CH 26

How tragic.

Xin Ting saw the corpses around the overturned bus and couldn’t help but vomit yesterday’s food. Most of what she ate had almost been digested so all that came out was some water.

Peng Mao also stares blankly, “Why, why did no one come to rescue them?”

Those were people rather than zombies. It was obvious that the passenger car overturned, rushed over the guardrail and rolled down the slope of the river. Maybe there are still people alive, but no one cares about the life and death of other people aside from themselves.

Lian Ru Ning’s eyes became wet. Compared to watching living people turn into zombies, she is even more unable to accept the corpses of innocent civilians.

Hao Jian did not speak and picked a wild flower from the side of the road. She became silent for a moment a threw it down the corpse on the slope.

“Let’s go!” She said, “This is already a world that can be called ‘hell.’ If you want to leave hell alive, you can only move on.”

As one of the most populous countries in the world and a province in the first echelon in terms of population, the spread of zombie virus was fast. Once chaos occurs, the number of deaths caused by accidents will also sharply rise.

Hao Jian can’t estimate how many people are still alive, but she feels that many people have died in the car accidents on the road.

Some cars may have accidents due to a zombie virus outbreak, and some may be fighting to get away from the dangerous virus. Once an accident occurs, subsequent cars are likely to block roads. Nervous and impatient people are then likely to be impulsive and cause more accidents.

Of course, there will not be too many zombies in the blocked road because once people knew that there is a jam ahead or zombies, they will no longer sit around and wait for death. They would rather walk and flee.

Therefore, in Hao Jian’s vision, she can guess that there will be many zombies around the congested road. Despite the danger, they still need to explore the congested road because there are so many cars that can be used there.

Peng Mao said, “But good cars are stuck in the middle of the road. Even if we find them, we won’t be able to drive them out!”

Hao Jian glanced at Xin Ting, “Xin Ting is here, don’t worry.”

Xin Ting’s heart throbbed. She felt so good in being trusted!

Seeing Peng Mao a little puzzled, Lian Ru Ning explained, “Xin Ting can repair cars. We don’t have to go to the middle. We can just find a car that’s not badly damaged.”

Peng Mao exclaimed, “Really, you are so amazing!”

“. . . ” Why do they feel that Peng Mao’s gay?

“By the way. . . ” Hao Jian looked at Peng Mao, “Are you sure you want to follow us? I thought we should part ways today.”

Peng Mao’s heart tightened and said, “I know I have no fighting capability, but I have nowhere to go. And you actually need me too, don’t you?”

“Don’t but gold on your own face.” Hao Jian said ruthlessly, as if the friendliness she had previously treated him was false.

But Peng Mao was not discouraged. He wanted to try and prove his worth. He was considered a useless person for Ding Gu-nian and the others, but for Hao Jian and the others, he can at least block some unkind eyes for them.

“Because I am useful to you, you chose to let me talk to the villagers yesterday evening, didn’t you?” Peng Mao pointed out.

Hao Jian raised her eyebrow and glanced at him, “I didn’t expect you to be quite smart.”

Hao Jian’s thoughts were not revealed to anyone, but Peng Mao saw her intentions so he had quite a perceptive mind.

“No wonder you are the fifth scum.” Hao Jian replied.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Peng Mao breathed a sigh of relief. Hao Jian agreed to have him, even if it was only for the mean time.

“What are you talking about?” Lian Ru Ning and Xin Ting were still a little unsure.

“Imagine, if he was by our side at the beginning, would Li Chang stare at you?” Hao Jian flicked Lian Ru Ning’s forehead with her index finger. The latter was holding her slightly numbed forehead and realized what Hao Jian meant.

“Paper tigers can still scare people away.” Hao Jian added.

Peng Mao curled his eyebrows, “Isn’t it too much to say that I’m a paper tiger?”

Xin Ting covered her mouth and smiled, “It’s a very appropriate description.”

Peng Mao’s words slipped from his mouth and he changed his words, “Well, I admit it.”

The atmosphere was more active and relaxed than before, and in this relaxed atmosphere, they stood at the intersection of Jiangcheng Avenue marked on the map.

The intersection that was originally five or six meters wide was blocked by a few overturned cars. You can see that the guardrail of the river has also been washed away and the bottom is like a car recycling yard.

The stone fences on both sides of Jiangcheng Avenue showed signs of severe impact and scratching. Several cars were parked on the side in opposite directions with auto parts scattered all around. Many cars were parked in front of the nearby flower market. The roller shutter door of the market was half open and there were a lot of bumps and blood stains on it.

On the opposite side of the avenue are green belts and farmland. There are some home life squares and agricultural and sideline products trading centers towards the highway.

“To the left is the city center, and to the right is the highway intersection.” Peng Mao said.

“People in the city center wants to leave the city center, while the cars at the highway intersection want to leave using the highway. The guardrail in the middle of the road is not high and the cars on the opposite side can go retrograde, so when there is a lot of traffic, accidents happen like this.”

Hao Jian’s words were not nonsense, but the countless wrecks lying on the avenue showed them this fact.

Although there are zombies in the area, they are all on the congested road a few hundred meters away. Even if they come over, they will not pose much threat. Hao Jian said, “Let’s clean up the nearest road first. Xin Ting, you can check which cars are available. As for Peng Mao, you can keep track of the surroundings with your slingshot.”

There was no objection with Hao Jian’s division of labor so she went with their familiar formation and cleaned up all the immediate zombies.

In the process of killing zombies again and again, Lian Ru Ning’s attacks have become more and more precise. It took her three to four round to kill a single zombie, but now, she can take care of a zombie with two moves with most of its nerves are severed.

Although the vital part of a zombie is in the head, the nerve hidden in the neck is an important hub for the brain to convey instructions to the body. Once the brain loses this hub, even if the brain continue to send out instructions to attack living creatures, it has no limbs to move.

Therefore, for Lian Ru Ning, whose weapons and strength are not enough to break the head, attacking their necks is an effective way.

When Hao Jian used a crowbar to deal with the zombies, she consumed a lot of physical strength, so after using the Gurkha army knife, she also changed her fighting style. Instead of using brute force, she used the sharpness of the knife and skillfully slit zombie necks. One trick to ‘see the blood to seal the throat’ to the zombies.

However, she is different from Lian Ru Ning’s method. Instead of cutting off the nerves, she directly cut off the cervical spine so that the zombie’s brain has nothing to support it, resulting to its body not longer attacking people.

Many zombies also appeared in the flower market, but after being reminded by Peng Mao and the others, Hao Jian and Lian Ru Ning were able to easily deal with them.

In the end, Hao Jian didn’t know how many zombies she had dealt with. She only knew that she had already walked into the flower market.

The flower market has three venues. Because the layout of the market is not a separate area, the situation inside can be seen at a glance from the door. The market was full of corpses, withered flowers, and trees all over the floor, still exuding bursts of stench.

Hao Jian got in through the half-opened rolling door and provided some light to the market.

She saw a figure slowly walking towards her that had strange movement. It could be judged as a zombie, but it didn’t have the speed that other zombies should have.

She held the army knife and walked over. Just as she was about to deal with it mercilessly, her expression turned weird.

Lian Ru Ning was behind her and was about to remind Hao Jian, but when she saw that her hand had lifted the knife and fell, the zombie fell to the ground, unable to get up again.

Lian Ru Ning breathed a sigh of relief and asked, “Why did you just now –“

Before she could finish her question, she looked at the zombie and was shocked upon what she saw.

The zombie on the ground was slow because it was an old woman that had limited mobility before it turned into a zombie. Hao Jian and Lian Ru Ning were very familiar with the old woman, it was the mother of Li Chang and Li Ge. . .

“Why is she here?” Lian Ru Ning murmured.

She couldn’t say what explain what she was feeling. Although she hated what Li Chang’s family did, seeing someone after separation as a zombie in a place like this was something she didn’t expect. She was a little dazed.

She wasn’t pitying Mrs. Li, but she had a little more knowledge of the cruelty of reality.

There was no expression on Hao Jian’s face, “There’s no way that she was left behind like this, which means that the car is also nearby.”

As soon as she fell silent, she instinctively sensed a trace of danger. She raised her army knife and swung out to the side and back again kicked her foot at the same time.

The zombie who was only cut on its arm by Hao Jian was kicked to the ground by her. She quickly took out the crowbar and knocked its forehead. Lian Ru Ning had also recovered, remembering the glimpse she saw, the zombie seemed to be Li Chang.

“Sure enough –” She sighed secretly and grabbed Hao Jian’s hand, “It’s dead, save some energy!”

“No, I can’t kill him while he was still human, but he’s now a zombie. I will avenge you!” Hao Jian said.

Lian Ru Ning hadn’t noticed that Hao Jian had such a cautious side before. The melancholy just disappeared and she couldn’t help but happily reply, “Are you sure you are not venting yourself? Obviously you’re always on guard, but you still take advantage of them. Did they hurt your pride?”

Hao Jian stopped and turned her face away from Lian Ru Ning and pouted so that she couldn’t see.

At this time, Xin Ting’s scream suddenly came from outside. They exchanged glances and immediately rushed out.

They thought Xin Ting and the others were in danger, but she didn’t expect that she was looking at a broken car by the side of the road in horror. The car was very familiar, and they quickly recognized it. It was the car that Li Chang and his family robbed from them.

They saw that the car that was initially damaged was even more dilapidated. The front cover was lifted, the windshield was broken in half, and the right rear door glass seemed to have been smashed by something. There was a lot of glass inside the car and there were bloodstains on the seat and the door.

The doors of the car were all open. There was a small corpse lying beside the wheel and he was holding an intercom in his hand.

“The girl, Li Ge and his wife are gone.” Lian Ru Ning said.

“I’m afraid it’s too bad.”

Peng Mao leaned over, “Why, do you know each other?”

“This is the family who stole our car.”

Peng Mao’s eyes widened, “Heaven recycles, retribution is unhappy!”

Hao Jian retrieved two walkie-talkies from the boy’s hand and from the driver’s seat. She also retrieved her mobile phone and wallet in the back seat. The cash inside was gone but the bank card and ID were still there. As for the backpacks, both hers and Xin Ting’s backpacks were gone. They obviously threw them away.

“Can the car still be used?” Hao Jian asked Xin Ting.

Xin Ting recovered and shook her head, “I found a car that can be driven but it’s out of gas so I came to see if there are still some cars that can provide some gas. . . “

“Then you keep looking, let’s push all the cars in the way aside and clear a way.”

Fortunately, the section on their side is not completely blocked, as long as the section from here to the Civic Avenue is cleared, they will have a smoother way.