“Hey, whoosh—”
Everyone pushed together, and Shi Zuo An, in his angry state, could match the strength of two people by himself.
The hole in the glass door was firmly blocked by the counter.
“Done!” Jiang Si clapped the dust off his hands. “Let’s go in, be careful.”
Once they entered the door, a long escalator was directly in front of them.
The escalator was designed with fine grooves for shopping carts. Electrically powered, it made moving carts convenient, but now, relying solely on their legs to climb, it was a struggle.
The four of them held the handrails, bent low at the waist, and after much effort, finally made it to the top.
“This escalator is way too long!” Song Zi Qiao complained, wobbling a couple of steps forward on his weak legs, only to spot a toppled tasting stall.
Originally, it probably offered fresh fruit samples, but after the zombie outbreak, only the smashed red-fleshed dragon fruits remained, leaving irregular streaks of juice across the floor.
The fruits were crawling with indescribable insects and buzzing flies.
“Ugh—” He froze for a second, gagged, and immediately veered away.
“Run, run, the fruit’s all rotten!”
Unexpectedly, the moment they entered, they were in the fruit section. Most of the foods that required refrigeration had already rotted, emitting waves of foul stench.
The four of them covered their noses, unwilling to stay any longer.
“Move, move!” Song Zi Qiao shouted as he rushed forward, not noticing Shi Zuo An quietly heading toward the fruit stall.
Xia Ao’s attention was mostly on him, so the moment Shi Zuo An changed his steps, he immediately noticed the movement.
Ignoring Song Zi Qiao and Jiang Si moving ahead, he stopped, dragging his suitcase to wait nearby.
He watched Shi Zuo An approach the durian section, poking here and there among the towering piles, and finally picking up an enormous durian.
He casually pulled out a plastic bag and placed it inside, then turned to meet Xia Ao’s serious gaze…
“What are you doing?”
“I’m waiting for you.”
Waiting for a kid who, like a preschooler, would dash off the moment they entered the supermarket.
Of course, he sensibly didn’t say the second half of the sentence out loud.
Had he said it, that huge durian might have landed on the kid’s head.
Shi Zuo An sized him up from head to toe.
Dressed properly, carrying a suitcase, but inside, he was pitch-black through and through!!!
“Here, hold this.” He became the casual stall owner, tossing the durian to Xia Ao.
The huge durian landed in Xia Ao’s hands, and he almost let it slip to the ground.
He finally steadied himself and gave a faint smile. “You like durian?”
“…What’s it to you!”
“Hm, nothing, just thinking that at least for the next couple of days, you can eat your fill. Before we leave, we’ll pack two more to take with us.”
Xia Ao curved the corner of his mouth, helping arrange everything. The trunk was spacious, he moved two backpacks to the back seats, placed the remaining backpacks and suitcase in the trunk, and still had plenty of room for the two durians.
“You even arranged that for me?!” Shi Zuo An wasn’t grateful, shooting him a sharp glare, then quickened his pace to catch up with Jiang Si and Song Zi Qiao.
When he found them, the two were sitting on the lower shelves, dividing up a huge bag of prawn chips.
“Mm, Shi Ge, Xia Ge, you’re here!” Song Zi Qiao waved hands covered in seasoning powder. “Wow, you picked such huge durians.”
Jiang Si was drawn over too.
“With such a big durian, Shi Ge, are you planning to dismantle it and let Xia Ge use it as a kneeling cushion?”
Xia Ao: …
Jiang Si grinned, taking the plastic bag from Xia Ao and setting it on the floor, then pulling a small knife from her pocket.
“I’ll open this blind box!” Recently, durian blind boxes had become popular online. Jiang Si had tried many times but never picked a truly “Bao’en” durian.
As she pried open the top of the durian shell, the tender yellow flesh was exposed to the air.
“Wow, who picked this durian? This is definitely a Bao’en durian!” She was amazed at the full flesh and the paper-thin shell.
The one who had picked it, Shi Zuo An, proudly lifted his head. “All those methods online are unreliable. I can tell at a glance which durian has a thinner shell and more flesh.”
“You should become a durian reviewer. I’d follow you and learn seriously!”
You two really enjoy making career plans for other people.
The four of them sat on the floor, eating the entire durian between them. By the end, they were even scooping the durian flesh onto prawn chips and eating it in one bite, like Mexican tacos.
Too rich.
“I can’t eat anymore! Shi Zuo An, you picked it, you eat the rest yourself!”
Song Zi Qiao had one last bite and gave up, leaning back with her hands and refusing to eat another bite.
Shi Zuo An loved durian, but even he grew overwhelmed toward the end. With no fridge, the remaining durians would just spoil.
He rubbed his full stomach, staring blankly at the last two durians on the floor.
“Do you think zombies would like to eat durian?”
?
Their earlier “lure the zombies out” plan had worked surprisingly well. Scanning the supermarket with the naked eye, they hadn’t seen a single zombie inside.
But giving up was out of the question.
Who could guarantee that some stupid zombie wouldn’t crawl into some corner and get trapped, unable to get out?
After a quick discussion, the four of them decided to turn this into today’s “post-meal exercise” plan.
Each grabbed a steel pipe and began checking every corner of the supermarket, racing to see who would spot a zombie first.
Shi Zuo An took off his jacket, holding a piece of durian shell in his left hand and the steel pipe in his right.
“You really plan to make me kneel with that?”
“Why are you following me?” Shi Zuo An glanced at the shameless tag-along beside him.
“If I don’t follow, won’t you be without a partner? With so many spiky durian shells, who else are you planning to kneel at?”
Shi Zuo An’s mouth twitched. This guy’s nerve was really thick.
“Fine, you don’t need to kneel now. You can go.”
Xia Ao froze, utterly shocked, staring at him in disbelief. “Then who are you planning to make kneel?”
“…Who would understand? This is a drama queen.”
“No one’s kneeling! No·one·is·kneeling!!!” Shi Zuo An felt his throat catching from shouting so loudly, almost wishing he could fling the durian shell straight at Xia Ao’s face.
But in the post-apocalyptic world, there’s no place to get a new pair of glasses, so he held back. “I’m just using it as a shield!”
A shield?
Xia Ao was amused by his childlike imagination.
“Good idea, I’ll get one too.”
Tch, such a copycat.
“I’m not waiting for you.”
Xia Ao returned to where they had eaten the durian, grabbed the remaining half of the durian shell, and went to find Shi Zuo An, but the place was empty.
He really wasn’t waiting.
He curved his lips in a faint smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes.
No choice, he had to search aisle by aisle.
Xia Ao was now in the snack section, which included the chips that had been trending online recently.
The shelves were stacked extremely high, with products packed tightly on top of one another.
To see the other side, he had to walk all the way around.
After checking five or six aisles, there was still no sign of Shi Zuo An.
Where could this person have gone?
After a long while without seeing anyone, Xia Ao felt an unusual sense of unease.
He quickened his pace, scanning several aisles hastily, and finally noticed something unusual at the very top of this section, near the emergency exit.
It’s worth noting that supermarket emergency exits are usually closed.
They’re not locked, but they are typically shut.
Yet this door was wide open, not at some random angle from a panicked escape, but seemingly deliberately fixed at its maximum opening.
He eased his steps, gripping the steel pipe tightly, and slowly approached the door.
The silence was terrifying.
One foot stepped onto the white metal door frame, everything seemed normal… or so he thought.
Suddenly, the door behind him shuddered, and a strong whooshing sound cut past his side. He twisted his body just in time to dodge.
It was then Xia Ao noticed the person he had been searching for all this time: sitting near the top step of the stairwell, mostly obscured by a stranger standing with his back to him. Only a familiar pair of pants revealed his identity.
He shifted his gaze to the person who had just tried to ambush him.
It was a woman in a suit, with short, neat hair, no makeup, and thin lips pressed together tightly, her mouth naturally turned downward as if she never smiled.
A danger alarm blared in Xia Ao’s mind.
“Who are you?” he asked calmly.
But the woman completely ignored his question, raising her baton and striking at him again.
Xia Ao quickly lifted his steel pipe to block.
The metal clashed with a sound that made one’s teeth ache.
Clearly, the woman was a trained fighter. Just as Xia Ao blocked her downward strike, she suddenly kicked toward his abdomen.
He staggered backward, barely avoiding it.
“Quick, wooo!” Shi Zuo An, lying above, heard the commotion, immediately realized it was Xia Ao, and tried to shout for him to run, but before he could get a word out, a hand clamped forcefully over his jaw.
The man standing in front of Shi Zuo An moved aside, and Xia Ao finally got a clear view of him.
The lower half of the man’s face was pressed by a massive hand, the rough calloused palm pressing uncomfortably against him. A reddish mark appeared at the corner of his eyes, faintly familiar to Xia Ao.
The hand’s owner wore a fitted suit, stood at least 1.9 meters tall, with large, firm muscles and a short, buzzed haircut.
From his face, he looked foreign.
He and the woman were definitely working together, but for some reason, the man seemed completely confident in her abilities, calmly holding his position above them and quietly observing.
As Xia Ao thought this, the baton swung through the air again, aimed at his face.
Xia Ao could only dodge. He realized that he was gradually unable to withstand her attacks, he could only try to evade.
But slowly, even the chance to dodge disappeared.
Damn it!
The steel pipe was too heavy, and his arms grew fatigued. With a “bang,” the woman’s baton struck his wrist.
The steel pipe slipped from his grasp.
Without a weapon, Xia Ao had even less right to fight her.
The baton slammed heavily onto his shoulder. He let out a muffled groan and, unable to resist, collapsed to his knees.
Pain exploded from his shoulder, and he painfully lifted his head. The woman was walking toward him, but he could barely straighten his body.
“Get the hell away from me—”
A roar came from a distance, growing louder. By the time Xia Ao reacted, the woman had been kicked flying to the side.
It was a sneak attack, she was caught completely off guard. He barely regained his balance by holding onto the stair railing.
It was Song Zi Qiao!
Jiang Si took advantage of the moment, rushing over to help Xia Ao up. “Xia Ge, are you okay?”
Xia Ao shook his head and looked up the stairs.
After the woman was kicked away, the man who had been watching from above finally prepared to step into the fray.
He released the hand that had been clamped over Shi Zuo An’s face, cracked his neck, and began walking toward them.