The three of them were lined up neatly on top of the fence like skewers on a grill.
Jiang Si, at the very front, wanted to tell Xia Ao not to be so sarcastic, but realized her words would have to travel over two other people’s backsides to reach him, so she hesitated for zero seconds and decisively gave up.
Judging by Shi Zuo An’s expression, he was genuinely angry this time and didn’t say a single word.
The result? Nobody spoke. Not a word from anyone. Even as the zombies began to thin out, no one suggested whether it was safe to climb down.
“……”
If it weren’t for Jiang Si getting uncomfortable lying flat, they might have stayed perched on the fence forever.
When they reached the high-speed rail station, the doors were wide open. Through the glass, the chaos inside came into view.
In their earlier panic while jumping over the wall, they hadn’t even had the energy to grab their weapons.
Taking advantage of the moments when the zombies that hadn’t caught anyone left, they quickly retrieved their weapons and held them high. The three formed a back-to-back circle, carefully peering inside.
No zombies appeared in their line of sight, but the enormous waiting hall left plenty of corners where one could be hiding.
“Hey, look over there!” Jiang Si nudged Shi Zuo An’s waist with her elbow and pointed to the ground near the ticket gate. “There’s a speaker.”
She suggested, “We could record an audio clip, set it to loop a few times, and play it outside. That way, the zombies inside the waiting hall can be driven out.”
Great idea!
But making it work seemed tricky. Shi Zuo An frowned and interrupted, “But the waiting hall is huge. The speaker’s volume would only reach about fifty meters in any direction, too far, and the zombies won’t hear it.”
Xia Ao said, “I’ll take the speaker to lure the zombies. You two just watch and make sure I don’t get dragged into a nest. When the zombies get close enough to stick to my back, give a shout.”
“You? Ha!” Shi Zuo An crossed his arms, glancing at him sideways. “Forget it. That bite on your foot from the zombies earlier? Not a drop of mercy there. If you go out there now, you should be checking for wounds first instead of running around, don’t go turning into a zombie yourself while trying to herd them!”
Xia Ao: “……”
Jiang Si fell silent too, secretly thinking Shi Zuo An really couldn’t tolerate even a tiny risk, but still tried to comfort the one who had volunteered for this dangerous task: “Shi Zuo An is just worried about you!”
“Shut up.” Shi Zuo An glared at Jiang Si. “Not worried about him, not even a little.”
“Uh……”
What do you do when the person involved refuses to cooperate at all?
Jiang Si knew full well that getting involved in someone else’s emotional quarrel was absolutely unwise, but couldn’t the two big brothers pick a better time than now to argue?
Wasn’t yesterday at home a perfectly good time to fight? Why drag it out until now?
After being provoked twice in a row, Xia Ao finally realized that Shi Zuo An was biting at him in anger because he thought Xia Ao was recklessly risking his life.
“You don’t actually think I was being suicidal when I put my foot down to kick the stool, do you?”
Shi Zuo An: ?
Jiang Si: And now a plot twist?
Xia Ao grabbed the sole of Shi Zuo An’s shoe in front of him and tapped it with his index finger. “I’m wearing height-increasing insoles.”
Huh???
“Height-increasing insoles?” Jiang Si looked at him in shock. She didn’t expect he’d even feel the need for them.
So men’s vanity really is all the same.
Someone who’s 1.7 m wants to be 1.8 m, 1.85 m aims for 1.9 m.
“You put in that much padding just to reach the heavens!” Shi Zuo An laughed angrily.
No wonder Xia Ao looked taller than usual this morning when they got up from the same bed. He had thought it was just poor posture before, turns out there was a little trick involved.
The two companions looked at him with a mixture of respect and disdain.
Xia Ao scratched his cheek with a finger. “I wear height-increasing insoles just to add an extra layer of protection. See? Now it comes in handy.”
Mmm, mmm, mmm, fair enough~
After Xia Ao’s self-deprecating apology, Shi Zuo An decided he could forgive him.
On one condition…
“Condition?”
Shi Zuo An gave a wicked grin, pressed the recording button on the speaker, and shouted, “Xia Ao is a little short guy who wears height-increasing insoles—”
“Xia Ao is a little short guy who wears height-increasing insoles—”
The speaker mimicked him perfectly.
“……”
Jiang Si thought: Big brother, if I remember correctly, your bare height is actually a bit shorter than Xia Ao’s… so if he’s the little short guy, what does that make you?
The king of the dwarf kingdom?
Although Shi Zuo An had vented his frustration and graciously forgave Xia Ao, given Xia Ao’s “recorded behavior,” he was immediately excluded when it came to deciding who would take on the risky task of running around with the speaker to lure the zombies.
In the end, Shi Zuo An unsurprisingly won the vote.
“Be careful when you run. Jiang Si and I will be watching from the first-floor ticket gates and the second-floor ticket gates. If you can’t keep going, just shout for us.”
“Got, it, lo—” Shi Zuo An took off his hoodie and tossed it to Xia Ao, leaving only a white T-shirt on his upper body.
“Alright, don’t be so clingy like a parent seeing their kid off to school.”
Jiang Si remarked sharply.
After giving all the necessary instructions, Jiang Si and Shi Zuo An went up to the second floor.
The starting point was the ticket gate. In the open areas, he didn’t need to sprint, he just had to slip through corners, like the restrooms, the break room, and so on.
Shi Zuo An mimicked what he had seen athletes do before: he sprang up on his toes a couple of times, then launched forward like a spring.
“Xia Ao is a little short guy who wears height-increasing insoles—”
…truly exasperating.
The moment he started running, all the noise vanished, leaving only the quiet wind in his ears.
The metallic, bloodied smell inside faded away behind him.
At first, he ran slowly to conserve energy. But as a few zombies were gradually attracted by the speaker and started following him, he had no choice but to speed up.
“Watch out! There’s a zombie to your front-left, keep your distance!” Jiang Si shouted a warning.
Shi Zuo An swung the speaker slightly to the left, and when the zombie was drawn to the sound, he immediately veered to the right.
After looping around, he finally covered the entire area.
There shouldn’t be any corners left unchecked.
He glanced around, feeling that he had passed every spot, and called out as he ran: “I’m heading downstairs—”
Both to let Jiang Si take a breather and to alert Xia Ao downstairs to get ready to receive him.
The reason H City South Station needed renovation was that it had been built long ago, and many of its facilities and interior layouts were no longer reasonable.
For example, the up-and-down passages, there was only one each of the elevator, escalator, and stairs.
Shi Zuo An thought it over and realized that taking the escalator now would actually be more convenient.
Its narrow, crowded nature, which he would have dismissed in the past, now became the perfect way to control the zombies.
Confident in his plan, Shi Zuo An stepped onto the escalator with absolute faith in success, but halfway down, he immediately regretted it.
These damn zombies didn’t walk down the escalator, they jumped!
He took it step by step, while they leapt three or four steps at a time. Soon, their growls and snarls grew closer and closer to his ears.
The escalator was ridiculously long. By the time he reached the remaining half, he would either be trampled into a meat patty or end up in the zombies’ jaws.
What could he do?
He racked his brain desperately for a way out, but fate seemed determined to work against him. He slipped three steps down without even stabilizing his footing.
Before he could grab the handrail and steady himself, a zombie’s claw came swiping at him—
“The speaker, give it to me!”
At the bottom of the escalator, Xia Ao suddenly appeared, arm raised high, ready to take the relay from Shi Zuo An.
There was no time!
Shi Zuo An threw the speaker into the air, swung himself over the escalator’s side railing, and collapsed awkwardly onto the stairs.
Ouch, it hurt like hell!
The speaker spun in the air several times before landing squarely in Xia Ao’s hands.
Run!!!
Xia Ao’s long legs carried him forward at lightning speed. Taking advantage of the distance, he easily left the zombies behind.
“You okay?” Jiang Si helped Shi Zuo An to his feet on the stairs.
Having just run full out a few times, Shi Zuo An’s legs were still weak as he gradually released the tension.
Leaning on the handrail and Jiang Si’s hand for support, he shakily stood up.
Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead. His cheeks, flushed from exertion, and his slightly parted lips quivered subtly with each breath.
He looked down to see a large group of zombies circling the station after Xia Ao.
It was already daylight, and the zombies were faster than they had been at night. Watching Xia Ao’s legs dart back and forth, Shi Zuo An wondered if he had run just as awkwardly.
Well, no time to think about it, just thinking about it made him feel his heroic posture had vanished.
“Let’s go, we’ll help out.”
Xia Ao led the horde of zombies, weaving them in and out of corners, and gradually the group grew larger.
Jiang Si kept a close eye on his path, making sure he covered every area, then hurriedly pulled Shi Zuo An around to the main gate.
The two of them each grabbed a gate handle with one hand, holding their weapons tightly in the other, waiting for Xia Ao to approach.
When he was about fifty meters from the gate, he threw the megaphone with all his strength. Half of his body lifted almost into the air, then he quickly dodged to the side.
Unexpectedly, the speaker flew straight over the green barricade and landed inside the construction site!
The zombies’ focus was entirely on the sound-emitting megaphone.
They charged recklessly at the barricade.
The barricade, which had just been strong enough to support the weight of three people, shattered like fragile paper under their impact.
Once the last zombie left the waiting hall, the three of them closed the gate together, first sliding in the bolt, then locking it with a U-shaped padlock they had prepared earlier, tucking the key into a pocket, done!
Xia Ao also picked up some torn cloth scattered on the ground, evenly doused it with floral water, and stuffed it into the gap at the bottom of the door.
With that, they had finally cleared the waiting hall.
“Phew, exhausted! Let’s take a break!” Shi Zuo An called to the other two, urging them to find a place to sit.
The calves, still faintly sore and tight, finally got a chance to rest.
“I’ll go grab a bottle of water. Do you two want some?” Xia Ao still had the energy and was standing steadily.
Shi Zuo An didn’t even bother to lift his head, half-slumped against the seatback, lazily waving a hand backward. “I’ll take one, thanks—”
Jiang Si, who had basically run up and down the stairs twice by now, was completely exhausted. “[1]“Ge” is a Chinese term meaning “older brother,” but in entertainment and fandom contexts it’s often used as a fond, admiring way to address or refer to a handsome or admired man, whether or … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1663002_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1663002_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });Xia Ge, thank you so much, you’re really kind.”
…Xia Ao accepted the heavy responsibility, thinking:
You two are all polite now, but you’ve been cursing at my megaphone this whole time.
A few minutes later, Xia Ao returned with three bottles of water and some snacks to fill their stomachs.
Shi Zuo An downed half a bottle in one gulp.
“Ahhh!!!” He grabbed a napkin from a nearby backpack, no idea whose, and wiped his sweaty forehead. “I think this place is great. There are three small shops and four or five vending machines, plus a restaurant on the second floor. We could easily stay here for a month or two.”
The living conditions were so good that he even thought a supermarket wouldn’t be necessary.
Xia Ao thought for a moment and cut off his delusion: “Don’t even think about it. First, the outer walls of the station are completely transparent, so anyone outside can see what’s happening inside and whether anyone’s here. Second, no one knows how long this battle will last. A month or two is manageable, but what if it’s a year or two? This food won’t last, and supermarkets will only get harder to access.”
Fair enough.
“Then let me get a good sleep first… I’m really exhausted…”
References[+]