Chapter 16: Yes, I Intend to Rebel
A gunshot cracked through the air. The sobbing, wailing crowd fell into instantaneous, dead silence.
The old man on the ground was so terrified he nearly choked on his own breath, but in the end, the lead never struck his flesh.
With one hand shoving the rifle barrel upward, Su Han stood gasping for air, firmly planted before Wang Jiafu.
“What is the meaning of this, Leader? Executing people just because they’re blocking the way?”
He had guessed Wang Jiafu would grow suspicious after Shen Chengyin detonated the building last night. He simply hadn’t expected the man to venture beyond the walls in person.
This spontaneous farce played right into his hands. He was just fretting over how to paint a target on his back and lead the charge.
Wang Jiafu’s brow twisted into a tight knot. Why is it this brat again?
Over the past few weeks, Su Han had cultivated a sterling reputation among the survivors, and countless commoners recognized him on sight. Looking at Su Han, the fallen elder stared as if beholding a divine savior.
“A-Han… don’t trouble yourself over a useless old wreck like me. Either way, it’s death!”
“If I remember correctly, when I first joined our base, Leader Wang personally had me review the charter. Wasn’t the most fundamental rule equality?”
Su Han’s words rang out like a struck bronze bell, stirring a tremor in the hearts of many ability users present.
Back when Leader Shen was at the helm, the charter indeed held such a clause. Back then, harmony reigned throughout the entire settlement.
It wasn’t like now, where a neighbor alive and breathing yesterday might vanish without even a corpse left behind today.
Looking at Su Han only gave Wang Jiafu a headache.
Had he known this kid could never be brought into the fold, he should have concocted a scheme to quietly execute him long ago.
“That was the old framework of the past; it has been amended since. Supplies are scarce in the apocalypse. If one cannot earn more by contributing more, how grossly unfair is that to our ability users? Everything I do is for the future of this base.”
Wang Jiafu waved a dismissive hand, casually pointing to an escort guard beside him. “I have pressing business outside the perimeter. You stay behind and clear this up.”
Anxious to inspect the rubble himself, he tossed down the order and hurried away.
Su Han narrowed his eyes. The guard left behind was burly, broad-shouldered, and thick-waisted—a textbook case of all brawn and no brains.
Stepping forward, Su Han lowered his voice, his tone deliberately provocative: “Leader Wang left you behind right after your gun went off. Does he want you to massacre them all?”
The whisper was kept exceedingly low. Aside from the guard and Su Han, only the old man huddled on the asphalt caught the words.
To the eyes of the surrounding crowd, Su Han had simply exchanged a hushed murmur with the guard, only for the elder on the ground to recoil in raw, bone-chilling terror.
Whatever was said, it certainly wasn’t good!
Unfamiliar with Su Han, the guard sneered coldly, “Step aside. Don’t block the path, or don’t blame me when I get rough.”
Su Han took a firm stride forward, planting himself squarely between the guard and the elder. “I’m not moving!”
Believing the soldier was coming to end his life, the old man clutched his head and scrambled backward, stammering frantic pleas: “Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!”
At this sight, the surrounding ability users couldn’t stomach it any longer.
The scavenging teams preparing to exit the gates were predominantly composed of ability users, and many maintained exceptionally warm ties with Su Han.
“Hey, watch your mouth! Don’t think wearing a guard corps patch gives you the right to push our brother around!”
“Do you have any idea who you’re barking at? That’s one of the top combatants in this base! He’s put down more walkers than you’ve eaten hot meals!”
“Show some damn respect!”
The ability users chimed in one after another, subconsciously elevating Su Han as the representative voice of their entire circle.
If the guard corps could disregard Su Han today, tomorrow they might raise their rifles and point the muzzles at their own skulls.
Clumsy with his tongue to begin with, the guard was choked with bitter frustration. He merely sought to follow the Leader’s orders: disperse the crowd and send these kneeling beggars wherever they belonged. Who could have foreseen running into a stubborn, unreasonable wall like Su Han?
He sidestepped to bypass him, but Su Han mirrored the motion instantly, obstructing his path once more.
In the eyes of the spectators, Su Han was valiantly shielding a helpless old man; in the guard’s eyes, Su Han was deliberately goading him into violence.
“I told you to get the fuck out of my way! I’m only executing the Leader’s orders, I’m not killing anyone!”
Losing his temper, the man roared and shoved Su Han back with brute force.
Seizing the precise split-second, Su Han rode the momentum of his fall and clamped down on the guard’s right forearm. To any onlooker, it appeared to be a desperate grasp to regain his balance, but his true target was the firearm gripped in the soldier’s right hand.
Bang!
Another deafening crack shattered the air, and hot crimson blossomed before everyone’s widening eyes.
The entire square froze in absolute disbelief.
Su Han grimaced, stumbling back a step before collapsing hard onto the dirt.
He had done his best to angle his body away from vital organs, taking the round cleanly through his left shoulder. Though he felt no genuine pain, the sweeping numbness and dull, throbbing heaviness radiating through his limbs was undeniably unpleasant.
It wasn’t just the crowd that stood stunned; the guard who held the weapon was equally dumbfounded.
His finger hadn’t even grazed the trigger! How the hell did it misfire?!
“Are you out of your fucking mind?!”
“You filthy beast, you actually dared shoot an ability user?!”
A tremendous gale of force surged forward. A heavy combat boot planted violently into the guard’s ribs, the sudden kinetic eruption sending the burly soldier flying several meters across the pavement.
“A-Han!”
“Quick, get him to the clinic!”
Several ability users swarmed Su Han at once. One of the rough-and-tumble veterans who got along best with the boy scooped him up around the waist, spun on his heel, and sprinted at full tilt toward the central infirmary.
Behind them, a sea of bewildered spectators traded pale, trembling glances.
Though they hadn’t caught every detail, seeing how frantic that veteran fighter looked… the young man had to be critically wounded, right?
Kneeling in the dirt, the old man touched the warm blood splattered across his wrinkled cheeks, beating his fists against the pavement as he wept uncontrollably.
“Damn you, Wang Jiafu! Sparing no mercy for a useless old wreck like me is one thing, but you slaughter our ability users too?! He’s the same age as my own boys! He’s so young! Wang Jiafu, you inhuman beast!”
The ability users lingering on the scene stood with leaden faces, those agonized curses ringing like war chimes inside their heads.
Until now, they had enjoyed the lavish perks and elevated rations the administration showered upon metahumans. Even when watching Wang Jiafu enforce brutal, merciless decrees against the unpowered commoners, they had maintained a quiet, self-serving silence.
Now, Wang Jiafu’s man had gunned down an ability user in broad daylight, right before their very eyes…
Would they be the next ones lined up against the wall?
They were the rare, one-in-a-million chosen few, yet unless they agreed to act as Wang Jiafu’s submissive hounds, they would end up broken on the ground just like A-Han.
No, perhaps their ends would be far more gruesome.
None of them had forgotten the arrogant, boisterous Zhang Qiang. Merely for daring to talk back to the Leader, his chest had been carved open and his vitals torn out, left without even an intact corpse to bury.
Hope Base was no longer the sanctuary it once was.
Ever since Leader Shen vanished, everything had rotted to the core.
Following Su Han’s departure, only shambles remained: shivering survivors huddled together for warmth, fresh streaks of crimson staining the gray concrete, each detail driving a wedge of cold dread into their bones.
They began to doubt Wang Jiafu. They began to doubt every promise that had ever fallen from his lips.
Su Han felt zero physical pain, but to make the performance convincing, he clamped his teeth tight and whimpered with theatrical effort.
Ow, ow, ouch…
His groans sounded undeniably hollow and fake to his own ears.
Fortunately, the ability users surrounding him were so fraught with worry that none of them picked up on the terrible acting.
Medical supplies were among the scarcest commodities in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. The entirety of Hope Base possessed only a single central infirmary, staffed by a skeleton crew of medics.
Su Han was carried into the emergency trauma room. A sterile blue drape was thrown over his face, followed immediately by the sharp, metallic clinking of surgical instruments.
Emergency sterilization, pressure to stem the bleeding, probing to extract the slug.
Just as they reached the final stage of bandaging the wound, the heavy doors of the trauma ward were kicked open with a bang.
“The pharmaceutical storage depot is on fire! Everyone grab a bucket and follow me to put it out!”
In this world, medicines were infinitely more precious than food. If the base’s entire pharmaceutical reserve went up in smoke, their lives wouldn’t be worth a fraction of the restitution demanded.
In an instant, the medical staff abandoned all concern for Su Han’s condition. Dropping their scalpels and gauze onto the trays, they bolted through the doors, leaving Su Han lying alone on the cold operating table like an abandoned carcass.
Letting out a soft sigh, Su Han raised an arm, intending to yank the blue drape off his face.
A broad, warm hand gently pressed down on his wrist.
“Don’t move. I’ll bandage it for you.”
The low, raspy cadence vibrated inches from his ear, chillingly familiar.
