Chapter 7

Chapter 7

As the sky gradually brightened, the scorching heat in the air became more distinct. In less than half an hour, the temperature rose by at least ten degrees, making the air feel scalding.

The zombies near the residential area were all drawn to the iron gate, leaving other areas relatively safe. As they followed the one-way road, Lan Zi and the others only encountered two or three zombies along the way, which they easily avoided.

After leaving the residential area, the number of zombies on the road increased, causing the group to slow down.

Following the general direction they had already determined, the group moved forward in silence, aiming to reach the outskirts of the city before ten o'clock in the morning.

By six o'clock, the sun was visible on the horizon, and the temperature had reached over thirty degrees.

As the temperature continued to rise, the group had no choice but to start rehydrating. However, even with this, their throats remained parched and painful, and their bodies screamed for moisture. A couple of sips of water were meaningless under prolonged dehydration.

After sharing the last bit of water with Ji'an, Ji Yanqing put him down and had him follow while running. He and Xia Shenshu took turns leading the way.

Ji'an was very well-behaved, following closely without making a fuss, which meant there was no need to worry about him. Clearly, he had done this many times before.

As they continued onward, around eight o'clock when the outdoor temperature reached over forty degrees, they noticed something unusual—the number of zombies around them was decreasing.

After walking further without seeing any zombies, Ji Yanqing became increasingly cautious and turned back to remind the others.

Everyone else also noticed the anomaly. While they might have been happy if they were outside the city, this was still within its confines.

The surrounding buildings weren't old; the ground floors were lined with shops, ranging from car washes and repair shops to stores selling fertilizers and pesticides. This area wasn't bustling, but it certainly shouldn't be deserted.

After walking for another ten minutes, they approached a crossroad where the road turned left.

Ji Yanqing, who was leading the way, skillfully stopped at the corner and slowly peeked out. The others stood guard, ready to follow him.

Peering around the corner, Ji Yanqing got a clear view of the situation and felt his scalp tingle as he instantly understood why there were no zombies around.

He quickly made a gesture to retreat.

Confused, the others still immediately stepped back.

They retreated about two hundred meters and hid behind a safe corner they had passed earlier. Everyone looked expectantly at Ji Yanqing.

Without waiting for questions, Ji Yanqing said, "School."

Hearing these two words, everyone's faces turned ashen.

In a city filled with people and zombies, the most dangerous places were those with large populations, such as schools, stations, hospitals, and tourist attractions.

City primary schools typically had at least four to five thousand students. If you added junior high and high school students, the numbers easily surpassed ten thousand. Dealing with dozens or hundreds of zombies was completely different from facing thousands.

The reason there were no zombies around was that they had all been drawn to the school. The school bell played on a schedule, and after the virus outbreak, it likely rang for some time.

Under the sunlight, beads of sweat formed on everyone's foreheads. Their nerves were already taut, and now they didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

Xia Shenshu silently pointed in the direction they had come from, suggesting a return?

Ji Yanqing shook his head and pointed towards the reservoir, indicating they should go around.

They had to find water by noon tomorrow at the latest; they couldn't afford any delays.

Upon hearing this reminder, everyone's already dry throats felt even itchier. Most of them had run out of water.

Ji Yanqing led the way towards the alley to the left of the school.

The others rallied and followed, not daring to make any mistakes.

If possible, they wouldn't take this risk, but they truly had no other choice.

It was almost nine o'clock, and soon it would be the hottest part of the day—ten and eleven o'clock. Under temperatures of sixty to seventy degrees without water, they could barely survive the day, let alone make it until noon the next day.

Just as they were moving, a sudden sound of shattering glass came from about five hundred meters behind them, breaking the silence.

For a moment, everyone froze, including Ji Yanqing.

Then, their faces turned grim.

Sure enough, the next instant, rustling sounds accompanied by low growls came from their right side—the zombies in the school had been alerted.

"Upstairs!" Ji Yanqing ran towards the nearby staircase.

The houses here were courtyard-style rental units, with semi-open corridors lined with small apartments. There were no iron gates at the bottom of the staircases, and the corridors themselves offered no place to hide.

Rushing up to the second floor in just a few strides, Ji Yanqing tried to find a room they could enter.

As he went upstairs, Ji Yanqing's gaze met a stranger's face coming from the opposite end of the corridor, where someone was emerging from the stairs.

The person on the other side was also taken aback, not expecting to encounter humans here.

At the same moment, Xia Shenshu and the others rushed up to the second floor.

Simultaneously, Ji Yanqing charged towards the person on the other side, swinging his axe and striking one of the zombies in the neck.

There were two people on the other side, who had been surrounded by two zombies. One of them had been bitten and was trying to get up from the ground.

Ji Yanqing wasn't trying to save them; he simply had no other choice. The zombies from the school had been thoroughly alerted, and the rustling and growling sounds were getting closer—they might have already reached the residential area.

If they made any more noise at this point, the zombies would immediately discover their presence.

Seeing Ji Yanqing charge forward without hesitation and strike, the uninfected person instinctively raised his knife. But then he realized Ji Yanqing's target wasn't him and quickly stepped aside.

After chopping off one zombie's head with his axe, Ji Yanqing used the momentum to swing it towards the head of the person on the ground who was trying to get up—he had already become a zombie.

"This way!" After confirming that one of the open rooms on the second floor was zombie-free, Lan Zi led the way inside.

The others filed in, and the stranger hurried after them after casting a glance at Ji Yanqing.

Ji Yanqing brought his axe down hard on the head of the person on the ground. With the force of his blow and the destructive nature of the axe itself, the man's skull caved in entirely.

A figure dashed towards the corpse on the ground—it was Xia Shenshu.

Zombies could already be seen in the courtyard downstairs. The sight of those young figures in school uniforms wasn't heart-wrenching but rather bone-chilling, due to their sheer numbers.

Xia Shenshu grabbed the backpack of the person on the ground and picked up something else before rushing to Lan Zi. Ji Yanqing quickly followed after finishing off the last zombie.

Upon seeing the two enter, Lan Zi, who had been holding the doorknob and waiting by the door, promptly closed it.

She didn't dare make any large movements, for fear of creating noise.

In the instant she silently closed the door, everyone in the room felt their hearts ache from the tension.

"Bang." A sound echoed through the corridor—the zombies downstairs were drawn by the bloody scent and charged upstairs.

Inside the room, goosebumps rose on everyone's skin at that ominous sound. Everyone tried to slow their breathing as quietly as possible, not daring to move an inch.

The infected person, whose head had been smashed by Ji Yanqing, couldn't get back up. However, the fresh scent of blood from his partially mutated body still attracted the zombies, causing them to go berserk and feast on him.

This went on for quite some time, during which some of the zombies even fought over the meal.

After the flesh was devoured, the zombies seemed to head downstairs towards the rear, where sounds continued to be heard intermittently.

When they were certain it was temporarily safe, everyone's forehead was drenched in sweat.

Ji Yanqing looked at Ji'an, who was right beside him, and patted his head. Ji'an was very obedient; his face had turned pale with fright, but he hadn't made a sound throughout the ordeal.

With his head being patted, Ji'an's ears turned slightly red.

Ji Yanqing looked at Xia Shenshu.

After confirming their safety, Xia Shenshu took out what he had risked picking up earlier. It was a pistol. He removed the magazine to check it and then tried to cock it—it was still functional.

Recognizing what it was, everyone's eyes in the room lit up.

A pistol would create a lot of noise, but in this extreme situation, the benefits outweighed the risks. After all, just having one meant an additional chance of survival.

Ji Yanqing's attention was not on the pistol but on Xia Shenshu.

Xia Shenshu's inspection of the weapon was clean and efficient, as if he wasn't a novice. However, ordinary people wouldn't have access to such things before the virus outbreak. Who exactly was Xia Shenshu?

After confirming the gun was still usable, Xia Shenshu emptied the contents of the backpack he had picked up.

Most of the items in the backpack were useless—there was no food or water. However, there was another magazine and a small bag of loose bullets.

Xia Shenshu counted them; including the ones in the gun, there were twenty-seven rounds in total—not many, but still a decent amount.

As Xia Shenshu was feeling pleased, he suddenly remembered something and looked up at Ji Yanqing.

Meeting Ji Yanqing's dark gaze, he hesitated visibly but still handed the gun over.

Ji Yanqing was the team leader.

"I don't know how to use it," Ji Yanqing declined.

Xia Shenshu's expression flickered momentarily, then he laughed. Without saying anything, he carefully put the gun away.

Everyone who saw this couldn't help but feel envious.

Ji Yanqing looked at the stranger sitting alone in a corner of the room. The man was in his thirties, male, and appeared kind-hearted. However, in this environment, nothing could be taken for granted.

He had no reaction to Xia Shenshu taking his former teammate's gear; he simply watched quietly.

When Ji Yanqing looked at him, the man smiled.

Noticing this, the others also turned their attention to him.

Under their gaze, without Ji Yanqing's group needing to say anything, he explained, "We escaped from the neighboring city and entered this city late last night. Our survival team encountered the Zombie King in the neighboring city, and within minutes, our team of hundreds was reduced to less than half... That thing enjoyed tormenting us and chased us relentlessly. We planned to lure it here so it could fight the Zombie King in this city, but you've seen what happened."

The information overload in his words left Ji Yanqing and the others momentarily stunned.

Ji Yanqing quickly grasped the key point. "There's a Zombie King in this city?"

"You didn't know?" The man was surprised.

Ji Yanqing looked at the others, and everyone's faces were pale.

If what the man said was true, their survival until now was nothing short of a miracle.

Seeing the astonishment in Ji Yanqing's group, the man became even more incredulous. "The Zombie King in this city is said to be the strongest and most ferocious among the known Zombie Kings. He has killed over ten other Zombie Kings, and all survival teams avoid him. I thought everyone would know about him."

"I've heard of him..." Lan Zi said. "It's rumored that after killing other Zombie Kings, he lingers in their cities, repeatedly, until moving on to a new one."

"That's right, it's him. He arrived in this city not long ago," the man said. "You really haven't encountered him?"

Ji Yanqing shook his head.

The man's expression soured. They had gambled their lives by luring the pursuing Zombie King here, hoping there was another Zombie King in this city...

Xia Shenshu and the others' faces also turned grim. Anyone would be distressed to learn there was a Zombie King in their city.

"Are you sure?" the man persisted.

"At least we haven't encountered him. Otherwise, we would have been dead long ago," Xia Shenshu said. "It can't be that he got lost on his way to kill us."

Feng Yimo: Very busy, don't tag me in.