Chapter 30
Chapter 30
Li Jianping, known as the Scarred Man, returned to their temporary base with his group.
It was a villa that had once operated as an upscale guesthouse.
Unlike the highly secluded detached villa occupied by Qingshui and the others, this guesthouse was larger and had a more open layout. At the moment, however, it was packed with frightened, uneasy people.
More than twenty people were crammed into the second-floor hall. The air was stale, heavy with the stench of sweat and blood.
A woman sat on the finest sofa in the center of the hall. Her posture was casual, almost languid, yet the people standing around her, including the newly returned Li Jianping, instinctively lowered their heads, not daring to meet her gaze.
Scattered across the once-elegant coffee table in front of her were a few packets of crushed crackers, half an opened bag of rice, several nearly empty bottles of mineral water, and some snacks scavenged from the villa.
It was a pitiful haul.
The people responsible for searching for supplies stood trembling before her, their faces ashen. One of them explained in a quavering voice, “S-Sister Li… We really did… This is really all we could find. The nearby empty houses… they’ve already been searched several times. There really… really isn’t anything left to eat.”
The woman they called Sister Li raised her head.
If Fang Shuyao had been here, her eyes would have widened in shock.
This woman, whom everyone around her clearly feared, was none other than the same woman who had clung to the fence outside their villa and pitifully begged Fang Shuyao for help.
There was no trace now of the helpless vulnerability she had shown then.
Her pale face was expressionless, and her gaze was so calm it was almost vacant. Yet upon closer inspection, a deep malice lurked in the depths of her eyes, creating a disturbing sense that something about her was fundamentally wrong.
She glanced at the meager supplies on the table, then at the frightened faces before her. Contrary to Li Jianping’s expectations, she neither lost her temper nor reprimanded them. She merely curled her lips slightly, as though she found the whole scene rather dull.
Of course she knew there was little left to scavenge nearby. The resort had never had many guests to begin with, so its stores were limited. With so many mouths to feed, it was only a matter of time before they exhausted everything. If they wanted more food and a reliable source of supplies, they would have to risk going down the mountain and entering the residential district that had already become a living hell.
The question was… even if they made it down, could they make it back up?
The lunatics roaming outside and reveling in the chaos were no harmless decoration.
There might have been more than twenty people in their group, but how many of them were truly willing to fight, willing to risk their lives without going weak at the sight of blood?
Most were nothing more than a terrified rabble desperate to cling to someone strong enough to protect them.
Besides… why risk their lives at the foot of the mountain?
The woman’s gaze drifted toward the window, in the general direction of the villa occupied by Qingshui and the others. There was no emotion in her eyes.
Wasn’t anything… more interesting going to happen?
“Li Jianping.” Her voice was quiet, yet the murmuring in the hall instantly fell silent. “When you went to ‘say hello,’ did you discover anything?”
Every eye turned toward the newly returned Scarface, Li Jianping, including those of the silent men and women standing behind Sister Li like shadows.
Li Jianping found himself under everyone’s scrutiny, especially that of the expressionless man and woman behind Sister Li, who never let go of their large machetes.
He puffed out his chest and tried to make his voice sound more confident. “Sister Li, we threw quite a few rocks at the villa’s windows. We made plenty of noise! But… there wasn’t any response from inside. The whole place was pitch-black, and we didn’t see anyone. Maybe they were sleeping too deeply, or… maybe they were deliberately pretending no one was there.”
He paused, remembering the chill he’d felt from that final glimpse before leaving. His confidence wavered, but greed and the urge to prove himself won out.
“Still, they definitely have a huge amount of food! We saw it clearly that night. Their vehicle was packed to the brim with boxes and bags! They might even have liquor and other good stuff!”
Those words were like a spark landing in a dried-out oil pan.
The eyes of many people in the hall lit up at once, hunger surfacing in their gazes.
In one corner, a young couple who seemed out of place among the others exchanged worried glances. Unlike everyone else, they showed no excitement. If anything, Li Jianping’s words only made their brows knit tighter.
Sister Li watched the crowd’s reaction, a flicker of satisfaction rising within her. She straightened slightly and declared with righteous conviction, “Oh? Since they have so many… goodies, it wouldn’t be too much to ask them to ‘share’ some with us, would it? We’re all human. At a time like this, isn’t it only natural that we help each other and get through this crisis together?”
“Exactly! Sister Li is right!”
“Yeah! They have so much. What’s wrong with giving us some?”
“They can’t expect us to just starve to death!”
The crowd was quickly riled up. Everyone began chiming in at once, as though demanding someone else’s survival supplies were the most reasonable thing in the world.
Gao Yizhou and He Qianxue kept their heads down, hiding at the back of the crowd with their lips pressed so tightly together that they had gone white. They knew perfectly well that this was no “request for help.” It was the prelude to a raid!
Anyone capable of going down the mountain at night and returning with that many supplies was hardly going to be an easy target. Once a fight broke out…
They did not dare think any further. But with Sister Li’s ruthless hold over the group and that knife-wielding man and woman at her side, they could not risk voicing the slightest objection.
After all… those people really would kill.
Gao Yizhou still remembered what had happened when the apocalypse first plunged everything into chaos. One man had refused to obey, and the silent knife-wielding woman beside Sister Li had chopped off his hand on the spot. Blood sprayed across the floor, and he ultimately died from the massive blood loss.
After that, no one dared defy Sister Li again.
We have to find a way… to get out of here.
Gao Yizhou gripped his girlfriend’s icy hand as the thought took clearer shape in his mind. They could not stay here much longer. Sister Li and her people were growing more unhinged by the day. If he and He Qianxue remained with them, sooner or later they would either be eaten by those madmen or die in a fight among their own kind.
He was still turning over possible plans when he suddenly felt a frigid gaze settle soundlessly on him and He Qianxue, like the flicking tongue of a venomous snake.
It was Sister Li!
Gao Yizhou’s heart hammered. He quickly gave He Qianxue’s sleeve a forceful tug.
Understanding at once, He Qianxue forced herself to lift her head despite trembling with fear. She twisted her face into a strained smile and shouted along with the crowd, “That’s right! We should take it from them! We can’t let them keep everything for themselves!”
The icy gaze lingered on them for several seconds, as though scrutinizing them, before slowly drifting away.
Cold sweat instantly soaked Gao Yizhou’s and He Qianxue’s backs. They breathed silent sighs of relief, but their racing hearts refused to settle. For that brief moment, they had genuinely felt death looming over them.
As the weakness of narrowly escaping disaster washed over him, Gao Yizhou’s thoughts drifted back several days to the time when the apocalypse had first descended. What should have been a sweet and memorable occasion in his life…
That was two days before the apocalypse broke out.
It was Gao Yizhou’s birthday. His girlfriend, He Qianxue, had specially taken time off from her university in a neighboring city and traveled over to surprise him.
They had already decided to avoid the packed tourist attractions and find somewhere quiet and beautiful where they could enjoy some time alone together. After carefully weighing their options, they settled on an upscale guesthouse known for its good reviews and privacy.
The villa was beautiful. Opening the windows revealed a tranquil lake and distant mountains, and everything was just as perfect as they had imagined. They had even planned to hike through the nearby woods the next day, then have a barbecue and watch the stars from the villa’s terrace that night.
It was supposed to be the perfect birthday trip, one they would never forget.
They never could have imagined that, only two days later, their happiness would be shattered and the entire world would plunge into an abyss of madness.