Si Nan, carrying a submachine gun, came down from the car, nodding slightly to Yan Hao, then narrowing his eyes to survey everyone. As his foot touched the ground, someone in the group secretly reached into their back pocket, but just as they pulled out a gun, another bang!
Si Nan’s sniper shot was incredibly precise, knocking the gun out of the man’s hand before he could even raise it.
The open ground fell into dead silence.
“Who wants to die,” Si Nan said softly, “step forward.”
Everyone looked at each other, their expressions full of anger, but no one dared to move.
Bang! Zhou Rong grabbed the man’s hair, forcing his blood-covered face up:
“Are you convinced?”
The man’s lips trembled, gasping: “Convinced… convinced…”
Yan Hao spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, finally pulling back: “Captain, stop fighting. We’re our own people, just a misunderstanding.”
“Good that you’re convinced,” Zhou Rong said, letting the man fall to the ground, then asking Yan Hao: “What are you doing here? Were you the one sniping just now? Who among these guys are our own people?”
Yan Hao, exhaling blood, walked to the man and helped him up despite his struggles.
“Brother Wan,” Yan Hao said coldly, “Things happened suddenly earlier, so I didn’t have time to introduce him. This is our lost squadron leader.”
The man surnamed Wan leaned against the tree, breathing heavily, glaring at Zhou Rong with fury.
Yan Hao subtly shifted, blocking his hateful gaze towards Zhou Rong:
“I said I know them, and I couldn’t just watch them being threatened with guns, so I grabbed your gun to snipe those robbers.”
Certainly, you had your ‘mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind’ action plan. But if we followed yours, my captain and teammate would be in mortal danger, so I couldn’t help but act first. I’m very sorry.”
Yan Hao’s explanation was clear, and Zhou Rong’s doubts were slightly relieved.
“When we get back, I’ll explain to Miss Chen myself. Different paths mean we can’t work together. Now that we’ve reunited with the captain, we can immediately meet up with the other three teammates and head to the South China Sea,” Yan Hao said calmly: “I’ve troubled you during this time. Thank you very much. We’ll repay you if we meet again.”
Only the heavy, short breaths of the group could be heard on the open ground.
Zhou Rong, Si Nan, and Yan Hao remained silent. After a long time, the man surnamed Wan let out a sarcastic “hmph” laugh:
“Not daring, not daring. You’re someone Sister Chen especially values. We brothers can’t compare to you special forces…”
He struggled to get up, still stubborn, not letting anyone help him, and staggered towards his subordinates: “Let’s go! Back to base!”
The group had come in a pickup truck, hidden in a small grove. After this fight, Yan Hao had completely fallen out with them and naturally couldn’t return with their car, so he went with Zhou Rong and Si Nan in their battered SUV.
Yan Hao, with red-rimmed eyes, took the initiative to hug Zhou Rong, then hugged Si Nan.
“Comrade Yan Hao, you’re so enthusiastic it’s making me feel overwhelmed…” Zhou Rong touched his chin, seeming to ponder: “An outsider like you who never calls me ‘Brother Rong’ and always says ‘Captain’, hugging me proactively for the first time… Could it be you’ve finally realized my preciousness…”
Yan Hao leaned on Si Nan’s shoulder, choked up: “Thank goodness you’re both alive.” Then he suddenly smelled something and froze completely.
“…You two…” Yan Hao stared directly at Si Nan, who returned an innocent look.
“You’ve already…”
Zhou Rong touched his nose and coughed: “Pretty much exactly what you see.”
After an Alpha and Omega mutually mark each other, their pheromones mix. Although Si Nan’s suppressants hadn’t completely worn off, if close enough, one could indeed smell a trace of Zhou Rong’s scent near his neck’s gland area.
Yan Hao was dazed for a moment, his eyes even redder, trembling as he raised a hand to cover his face.
Zhou Rong looked helplessly at Si Nan: “He’s definitely thinking: How is this surnamed Zhou still alive?”
Si Nan: “…
Alright, I know I’m sorry to you.”
“Zhou Rong forcibly hooked his arm around Yan Hao’s shoulder: “Stop whimpering, get in the car!”
Yan Hao was deeply hurt and refused to sit in the passenger seat, insisting on sitting alone in the back row.
Zhou Rong was helpless and had Si Nan drive while he squeezed into the back seat, patting Yan Hao’s shoulder and speaking earnestly: “There are beautiful grasses everywhere under the sky, so why pine for just one flower? Brother didn’t actually intend to, when we were trapped in the deep mountains during the heavy snowfall that blocked the roads for half a month, to not give you a fair chance to compete…”
Si Nan drove closely behind the open-top pickup truck, glancing at Yan Hao through the rearview mirror.
Zhou Rong: “…”
Yan Hao: “…”
Yan Hao almost burst into tears.
·
Zhou Rong spent great effort to persuade Yan Hao, who wanted to jump out of the car, and Si Nan thoughtfully kept quiet. The four-sided ventilated SUV crossed the mountain slope, roaring loudly, following the truck towards the distant survivor base.
“The night the captain jumped from the plane, I also wanted to jump down, but Chun Cao desperately pulled me back…” Yan Hao swallowed, his beautiful eyes reddening again.”
Zhou Rong thought to himself, truly his father’s good daughter, and then hypocritically comforted him a few more times, asking: “Why didn’t you go to the South China Sea? You still have the antibodies, right?”
“We do. We’ll protect the antibodies and data even if we’re the last person standing.” Yan Hao pointed to the truck ahead: “The person surnamed Chen and these people only think we got separated from the main group, they don’t know we’re carrying something, so when we enter the base, don’t mention anything.”
Zhou Rong suspiciously asked: “Who is this person surnamed Chen?”
“Her name is Chen Yajing, an Omega, a woman, the leader of the survivor base,” Yan Hao said. “The night the helicopter crashed into the sea, we were rescued by a local patrol team on the shore, and then sent to her base…”
However, under the harsh weather conditions and low visibility, two helicopters successively crashed into the sea.
The fortunate thing was that they crashed near the coast, and the port happened to have a local patrol team that immediately launched a rescue boat to pick up the survivors.
This patrol team belonged to the largest local survivor base, and after Yan Hao and the others were rescued, they met the base’s leader, the female Omega named Chen Yajing.
“She’s very strange,” Yan Hao frowned.
Zhou Rong asked warily: “How so?”
“Disfigured, disabled, unable to stand. The base itself was a research institute under the G military region, and she was the wife of the deputy director. Many people, including her husband, died after the virus outbreak. She brought a group of institute staff and accepted over ten thousand nearby residents. The original institute staff all obey her orders… No, she’s extremely weak, not like Si Nan.”
In the post-apocalyptic world of survival of the fittest, a female Omega with no ability to fight would naturally make Yan Hao, Chun Cao, and others very curious about how she became the leader of over ten thousand people.
Yan Hao told her that he had been separated from the main group, and the captain was missing, and now wanted to take the survivors they had rescued to the South China Sea base. Yan Hao did not mention anything about the antibodies and virus research data, and Chen Yajing did not seem suspicious.
However, there were significant differences in handling this disaster between this civilian female leader and the special forces.
