Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

The cargo-hauling brigade behind was slowly closing in. Lin An stared blankly at the backs of the two in front of him, then at his own immovable cart, and tried again to no avail.

Though his expression didn’t change, the little zombie silently lowered his head.

Suddenly, the little cart began to move.

Shen Xiuzhe didn't turn around; with one hand he pushed his own cart, and with the other, he effortlessly pulled the front end of Lin An's cart up the slope.

It was Lin An who found himself being pulled along.

Clutching the cart's handle tightly, he continued to follow the person in front.

Seeing his owner finally moving, Xiao Fu too resumed its pace forward.

As the group emerged with their carts, they found the man they had rescued earlier sitting on the ground in front of their carts, wailing loudly. Xu Fang couldn't shake off a sense of déjà vu.

Why did it feel like a setup?

"You've returned. I am here to—thank you," the man sobbed incoherently between tears.

Xu Fang, bemused: "…Do you want to talk or cry?"

He wiped his tears, his puffy face and swollen eyes almost closing up.

"Thank you, my name is Ouyang Dong," the man sniffled.

Xu Fang, surprised: "A compound surname?"

"No, my surname is Ouyang."

Xu Fang: ...Alright then.

Observing the bloodstains on his white vest, Shen Xiuzhe squinted: "Did you kill everyone up there?"

The man nodded through his tears.

Xu Fang was genuinely curious about what had happened, but given the man’s state, it felt inappropriate to ask.

"Zombies, zombies!" Ouyang Dong, previously too engrossed in his tears, hadn't noticed a large horde of zombies nearing them. The cargo brigade had already approached before he pointed out the zombies in alarm.

The group of zombies, who had been pulling the carts, had finally brought the goods to their destination and were now baring their teeth and drooling at the group.

Meanwhile, Lin An, too well-covered and having remained quietly behind the cart, went unnoticed by Ouyang Dong as another zombie.

"Oh, these are the ones we caught to haul our supplies," Xu Fang hurried to the back to unload the goods, moving them into the trunk.

And that large group of zombies, like donkeys ground down by their unscrupulous boss, were all burned to death.

The man watched, stunned. It was his first time seeing such ruthless people. Usually, everyone ran at the sight of zombies, but these three were actually using them to transport goods.

"What's going on with you and those people up there?" Shen Xiuzhe inquired. Xu Fang felt awkward to ask; he had never been one to concern himself with such matters.

At the mention, Ouyang Dong, who had just stopped crying, began to weep again. Despite his tears, he managed to sob out his story to the others.

The neighborhood belonged to his parents. His own place was quite far, only returning on weekends. On the day of the apocalypse, he happened to be at his residence. When he realized something was wrong, he tried to get home, but the journey was impeded by hordes of zombies and masses of fleeing people, making it impossible to reach.

However, during the initial days of the apocalypse, mobile phones were still functional. He called home and learned from his mother that she was safe and had not turned into a zombie. His father, however, who was on a night shift, had not returned.

Since his parents' home was in the city center, his mother had taken in a few young people who encountered zombie mutations while out shopping at night. These youngsters were very kind to her. She told her son not to worry and to stay hidden until it was safe to return home.

His father could no longer be reached by phone. Ouyang Dong had been searching for his father while also trying to find a way to get home.

But the city center was one of the most zombie-infested areas in Chu Xi City, and he couldn't possibly deal with so many zombies on his own. He had also visited a base to find people to accompany him, but no one there was willing to risk it.

His own ability, which initially could only germinate seeds, wasn't very useful and certainly wasn't enough to offer substantial rewards to entice powerful ability users to take the risk with him.

In the end, he had to find a way by himself. Once the city's power went out and the phones stopped working, he was left completely cut off.

Ouyang Dong tried many methods, such as smearing himself with zombie blood, crawling through sewers, or driving a truck through the masses, but none succeeded.

"So how did you manage to get in here?" Xu Fang, who was moving goods, couldn't help but ask.

With swollen eyes, Ouyang Dong pointed upwards: "I'm a plant-based ability user. I swung over using vines as ropes, and when I couldn't swing across, I climbed."

Xu Fang looked up and saw a long object connecting two buildings. At first, he thought it was a power line, but it turned out to be a vine.

Looking at the thick vines above his head, Xu Fang guessed that Ouyang Dong must have been training his ability daily. Before they left, the best plant ability user in the base could only speed up plant growth by half, nowhere near this level.

And when he talked about his mother taking in a few young people, Xu Fang had a premonition of the grim outcome.

"Those beasts, even though it was my mother who took them in, they killed her because they thought she was wasting food, ah ah ah ah~"

Ouyang Dong began to cry again: "We had plenty of rice, flour, oil, and snacks at home. My mom always stocked up in bulk. If it had been just her, she could have lasted a year without any issue."

Xu Fang wanted to speak but held back, turning to look at Shen Xiuzhe instead.

Shen Xiuzhe glanced at him expressionlessly and shook his head.

"You've killed those people, avenged her. What are you planning to do now?" Xu Fang asked.

"I think I’ll bury my mother first, then go look for my father," Ouyang Dong said, his eyes swollen to slits as he tried to open them to look at the two men. "Could I possibly follow you for now? I can't climb out with my mother's body. I’ll offer the fruits I catalyze as payment."

Shen Xiuzhe agreed. They had more supplies than could fit in one vehicle and needed to find another, so this arrangement served two purposes.

Xu Fang followed Ouyang Dong upstairs, curious to see if those people had been completely killed. One-third of those who survived the apocalypse awakened abilities, and these ability users had remarkable vitality.

They couldn't reach the monstrous resilience of zombies, but they could slowly heal from non-fatal wounds without medication.

So he wanted to check; if any were not dead, he could finish them off.

The building had twenty-five floors. Ouyang Dong, despite his hefty appearance, climbed the stairs with ease. When they reached his apartment, they found it filled with trash and feces, the stench overwhelming. Had the weather not been cold these past six months, he suspected it would be teeming with insects.

Xu Fang hardly had space to step, carefully avoiding the many unidentifiable objects on the floor, pinching his nose as he moved inside.

Blood was everywhere on the balcony and in the living room. Two men and a woman lay in pools of blood, emaciated to the point of resembling the zombies outside. Pierced through the heart by vines, they were unequivocally dead.

Directly below was a supermarket, a risky venture that could have yielded ample supplies, yet these people looked as though they had never ventured out.

Many in the base had not awakened any abilities but still went out to slay zombies with the ability users.

Including themselves, who had started out not knowing about abilities, fighting their way out with knives. Even after discovering their abilities, which initially were of little use—a small mound of earth wouldn't even trip a zombie—they continued to fight with weapons.

These people really were...

Xu Fang shook his head. He was only there to confirm the deaths.

Ouyang Dong was unfazed by the filth on the ground, carefully lifting a bundle wrapped in a purple cotton garment from the dining table.

Seeing Xu Fang glance at the purple garment in his hands, he explained, "This was my mother's favorite piece of clothing, bought with my first paycheck. She often wore it out to show off."

His voice caught with emotion as he spoke.

Xu Fang sighed, "Let's go."

After the two had gone upstairs, Shen Xiuzhe found an SUV in the neighborhood and loaded it with the remaining supplies.

Lin An had been stealthily hiding behind the vehicle, still as a statue. From that spot, unless they walked over, he was entirely out of sight.

And once Ouyang Dong and Xu Fang had left, Lin An visibly relaxed.

Having offloaded his cargo, Xiao Fu sought his master with the leash in his mouth, awaiting the familiar tug to start their walk.

Xiao Fu dared not stray too far, knowing they had all arrived in that car; without it, they could not return. Thus, he led his master in circles around the vehicle.

As Shen Xiuzhe searched for a car, they circled a white sedan; they continued their rounds even while transferring supplies.

Xiao Fu seemed to find this game amusing, initially matching his master's pace before gradually picking up speed, compelling Lin An, who gripped the leash tightly, to hasten his steps.

By the time Shen Xiuzhe had loaded the supplies, the merry Xiao Fu was already running circles around the car.

Lin An stumbled along, his hair blown forward by the wind, revealing a pair of dazed, mosquito coil-like eyes.

It was not until Shen Xiuzhe intercepted Xiao Fu that the dizzy Lin An, now unsteady on his feet, began to teeter and totter as though about to fall.

Had Shen Xiuzhe not steadied him, the disoriented little zombie would have collapsed onto the ground.

When Xu Fang and Ouyang Dong came down, the small zombie had already been placed in the car to rest, while Xiao Fu lay panting beside his master, excited from his second outing in half a year.

Shen Xiuzhe and his group took their own vehicle, with Ouyang Dong following in an SUV, carrying the remains of his mother.

The metal gates sealed the community, keeping the zombies outside from entering, as they gathered in increasing numbers.

In an instant, the metal gates vanished.

The zombies at the forefront, losing their support, tumbled forward, while those behind surged over them, heedless of whether they trampled their own kind.

The entering zombies met the metal-clad cars head-on, being flung aside with thuds that set teeth on edge. The zombies seemed endless, and after the cars had made some headway, the path ahead was already piled with their bodies, slowing their advance.

The car's body was no longer visible, the windshield smeared with the zombies' handprints and dark red stains, requiring constant use of the wipers to maintain even a marginally clear view.

Today, Shen Xiuzhe had expended a considerable amount of his abilities, dealing with several special-type zombies and countless ordinary ones. His powers were not inexhaustible; while still reserved, he would undoubtedly encounter more special zombies along the way, and without his abilities, they would be hard-pressed.

However, in the current situation, they couldn't get out without using their abilities.

Just as Shen Xiuzhe was about to deploy his power, four torrents of water spouts surged around the car, unlike the small streams used for laundry before. These water spouts were violent and powerful, spinning around and lifting the surrounding zombies into the air, filled with the dark mass of the undead caught in their grasp.

These four water spouts twisted and turned upon the ground, and wherever they passed, not only did the zombies disappear, but even the severed limbs, dried blood, and trash littering the ground were cleansed away.

The wet surface before them visibly transformed, becoming immaculately clean.

In the end, the four torrents merged into one colossal water spout, towering dozens of meters high, howling as it swept up everything in its path. Yet, the two cars in the middle of the road remained unscathed, enveloped in a mist that emerged around them, cleansing the vehicles of their grime as condensed droplets continually washed over them until they were pristine.

The water spout whirled faster and faster, turning the zombies within into a blur of dark shadows.

As the water spout materialized, Xu Fang had already stopped the car, with the SUV following suit.

Staring at the rapidly spinning vortex, which even drew in the surrounding air, Xu Fang’s mouth hung open in disbelief. He knew the zombie’s ability was formidable, but this was beyond anything he had anticipated.

He turned to look at the small zombie, crouching in the back seat, his brows furrowed and eyes downcast, bundled up tightly. He seemed so harmless, yet his abilities defied the laws of nature.

"Boss, do you think... we might have picked up a zombie emperor?"