Chapter 54
Chapter 54
They quickly swept through and gathered everything up. Seeing that the others had not yet come out, they hurried over to the shop next door. Bai Jing collected everything he could find, regardless of whether or not it was useful. In any case, his hidden dimension was large, and it was pointless to keep it empty.
Before long, the people upstairs came down. Other than Liu Wei, who was carrying Little Meng in his arms, everyone was carrying large makeshift bed sheet packages filled with supplies.
“That’s everything. The rest is with Little Meng. The supermarket seems like it’s been looted before, with bottles and cans all over the floor, rice and wine spilt all over the place. We haven’t gone to the third floor yet, since we wanted to bring these things over first. Little Meng’s space is also full.”
Xiao Sa nodded and only let Bai Jing collect a portion of it. The remainder went into the cars. Even if there were space powers, they should still make other preparations.
Bai Jing’s face was red, and his heart felt somewhat embarrassed. He had never considered these problems before.
When Little Meng’s space had been emptied, the others went back to the shopping mall while Xiao Sa and Bai Jing fought and looted through the shops on the roadside. After they had repeated the process three times, everything they could find in the shopping mall had been basically cleared out. They returned to the cars and proceeded onwards.
They stopped frequently as they travelled, and it was only when they had left the county town that they began to pick up speed. They passed by a gas station and wanted to collect some gasoline, but discovered that there was hardly a drop left. Not only the storage area, but even the gas pumps seemed to be covered in a very thick layer of dust.
With a sigh of regret, Yu Yue was about to get back into the car when he heard the sounds of fighting. He looked back and said, “There’s someone over there. It’s seems to be the couple we met earlier this morning.”
Bai Jing raised his eyebrows, slightly surprised. He had never thought that these two would be so capable, even able to escape from a large group of zombies.
Xiao Sa was silent for a moment. “Wait a bit first.” This county town was really strange. It would be good if there was somebody they could ask.
Soon afterwards, the sound of a motorcycle was heard in the distance. The woman rode at the front, and the man was at the back releasing his powers. The few zombies that had been following behind them were wiped out in no time. They noticed the cars in front of them before they could even breathe a sigh of relief, but there was no surprise, and no cheers. Rather, they seemed to be on guard.
The woman stopped the motorcycle some distance away and did not move forward. The man opened his helmet and looked at them quietly. They seemed to be waiting, yet wary at the same time.
Xiao Sa saw this, and picked up the walkie-talkie: “Zhou Ji, go and ask about the situation.”
Zhou Ji confirmed that he had received the order, got out of the car, and walked over alone.
The man and woman saw that there was only one person, and the guarded look in their eyes lessened somewhat, but they remained in an attacking position. If anything was even slightly wrong, these two people would definitely run away quickly.
They spoke together for a while, the man and woman seemed to be distracted, and the woman’s thoughts were written on her face. Between words, there was a moment of anger, a moment of sadness, a moment of heartbreak as she fell into the man’s arms, howling and crying loudly. The man comforted her for a while before she recovered, and it was not known what Zhou Ji said to them, but their eyes flashed with joy. Not long after, Zhou Ji came back, and the man and woman remained where they were.
When Zhou Ji came over to Xiao Sa, there was still a shocked expression on his face. He said, “They are local people from the county town. On the night of the virus outbreak, the situation here and in the surrounding villages and towns was very serious. The government blocked the news and killed everything clean. All the ability users were captured. The two of them have just escaped from the research institute.”
“Killed everything clean? What do you mean?” Before Xiao Sa could even speak, Wang Xuebing had spoken up to ask.
Zhou Ji felt very powerless, and did not know how to answer. He did not want to believe it, but he could not disbelieve it, as what they had said had been rational and reasonable. And in these kind of situations, nobody would make a joke out of these things.
Bai Jing gave a cold snort as he grasped the key points in his heart. No wonder there were so few zombies in the county; no wonder there was a layer of dust in the gas station. In fact, if the government had been in continuous turmoil since then, exterminating a county would be no big deal, let alone a city or even a province. Sacrificing a few for the sake of the majority was a given in the eyes of the higher ups. Besides, this kind of scandal would never be spread abroad.
“Did a meteorite drop down near here?” If that were the case, it would explain why the virus outbreak in the county had been so serious.
Xiao Sa nodded and said lightly, “In addition to the north and coastal areas, another meteorite landed in Gaoping County.” When he had been investigating the route, he noticed that the meteorites landed on a global scale, with three in Country Z.
Bai Jing was annoyed. He had checked the computer, but had not paid attention to these details. The meteorite had also landed in K province in his last life, but the precise location had not been here.
Xiao Sa looked at him and did not ask much. His Bai Jing’s thoughts were all written on his face, and he only had to use his brain a little to guess what he was thinking. Presumably the severity of the epidemic here had to be related to meteorites, or perhaps this global disaster was also related to meteorites.
Zhou Ji hesitated for a moment and asked, “One of them is a wind power, the other is a water power. Brother Sa, do you think…”
Xiao Sa barely needed to consider it. He glanced at Zhou Ji, “Ask them where they are going. If it’s along the way then we can bring them along.” If it wasn’t convenient, then they would be unable to help out. Of course, it would be even better if they could join the team; if they wanted to be stronger later on, they needed to be able to accommodate new people. A wind power user and a water power user that had managed to stay together and escape from the mouths of the zombies could be brought in temporarily while they first judged their characters.
“I’ll go and ask.” Zhou Ji’s voice was deep as he spoke. The words from this man and woman sounded an alarm bell in his head. Their team had not suffered any real harm on their journey so far, first because they had left early, second because they had enough firepower, and third because Bai Jing’s identity and background made it so that no official dared to stop them. At present, things were still going well, but when the world really became chaotic, their team of thirty something people would not be enough in the face of truly powerful forces. It was necessary to recruit new people to join the team.
This would no doubt be necessary. Very quickly, Zhou Ji brought the two people over.
Xiao Sa looked at them indifferently. “Get in first, we’ll continue driving. We can speak in the car.”
The man and the woman looked at each other. There were four cars, and it was obvious that the people in the RV had a different status, but they did not know which car they should board.
Bai Jing poked his head out. “Come this way, I have some things I want to ask.” In fact, he was curious about how the two had escaped from the institute. In his last life, he racked his brains and escaped several times, but was always caught and brought back. When he thought about it, he really had to admire them.
Sometimes, however, the answer was just that unexpected.
Seeing that Xiao Sa nodded, the two finally came up to the RV. Bai Jing was a little discontented that his words had been ignored.
Xiao Sa smiled lightly and sat on the sofa with Bai Jing cuddled in his arms. He found that he actually preferred the car to the resting places. At least, Wang Xuebing could only stare at them when they were on the car.
Seeing the relationship between Bai Jing and Xiao Sa, they were slightly surprised, but it only showed for a moment before they quickly hid their expressions. There was no abnormality on their faces.
Bai Jing was very satisfied with this, and pointed to the opposite sofa: “Sit down.”
After they sat down, Xu Lei was so happy she was almost shedding tears of gratitude at the sight of another woman. After spending every day with a group of men, she had found herself turning into a tomboy. Seeing that their clothes were damaged, she quickly brought out two thick sets of clothes that had been taken from the mall earlier and then stored into the cabinet. Then, she busily poured them two cups of hot water.
This enthusiasm had the opposite effect of making the man and woman feel awkward. Just now, they had been calm and composed, but now they were nervous again. However, being able to drink a cup of hot water seemed to warm up their heart. The corners of the woman’s eyes even turned slightly red. They had never thought that even a cup of hot water would be so hard to find. How long had it been since they had eaten hot food? It had only been a few days since the disaster began, but it feels like it had already been a lifetime.
Bai Jing waited until their emotions had calmed down before asking, “What are your names?”
The couple did not wait for Xiao Sa’s permission this time. Now that they had seen the situation, there was no way for them to misunderstand. The man answered first, “My name is Yang Chonghui. I am 28 this year and a wind ability user. I used to work in the power supply bureau.”
“My name is Liu Hui, I’m his girlfriend, a water ability user, and worked in the same unit as him.”
Bai Jing nodded. “Tell us about what happened, what the situation is like here, when did the virus break out, when you were arrested, and when you escaped.”
Seeing Liu Hui’s eyes turn red again, Yang Chonghui patted her on the shoulder and answered, “On June 18, the county town was in turmoil. That day I was in my hometown with Liu Hui, and her cousin’s son had just turned one month old. We also went to join the celebrations, and were just discussing marriage…”
As a result, Yang Chonghui got drunk and went back early to rest. The houses in the countryside were not like those in the county town. Each family was not far away from each other. Liu Hui’s family lived in a more remote area where there were only two families nearby. Other than those of the younger generation who worked in the city, the older generation who lived next to each other in the countryside had all come over to have a drink. Having a son was a big event in the countryside.
They both slept until dawn, and escaped from the disaster. The next day, they found that something was wrong, and after noon, Liu Hui watched her parents and brother become monsters. If they had not developed their powers, and Yang Chonghui had pulled her away, they might have died long ago.
At that time, Liu Hui had resented Yang Chonghui, but they had not expected that when they returned to the county town, there was still something worse waiting for them. Even before they had stepped foot into the town, they had been caught. Because planes could not fly, they had not been rushed off, and had been caught along with dozens of other people.
From those people, they learned that the county town had fallen, and the military had come in to exterminate everyone. Many people had become monsters, and they could escape only because they had developed powers. But who knew that they had just escaped a disaster to fall directly into the wolf’s claws.
Some people hated themselves for their own stupidity. If they had known, they would have learned from others and tried to rob from the army. It would have still been better than waiting for their doom after they’d been caught.
Just when they thought that their lives would be like this forever, who could predict that two nights ago, the ability users mutated and began to bite people when they saw them. The people who guarded them also became zombies, and the whole building was in chaos. The steel gate was like scrap metal in the face of the zombie ability users, and could not withstand more than a few collisions. The two of them escaped and fled, hiding as they went from place to place. It was only after they came out that they discovered that the whole county had become dead and silent. Yan Chonghui could not even find his parents’ corpses.
When they saw their team, the two of them had been on guard at first because their cars were too good and too clean. They were really frightened. They never thought that they would be even more shocked after they got on board. They had never been in such a good car in their lives.
Wang Xuebing had been silent the whole time. Perhaps after these two days of shocking events, after hearing this story his heart was heavy, but it was no longer so unbearable.
Xiao Sa and Bai Jing looked at each other, and in the dim light of their eyes became sharp: “You mean that the ability users have also become zombies.”
Yang Chonghui’s heart was tight. He sat up straight and nodded, “Yes.”
Liu Hui leaned close to her boyfriend and looked around with both eyes wide open. She seemed to be looking for an escape route. After these days of fighting, being on guard had become an instinct.
Xu Lei saw this, smiled, and said comfortingly: “Don’t be nervous. Brother Sa is just asking questions. He used to be a gangster, and his ominous aura is too strong. You guys don’t need to be afraid.”
The two of them let out a relieved breath, but Bai Jing’s heart sank. According to their words, level one zombies should have already begun to appear. Fortunately, they did not meet any. Otherwise, when the team had been divided into two separate paths yesterday… It was alarming just thinking about it.
Xiao Sa pondered slightly and asked, “Which direction did the zombies go in? And the people in the city, if I’ve guessed correctly, there should be a lot of people escaping from the county?”
Yang Chonghui shook his head. “I’m not too clear about this either. When we met some groups of zombies, we just ran away, but we didn’t pay attention to where we were going. As for the county town, when we escaped, no one was there. We just heard the captured ability users say that when the Yuhai organisation went to plunder the police station, they led everyone to revolt together. I don’t know anything else.”
Xiao Sa was silent for a moment. He saw that the two people were still sitting formally, glanced at Xu Lei and said lightly, “You can introduce our situation to them for now, and then introduce them to everyone later when we stop.”
Xu Lei smiled and agreed. In fact, she had long wanted to talk. She seldom met another woman, and she was also a water ability user. Having spent these past few days with a group of rowdy men who swore easily and frequently, she really needed a person on her side. Otherwise, she was worried that even she would start speaking coarsely one day.