Chapter 51: The Cheng Siblings
After the second zombie dog fell, the remaining zombies were no longer a serious threat. Under the overwhelming lethality of the pea bullets, the horde surrounding the small shops was quickly wiped out.
To confirm his suspicions, Su Ruizhe took a knife and split open the second zombie dog’s skull. Sure enough, he found a strangely colored crystal core. The core itself was pale red, but its edges were stained a vivid crimson, as if brushed with rouge. It was likely that after devouring the other evolved zombie dog’s crystal core, this one’s core had begun to change. If Su Ruizhe hadn’t killed it immediately, it might have evolved again—an outcome too terrible to imagine.
The group trapped on the rooftop of the small shop was Squad Ten. Once out of danger, they came down to rendezvous with Squad Twelve. However, their numbers had dropped from the original forty to just twenty-five—fifteen soldiers had been killed.
The casualties were severe.
When Squad Ten came to provide support, they had never expected such a massive concentration of zombies. At first, they planned to use their military truck to draw the zombies away. Instead, they ran into evolved zombie dogs and evolved zombies among the horde. These creatures were incredibly fast, quickly catching up to the truck and launching an attack.
The zombie dogs were immensely strong, repeatedly slamming their bodies into the vehicle. The truck lost balance and crashed into a roadside barrier. More and more zombies were drawn by the commotion, and under their relentless pounding and battering, the vehicle was nearly overturned.
Squad Ten immediately sent out a distress signal, but they had little time. The attacks grew fiercer—the strength of the evolved zombies and zombie dogs was terrifying. Their sharp claws even left scratches on the bulletproof glass, and the rear doors began to deform under the impact of the horde. If they stayed inside the truck, they would only become trapped prey.
They couldn’t wait for death—they had to break out and hold on until rescue arrived. Using grenades and heavy firepower to suppress the zombies, Squad Ten managed to carve out a bloody path. The evolved zombies were far too fast; trying to outrun or outlast them was unrealistic. Squad leader Guan Hong led his men onto the rooftops of nearby small shops. But during the breakout and climb, they lost more than a dozen soldiers.
They had no time to mourn—there were still many survivors in the police station waiting to be rescued.
The police station was diagonally across the street from the shops, less than seven hundred meters away. Dense swarms of zombies surrounded the modest building. Several police officers in uniform and a few strong young men stood atop a protruding platform on the second floor, using makeshift spears fashioned from broom handles and knives to stab at the zombies’ heads. They had even managed to kill a few.
They must have heard the gunfire outside and seen the soldiers arriving, wanting to help however they could.
But this was far too dangerous—there were evolved zombies among the horde!
As if to confirm their fears, a young man’s weapon was suddenly seized by a sharp claw. Before he could react, he was yanked forward violently. Caught off guard, he nearly stumbled. Just as he was about to fall from the platform into the sea of zombies below, a hand shot out and grabbed him, hauling him back at the last second—though his weapon was torn away.
When Zhan Yun saw the familiar figure who had reached out to save him, his pupils shrank sharply.
It’s him?! What is he doing here?!
“Little Zhe—cherry—no, give me some bombs!” Zhan Yun immediately shouted to Su Ruizhe.
Without hesitation, Su Ruizhe used his ability to create several cherry bombs.
“Let’s go!” Zhan Yun said, leading his team forward.
Li Ming couldn’t stop them in time and could only follow.
Zhan Yun’s group charged as if divinely empowered, firing their submachine guns as they advanced. With pea bullets acting like a cheat, they didn’t even need to aim for the head to deal fatal damage. And with Zhan Yun’s cherry bombs, whenever the zombies began to cluster, he would toss one without hesitation.
“Ah Zhan!” Zhan Yun’s tall, one-meter-ninety frame was impossible to miss. When the young man on the second-floor platform recognized him, he immediately waved excitedly.
The remaining zombies seemed provoked by his shout, stretching out their arms toward him. Su Ruizhe noticed that a few even tried hopping upward—but unlike zombie dogs, their jumping ability was limited. No matter how they bounced, they couldn’t reach the platform.
“Take everyone back inside and wait!” Zhan Yun shouted up at him.
He really didn’t know what to do with Cheng Qi, his scatterbrained childhood friend. What was there to be happy about when surrounded by so many zombies?!
The explosive power of the cherry bombs was comparable to military grenades, but their damage to zombies was far greater. Each blast took down a chunk of zombies, blowing bodies into fragments. Even evolved zombies couldn’t withstand such relentless bombardment. Gradually, the number of zombies dwindled.
Zhan Yun and the soldiers successfully reached the police station’s entrance. Before they could knock, the door was already opened from inside.
“Ah Zhan! Hurry in!” Cheng Qi waved excitedly at him, grinning like a beckoning lucky cat.
Zhan Yun rolled his eyes inwardly, itching to smack Cheng Qi on the back of the head. But with a few scattered zombies still outside, it was better to get everyone inside first.
They entered the police station and shut the doors behind them. The sounds of zombies pounding and scratching resumed outside, but no one paid them any mind. There were only dozens left now, and the doors looked solid—without evolved zombies, they should hold for a while.
“Everyone come out! The army’s here to save us!” Cheng Qi shouted loudly.
As his words fell, countless people emerged from various rooms and corners. A rough count put their number at nearly two hundred. One by one, the survivors were sallow and emaciated, fear still lingering in their eyes; their overall condition looked very poor. Judging from the sheets spread on the floor and the scattered trash everywhere, they had likely been trapped here for quite some time.
Yet they all seemed to place great trust in Cheng Qi. Even several police officers stood behind him, as if offering their silent support.
Which made sense—Cheng Qi was a member of the Cheng family, and he had at least spent some time honing himself in the military. His abilities were beyond question.
“We are the national rescue team. A survivor base has already been established in the Southern Military District. Please prepare yourselves and follow us to evacuate,” Guan Hong stepped forward and announced.
Meanwhile, Li Ming had already begun calling for assistance via radio. The military trucks of the Tenth Squad had been mostly destroyed by explosives during their breakout, and the Twelfth Squad’s trucks had already returned. To transport so many people back, they would need at least two or three more military trucks.
Li Ming’s call was quickly answered. The Eighth Squad was on its way, the Eleventh Squad had already set out, and although the Thirteenth Squad had run into some trouble, they would rush over as soon as it was resolved. In short, there would be no problem getting everyone out.
“Everyone, go pack up quickly! Bring whatever you need. Vehicles will be here soon to take us away!” Guan Hong called out loudly to the crowd.
Zhan Yun swept his gaze over the crowd but didn’t see Cheng Jiao. He immediately frowned. “Where’s Jiaojiao?!”
Cheng Qi clenched his teeth and said in a low voice, “Come with me.”
Seeing the expression on Cheng Qi’s face, Zhan Yun’s heart sank slightly. He followed him upstairs, not forgetting to pull Su Ruizhe along with him.
Although Cheng Qi didn’t understand why Zhan Yun was dragging a young man along, he believed Zhan Yun must have his reasons, so he didn’t say anything. He led them to a tightly locked storage room on the second floor.
For some reason, the storage room had been locked from the outside. There had originally been two police officers guarding the door, but they had gone off to pack their things. Cheng Qi stepped forward and opened the door, revealing five or six people lying inside, their bodies covered in blood. Cheng Jiao was among them.
“What happened?” Zhan Yun could tell at a glance that Cheng Jiao had a fever—her face was flushed red, and she was drenched in sweat.
“There isn’t much food here, so we could only take turns leading people out to look for supplies. Yesterday, she took more than a dozen people out. Only this many came back, and they were all injured. The zombies that gathered outside were probably attracted by the smell of blood. Everyone else was terrified, worried they’d turn into zombies too. But there was no way I could abandon Jiaojiao, so I could only arrange for them to stay here and have people keep an eye on them,” Cheng Qi said, a trace of sorrow appearing on his face. “If I’d known it would turn out like this, I should’ve gone yesterday instead…”
“Little Zhe… go get Old Song and Zheng Jiahe,” Zhan Yun said. These wounds couldn’t be left untreated—they needed Song Chengshu to handle them, and they also needed Zheng Jiahe to juice some fresh fruits and vegetables.
Su Ruizhe nodded and went downstairs to fetch Song Chengshu and Zheng Jiahe. He had long heard Zhan Yun mention the Cheng siblings and knew they were childhood friends with a very close bond. He could well understand how Zhan Yun was feeling now.
Song Chengshu and Zheng Jiahe arrived quickly. Song Chengshu first examined the injuries. Unfortunately, the victims had been exposed to the virus for too long. Most of them had already been overtaken by the infection—their complexions were ashen, their pupils cloudy and unfocused. There was no saving them.
Only two people, including Cheng Jiao, still seemed to be in the midst of resisting the virus. He hurriedly used the medical kit provided by Su Ruizhe to treat their wounds, then fed them the freshly squeezed fruit-and-vegetable juice Zheng Jiahe had just prepared.
They had done everything they could. As for how things would turn out from here, all they could do was leave it to fate.
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