Apocalypse: the Most Ruthless Person

“Old Tan, Lanlan, come quickly, let’s scavenge for supplies together!”

After a massive blow, Zhang Su did not let Tan Huajun and Mo Qianlan wallow in sadness alone. He called them to join in the labor to quickly alleviate their grief.

The five-story furniture store had no food or drinks, but there were still plenty of useful items. In the apocalypse, many previously unnoticed industrial products became incredibly valuable, like tools and weapons. Fire axes and extinguishers on each floor had to be taken.

Even the fire hoses weren’t spared. The sturdy hoses were great for tripping zombies.

There were many things they wanted to take, but due to limited carrying capacity, they could only choose the highest priority items.

After seven o’clock, the sky brightened, and everyone gradually loaded things onto the vehicle. Zhang Su stood on the RV, looking around, wanting to test the exact improvement of his vision. Unfortunately, without any instruments, he couldn’t quantify it, similar to his hearing.

He came to a general conclusion: aside from night vision, his eyes could bring things ninety percent closer; something about a hundred meters away appeared as if it were ten meters ahead, while objects a kilometer away seemed the same as looking at something a hundred meters away for a normal person.

Most importantly, Zhang Su discovered a trick that was combining it with binoculars, vastly expanding his field of view.

It wasn’t as exaggerated as a thousand-mile sight, but if the terrain was open enough, seeing within ten kilometers was no problem. In reality, it’s rare to have such an open view, so it’s entirely sufficient!

After some practice, Zhang Su went from getting dizzy with each focus adjustment to gradually adapting to the enhanced vision.

“Brother Su, we’re done here. Should we eat first or head out now?”

Lu Yubo found some intricate hand-carved beads from a random shop, fiddling with them in his hand. The contrast with the bloodstains on his clothes looked mismatched.

“Let’s eat first, then head out!”

Zhang Su withdrew his gaze, contemplating the plan ahead.

With the team’s numbers increasing, the rate of food consumption was also gradually rising. Thankfully, they replenished supplies at Shuwa Village, so currently, they’re well-stocked.

Rice, flour, grains, oil, all sorts of seasonings were prepared. Together with the cooking facilities in the RV, even a bowl of dough soup tasted flavorful in this late autumn and early winter season.

After everyone ate, the convoy set off again, slowly moving toward the eastern end of Wenhua Road. From the furniture store, it was just over a two-kilometer straight path.

“The road is so quiet…”

Driving forward, Zhang Su noticed there were hardly any zombies on the road, and surprisingly few cars, making him quite surprised.

“This street is always like this, never lively. My house is just past that street, Xicheng Flower Language… Previously, I only knew there was an important unit here, so no other major plans were made. Who knew it was actually a military presence,” Zhong Xiaoshan’s voice came from the back.

“You bought a house so far out?”

Zhang Su quickly glanced back at Zhong Xiaoshan. He had never known where she lived until now.

Zhong Xiaoshan smiled at Zhang Su through the rearview mirror and said, “No money, but wanting a big house, the houses here are spacious. It was quite cheap when I bought it, only over three thousand per square meter, and I like peace and quiet, so I bought it.”

“Three thousand…that’s really cheap.”

Zhao Dezhu sighed. Before the disaster, he was always keeping an eye on house prices. It was either eight thousand or ten thousand, often giving him headaches.

“So why didn’t you mention swinging by your neighborhood gate just now for a look?”

Zhang Su asked.

“No point going, surely corpses all over, seeing it would only make me sad…” Zhong Xiaoshan shook her head but couldn’t help glancing toward the neighborhood direction, self-mockingly saying, “A twenty-five-year mortgage, only paid off for five years.”

“You’re much better off than me. I paid full price for mine, and it just went up in flames,”

Zhang Su shook his head helplessly, then his gaze tightened and looked far ahead. His smile gradually faded, and he slowly pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road.

“What’s wrong?”

Zheng Xinyu, adjusting the radio frequencies, asked puzzledly. There were no villages or shops nearby, and there weren’t many stores along the street. She couldn’t figure out why Zhang Su stopped here.

“Can’t go further!”

To see more clearly and for cover, Zhang Su picked up the binoculars to look ahead.

Others couldn’t see clearly, but he could distinctly see the terrifying sight seven to eight hundred meters away. Zombies packed the highway densely, extending to the edge of vision, a good three to five thousand!

Despite the wind and rain for over half a month, it was still visible that some zombies were wearing camouflage uniforms!

Through gaps sometimes visible in the zombie herd, street shadows of armored vehicles, artillery trucks, and other combat vehicles could be seen, along with a tank destroyed by an explosion…

The trees on both sides were reduced to solitary stumps, their canopies long gone, who knows what had happened before.

Corpses littering the ground were just as numerous; about as many zombies were wandering as bodies piled up. After flooding and drainage, many corpses ended up together, creating a truly shocking scene.

Even from a kilometer away, Zhang Su felt he could smell the overwhelming stench of decay. The hellish scene weighed heavily on his heart.

It’s hard to imagine the earth-shattering battle that once happened here; a war between species.

“Hey man, what’s the problem?”

Zhao Dezhu walked up from the back to the driver’s seat, looking ahead, asking.

Zhang Su handed him the binoculars and said, “See for yourself.”

“See for myself?” Zhao Dezhu took the binoculars and looked through them. After adjusting the focus, his expression suddenly froze.

“This… I… they… how could this happen!”

The scene through the binoculars left him speechless, unsure of what to say.

Every time he thought he’d seen the most brutal scenes, there would always be new heights that refreshed his understanding.

“What do we do, brother, should we still go?”

Zhao Dezhu put down the binoculars, frowned, and asked.

“Go my ass, how do we go? Didn’t you see the tank got blown up?”

“Indeed, how could the tank not make it out…”

Zhao Dezhu scratched his head.

“You think tanks are invincible? The ammunition storage of current tanks is worse than during WWII, plus this is a camp, not the front line. Whether tanks have reserve ammo is uncertain. Besides, operating a tank in battle requires at least three people to coordinate!”

“But this doesn’t explain why the tank blew up…”

“There’s one possibility…” Yuwen joined the debate, saying, “In the heat of the moment, amidst chaos, there might be friendly fire.”

Everyone exchanged glances.

“Damn, it’s really uncertain, zombies don’t care about life when attacking, I think it’s scarier than real war. When panicked, the likelihood of friendly fire is high.”

“Alright, let’s consider practical issues first.”

Zhang Su somewhat irritably lit a cigarette.

He could imagine every survivor group definitely wanting to get their hands on heavy weapons. They currently have three small pistols; if they were to encounter a group that has scavenged a military or SWAT arsenal, they’d definitely be at a disadvantage!

While thinking, Lu Yubo jumped onto a tire and asked, “Brother Su, what’s up?”

“Turn around, there’s thousands of zombies ahead, we can’t go through!”

Zhang Su opened the window and handed a cigarette to Lu Yubo.

“Thousands of zombies? Holy crap, there really seems to be something going on, are those hordes all zombies?”

Lu Yubo didn’t need a telescope; he could vaguely see a large patch of shadow with his naked eye.

“Brother Su, how about we find a way around, go from the other side?”

“Or maybe we split up and divert the zombies away, can we?”

Zheng Xinyu proposed another idea.

Zhang Su glanced at the surrounding road conditions and shook his head, “Too many. We don’t even know what’s happening inside the camp, what if it’s the same as outside? Let’s follow the original plan, find a bridge to cross the river north!”

Using sound to attract zombies has a lot of limitations, plus the situation nearby is unclear, filled with unpredictable dangers. No one knows what’s behind the next bend; if blocked from both ends, even a god couldn’t save them!

Unless they had a drone, such a godsend, but unfortunately they currently do not.

Knowing they couldn’t enter the camp, everyone felt a bit frustrated. After witnessing the evil in human hearts, everyone hoped to get guns sooner, even if they couldn’t use them yet, as long as they had them, they could slowly learn.

The three vehicles turned around and retraced their route, heading west along Wenhua Road. As they drove, Zhang Su’s peripheral vision caught two sensitive words, “Communication!”

“Turn, turn!”

Zhang Su picked up the walkie-talkie to notify everyone, turning the steering wheel towards the street with communication equipment.

“Oh wow…” Zheng Xinyu saw the empty shop fronts, and without guessing, she knew they’d been looted more than once, her expression exaggerated, “Brother Su, what are we doing here?”

Zhang Su gestured forward with his mouth, “I suddenly remembered there’s a shop selling communication equipment here. The convenience store’s surveillance equipment was bought from them.”

He improvised an excuse and drove the cars to the front of the communication equipment shop.

“Brother Su, this street is quite clean, you can’t even see a zombie shadow!”

Getting out of the car, Lu Yubo cautiously looked around, quite surprised.

Zhang Su nodded, “This area has always had few residents; apart from a few restaurants, other shops sell niche items. It’s normal not to have many people, and having been looted several times, any zombies were probably dealt with by previous survivors.”

“Xiaoliu, Xiaochen, Pei Lan, Old Tan, and Lanlan, you five keep watch outside. Zhuzi, Xinyu, Xiaoshan, Master Jia, come with me to the communication equipment shop to rummage around, while everyone else checks nearby shops for anything useful.”

Upon his order, everyone got busy.

The shops on this street had been looted several times, but it seemed previous scavengers weren’t interested in communication equipment, as the glass doors were smashed but many items inside were still intact!

Zhang Su and his group found numerous professional devices in the shop, such as gateways, routers, network adapters, and network transceivers, but the most useful were over thirty different models of walkie-talkies!

“Haha, we’re golden now, everyone can have one!”

Zhao Dezhu was very excited looking at the unopened, brand-new walkie-talkies in front of him.

“Stay there and talk, don’t come closer!”

However, just then Tan Huajun’s voice sounded in the street.

“Someone?”

The crowd inside the shop was shocked and rushed out, only to see a man standing with his hands raised in the middle of the street.