Chapter 249 - 221: Confrontation

Chapter 249: Chapter 221: Confrontation

The rain had let up for a moment, but before Lin Fan could even step into the alley, it started pouring again.

To maintain the effect of the Stealth Crystal, he had removed the Armor Crystal that could have shielded him from the wind and rain. He’d even taken off his raincoat to keep it from getting in the way and tossed it by the side of the road.

Lin Fan, spear in hand, impaled a zombie that had wandered into the alley from who knows where. The cold, wet clothes clinging to his skin made him sigh. He couldn’t help but think, ’Maybe I should go back and use the interface module to make a hoodie that can slot an Armor Crystal. A Stealth Crystal would work too, but I don’t know if the effect would cover my whole body.’

Muttering to himself about such ’luxurious’ equipment concepts, he wiped the rain from his face and forced the distracting thoughts from his mind.

The atmosphere here was just too strange. So strange that Lin Fan couldn’t help but let his imagination run wild.

Clean. It was too clean.

On his way here, riding on top of a car, he had seen bodies scattered in twos and threes along the main road, with the occasional zombie shambling about.

But this alley was unnervingly clean. Forget zombies, there wasn’t even a single corpse.

Except for the one at his feet.

Cars were parked one after another along the road. Most of their windows were smashed, with rain pouring into them. Otherwise, the scene would have been as mundane as the outside of a factory on a weekend afternoon.

But that was precisely what was so strange. It wasn’t that no zombies came here—he’d just killed one. This "cleanliness" clearly meant someone had been tidying up...

Like a nimble black cat, Lin Fan moved silently across the slick pavement, ducking behind a panel van parked on the side of the road.

He peeked out, his gaze piercing the dense curtain of rain to look across the street.

There, a factory complex was enclosed by high walls. A grand marble sign hung by the main gate. Though spattered with mud, the large, gilded characters on it were still legible:

"VIP Chilled Fresh Meat Food Processing Plant No. 2..."

Leaning against the back of a truck on the right side of the alley, Lin Fan stared at the marble sign by the factory gate across the street and read it out, word by word. But as he looked at the closed sliding gate beside it, he muttered to himself,

’Is this the place... Oh, it must be.’

"’Chilled Fresh Meat...’" Lin Fan looked at the words, a smirk playing on his lips. "’That name sounds pretty ominous.’"

Just as he was about to cross the street to investigate further,

CLICK—WHIRR—

the heavy industrial sliding gate next to the factory sign suddenly let out a mechanical groan and slowly slid open, creating a narrow gap.

Two figures emerged, one after the other.

They wore matching dark blue factory uniforms, covered by clear industrial raincoats. On their hands were thick, cut-resistant work gloves.

Each man held a steel-pipe spear nearly two meters long, fitted with a horizontal hook resembling a sickle.

The hooks were polished to a shine, clearly from frequent use. Judging by their steady gait and how they held their weapons, they were definitely not greenhorns who had never seen a fight.

[92/100] [89/100]...

’Life’s been good to them.’

Lin Fan immediately crouched down, using the row of cars as cover, and slowly began to follow them.

"Is the boss losing his mind these past few days?" the lanky man walking behind complained, his voice full of dissatisfaction. "It’s pouring rain, and he insists we go move those bodies. They’ve been there for days..."

The rain was loud, but with his hearing, Lin Fan could still catch snippets of their conversation.

"Shut your mouth," the sturdier man in front snapped without turning his head. "Just do what you’re told... If we don’t move the bodies, should we feed you to those things instead?"

Hearing the word "feed," the lanky man visibly shivered. He flinched, swallowing his complaints. "But... but don’t we still have so much ’stock’? All those people are just locked up anyway..."

"Those people have other uses... You don’t know shit!" the sturdy man cut him off, his tone harsh. "Keep talking nonsense and if Boss Li hears you, he might just toss you in to be fed along with them."

"Holy shit! I completely forgot..." The lanky man was so scared he slapped a hand over his mouth. But then his eyes darted around as he seemed to realize something. He gave the man in front a shove and started cursing.

"Wait a minute! Who the hell are you trying to scare? Boss Li just took some men and left. Said he was looking for that little girl who ran off... No matter how awesome his Superpower is, I could curse him and his entire family right now, and he wouldn’t hear a thing!"

"Oh, you’re so tough. Why don’t you try cursing him when the rain stops?"

The man in front gave him a thumbs-up for his courage, but as he turned his head, he suddenly spotted the zombie corpse lying in a puddle. His body instantly tensed up, on high alert.

"Huh? Why is there a body over there?"

He immediately leveled his hooked spear, staring intently at the motionless zombie corpse in the puddle.

Rain washed over the corpse’s half-shattered skull. Grayish-white matter was being beaten apart by the downpour, spreading across the pavement.

It was obviously a fresh kill. Otherwise, a downpour this heavy would have already washed the brains out of its skull.

"Did anyone come out to ’clean up’ today?"

"It’s pouring. They were afraid of catching a cold, so no one came out..."

The man behind him grew tense as well.

"Boss Li and his group definitely left through the north gate. You have the remote for this south gate. Besides us, who else could..."

As he spoke, they both realized something at the same time. The color drained from their faces.