BC Chapter 23

“Really not waiting for them?” Wang Dong, carrying a nearly empty backpack, tugged on the escape rope left by Lu Ziming and Zhou Yuanyuan. He had already moved his body towards the building’s outer wall, looking at Mei Ting in the restroom below, and asked hesitantly.

Although Wang Dong had previously disagreed with Mei Ting’s insistence on teaming up with Hu Ying and Huang Xiaolin, he now felt somewhat reluctant to abandon those two girls and escape with Mei Ting.

This man was like that; he never cared about his own uselessness but would endlessly complain about others’ shortcomings. When it was time to be soft-hearted, he was selfish, and when it was time to make a decision, he was indecisive.

“What? Can’t bear to leave those two beauties?” Mei Ting sneered, looking down on Wang Dong’s display of humanity. “Who was it that said those two betrayed us? Was it me? I don’t think so. For those so-called teammates who can abandon you at any time, why do you suddenly want to be so kind and bring them back? Wang Dong, oh Wang Dong, I really don’t know which eye was blind when I fell for such a useless piece of trash like you.”

“Are you coming down or not? If not, go back and find those two. I can go by myself!” Mei Ting’s expression was unkind, her words laced with barbs, clearly indicating she had had enough of Wang Dong.

“…” Wang Dong looked at Mei Ting’s hysterical appearance, knowing she was truly angry, and didn’t dare to argue back. He only lowered his head, staring at the knots on the rope beneath his feet, and slowly climbed down.

Mei Ting followed closely behind, climbing out of the restroom window as well.

Once night fell, most of the zombies seemed like fools unable to find a target, repeating meaningless actions or swaying their bodies in place.

The two were planning to take advantage of the late hour to hide in the bushes, inching their way towards the business district to find a safe place to hide and figure out their food supply.

“Bang!” A crisp explosion echoed between the buildings.

The loud noise startled the two who were lying prone on the ground, trying to avoid the zombies. They instinctively fell flat on their faces.

The zombies, originally scattered and aimless on the street, suddenly turned their heads in unison, like athletes hearing the starting gun, craning their necks and staring with their greyish-white, hazy eyes in the direction of the sound, walking, running, or shuffling towards it.

The sound seemed to come from the end of another street at the intersection. Zombies from several nearby streets were converging on the intersection. Under the dark sky, the black heads gradually formed into black dragons. The zombies jostled against each other, uttering unintelligible groans. Some, unable to move easily and still lying on the ground, had their spines broken by the stampeding horde, gradually turning into a pile of minced meat mixed with dark blood under the relentless trampling.

Startled by the noise, Wang Dong and Mei Ting instinctively huddled together, peering through the gaps in the bushes at the street. Those who were quicker had already reached the front of the horde, while the remaining, slower, elderly zombies were still inching along, trying to catch up with the departing horde.

Just as the tail end of the zombie horde disappeared around the corner of the building, five black figures slowly emerged from the shadows of another street corner not far away. Some were tall, some were short, and all were armed.

The lagging zombies seemed to sense the non-zombie aura and turned to move towards the direction the five had appeared.

The first person scratched his bald head, turned and spat impatiently, then hoarsely lowered his voice and said, “Let’s begin. Weaklings, clear them out.”

The other four standing on either side of him simply nodded slightly, changed their grip on their weapons, and hacked at the few slow-moving zombies that were approaching.

Dark clouds passed over, and the originally pitch-black street was illuminated by the half-moon that had emerged from the sky. Using the faint moonlight, Mei Ting, who had poked half her head out of the bushes, finally made out the figures’ attire.

All five were men, wearing black clothes and pants. Some wore black suits, others wore black tracksuits, and some wore black shirts with their sleeves rolled up. All five had short weapons; three carried cleavers, the kind used for cutting fruit, with blades longer than a person’s forearm. The other two larger men carried fire axes painted red.

The five moved quickly, striking decisively and ruthlessly. The sporadic zombies that charged forward had little chance to fight back and were quickly dispatched one after another. The street was cleared, and the men spread out to patrol the surroundings. One of them was heading towards the bushes where Wang Dong and Mei Ting were hiding.

Wang Dong and Mei Ting had been nervously watching the fight. When they saw the men were beginning to sweep the area, they tried to hide, but the man who was patrolling didn’t bother to look closely. Instead, he raised his fire axe and smashed it into the bushes again and again. Seeing that the man was about to strike, Mei Ting and Wang Dong knew they couldn’t hide, so they slowly stood up from behind the bushes with their hands raised.

“Don’t, don’t hit us, big brother. There are no zombies here,” Wang Dong said first.

But the patrolling man, suddenly seeing two dark figures rising from the bushes, thought they were escaped zombies, and his heart tightened. He raised his axe to strike. But in the next second, he heard a human voice and narrowly pulled his arm back.

The axe blade almost grazed Wang Dong’s body, landing and splitting the bushes in front of him.

Wang Dong’s raised hands had changed into a posture of crossing his arms to protect his head when he saw the other party hacking at him regardless. The whistling of the axe passed in front of him, and he instantly thought he was finished, that he was going to die.

Until the axe struck, Mei Ting pulled him back. Wang Dong, regaining his senses, collapsed, his legs giving out. If he hadn’t been dehydrated before, he would have pissed himself.

The man on the other side breathed a sigh of relief, pulled back his axe, and stared at the two in the bushes. Seeing that they were a man and a woman who looked harmless and unarmed, he lowered his voice and ordered, “Living people? Grab your things, don’t make any noise, come out!”