CH 17

This seemingly abandoned gas station convenience store was bigger than the one in Hao’s last time. It had accumulated a lot of garbage and the air was filled with manure that one could almost taste it. The glass walls also had dirty water stains.

When looking from the outside, the place looks abandoned and ordinary people would not try to get any resources from here.

Hao Jian was held by the men and found that there were several old and young women behind the cargo shelves that stacked a lot of paper boxes and bottle cans.

The old woman has a lot of white hair, the young woman looked twenty-five or six years old wearing a ponytail. Their eyes were filled with caution and tension. There was also a little girl about five years old and a little bot about three years old, shrinking in the arms of the two women, quietly watching the new faces appearing.

Lian Ru Ning secretly breathed a sigh of relied. She thought that they had encountered people who were trying to take advantage of them. The presence of these young and old people here meant that these people were most likely to be a family.

There’s a very small probability that those who have families are wicked people.

“Ai Chang- ” The old woman opened her mouth.

The man holding an ax pushed Hao Jian in front of him, making her stagger a few steps forward to stabilize her figure in the empty space between the man and old woman. Lian Ru Ning and Xin Ting received similar treatments. The three women without self-defense weapons watched the group vigilantly, wondering what to do next.

“Mom, we’re fine, the zombies outside have been cleaned up.” Li Chang said, his face couldn’t help but show a smile.

Seeing this, Lian Ru Ning hurriedly asked, “Are you residents in this neighborhood? If you’re avoiding zombies, why are we kidnapped?”

The man with the knife put his weapon away, changed his ferocious face earlier and said with a smile, “This is also compelling. With your skills, if you don’t cooperate with us, wouldn’t you beat us up instead? There are many unknown dangers lurking, so we had to take you in first.”

Upon hearing this, Lian Ru Ning finally let go of the boulder in her heart.

Xin Ting’s nose was sore and she almost cried again. She wiped her eyes and said, “You scared us to death. I thought I was robbed!”

Only Hao Jian frowned and said nothing. Lian Ru Ning glanced at her and was about to ask her what was wrong, but was interrupted by the old woman.

“Just clean it up, my dear grandchildren no need to be afraid.” The old woman hugged the two children and coaxed them.

“By the way, my name is Li Ge, this is my mother and my brother Li Chang, my wife Liu Shu and two children. I see that you can handle five zombies with ease. Have you trained?”

The man with the knife walked to the shelf on the side, took out a bottle of water, unscrewed it, and handed it to Lian Ru Ning.

Lian Ru Ning took the water but did not drink it immediately, instead she replied, “My name is Lian Ru Ning. These are my two friends, Hao Jian and Xin Ting. This happened so suddenly, how could we have been effective? Training is nothing more than meeting more zombies and figuring out a little way to survive.”

“Then what did you do before?” Li Chang asked again.

“I– ” Lian Ru Ning was about to answer smoothly, but Hao Jian rushed in front of her and answered, “We are students and we went out to participate in the summer camp. We happened to encounter these things on the way back.”

Both Lian Ru Ning and Xin Ting glanced at Hao Jian, but didn’t object the stage she set.

Li Chang and Li Ge exchanged glances, both of their eyebrows were loosened. Li Chang looked at Lian Ru Ning and said with a smile, “Then you are so courageous! Hey, sit down and drink some water. We just want to ask you about it, the situation outside.”

“We don’t know what’s going on outside. We were attacked when we came out of the summer camp. We thought that the people were in a bad condition and ran away. Almost all the roads here were blocked by cars. How about you? It’s easy to come here. What’s the situation here?” Hao Jian asked.

Li Chang patted his thigh, his face a little sad, “I don’t know what’s going on. A few days ago, the group suddenly said that an infectious disease had broken out, so we hurriedly hid in a county with a few people. We thought again and ignored the rumors, but two days ago things went wrong– “

Li Ge was silent for a while before he took over Li Chang’s words, “My dad was bitten when he went out. We saw it with out own eyes. If it weren’t for the warnings form our group of friends, we would rush to fight the zombies who bit my dad.”

“We found that the outside world has changed, so we hurriedly took my mother and daughter-in-law and children back to the county, but it was too late. We had no food or a car. Where could we go? We just found out. Once there was no one here, we settled down and then I found you are here.”

After listening to them, Xin Ting felt sympathetic. After all, she had to escape until there was no other way. She persuaded them with the same feelings to those who came here, “But they won’t stay away for long. Sooner or later, they will get hungry and we don’t know when the zombies will gather here again and you won’t be able to leave when you have to go. . .”

Li Ge shook his head, “Affected by rumors, many people have dragged their families back to the countryside and some people have passed by before and they have killed many zombies, so it’s relatively safe here.”

At this time, a tender voice sounded crisply, “Mom, I’m so hungry.”

The sound attracted everyone’s attention. Liu Shu held the five-year-old girl, opened the tattered cardboard box from a corner and took out a bread and a bottle of water and handed them to the little girl.

Li Ge touched his head whose hair was only inches long, and asked Lian Ru Ning, “Have you had lunch? Is there anything to eat in the car?”

Lian Ru Ning shook her head. In reality, since dinner last night, she hasn’t eaten anything except for a drink. She is already so hungry that her chest is pressed against her back. If there are zombies coming later, she can’t guarantee that she will still be able to take a knife against them.

Li Ge glanced at Li Chang and took out two packs of biscuits from the side and gave it to them, “We don’t have much food anymore. You can eat these as cushion for your stomachs!”

“Thank you!” Lian Ru Ning took the cookies and gave one to Hao Jian, but Hao Jian held her belly and waved her hands.

“What’s wrong?” Li Ge noticed her strangeness and asked hurriedly.

Hao Jian asked, “Is there a restroom here?”

“Yeah, it’s next to that utility room.’ Li Ge pointed outside.

The toiled and utility room of this gas station are separated from the convenience store, about ten meters apart. Normally, this distance is not far, but now in this extraordinary period, no one knows if they will encounter zombies after going out. After the Li family came here, it was much better to hide in the corner.

“I’ll go to the bathroom.” Hao Jian got up and Li Chang stopped her.

Hao Jian looked at him strangely, “What’s the matter?”

“It’s dangerous for you to go by yourself, shall I go with you?”

Hao Jian’s face changed. She looked outside for a while and said. “There are no zombies outside. I will take care of the physiological problem and come back. You- “

She didn’t say the rest, but anyone could guess what she meant. After all, it was too abrupt for Li Chang to do this.

Li Ge touched Li Chang’s arm, the latter also reflected and did not explain. Lian Ru Ning felt that Hao Jian’s reaction was a little weird. If she still couldn’t respond, they would probably be wasting a few days.

“I’ll accompany her. After all, there are some things that are better for girls to solve.” Lian Ru Ning smiled.

“That’s not good!” Li Chang stared at Lian Ru Ning, she was uncomfortable with this look.

“Why is it bad?” Lian Ru Ning asked rhetorically.

Li Ge smiled and pulled Li Chang aside, “We’ll just help by looking after her from here. If you don’t need to go to the bathroom, you can eat something to fill your stomach first!”

Li Chang’s gaze fell on Xin Ting who was eating and nodded, giving way to Hao Jian ang Lian Ru Ning.

At the moments when Hao Jian stepped into the bathroom, Lian Ru Ning heard a soft voice saying, “Be Careful.”

Lian Ru Ning’s heart suddenly lit up. The moment Hao Jian asked her to go out, she had already guessed something but she didn’t know what it was, so she wanted to ask Hao Jain for verification.

The bathroom door wasn’t closed tightly. Lian Ru Ning stood outside, listening to the sounds coming from the crack of the door.

“You really deserve to be innocent college students, you were fooled so easily.” Hao Jian said coldly.

Lian Ru Ning curled her lips, “How did you find the strange thing?”

“If it weren’t for our weapons that were still on the ground after we were kidnapped and have not been recovered, I would’ve believed them that they kidnapped us and brought to the convenience store for safety reasons.”

Lian Ru Ning widened her eyes, yes, their weapons were a threat and thrown away and they have not been recovered!

“Secondly, don’t you think their combination is weird?”

“You don’t have to keep guessing, we’re running out of time and if we don’t go back soon, they’ll have doubts.”

“Li Chang is Li Ge’s brother. He seems to be thirty. According to them, these two brothers live with their parents right? Besides, Li Chang never said that he was already married, he is very likely to be a bachelor.”

Hao Jian’s voice paused, “Although maliciously speculating that an older leftover man is not friendly, in this world of moral loss, I don’t have much kindness to them. So I’ll just say it straight. Li Chang’s eyes is always leaning towards you, he has targeted you. In order to reduce out guard, he deliberately pretended to be very kind.”

Goose bumps covered Lian Ru Ning’s entire body, “No, if he’s interested in me, why didn’t he resort to coercive means?”

“Their family is there and we’re three people, can he force it? So I guess he must first imprison us and control us, and when we have no more room to resist, he will brainwash you and let you follow him with all your heart. In addition, they saw that our combat effectiveness was okay, so they moved to use our minds!”

Hao Jian wasn’t finished speaking, “I just found out that Li Ge brought you water from the shelf and I didn’t hear the sound of unscrewing a fresh bottle, so the bottle of water is most likely opened. His child was hungry but Liu Shu took out the food from under the covered cardboard boxes, not the food on the shelves that were within reach. . . ”

Speaking of this, Lian Ru Ning still didn’t understand what was going on. She glanced at the convenience store, only to find that Li Chang’s deep eyes were staring at her. She was so scared that her whole body shivered.

“I said that we are college students so that should’ve lowered their guard, but it won’t last long so we have to find a way.”