was hardly the only place she could survive.
It was the rest of them who couldn’t. Without Bai Long, their only option would be to submit to Cheng Qian.
And the days that followed were easy to imagine, probably even more sickening than all the nasty business back at school.
“How about you stop worrying about us, Boss? Just go. Don’t sit here taking their crap.”
Chi Zao looked up at Bai Long, his eyes utterly earnest.
“Yeah!”
Chen Lei caught wind of the two of them and pushed over to back them up. “We’ve been putting up with that bunch for more than a day or two anyway. If you can leave, Boss, you should get out while you can.”
“Right, right, we’ll be fine.”
The remaining students heard this and turned to Bai Long too, sincerity written across their barely-grown-up faces.
“No. I’m not staying for your sake, don’t flatter yourselves.”
Bai Long cut their little fantasy off without hesitation.
“…Huh?”
Chen Lei froze on the spot.
By the usual script, weren’t they supposed to be getting all choked up at each other right about now, before the big character-moment spotlight kicked in?
“Aren’t you all maybe deifying me a little too much? And didn’t certain people forget they were supposed to help me find medicine? Planning to weasel out of that debt, or what?”
Bai Long shot a pointed look at Chi Wan and Chi Zao.
Chi Zao said quickly, “I definitely remember! It’s just, having you treated like this by Cheng Qian’s crowd because of us, we…”
“Him having a problem with me has nothing to do with you.”
Bai Long waved a hand. “And surely you don’t think he’s actually going to let me off the hook that easily, do you?”
She was talking about her own situation, yet she sounded as calm as a bystander.
In all her years working at the funeral home, Bai Long had seen every kind of unreasonable bereaved family there was. Her heart had long since grown its own suit of armor.
She could stay calm in the face of anything.
“He knows I’ll come back. The medicine in my hands is something he’s determined to get.”
Medical supplies were a scarce resource at the best of times.
In the apocalypse, even more so.
Even with part of the workforce following him now, getting those people to willingly walk into a zombie hotspot to scrounge for medicine on his behalf…
Bai Long didn’t think the workers who’d so readily betrayed Sun Jie would have that kind of self-sacrificing spirit.
Cheng Qian had clearly realized the same thing.
Which made the medicine in Bai Long’s hands his safest route to getting any at all.
He just hadn’t counted on her keeping something in reserve.
After all, in his mind, she was nothing but a beastwoman.
“Until he has all the medicine, he won’t let me leave.”
Bai Long understood that with perfect clarity.
After all, compared to retrieving medicine from the middle of a zombie horde, having those people deal with her was the far more feasible plan.
“So what do we do?”
Chi Zao rubbed his hair anxiously, leaving it sticking up in a tangled mess.
“There were so many of them, he even took out both espers. Could Cheng Qian have awakened some super-powerful ability?”
The mere possibility of it made Chi Zao want to die of frustration.
Bai Long ruffled his messy mop in passing. “That’s not likely either.”
“If he had some powerful ability, would he really need that many people to guard him?”
She nodded toward where Cheng Qian sat.
He’d obviously been rattled by Bai Long’s earlier display, he was sitting dead center inside a ring of workers.
One look and you could tell he was terrified the zombies might come crashing in.
“I don’t think Sun Jie and the others are necessarily dead. More likely they’ve been locked up somewhere.”
Bai Long just didn’t know where, for now.
“If that’s the case, then what are we waiting for? Let’s just charge in and take them on! Boss, I’m with you!”
Chen Lei had clearly gotten the blood pumping to his head.
He still remembered Bai Long’s heroics back at the hospital, charging straight out to go toe-to-toe with the zombies, and the young man’s heart was stirred.
Bai Long looked at him, lost for words. “Brother, you want me to throw my life away? Zombies are brainless. Those people clearly aren’t.”
Chen Lei plainly didn’t think she couldn’t do it. “Boss, I believe in you!”
He would follow the Boss for life!
“Please, don’t.”
Bai Long gave up.
“Even if we fight, at the very least we need to find Sun Jie, An Ran, and the rest of their people first, so we’re not at a numbers disadvantage.”
Right now Bai Long’s side had ten people total.
Cheng Qian’s side had somewhere around thirty-odd, not even counting Zhao Xin, who was an esper.
“But isn’t that a dead end?”
Chi Wan thought it over and frowned. “To get out safely we have to deal with Cheng Qian, which means we need Sun Jie’s people. But only Cheng Qian knows where they are, and he’s obviously not going to tell us. It’s unsolvable, forever.”
Bai Long was working on it too.
She pulled out the two still-warm eggs and rolled them around in her hand, turning them over and over.
Before they could ponder it much longer, they spotted Wang Yi heading their way.
And coming along with her was a big bowl of noodle soup, balanced in her hands.
Pale yellow noodles, topped with a fried egg.
“It’s been a while now. You must all be hungry, right?”
As she spoke, Wang Yi lifted a chopstickful of the thin noodles.
A wave of fragrant noodle aroma drifted over.
Chen Lei couldn’t help swallowing.
Come to think of it, they really hadn’t eaten in a very long time.
“You know, this bowl of noodles was practically earned by you lot. Want some? I just had a bowl myself, it’s delicious.”
Wang Yi held up the chopstickful of noodles and brought it right up in front of Chi Wan and the others.
“Hm? Where’s Xu Yunyi? Isn’t she with you?”
With Chi Wan and the others blocking her line of sight, Wang Yi couldn’t see the hidden Xu Yunyi.
To keep Wang Yi’s people from realizing Xu Yunyi was awakening her powers, they’d quietly stashed her inside a shipping container in the corner by the stone gate long ago.
“What’s it to you? Are you going through menopause?”
Chi Zao rolled his eyes and snapped back.
They’d already torn off all pretenses anyway, so there was no need for him to maintain any so-called surface politeness.
Besides, he’d had a problem with Wang Yi for a long time over what she’d done to his sister.
Wang Yi’s expression stiffened, but in the end she didn’t blow up.
Something seemed to occur to her, and she said with a smile, bowl still in hand, “Chi Zao, it’s not too late if you come to your senses now. Xie Yinyin and the others are gone. The supplies here are more than enough to keep the rest of us alive for a good long while.”
At that, Chi Wan’s brow twitched.
“Where did Yinyin and the others go?”
She’d assumed Xie Yinyin’s group had been locked up along with Sun Jie’s people, but now it seemed that wasn’t the case.
“Where?” Wang Yi found it a little amusing. “With this many of us, naturally someone has to go out and gather supplies.”
Chi Wan understood now.
Xie Yinyin’s group was the second squad Cheng Qian’s people had pushed out to die after they themselves had gone out.
“Wang Yi, have some shame!”
Chen Lei couldn’t hold back any longer. “Do you have any idea whose supplies you’re eating right now? Every bit of it was risked life and limb to bring back by the Boss and everyone else! You really just reach out and take it, talking like it’s yours.”
Chi Zao sneered. “Why bother saying all this to her? Have those people done so few of these snatching-credit, stealing-stuff things?”
Wang Yi could no longer manage a smile, but meeting Bai Long’s utterly unruffled eyes, she remembered Cheng Qian’s warning.
“Don’t provoke her. She’s not someone you can afford to mess with.”
Wang Yi gritted her teeth.
Cheng Qian was the one truly holding power now. She knew full well she was only borrowing his menace, a fox parading the tiger’s might.
If she pissed Cheng Qian off, her own days wouldn’t be pleasant either.
Wang Yi was no Bai Long.
She had nothing held in reserve.
Suddenly Wang Yi gave a relieved little laugh. “Let’s see how long you can keep talking tough. You think beastmen are good people? Without food, you won’t last three days.”
“Since you don’t want it, then I won’t force you. I just hope she can keep you all alive.”
Wang Yi’s smile was vicious.
With the apocalypse here and a bounty of supplies and status fallen into her lap without the slightest effort, she couldn’t even be bothered to keep up the old goody-two-shoes act.
Her true nature was laid bare for all to see.
“You really are… too sickening!”
Chi Wan flushed red with anger, yet her good upbringing kept her from saying anything harsher.
“Yinyin and the others…”
Thinking of the worst possibility, her eyes reddened despite herself.
The girls had been close friends to begin with, their dorms were always helping each other out with things.
Birthday cakes, hometown specialties…
For a moment, Chi Wan couldn’t accept it.
“Don’t cry yet.”
Bai Long’s voice was soft, thoughtful. “They might not necessarily have run into trouble.”
Hearing this, not just Chi Wan but everyone else looked up too.
“Really?”
What Chi Wan and the others hadn’t noticed was that, without realizing it, they’d already grown into the habit of instinctively believing whatever Bai Long said.
Bai Long had quietly become the leader of their whole group.
“The fact that he still needed those students to form a squad and go out for supplies proves Sun Jie’s people were all still around at the time, and Cheng Qian hadn’t successfully seized power yet.”
“What does that tell us?”
Bai Long said, “If the timing of their departure happened to line up, then there’s a good chance they know what Cheng Qian did to Sun Jie and the others.”
Now a breakthrough had appeared in the problem—
—Xie Yinyin’s squad.
“But we have no idea where to even look for them…”
Chi Zao’s elation crashed into despair.
“I know.”
A faint, weak voice rose behind Bai Long and the others.
“Yunyi? You’re awake?!”
Chi Wan, overjoyed, stepped forward and steadied the sweat-soaked Xu Yunyi.
Xu Yunyi’s face was very pale, she clearly hadn’t fully recovered.
“Yunyi, what did you mean just now? How could you know where Yinyin and the others are?”
Chi Wan was baffled.
Xu Yunyi had been part of the first squad to set out with them, and she’d been delirious with a high fever on the way back. By all logic, she was the last person who should know.
Xu Yunyi pressed her lips together and looked at Bai Long.
“Cheng Qian knows the way out of here.”
Her very first sentence detonated the bomb.
“Wha—… What?!”
Chen Lei couldn’t control his voice for a second, then immediately dropped it low once he caught himself. “Are you serious?! How could you know that?”
Xu Yunyi looked toward the shipping container where she’d been hidden.
Bai Long noticed her gaze, thought for a moment, and said, “Don’t tell me… Xie Yinyin and the others are hiding in there too?”
Xu Yunyi gave a small nod.
“Yinyin and the others are in there?! But we clearly didn’t see anyone just now…”
Chi Wan was a little overloaded with information.
“They were afraid Cheng Qian would notice, so they hid inside the cargo sacks and didn’t make a sound. They only came out long after you’d all left, and found just me lying there.”
From inside the sacks they couldn’t clearly make out who was approaching, so Xie Yinyin’s group hadn’t dared show themselves rashly, they’d waited until Chi Wan and the others had gone before poking their heads out.
“Save all that for later. You said Cheng Qian knows the way out? What’s going on with that?”
Bai Long zeroed in on the key point.
“Yinyin and the others saw it. Cheng Qian used ‘getting everyone else out of Water City’ as the bargaining chip to get the shipyard people to willingly help him scheme against Sun Jie and bring her under control. With Zhao Xin in on it, Sun Jie was caught off guard and overpowered before she knew it.”
“So that’s how it was…”
Now Bai Long knew why those people had betrayed Sun Jie.
Compared to a leader who could only offer them a place of refuge, what those people craved in their hearts was to escape this dangerous environment entirely.
And Cheng Qian had appeared at exactly that moment.
“I have a way out too.”
Xu Yunyi kept going.
“I can take you out of here.”
She looked at Bai Long.