Blood slowly trickled from Zhou Rong’s temple. The subordinate was already stunned, while Wan Biao breathed heavily in anger.
“Haha…” Zhou Rong seemed to feel no pain, casually wiping the blood and licking it with his tongue, a mischievous smile at the corner of his mouth.
Wan Biao’s retort was choked in his throat. Suddenly, Zhou Rong’s playful expression vanished, and he asked seriously: “Did Luo Muer tell you at your base that Dr. Ning said Si Nan’s serum might have antibodies?”
“…I don’t know!”
“Probably so.”
Zhou Rong lay back in the seat, a trace of blood soaking his hair, making his handsome features look more sinister. Yet he seemed unaware, muttering thoughtfully: “So Luo Muer traveled far to China to find him because he knows Si Nan is key to surviving the apocalypse… But if Si Nan truly has antibodies, why would Luo Muer electrocute and torture him? Why not just kidnap him and draw blood? It doesn’t make logical sense.”
Wan Biao didn’t understand but felt nervous: “What do you mean?”
Zhou Rong continued: “Unless Si Nan knows a secret more precious and crucial than antibodies, something Luo Muer would torture to discover… But that’s impossible.”
What could be more important than antibodies? Unless Si Nan doesn’t actually have antibodies, or his antibodies are useless to ordinary people.”
Wan Biao’s eyes widened: “What… what are you saying? Impossible. Dr. Ning asked Dr. Zheng. Si Nan was bitten by zombies but not infected. He must have antibodies!”
Zhou Rong rolled his eyes, seeming impatient: “So what?”
— Bang!
A rotting hand heavily slapped on the side window!
Successive loud bangs rang out, and the driver immediately turned on the high beams, instantly stunning everyone.
As far as the eye could see, dozens of zombies were stumbling along the mountain road, surrounding the car. In the nearby wilderness, even more zombies were densely surging, quickly converging into a spectacular tide of the undead.
“Brother Wan,” the driver’s voice cracked with tears: “We’re done for… completely done…”
Wan Biao blurted out: “Reverse! Quickly!”
The driver frantically tried to reverse, but in his panic, he mistakenly shifted gears and almost crashed directly into the guardrail. At that critical moment, there was a crash of shattering glass, and several withered hands simultaneously reached into the car cabin!
“Ahhhhh—”
The driver and his subordinates collapsed in screams, and Wan Biao was caught off guard by a zombie grabbing his collar. In the nick of time, Zhou Rong lunged forward, snatched his gun, and with a precise shot blew the head off the zombie grabbing him, roaring: “Stop shouting! Shut up!”
Zhou Rong drew his dagger, severed the zombie arms reaching through the window, shoved the nearly urinating driver to the passenger seat, and then squeezed into the driver’s seat. Zhou Rong shifted gears, reversed, crushing and flipping two or three zombies with screeching tires, then executing a clean, sharp three-point turn.
With several crisp bone-cracking sounds, Zhou Rong pushed the zombies lunging at the car door onto the highway guardrail, ruthlessly crushing their bodies out of shape, then floored the accelerator!
The Jeep howled past, leaving the zombies approaching from all directions far behind. However, under the high beams, in the distant wilderness, an uncountable number of zombies were assembling like an army, trudging toward the base’s direction.
The driver stammered: “How… how is this possible, where did they come from, how could this happen…”
Wan Biao was actually terrified, but he still had some courage.
He bit his tongue hard, forcing himself to calm down: “Don’t panic, what are you afraid of! As long as we quickly return to the base and report, the base will definitely hold!”
“But this scale is much, much larger than two days ago…”
“Shut up!” Wan Biao roared: “We held on two days ago, now there’s even less to fear! Besides, I’ll beat your balls out!”
The driver’s face turned ashen, his teeth chattering. The subordinate visibly trembled, suddenly blurting out: “We, we shouldn’t go back.”
Wan Biao rebuked: “What nonsense are you talking?!”
“We shouldn’t go back! There are too many! Look, there are at least tens of thousands! We should continue to the port, hurry and board a ship while we still can!”
The driver and Wan Biao were stunned, then Wan Biao erupted in fury, punching the subordinate, who crashed into the seat: “Shut up! Are we just going to leave like this—”
Bang!
The bullet grazed past his ear, and the subordinate froze completely.
Zhou Rong drove with one hand, gun pointed with the other, directly at the bodyguard’s head, his razor-sharp, gloomy eyes reflected in the rearview mirror.
“My wife was left behind by you,” he said flatly, “Anyone who doesn’t want to go back can get out of the car right now.”
The subordinate trembled like a sieve, slowly wetting his pants.
The night descended, with the base like an impregnable fortress under the night sky. High beams flashed from the mountain road’s end, the Jeep roaring, and Wan Biao’s hoarse roar could be heard: “Open — the — door—”
From the watchtower, several guards poked their heads out: “Brother Wan?”
“Brother Wan is back, so quickly?”
“Open the door—!” Wan Biao screamed, “Zombies are coming! Highest alert! Open the door—!!”
The Jeep almost brushed against the thunderously opening gate as it charged into the base. Before the car fully stopped, Zhou Rong jumped out. Two people sprinted out from the duty room nearby: Chun Cao and Ding Shi.
“I knew something was wrong! Didn’t you say Rong Ge went to the ship with Si Nan?!” Chun Cao grabbed a guard and shouted, “What is going on?!”
The subordinate still tried to argue: “Sister Chen said that Captain Zhou left during your patrol, telling you to go to the port to rendezvous…”
Zhou Rong said nothing, disarmed the man and handed the gun to Chun Cao, then kicked him several meters, sending him flying and vomiting blood.
Chun Cao and Ding Shi gasped, “Rong Ge!”
“Chen Ya Jing and Ning Yu kidnapped Si Nan for live experiments,” Zhou Rong said briefly. “I was captured and sent to the ship, but discovered a large zombie horde heading to the base midway, so I escaped back.
The base personnel changed expression upon hearing this.
Wan Biao scrambled over: “Sound the alarm! Quickly! Tens of thousands of zombies are converging on us, call everyone out!”
Zhou Rong tripped Wan Biao, making him fall face-first onto the ground. Zhou Rong pressed his knee heavily on Wan Biao, choking his neck and applying force that almost made Wan Biao’s eyeballs pop out.
“Where is Si Nan?”
Wan Biao’s face turned blood-red, saying nothing.
Chun Cao rushed forward to press her gun against Wan Biao’s head: “Will you talk? If not, I’ll blow your head into a blooming flower!”
“Don’t come near!” Ding Shi raised his gun, pointing at everyone around.
“You can choose not to speak, but we can also kill you right now,” Zhou Rong whispered in Wan Biao’s ear: “Then we’ll kill everyone here, open the door, and let the zombies rush in, dragging the lives of over ten thousand people in this base down to hell…”
Wan Biao’s face twitched violently: “You, you… aren’t you a military officer?!”
Zhou Rong said coldly: “Oh, do you believe officials are good people?”
The alarm pierced the night sky of the base, with a guard’s terrified, high-pitched scream from the watchtower: “They’re here!”
