My Cherry Will Explode in the Apocalypse – CH88

Chapter 88: Heading for the Northwest

Lin Jia’s ability proved to be extremely effective. Before long, he had completely healed Zhang Maorong’s fractured left leg. Looking at his legs, now able to move freely again, Zhang Maorong’s eyes filled with tears.

Zhan Yun called Zhang Maorong aside and took out a handgun, a waist pouch filled with pea bullets, as well as three detoxification injections and ability-enhancing potions. After briefly explaining the functions of each item, he handed them all to him. Though Zhang Maorong was a bit rash by nature and not particularly quick-witted, he knew how to be grateful and valued loyalty. For that reason, Zhan Yun felt quite at ease entrusting these things to him.

When Zhang Maorong heard that all of these items were newly developed by the Southern Base, his longing for the Southern Base only grew stronger.

“Um… well…” Du Jiang quietly sought out Su Ruizhe and spoke hesitantly.

Su Ruizhe was rather surprised that he would come to him and looked up in response.

“I remember… when you came to our safe zone before, you had relatives there…” Du Jiang had a good memory and still recalled the situation clearly.

At the word “relatives,” Su Ruizhe’s expression changed at once.

“They’re dead,” Du Jiang said directly, not waiting for Su Ruizhe to speak. “They were old. When the safe zone was breached, they couldn’t get out in time… I remember that your relationship with them wasn’t very good… but they were still family, after all. I thought you should know.”

Dead?

Chen Huizhen and Su Qiming were just… dead like that?

Su Ruizhe suddenly laughed. In this life, without him to exploit, and without Zhan Yun’s protection, they had ended up like this…

Serves them right.

“What about their son and daughter-in-law?” Su Ruizhe asked in a low voice.

“The son and daughter-in-law?” Du Jiang shook his head in confusion. “Never saw them.”

Only then did Su Ruizhe remember that the last time he saw Chen Huizhen and Su Qiming, he hadn’t seen his cousin or cousin’s wife either. Where had Su Qiang and Lin Xi gone? Had they died at the very beginning of the apocalypse? Or had they… abandoned the two elderly people and run off on their own?

Su Ruizhe’s emotions were complicated. He had thought he would feel a sense of satisfaction, but for some reason, what he felt more was sorrow—sorrow for Chen Huizhen and Su Qiming.

Soon, both groups got into their vehicles and departed in separate directions.

Zhan Yun’s team once again entered a grueling travel mode, driving day and night without rest. Even so, they still couldn’t outrun the drop in temperature.

At last, snow began to fall from the sky. The weather was gloomy and overcast, and with snow accumulating on the road, they had no choice but to slow down. Because of the heavy rain that had fallen earlier, there was a layer of ice beneath the snow, making the vehicles extremely prone to skidding. Driving at night became especially dangerous.

That evening, they were forced to stop and rest. Su Ruizhe took tents out of his spatial storage and set up camp around the vehicles, assigning people to take turns standing guard through the night to prevent zombie attacks.

This, in turn, dragged out their travel time even further.

By the time they reached the outskirts of Gaocheng, a full seven days had passed.

With no one clearing the roads, the snow on the highway had grown deeper and deeper, making driving increasingly difficult. If not for their high-performance off-road vehicles with sufficiently high clearance, they likely would have broken down long ago in such deep snow.

According to the map, if they continued along this road toward the northwest, crossed a mountain, and traveled another dozen or so kilometers, they would reach the Northwest Base.

The mountain road was rugged. As the saying went, going uphill was easy, but going downhill was hard—and for those driving in snowy conditions, it was even more challenging. On the descent, their speed was especially slow; a single misstep could easily cause a skid with disastrous consequences.

When they reached the halfway point down the mountain, Zheng Jiahe, idly looking out the window, suddenly spotted dense clusters of black dots at the foot of the mountain.

A chill ran over Zheng Jiahe’s scalp. He cautiously poked Song Chengshu beside him. “Brother Song, look over there… what are those?”

Song Chengshu glanced over, and his face instantly changed. “A-Zhan! Look down the mountain!”

Zhan Yun and the others all turned to look. They saw that the mass of black dots was slowly converging toward a single direction—and that direction was precisely where the Northwest Base was located.

In the end, they were still one step too late. That Level Four zombie had already begun gathering ordinary zombies, preparing to launch an attack on the Northwest Base.

Tens of thousands of zombies were trudging slowly across the snow, inch by inch closing in with an encircling momentum on the human settlement. From their elevated vantage point, the group took in this horrifying scene in its entirety.

“Brother Zhan… w-what should we do?” Even the usually steady Zhang Shuoliang couldn’t help but panic.

Zhan Yun took a deep breath. “I’ll drive. Get ready to charge through. Everyone, prepare for battle.”

The snowy conditions did, after all, impose some limitations on the zombies. Unable to drive, they relied entirely on their legs to move. The thick snow significantly hindered their speed, which was why their advance was so slow.

At this point, the only option was to find a way to reach the Northwest Base ahead of the zombie horde and then join forces with the base’s soldiers and ability users to fend off the zombie tide. Otherwise, once the horde fully surrounded the base, breaking through an encirclement of tens of thousands of zombies would be utterly impossible.

Zhang Shuoliang stopped the vehicle and switched seats with Zhan Yun. Zhan Yun took the driver’s seat, fastened his seat belt, and the vehicle shot forward like an arrow released from a bow.

At such a high speed, combined with the added acceleration from going downhill, the vehicle was practically flying. When it took the turns, it even executed drift-like maneuvers. Under normal circumstances, the people in the car might have applauded Zhan Yun’s superb driving skills, but in weather this atrocious, with snow and ice everywhere, his series of actions was little different from courting death.

But they had no other choice. They had to enter the Northwest Base before the zombie tide fully converged—this was their last chance. If they failed, more than a hundred thousand people would die in vain.

The off-road vehicle thundered down the mountain, racing straight toward the Northwest Base.

The zombie tide had only just begun to gather; the encirclement had not yet taken shape. They swerved left and right, deliberately choosing paths with fewer zombies.

They plowed through countless zombies along the way. Their ears were filled with the excited howls of the undead. Those zombies tried to chase them by instinct, yet it was as if something was driving them, forcing them to keep moving toward a predetermined direction.

However, the closer they got to the base, the denser the zombies became, and their progress grew increasingly difficult. Once they were caught in the encirclement of the zombie tide, no matter how strong their abilities were, escape would likely be impossible.

In a situation like this, the only option was to carve a bloody path through by force.

Su Ruizhe took out a large sack of chili peppers from his spatial storage and converted them all into chili bombs. Just like in that game’s mechanics, chili bombs could unleash devastating straight-line explosive damage.

Zheng Jiahe opened the off-road vehicle’s sunroof, stuck out half his body, and hurled chili bombs forward. To their surprise, they actually cleared a path. Zhan Yun’s driving was exceptional—just as the zombies ahead fell and before others could rush in to fill the gaps, he slammed on the accelerator and charged through.

Cheng Qi and Cheng Jiao tied themselves securely to the last row of seats with ropes, then opened the vehicle’s rear hatch, raised their submachine guns, and fired into the zombie horde.

They were using pea bullets, which were extremely lethal against ordinary zombies. The undead fell like waves crashing down, only to surge forward again in endless succession. The scene was nothing short of an epic-scale horror blockbuster.

In this way, they fought their way all the way to the gates of the Northwest Base. Zhan Yun slammed on the horn repeatedly, urging the people inside to open the gates at once.

But at that moment, the Northwest Base was in utter chaos. The moment the soldiers on guard discovered that countless zombies were converging on the base, the alarm had already been sounded.

Hundreds of machine guns and artillery pieces were hauled up onto the walls. The base leadership had brought out every last resource they had, yet in the face of the dense, overwhelming zombie tide outside, it still seemed woefully insufficient.

Just then, the urgent blare of a car horn sounded from outside. An off-road vehicle was racing toward the base at top speed, and behind it trailed a dense mass of zombies.

To open the gates or not—this was a brutally difficult decision.

If they opened the gates, what if the zombies behind followed them in? The battle hadn’t even begun, and the city would already be breached.

But if they didn’t open the gates, everyone in that vehicle would be doomed to die.

“Open the gates!” In the end, the middle-aged soldier in uniform, with sharp, resolute features, gave the order.

He held binoculars in his hands. The commotion made by that off-road vehicle was impossible to miss. Relying on bombs and machine guns, it had cut its way through thorns and brambles, forcing a path straight to the base gates. Now, on the brink of survival after facing certain death, how could he sever their last road to life?

As the distance to the gates shrank, Zhan Yun stared ahead in mounting anxiety, afraid that the Northwest Base might refuse to open the gates for the sake of safety. If that happened, he would have no choice but to blast open a path himself.

Thankfully, the tightly sealed gates ahead began to open slowly. The off-road vehicle immediately accelerated, streaking inside like a gust of wind.

“Close the gates! Hurry, close the gates!” Seeing the dense zombie horde right behind the vehicle, the soldiers shouted at the top of their lungs.

Just as the zombies pressing close behind the off-road vehicle were about to squeeze through the narrowing gap, everyone in the vehicle jumped out and unleashed a hail of gunfire toward the outside.

The soldiers of the Northwest Base couldn’t make sense of what they were seeing. Clearly, those people were only hitting the zombies’ bodies, yet the undead—who ordinarily wouldn’t fall unless their heads were destroyed—were dropping one after another.

“Zheng Jiahe! Close the gates!”

Without a word, Zheng Jiahe immediately sprang forward. By himself, he slammed shut the massive, all-steel gate—so heavy it normally required six people working together to close.

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