Chapter 149 - 148: The Never-Fading Radio Waves

Chapter 149: Chapter 148: The Never-Fading Radio Waves

...

The headwind grew stronger and hotter.

Chu Zhaozhao leaped south along the rooftops of the storefronts lining the street.

Carefully avoiding a set of power lines stretched across the roofs, she paused on the eaves of a building to catch her breath.

At the edge of her vision, a colossal, thick pillar of black smoke and fire churned and rose from the horizon like some bizarre spectacle.

The orange glow at its base was as bright as a giant bonfire, with flames licking and surging up the column of smoke.

A dull rumbling, like the sound of wind whipping through a flag, echoed from the distance.

"Big Brother..."

The thought of Lin Fan made her take a deep breath, sucking the scorched, stinking air into her lungs. She didn’t stop, continuing to run south along the eaves.

She periodically activated her ability, letting the spear in her hand carry her across the gaps between streets and buildings.

As she drew closer, she could clearly make out every detail within the flames.

The curling tongues of fire and the massive, bursting embers all spoke to the terrifying temperatures at the heart of that blazing inferno.

The rumbling had become a deafening roar, as if a great dragon were bellowing endlessly within the fire.

Everything around her was illuminated by this sole light source. The buildings cast long shadows that twisted bizarrely on the ground, dancing with the fiery clouds above.

Chu Zhaozhao had to use her Flying Sword to slice off a piece of her jacket’s lining. She tied it over her face, covering her mouth and nose to filter the choking stench that filled the air.

The farther she went, the hotter the air became.

The side of her body facing the pillar of fire was constantly being baked by thermal radiation. Chu Zhaozhao had to keep turning to avoid getting burned, which made her feel like a bamboo rat on a rotisserie.

She kept running south like this until she reached the edge of the high-temperature radiation zone, unable to take another step forward.

The storefronts ahead were too close to the explosion. They had all been ignited by the thermal radiation, their flames licking toward the sky on the hot wind, as if in answer to the fiery tornado raging in the park.

Countless charred fragments, still emitting wisps of smoke, were scattered across the road. They seemed to be the remains of some kind of cables or pipes, burned away by the blaze, leaving only a trail of black debris, dozens of centimeters thick, strewn intermittently across the asphalt.

And on the outskirts of this scene of destruction, innumerable zombies wandered about, restless and agitated.

They were drawn by the roar of the fire, but the intense heat, enough to cook them, also made them instinctively flee.

They could only crowd together just outside the "safe distance" from the heat, forming a slowly shifting, grayish-black perimeter.

Chu Zhaozhao could see that half the bodies of many zombies were already shriveled from the high temperatures, or had simply been burned black.

’In that case, maybe some of those carbonized chunks on the road were once part of their ranks,’ she thought.

Beneath the street-facing walls of the burning storefronts, rows of twisted, charred corpses were piled up.

The zombies had been sent flying by the explosion’s shockwave, slammed against obstacles to form a sloping ramp of bodies. Some among them were not yet dead; they stretched out their arms, their desiccated throats straining, but could not produce a single sound.

Chu Zhaozhao crouched low, hiding in the shadow of a decorative wall on the roof, feeling as if she were inside a furnace.

The walkie-talkie in her pocket was hot to the touch, but the small green light indicating it was still operational glowed stubbornly.

"Big... *cough cough*... Big Brother... can you hear me...?"

She pressed the talk button, calling anxiously into the walkie-talkie. The acrid air made her voice crack.

"*Cough cough*..."

The hellish scene before her left her in a daze. She couldn’t help but wonder, ’Could Lin Fan really have survived an explosion like this...?’

"No, no, no!"

She shook her head, quickly steadying her nerves and stopping herself from entertaining such useless thoughts.

’It’s not even certain he’s here,’ she thought. ’Besides, with Big Brother’s cautious nature and immense strength, he must have run faster than a rabbit.’

She could feel the air here continuing to heat up, growing hotter and hotter. Before long, the building beneath her feet might spontaneously ignite from the thermal radiation.

The towering pillar of fire and smoke was driving her away in its own fashion.

’I’ll search a little longer,’ she reasoned. ’What if Big Brother passed out again? After all, I was the one who had to drag him into the gas station last time...’

While holding onto the belief that she should hope for the best, Chu Zhaozhao couldn’t resist peeking out from her hiding spot toward the pillar of fire.

Aside from an "iron tank" across the street, similar to the one at the gas station, everything was bathed in an orange, barren glow from the fire. There was no sign of anyone.

’Could Big Brother be in that armored vehicle?’

Chu Zhaozhao thought to herself that she’d wait a few more minutes. If there was no response on the walkie-talkie, she would fly over and take a look.

’It’s so hot over there... It should be fine, right? Just a quick look...’

...

"KSHHH... ’Big Brother’? Who is this? Are you a survivor?"

Just as Chu Zhaozhao was bending over, pressing her ear to the walkie-talkie’s speaker in hopes of hearing Lin Fan’s reply, a woman’s voice came through.

Then, immediately after, a man’s voice also crackled from the speaker:

"...Zhaozhao? Where are you?"

Though it was a bit hoarse, Chu Zhaozhao recognized Lin Fan’s voice instantly!

In an instant, all her anxiety, fear, and sorrow vanished like smoke. An immense joy washed over her like a cool spring, making her so happy she almost leaped up from her hiding spot!

She subconsciously ignored the woman’s voice from a moment ago and shouted excitedly into the walkie-talkie:

"Whoa! Big Brother, you’re okay! I’m on a rooftop! Right across the street from the pillar of fire!"

"...You’re across the street!?"

"...You’re across the street!?"

Lin Fan’s voice, followed by the woman’s, came from the walkie-talkie, both exclaiming the same thing with nearly identical astonishment.

Annoyed by the woman’s voice, which seemed to be as omnipresent as a fly, Chu Zhaozhao pressed the talk button and snapped, "Who the hell are you? Why are you eavesdropping on us! And stop butting in!"

But before the woman could answer, Lin Fan spoke first over the radio: "Zhaozhao, ignore her for now. Stand up..."

After Lin Fan, the woman’s voice continued with her own question, "How did you get over there!?"

But Chu Zhaozhao listened to Lin Fan and didn’t answer her at all.

In her heart, just being able to contact Lin Fan was the best news possible. As long as he was okay, nothing else mattered!

So, Chu Zhaozhao immediately stood up from her hiding place, braving the scorching heat, and looked around. But she still couldn’t see any sign of Lin Fan.

Just then, Lin Fan’s voice came over the walkie-talkie again: "I see you. Crouch down. I’m coming to get you..."

The two of them exchanged a few more sentences, completely ignoring the woman, but she persisted on the channel, asking relentlessly:

"Who on earth are you people!?"

...

Meanwhile, Ye Qingniao stood in a partitioned room on the second floor of the storefront closest to the fire, staring at the walkie-talkie in her hand with a look of utter bewilderment.

Wang Zhong and Zhang Wenyuan had parked the vehicle about a kilometer away; she was the only one who had crept this far.

Her ability allowed her to suppress her body’s bioelectricity with precise control, altering her energy field to some extent.

This change lowered her speed, strength, and perception, but it came with a surprising side effect: zombies wouldn’t attack her.

It was an accidental discovery, but the state was mentally exhausting—like struggling on the verge of drowning—so she couldn’t maintain it for long, only a few minutes at most.

Therefore, her reconnaissance range was extremely limited, directly proportional to her limited stamina, and had been mostly useless until now.

But at this moment, it was proving to be incomparably effective.

She weaved back and forth between the front and back doors of the row of storefronts, using night vision goggles to avoid the zombies. When she couldn’t avoid them, she used her ability to slip past unnoticed.

Sneaking along like this, she finally reached the shop closest to the blast site.

All the street-facing buildings ahead were engulfed in flames, and the scorching air prevented her from going any further.

Ye Qingniao had no choice but to hide on the second floor of the shop nearest to the burning ones, observing Vehicle 1 across the street through a shattered window.

The armored vehicle’s tires had been burned away by the flames. Fortunately, there wasn’t much fuel left inside, so although there was a sympathetic detonation, the vehicle didn’t completely disintegrate.

But the wide-open hatch and the surrounding environment made it clear that there were no survivors inside.

"Uncle Zhou..."

Ye Qingniao knew that even if the figure seen in the camera footage had been Zhou Chaoxian, and regardless of how he had caused this explosion, there was no way he could have survived.

Still, she turned on her walkie-talkie and called out on all the military channels, but there was no reply.

She sighed and habitually turned the walkie-talkie’s dial to the civilian channel search function.

This was a special feature of military disaster-relief walkie-talkies. It could automatically jump between civilian channels, capturing and locking onto signals at any time, making it easier for rescue personnel to connect to various channels.

The civilian channels were also filled with nothing but static.

But just as she was about to climb the fire escape to the roof to get a better look, a woman’s voice suddenly came from her walkie-talkie:

"Big... *cough cough*... Big Brother... can you hear me...?"

...

"Seriously... what is wrong with them? Why is this survivor ignoring me?"

Ye Qingniao couldn’t understand their conversation at all.

In her experience, almost every survivor who encountered the military in this post-apocalyptic world begged for help with ecstatic joy. This was the first time on her journey that she’d been ignored as if she were a telemarketer.

But then she suddenly realized she hadn’t introduced herself. So, she patiently pressed the talk button and said sternly:

"This is a soldier from the Jishan Quarantine Zone convoy, en route to the Linjiang University Quarantine Zone. Are you survivors?

We are currently stationed at the Tianshui Road gas station to the north. If you are nearby survivors, you can go to the gas station to seek help and follow the convoy to the quarantine zone..."

But before she could finish...

THUD!

A muffled thud sounded from right above Ye Qingniao’s head. Dust trickled down from the cracks in the ceiling, startling her so much that the words caught in her throat.

The ceiling, already brittle from the heat of the fire, developed several new cracks from the impact.

’What was that? An explosion?’

Hearing the sound, Ye Qingniao forgot about arguing with the two survivors on the walkie-talkie. She quickly raised her rifle and scrambled up the fire escape, only to find the roof completely empty. There was nothing there.

There were no explosives, nor was there any sign of the woman from the radio who claimed to be on the storefront roof.

"What’s going on...?"

Ye Qingniao frowned and looked around, but feeling the temperature rise even higher, she gave up on investigating.

’Let those two weird survivors do whatever they want!’

She walked to the edge of the roof and stared at the armored vehicle in the distance for a few seconds. She silently bowed in its direction, then, enduring the face-searing heat, gave a standard military salute. After that, she turned and climbed back down the ladder without a second glance.

"Uncle Wang, Uncle Zhang, I’m heading back. I’ve confirmed that Colonel... Colonel Zhou and his crew have been killed in action..."

She switched channels and pressed the talk button. As she spoke the last words, her voice couldn’t help but tremble and break with a sob.

The Uncle Zhou who had watched her grow up, who always put on a stern face to lecture her but would plead on her behalf when her grandfather made her stand in the corner as punishment...

...was gone, completely gone, just like all the other aunts and uncles she was told had died on the day she woke up, just like her grandfather.