Chapter 18: The Zombie Siege
Li Tiangan raised a brow, studying Su Han’s face for several long seconds.
If one judged solely by appearances, he wouldn’t believe for a second that this fair, delicate-looking boy possessed the means to drag a ruthless bastard like Tang Qiao down from his pedestal.
“You want to bring down Wang Jiafu?”
“Yes.” Su Han didn’t bother beating around the bush.
If you wanted a genuine partnership, you had to bring some sincerity to the table.
Li Tiangan gave a slow nod. “Fine. It’s a deal.”
He didn’t give a damn who ruled Hope Base, nor did he care what underhanded methods were used; his only goal was to see the man he despised put six feet under.
Su Han originally intended to tell Shen Chengyin about his agreement with Li Tiangan, but the man hadn’t returned to the safehouse in days.
Starting the very next morning, Hope Base was placed under full lockdown. Only a handful of top-tier elite squads were permitted beyond the walls to scout the perimeter and cull the infected; every other combat unit was ordered to remain inside on standby.
Because the administration hadn’t distributed welfare rations to the ordinary survivors in ages, those starving folks were now cut off from the only way they could feed themselves: venturing outside to forage. In an instant, the lower quarters erupted into wails of misery and despair.
By the second day of the lockdown, a crowd of desperate survivors stormed the front steps of Wang Jiafu’s administrative building. When starvation set in, no one gave a damn about the impending zombie threat anymore; dead was dead either way, so they might as well risk everything to beg for a bite to fill their hollow bellies.
Wang Jiafu couldn’t simply ignore them, yet dealing with the unruly mob meant diverting precious personnel from his security forces.
After the first siege, he had seized the opportunity to purge Shen Chengyin’s loyalists, which had severely crippled the guard corps’ overall strength. Now, with a full-scale battle looming on the horizon, Wang Jiafu couldn’t scrounge up extra manpower to save his life. He paced his office like an ant on a red-hot pan.
When Tang Qiao led a detachment into the office, he found Wang Jiafu scowling deeply behind his desk.
Spread before him was a stack of handwritten documents covered in dense, meticulously neat script—the emergency contingency protocol Shen Chengyin had drafted by hand during the first siege.
Wang Jiafu had already begun issuing orders based on the protocol. Because the guard corps was stretched paper-thin, he planned to conscript the unaligned, freelance ability users across the base into the defense force.
With the survival of the settlement hanging in the balance, those freeloaders would serve whether they wanted to or not.
“Leader,” Tang Qiao said, his brow locked in a tight furrow. “According to the blueprints, who is supposed to handle gate reinforcement, ammunition supply, and frontline logistics?”
“Whoever the protocol says to use, use them!” Wang Jiafu snapped, rubbing his throbbing temples in sheer exhaustion.
Tang Qiao hesitated for a fleeting moment before speaking in a low, measured voice: “…In the protocol, those tasks were assigned to the ordinary survivors—the ones without abilities or combat prowess.”
Now, more than half of the unpowered commoners in the base were already dead. Those who remained were so hollowed out from relentless starvation that staying alive was a struggle, let alone hauling heavy munitions.
Wang Jiafu shot straight up in his chair. “What did you say?!”
During the first siege, he had spent practically every waking minute hacking down zombies on the ramparts; he had never paid the slightest attention to who was hauling the crates of ammunition behind the lines.
Had Shen Chengyin lost his damn mind, mobilizing that useless deadweight?
Tang Qiao remained silent. He, too, had been deployed on a critical assignment during the previous assault and had never looked twice at the ordinary survivors.
Knowing that throwing a tantrum was useless right now, Wang Jiafu barked a fresh command: “Mobilize the families of the ability users. Fill the logistical shortage with them. If that’s still not enough, pull bodies from the guard corps!”
The base’s outer perimeter was a fully enclosed, high-density stone fortress. Breaching it with brute force was practically impossible for ordinary walkers.
During the first siege, the only reason the horde managed to flood inside was their lack of experience: a colossal ramp of corpses had stacked up in the northeastern sector, allowing the undead to clamber over the parapets and drop down into the streets.
This time, as long as they kept the choke points covered, he wouldn’t need a massive army to hold the fortress walls.
His mind made up, Wang Jiafu unilaterally amended the defensive doctrine, stretching the guard posts along the battlements from every ten meters to every twenty meters.
Receiving his orders, Tang Qiao immediately went door to door to drag people out. Whenever he ran into someone too terrified or stubborn to comply, the crackle and hiss of the purple lightning dancing across the captain’s fingertips was more than enough to coerce their immediate submission.
As a registered ability user, Zhao Guang was naturally summoned to the assembly grounds.
Stepping out onto the central square, he found several ability users who had arrived early, pacing back and forth in a state of agitated fury.
The moment they caught sight of Zhao Guang, they swarmed him as if spotting an anchor in the storm.
“Zhao Guang, what the hell is Wang Jiafu playing at?! Why is my mother being dragged to the frontlines?!” one of the ability users roared, his face flushed with rage.
His mother was elderly, frail, and could barely lift a broom; how was she supposed to face a horde of ravenous monsters?
“Exactly! Didn’t he promise that the families of ability users would receive priority protection?!”
“My little brother was dragged right out of our living room today! They claimed they were putting him on logistics duty… Fuck that! I’m marching to Wang Jiafu’s office to get him back right now!”
“I wasn’t even home today! I had no idea Tang Qiao took my folks until I got back—how is this any different from armed kidnapping?!”
The ability users shouted over one another, their words dripping with venomous hatred toward Wang Jiafu.
Cries of indignation and bitter resentment echoed through the ranks; the collective fury of the metahumans had reached a boiling point.
Zhao Guang’s expression darkened into lead. He hadn’t heard a whisper of this development.
If the dependents of ability users were being forced into the meat grinder, Zhao Yue wouldn’t be spared either. He refused to let his sister take that risk.
“Zhao Guang, come with us! You hold sway in this base—let’s go confront Wang Jiafu together!”
The suggestion aligned perfectly with Zhao Guang’s own thoughts.
After a moment’s consideration, terrified that Tang Qiao might take Zhao Yue away behind his back, Zhao Guang gave a firm nod. “Fine. I’m going to bring Zhao Yue with me.”
“It’s on the way anyway. We’ll go with you.”
A formidable crowd of ability users set off in a sprawling, aggressive pack, marching straight toward Zhao Guang’s residence.
When Zhao Guang reached his apartment, Zhao Yue was perched on the second-floor windowsill, poised to jump.
Their unit was only on the second level—not terribly high—and looked out over a cramped, deserted back alley.
Hearing Zhao Guang call her name from outside the apartment door, Zhao Yue froze, then peered down toward the street below.
Down in the alleyway, a youth dressed in a light-gray hoodie gently tugged down the brim of his cap, looking up to give her a silent nod.
