Chapter 55

Chapter 55

The forest gradually gave way to gentler terrain.

When the wind blew past, it no longer carried the damp, oppressive smell of the woods. Instead, there was a hint of the dry open country in the air.

It meant they had finally left the outskirts behind.

But no one felt any joy.

Lin Hao held Zhou Yaping’s small hand, his voice hoarse and grating. “Are we… still not at the service area?”

His eyes were unfocused, his gaze drifting aimlessly over their surroundings. Then it suddenly stopped, locking onto the trunk of a sapling beside him.

A plump beetle clung to the bark, its dark brown shell gleaming in the dim light.

Lin Hao lunged, his right hand shooting out like lightning.

Smack.

The beetle was trapped in his palm, its slender legs kicking futilely.

Lin Hao straightened. With his left hand, he pinched the beetle where its head met its thorax, then twisted hard with his thumb and forefinger.

Crack.

A faint snapping sound.

The beetle’s head separated from its body, and dark green fluid oozed from the break.

Lin Hao held the still-twitching body to Zhou Yaping’s lips. “Eat.”

Zhou Yaping’s little face was pale, her lips pressed tightly together. The sight of the quivering insect carcass made her stomach churn. But she did not pull away. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth.

He pushed the beetle inside.

She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing and her entire face scrunching up. She did not spit it out. Instead, she clamped both hands over her mouth and forced it down.

No one spoke.

Chen Yuhui looked away, her own gaze just as unfocused.

Qingshui suddenly stopped walking.

She raised a hand and pointed toward a blurry silhouette on the distant horizon. Her voice was raspy with thirst. “Is that… the service area?”

Everyone’s eyes snapped in that direction.

Ji Feifan was the first to rush to her side. He narrowed his eyes, straining to make it out. A few seconds later, a hoarse sound escaped his throat. “It is… It is!”

In that instant, it was as if the lifeless group had been injected with a powerful stimulant.

Everyone stumbled over.

The indistinct buildings in the distance filled their eyes with joy. But reason quickly extinguished that brief spark.

What if there were Madmen inside? What if other survivors had taken shelter there and did not welcome outsiders?

Countless terrible possibilities flashed through their minds. The little burst of energy they had just found was quickly crushed beneath even deeper fear and exhaustion.

“Let’s get closer and take a look first,” Qingshui decided.

She took the lead, following the edge of the road toward the distant buildings.

The others silently followed.

Their steps were heavier than before, not from exhaustion, but from the strange weight of fear and anticipation tangled together.

As they drew closer, the service area gradually came into focus.

A red-and-white building appeared before them, with several fuel pumps standing beside the main structure.

The building looked intact.

As far as they could see, there was no blood, no corpses, and none of the wreckage left behind after Madmen ran rampant.

Qingshui stopped behind a dirt mound that came up to her waist and motioned for everyone to crouch down and stay hidden. She advanced alone, eventually taking cover behind a low wall along the side of the service area building.

Holding her breath, she listened carefully.

There was only the wind.

A fuel nozzle lay on the concrete, surrounded by a large stain that had dried black. It looked like motor oil, or perhaps something else. She stared at it for several seconds, then picked up a small stone from the ground.

With a flick of her wrist, the stone arced through the air and landed precisely beside the nozzle.

Tap.

A faint sound.

Nothing reacted.

Qingshui waited ten seconds, then threw a second stone.

The silence remained unbroken.

She slowly exhaled, turned back, and waved toward the dirt mound.

Chen Yuhui carefully led the others over.

“Xiaolin, Lin Hao, you two stay outside and keep watch,” Qingshui ordered briskly. “The rest of you, come inside with me and check the place.”

An Xiaolin nodded. She and Lin Hao split up to cover opposite sides, each finding a concealed position. After a moment’s hesitation, Gao Yizhou followed the others inside.

Qingshui pushed open the shop’s half-closed glass door.

Creeeak.

Chen Yuhui and Ji Feifan filed in behind her.

The light immediately dimmed.

But in that instant, everyone, Qingshui included, froze in the doorway.

Before them were…

Shelves.

Rows upon rows of shelves.

And they were fully stocked.

Bottled water, drinks, instant noodles, crackers, chocolate, chips, canned food… The dazzling variety was arranged so neatly that it looked as though the apocalypse had never happened. Dust coated the packages, but there was no sign that anything had been disturbed or looted.

It was as if time here had stopped just before the disaster began.

Ji Feifan moved first.

Like a starving wolf, he lunged toward the nearest shelf, grabbed a bottle of water, twisted off the cap, and poured it down his throat. Water spilled from the corners of his mouth and ran down his chin into his collar, but he did not care. He gulped greedily, his Adam’s apple bobbing wildly.

Chen Yuhui lost control as well. She tore open a package of bread and began stuffing it into her mouth.

Zhou Yaping stood rooted to the spot, one small hand clutching the hem of Qingshui’s clothes. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the snacks on the shelves, things that had once been ordinary but now seemed like a vision of paradise.

Qingshui did not stop them.

She quickly surveyed the entire space. The shop was roughly a hundred square meters, with entrances at the front and rear. The checkout counter stood toward the back, beside a tightly closed door that likely led to an employee break room or storage room.

She settled Zhou Yaping behind the checkout counter, then searched the entire shop by herself.

There were no signs of danger.

She returned to the entrance and signaled to An Xiaolin and Lin Hao outside.

When the two came in, they too were struck speechless by the sight before them.

“Lock the doors.” Qingshui pointed to the lock beside the checkout counter. “We’ll rest here tonight.”

Everyone sprang into action as though wound up by a key.

Lin Hao and An Xiaolin secured the doors. Ji Feifan and Chen Yuhui worked together to push the heaviest shelf in front of the entrance, blocking the transparent glass. Gao Yizhou brought over several barrels of oil and used them to brace the shelf in place.
A few minutes later, the entrance was completely barricaded.

An eerie sense of safety settled over the store.

“There’s hot water.” An Xiaolin pointed at a water dispenser in the corner, her voice trembling.

Every head turned toward Qingshui.

Qingshui nodded.

The next second, the store filled with the sound of packaging being ripped open.

No one spoke. There was only heavy breathing and the rustle of plastic. Everyone followed the same routine: tear the lid off a cup of instant noodles, rip open the seasoning packets, pour in hot water, and close the lid.

Qingshui walked behind the checkout counter. There were several outlets beneath it. She crouched down, pulled a charging cable and several phones from her backpack, and plugged them in.

The moment the charging symbol lit up on the screens, some of the tension finally left her shoulders.

Zhou Yaping came over carrying a cup of noodles. Standing on tiptoe, the little girl carefully set it on the counter. She said nothing, merely tilted her head up at Qingshui.

Qingshui looked into those eyes, made all the larger by her thin face. After two seconds of silence, she said, “Thank you.”

Zhou Yaping gave her a faint smile, then crouched down and rummaged through a miscellaneous storage basket beneath the counter. She found several chargers of different types, took Lin Hao’s and An Xiaolin’s phones from her tiny pockets, and plugged them in one by one.

On the other side of the store, Lin Hao connected the drone to a power source as well.

“Qingshui, give me your bag. I’ll fill it up.” Chen Yuhui had regained some of her composure. She picked up Qingshui’s nearly empty backpack and began stuffing it with food like she was stockpiling for winter: high-calorie chocolate, candy, energy bars, canned meat, followed by bottled water and Coke.

The others quickly followed suit.

Ji Feifan looked at the bottles of Coke and the large bag of beef jerky in his hands, then at his already bulging backpack. Panting, he gave a wry smile. “For the first time in my life, I wish my bag was bigger.”

“Agreed.” An Xiaolin was even trying to cram two bottles of mineral water into her coat pockets.

“Whatever we can’t carry, eat as much of it as you can,” Qingshui finally said, her voice especially clear in the quiet store.

Gao Yizhou had already started eating in a corner. He held a chocolate bar in his left hand and a bag of cookies in his right, wolfing both down.

At the sight of him, the others finally abandoned their obsession with taking everything. They piled the less portable snacks, like potato chips and spicy strips, on the checkout counter in front of Qingshui.

Like offerings at an altar.

Qingshui opened a bag of chips and handed it to Zhou Yaping, who was curled up obediently at her feet. Then she took one for herself and put it in her mouth.

Crunch.

The crisp sound rang out sharply in the silence.

The savory, salty flavor spread across her tongue.

At that moment, Qingshui closed her eyes.

It had been two lifetimes.

She had eaten rotten meat, drunk filthy water, gnawed on tree bark, and chewed grass roots. Yet no matter how many times she ate snacks from peacetime, she could never stop marveling at them.

She opened her eyes and saw that everyone had gathered around her, each holding a cup of noodles. Some sat while others squatted, forming a loose circle with her at the center.

Slurp, slurp.

Slurp, slurp.

At first, a few stifled exclamations could still be heard.

“Oh my God…”

“This broth…”

“Holy shit…”

But before long, all speech was replaced by the sound of swallowing. There was only the slurping of noodles, the drinking of broth, and the tearing open of second seasoning packets.

After finishing her first cup, An Xiaolin silently got up and fetched two more.

No one laughed at her. They all understood the terror of feeling as if their stomachs had become bottomless pits, impossible to fill no matter how much they ate.

As they continued eating, another sound suddenly crept in among the slurping.

At first, it was faint, like someone choking back a cough. But it quickly grew louder, turning into muffled sobs.

Everyone froze and looked toward the source.

It was Gao Yizhou.

He sat in the shadows of a corner, still holding a half-finished cup of noodles. His head hung low, his shoulders shaking violently as fat tears splashed into the broth.

He was still chewing unconsciously, but his entire face had crumpled.

“I’m sorry…” he mumbled thickly through his blocked nose. “I… I’m sorry…”

In front of a group of strangers he had known for less than a few days, just when they had finally found precious food and safety, he cried like an abandoned dog.

Gao Yizhou was ashamed of himself too. He should have held it in. He should have eaten in silence like everyone else, quietly replenishing his strength. But he couldn’t control it.

The tears poured out as if a dam had burst.

He cried for this fucked-up world.

He cried for the people he knew who had turned into monsters, for his parents who had gone silent, and for the girlfriend who had told him to run.

He cried because he was still alive, living in such a wretched state, scurrying from one hiding place to another like a rat in the gutter. So hungry that he had eaten bugs. So terrified that he hadn’t even dared to cry aloud.

Now, at last, he had a wall around him. A little food. A few people who… for the time being, wouldn’t kill him.

The string that had been pulled taut for far too long finally snapped.

The store fell silent.

There was only the broken sound of Gao Yizhou trying to suppress his sobs.

Chen Yuhui lowered her fork, a complicated look in her eyes. An Xiaolin turned her face away. Ji Feifan stared down at his cup of noodles without expression. Lin Hao pulled Zhou Yaping closer into his arms.

Qingshui watched the young man curled up in the corner, weeping uncontrollably.

She remembered her previous life. When her first teammate died, she had cried just like this. Later came the fourth, then the fifth… and she never cried again.

Captain had said that tears were a luxury, a weakness, a useless bodily secretion.

But Qingshui understood this kind of collapse. A person was most easily crushed when they finally glimpsed a sliver of light in the depths of despair.

She said nothing. She simply picked up her fork again and continued eating her cup of noodles, which had already gone a little cold.

Crunch. Crunch.

The sounds of chewing and weeping intertwined strangely inside the store, heavy with the smell of food.

Outside the windows, night had fallen completely.