Chapter 11: The Truth Behind the Siege
That woman, whom readers sarcastically dubbed the story’s sole female lead, would ultimately betray Shen Chengyin in the end for her own selfish gains.
If the male and female leads actually crossed paths right now, wouldn’t the guy blacken straight into a cinder?
“I won’t wait for you.” Fully dressed, Shen Chengyin pushed the window open and vaulted smoothly down into the shadows.
Su Han paused.
Meaning as long as I can keep up, I can tag along?
[What are you standing there spacing out for? Go after him!] System 111 urged frantically.
Su Han immediately dove through the window after him.
Dressed in head-to-toe black, Shen Chengyin blended seamlessly into the ink of the night. He twisted and turned through the cramped alleys between the residences, effortlessly slipping past the patrol squads at every single corner.
Su Han hadn’t mapped out the patrol routes yet, leaving him no choice but to stick to Shen Chengyin’s tail like a shadow.
Before long, the two reached the outer rim of Hope Base’s perimeter wall.
Hope Base had been established on the grounds of a modern scenic resort. Its outer defenses were built upon the resort’s existing stone barricades, reinforced until they stood over a dozen meters high, manned by a dedicated squad of armed sentries around the clock.
Shen Chengyin tossed a grappling hook upward. The prongs bit firmly into the stone, and in the blink of an eye, he scaled the wall.
Su Han scrambled up right behind him. Like two silent phantoms blending into the dark, they slipped clean out of the fortress without raising a whisper of alarm.
Trailing one behind the other, they trudged through the rough wilderness for nearly an hour before finally striking an asphalt highway.
Dozens of abandoned vehicles were parked haphazardly along the road, left behind when their tanks ran dry. Shen Chengyin picked the lock of an intact sedan, retrieved a jerrycan of gasoline from his spatial dimension, and emptied it into the tank.
Terrified of being left behind, Su Han darted forward and slipped straight into the passenger seat.
Shen Chengyin started the engine and drove along the highway toward the fringes of the metropolis. This was the sprawling urban hub closest to Hope Base, and since the outbreak, the sheer volume of mutated zombies lurking within was staggering.
The city was a goldmine of stockpiled resources, yet even Hope Base’s bravest scavenging squads dared not venture too deep. One misstep meant being swarmed and torn apart by hundreds—if not thousands—of the undead.
Seeing Shen Chengyin steer directly onto the access road leading straight downtown, Su Han hastily reached out to stop him. “Wait! You aren’t seriously thinking of going in there, are you?”
Visibility was severely compromised at night; charging in right now was pure suicide.
Shen Chengyin offered no reply. He slammed on the brakes, sending Su Han pitching forward, his forehead nearly smashing against the windshield.
“We’re here.”
Outside the cracked windows lay a sea of jagged rubble.
“Here where?” Su Han’s lips twitched.
Under this moonless, pitch-black sky, the male lead wasn’t dragging him out into the middle of nowhere just to execute him and dump the body, was he?
Stepping out of the car, Su Han’s boots crunched over shattered slabs of concrete. Relying on the dim glow of the headlights, he surveyed the desolate surroundings.
Something wasn’t right.
They were already right on the city’s doorstep—why would such a massive expanse of ruin sit right here?
Survivors in the apocalypse rarely bothered demolishing buildings. It offered zero practical benefit, and worse, the noise would only draw ravenous zombie hordes.
“What was this place…?” Su Han knelt down and touched the shattered masonry. The breaks were fresh, the collapse recent; even the exposed, twisted rebar hadn’t had time to rust.
“It used to be a five-story abandoned construction project.” Shen Chengyin fished a cigarette from his pocket and clamped it between his teeth, leaving it unlit.
Pondering for a fleeting moment, Su Han pieced the puzzle together. “Someone detonated explosives here?”
Blowing up a building in the wasteland served only two purposes: blocking an avenue of approach, or drawing a horde.
The former was pointless out here, which meant the latter…
It hit Su Han like a bucket of ice water—this spot wasn’t far from Hope Base at all.
His heart gave a violent lurch as he sucked in a sharp, shuddering breath.
“You’re saying… someone intentionally brought this entire structure down to lure the infected, orchestrating the zombie horde on purpose.”
If that culprit was Wang Jiafu, then the previous zombie siege had been nothing less than a calculated, bloody coup d’état from start to finish.
There had been no unforeseen natural catastrophe. No tragic accident. A catastrophic slaughter that cost countless human lives had merely been an elaborate stage play scripted by Wang Jiafu.
Shen Chengyin seemed completely indifferent to whatever gears were turning in Su Han’s head. He raised a finger, pointing toward another half-finished concrete skeleton standing in the distance.
“There’s another one over there.”
Su Han didn’t catch his meaning right away, but a heartbeat later, the blood drained from his face.
Did Shen Chengyin plan to pay Wang Jiafu back in his own coin—unleashing another fabricated zombie horde to wipe him out?
Or rather… to wipe out the entirety of Hope Base?
“Wait in the car. I’m going to have a smoke.” Tossing the words over his shoulder, Shen Chengyin turned on his heel and strode purposefully toward the skeleton of the second building.
Su Han had no other choice.
He sat in the passenger seat for two agonizing hours, waiting while the eastern horizon gradually paled to a faint, ghostly gray. His hands and feet were numb with biting cold.
When Shen Chengyin finally returned, he brought the chilled night air into the cabin with him.
His eyes immediately landed on Su Han. The boy was staring straight out the windshield, completely dazed, his gaze clouded and hollow.
It was a stark contrast to his usual bright, spirited demeanor—and Shen Chengyin found it remarkably grating to look at.
“What are you brooding over?” In a rare break from his silence, Shen Chengyin actually asked.
“Thinking about Know-It-All. Thinking about the bearded squad leader. Thinking about Uncle Wang from the trading depot.” Su Han rattled off several names in a soft, rambling murmur, vivid images of their living faces flashing across his mind.
He seemed to say nothing at all, yet conveyed everything in an instant.
Shen Chengyin’s eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits.
The man leaned over abruptly, closing the distance between them until his warm breath ghosted right against the shell of Su Han’s ear.
Pointing toward the skeletal building in the distance, his voice dropped, flat and devoid of emotion:
“If you want to save them, get out of the car. Snip the red wire, and the charges won’t blow.”
He had laid the method bare before him.
A morbid curiosity stirred in Shen Chengyin’s chest. He couldn’t tell whether he wanted Su Han to step out of the car, or stay put.
Either way, the second this boy stepped foot onto the asphalt, he would slit his throat on the spot.
Su Han’s ear burned with a ticklish warmth, flushing crimson under the man’s breath.
Tilting his head, he met Shen Chengyin’s terrifying, pitch-black gaze, feeling a twinge of aggrieved frustration.
“I never said I was going to stop you.”
He was here to clear a mission—what person could possibly be more important than the male lead?
“I just think it’s a real shame. I probably won’t ever run across people so easy to use again.”
Where else could he score crucial intelligence for the cheap price of a few crusts of bread?
Shen Chengyin froze, caught off guard as he stared deep into the boy’s crystal-clear eyes.
He stood stunned for several long seconds before letting out a soft, dry chuckle.
The engine turned over, its low, rhythmic rumble sounding exceptionally stark in the gloom.
A small white pill was flicked across the console from the driver’s side, landing squarely in Su Han’s lap.
“This week’s antidote.”
Su Han popped the pill into his mouth, the familiar, bitter tang blooming over his tongue. Smacking his lips, his peripheral vision caught the faint, upward curve tugging at the corners of Shen Chengyin’s lips. This man must be possessed today, Su Han thought to himself, actually bothering to smile.
Retracing their route, they slipped back into the base. In this apocalyptic world, no sane person ventured outside before daybreak, making it easy enough to bypass the sentries and slip back into their quarters undetected.
Collapsing onto the mattress, Su Han fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Drifting in a hazy stupor, a sharp knock rattled the bedroom door. Shen Chengyin was nowhere to be seen. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Su Han pulled the door open, coming face-to-face with an unfamiliar man.
His new roommate appeared to be in his thirties, possessing deep-set features and naturally wavy hair that hung loosely over his shoulders from lack of care.
“Where the hell were you last night?” Looking at Su Han’s bleary-eyed expression, the man’s tone dripped with irritation. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”
“I was right here. I was exhausted and slept like a log, so I probably just didn’t hear it,” Su Han lied smoothly without batting an eye. “Why were you looking for me in the middle of the night anyway?”
“Heard noise coming from your room. Loud noise,” the man said, scowling.
Su Han eyed him suspiciously for a beat. “You heard wrong. Wasn’t my room.”
With that, he moved to shut the door.
Just before the panel could click into the frame, a rough, calloused hand shot out and shoved it back open.
