Apocalypse: the Most Ruthless Person

“Damn…”

Lu Yubo plopped down on the ground, throwing his cigarette and fork aside, staring at the flaming corpse less than two meters away in horror. If it weren’t for the group saving him, he’d either be gnawed to death by a zombie or burnt to a crisp!

“Serves you right for being cocky, almost met your end there, now thank Old Tan!”

Zhang Su was startled, the zombie in its frenzy moved alarmingly fast.

“Thanks, thanks, Sister Tan. If I weren’t so old, I’d want to be your godson, damn!”

Lu Yubo wiped his cold sweat and babbled nonsense; he was really frightened just now. Unexpected events are different from battles; various hormones hadn’t had the chance to kick in before things changed, too terrifying.

“Forget it, forget it, having Dakun as a godson is enough…” Tan Huajun waved her hand.

Mo Qianlan stood aside, watching her mom show off her prowess, and seeing her brother clown around who had saved her from the mall, she couldn’t help but smile slightly.

Yuwen looked at the burning zombie lying on the ground, adjusted his glasses, and analyzed, “Zombies seem to draw energy from the flames, like injecting a starving human with huge doses of stimulants, suddenly bursting out with incomprehensible speed and strength — it’s terrifying!”

“Zombies fearing fire is relative; they’re indeed flammable and can be eliminated with flames, but before they’re taken down, you must endure their stormy assault!”

Everyone nodded, after witnessing the madness of flaming zombies, all were terrified; it’s a tactic of mutual destruction with no winner…

Zhang Su shook his hands, sighed, “Looks like dealing with zombies using fire isn’t reliable… unless we create special conditions or traps. Otherwise, could have fought them off but light a fire, it’s over, slaughtered!”

Zhao Dezhu grinned, “Exactly, with that thing on fire, who’s gonna fight it? Get close and you’re burnt, gotta use guns, with obstacles, or there’s no safe shooting range!”

Though the burning zombie was stopped from running further, its momentary movement showed its speed was extremely fast!

Imagine if over a hundred flaming zombies collectively charged at the camp; without a dozen or twenty rifles firing simultaneously, it’d be hard to fend off!

“It’s a double-edged sword, kills both the enemy and ourselves!”

Zhang Su felt lucky not to have used fire recklessly in battle, or the camp would have been doomed by the flaming zombie assault without even a single chance for error!

“Everyone, look, something’s changing!”

As the group discussed, Tan Huajun pointed at the burning zombie on the ground and shouted.

Since the zombie was ignited, roughly ten minutes passed, and the zombie’s body began to slowly melt, like a wax statue encountering high heat, gradually deforming from a solid into a very viscous liquid, similar to asphalt, collapsing from its human form into a large pool.

“Normally, human bodies don’t burn easily, this thing is peculiar, loves and resists burning — if it could be used to burn for cooking, that’d be handy!”

Zhao Dezhu, being the camp’s cook, looked at the burning zombie corpse thoughtfully.

“Brother Zhuzi, you have quite the heavy taste, cooking with zombie bodies? Can’t imagine what that’d smell like!” Qi Xiaoshuai’s face twitched, unable to imagine the scene.

“Before mummy brown paint was invented, locals in Egypt would dig up mummies to use as firewood, resources were limited, as long as it had utility value, who cared?”

Liu Tianji shared a cold piece of knowledge.

Zhang Su walked to the downwind and sniffed, frowned and returned to the group, “There’s a weird smell; unpleasant, otherwise zombie corpses could truly be used as firewood, more efficient than wood…”

The material for making mummies gives off a fragrant aroma when burnt, but zombies emit an indescribable smell that’s different from their living rot, very unique, no one can describe it, never smelled before.

“If we can’t cook, then… heating should be possible, right?” Zhong Xiaoshan asked.

“Heating?”

“Seems like it could work.”

“Hey, you don’t say, you really don’t say…” Zhang Su felt this suggestion was quite feasible.

Yu Qing pursed her lips and said, “In some Nordic countries, thermal companies collaborate with crematoriums, incinerators provide some heating for citizens…”

“Damn, are there souls roaring in the heating pipes?”

Wu Lue had an extremely odd smile.

“That’s not a joke.” Zhang Su said seriously, “Winter’s here, starting tomorrow we’ll burn the furnace for heating. You all arrange rooms, gather in Little Lucky and Wangshan inns to live, so we don’t have to burn another heating furnace!”

Apart from the simplest Qingfeng Xiaozhu, other inns have added their own heating equipment.

“Almost every day zombies wander to the camp, whether two or three are enough to burn isn’t even considered, but it can largely relieve coal pressure! Tonight I’ll write a schedule, arrange the boiler shifts, everyone familiarize yourselves when you have time.”

Everyone nodded one after another, indicating no problem.

“By the way, how long can this zombie burn?”

Lu Yubo calmed his mind this time, lit a cigarette again, and found that after the zombie turned into a gelatinous state, it burned for a few minutes without seeming to change.

“Just wait and see!” Zheng Xinyu, carrying Corgi Good Fortune, gathered by the fire, stretching her hand for warmth.

Lighting the zombie doesn’t mean the experiment is over, at least we need to wait and see how long a zombie can burn. After waiting for an hour, the black, sticky substance melting from the zombie seemed to have shrunk by only half…

Splish splash.

Zhang Su poured a bucket of water over it, hardly able to wait any longer, reaching a rough conclusion that a zombie can burn for two hours.

…

One night passed, and the next morning when Zhang Su woke up, he clearly felt the temperature drop again. He glanced at the bedside electronic clock with a thermometer, which showed only eight degrees.

The room temperature was eight degrees, which was the temperature with the three people tightly shutting the doors and windows, so the outdoor temperature at night must have reached zero degrees or even lower!

After dressing, he opened the curtains and looked; sure enough, there was a thin layer of ice near the well in the yard where water had accumulated.

In the morning, everyone in the camp was busy with their respective tasks. Zhang Su still led people to Xiang Village to pull supplies. There were some places in Niuquanzi Town that hadn’t been cleaned up yet, but there was no hurry over there.

In the afternoon, Zheng Xinyu tidied up the meal left for Zhang Su and the others and was just about to ask when Zhang Su would return when she heard a voice coming from the walkie-talkie.

“Everyone pay attention, a car is approaching, a car is approaching. We don’t know if it’s someone from United Village, everyone stay alert!”

Tan Huajun was in the monitoring room, passing the message to everyone in the camp as he watched a slowly moving SUV on the self-built road on the screen.

Down the mountain, in the passenger seat of the Tuguan, Wang Xingui looked around, his face showing envy.

“Brother Guizi, the environment here is really nice, with mountains and water. Why didn’t we think of coming here before?”

A bald young man sat in the back seat, his face pressed against the window, looking fierce but speaking in a simple manner.

“You don’t like to hear this when I say you’re simple, think about it, who around here didn’t know Celestial Horse Island was a good place? Those bosses up the mountain running inns, could they have come here before the disaster struck? King Yama occupies this place, and you think we can too?”

Wang Xingui sternly lectured his subordinate.

The middle-aged man driving chuckled, “Xiaobo, your Brother Guizi is right. With things like this, you can’t assume you can just because others can, your wife can give birth, can you?”

Xiaobo made funny expressions, “Uncle Zhong, your comparison is nonsense, men and women aren’t the same…”

“Alright, forget men and women, let’s just say a few years ago, the old village chief saw people in Xige Village get rich raising raccoons and rallied our villagers to start raising too. Everyone lost ten thousand in the end, only to find out Xige Village had a boss with a factory in Cang City, producing and selling all by themselves!”

“Then we can also build a factory in Cang City…”

“Enough, enough, I’m already regretting bringing you out. If you can’t talk proper later, just don’t talk, don’t embarrass me! Also, don’t shout King Yama’s name, if he really gets angry, you’ll be waiting for a beating!”

Wang Xingui really didn’t want to bring Xiaobo out, but Xiaobo’s sister has been getting on well with him recently, coaxing him to bring Xiaobo out to see the world, so there was no choice.

Is that seeing the world? That’s meeting King Yama. If it weren’t for the Cyan Dragon Corps issue standing in the way, he wouldn’t want to come here.

In a short time, the car stopped at the mountain gate, and Wang Xingui and the others nimbly got out of the car.

“Hey handsome and beautiful folks, I’m Wang Xingui, Guizi, I arranged with your leader Brother Zhang to come over this afternoon, where’s Brother Zhang?”

“Uh-huh, Brother Su knows, he’s still at Xiang Village, he’ll be back soon, why don’t you come inside, have a seat and a cup of tea!”

On the day they annihilated the Beita Camp, Zheng Xinyu had dealt with Wang Xingui and remembered him.

“Sure thing! Uncle Zhong, could you drive the car in, I’ll take Xiaobo and follow everyone inside.”

“Okay!”

Uncle Zhong jumped into the car and slowly drove it into the camp.

Wang Xingui and Xiaobo followed Zheng Xinyu and the others up the path. As far as the eye could see, many facilities made him amazed: walls, barbed wire, chevaux-de-frise, spikes, and openings left for killing zombies…

This is what a safe camp should look like. Compared to Celestial Horse Island, United Village’s defenses seemed simple and shabby.