Chapter 24

Bullet extraction wasn’t some major surgery, so after a few minutes the bullet was removed by Bella using a tweezer. Throughout the procedure, Momo was gently stroking Sharpei’s head and amazingly it did not struggle at all, though Bella could feel Sharpei’s muscles tensing up from the pain.

After the bullet was extracted, Bella immediately helped Sharpei to bandage its wound. The place was too ill-equipped and many tools were unavailable, so all she could do was to do a simple bandaging. Before the surgery, Bella already told Bai Yi that this was very dangerous as Sharpei could die from blood loss or infection to the wound. However, Bai Yi still agreed in the end, as he had no other choice. What could he do if he disagreed? It was already the best option.

After bandaging the wound Bella was already soaked in sweat. She then finally looked at Bai Yi, and nodded.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing much, let me take a look at your shoulder too.” Bella said.

Bai Yi nodded and let Bella examine the wound on his shoulder. After the examination Bella told Bai Yi some good news. Though the wound was severe, the main nerves were still intact. As long as he took care of it well, recovery shouldn’t be a problem. After learning this, Bai Yi also let out a breath of relief. It would’ve been really difficult for him to survive in this dangerous world with a crippled arm.

……

After everyone had finished bandaging their wounds, the mood of Dai Yu Yao and the others became much calmer and they suggested to collect the corpses of their dead teammates.

This was a simple matter, so Bai Yi didn’t go along with them. Very quickly, they came back but Dai Yu Yao and Qin Kai Rui’s faces were full of fear.

“What happened?”

“Monsters appeared, not monsters like those in Hamilton but monsters evolved from animals! Those two things should’ve been dogs but they are now more than 1 meter tall and feeding on the corpses. Their general appearance is hard to describe, but they are already very different from normal dog. We didn’t alert them.” Yu Han said.

“Then what about Tang Ping’s body?” Bai Yi asked.

Dai Yu Yao heard Bai Yi’s words and her face instantly lost colour. Bai Yi saw her expression and knew that the answer wouldn’t be good. He didn’t ask further, and seeing that everybody was already gathered here, he let out a breath of air.

“Now then, let’s move out to Otorohanga!” Bai Yi said.

Apparently, everyone agreed with him, especially Qin Kai Rui and Dai Yu Yao who’d just seen the dog-like monsters. As for the 4 beautiful girls that they saved, they were willing to follow their team as well. Now that the world had changed, everybody knew that staying in the city by yourself was pretty much equivalent to waiting for your death, or maybe even a fate worse than death.

Other than the 4 cars that the team had initially, they now had a heavy truck that was filled with supplies that the gangsters had robbed. Everybody got on the vehicles and left Te Awamutu.

While passing by the road where they had their battle, the rest of them also saw the ‘dog-like monsters’ that Yu Han described. They really were monsters. It could be seen that the original bodies should’ve been that of dogs, just that they were now over 1 meter tall and 2 meters long. Their sharp teeth were exposed to the outside, and there were some characteristics of other animals on their bodies, just like a big random stew of animal parts. One of the dogs even had a second head growing from its shoulder.

The two dogs dragged all the corpses onto the pavement, and started feasting. Blood flowed unceasingly from the corpses, painting the ground red. Although the two sinister-looking dogs couldn’t be compared to the monsters that’d escaped from Northern Hamilton Research Facility, they were already scary enough.

Cars drove past on the road, but nobody dared to stop those two dogs. On the contrary, the two dogs would look over and bare their sharp teeth at the cars passing by.

……

LV1-1: Binging Phase, Gene Fusion

A few phrases flashed across the minds of those present as the cars drove past them and left those two sinister dogs behind.

______________________________________________________________

There were two roads that they could take to Otorohanga. One of them was Otorohanga Road, which was the main road on the east side, and the other was Pokuru Road, which was more inland. Comparatively, Pokuru Road was simpler and not too many people were using it.

Both roads had their risks and everybody argued for a while, eventually deciding on the more remote Pokuru Road.

Just as everyone expected, there weren’t many people using Pokuru Road, so it was quiet and peaceful on the road. If it weren’t for the fact that everybody had injuries, they would’ve still thought that they were living in the world from before, and that nothing had changed.

Bai Yi was sitting silently in his seat, Sharpei was lying on the backseat unmoving, and Momo was hugging Bai Yi sadly. Although Bella had helped Sharpei remove the bullet, the operation was too basic and they weren’t even able to stitch the wound up. Nobody could be certain if Sharpei would survive.

While the car was driving, everybody was very quiet and there wasn’t any chatter. After the incident, Qin Kai Rui and the rest didn’t continue lashing out at Bai Yi but there was already a huge chasm in the team. A few of them still saw Bai Yi as the leader, but as for the others Yu Han succeeded in his goal of gaining influence in the team.

Bai Yi closed his eyes and replayed the scenes of the battle. In the end he soundlessly sighed, and his mouth curled into a mocking smile.

So it was like this!

The convoy journeyed on steadily until they reached a gas station by the road.

When Woolf saw the gas station, he drove the car in, and the other cars following behind stopped as well. The gas station was in a mess and apparently a lot of people had already come to this place. One of the gasoline pipes was damaged, and gasoline continuously flowed out onto the floor, filling the air with the thick smell of gasoline.

Bai Yi got out of the car, and he knew with a look what the people that had come before did. They didn’t simply come to pump gas for their car, but also damaged the gasoline pipe and then filled some jerrycans with gasoline from there. With the situation now, it was true that there was no harm in being prepared as nobody knew when fuel would run out. However, this way of doing things was benefiting yourself at the expense of others. It brought great inconvenience to the people after them and also wasted a lot of fuel.

“Pump some gas. I’ll look to see if there’s any suitable containers that we can use to fill with gas.” Bai Yi said.

“En.” Woolf nodded. By now the rest of them had gotten out of their cars, and upon seeing Woolf’s actions started moving as well. The few women who’d just joined the team wanted to show their usefulness and tried to help, but for things as messy as this it would be good if they didn’t create more trouble.

The gas station wasn’t too big, and any containers were long taken by other people, so Bai Yi didn’t manage to find any. However, more importantly there was no need for containers anymore.

“Bai Yi there isn’t much gas left. We can’t even fill a car. Those bastards, almost all the gasoline has leaked from the pipe.” Woolf said when Bai Yi came back. The expressions on the others’ faces weren’t good either, the cars were randomly picked from the city and there wasn’t much gas in them in the first place. Probably very soon their cars would all run out of gas.

“It’s ok, this kind of situation would appear sooner or later. It’s all good as long as the gas can last us till Otorohanga.” Bai Yi said.

“But Otorohanga should be pretty chaotic too right?” Woolf questioned.

“Of course, the entire New Zealand is in chaos.” Bai Yi looked at Woolf and smiled. Woolf looked at Bai Yi’s smile in confusion, how can he smile when all of New Zealand was in chaos? Shaking his head, Woolf couldn’t be bothered to ask as he wasn’t good at using his brain.

……

The group stopped when they reached Mt. Cook because… they were hungry.

New Zealand was a place with a large landmass but a low population. On the sides of the roads were wide-open plains that were also natural pastures. Mt. Cook was only 400+ metres tall, and wasn’t considered big as well. At an intersection at the foot of the mountain were two classic-looking bungalows. The group drove the car into the courtyard and checked around. After a quick check, they discovered that there was nobody left in the bungalows and that everybody had already fled.

“We will borrow the kitchen here and prepare some food. Those with nothing to do can rest. Those who know how to cook, raise your hand.” Bai Yi said to everybody. However, the group that was following Yu Han now ignored Bai Yi and headed towards the other bungalow. Apparently, among the team Bai Yi was no longer trusted.

Ha… Bai Yi mocked himself in his heart.

“Entering somebody’s else home like this, is there really no problem?” There was actually one among the four women they’d rescued that stayed with Bai Yi.

“We’re just borrowing the kitchen and now isn’t the time to care about such things so much.” Bai Yi looked at the woman who’d just spoken.

“Qi Hua, can you cook? I’ll teach you from the side. It’ll be fine as long as the basic seasonings are added properly.” Bai Yi said.

“En, ok!” Hong Qi Hua nodded.

“I cook frequently at home too, do you need help?” The woman that didn’t leave spoke. 4 women had joined their team, and Bai Yi haven’t even asked them for their names yet. However, now the 3 other women had followed Yu Han to the other bungalow, and only she remained behind.

“Sure, but what is your name?” Bai Yi asked.

“Heloise!”

The 4 women were all very beautiful. If they weren’t beautiful then those gangsters wouldn’t have captured them in the first place. The names of the 4 women were: 1. Bella (Intern Doctor), 2. Heloise (Newly-wed), 3. Agatha (University Student), 4. Meilin (Freelancer).

Actually they weren’t the only ones who’d got captured. When the remaining gangsters escaped, they brought a few women with them too. In this age, it was really a tragic fate for young and beautiful women who were unable to protect themselves.

The job of cooking was handed to Hong Qi Hua and Heloise, while Yu Han and his group went to the other bungalow. Seemingly while they were on different cars, the new people all heard about how cold-blooded Bai Yi and Hong Qi Hua were. Other than Heloise, the rest of them were unwilling to stay with Bai Yi.

However, Bai Yi and Hong Qi Hua didn’t pay much attention to this. Both of them were rather solitary people, and would never bother trying to please others.

Bai Yi returned to the car and found Sharpei lying in the back seat, blood slowly seeping out from the bandaged wound and staining the seat red. Seeing Bai Yi come over, Sharpei whined weakly. Bai Yi stroked Sharpei’s head and then gently hugged Momo in silence.

“Daddy, Sharpei will be ok right?”

“En, it will be fine.”

Although Bai Yi wasn’t a doctor, he knew that under normal conditions Sharpei would’ve never survived with wounds like that. Strangely, Sharpei’s condition now was actually quite stable and was even showing signs of recovery. The only explanation for this were the extra things in Sharpei’s body now – activated cells!