Chapter 28: You Don’t Know Its Purpose
Jiang Jue stepped down from the RV right behind Chu Yang, drawing his long straight blade and immediately joining the fray.
With Chu Yang bringing fresh momentum and Jiang Jue entering as an unstoppable force, the tide of battle turned in an instant.
Chu Yang’s blade work was sharp and aggressive, striking directly at the zombies’ vital points. Lin Xiao, finally given room to breathe, steadied his metal-manipulation power, cleanly shattering the joints of the surrounding infected with brutal precision. Even Su Mubai, who had been pinned on the defensive, swung his fire axe with renewed resolve, striking down two monsters that lunged too close.
As for Jiang Jue, every single motion was lethally efficient; each sweep of his blade brought down one or even two zombies with terrifying precision.
In less than ten minutes, all thirty-plus infected were wiped out.
When the chaos settled, Lin Xiao leaned heavily against his bent piece of rebar, his chest heaving as sweat dripped from his chin.
Staring at Chu Yang, who had seemed to appear out of thin air, Lin Xiao’s initial shock exploded into pure, unbridled joy. He bounded over and threw a heavy punch into Chu Yang’s shoulder. “Holy crap! Old Third! Chu Yang! Is that really you, man?! You’re actually alive?! Thank God!”
His voice was hoarse with a mix of raw excitement and deep exhaustion.
“Of course I am! I’d outlive you any day!” Chu Yang laughed, throwing a punch back before turning a worried gaze toward Su Mubai. “Little Bai, are you alright? You didn’t get bitten, did you?”
He noticed how pale Su Mubai looked, though his eyes carried the profound relief of a reunion mixed with lingering shock.
Su Mubai shook his head, offering a gentle, slightly strained smile. “I’m fine, Chu Yang. Thank you… and thank you to this gentleman for stepping in.”
His eyes drifted across Chu Yang, then lingered on Lin Xiao and the young woman who was clutching Lin Xiao’s arm tightly. A faint shadow crossed Su Mubai’s eyes before he quietly lowered his gaze.
The girl was named Lin Weiwei; they had crossed paths with her on the road, and she had clung to Lin Xiao with immense dependence ever since.
“And who is…?” Chu Yang raised an eyebrow, sizing up the delicate-looking stranger.
Lin Xiao snapped out of his daze and quickly made the introductions: “Oh, right! This is Lin Weiwei; we met her while fleeing the city. Weiwei, this is Chu Yang, my closest buddy from college, and that is…”
He looked over at Jiang Jue, who exuded an intimidating, powerful presence as he silently wiped his blade and sheathed it, unsure of how to address him.
“Jiang Jue,” the tall man said simply. His cool gaze swept lightly over the newcomers in greeting before he stepped beside Chu Yang.
“Brother Jiang, these are my best friends, Lin Xiao and Su Mubai!” Chu Yang added with bright enthusiasm.
Once introductions were out of the way, Lin Xiao and Su Mubai’s eyes were instantly magnetized by the towering, matte-black armored RV parked nearby.
“Holy mother of… Old Third! Where on earth did you get this mobile war fortress?! It’s insanely cool!”
Lin Xiao walked a full circle around the vehicle, running his hands over the reinforced plating with undisguised envy. Su Mubai stared with quiet awe as well; in an apocalypse, the safety and sheer luxury offered by such a vehicle were beyond question.
Though thrilled to be reunited with his college friends, Chu Yang didn’t spend time reminiscing just yet. His eyes drifted down to the sea of fallen corpses.
He noticed Jiang Jue had already crouched beside the bodies, dagger in hand, methodically splitting open the skulls to retrieve the crystal cores.
Lin Xiao followed Chu Yang’s gaze and saw the stark contrast: Jiang Jue’s sharply handsome, aloof face paired with the cold, emotionless task of harvesting brain matter. Nudging Chu Yang’s shoulder, Lin Xiao whispered in bewilderment, “Old Third, what is Mr. Jiang doing…? Is there something valuable hidden in their heads?”
“Digging for crystal cores,” Chu Yang replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Seeing both Lin Xiao and Su Mubai looking back at him like deer in headlights, he clicked his tongue. “Wait, don’t tell me you two have no idea what these are?”
Lin Xiao and Su Mubai traded a glance and shook their heads in unison. They had spent the past few weeks running for their lives, only knowing that the infected were lethal—neither of them had ever heard of “crystal cores.”
“Alright, I’ll explain how they work in a bit.”
With that, Chu Yang crouched down, drew his own combat dagger, and offered Jiang Jue a bright smile. “Brother Jiang, let me give you a hand.”
He set to work splitting open skulls with practiced ease.
Watching them move so smoothly, Lin Xiao leaned in, his curiosity piqued. “Old Third, do you need an extra set of hands?”
Chu Yang glanced up. Jiang Jue had already cleared through half the corpses at blistering speed. Waving a hand, Chu Yang said, “No need, there aren’t too many this time. We’ll finish in a second. I’ll put you to work next time.”
Lin Xiao nodded. Looking at his bare hands, he figured digging into rotten skulls with his fingers was a bit much, so he stepped back to wait.
Meanwhile, Lin Weiwei watched Jiang Jue and Chu Yang crouched in the gore, her brows pinching tightly as disgust flashed across her face.
She took several cautious steps backward, not stopping until she was well clear of the stench. She genuinely couldn’t fathom how a man as handsome and imposing as Jiang Jue could do something so foul, nor why Chu Yang seemed completely unbothered by it.
As his dagger worked, Chu Yang looked up to ask the question that had been weighing on his mind: “By the way, after we got separated during that chase, where did you two end up? I looked all over the district, but I never crossed paths with you when I went out scavenging. I thought…”
He trailed off, but the lingering worry in his voice was unmistakable.
At the mention of their ordeal, the smile wiped clean from Lin Xiao’s face, replaced by a bitter sigh. “Don’t even get me started! We had the absolute worst luck. We barely fought our way out of that horde and found an empty residential block to hide in, but two days later, that freak blizzard hit and the temperature plummeted! We nearly froze to death under those thin sheets!”
He sighed heavily, shaking his head. “Once the snow stopped, the streets were crawling with even more of them, so we couldn’t stay put. We ran into a group of survivors fleeing other neighborhoods who told us the urban center was doomed and everyone was heading for the outskirts. We figured we wouldn’t survive long on our own, so we joined the caravan and fled on foot.”
His voice dropped into a somber tone. “The road out was brutal. We ran into roaming hordes every couple of days. People either died or got scattered, and in the end, we were the only ones left.”
He gestured toward himself, Su Mubai, and Lin Weiwei standing nearby.
“Wait, you walked all the way from the city to this highway on foot?!” Chu Yang was flabbergasted. From the city center to this rest stop was nearly a hundred kilometers!
Lin Xiao and Su Mubai both nodded with bitter smiles. Su Mubai added softly, “We wanted to find a car, but the main group was rushing ahead, warning that lingering would get us killed. We didn’t have the numbers to make our own rules, so we had to keep up. Our feet are covered in blisters from walking the whole way.”
A wave of sympathy washed over Chu Yang. Before he could speak, his blade hit the final skull, popping out the last milky-white stone.
Jiang Jue had finished his side as well. Standing up, he walked over and handed Chu Yang a fistful of seven or eight blood-streaked crystal cores.
Chu Yang took them, threw a quick “Hang on a second” to his friends, and jogged over to a nearby patch of grass where a layer of unmelted snow still lingered.
Crouching down, he used the clean snow to scrub the grime and fluid from the stones until they were spotless, then slipped them straight into his spatial storage.
Once finished, Jiang Jue headed straight for the RV’s driver’s side, and Chu Yang naturally fell in step behind him.
Seeing that the two were getting ready to board and drive off, Lin Xiao scrambled forward, an awkward, pleading smile on his face as his eyes darted between the massive vehicle and the two men.
“Uh… Old Third, Brother Jiang… look, we’re all old friends. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town. The three of us are down to our bare feet; who knows when we’ll ever reach another shelter… Could you… do us a massive favor and let us hitch a ride? We promise we won’t take up space, and we’ll pull our weight completely!”
Su Mubai looked on with quiet, earnest anticipation, and even Lin Weiwei adopted a fragile, pleading expression, gazing at them with wide, imploring eyes.
