Chapter 108: Heavy Snow Approaching
The explosion was loud enough to draw in all the zombies from several kilometers around. Lu Weiyi couldn’t waste time. He rushed back into the building and found Cheng Hai trembling and huddled in a corner. He asked, “Who is Song Yu?”
Before the apocalypse, Cheng Hai was just an average office worker. He had thought zombies were already the worst thing in life—he didn’t expect to witness killings, gunfights, and explosions. Now, terrified, he hugged his head and shook uncontrollably.
Lu Weiyi had no time for this. He slashed Cheng Hai with a watermelon knife. The pain shocked Cheng Hai back to his senses. He looked up blankly, then knelt and cried, “Young Master Lu, please, I beg you—spare me. I only betrayed Mr. Zhuang in a moment of weakness! I didn’t mean to! Please don’t kill me…”
“Which one is Song Yu?” Lu Weiyi had no interest in his begging. He slashed again. After two cuts, most of Cheng Hai’s shirt had been torn open, his chest fully exposed—but the jade pendant was still nowhere to be seen.
“Song Yu…” Cheng Hai looked outside, shuddered at the sight of corpses scattered everywhere, and pointed to one. “The one in the black baseball jacket, with the longest hair.”
Most of those who followed Li Ji were from the same prison group—easy to identify by their buzz cuts. So once he said “longest hair,” only a few were left. Among them, only one wore a black baseball jacket.
“Where’s your spatial jade pendant?” Lu Weiyi asked again.
“In… in…” Cheng Hai stammered, head lowered. Maybe he was stalling, but Lu Weiyi had no patience. Meanwhile, Li Zhuang and Antonio had clearly jumped down from upstairs and were waiting for him.
Lu Weiyi directly scanned Cheng Hai with his mental power and quickly detected a spatial fluctuation at the back of his neck. He looked and confirmed it was there.
Without hesitation, Lu Weiyi used his vine to strangle Cheng Hai, then swiftly carved out the jade pendant embedded in his neck. It dropped to the ground; he picked it up and pocketed it, then tossed the vine—and the corpse—out onto the road.
“Let’s go!” Wind and sand were so strong now they could blind you. Li Zhuang spat out a mouthful of dust and barked the command. In the time it took him to spit twice, Lu Weiyi had already retrieved all four vehicles.
As they passed by Song Yu’s body, Lu Weiyi used his mental power to probe the man’s spatial field. Song Yu’s space was much larger than Cheng Hai’s and contained far more items.
After collecting everything, Lu Weiyi joined Li Zhuang and Antonio, crossing through the opposite building in pursuit of Lin Yimu.
As for the remaining corpses, the zombies attracted by the scent of blood would naturally take care of them.
The three of them got into the car. The sandstorm had reduced visibility to almost nothing—barely anything could be seen even ten meters ahead. Around them, aside from the howling wind, was only the sound of tiny stones constantly pelting the car. No buildings were visible, making it feel as though they were the only vehicle left in the world.
“I’ll drive,” Lu Weiyi said, since he could use his mental power to scout the road ahead. He swapped seats with Li Zhuang, who had been driving, and tossed him a walkie-talkie. “Try to contact them.” Whether it was the increasing distance or interference from the storm, they hadn’t heard from Lin Yimu and the other man for quite a while.
As Lu Weiyi navigated, he also expanded his mental field around them, constantly on alert for any sign of Lin Yimu and his companion. Even if they had changed their route, their destination should still have been the base. Yet, along the entire road, he hadn’t spotted them once, nor was there any response via the walkie-talkie.
As night fell, the sandstorm intensified to the point where it could almost lift a person off the ground. Li Zhuang shouted, “We can’t keep going—we need to find shelter.”
“They must have found a place to hide too,” Antonio said, glancing at Lu Weiyi.
Worried about what kind of trouble they might be facing, Lu Weiyi slammed the steering wheel in frustration and extended his mental power toward a row of storefronts. “Over there,” he said, steering the car straight to one of the buildings.
The moment the car door cracked open, the wind blew it wide. Lu Weiyi immediately extended his green vine inside the shop and yelled to the others, “Grab onto me—go in together!”
Li Zhuang climbed over from the front passenger seat and hugged Lu Weiyi tightly around the waist, with Antonio following close behind. With all three of them struggling against the wind, they finally made it inside. Lu Weiyi turned back and stored the car in his spatial pocket, then gestured to the stairs for them to head up.
The glass on the second floor had already been shattered by the wind, and the roaring noise inside was no less than outside. Fortunately, there was a small room—likely a storage room—with no windows and only a single door. It was the perfect temporary refuge.
“Phew… bleh bleh…” As soon as they got inside and shut the door, the first thing all three did was spit out the sand.
Lu Weiyi pulled a lamp from his space and lit the room. Sitting silently on the ground, he listened to the howling wind outside, worried both about whether Zhuang Mingxu could hold his ground and whether something had happened to Lin Yimu and the other.
“When the sandstorm stops, we’ll go look for them. There’s only so much road—they can’t have gone far,” Li Zhuang said, patting Lu Weiyi’s shoulder. “Don’t overthink. While we’ve got the time, we should eat and get our strength back.”
Lu Weiyi nodded and took out a few bottles of water from his space. “What do you guys want to eat?”
“Bread, I guess,” Antonio said. He was too worried about Dean to eat properly anyway, but he needed to keep his strength up.
The three of them rinsed their mouths and each gnawed on a piece of tasteless bread.
The storm continued until about ten at night, gradually weakening. In the dust swirling outside, tiny snowflakes began to appear, which Lu Weiyi immediately noticed thanks to his ever-watchful green vine.
“It’s snowing…” he said, pulling three down jackets from his space and handing them over.
“Snow?” Li Zhuang frowned.
Lu Weiyi nodded, not in the mood to talk. He was deeply concerned about Zhuang Mingxu.
Inside the sealed room, the temperature was cold but not freezing to the point of needing thick jackets. Still, neither man said anything and quietly put them on. The cold gradually seeped in from all sides, their breaths turning white. The two grown men couldn’t take it anymore and quickly wrapped themselves in the jackets, then asked Lu Weiyi to take out a few blankets to huddle under.
The three of them curled into a bundle and dozed until dawn.
Around five in the morning, Antonio got up first and opened the door. A blast of cold air mixed with snowflakes rushed in. Li Zhuang sneezed, grumpily wrapped himself tighter in his blanket, and squinted outside. In the hallway, snow the size of goose feathers flew everywhere in the strong wind, and the road outside was already thickly blanketed.
Shivering, Antonio muttered, “Tsk, the snow’s getting heavier. If it keeps up for another day, we’re not going anywhere.”
He turned and closed the door, asking Lu Weiyi, “Do you have anything thicker to wear? It feels like minus ten out there.”
Lu Weiyi nodded, rummaged through his space, and pulled out three sets of fleece-lined camo gear and three pairs of insulated military boots. Once changed, they all looked refreshed, though there were no matching camo hats. He took out three knitted wool caps instead—they didn’t match, but they were warm, and no one minded.
“Do either of you feel weird?” Antonio asked, stretching after getting dressed.
Li Zhuang shook his head. Lu Weiyi thought for a moment and asked, “Are you in pain?”
“Yes, it feels like something’s wedged into my bones, like a tearing sensation,” Antonio described.
It seemed the first wave of reactions among ability users after the snowfall had begun. Li Zhuang felt nothing, likely because his ability level wasn’t as high as Antonio’s. If that was the case, Liu Rui was probably feeling it even more intensely. Lu Weiyi realized they couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
“Just a little,” he said. His own ability had awakened after the snowstorm in his past life, so he felt nothing this time. But he knew it wouldn’t be long before ability users became so wracked with pain that they couldn’t move. They had to find the others or return to a secure location before that happened.
Lu Weiyi pulled a loudspeaker from his space, placed it by the second-floor window, and turned it on:
“Wenzhou, Zhejiang! Wenzhou, Zhejiang! The Jiangnan Leather Factory has gone bankrupt! That bastard boss Huang He squandered everything on wine, women, and gambling, racking up 350 million in debt and ran off with his mistress! We had no choice but to use wallets as wages. These wallets used to cost 300, 200, even over 100…”
The absurd and eerie voice echoed through the streets, stunning both Antonio and Li Zhuang.
They looked at Lu Weiyi simultaneously. “What are you doing?”
“I think the zombies are gone,” Lu Weiyi said. In his past life, he’d only heard rumors that zombies didn’t come out during heavy snow. When he saw the empty streets earlier without a single wandering zombie, he was skeptical—but this was his way of testing the theory.
If even sound couldn’t attract the zombies, then they might as well just use loudspeakers to call out to people — definitely better than wandering the streets.
Antonio and Li Zhuang both looked toward the street. With the volume that loud, even if it couldn’t draw zombies from afar, it should at least bring a few from nearby. But unfortunately, it was eerily quiet outside. It was as if the three of them were the only living beings left in the world.
“Then… where are the zombies?” Antonio frowned and looked around.
“Who cares, let’s find the others first,” Lu Weiyi said. He wasn’t sure either — maybe the zombies had some kind of reaction, like the ability-users.
“We’ll use loudspeakers to call for people. One person per car,” Lu Weiyi said, taking out a map and pointing to the route Lin Yimu and the others had taken last night. “Each person takes two streets. Whether or not you find anyone, meet back here in three hours. Say now if you need anything.”
The three-hour window was based on estimated driving speed given the current weather. Under normal conditions, they could probably cover all those roads in three hours.
All three were anxious and skipped breakfast. They listed what supplies they needed, packed up, and set off.
Snow on the ground had reached ankle depth. If not for their military boots, it would’ve soaked straight through their shoes. Coupled with the thick, heavy snowflakes falling, Lu Weiyi figured they might not even need to wait until night — by noon, cars might already be unable to move properly.
I’m a bit surprised that the snow happened so quick I thought it would take a few more chapters