"Hmm~ It seems like we are starting to turn our luck around!"
When Jack walked into the convenience store with Bai Ru, he looked at the goods inside with satisfaction. He wondered if the store owner had just restocked on the day the plague broke out. Not only was the counter filled with goods, but there were also several unopened boxes on the shelves behind the counter. However, what was a bit off-putting was a broken shelf against the wall, where some scattered blackened bones were piled up. It was evident that the zombie Bai Ru had just dealt with had gnawed on them quite thoroughly, as there wasn't even a trace of leftover meat on the bones.
"Do you think... these bones could belong to the store owner's wife? Did the store owner eat his own wife after turning into a zombie?" Bai Ru, holding the gun, looked at the pile of black bones, her pretty face filled with strange expressions.
"Unless they were buddies, that might be the case!" Jack laughed and shook his head, pointing at a piece that resembled a thigh bone and said, "A thigh bone this thick could only belong to a strong man over 1.8 meters tall. Even if a woman were that tall, her bones wouldn't be this thick!"
"Ew~ Are you serious? Buddies!" Bai Ru pouted and shot Jack a glare.
"You're the one who insists on putting them in that kind of relationship; it's your thoughts that are too wicked!" Jack laughed and shook his head, turning around to crouch behind the counter. He rummaged around and felt a uniquely shaped machete at the bottom of the counter. He weighed the machete in his hand, pulled it out of its nylon sheath, and examined it closely. To his surprise, he found a line of small words near the handle, clearly engraved: 'In commemoration of William Chengwu's retirement in the year 2002!'
Flipping it over, the four characters 'Defending Home and Country' stood out prominently!
"Sigh…"
Jack shook his head and tucked the imposing-looking machete along with its sheath into his belt. He glanced at Bai Ru, who was excitedly rummaging through the food, and swallowed the words that were about to come out of his mouth. To avoid adding to her mental burden, he decided not to tell Bai Ru that she had very likely killed a retired soldier from the special forces. Although the other party was already a living corpse, who knew how a woman with such a sensitive mindset might overthink the situation!
"Ha~ I found you a brand new razor, and it's from Gillette!" Bai Ru said with a smile as she pulled out an unopened razor from the cabinet, happily waving it at Jack.
"That's great! My old razor is just about to be replaced!" Jack replied with a smile as he took the razor from Bai Ru's hand and tucked it into his red and black waist bag marked "Red Bull Gift." He then said to Bai Ru, "You should look for more things, but don't take too many cigarettes. Focus on food. I'll go outside and find a place to bury the incomplete corpse of the shopkeeper!"
"Why bury a living corpse? There are too many incomplete corpses like that now!" Bai Ru stood up, looking at Jack with confusion.
"If you take someone else's things, you can't just leave their body exposed, right? We should have some public morality!" Jack said with a smile, shaking his head without showing any unusual reaction.
"Then... I'll go with you, after all, I was the one who killed him!" Bai Ru said hesitantly.
"No need, I can just find a hole to bury him quickly and come back!" Jack waved his hand and turned to leave.
However, after stepping outside, Jack did not just find a random hole as he had said. Instead, he took a folding shovel from the car and carefully dug a not-too-deep rectangular pit behind the small shop. He then wrapped some of the broken bones from inside the shop in a cloth, buried the broken bones along with the living corpse, and finally found a simple wooden sign. He carved "Grave of William Chengwu and his friends" on it with the knife and placed it in front of the grave.
"Master Lin..."
Just after Jack bowed three times in front of the tombstone, Bai Ru came around from the small shop with a complex expression. She handed Jack a colorful photo of Thomas, furrowing her brows as she asked, "Why didn't you tell me they were soldiers?"
Jack looked at the colorful photo of Thomas that Bai Ru handed over, which was a group photo of a dozen soldiers in camouflage uniforms. It clearly had a line of golden text that read, "Group photo of a certain special forces unit, retired, Captain William Chengwu!"
Jack looked at Bai Ru, gently shook his head, and slowly said, "What good does it do to tell you this? No one can figure out whether it's really him buried here. Even if it is him, he was just a soldier once; now he has become a living corpse. Even if his former comrades encountered him, they would still open fire! And I buried them simply because I was once a soldier too!"
"Actually, I know you are taking care of my feelings, but I'm not as fragile and sentimental as you think. I know what I killed; I won't treat them as living people. Perhaps by killing them, I can free their souls trapped in these walking corpses. I won't have any burden in my heart!" Bai Ru smiled helplessly and turned to bow three times to the tombstone.
"It's best that you can think this way. Living in a world like this, the most important thing is to adjust your mindset!" Jack nodded to Bai Ru and walked back to the small shop alongside her.
Before sunset, the girls excitedly returned to the car with piles of fresh wild vegetables, stacking them all on the roof of the car. Meanwhile, Jack and Bai Ru searched several small restaurants and convenience stores, killing quite a few living corpses and finding a good amount of supplies.
Under Jack's arrangement, Bai Ru personally killed three more living corpses. After a few times, she had become quite adept, and her weapon had upgraded from an axe to a knife made of spring steel. Although it was still a bit heavy for her, the knife's weight and sharpness allowed Bai Ru to easily dispatch the living corpses.
As night gradually fell, Jack drove the car and crashed through a white iron gate. He then slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a steady stop in the middle of a spacious yard. He jumped out of the car, feeling very confident about the surrounding terrain, and turned to shout to the people in the car, "Alright, everyone get out. We'll rest here tonight!"
This was a natural gas transfer station. Perhaps because it was a high-risk building, the area within a one-and-a-half-kilometer radius was almost entirely farmland. However, the farmland had long since become a paradise for wild grass, growing lushly to about half a person's height. But even if there were living corpses inside, their brains probably weren't good enough to hide.
Boss Hu jumped out of the passenger seat with a gun in hand, and the girls in the car also got out one by one from the back door. Following Thomas Red's instructions, they began to move things down from the car. Jack walked over to check the pressure gauge on the gas tank, and only when he saw that the pressure in all four large tanks was zero did he feel completely at ease. Otherwise, if they started cooking here at night and accidentally caused a natural gas explosion, even he and Michael would be done for, which would be a disaster!
After Bai Ru and Cao Mei got out of the car, they didn't wait for Jack to give any more instructions. They seemed to have fully entered the role of female guards, each holding a gun. Following Jack's training for cross-cover, they carefully opened the door of the single-story office building and quickly began searching inside back to back.
Ten minutes later, the two walked out looking relaxed. Bai Ru made an OK gesture to Jack, indicating that everything inside was safe. Jack nodded back at her and gave a thumbs up. Bai Ru then sweetly smiled, which made Jack's heart flutter. Not for any other reason, but because this woman was too stunning!