Apocalypse: the Most Ruthless Person

The Haranda drove all the way up to the mountain gate of the safe camp. Although a gate hadn’t been installed yet, there were barriers blocking the road, spikes on the ground, and a line of armed individuals standing behind!

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are survivors who escaped from the city, we mean no harm, we just want to…”

A man stepped out of the car, emaciated, hands raised in surrender as he spoke. Suddenly, he caught sight of two vaguely familiar figures, and his face froze.

“Go on, why don’t you keep talking? You mean no harm, and then what?”

From the back, Zhang Su got off the Prado, holding a gun and aiming at the two people, he teased, “What do you want? Invite us for hot pot?”

“Hehe!” Zheng Xinyu jumped down from the passenger seat, gritting her teeth, “When you stole our car back then, you didn’t expect this day to come, did you? Huh? You two fools!”

Those present had quite the reaction to Zheng Xinyu’s words, especially the companions who had witnessed the entire incident outside Yi Rewen’s store; their expressions were gradually losing control.

“B-big brother…”

The man slowly turned his head, looking at Zhang Su and others holding the guns, losing all color in his face.

“Guys, we had no choice at the time, we were forced to do what we did, please let us go, please don’t kill us.”

The woman who stepped down from the passenger seat was wearing a baseball cap, her face full of exhaustion, eyes filled with fear.

Zhong Xiaoshan walked out from the crowd, reaching through the barrier to touch the twisted hood of the Haranda, feeling a mixture of emotions, never imagining this day of recovery would come, it truly felt like meeting an old friend.

“Stop the nonsense, tie them up, take them back, tie them tight!”

Zhang Su, having found nothing at Beita Camp, was looking for someone to vent his anger on, and these two presented themselves like a godsend.

There was no chance of resistance, the man and woman were bound hand and foot, stuffed into the car trunk and driven to the inn area.

On the way, Zhao Dezhu was inquiring intensely about Beita Camp, learning that it was already deserted, outwardly appearing regretful but inwardly pleased because he missed today’s action, which meant there would be another chance, and next time, he would surely participate.

“Oh right, Zhuzi, take your wife to unload the car, we brought back some good stuff!”

“What is it?”

Yu Qing, standing nearby, her eyes lit up at Zhang Su’s words.

“Bozai calls it potassium acid carbonate, along with sulfur and charcoal.”

“Potassium nitrate!? That’s great…”

Zhang Su rarely saw such an excited expression on Yu Qing’s face, and quickly reminded, “Hey, there’s a warehouse over at Qingfeng Xiaozhu, keep those things far away, and be extra careful when mixing them, don’t make my brother Zhuzi a widower!”

“Come on, big brother, what are you two talking about, why are you cursing me?”

Zhao Dezhu, confused, scratched his head.

“Alright, go help out!”

With that, Zhang Su headed towards the parking area, as he had other things to take care of!

“Brother Su, in their car, no, in Second Sister-in-law’s car there are quite a lot of food and drink supplies!”

After driving the car to the parking lot, Lu Yubo began rummaging around, finding that there were quite a number of food and drink items, including over a box of instant noodles and various side foods, though there wasn’t much water, less than half a pack.

“Unload everything and pile it in the warehouse!”

“Haha, got it!” Lu Yubo twisted his legs as if they were happy pretzels, carrying items and running towards the warehouse.

Do they really care about such a small amount of supplies? Not really.

It’s this way of acquiring them that makes people’s spirits lift.

The bound man and woman dared not be angry nor speak out, watching helplessly as their collected supplies were taken away, their faces showing a heartache expression.

“Still have time to feel sorry for your things? Come on, tell us what’s really going on with you two. I remember there were four of you back then, what happened that there are only two of you left?”

Zhang Su brought the two to the courtyard of Little Lucky Inn, pushing them to the ground, he sat himself down on a stone bench, and asked.

The man did not answer Zhang Su’s question, instead asked in return, “Will you kill us?”

“Damn it, is it us asking you questions or you asking us, dammit!”

Just returning from the warehouse, Lu Yubo heard the man being defiant as he entered, and without hesitation approached and gave the man a sharp flick on the head, making a crisp “thunk” sound.

“Don’t, don’t hit us, we’ll talk, whatever you want to know, we’ll tell you.”

The woman hastily pleaded, then continued, “After… after we stole your car, the companion who was shot didn’t survive, later… in a supermarket, another companion was accidentally bitten by a zombie and turned…”

The woman recounted their team’s experience, there were no earth-shattering stories, nor heroic deeds, just various helplessness and hardships.

“Your companions died, so you decided to leave the city?”

Zhang Su spread his hands, extremely indifferent and pouting, in his opinion, the supplies in their car were most likely earned by their companions at the cost of their lives.

“We didn’t come out because our companions had an accident…”

The man’s head hurt from the flick, he groaned, then said, “A Survivor Alliance emerged in the north of Qin City. This organization has absorbed survivors within a two to three kilometers radius centered around the Lego Shopping Mall. From what I know, there might be nearly a hundred people!”

“Nearly a hundred people?”

Lu Yubo and several others looked at each other, throughout their journey, the largest population they saw was previously the United Village, which had only five or six dozen people.

Who would have thought a hundred-strong survivor organization would spring up in the city?

“We’ve only been out of the city for half a month, and such a large organization has appeared, impressive. So, why didn’t you join the Survivor Alliance?”

Zhang Su followed up with a question.

“We didn’t know about the Survivor Alliance at first. It was during a supply gathering mission when we clashed with a team that we found out about an organization called the Survivor Alliance. The team’s leader said unless we let Xiaojie spend a night with him, they wouldn’t allow us to stay in the North City area.”

The man said with a trace of helplessness.

Zhang Su glanced at the woman beside him, who was slightly bowing her head. Her dirty face revealed no beauty, but her figure was still decent. Even in such difficult circumstances, she hadn’t become skeletal.

He shook his head silently. In the post-apocalyptic world, a woman’s position is very awkward. Either she trains hard like the women in his team, possessing combat skills not inferior to men, or she can only provide emotional value to the male combatants and become an object of entertainment.

If she only performed simple logistical tasks, one could imagine her situation!

“Damn, those people are disgusting!”

Qi Xiaoshuai spat disdainfully.

“Only trash bullies women,” Lu Yubo cursed derisively. He would never bully the weak, especially women…

“What are your names?” Zhang Su asked.

“My name is Guo Dachao, and she’s my girlfriend, Yang Wenjie,” Guo Dachao said with a large bump on his head. Seeing Zhang Su’s slightly relaxed attitude, he hurriedly added, “Big brother, it’s our fault for hijacking your car earlier. We’ll repay it slowly, just don’t drive us away. We’ll do any kind of work as long as we have a bite to eat.”

“That’s right, that’s right. I can do laundry, cook, clean, farm, cut trees, chop firewood, make a fire, and I’m not afraid of killing zombies. Brother, consider the supplies in the car as our tribute to all of you. If… if it’s not enough, we can go out and find more. We just beg you to take us in.”

Yang Wenjie quickly knelt up straight, her eyes filled with pleading.

“We currently have no plans to expand our team, and you both have a history, so we’ll hold you for now and talk later!”

After speaking, Zhang Su pulled out a kukri and swiftly cut off the zip ties on their hands. He then said, “Hand over all the weapons on you, and I’ll give you a room.”

“Oh. Okay, okay.”

Upon hearing they’ll have a room to rest in, they immediately started taking out weapons from their bodies without hesitation.

Daggers, brass knuckles, tactical pens; in no time they had thrown out five or six random items, even two rolls of fishing line, which made Zhang Su reevaluate them. From what they carried, he could tell these two had some skills.

“Have you used fishing line to kill zombies?”

Zhang Su picked up a roll of sturdy fishing line and asked.

Guo Dachao shook his head, with a look of recollection in his eyes, he said, “I killed one person. If I hadn’t killed him, he would have killed Xiaojie…”

“Good, go then, to the room around the corner, behave, someone will be watching you!”

Zhang Su pointed and directly placed them in Little Lucky, where he lived upstairs, so it’s convenient to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Brother… we, um, could we get something to eat.”

Guo Dachao touched his belly a little embarrassed.

“Someone will bring it to you.”

With that, Zhang Su left.

Not long after, Zhong Xiaoshan delivered a pack of instant noodles to the two, taken from the supplies found in the Haranda car.

In the restaurant, Zhang Su saw Zhong Xiaoshan return and asked, “Did they say anything?”

“They did, said thanks, and also mentioned a pack wasn’t enough…” Zhong Xiaoshan shrugged with a smile.

“How did they divide it?” Zhang Su asked while eating dinner.

“Guo Dachao let Yang Wenjie eat first, I don’t know about later.”

Zhong Xiaoshan said and sat down.

“Hmm, that’s quite gentlemanly, better than a black-hearted person,” Zheng Xinyu remarked, propping her face with her fingers and rolling her eyes.

Zhang Su glanced at Zheng Xinyu, then said to the others, “Do you all think those two can be trusted?”

“Didn’t sense any malice from them…”

“Though they did steal our car.”

“Didn’t expect my one arrow back then almost took one of them down.”

“Running out of options, they seem to bear no ill intentions.”

Opinions varied regarding their trustworthiness. In this environment, trust was exceptionally precious. No one dared to easily trust strangers, especially those who had committed wrongs before.

Zhang Su felt conflicted. In his view, the two of them hadn’t crossed a line beyond forgiveness. Even the threat they posed when hijacking the car wasn’t as severe as the danger coming from Beita Camp!

Guo Dachao and his group stole cars to survive, but people from Beita Camp shot wildly out of hatred!

However, simply driving them out seemed like a weak punishment with no benefit to himself.

Finally, he slapped the table and declared, “We do need manpower in our camp now. Let’s hold them for a few days and observe. If nothing’s wrong, keep them as labor! They seem to be in a good relationship, so separate them to keep them in check!”

“Brother Su’s method is good.”

Liu Tianji was the first to agree. Building the camp’s defensive structures was just the first step. Many other projects awaited completion, requiring a lot of labor.

Yuwen adjusted his glasses and nodded, “The camp needs development, manpower must expand, and they made past mistakes due to different positions. I agree to give them a chance to atone for their crimes with good deeds.”