The commercial center where the drone store was located was different from the mall that housed Xingguang Commercial Center. It was more like a pedestrian shopping district called Yunchun Road Pedestrian Street. The street branched off in all directions, and once the van drove in, it could exit from any of the connecting roads.
Neither Jiang Qi nor Ye Ling intended to enter the pedestrian street immediately. Instead, they began making a plan.
Come to think of it…
The reason they had been able to reach agreements so quickly and avoid conflicts along the way probably had something to do with the fact that they both liked making plans before taking action.
“This time, for the zero-cost shopping plan, we can only split up.”
Pointing at the map of Yunchun Road Pedestrian Street on her phone, Jiang Qi said to Ye Ling, “I’ll be responsible for getting the drones from the store. You’ll lure the zombies away, and after I get the drones, you’ll have to come back and pick me up.”
Ye Ling had no objections. Jiang Qi had spatial abilities, so having her retrieve the drones was the most convenient option, but…
“What if you run into zombies? Can you handle it alone?”
“I can!”
Jiang Qi nodded seriously. “I can deal with one or two zombies. If there are more than two, I’ll give up on the drones and run immediately. You just have to remember to come pick me up as fast as possible. I shouldn’t get caught by the zombies that quickly.”
She had observed the zombies’ running speed before. It was slower than that of ordinary people.
That was probably related to the fact that chunks of flesh were missing from their bodies here and there.
As long as she wasn’t surrounded by a large group of zombies, Jiang Qi believed she could outrun them.
Besides, she still had an electric scooter.
Even if Ye Ling suddenly had second thoughts midway and drove off on his own, Jiang Qi didn’t think she would die anytime soon. After all, she had only used the shared scooter twice so far, and it still had plenty of battery left—enough for her to find another place to hole up.
Since Jiang Qi said she could handle it, Ye Ling didn’t try to stop her anymore. They were only temporary teammates, and without having truly built trust yet, it wasn’t appropriate to interfere too much in each other’s decisions.
If someday they were lucky enough to become friends who could entrust their lives to one another…
Then that would be a different matter.
Ye Ling nodded. “Alright. I’ll drive around Yunchun Road Pedestrian Street starting from this road, make one full loop, then return to the entrance of the drone store.”
“At that point, I’ll shoot the zombies.”
“The moment you hear three gunshots, come out of the store immediately. Got it?”
“Got it,” Jiang Qi replied.
After their eyes met, silence filled the car for three seconds. In the end, Ye Ling still voiced what was on his mind.
“I won’t wait too long at the entrance.”
“You understand.”
“If the van gets surrounded, whether it’s you or me, neither of us will escape.”
Jiang Qi was quite self-aware about this point. The reason she and Ye Ling had teamed up wasn’t just because they happened to meet. It was also because both of them could provide value to the other.
If Jiang Qi didn’t have spatial abilities and was just dead weight, then Ye Ling definitely wouldn’t have agreed to team up with her.
Likewise, if Ye Ling had been weak and useless, Jiang Qi wouldn’t have wanted to team up with him either.
“Don’t worry. If I don’t make it back to the car at the agreed time, then there’s an eighty percent chance I’ve already been bitten by a zombie. When that happens, just drive away.”
Jiang Qi spoke in a relaxed tone.
Seeing how straightforward she was made Ye Ling feel somewhat guilty instead.
“Sorry. I’m just not capable enough. But don’t worry, I’ll wait until the very last moment. I definitely won’t leave early.”
He really is pretty kind…
After thinking that to herself, Jiang Qi replied, “If there’s no problem, then let’s go.”
“Alright.”
***
Yunchun Road Pedestrian Street — West Street.
Ye Ling turned on the car stereo and blasted rock music as he drove in through the entrance to West Street. He wasn’t driving too fast or too slow, just enough for the zombies hiding in the shops lining both sides of the street to come running out and give chase.
“ROAR!!!”
Very quickly, influenced by the sound, countless zombies rushed out from all directions and began chasing neatly behind the black minivan.
Two hundred meters behind them.
Having gotten out of the vehicle ahead of time and hidden inside a large trash bin, Jiang Qi only carefully climbed out after seeing all the zombies chasing after Ye Ling’s van.
Fortunately, the trash bins on the street were only cleaned between six and eight in the morning or six and eight in the evening.
Otherwise, Jiang Qi would’ve crawled out reeking of garbage by now.
She didn’t waste even a second.
Jiang Qi immediately sprinted toward the drone store three hundred meters away.
Faster. Run even faster!
Jiang Qi covered the three hundred meters in less than sixty seconds. Upon arriving, she carefully pushed open the glass door, still smeared with bloody traces, with her shoulder and stepped inside.
She didn’t dare slam the door open. What if she attracted the zombies back again?
The drone store had three floors. Inside the display counters on the first floor were phones, headphones, speakers, gaming controllers, computer accessories, and other electronics.
Without a second thought, Jiang Qi stuffed everything into her spatial ring before rushing upstairs.
“Why are there skateboards and bicycles here too?”
Could those belong to the shop owner?
She wondered whether there would still be enough room after storing the drones. If there was, she’d take those too!
As she thought this, Jiang Qi stuffed every model of drone from the second-floor shelves into her spatial ring.
Tap… tap…
Suddenly, footsteps rang out.
“Grrrrraaaah—!”
Jiang Qi turned around and saw a young male zombie with over half the left side of his face gnawed away lunging toward her. Her mind instantly went blank, and by pure reflex, she raised the frying pan in her hand and smashed it forward with all her strength.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Three hits still weren’t enough. Terrified, Jiang Qi kept smashing the zombie’s head over and over with the frying pan until its skull burst on the floor like a crushed tomato before she finally stopped.
“Ugh…”
Staggering, Jiang Qi ran into the second-floor restroom and threw up.
Too horrifying!
A face that terrifying lunging at her and trying to bite her—it was absolutely horrifying!
Only after emptying everything in her stomach did Jiang Qi finally feel a little better. She turned on the faucet and repeatedly washed her hands while splashing water onto her face.
“It’s okay… sooner or later I’ll have to get used to it… get used to it… get used to it…”
Better to adapt sooner than later.
Leaning against the sink, Jiang Qi kept muttering to comfort herself, trying to pull herself together as quickly as possible.
By now, another thirty seconds had passed.
Jiang Qi suddenly remembered she hadn’t checked the third floor of the drone store yet, so she left the restroom and headed upstairs.
“ROAR!!!”
There was still another zombie on the third floor, except this one had been tied to an office chair with ropes…
Jiang Qi looked at the young female zombie before her with a complicated expression. Thinking of the young male zombie she had just beaten to death with the frying pan, she fell silent for two seconds before saying, “Might as well see this through to the end. I’ll send the two of you on your way together.”
She didn’t really have many strengths as a person, but her ability to accept and adapt was pretty strong.
When she was little, because of her parents’ work, they constantly transferred her from one school to another and often left her living with different relatives.
After enough times of coming and going like that, Jiang Qi naturally got used to it.
That was also why she was so obsessed with having a home.
Because she hated living under someone else’s roof and constantly having to read people’s expressions.
The third floor was probably where the shop owner lived. There wasn’t much of value there, but the food in the refrigerator, the blanket on the sofa, the quilt in the bedroom, and other daily necessities—
Anything Jiang Qi could take, she took.
Before leaving, she even wanted to take the bicycle, only to realize she couldn’t. She could only sigh regretfully. It seemed her 100-cubic-meter storage space was already full.
Bang!
While going downstairs, Jiang Qi heard gunfire, not just three shots but many in rapid succession.
“Has Ye Ling already been surrounded by zombies?”
Jiang Qi hurriedly called Ye Ling. It had only been a few hours since the zombie outbreak began, so the mobile signal still worked.
After several rings, the call connected, and Ye Ling’s anxious voice came through.
“There are too many zombies on my side!”
“I can’t follow the original plan and pick you up at the drone shop entrance!”
Jiang Qi quickly replied, “It’s okay, I have an electric scooter. If you can shake off the zombie horde, we… we’ll meet near the development zone where we rested at noon!”
“Okay!”
Click. The call ended.
Jiang Qi was worried about Ye Ling’s situation, but worrying was useless. She could only protect herself first.
She quickly arrived at the entrance of the drone shop, took out her beloved electric scooter, and rode toward the exit of West Street. Since Ye Ling had already drawn away most of the zombies, her escape went surprisingly smoothly.
The scooter was much quieter than a car, and the distance was only two kilometers. The commotion coming from every direction around her was louder than it was, so as Jiang Qi cautiously observed her surroundings along the way, she soon reached the place where they had rested earlier that afternoon.
Ye Ling still hadn’t arrived.
Sitting on the scooter, Jiang Qi looked around nervously.
“Nothing happened to Ye Ling, right?”
She really didn’t want her teammate getting sacrificed this early.
Thirty minutes later—
Jiang Qi finally saw a van driving toward her. But the originally black vehicle was now covered in chaotic bloody handprints, and even the tires left red streaks on the road wherever they passed. Especially the front windshield…
It had several cracks in it.
Ye Ling stopped the van and rolled down the window. Both his expression and tone seemed far more weathered than Jiang Qi’s.
“Get in.”
Hearing that, Jiang Qi put away the scooter and climbed back into the passenger seat.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Ye Ling shook his head.
“I almost got trapped, that’s all.”
Really, only by the tiniest margin!
The van’s music system only played rock music. Ye Ling had originally thought the pedestrian street wouldn’t be crowded at ten in the morning, but after driving from West Street to the East Street exit and looking ahead, he realized there was actually a vocational high school there!
If Ye Ling hadn’t reacted quickly enough to immediately abandon the original plan and turn around to flee while simultaneously shooting most of the zombies blocking the road, he really would have gotten swallowed by the zombie horde and never made it out.
Even then, he still had to take a huge detour to return.
“Must’ve been rough.”
Jiang Qi offered a few comforting words.
Ye Ling asked, “Did you get the drones?”
“Got them.”
Jiang Qi replied proudly, “I counted them… there are definitely at least eight drones.”
“You didn’t forget the controllers, right?”
“How could I? I even grabbed several chargers!”
It was good that they had successfully obtained the drones. At least their risk hadn’t been for nothing, Ye Ling thought.
“Where are we staying tonight?”
“Let me check the map…”
Jiang Qi skillfully opened the map app on her phone and searched around.
“Mmm…”
“How about here?”
Ye Ling glanced at it.
“Kangkang Convenience Store? Why there?”
“This store is far from busy downtown areas and residential neighborhoods, and there’s also a gas station nearby. We can even charge my shared electric scooter there. Most importantly!” Jiang Qi tried to suppress her excitement. “The second floor of this private convenience store is very likely to have bedrooms!”
“If there are bedrooms, there’s probably a place to shower. If there’s a place to shower, that means there’s a toilet. Don’t you want to use a toilet?!”
Ye Ling fell silent.
“…”
He did, so he had no objections.
The trip to Kangkang Convenience Store went much more smoothly than their “free shopping” drone mission. After using a phone taken from the first floor of the drone shop to play music and lure away the nearby zombies, the two of them successfully moved into the convenience store.
No one knew whether the owner had been the only person watching the shop at the time.
In any case, the second floor was very clean. There were no zombies inside, and no bloodstains either.
So…
They violently dismantled the front door.
Fortunately, it was just a normal keyed door. If it had been an electronic lock, breaking in by force would’ve been much harder.