Zhou Rong looked up and laughed: “Comrade Ci Nan, do you know? This posture of yours seems to be making a subtle invitation…”
Two of them, one up and one down, stared at each other for three seconds, then suddenly moved simultaneously!
Zhou Rong carried Si Nan backwards towards the SUV, Si Nan flipping to strangle his cervical spine. With a loud bang, Zhou Rong arched back, slamming Si Nan’s back onto the car’s engine hood. Zhou Rong turned and grabbed both of Si Nan’s ankles, squeezing between his thighs.
“Asphyxiation play?” Zhou Rong leaned down, looking down at Si Nan.
Si Nan countered: “I went easy on you, you know?”
This was true. If Zhou Rong were a zombie, in that position, his neck would have been strangled by Si Nan’s leg strength, just like the cleanly decapitated zombie at the gas station.
Zhou Rong’s breathing deepened as his heart warmed slightly, lowering to brush his lips against Si Nan’s forehead, wanting to commit a disciplinary error in the wilderness.
Just then, a subtle sound emerged from far away— Crack.
Like a bird startled from its branch, the sound traveled over hundreds of meters into Zhou Rong’s ears.
“Who’s there!”
Zhou Rong stepped forward, picking up the binoculars Si Nan had casually thrown down.
In the winter’s gray-yellow forest, ghostly figures gathered on the hillside—a group of zombies silently approaching, already within a hundred meters!
“—Get in the car!” Zhou Rong shouted sharply: “Quickly!”
Both of them dove into the SUV, the engine roaring to life, racing towards the mountain’s shaded side. Halfway up the mountain, dragging footsteps suddenly emerged, another group of zombies appearing as if from the ground, densely blocking their path.
“Damn, not a sound, zombies don’t make noise?” Zhou Rong frowned: “Have they learned to ambush?”
Si Nan raised the binoculars: “Ten o’clock ahead, quick, there’s a breakthrough!”
The SUV swerved, zombie hordes in hot pursuit, finally releasing successive dull moans.
Si Nan pulled two assault rifles from the backseat, tossing one to Zhou Rong. They simultaneously lowered the windows and pulled triggers, splattering zombie brains.
“They’re encircling us!” Si Nan roared amid gunfire.
Zhou Rong: “No way! Zombies don’t have thoughts!”
The car crushed gnarled tree roots, bouncing sharply. Zhou Rong steered with one hand, shooting down zombies approaching from the side, the tires thundering down and crushing several zombies into scattered flesh.
“Roar—”
More undead swayed, finally emerging from the forest, fanning out towards the car—Zhou Rong’s pupils instantly contracted, realizing Si Nan’s observation wasn’t wrong.
This was indeed an encirclement.
Moreover, they showed concealment, hiding, and team collaboration—zombies were developing the primitive wisdom of pack-hunting animals!
A chilling sensation arose from his core; Zhou Rong, who had traversed half the country, had never felt such genuine fear.
When did zombies begin mutating? Could the undead actually think?
Zhou Rong paused, one hand propping up his temple, his dense and sharp eyebrows tightly furrowed: “When the military region’s helicopter came to T City to evacuate survivors, those few nurses who fell ill had no wounds. They were infected by inhaling high-concentration toxic smoke from burning zombies… So what’s the situation with the coastal zombies? Ocean currents? Has the virus spread to this extent? Seems unlikely.”
The car was filled only with the bumpy sound of tires rolling forward. Both fell silent for a moment.
“The city is too dangerous. Those ground buildings are ahead,” Si Nan looked up and asked, “Shall we go take a look?”
Just as Zhou Rong was about to answer, he suddenly cursed: “Fuck!”
Zhou Rong slammed on the brakes, the tires scraping the ground, and both of them lurched forward. Immediately after, he rapidly reversed the car, turning the steering wheel sharply.
In the violent shaking, Si Nan glanced back and saw that there was now an iron wire barricade across the road in front of the car’s original path!
“Stop!”
“Halt!”
“Get out! Or we’ll shoot!”
Over a dozen people suddenly leaped out from the roadside, all wearing camouflage and holding guns, shouting fiercely at the car.
— A highway robbery?
A cold light flashed in Zhou Rong’s eyes. He was about to step on the gas and run these people over, when the leader shouted, “Stop! What are you doing? We are the People’s Liberation Army!”
Zhou Rong’s foot on the gas pedal suddenly slipped.
These people were clearly veterans who had done this hundreds, if not thousands of times. In that fraction of a second of hesitation, several people simultaneously pulled the triggers of their shotguns, shattering the entire front windshield!
With a loud crash, countless glass fragments and shards flew into the driver’s cabin. Zhou Rong pushed Si Nan’s head down, his eardrums buzzing from the noise.
He reached back and grabbed the assault rifle, protecting half his face with his elbow, and was about to prepare a frontal counterattack when he suddenly froze.
He saw that just as the dozen or so people were about to rush toward the SUV, the head of the leader who had shouted “We are the People’s Liberation Army” suddenly exploded with blood and staggered down.
Before his subordinates could even cry out in shock, the second, third, and fourth were also shot in the head, instantly becoming ghosts.
“Sniper!” someone roared: “Find cover, quick!”
Zhou Rong was about to snap someone’s neck when he noticed the corporal’s rank on the person’s uniform. His eyebrows twitched, and he used the rifle butt to smash the person’s head, leaving them bloody and fallen.
“Hold on tight, Xiao Nan!”
“Zhou Rong returned to the driver’s seat, about to step on the gas and break through the blockade, when he heard a crisp sound — crack!
Zhou Rong: “…”
— Si Nan didn’t care whether they were real PLA soldiers. As long as they weren’t the special forces from Squad 118 and had fired first, in his eyes, they were all dead.
He reached out the window, gripping a person’s throat and twisting, breaking it with a crisp sound, and snatched the shotgun from the dead person, immediately pulling the trigger.
The entire sequence of actions took less than three seconds.
— Bang!
Most of the roadblock personnel fell, the dead and wounded with protruding chest bones, rolling on the ground.
The remaining people became even more desperate to rush the car. Just as Si Nan was about to fire a second shot, he suddenly paused, pinching his earlobe.
“Zhou Rong,” he said in surprise, “Your gay positioning device is vibrating.”
Zhou Rong’s eyebrows jumped violently: “Yan Hao?!”
“Damn!” Zhou Rong cursed fiercely, braking and jumping out of the car to walk over.”
Before the group could react, Zhou Rong had already walked directly into the crowd, grabbed the man, and threw him out with a standard over-the-shoulder throw!
Those few people cursed and tried to pull Zhou Rong back, but before they could touch him, he knocked them all down, then grabbed the leader who had just kicked Yan Hao, pinning his arm and pulling him by the collar, slamming his head towards a tree!
Yan Hao took the opportunity to break free: “Captain!”
“Wait a minute!” Zhou Rong didn’t have time to respond to him, pressing the man’s head and cursing with each slam: “I’ll teach you to hit my people!”
With a few loud bangs, Zhou Rong pulled up his hair and asked: “Are you convinced?”
The man, already beaten black and blue by Yan Hao and now bleeding from Zhou Rong’s head slams, immediately cursed: “Fuck your ancestors! Brothers, come together and…”
Before he could finish his words, a gunshot rang out, and everyone froze.
