In the living room, we carefully confirmed the exact locations we needed to go after heading out, and also mapped out two emergency escape routes we could use if things went south.
Learning from the last time, we decided to leave Shen Feng at home this time.
Yangyang came with us.
I had already made up my mind to properly train him.
All the lectures in the world are useless—he needs to chop down some walkers himself to truly learn how to survive in the apocalypse.
After all, I can't protect him forever.
And frankly, in a world like this, I don't even know how long I'll survive myself.
We didn't plan to let Li Jiaqiang's group know about the alleyway or the two cars we'd stashed there.
So we made a last-minute decision to lead them onto the main road, scout the situation, then head straight to a nearby convenience store for supplies.
After that, we'd just grab a random car on the road and drive to the bottled water company.
With Suo Tian around, there was no need to worry about whether the car had keys.
After stepping outside, we moved quickly toward the main road.
At the intersection, Suo Tian signaled for everyone to stay close to the wall and keep hidden.
Then he peeked around the corner to assess the situation on the street.
After a moment, he turned back and whispered, "There are just under thirty walkers on the road. About thirty meters ahead, there's a small convenience store. Once we move out, stay coordinated—take down every single one. If even one starts wailing, it'll draw in more walkers. Once inside the store, move quietly. Take as much as you can, but make it quick."
Li Jiaqiang and the others nodded, their faces serious and clearly nervous.
"Remember, destroy their heads. Cutting up anything else won't do a thing," I reminded them, then drew my dagger.
I exchanged a glance with Suo Tian, gave a nod to signal I was ready.
Suo Tian looked over his shoulder at the group, then gave the signal to move forward.
The group immediately surged ahead.
There were a lot more walker corpses on the road now.
The ones still moving around were spread out.
Suo Tian and I led the charge.
Suo Tian drew his blade—fast, fierce, and precise.
It was usually one slash per walker.
At first, Li Jiaqiang's group huddled behind us, too scared to move forward.
But gradually, after the blond guy stepped up and smashed in the skull of a female walker with a single blow, their confidence started to build.
One by one, they stepped forward and hacked away fiercely.
Some walkers' heads were completely crushed under their repeated strikes.
Even when their clothes got splattered with thick, dark blood and brain matter, they didn't seem to care.
If Suo Tian hadn't reminded them to keep quiet, I was pretty sure they'd be whistling and cheering already.
Before long, we reached the front of the convenience store.
The glass door was slightly ajar.
Several shoes were scattered at the entrance.
They were probably left behind in the chaos when people tried to flee in a panic.
I could only hope the owners of those shoes weren't still inside the store.
I tapped lightly on the glass door—inside, it remained completely silent, not a single sound.
After exchanging a nod with Suo Tian, I took the lead and stepped into the store.
Holding my dagger across my chest, I quickly scanned the rows of shelves.
Things were scattered and messy, but fortunately, there weren't any walkers inside.
Behind the counter, there was a large dried pool of blood, giving off a faint metallic stench.
Once I confirmed it was safe, I waved at Li Jiaqiang and the others at the entrance, signaling them to close the door and come in.
I grabbed all the big plastic bags from under the counter and handed them out.
As they spread out to gather supplies,
I ran over to the snack shelves and picked up a few drinks.
Rongrong and the others love these.
As for the cookies, I didn't plan to compete with them—there weren't many to begin with.
But there were a lot of instant noodles.
Boxes and boxes stacked in the corner.
Li Jiaqiang and his crew weren't stupid—after stuffing two big bags full of cookies, they realized they couldn't carry everything in one trip, so they just started hauling out entire boxes of instant noodles.
Blondie even found two unopened boxes of sausage.
This place wasn't far from home.
We left four people to carry the supplies while the others covered them.
We quickly left the now-cleared convenience store.
It only took us a minute to run back to the base of Li Jiaqiang's building.
The gate was swiftly opened.
They dumped everything into the courtyard, and we set out again.
This time, we were heading to the bottled water company.
It was located about a kilometer north of the mall.
There were several schools in the surrounding area.
Not far ahead of the convenience store, there was a large van parked by the roadside—more than enough space to carry all of us.
The door wasn't locked, but the keys weren't inside.
Suo Tian fiddled with something in the driver's seat for a while, and the van suddenly started.
Now wasn't the time to be curious—we all quickly jumped in and headed toward the bottled water company.
There were barely any walkers on the road.
Compared to the time when Shen Feng's car was surrounded, this was almost pitifully few.
"Why are there so few of them?" I asked, puzzled.
Suo Tian frowned and glanced around. "Probably got drawn away by something... or maybe they all scattered somewhere else."
"Could it be that truck from earlier?"
"Maybe."
There's only one main street in the county town.
The side roads don't see much traffic and are pretty narrow.
That truck made such a show passing through the center—walkers don't think, they just blindly follow whatever's ahead.
It's not impossible that they've all left town by now, chasing after it in a herd.
If that's really the case, then all we can do is pray that truck doesn't break down halfway.
Otherwise, everyone inside is screwed.
These walkers don't feel fatigue.
They may be slow, but they keep going nonstop—sooner or later, they'll catch up.
The road was smooth, and we arrived quickly at the bottled water company
(also called the purified water plant—basically just a big warehouse full of water barrels).
Either way, we had that truck to thank for drawing the walkers away.
We parked the van in front of the building.
Our group got out and looked around at the surroundings.
There were a lot of schools nearby, but only a few residential homes.
It was very open—nothing blocking our view—so if anything happened, we'd see it coming in time.
The factory doors were locked.
I took out a hairpin and handed it to Suo Tian.
He accepted it and casually fiddled with the big iron lock for a few moments.
With a crisp click, the lock popped open.
"Nice skills," the blond guy muttered, a bit impressed. "Still a little below mine though."
Li Jiaqiang gave him a glare, and he shut up awkwardly.
I couldn't be bothered to deal with him.
I just told Yangyang to stay alert, then reached out and pushed the door open.
We entered the warehouse.
It was huge, with hundreds—maybe thousands—of empty water jugs stacked outside.
"They should be further in," Suo Tian said, pointing toward the back of the warehouse.
"Watch our six," I reminded the group behind us.
Then I tightened my grip on my weapon and moved forward cautiously with Suo Tian.
There were a lot of large metal shelves in the warehouse, scattered all around, seriously obstructing our line of sight.
I had no idea what they were originally used for.
The warehouse was deathly quiet—I could even hear my own heartbeat.
Eyes locked on my surroundings, I didn't pay attention to my feet and accidentally kicked an empty can.
The sudden noise startled not just me, but also the people behind me.
I turned around and gave them an apologetic wave.
Just then, a low growl came from behind one of the racks on the right ahead.
We immediately froze on the spot.
Everyone gripped their weapons tighter, nerves instantly tensing up, ready to slice any walker that came out into pieces.
But after a long moment, the growling behind the shelves was still there—yet no walker came out.
It was very strange.
If there were walkers, those starved monsters would've come straight toward the noise, no doubt about it.
I swallowed hard to steady my nerves.
Quickly glancing back at Yangyang behind me to make sure he was safe, I turned to lock eyes with Suo Tian.
He gave me a slight nod.
Then, after signaling to Li Jiaqiang and the others to stay put, the two of us raised our blades and slowly approached the metal shelves ahead.
The closer we got, the clearer the sounds became.
They were definitely coming from walkers.
But why weren't they coming out?
With a head full of questions, we rounded the first metal shelf…
The sight in front of me almost made me vomit.
Piled in front of the shelves were dozens of severed walker limbs—cleanly hacked off.
The mangled parts were stacked into a small hill, all reeking of rot.
The dark blood had pooled into a congealed little river, blackened and thick, covered in swarms of flies.
Some of the walkers were just heads—still twitching and struggling to moan through their half-rotten mouths.
One of the walkers, toothless and barely recognizable, even had a confused little mouse squirming out of its mouth.
At last, I understood why we could hear the sounds but hadn't seen any walkers moving around…
Covering my mouth, I staggered several steps backward as waves of bile surged up my throat.
It hadn't felt that bad just moments ago, but now, seeing the grotesque scene before me, the stench in the air became unbearable.
Suo Tian walked up to the corpse pile and began using his long blade to lift and examine the severed limbs carefully.
He wasn't even fazed by the disgust!
Watching him lift a rotten leg skewered on the tip of his blade, I couldn't hold it in anymore—I bolted out of the warehouse and threw up messily by the roadside…
Gasping for fresh air, my mouth filled with the acrid taste of bile.
Tears and snot poured down my face.
I wiped them away roughly and took a while to finally catch my breath.
I felt like I was finally alive again…
Before long, Yangyang and the others, including Suo Tian, all came out as well.
Except for Suo Tian, everyone else looked utterly horrified.
Especially the blond—his face looked downright green.
Once we got in the car, no one said a word.
As Suo Tian started the engine, he turned to me and said, "Those severed limbs were caused by blunt force. It was done by humans. There must've been quite a few people hiding there for a while."
"Are those people insane? Chopping up walkers and stacking them inside their own hideout? What, were they saving them for dumpling filling or something?"
"Ugh…"
Blondie finally couldn't take it anymore—he stuck his head out the window and threw up…