The towering killing machine stood motionless among the trees.
Under the dim light, the mayor finished reading the entire contract.
It stated that the mayor of Lingfeng Town voluntarily entrusted Lingfeng Town to Noah Corporation of Shelter 999 for management during the winter, and would provide armed support services to Shelter 999.
After the armed support was completed, Lingfeng Town would provide Shelter 999 with at least 25 workers. During their employment, the shelter would guarantee their personal safety and provide them with daily food and accommodation.
Although they didn’t explicitly say so, the meaning was obvious—they wanted the mayor to stay at Shelter 199 until spring before returning.
But the question was: would she still have a place in Lingfeng Town when spring came?
Lingfeng Town was her foundation. It was because of Lingfeng Town that she could spend every winter comfortably inside a shelter instead of worrying about how she would survive each winter here.
The moment the mayor raised her head, she tore away the disguise she had maintained in front of Bei You for the first time. Her face twisted with rage, making her look like an enraged lioness.
“How could I possibly sign this?! You’re deliberately making things difficult for me!”
“No. You’re the one making things difficult for me, Mayor,” Bei You said calmly.
She could remain expressionless and pull the trigger even when a giant python roared furiously at her. This was nothing more than a little storm.
“This is my first mission. I’ve already sworn that I will complete it at any cost.”
“Wasn’t I good to you before? How could you help outsiders come here and bully me?” Seeing that shouting had no effect on her, the mayor changed her approach. She glared at Bei You. “Which of the things you ate or wore before wasn’t something I gave you?”
“You gave me moldy leftovers to eat, and clothes your children had outgrown and patched until they were worn out,” Bei You said calmly. “You were the one who abandoned me first.”
If it hadn’t been under the mayor’s instructions, how could the belongings Bei You had spent nearly a year slowly accumulating have disappeared completely overnight?
Those sheets of metal were things she had painstakingly picked out from abandoned construction sites. She had searched for pieces of the same color, then spent a long time sanding them with sandpaper, carefully piecing them together one by one to create a room for herself that was less than three square meters.
Inside were the chipped cups she had saved, beautiful pieces of glass, and a quilt she had made bit by bit after removing the blackened cotton and gathering new materials…
Only now did Bei You finally feel the dull ache.
Because those things represented her hard work—truly, genuinely, countless hours spent arranging and decorating, collecting and making everything herself.
The vague pain she had felt back then had sunk into her heart and become tangled thorns. If she reached out and twisted them, they would tear away pieces of her heart along with them.
Bei You remembered that she had once asked the mayor when she would finally be allowed to live inside the town instead of on that hill where she couldn’t even see the center of the settlement.
The mayor had said, “The town is rather crowded right now. Wait a little longer. Next time there’s a brick house available, I’ll definitely consider you.”
Then Bei You waited as one outsider after another moved into brick houses.
She had complained. She had fought. She had questioned the mayor and cried in front of her.
But the mayor had always treated her as though she were soothing a child.
Only a child would receive the same unchanging answer over and over again.
Yet the first thing that chairwoman had asked her was—
“If you stay here, what do you want?”
Bei You took a deep breath.
She stepped backward and raised her rifle.
The muzzle did not waver in the slightest.
Someone had seen her.
From that moment on, beneath her gun barrel, everyone was equal except that person.
The mayor was about to say something else when Bei You fired.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three controlled shots grazed the ears of the mayor and her guard, each bullet precisely striking the heads of the zombies behind them.
“If you don’t make a decision soon, you won’t be leaving at all,” Bei You said coldly. “The zombies have already caught up. If you try to force your way out now, I’ll shoot out your tires.”
“All right, all right…”
The mayor helplessly spread her hands.
“I’ll sign. I’ll sign. From now until the first half of spring, Lingfeng Town will fall under the jurisdiction of Shelter 999 throughout the winter. And there are 25 workers, but you’ll have to find them yourselves. I won’t be staying here.”
“No. You have to stay.”
The Type-I Sentry, which had been watching from the side, spoke.
It casually crushed a zombie’s head. The enormous machine, now in combat mode, lowered its head and looked at the mayor seriously.
“You need to make the announcement before you leave.”
After saying that, it turned back toward Bei You.
A tiny microphone extended from its palm, and a slightly hoarse, low female voice came through it.
“Bei You.”
“If you encounter a situation you can’t handle, call me,” she said. “Don’t die here.”
“Yes, boss,” Bei You replied. “Do you have any other orders?”
“Do your best to ensure the townspeople of Lingfeng Town survive,” Ling Zhao said. “The Type-I Sentry will take you to rendezvous with the people who stayed behind.”
“They’re currently at the warehouse on the western outskirts of Lingfeng Town,” the Type-I Sentry said after carefully analyzing the situation. “That’s where the gunfire is loudest.”
With that, it forcibly turned the convertible carrying the mayor around and urged them forward.
Lingfeng Town — Western Outskirts Warehouse
This was one of the strongest and largest buildings in Lingfeng Town.
All the townspeople who had been unable to evacuate or escape had gathered here.
Lin Xiao recalculated the number of bullets he had.
“98, 99, 100…”
After counting them, he shook his head.
“I’m losing money.”
“Forget about whether you’re losing money or not!” Tang Yuan had just withdrawn from the front line, his face full of anxiety. “The mayor isn’t here anymore. She must have already left. Didn’t you leave with her?”
“Why would the mayor take me with her?” Lin Xiao asked in confusion. “In a situation like this, the cost of hiring me would be extremely high. She wouldn’t take me with her.”
“Are you still insisting on maintaining your mercenary persona at a time like this?”
“I’m not insisting on anything. That’s simply what I am.”
Lin Xiao loaded the bullets into his magazine one by one without looking up.
“One thing is one thing. I get paid for what I do, and I do as much as I’m paid for. That’s my principle.”
“I won’t let myself take a loss, Uncle.”
After saying that, he strapped the magazine to himself.
“Losing my life here would be the biggest loss of all. To avoid that, I’m leaving.”
“You’re leaving?” Tang Yuan stared at him in disbelief, pointing toward the sparse but sprawling horde of zombies surrounding the warehouse. “At a time like this? You can get out?”
Lin Xiao carefully examined the situation through the window.
“I can.”
“Wait!”
Tang Yuan reacted quickly and grabbed the edge of his clothes.
Lin Xiao stopped.
He lowered his eyes and looked at Tang Yuan with a coldness Tang Yuan had never seen before. For a moment, Tang Yuan almost felt as though his fingers had been sliced by a sheet of paper.
“I’ll hire you!”
Tang Yuan instinctively withdrew his hand. But after realizing what he had said, he put on a calm expression.
“I’ll hire you to find a way out! Take everyone here and keep them alive!”
Lin Xiao frowned and glanced around the warehouse.
There were anxious young people, elderly people with their eyes closed as they waited for death, children being told not to make a sound…
There were all kinds of people.
“The difficulty is too high…”
Lin Xiao looked toward the Night Demon horde outside.
Just when Tang Yuan thought he was going to refuse, Lin Xiao said,
“You’ll have to pay more.”
“Under the Night Demons’ command, the zombies are deliberately spreading themselves out so they won’t all be wiped out at once…”
“There are still some ammunition left in the warehouse. The Night Demons won’t approach, but zombies can’t resist their instincts. We can have someone lure the zombies over and try to get them to gather together, then blast open a path and escape.”
Lin Xiao continued, “Anyone willing to come with us can leave. Anyone who doesn’t want to leave should immediately close the door after we’ve gone.”
“After all, in this situation, no one knows which choice will let them survive longer.”
Once they had decided on the plan, they acted immediately.
Tang Yuan quickly explained the plan to everyone else, emphasizing that they would only take those willing to risk leaving with them. They didn’t know whether those who remained would survive, and the risks on either side were practically equal.
Relying on the prestige he had accumulated over the years, Tang Yuan successfully convinced the others and gave them a few minutes to think.
Tang Yuan immediately moved to the side.
Standing on the second-floor platform, he extended his hand through a gap in the window and knocked twice against the iron railing outside.
The zombies were quickly attracted by the scent and sounds of humans. They gathered from their previous scattered positions along the side of the warehouse, then Tang Yuan lured them toward the rear.
Lin Xiao kicked the window open twice.
Flying dust and pieces of sheet metal scattered outward.
He held his breath and took aim amid Tang Yuan’s curses and coughing beside him.
The gunfire wiped out the gathered zombies in one sweep.
The area in front of the main entrance was now much more open.
They quickly ran downstairs, pulled open the doors, and called for the others to leave with them.
Less than half of the people had the courage to follow them out. The rest remained inside the warehouse, and as soon as they saw the others leave, they immediately shut the doors.
Now they had nowhere left to retreat. They could only keep moving forward.
Tang Yuan’s earlier attempt to lure the Night Demons had no effect. They possessed basic judgment, while the more advanced Night Demons even had a certain degree of intelligence. They continued to surround the road without being affected, and firearms lacking sufficient power couldn’t even penetrate their skin.
Tang Yuan had just dealt with a Night Demon attempting a sneak attack when another one seized the opening and charged toward him alongside two others.
They knew Tang Yuan was the leader of this group. As long as something happened to him, everyone else would become lambs waiting for the slaughter.
A bullet was fired from a tricky angle.
The large-caliber sniper rifle blew away half of the Night Demon’s head. Tang Yuan recognized the weapon immediately.
It was Bei You’s rifle.
If she followed up with two more shots, she could basically finish off a Night Demon.
But Bei You abandoned the pursuit of kills and instead focused entirely on covering them. She only shot the Night Demons until they lost their ability to move, leaving them lying on the ground as they slowly regenerated.
The group sprinted toward the shelter with all their strength.
This time, they didn’t need to search for the shelter’s location or scout for dangerous creatures in the surrounding area. Even though it was nighttime, they didn’t spend much time getting there.
The group finally reached the vicinity of the shelter.
The living humans attracted every Night Demon nearby, and the closer they got to the shelter, the more difficult it became to advance.
Even though the Night Demon leader had no idea what was inside that place, it understood one basic principle.
—Never allow an enemy to accomplish their objective, whatever that objective might be.
Bei You stared at the scene before her, troubled.
No… This wouldn’t work.
If this continued… she wouldn’t be able to complete her first mission.
They were already close enough to the shelter. If she went and lured away the remaining Night Demons, these people should be able to enter the shelter’s sphere of influence.
With that thought, Bei You prepared to do exactly that.
However, the moment she stood up—
A lamp suddenly illuminated the darkness.
It tore apart the curtain of night, and at the same time, tore open a gap in the encirclement.
Far away, beneath the hillside, a right hand rose high into the air, gradually emerging above the dark horizon.
Someone was coming with a lamp.
She cleaved through the darkness.
Wherever the light shone, the zombie horde parted before her like the tide.
Only after her entire figure was revealed did everyone realize that this person was sitting in a wheelchair.
A wheelchair.
It should have been the first thing they noticed—the very symbol of fragility and infirmity.
Yet beneath her expression, it seemed to transform into some kind of vehicle forged from steel.
A telescopic machine gun was mounted on each side of her wheelchair. Bullets poured forth like flowing water, and the zombie horde blocking her path was forced to crawl beneath the onslaught.
And when she moved, she resembled a ship approaching a harbor through the darkness, tearing apart every storm in its path.
Bloodied water dripped from her tires.
Yet beneath her expression, it was no more significant than a few scattered traces of frost.
This person could crush storms beneath her wheels and drive through countless hardships.
Bei You looked at her.
For some reason, at that moment, she suddenly remembered why she had been in Lingfeng Town in the first place.
That older sister—
She was from Lingfeng Town.
In the end, Bei You had carried her through the forest, the woman’s mouth full of blood, while all Bei You could hear was the weak, breathy murmur continuously coming from beside her ear.
Lingfeng Town.
She wanted to return to Lingfeng Town.
So the dandelion was carried by the wind at her back and landed in Lingfeng Town.
And now…
Bei You thought that she had already done everything she possibly could for this place.
The mayor had allowed her to become a resident. She had exchanged her labor for a place to live and food to eat. She had always believed that she had been accepted by everyone, yet she was never allowed to carry a gun inside the town, nor was she ever permitted to move away from her home on the hill.
Her house stood on the coldest part of the mountain, completely out of sight of the mayor’s villa, blocked tightly by other buildings.
The mayor feared her, yet still wanted to use her.
She had never truly belonged here.
Bei You had run toward others countless times, yet no one had ever truly cared about her.
A dandelion could not take root in the wind. She had never been able to find a place where she could settle.
And at this moment, someone came to her in the darkness, carrying a lamp, and said:
“You don’t have to go through all that trouble.”
Her movements in the darkness were somewhat inconvenient, yet she seemed determined to crush every storm and wave in her path.
“You’ve done very well, Bei You.”
Bei You heard herself ask,
“Why… why did you come out?”
“To pick you up.”
Bei You heard Ling Zhao say,
“I came for you.”
The wind lifted Bei You’s bangs.
The dandelion was blown from that barren little town by the wind and landed upon a ship’s sail.
“Let me see the gift you brought back, Bei You,” Ling Zhao said, as if speaking to a cat returning from a hunt. The muzzles of the guns beside her were still emitting pale gray smoke.
The woman in the wheelchair looked toward another direction, where several people had been pinned down and trapped together.
She immediately and precisely found her target among them, even though the mayor was currently pretending to be a quail.
“Nice to meet you for the first time, Mayor of Lingfeng Town. Would you mind explaining to everyone your request for aid?”
“And also who Lingfeng Town belongs to for this winter, hmm?”
Author’s Note:
I went out this morning and came back with heatstroke. I forced myself to finish writing the last little bit despite the heatstroke, and now I’m going to sleep. Zzzzz.
I previously thought my energy was simply too low to handle doing this many things.
Now it seems it was just heatstroke, that’s all.