BC Chapter 27

Chapter 26

Wang Dong and Mei Ting became members of Zhang Biao and Meng Qinghua’s force in a daze.

Once everyone had gathered at what they called the new base, Wang Dong and Mei Ting realized that there were quite a few people. Not counting them, there were fifteen men and seven women. Apart from a few men who looked rather well-off, the rest looked young. The average age of the men and women together was definitely not much older than Wang Dong.

Mei Ting frowned and glanced at the people, noticing clear distinctions in their status.

Four or five men wore clothes that looked expensive, and seven or eight men were not only strong but also had fierce eyes, including the five who had captured them. In the corner, there were three men who didn’t say much, were rather thin, and looked about as capable in a fight as Wang Dong.

The women had various expressions. Some were timidly hiding behind the others, some were dressed scantily and sizing her up and down with aggressive eyes. A few others looked conflicted, seemingly happy about Wang Dong and Mei Ting’s arrival, but also worried about something.

However, humans never stop vying with each other, so wherever there are people, hierarchies will gradually form, which wasn’t strange. At least, Mei Ting and Wang Dong didn’t see anything strange about this group yet, and thought they had finally found a safe haven.

The place designated as the new base was actually a privately owned dental clinic on a street corner. It was three stories high. The first floor was for reception and consultations, and the second and third floors were treatment rooms and offices. It was clear that before the disaster, it had been very clean and tidy. The clinic was decorated in simple colors and looked more warm and welcoming than the large public hospitals.

The reasons for choosing this place as the new base were: first, it was relatively clean and hygienic; second, the treatment rooms had many cubicles, each with a dental chair for examinations, so everyone had a place to sleep without having to squeeze together; and third, it was located at the intersection of two streets, offering a broad view, making it easy to see what was happening in several directions and facilitating surveillance.

After gathering everyone, they quickly started working according to Zhang Biao’s instructions. Some were responsible for finding curtains to cover the front door and windows on the first floor, while others rummaged through the hospital’s stored paper documents, laying them out on the floor one by one and taping them together. Soon, the entire glass wall and door that had been exposed were covered.

Before arriving, everyone had been carrying quite a few daily necessities, food, and water. Some were responsible for sorting these items and placing them neatly in the corner of the lobby on the first floor, under everyone’s supervision to prevent anyone from stealing food. Placing them where everyone could see was the safest.

Then, someone began to arrange things for Wang Dong and Mei Ting, but not in the way they expected, like assigning them work. Instead, a man and a woman were sent to take them to separate rooms, lock the doors, and tell them to take off their clothes.

Their backpacks had already been confiscated and hadn’t yielded anything useful, so it came down to this step: a body search.

The man and woman in charge of the search tried to persuade them to go through the procedure, while informing them of the consequences of not cooperating. In short, they would either be humiliated, or beaten up and then humiliated. So they advised them to cooperate and not try any tricks.

Only then did they realize what kind of place they had fallen into. Like those ‘man-eating’ pyramid schemes, this place was also a bottomless swamp from which there was no return.

The purpose of the body search was first to prevent newcomers from hiding food, second, to prevent them from concealing weapons that could threaten the lives of the group’s leaders, and third…

To provoke their sense of shame and see how likely they were to resist, in order to judge whether the newcomers were obedient or disobedient, suitable for running errands inside or acting as bait outside with a slim chance of survival.

“Hurry up and take it off, sister, or if it takes too long, not only will you be punished, but I’ll be punished too!” said the girl called He Xiuer, clutching the corner of her shirt, looking a little shy, but still urging Mei Ting.

But Mei Ting only took off her coat. Her mind racing, she saw the window. She grabbed He Xiuer’s shoulder, pinching it so hard that He Xiuer frowned, but Mei Ting still said to her, “Girl, just let me off the hook. I know everyone has their reasons, but you can’t just watch them torture new people, can you?”

Fortunately, Mei Ting wasn’t stupid. From the mental state of the people in the base, she had already judged that this wasn’t a place to stay for long. Most of the women here were trembling, and the men were cowering. And there were two or three men and women whose exposed skin showed injuries that seemed recent.

Normally, in this special situation, gathering the strength of twenty or thirty people would be enough to maintain a relatively stable and safe situation in this chaotic environment. As long as everyone had a clear division of labor and took responsibility for their respective tasks, the atmosphere inside wouldn’t be so heavy.

But what Mei Ting saw now was the complete opposite. That meant the group was abnormal. From the sharp contrast between the uneasy women and the men with weapons who were somewhat arrogant, she could tell that this group didn’t treat women and weaker men as normal people.

Remembering the word ‘cannon fodder’ that Zhang Biao had casually said, Mei Ting felt that she could vaguely guess what these men and women had experienced. So, even though she hadn’t fully figured out what was going on, she immediately thought of escaping.

However, what she didn’t expect was that in this special period of fighting for survival, the virtues of mutual help and cooperation among humans were the first to disappear. She wanted to awaken He Xiuer’s conscience and get her to let her go, but the other party was thinking that if she messed this up, she might be the next one to attract the man-eating zombies outside.

“What do you mean? You want to escape?” He Xiuer’s body trembled, and her eyes, which had been a little distant and uneasy, suddenly became sharp.

“Yeah, just save my life. I’ll escape through this window in a while, and you just need to cooperate and not make a sound. I’ll thank you in advance, and after I get out, I’ll bring people back to save you sisters. Time is tight, so I’ll leave first.” Mei Ting said, patting He Xiuer’s shoulder reassuringly. Then, she turned and walked to the window, twisting the handle to open it.

He Xiuer’s eyes showed a complex expression. Her fingernails dug into her flesh, but when she thought about what might happen to her later, she gritted her teeth, turned around, twisted open the door lock, and shouted, “Quick! Someone, come quick! The new woman is trying to escape!”

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