A few minutes later, Chun Cao first, Si Nan second, Zhou Rong third, Zhang Yingjie fourth – the team arranged by body size, squeezed into the narrow gaps between cables and ventilation pipes, clinging to the pipe walls and crawling forward.
Below them was a packed hall. One slip would instantly awaken hundreds of unconscious zombies.
“Yingjie, you’ve gotten fat,” Zhou Rong gritted his teeth, crawling through an especially narrow gap, groaning difficultly.
Zhang Yingjie was breathless: “You’ve gotten thinner… Rong-ge… Ugh—!”
Zhang Yingjie was covered in dust, finally squeezing through the gap where two cable pipes were almost touching.
“Another hundred meters in this direction is the fire escape. I’ll jump down and blast the safety door when we get there. You provide fire cover,” Chun Cao tightly hugged the ventilation pipe, inching forward: “Everyone hang on a bit longer, estimated zombie count ahead…”
Before finishing, Zhang Yingjie struggled to move forward at the corner. His tactical backpack rubbed against the steel ring fixing the ceiling cable, and a sharp rebar edge silently cut through the left side of the strap.
The tactical bag tilted right, hitting the ventilation pipe below.
Bang—!
The impact was amplified infinitely by the hollow pipe, causing zombies to look up and let out hungry roars!
The tactical bag hung only by the right shoulder, and gravity pulled Zhang Yingjie to the right, instantly slipping.
Zhou Rong shouted: “Yingjie!”
With a slap, Zhou Rong grabbed Zhang Yingjie’s backpack strap, lifting the entire person and equipment in mid-air with one hand!
Chun Cao cried out: “Rong-ge!”
Fortunately, this was at a ninety-degree corner; otherwise, Zhou Rong couldn’t have reached Zhang Yingjie behind him, and he would have been torn to pieces by hundreds of swarming zombies by now.
Even so, the unimaginable downward force nearly pulled Zhou Rong out. At the critical moment, he bit down and hugged the ventilation pipe, his feet tightly wrapping the pipe, barely stopping the fall.
Chun Cao roared: “Yingjie, climb up quickly!”
Zombies howled in the hall, desperately reaching up. Zhang Yingjie hung in mid-air, his toes just centimeters from the zombies’ fingernails. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t reach the ventilation pipe. Cold sweat instantly broke out: “No… I can’t…”
At that moment, with a “tear—” sound, amid the zombies’ rising roars, something particularly sharp made everyone’s nerves suddenly tense:
Zhou Rong’s field jacket couldn’t withstand such tension and split at the shoulder and back!
Zhang Yingjie roared: “Let me go, Rong-ge!”
Zhou Rong gritted his teeth and didn’t let go, his arm shaking violently.
“Hurry, Rong-ge!” Zhang Yingjie watched Zhou Rong’s body tilt down a few more degrees, his eyes bloodshot: “Let me go quickly!”
Si Nan raised his gun and aimed, shouting: “Jump—!”
The Type 8-9 heavy machine gun spewed fire, sweeping a circle of zombies in all directions!
This was a life-or-death gamble. Everyone jumped down simultaneously. The moment they landed, more zombies pounced, instantly blown to pieces by Zhou Rong and Zhang Yingjie’s assault rifles!
“Run!” Si Nan roared, as the second bullet pierced through a hundred meters of space, shattering the fire escape safety door!
Four people sprinted madly through the zombie horde, Chun Cao and Zhang Yingjie leading, Zhou Rong covering the rear. They carved out a bloody path through sheer firepower, with shell casings exploding like fireworks.
In the chaos, everyone felt zombie bodies crashing into them, but had no time to check for bites. They could only frantically spray bullets around, with entire rows of zombies sent flying backward!
In the blink of an eye, they reached the end of the hundred-meter stretch. Si Nan shouted sharply: “Move aside—”
Chun Cao and Zhang Yingjie coordinated perfectly, simultaneously turning left and right. Uninterrupted assault rifle bullets swept out in a horizontal fan.
At the same time, Si Nan lifted his Type 89, with the bullet belt dancing in the air, tearing a brutal opening through the zombie horde before the safety door!
Zhang Yingjie roared: “You all go! I’ll cover the rear!”
Si Nan grabbed Zhou Rong’s collar, dragging him toward Zhang Yingjie: “Stop talking nonsense, run!”
Zhou Rong staggered backward, pulled by Zhang Yingjie and Chun Cao, almost leaping out of the hall and into the fire escape.
In those two seconds, the zombie horde, now lacking suppressing fire, surged forward and engulfed the lone rear guard.
Zhou Rong turned back: “Si Nan!!”
His scream was desperate. He broke free from Chun Cao, running back without hesitation.
Chun Cao and Zhang Yingjie lunged, tackling him from behind.
A sudden burst of machine gun fire thundered, zombies flying in all directions, and a lean, muscular figure leaped up—
Si Nan was almost stepping on zombie heads, carrying fifty kilograms of equipment, yet each leap was lightning-fast, instantly charging through the safety door!
“What are you standing around for?!” Si Nan roared, his face covered in zombie blood.
Zhou Rong froze, then sprinted up the stairs: “Don’t let them catch up, run!”
The zombies in the hall paused momentarily, then entered the fire escape, launching a chase in the dark stairwell.
With six staircases connecting each shelter level and their military gear totaling nearly two hundred kilograms, they ascended quickly, leaving the stiff-kneed zombies far behind.
The gunshot suddenly stopped, and the concrete wall was riddled with holes from the machine gun. Si Nan kicked a large hole in the wall, revealing a passage into the interior of the floor!
Zhou Rong turned and fired wildly at the zombie horde, shouting: “You all go first, quickly! One by one!!”
Si Nan, Chun Cao, and Zhang Yingjie crawled into the passage one after another. Zhou Rong was the last, with half his body just inside when he felt something grab his leg. He was caught by a zombie. Gritting his teeth, he kicked several times with all his might before breaking free and crawling in.
“Roar——!”
The zombie gorilla’s vision in the dark was clearly poor. Suddenly losing its target, it became agitated, violently tearing apart several zombies and smashing the already tottering wall into even more terrifying cracks.
“The wall can’t hold!” Zhou Rong roared, “Hurry and go!”
The shelter was divided into eleven floors, but between the floors were narrow partition layers and fire safety layers that were only accessed by staff for routine inspections—they had entered through such a space.
The four people sprinted down the empty corridor when suddenly the ground shook behind them, and the entire corridor wall was smashed down by the zombie gorilla!
Chun Cao ran out of breath: “We were supposed to be in a Biohazard scenario, how did we end up in a King Kong subplot? Is this going to work?”
“It’s coming after us! We need to think of something quick!” Zhang Yingjie carried a shoulder bag, running with a loud clatter: “Rong Ge, I think you still have armor-piercing rounds in your bag. Can the three of us cover you while you look?”
Zhou Rong decisively said: “No time! The armor-piercing rounds are at the bottom of the magazine!”
The corridor reached its end, and the four special forces soldiers turned simultaneously. Suddenly, Zhou Rong glimpsed something from the edge of his laser night vision scope:
“Wait, over here!” In an instant, Zhou Rong was overjoyed: “—A garbage truck!”
At the shelter’s centralized garbage disposal area, a compressed garbage transport truck was quietly parked at the entrance, emitting an unavoidable stench.
Zhang Yingjie punched through the car window, pulling out two red and two blue wires from under the steering wheel, his fingers slightly trembling as he connected them one by one.
