Chapter 28: Slept for a Very, Very Long Time
Wang Jiafu was utterly stunned; the way things unfolded had completely derailed from anything he had anticipated.
Yet very quickly, searing agony thoroughly colonized his mind.
Inside and outside the fortress walls, the undead swarmed everywhere; within minutes, this entire section would be swallowed whole. Any survivor capable of running had already fled, and those left behind had nowhere to retreat.
As if venting their dying fury, they hacked Wang Jiafu into bloody pieces right there on the stone battlements—carving open his chest, flaying him alive piece by piece, and finally hurling the butchered remains straight down into the zombie horde.
Wang Jiafu had no tongue. He desperately wanted to scream that this had all been Shen Chengyin’s design from the start, that Shen Chengyin was the one dragging everyone into an early grave, that it was Shen Chengyin who detonated the concrete tower outside the city to summon this very siege.
Shen Chengyin was the one who wanted every single soul dead—not him, Wang Jiafu!
Yet he could only muster broken, desperate whimpers, choking on his own blood as he perished amidst agonizing torment and frantic thrashing.
The rolling sea of infected rapidly swallowed the mangled heap of flesh that had once been Wang Jiafu.
Even in his dying moments, he never understood why every single person around him had turned on him in succession.
Tang Qiao had betrayed him; the metahumans he had once pampered had betrayed him; even his own guard corps…
He would never have the chance to understand.
…
Flames licked at the heavens as countless walkers flooded through the colossal breach in the wall. Hope Base had become a living purgatory.
Among the dense, unending tide of standard walkers crept several primary mutated infected. Even with heavy firepower blanketing the field, reversing the rout was impossible.
Not a single soul among the frontline metahumans or the perimeter guard survived. Only a handful of defenseless, ordinary survivors, panicking blindly with nowhere else to turn, managed to scramble into the settlement’s central supply depot.
The warehouse was stacked to the rafters with provisions. Dozens of people huddled together in a trembling cluster, clutching crude, makeshift weapons as they kept frantic, terrified watch on the entrance.
None of them noticed that a man was already sitting casually in the shadowed corner of the warehouse.
Taking in their terror-stricken faces, Li Tiangan offered a rare, kindly reassurance: “No need to be so terrified. If the central granary were so easy for walkers to breach, Hope Base would’ve fallen eight hundred times over by now.”
Hearing this, the frail and wounded crowd finally let out a faint breath of relief.
Some set off to take inventory of the crates, while others remained stationed at the metal doors, refusing to lower their guard.
Presently, someone discovered an anomaly among the stacks of grain—a plastic bag containing a voice recorder pen and several folded sheets of paper.
Stored within the recorder was the indisputable evidence of Wang Jiafu and Tang Qiao’s treachery.
“That right there is the proof that Leader Shen was framed. If any of you make it out of here alive, you’d better know what story to tell the outside world. We can’t have our leader passing on without even keeping his honorable name intact.”
Li Tiangan recited the exact script Su Han had prepared for him, word for word, though a flicker of worry tugged at his gut.
According to the plan, Su Han and Shen Chengyin should have pulled back from the wall by now, rallied at the depot, and slipped out of the base together.
Soft sobs and choked sniffles rippled through the warehouse.
“If it weren’t for Wang Jiafu, how could this base ever have fallen to ruin like this?”
“That rotten bastard! Leader Shen was his best friend! Betraying your own blood brother… Wang Jiafu wasn’t fit to be called human!”
“It’s a crying shame I don’t have an ability, or I would’ve personally carved that bastard into a thousand pieces!”
The crowd boiled with righteous fury. Li Tiangan, looking utterly detached as if none of this had anything to do with him, sat leaning against the doorframe, leisurely wiping down his firearm.
Su Han was terrifyingly ruthless. Not only had the kid turned the entire settlement completely upside down, but he had also engineered it so Wang Jiafu would be spat on for eternity even in death.
Li Tiangan felt profoundly grateful that he hadn’t backed the wrong horse; otherwise, his corpse would definitely be rotting among the fallen metahumans out there right now.
Rivers of crimson ran thick, and ravenous corpses roamed the thoroughfares.
In this endless, harrowing night, dawn would never break over Hope Base again.
…
When Su Han finally drifted back toward consciousness, it was System 111’s frantic screeching that pulled him under.
111 was repeating itself in his ear, sounding practically on the verge of tears: [If you don’t wake up right now, we’re really screwed! Buddy, wake up! You aren’t seriously going to sleep forever, are you?!]
A splitting migraine throbbed behind Su Han’s temples. His mind was muddled and heavy, still hopelessly trapped within the dream he had just drifted through.
His memories of it were hazy, but he vaguely recalled that in the world before he transmigrated, he had been a sickly child, perpetually encircled by adults with anxious faces.
He spent his childhood getting pricked by needles, swallowing bitter pills, and living inside a sterile isolation pod. Through thick sheets of reinforced glass, blurred silhouettes of people had constantly leaned in, mouthing worried questions.
Yet their voices never reached him; his world had always been profoundly silent.
Su Han fluttered his heavy eyelids open, feeling a cool sensation pressed against his forehead. An ice pack was resting there, gently sapping the blistering fever from his skin.
In the quiet, he seemed to hear Shen Chengyin let out a faint, barely audible sigh.
“You’re awake?” Shen Chengyin asked.
Su Han parted his lips to answer, but his throat was so parched and raspy that not a syllable would come. After he let out a couple of weak, muffled whimpers, a trickle of cool, clean water parted his lips.
He took a few eager sips from the cup, then cast his gaze around.
The space was compact, pristine, and well-ordered—it appeared to be the interior of an RV.
“Shen Chengyin… what happened to that intermediate zombie? Did you get hurt anywhere?” Su Han croaked.
System 111 practically blew a gasket in his head: [You still have the nerve to worry about him?! Do you have any idea that you almost died yourself?!]
Shen Chengyin paused for a fraction of a second. “It fled. I’m fine.”
The intermediate variant had been terrifyingly swift; he hadn’t bothered giving chase.
Su Han let out a long breath of relief.
“Where are we right now?”
Judging by the soft light filtering through the vehicle’s windows, it was either dusk or the crack of dawn. Having only been out for a few hours, they couldn’t have traveled very far from Hope Base.
His plan hadn’t reached its conclusion yet; he still didn’t know whether Wang Jiafu and Tang Qiao were actually dead.
Shen Chengyin produced two packaged buns from a duffel bag and set them on the blanket before Su Han. “We are currently about two thousand kilometers away from Hope Base.”
Su Han shot straight up like a launched rocket. An excruciating wave of vertigo slammed into his skull; his limbs turned to water, and he pitched forward, only to be caught firmly against Shen Chengyin’s broad chest.
The man gently smoothed a hand over Su Han’s hair, and the nauseating dizziness began to melt away almost instantly.
“How is that possible?! How long was I asleep?!”
The system piped up with aggrieved exasperation: [You were in a coma for a month! A whole damn month! If Shen Chengyin hadn’t used his life ability around the clock to keep your soul pinned to your body, you’d have rotted into fertilizer weeks ago!]
A month?
Su Han raised a hand to feel his throat—the skin was completely smooth.
In his memory, he had been overwhelmed by the intermediate zombie and had taken a savage, tearing bite directly to the neck.
“A fever is a normal symptom of awakening an ability. Lie down and rest until it breaks,” Shen Chengyin said softly.
Su Han froze. “An ability…?”
Nearly a year had passed since the apocalyptic outbreak; was it really possible for someone to awaken powers this late in the game?
[He… you… sigh.] The system trailed off, torn over whether it should explain the situation to him.
In the end, it merely muttered evasively: [It’s a blessing handed to you by the heavens, so just appreciate it. Besides, that intermediate zombie only showed up early because of Shen Chengyin in the first place, so just consider it his debt to you.]
In this world, the evolutionary stages of zombies advanced almost entirely in lockstep with the power levels of metahumans.
The emergence of an intermediate zombie meant that an intermediate ability user had already surfaced among mankind.
Aside from that freak of nature Shen Chengyin, the system couldn’t think of a single candidate.
The system’s explanation sounded completely cryptic, and before Su Han could puzzle it out, Shen Chengyin’s calm, measured voice drifted into his ear:
“By the way, there’s something I’ve been curious about.”
“I don’t recall ever telling you my name.”
Apocalypse: Becoming The White Moonlight Of A Possessive Mad Dog
