Chapter 25: Leaving
Up on the fourth floor of the residential building, Wang Rui, Zhao Dayong, and Li Wen leaned over the windowsill, their eyes glued to the matte black RV below.
The engine hummed steadily as the vehicle pulled away, growing smaller in the distance until it rounded a corner and vanished from sight. Only then did the three men finally exhale a breath of relief.
Wang Rui shot Li Wen a meaningful glance. Catching on immediately, Li Wen turned on his heel and bolted down the stairwell.
A few minutes later, he came pounding back up the stairs, breathing heavily. Gripping the doorframe with a wide, relieved grin, he panted, “Brother Rui! Brother Rui! Their door was left wide open, and the apartment is completely cleaned out—they’ve really taken off!”
The moment the words registered, the stifling tension in the room finally broke.
Wang Rui’s rigid shoulders slumped. His tightly clenched fists uncurled, revealing palms slick with cold sweat, while his shirt clung damply to his back. He had been on edge all morning, terrified that Jiang Jue would come back to settle the score. Now that the danger had passed, his knees buckled, barely able to support his weight.
Zhao Dayong was even less composed. He collapsed straight onto the dusty floor, furiously wiping cold sweat from his forehead as his voice shook: “Gone… thank god they’re gone! Man, that scared the life out of me! The way that walking disaster looked at me this morning was icy enough to carve meat off my bones. I honestly thought I wouldn’t live to see tonight!”
Li Wen slid down the wall until he hit the floor. Though his complexion looked better, he was still visibly shaken. “Yeah… if they held a grudge over yesterday, we would’ve…”
He didn’t dare finish the thought, but all three knew the truth: against someone of Jiang Jue’s caliber, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“Why would they leave, though?” Zhao Dayong asked once he caught his breath, looking genuinely perplexed. “The zombies in our building were just cleared yesterday. It’s reasonably safe for now, and there were enough supplies to hold out for a few more days, right?”
Wang Rui walked back to the window and pointed down at the street outside the complex. The dark, shuffling shadows of the infected were noticeably thicker than in previous days, their stumbling silhouettes standing out starkly in the dim light.
“Safe?” His voice came out raspy, laced with bitter irony. “You call that safe? Once the snow melts completely, every single one of those things will be out roaming. They’ll break through the front doors sooner or later. And take a look at what we have left.” He turned, gesturing at the bare room. Only two withered bags remained in the corner, containing a few packets of instant noodles and two bottles of water. “How much food and clean water do you think is left in this neighborhood?”
He turned his gaze back to the ruined street, defeat written all over his face. “They see reality a lot clearer than we do. The resources in this godforsaken place are dried up. Staying put is just waiting around to die. They’re… they’re leaving the city entirely.”
“What? Leaving the city?” Li Wen jumped up in a panic. “Brother Rui! Then we have to get out of here too! If we stick around, we’ll either starve to death or end up as monster chow. We can’t just sit here waiting for the end!”
Zhao Dayong panicked as well, nodding frantically. “Yes, yes! We have to leave! But… where do we even go? We don’t have a clue where any survivor bases are!”
Zhao Youning, who had been sitting quietly on the corner of the sofa the whole time, hurried over. She gently caught Wang Rui’s arm, deliberately letting her fingers tremble.
Her eyes were red and brimming with tears as she spoke in a soft, pitiful tone: “Brother Rui, if you’re leaving, you can’t abandon me… I’m just a weak girl with no real strength, and I don’t know how to fight. If you leave me behind, I… I definitely won’t survive.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, her shoulders trembling with delicate vulnerability.
Deep down, she knew her situation all too well. She had no combat skills of her own; sticking close to Wang Rui and the others was her only way to scrape by. If she were truly left on her own, she wouldn’t last a single day.
Wang Rui looked at Zhao Youning clinging to his arm, then at Li Wen and Zhao Dayong’s frightened faces. His thoughts were a chaotic mess.
He knew Li Wen was right—staying meant slow death, but leaving offered no guarantees either. Scratching his messy hair in frustration, he finally gritted his teeth: “Let’s move! We’ll search around for whatever supplies we can carry, pack our bags, and get out of here!”
Out on the open road, Jiang Jue drove the RV beyond the city limits.
Barren, frozen fields stretched out on either side of the highway, dotted with the occasional abandoned farmhouse looking bleak under the gray sky.
Inside the cab, Chu Yang leaned back against the passenger seat, watching the desolate landscape roll past. He let out a long yawn, his eyelids drooping with boredom.
Suddenly, a glimpse of something in the distance caught his attention. He sat bolt upright, his eyes widening as he practically pressed his face against the windshield. Pointing ahead, he shouted, “Brother Jiang! Brother Jiang! Look! A gas station!”
Jiang Jue glanced in that direction, gave a slight nod, and smoothly steered the vehicle into the station’s forecourt, bringing it to a steady stop.
Chu Yang shoved the door open and hopped down immediately. He scanned the area—beneath the fueling canopy, around the wrecked cars by the road, and outside the small convenience store, the area was eerily quiet. Only the rustle of wind-blown trash broke the silence. There wasn’t a zombie in sight.
Relaxing his guard, he jogged over to a pump and squeezed the nozzle a few times, but nothing came out. He pouted in disappointment. “Brother Jiang, the power’s dead here. We can’t pump any gas…”
Jiang Jue cut the engine, pocketed the key, and stepped down from the cab.
With steady, measured strides, he walked around the vehicle, his sharp gaze sweeping across the station before locking onto a closed service lounge off to the side.
A subtle frown touched his brow as his instincts flared with suspicion.
“There’s an underground storage tank,” Jiang Jue said quietly, his eyes never leaving the locked door.
“An underground tank? Oh, right! How could I forget about that!” Realization dawned on Chu Yang. He turned on his heel to head around back to find the access point.
He had barely taken a single step when Jiang Jue’s hand clamped firmly around his wrist.
The grip was solid and unyielding, stopping him dead in his tracks. The firm warmth of Jiang Jue’s fingers pressed through his sleeve, anchoring him to the spot.
Chu Yang froze, looking back in confusion. Before he could ask what was wrong, a violent crash shattered the silence—BANG!
The service room door was kicked wide open!
Seven or eight men armed with clubs, pipes, and rusted machetes came pouring out. Moving with practiced aggression, they fanned out and surrounded the two by the fuel pumps in seconds.
At the front was a rough-looking man with a jagged scar running from his eyebrow down to the corner of his eye, exuding a menacing air.
Beside him stood a skinny, rat-faced man whose shifty eyes immediately zeroed in on Chu Yang. A sleazy grin spread across his face as he leaned close to the scarred leader, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear: “Brother Biao, check this one out… Damn, that face, that build—he’s stunning!”
“He’s leagues better than anyone we’ve run into before, right up your alley! What do you say… we take out the big guy and keep this little beauty to serve us…?”
Before the sentence was even finished, Jiang Jue’s eyes turned arctic, the temperature around him seeming to plunge straight to freezing in a heartbeat!
Before anyone could react, Jiang Jue raised his right hand. A brilliant arc of blue electricity flared with a sharp crack, striking the rat-faced man squarely in the forehead!
“Guh—!”
The man didn’t even have time to scream. His entire body went rigid, his eyes rolling back into his head as a thin wisp of charred smoke drifted from his scalp. With a heavy thud, he collapsed like a sack of wet flour, his limbs twitching once before going entirely still. Dead on the spot.
The entire forecourt plunged into absolute silence.
It had happened too fast and with terrifying precision. The cruel grins on the remaining thugs froze, and they stumbled backward in sheer horror, their weapons nearly slipping from their trembling hands.
“Lightning… a Lightning Ability User! He’s an Ability User!” someone finally cried out, voice shaking with panic.
The scarred leader, Brother Biao, felt his pupils contract sharply. The muscles along his jaw twitched as he stared at Jiang Jue with deep, defensive caution.
Yet, having clawed his way to the top of his gang, he wasn’t about to break down in terror so easily. Forcing himself to stay composed, he quickly calculated their odds: the strangers only had one Ability User, while his crew still had two, including himself. In a brawl, they wouldn’t necessarily lose.
