"What are you doing?" Old He came up beside Wang Zhi and asked.
"Thinking about the evacuation plan. Now that we have food, it's time to take these people back," Wang Zhi mumbled around a bite of bread.
Wang Zhi looked at the map of S City. According to the coordinates provided previously by Ling Lingyao, the destination was in the wilderness about 30 kilometers north of the school.
S City was extremely densely populated, and the outside was almost entirely filled with Zombies. What worried him most was that the students lacked self-protection capabilities; it was uncertain if they themselves could return safely, let alone bringing back over twenty people.
"Something's wrong, Big Brother, Dayong has fainted!" The speaker was Zhang Xiaowei; the Dayong he mentioned was the male student who had gone out with them.
"What happened? Let's go take a look."
Wang Zhi walked into the crowd and looked down at Dayong, who had collapsed on the ground.
"Lift his shirt!"
At this moment, there was a scratch mark on Dayong's waist. The wound wasn't very obvious, but it had already begun to slowly show signs of Infection, and the surrounding skin had turned blackish-blue.
By now, everyone understood: Dayong had also been Infected!
"You beasts! I'll make you pay with your lives!" Upon learning Dayong was Infected, the male student who was closest to him got up and lunged forward, attempting to attack the two boys inside the Convenience Store.
Wang Zhi stepped forward and pulled him back. Objectively speaking, they weren't entirely wrong; everyone was just trying to survive.
"The dead cannot be brought back to life. Save your energy, and we'll settle your issues once we reach the shelter."
After Wang Zhi finished speaking, he raised his gun and aimed it at Dayong.
"N-no... don't... Dayong isn't dead yet, you can't do this..." The male student frantically tried to stop Wang Zhi when he saw him about to shoot Dayong.
Wang Zhi frowned deeply. He knew that in the Apocalypse, one could no longer afford to pity the compassionate; it was a simple fact—if one was Infected, they were Infected.
Bang!
Wang Zhi pulled the trigger, ending Dayong's life. This was the first time in his life he had killed a person—the first time he had killed a true human, not just a Zombie.
"Fatty, throw him downstairs."
Wang Zhi said calmly. Perhaps because order had collapsed, for some reason, he felt absolutely nothing about killing someone for the first time—no fear, no nervousness, and no guilt.
The students kept their heads down, silent. No one felt that what Wang Zhi had done was wrong, nor did anyone dare to jump out and accuse him. Everyone tacitly understood; no one wanted to keep someone who could turn into a Zombie at any moment nearby.
Survival of the fittest; this! This is the Apocalypse!
"Are there any buses on campus?" Wang Zhi walked over and asked Jia Liuli.
"Um... there are no large vehicles inside the school, but there is usually a minivan near the Office Building," Jia Liuli recalled.
"A minivan? Can it carry this many of us?"
"That car is used by the school to take teachers and students to various events. The car is quite large; if we squeeze, we can barely fit everyone."
"So, is that car still there?" Wang Zhi asked.
"If there were no events, the car is usually parked near the Office Building. There haven't been any events recently, so it should be there," Jia Liuli said after thinking.
After learning there was a minivan near the Office Building, Wang Zhi explained the situation to the three of them, deciding to seize the midday opportunity to rush over and retrieve the vehicle.
"Then let's hurry up and set off. We should be back before dark," Old He said.
Wang Zhi and the other three checked their ammunition. Old He and Ying had already used up most of their bullets; Fatty and Wang Zhi had only used just over 100 rounds each.
"It looks like we need to conserve them. We've used almost half our ammo in less than a day. What will we do once we get outside?"
Wang Zhi had not expected the ammunition to be consumed so rapidly.
The four descended from the Rooftop. On their way to the Office Building, they continually cleared the Zombies on the road. Most of these Zombies were students, and when they encountered a few stragglers, Old He and Ying switched to using their Daggers to achieve the goal of conserving ammunition.
The four managed to sneak to the base of the Office Building. After circling less than once around, they found the large commercial van.
The area surrounding the Office Building was also teeming with Zombies they had alerted on their arrival.
The group carefully crept and hid behind the vehicle.
"The car door is locked!" Ying tugged the door handle and said softly.
"Are the keys inside?" Wang Zhi asked, half-crouching on the ground.
"Are you serious? Who would leave the keys in the car?" Ying looked at Wang Zhi suspiciously.
"It's fine, just give me some time; I'll break the door open first." As Wang Zhi spoke, he pulled out a notebook from his backpack and began trying to unlock the car door.
About half an hour later, with a soft click, the car's electronic lock was successfully bypassed.
"Get in the car first, slowly..."
Wang Zhi said, gently opening the door and slipping inside.
Activating the ignition required wireless radio frequency sensing, and Wang Zhi was currently using a program to generate a matching frequency to simulate the electronic key.
Of course, this required a longer period and repeated testing.
It was already 2 PM, and the number of surrounding Zombies was only increasing.
The four inside the vehicle dared not even breathe, forced to watch Wang Zhi busy working away in the driver's seat.
"I say, Captain Wang, can you still do it? It's been an hour. If not, maybe we should head back first," Fatty said, looking at the increasing number of surrounding Zombies, being the first to suggest retreating.
"If you don't want to become a meal for the Zombies, then keep quiet," Wang Zhi whispered as a warning.
The program on the laptop was still automatically decrypting, as if it had to try every single possible password one by one.
By 6 PM, the light in the sky gradually faded, and the number of Zombies surrounding the vehicle had increased even more than before!
Some Zombies from inside the building also began to slowly move outside.
"I think if we don't go back soon, we might have to spend the night in the car!" Ying whispered, looking around.
"We don't get a second chance, and the laptop battery is almost dead; we can't give up." At this moment, Wang Zhi looked at the remaining battery life on the computer; if they couldn't decrypt this vehicle, their losses might be even greater.
Suddenly, one Zombie discovered the people inside the vehicle, and the car window began to bang loudly from the Zombie's assault.
This made the nerves of everyone inside the vehicle tense, ready to open fire outwards at any moment.
Bang! Bang!
The sound of the Zombies striking the vehicle immediately attracted the surrounding Zombies.
In an instant, the single Zombie outside the window turned into a whole horde of Zombies.
Crack! The passenger window on the co-pilot's side was struck and cracked by a Zombie.
This time, Old He couldn't worry about anything else; taking advantage of the fact that the Zombies hadn't breached the window yet, he directly took out his gun and started shooting the Zombies outside.
Bang! Bang! Bang! After a few shots, all the Zombies blocking the passenger window fell to the ground.
Once the fight started, the noise immediately grew louder, and the Zombies nearby that hadn't noticed them yet rushed over.
Seeing this, Wang Zhi quickly placed the laptop in the center, then took out his gun and started shooting out of his window toward him.
"There are too many! Wang Zhi, are you done yet?"
Old He asked Wang Zhi while firing his gun.
"Wait a moment longer!"
Seeing more and more Zombies approaching, Old He directly pulled out a fragmentation grenade and threw it into the distant pile of Zombies.
Boom!
A huge explosion shattered the silence of the campus!
A low growl came from inside the nearby Office Building, and Zombies began jumping down from the windows; all Zombies within hearing range rushed toward their location.
"Are you trying to kill us by throwing that grenade?" Ying glared angrily at Old He.
"It's already blown up, hurry up and throw a few more," Old He shouted.
In an instant, the distant Zombies began to arrive; Wang Zhi didn't have time to change magazines and immediately pulled out his Dagger, wildly stabbing at the Zombies' heads near the window.
Boom! Boom! Two more loud explosions ripped apart large numbers of Zombies in the vicinity.
Beep~ The car's dashboard suddenly lit up, and Wang Zhi looked back at the laptop, which displayed "Match Successful."
Random immediately pressed the activation button, and before the engine could even rumble twice, Wang Zhi shifted into gear and stomped on the accelerator.
Boom! A roar erupted, and the vehicle shot forward instantly.