Chapter 29: To Save or Not to Save
They parked the car by the roadside, got out, and circled around to the back of the internet café from the side. At a glance, they spotted the small convenience store with the green sign. Its rolling shutter was pulled down, secured with a very thick iron chain and a large padlock. There were obvious hack marks on the chain—it looked like they weren’t the only ones who had set their sights on this place. The chain was simply too thick; those people probably feared making too much noise and attracting zombies, so they hadn’t managed to break in.
“Come on, Jiahe, your turn to shine,” Song Chengshu called out to Zheng Jiahe, beckoning him over.
Zheng Jiahe didn’t hesitate. He picked up a steel pipe he’d found nearby, pried the chain apart, and with one hard pull, yanked the rolling shutter up.
But the instant the shutter opened, a black shadow streaked toward them with a rush of wind. Zhan Yun didn’t even think—he immediately used his gravity ability, slamming the unknown object to the ground.
Su Ruizhe shone his flashlight on it and discovered it was actually a parrot with darkened feathers. Judging from its shriveled body and blood-red eyes, it had already zombified.
He knew how dangerous zombie birds were. These animals were incredibly fast and could attack from the air, making them nearly impossible to guard against. After zombification, the parrot’s claws had become razor-sharp, and its hooked beak was like a deadly blade. If Zhan Yun hadn’t reacted so quickly, Zheng Jiahe—who’d been closest to the door—would definitely have been injured.
Zheng Jiahe smashed the zombie parrot’s head to a pulp with a single strike, then rummaged around inside and pulled out a very small crystal core. With a “better than nothing” mindset, Song Chengshu rinsed it clean with water and put it away.
The noise from lifting the shutter had been loud, and zombies were already beginning to converge in their direction. Zhan Yun and Zheng Jiahe stayed at the store entrance to deal with them, while Su Ruizhe and Song Chengshu collected supplies.
The little convenience store really was just as Zheng Jiahe had said—small but fully stocked. Since it catered to nearby residents, everything it sold was essential daily necessities. Su Ruizhe took everything without hesitation, including the seasonings, batteries, candles, lighters, and other items they needed.
By the time they finished packing up and came out of the store, seven or eight zombies lay on the ground, all with their heads smashed in. Zhan Yun’s gravity ability paired seamlessly with Zheng Jiahe’s strength ability; these zombies couldn’t hurt them at all. Unfortunately, they only managed to collect a single crystal core.
“Let’s go.”
But just as they passed the back door of the internet café, they suddenly heard the sound of glass shattering. Instinctively, they looked inside—and were surprised to see that the café was still lit.
Zhan Yun reacted almost immediately. There might be a backup power generator inside the internet café. His interest was piqued—if they could get their hands on a generator, it would definitely help them.
However, the interior looked shadowy, and there were probably quite a few zombies inside.
“Help! Help! Please save us!” The glass of a small side window was smashed, and urgent cries for help rang out.
“It’s the bathroom—someone’s hiding in the bathroom!” Zheng Jiahe remembered that there really was a crude single-person restroom on the side of the café, shared by men and women. It was only three or four square meters at most. He hadn’t expected several people to be hiding inside.
“Let’s take a look.” Zhan Yun walked over to the window and peered inside. The light in the restroom was off—probably deliberately, to avoid drawing the zombies’ attention.
He shone his flashlight in and found five people inside: three men and two women, all in miserable shape, covered in bloodstains and grime.
“Help… please save us…” A long-haired woman looked up and begged through her tears. Her eye makeup had been completely smeared from crying, leaving her face a mess of colors, but her delicate features were still visible.
From the restroom door came continuous pounding. If they hadn’t wedged it shut with mops and brooms, the zombies outside would have rushed in long ago. Even so, the flimsy door wouldn’t hold for much longer. Under the flashlight’s beam, several cracks were already visible in the door, the frame warped and twisted. Through the gaps, they could clearly see the ferocious faces of the zombies outside.
“Ah!” A short man screamed when he saw one of the zombies’ horrifying faces.
Who knew how a man could scream louder than a woman.
Zhan Yun cursed inwardly, Idiot.
Sure enough, the zombies outside became even more excited, pounding harder on the door, with some even starting to ram it.
“Help!!! Hurry and get us out!!!” The short man was nearly scared out of his wits.
Zhan Yun clearly saw the long-haired woman’s face twist with rage—she looked like she wanted nothing more than to leap over and clamp a hand over the short man’s mouth.
At that moment, the others reacted as well. The most burly man among them slapped the short man hard across the face. The blow was so heavy it knocked him to the ground, leaving him unable to get up for quite a while—but at least he finally shut up.
“Please, save us!” Even the burly man wore a pleading expression. They were like trapped beasts in a cage—without help, they were as good as dead.
So—save them, or not?
Zhan Yun felt that if they opened the locked back door of the internet café and he drew the zombies away, they could probably manage a rescue. With his gravity ability, low-level zombies weren’t much of a threat, and getting away safely shouldn’t be difficult.
The four of them exchanged glances and quickly made a decision.
Zhan Yun might have been an undercover cop who graduated from the police academy, but it wasn’t like his moral standards were exceptionally noble. He’d chosen the academy mainly to spite that old bastard of a father. Still, he believed that if he had the ability to help, lending a hand was fine—especially since he also wanted that generator. As a doctor, Song Chengshu would definitely choose to save people, as would the kind-hearted shut-in Zheng Jiahe. Su Ruizhe, influenced by his experiences in his previous life, was more cautious about rescuing others—but since his companions wanted to do it, he went along with it.
For safety’s sake, Su Ruizhe still conjured a pepper grenade and handed it to Zhan Yun, just in case.
“We’ll go open the back door. In a bit, we’ll find a way to draw the zombies away. As soon as we do, you run out immediately.” The side window was too small—climbing out through there was impossible. The back door would be much safer.
“Okay, okay! Thank you! Thank you!”
The four of them reached the back door of the internet café. Using the same method as before, Zheng Jiahe smashed the large padlock on the door with a steel pipe. The zombies were immediately drawn by the noise and came rushing toward the entrance, scrambling over one another.
Zhan Yun told the other three to find somewhere nearby to hide, while he alone led the charging zombies away, running off in another direction.
The people hiding in the restroom waited until the zombies had howled and chased after him before they finally crept out trembling. Unexpectedly, not all the zombies inside the internet café were gone. Two zombies suddenly rushed out from some unknown corner and pounced on the slightly chubby girl who was running at the back.
“Ahhh—!!!” After letting out an extremely shrill, agonized scream, the girl fell completely silent.
One zombie bit through her throat, while the other savagely tore at her arm, blood splattering everywhere.
The remaining people seized the chance to escape. When they looked back and saw the bloody scene, their faces turned deathly pale, their legs going weak. The long-haired woman even vomited on the spot.
She had been hiding in the restroom for a full two days without any food, surviving only by drinking tap water from the sink, so apart from some sour liquid, she couldn’t throw up anything at all.
Zheng Jiahe frowned, gripped his steel pipe, and went in to smash the two zombies that were still feasting.
Seeing that the immediate danger had passed, the people who had just narrowly escaped death all collapsed onto the ground. The short man, however, immediately spotted the small convenience store not far away. He scrambled to his feet and dashed toward it.
The store was completely different from what he remembered—it had been picked clean. Most of the shelves were empty, with only a few scattered bags of puffed snacks and two or three packs of biscuits left.
Cursing as he went, the man scooped up all the food he could carry and ran back out.
These people had been hiding in that tiny restroom for two days, all of them starving to the point that their stomachs were pressed against their backs. When they saw him come out with a few packs of biscuits and snacks, they immediately stood up, wanting to ask him for some food.
But to their surprise, the short man clutched the food tightly to his chest, turned around, and ran off in another direction.
“Damn it!”
The burly man was about to chase after him, but a light remark from Song Chengshu stopped him.
“There are zombies over there.”
The direction the short man had run in happened to be the same direction Zhan Yun had led the zombies.
Based on what he knew of Zhan Yun, he definitely wouldn’t fight so many zombies head-on. He was probably luring them somewhere, using his ability to suppress them, then making his escape.
That idiot running off that way was likely to crash straight into a nest of zombies.
Sure enough, not long after, a piercing scream rang out from the distance. It sounded very much like that short man who loved to scream.
They waited a bit longer before Zhan Yun came running back, drenched in sweat. “Little Zhe, come with me inside! Old Song, you and Little Zheng stay here and protect them.”
“Okay.” Song Chengshu understood immediately. On the surface, they were staying behind to protect these people; in reality, they were keeping an eye on them, to prevent them from running around and causing trouble for Zhan Yun and the others.
“Wait! Why aren’t we leaving? This place is so dangerous—we need to get out of here as soon as possible!” a bespectacled middle-aged man said anxiously.
“You can leave first,” Zhan Yun tossed out flatly, then went straight into the internet café with Su Ruizhe.
The lights inside the café were still on, so they easily found the server room. They dismantled a portable diesel generator and put it into Su Ruizhe’s space.
The middle-aged man was choked by Zhan Yun’s words, his face flushing red, but he didn’t dare leave on his own. Still, looking at the refined-looking Song Chengshu and the seemingly frail Zheng Jiahe, he felt little sense of security.
“What do you think they went in there for? What’s there to see in a crappy internet café like this? It’s so dangerous—what if those monsters come back and surround us again?” the middle-aged man muttered to the long-haired woman and the burly man, while nervously glancing around like a startled bird, afraid that a zombie might burst out from somewhere at any moment.
“Shut your mouth,” the long-haired woman snapped, glaring at him. Why were these men all so brainless?
These people were willing to take such a huge risk to save them—they clearly had real skills. Hadn’t they seen how that tall, handsome man had single-handedly drawn away all the zombies from the café and returned completely unscathed?
That scrawny-looking shut-in might appear weak, but the way he’d smashed zombies to death with a steel pipe earlier had been swift and decisive—clearly not his first time doing something like that. The refined young man had remained calm the entire time, showing no panic even at the bloody sight of zombies devouring someone. He was no ordinary person either. As for that teenage kid, he carried a composure far beyond his years.
This team… was not simple at all.
The middle-aged man was snapped at again by the long-haired woman and felt even more humiliated. Just as he was about to lash out, he noticed that all the lights inside the internet café suddenly went out. He immediately panicked even more, looking as though he wanted nothing more than to bolt away on the spot.
However, Zhan Yun and Su Ruizhe soon came back out of the internet café. Only then did the group leave the area together, running toward the place where they had parked earlier.
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