Chapter 254 - 223: Collecting a Debt

Chapter 254: Chapter 223: Collecting a Debt

The gunshots pierced the curtain of rain, muffled by countless droplets, sounding like distant thunder from the edge of the sky.

Even Lin Fan, deep inside an alley several hundred meters away, only instinctively picked out a few unusual sounds from the deafening patter of the rain.

He wasn’t very familiar with the sound and couldn’t be sure if it was gunfire, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t thunder. After all, he’d been fooled by thunder many times over the past few days and had learned a thing or two.

He had just pulled his spear from a corpse, washed the bloodstains off in the rain, and equipped the Concealment Crystal, preparing to scout the factory’s interior again when he heard the faint sounds.

’Gunfire?’

He glanced back toward the alley’s entrance, hesitating. Should he go back and check? It couldn’t be that Ye Qingniao and the others had run into trouble the moment he left...

But as soon as he turned, he saw the familiar armored vehicle roar past the alley entrance. Its four massive tires churned up the standing water, kicking up a spray that lingered in the air.

Floating above the armored vehicle was a yellow health bar, nearly depleted: [55/700].

The health bar was clearly Ye Qingniao’s. And her energy, which had been fully restored, was now completely drained, with only [21/1400] remaining...

’Cyan Bird?’

Lin Fan froze. He didn’t even have time to wonder why he could see the health bar of someone inside the vehicle. With a thought, he unsummoned his spear and sprinted toward the alley entrance.

Just as he rounded the corner, he saw several people on the southern sidewalk who hadn’t been there before.

It was four men in factory-style raincoats. Two of them, holding hooked spears, were dragging a "corpse" apiece through the muddy water like they were hauling dead dogs.

The reason they looked like "corpses" was because the two people had their hands and feet bound tightly with thick iron wire and their mouths stuffed with rotten cloth. They were being dragged across the rough concrete, one of them leaving a glaring trail of blood.

In Lin Fan’s vision, faint yellow health bars floated above the two blurry figures: [21/100] and [4/100].

They were on the brink of death, but not dead yet.

At the front of the group, two men with guns were huddled together. Despite the noisy rain, their smug conversation could still be heard.

...

"That chick took two solid hits. Her organs are shredded. Even for a Superpower User, she’s not far from death."

A young man with a savage glint in his eyes, holding an automatic rifle, wiped the rain from his face. He looked at the middle-aged man before him, his voice filled with excitement.

"Brother Li, should I go after them...?"

"You follow them on the motorcycle. See where they stop..."

The middle-aged man called Brother Li had a sinister expression. He glanced at the two half-dead "corpses" behind him and spat violently on the ground.

"The bridges are all blown. They can’t get to the quarantine zone. That woman can’t take this much jostling. They’ll have to stop to rest and patch her up. When that happens..."

Brother Li sneered, his eyes glinting with the cunning of a seasoned Hunter. But suddenly, his perpetually narrowed, triangular eyes shot wide open as he shouted a warning:

"Someone’s here!"

He immediately drew his gun, the dark muzzle instantly pointing toward the seemingly empty space at the alley entrance.

"Who’s there! Come out!"

Seeing Li Xun suddenly act like he was facing a major threat, the young man with the rifle also raised his weapon. He aimed it at the empty space Li Xun was indicating while slowly backing up, tucking half his body behind the A-pillar of an abandoned car.

Although he couldn’t see anyone, he had complete faith in the abilities of a Superpower User like Li Xun.

He didn’t think his boss was bluffing. Over the last few days, numerous survivor convoys trying to reach the quarantine zone had been blocked by the destroyed bridges along the boundary river, forcing them to detour through the factory district. Li Xun had led them on successful ambushes time and again, relying on his incredible hearing-based Superpower.

Once, there was even a Superpower User with optical camouflage who thought he was being perfectly stealthy. But Li Xun heard his heartbeat, shot him in the leg, and now he was nothing but food for Mutated Zombies.

And that armored vehicle had stopped here... maybe it was because a companion had gotten out...

He held his breath, cleared his mind, and coldly observed the empty ground Li Xun’s pistol was aimed at through his rifle’s low-power scope.

The two underlings dragging the "corpses" also acted with practiced ease. They tossed the bodies aside, readied their spears, and flanked Li Xun from behind.

"Li..."

one of them asked hesitantly.

"Shut up!"

Li Xun didn’t even turn his head. He didn’t even open his mouth, just forced a low growl from deep in his throat. His eyes narrowed to slits, pupils vibrating rapidly as he stared intently at the seemingly empty, waterlogged road a dozen meters ahead, as if trying to discern whether each individual raindrop was landing on the ground.

Internally, he was pushing his ability to its limit, drawing in every sound from the vicinity.

Breathing, heartbeats, the faint sound of swallowing, even the GURGLE of his three underlings’ internal organs—he could distinguish them all at this distance.

But ahead... there was nothing. No breathing, no heartbeat, not even the sound of footsteps.

And yet, cold sweat trickled down Li Xun’s temples, mixing with the rain and running into his collar, chilling him to the bone. The deadlier the silence, the more nervous he became.

His grip on the gun tightened, the barrel aimed unwaveringly at that "blank space" a dozen meters away.

That strange sound a moment ago was definitely not a hallucination. It was the dull SQUELCH of a foot stepping on a loose paving stone, forcing out the water trapped beneath. And it had come from this empty space right in front of him.

’I didn’t hear footsteps, but I heard the water splash...’