Suddenly, urgent footsteps and the sharp sound of keys clanging came from outside. He stood up. The door opened. “Internal, internal outbreak, the laboratory can’t contain it… The alert line has collapsed, the car is waiting outside, come with me quickly…” He took a titanium alloy freezer box, walked out of the solitary cell, the distant light at the corridor’s end turning into stars.
The armored vehicle braked sharply, and Sinan’s body lurched forward, awakening. In an instant, he was face-to-face with the densely packed zombies outside the window, with the driver frantically shouting: “Destination reached! Quickly clear and break through! People inside, prepare to provide support—!” The vehicle-mounted machine gun on top spewed blazing tongues of fire. Zhou Rong took off his coat, wearing only a black tank top, his heat-resistant gloves burned terribly by the gun barrel, repeatedly sweeping back zombies at the intersection.
However, the zombies crowding the city center’s commercial street were too numerous. After clearing wave after wave, the sight was a sea of zombies. All team members climbed onto the vehicle’s roof for fire support, barely clearing a few meters of space, allowing the armored vehicle to slowly advance through mountains of corpses. This crawling speed, comparable to rush hour traffic, was extremely dangerous.
The vehicle was nearly overturned multiple times by endless zombies, with team members shouting, almost being dragged off by zombies grabbing their ankles.
Zhou Rong roared through the walkie-talkie: “Ying Jie, come up for fire support! I’ll drive!” The driver opened the roof hatch and leaped up. Zhou Rong slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the accelerator!
With a roar, the armored vehicle surged forward dozens of meters, rolling numerous undead underneath. Suddenly, a cracking sound—the side window was smashed!
“Roar—” Several withered hands simultaneously reached into the window, grabbing at Zhou Rong. Zhou Rong dodged sideways, with Sinan promptly shooting the zombies from his side: “Where’s the shelter?”
“Below!”
“Where?!”
Zhou Rong, unable to free his hands, pointed with his chin forward. Hundreds of meters away, a mall building stood at the street’s end, with giant characters “Grand Opening Sale” floating in the air.
Sinan shot a zombie’s head and dodged back, with foul, grayish-black brain matter splashing on Zhou Rong, causing him to curse: “Fuck!”
Sinan: “Fuck who?”
Zhou Rong, with zombies competing to climb through the window on one side and fully armed Sinan on the other, finally cursed: “…This damn mall is screwing me over, why have such a sale? No wonder there are so many people outside!
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At this moment, the wireless radio crackled overhead, very clear in the shell-bouncing cabin, with a sharp female voice: “0011 calling command! Calling command!! Do you need support? Repeat, do you need support?!” ”Yes yes yes yes yes!” Zhou Rong pressed down Sinan, hit the brakes, connected to the roof’s walkie-talkie, and let out an earth-shattering roar: “Everyone get down—! Seal the roof, immediately—!” Before his words finished, a sudden flash of light appeared on the mall’s roof. The next moment, white light shot into the sky, overwhelming the ground, with fire and intense light instantly sweeping across the earth! The armored vehicle flew like a kite with a broken string, instantly propelled over ten meters, all windows shattering, with everyone letting out a soundless roar in the terrible tumbling. After what seemed like an eternity, Sinan gasped and regained consciousness, feeling something was off. Before his nose was Zhou Rong’s camouflage pants… crotch area. Zhou Rong supported his temple with one hand, mouth twitching, voice trembling from intense pain: ”If I’m disabled, you definitely won’t escape…” Team members groaned and got up. Outside the window, a single rocket launcher had swept away half the street’s zombies. Crackling… the female voice coughed and appeared: “Is everyone okay?
“Repeat, is anyone alive?”
Zhou Rong said: “Chun Cao, let’s make a deal. Can we discuss before firing next time? Know that your brother almost got his lineage cut off?”
Chun Cao said: “Anyway, since you’re not using it, might as well cut it off.”
Sinan gave Zhou Rong a strange look.
“What do you want to say?” Zhou Rong was exceptionally sensitive to any stimulation now.
“…Nothing.”
Unexpectedly, that pretty boy surnamed Yan was the one up there, Sinan thought, truly one can’t judge a book by its cover.
Thanks to the rocket launcher, the riddled armored vehicle finally stumbled through the district and reached its final destination—the shelter.
It was the mall’s underground warehouse, a bomb shelter from the mid-last century, with excellent military construction foundations that had withstood multiple zombie army attacks during the infection outbreak.
Now this underground shelter housed over a thousand people, mostly mall customers and staff, of all ages and genders, with suppressed crying echoing everywhere.
Zhou Rong finally reunited with his teammates, enthusiastically calling out: “Cao’er!
Chuncao: “Captain!”
Sinan flashed quickly, and Chuncao ran past, closely pressed against his side. The two embraced and spun. Zhou Rong effortlessly lifted the girl who barely reached his shoulder.
“No more bullets,” Chuncao said, her eyes filled with eager, hot tears. “Last night, I went out with Dading and Xiangzi to clear the hallway, and we used up all our bullets. The shot from the rooftop just now emptied our last rocket launcher. Fortunately, we have plenty of food. I had the property staff seal all the warehouse doors and windows, afraid zombies might break in again. We can’t exactly fight them hand-to-hand…”
Zhou Rong patted her head affectionately, saying: “Call me Dad.”
Chuncao immediately responded: “Dad.”
Zhou Rong removed two bullets from the gun barrel, opened his adopted daughter’s palm, and placed the two bullets in it. After a moment’s thought, he took one back.
“The last two in the entire team,” Zhou Rong smiled, “Keep them for self-destruction.”
Chuncao immediately disowned him, walking away with a cold face.
Initially, two to three thousand people had escaped to this shelter, but infected individuals were mixed among them. Once in the enclosed space, they turned into zombies, quickly infecting most of the survivors.
Fortunately, several of Zhou Rong’s team members contacted the local government and escorted the medical team here in time. After several rounds of cleansing, only about a thousand people remained, all of whom had undergone preliminary screening to confirm no potential infections.
Chuncao and her teammates then dragged and burned the killed zombies, clearing the zombies wandering inside the mall and in the safe hallways.
With food not yet exhausted but ammunition depleted, they could only anxiously await Zhou Rong’s rescue.
Zhou Rong stepped on a milk crate, almost hitting the ceiling light and quickly protected his head.
The ground was filled with a dense crowd looking bewildered, with occasional sobs from women and children quickly subsiding.
“Are you here to save us?” someone asked courageously.
“I’m the captain of the 6th Squadron, 118th Confidential Battalion, B Military Region,” Zhou Rong took out the slightly crumpled official document, solemnly displaying it to the crowd. The bright red official seal was particularly eye-catching under the warehouse lights.
As if gaining confidence from the red seal, the crowd became slightly excited.
“I was sent by my superiors with a positioning device to confirm the safety of the people, maintain social order during the epidemic outbreak, and transmit a positioning signal to the higher-ups. The government will soon organize a rescue operation.”
