Chapter 196 - 195: 30 Minutes

Chapter 196: Chapter 195: 30 Minutes

’This building... it looks a little familiar...’

An image from that morning flashed through Lin Fan’s mind.

’To think that the twenty-pound ice ball from this morning actually managed to hit me while I was eating hotpot tonight.’

Of course, this was just a random thought that surfaced in his daze. If a building that could collapse from a twenty-pound ice ball really did fall, it most likely had nothing to do with the ice ball itself.

’A strong gust of wind could have probably knocked it down...’

Lin Fan leaped off the roof and sprinted straight for the gas station. In his current physical state, he could run far faster and with more agility than any car.

In less than three minutes, he reached the gas station.

"Who— Colonel Lin? Where’s Colonel Ye?"

Lin Fan cleared the nearby greenbelt in a few large bounds, landing inside the gas station’s perimeter wall. He came face-to-face with Zhang Wenyuan and Hu Chen, who were walking out of a military tent.

The two were so startled by the figure that appeared out of nowhere that they drew their guns. Seeing it was Lin Fan, they breathed a sigh of relief.

"She’s behind me... What’s going on? Where is everyone? What’s the situation up ahead? How many people are out there?"

Seeing living people, Lin Fan immediately fired off a string of questions.

He didn’t actually know if Ye Qingzhou was behind him, but with something like this happening, she would definitely be heading back. So he just took the liberty of saying so.

He saw that besides Zhang Wenyuan and Hu Chen, there were only two or three others and some researchers dismantling tents in the gas station. ’Surely not all of the dozen or so men under Tan Wei were still eating over at Liu Bin’s place, right?’

"Wang Zhong, Jiang Jing, and Cyan Bird—the three of them are up front! There might be a problem. We can’t reach them on the walkie-talkie!"

Zhang Wenyuan answered Lin Fan’s question. Hu Chen, at his side, seemed to notice his confusion and quickly chimed in.

"Captain Tan, Cheng Qi, and the others took some men to set up a defensive line. If the zombie horde charges, it might buy us some time."

Lin Fan wanted to ask what kind of defensive line could possibly buy time against a horde of several thousand zombies, but on second thought, he decided to just go see for himself. He held out his hand and demanded:

"Give me a walkie-talkie that can reach Wang Zhong and the others."

"Here!"

Without hesitation, Hu Chen took off his own walkie-talkie and handed it to Lin Fan with both hands. He looked at him earnestly and said,

"Colonel Lin, we’re counting on you to get them back! ...Wait!"

As he spoke, he turned and ran into the tent, emerging with a gas mask that he handed to Lin Fan.

Lin Fan took the mask, nodded, and without another word, turned and ran back toward the smoke in the distance.

After rounding the corner from the gas station, he finally saw the barricade. Dozens of vehicles were lined up on the road, almost completely blocking it. The gaps between them were filled with piles of tires and mannequins, clothes, sofas, and other things gathered from nearby stores.

Cars were still being driven over from the parking lot behind the gas station. It seemed this was also part of the preparations they had made in the last half-day.

Lin Fan didn’t bother greeting them again. He vaulted over the roofs of the cars parked on the road, pulled the mask over his face, and plunged into the cloud of dust from the collapsed building.

...

"Uncle Wang? Uncle Jiang?"

Ye Qingniao lay cautiously on the roof of a storefront, turning down the volume on her walkie-talkie and keeping her own voice as low as possible.

She peeked over the edge. In the gray-green view of her night-vision goggles, countless zombies were swarming below.

The muffled thud from before hadn’t been loud, but it had completely agitated the horde. In an instant, the zombies, which had been wandering and spreading out aimlessly, suddenly sprang to life as if they’d heard a coach’s whistle and began sprinting toward the source of the sound.

’At this rate, the fastest ones at the front will reach the gas station in less than half an hour!’

But right at this critical moment, the comms relay in the middle went dark!

This made her worry for the safety of Wang Zhong and Jiang Jing in the middle, as well as for everyone back at the gas station. On top of that, her mission was to monitor the horde, and now that it was stampeding, she had no way to get her message out!

She had already run several hundred meters along the rooftops, but a small road lay ahead. She couldn’t just leap across it like that... that annoying guy. So she had to wait here. Only after the densest part of the frontline tide of zombies had passed could she use her Superpower to move through the horde.

With the zombies packed so tightly below, she would definitely be discovered if she rashly tried to blend in.

So, despite her anxiety, she could only wait, calling for Wang Zhong in the middle and Jiang Jing at the farthest point, while waiting for an opportunity when the horde’s density below thinned out.

...

Concrete slabs from the three- or four-story building were piled up like a heap of spilled cereal on a table, crisscrossing and overlapping to form a "mountain range of rubble."

Visibility in the dust cloud was extremely low. Even with Lin Fan’s concealment potion active, he could only see three or four meters ahead in his withered-yellow field of vision.

When he finally reached the collapsed structure, Lin Fan began to move east along the edge of the rubble.

He couldn’t jump over it, nor did he dare to try.

The wreckage was in a highly unstable state of equilibrium. The slightest vibration could cause the precariously propped-up floor slabs to collapse again.

’Even for someone like me, being buried under all that wouldn’t be very pleasant.’

But he didn’t try to kick the slabs down, either. The noise would definitely attract the zombies, and if the rubble could block him, it could certainly block them too, at least for a while.

The building had collapsed eastward, smashing the residential buildings of the complex across the street. Lin Fan had no choice but to go around the entire debris field. It took him several extra minutes to cut through the unfamiliar residential complex before he finally reached the other side of the rubble.

’Good, the zombies aren’t here yet. Looks like I still have time.’

"Wang Zhong... Jiang Jing... Ye Qingniao?"

Lin Fan took out the walkie-talkie Hu Chen had given him, pressed the talk button, and asked. After waiting for two seconds, there was no reply.

"Hu Chen?"

"...Colonel Lin, it’s Hu Chen. Where are you? Your voice is very faint, the signal is bad..."

’Bad signal?’

Hearing Hu Chen’s words, Lin Fan couldn’t help but feel a little doubtful.

He was only about a kilometer in a straight line from the gas station. There was no way the signal should be bad. ’Could there be another problem with the signal?’

"I’m on the other side of the collapsed building’s rubble. No zombies have arrived yet. Give me their approximate locations..."

"...The three of them are all on the west side of the road. Uncle Jiang is the closest, about two to three kilometers from the gas station. Wang Zhong is in the middle, around seven to eight kilometers out. Cyan Bird’s last contact was from about twelve kilometers away..."

"Two to three kilometers..."

Lin Fan murmured the distance. He didn’t know exactly how far that was from here. He knew Ye Qingniao could use her Superpower to temporarily blend in with the horde, but the other two had also lost contact instantly. ’Something else must have happened...’

"...Colonel Lin, it’s me."

Suddenly, Ye Qingzhou’s voice came through the walkie-talkie. It had only been a few minutes, and she was already back.

Then, her voice continued over the radio.

"The horde will reach the gas station at full speed in approximately thirty to fifty minutes. The men can be abandoned. I need you to return as soon as possible... *KSHH*... If anything happens to you, it would be a loss for all of humanity..."

Listening to Ye Qingzhou’s by-the-book voice on the walkie-talkie, Lin Fan couldn’t help but be reminded of the little girl who was the "former hope of humanity." He wondered if she was still being difficult.

"Colonel Ye, if you keep testing me, we can’t be friends..."

He retorted. In any case, he really didn’t like that title. ’What’s her problem, always dragging in those three words, "all of humanity"?’

"...This building... its collapse is strange... Even with that hit you gave it this morning, it shouldn’t have fallen. I suspect it was that..."

Ye Qingzhou’s hesitant voice came from the walkie-talkie. She paused for two seconds, then continued,

"Well then, I’ll leave the three of them to you. But you still need to get back quickly. I’ve spoken with your people. The convoy is being assembled and is expected to depart within thirty minutes..."