Chapter 204 - 201: The Abyss Says You Look at Me, But You’re Thinking of Him (Part 2)

Chapter 204: Chapter 201: The Abyss Says You Look at Me, But You’re Thinking of Him (Part 2)

"Let’s not get into that now. We have to keep moving."

"Okay..."

"You have night vision?"

Seeing the look she gave him and the faint glow in her eye, Lin Fan made the connection and suddenly asked.

"I can see a little, but I’m blind in one eye, so my field of vision is limited..."

"That’s enough. We’re about to pass the peak of the zombie horde. Once we’re past them, we’ll have some time..."

The Invisibility Potion he relied on was still on cooldown. He’d stumbled and staggered through the last section of their run, collapsing three or four buildings underfoot and nearly tripping over concrete barriers several times. Things would be much easier if Ye Qingniao had night vision.

"Do you still want to wear the mask?"

He asked, holding up the mask he had just taken off.

"I’d rather not..."

Ye Qingniao politely declined the mask that had suffocated her to the point of hallucination. She looked around and found they were standing on the roof of a collapsed building. Half of a room was still intact, offering some meager shelter from the rain.

It wasn’t until Lin Fan walked to the edge of the roof that she saw the dense horde of zombies. They were packed shoulder to shoulder, running down the road, a thick carpet of bodies stretching for hundreds, even thousands, of meters...

"Hold on tight..."

"Uh, I can’t... My body is numb..."

Even though she knew she was tied to him, she still felt the need to explain when he said that. It would be awkward if he thought she could hold on herself and she ended up falling.

’Even though just a moment ago she was so ashamed she’d rather have become a zombie, seeing the real ones below suddenly made her think being human was better after all...’

"Right, no problem..."

Lin Fan said quietly.

Lin Fan adjusted his grip under her legs, hoisting her up slightly. He then lowered his body and shot forward, preparing to rush through in a single burst!

Ye Qingniao was suddenly hit with a familiar, immense feeling of G-force. That little mental scene couldn’t help but play out in her head again, but she quickly suppressed it.

She quickly buried her head against Lin Fan’s shoulder. Her one good eye shimmered with a faint, dark blue light as she periodically called out warnings about obstacles and unstable buildings ahead...

「...」

Two assault vehicles were parked in the open area in front of a gas station. Neither had their engines off. Both were facing north, and their drivers sat tensely behind the wheel, glancing nervously at their rearview mirrors from time to time.

A light rain drizzled from the sky. A dozen or so armed personnel in full gear and raincoats stood under the lights of the gas station.

"Captain Liu’s side is all ready. We can leave at any time!"

Ye Qingzhou stood among the crowd. Her walkie-talkie crackled to life with Yu Wentao’s voice.

Yu Wentao had already taken the rest of their people and integrated them into the Xingfu Li survivor convoy. The only ones left here were Ye Qingzhou, Cheng Qi, Tan Wei, and his ten men.

With Lin Fan absent, Ye Qingzhou didn’t feel comfortable sending Tan Wei over to the main group, so she had insisted he stay behind.

"Qingzhou! Wang is back!"

Hu Chen’s excited voice came through the walkie-talkie. Hearing it, Ye Qingzhou also looked up toward the gas station.

Earlier, while setting up the defensive line, the group had discovered a narrow path barely wide enough for a car on the east side of the collapsed building’s ruins—diagonally behind the gas station. Taking it would allow them to head south without risking a trip through the residential complex to the east.

So, after the defensive line was established, a restless Hu Chen and Zhang Wenyuan volunteered to take a private car and head south to provide support.

They hadn’t been gone long before they found Wang Zhong.

A few moments later, an assault vehicle drove over from the gas station. The two men in the front were none other than Hu Chen and Wang Zhong.

The vehicle screeched to a halt beside the group. The side door opened, and Wang Zhong, now covered head to toe in blood, stumbled out of the passenger seat. Hu Chen quickly jumped out to support him.

"Whoa, Wang! How did you get so hurt!"

Captain Tan Wei was the first to rush over, steadying Wang Zhong and asking with concern.

Ye Qingzhou walked over next. When she saw that a section of Wang Zhong’s right arm was missing, her pupils contracted sharply.

"...Wang, what happened?"

Even Ye Qingzhou was so shocked by Wang Zhong’s injuries that, despite outsiders being present, she forgot to address him by his rank.

"Colonel... Colonel Lin saved me..."

Wang Zhong caught his breath, turned to nod at Tan Wei, and continued,

"He went to find Cyan Bird. Jiang Jing... did he make it back?"

Wang Zhong asked hesitantly, even though he suspected the answer was no.

Lin Fan hadn’t mentioned him, and Wang Zhong had forgotten to ask at the time. But seeing the scattered zombies and collapsed houses on the drive back, he understood that Jiang Jing’s chances had been slim.

He himself was an Awakened One and had barely made it out alive. No matter how strong Jiang Jing was, he was still just a normal person...

"Hu Chen, Cheng Qi, take Wang Zhong to the convoy. Find a doctor to patch him up..."

Ye Qingzhou didn’t answer the question, simply turning her head to address Hu Chen.

"It’s good enough that you made it back alive. Go..."

"Zhang Wenyuan is still waiting up ahead..."

Hearing Ye Qingzhou’s words and thinking of Jiang Jing, Hu Chen’s expression darkened for a moment. But half the squad had already died on this trip; at least one person making it back was a good thing. He and Cheng Qi helped Wang Zhong into the car, and he slid into the driver’s seat.

"I’ll be right back after I drop him off!"

With that, he slammed on the gas and sped north along the road.

The dust kicked up by the collapsed building was gradually washed away by the rain, faintly revealing the jagged ruins and rebar.

The gaps and caverns formed by interlocking floor slabs swallowed any light that entered, as if hiding man-eating monsters within.

In front of the ruins, two dense rows of various cars were parked. They were stuffed with all kinds of fabrics and tires, with mineral water bottles full of liquid wedged in between...

Ye Qingzhou looked at the simple but deadly defensive line before her, then glanced at her watch.

Cold raindrops dripped from the brim of her hood onto the walkie-talkie in her hand, but she paid it no mind, her gaze fixed grimly to the south.

「...」

"Watch out!"

Ye Qingniao suddenly cried out a warning from Lin Fan’s back, but he had already noticed.

He couldn’t see bricks in the darkness, but not a single zombie in the shadows could escape his notice.

The moment he landed, Lin Fan saw a health bar above the opening of a ventilation duct ahead...

[987/987]

"To hell with you!"

Equipping the Sharpness Crystal, he focused energy into his foot and kicked the middle of the ventilation duct, slicing the metal pipe—and the Mutated Zombie inside—in two.

[-672]!

It wasn’t dead, but he didn’t have time for a finishing blow. As long as it couldn’t block their escape, that was enough.

The farther they went, the more Mutated Zombies were drawn out of the buildings by the noise and vibrations.

The buildings were also more severely collapsed. Some that hadn’t completely fallen when Lin Fan passed through earlier had now been brought down by various Mutated Zombies.

But thankfully, the two of them made it through the peak of the zombie horde. It had been a harrowing journey for Lin Fan, but a harmless one for Ye Qingniao.

"So that lightning wasn’t a signal you sent after you saw the fire I started?"

Lin Fan asked, glancing at her in surprise after listening to her story.

The gruesome scar was on her left cheek, right next to him, and her left eye was the one that had been burned. So Ye Qingniao didn’t see his expression. She just listened to Lin Fan’s account of what he saw and replied:

"The roof ahead is broken, stay to the side... I didn’t see any fire..."

She continued, lost in her own memories.

She only remembered that afterward, she couldn’t see or hear anything. All of her strength was focused on fighting the corruption that was trying to drag her into the abyss.

"I was the one who summoned the lightning. I’d done it once before, but that time I was inside an armored vehicle, so I didn’t get hurt..."

Ye Qingniao explained, recalling the bolt of lightning Lin Fan mentioned.

"It was right before I got here. That time, it used up all my power..."

"Inside the armored vehicle... So that’s how the machine gun on the roof broke?"

After hearing her explanation, Lin Fan finally understood how the big gun on that vehicle had been destroyed.

"Yes... A Mutated Zombie jumped onto the vehicle and was about to tear the turret apart..."