Chapter 74
Chapter 74
It was hard to explain why, but once someone made up their mind to do something, time seemed to suddenly accelerate, slipping away like water through their fingers.
At least, that was exactly how Lin Hao felt right now.
He sat close beside Chen Yuhui as she piloted the drone, holding his breath and listening intently to her analysis.
“The drone detected an airdrop landing along the road we took earlier, but…” Chen Yuhui lowered her voice, a hint of gravity in her tone.
She tilted the screen slightly so everyone gathered around could see it clearly.
The road connecting the city, which they had previously considered relatively deserted, was now steeped in a filthy, dark crimson.
They were still some distance away, making the finer details difficult to discern, but they could roughly make out the number of writhing, tangled figures.
More than a dozen, perhaps even more. They had formed a cluster in the middle of the road and were engaged in some sickening party involving a human body.
An Xiaolin’s face went pale. “Have the Madmen in the city… gotten bored with their games?”
Why else would they have wandered all the way out to such a remote suburb?
Ji Feifan frowned deeply, his voice cold. “Their addiction to killing must have driven them completely insane. They probably figured survivors would flee somewhere deserted like this.”
“Mm,” Qingshui replied without looking away from the screen. “Let’s hope they haven’t caught any living toys.”
The concern in her voice was unmistakable. If the Madmen got their hands on weapons, they would pose an enormous, unpredictable threat even if they did not know how to use them properly.
What if some of them had once been soldiers?
What if their deranged luck held, and a bullet fired at random happened to strike a vital spot?
Lin Hao instinctively raised a hand and gently stroked Zhou Yaping’s hair as she pressed close beside him, as though drawing a sliver of calm from the gesture.
Then he leaned toward Chen Yuhui and pointed at a spot on the screen. “Yuhui, try lowering the drone from this angle and hiding it behind that abandoned road sign. It’ll be close enough there, but they won’t be able to spot it easily.”
Chen Yuhui’s eyes lit up. “Good idea!”
Following his suggestion, she carefully maneuvered the drone downward, using the terrain and shadows to conceal it perfectly.
The new angle brought the brutal scene into sharper focus.
At the center of the crowd, a body that had long since been mangled beyond recognition was being toyed with at will. Stuffed inside its torn-open, hollow abdominal cavity was a sealed metal container.
“It’s a food supply crate!”
An Xiaolin exclaimed softly. She remembered that crate all too well.
It was one of the main objectives of their current operation.
Their plan was to obtain one more crate each of food, weapons, and medical supplies.
Just then, the scrawny Madman being toyed with by its own kind in the center of the screen suddenly raised its head without warning!
The corners of its mouth had split all the way to its ears, its face was smeared with blood, and one eye socket held nothing but a pitch-black, bloody hole. Yet it was still smiling.
Still smiling, it stared directly toward the drone’s hiding place!
Everyone’s heart seemed to stop.
“Don’t move,” Qingshui said calmly.
Chen Yuhui’s fingers froze on the controls. She did not dare move a muscle.
The next second, a thick, blue-black arm shot out from behind the scrawny Madman and seized its head. With no more effort than it took to twist open a bottle cap, the arm gave a sharp wrench!
Squelch!
The severed neck instantly became a fountain of blood, showering the surrounding revelers from head to toe with the filthy liquid.
The headless body was tossed into the air and swallowed by an even greater number of frenzied figures.
Before the screen, dead silence reigned. Only the sound of stifled breathing remained.
Qingshui was the first to look away, her brow tightly furrowed. “Check what things look like at the construction site now.”
They had already scouted the abandoned construction site remotely and confirmed that two airdrop crates had landed there.
Chen Yuhui took a deep breath. The Madmen on the highway seemed completely absorbed in their latest round of “revelry” and showed no further reaction to the drone. Only then did she carefully guide it into the air and fly it toward the construction site.
“The crates are still where they landed… but there are Madmen roaming around them too. I can’t tell how many,” Chen Yuhui soon reported.
Qingshui nodded and considered the situation in silence for a moment.
“I’ll deal with the group on the road,” she finally said, her gaze passing over An Xiaolin and Lin Hao. “Your job is to retrieve the crates and retreat to my position immediately. Understood?”
An Xiaolin and Lin Hao nodded firmly.
“And unless you have absolutely no choice, do not fire your guns,” Qingshui stressed again. “Understood?”
“Understood!” they answered quietly, their expressions grave.
They knew that having guns did not make them invincible.
A gun might give them the advantage against three or five Madmen, but what about dozens or even hundreds charging from every direction?
Sooner or later, they would run out of bullets. And they weren’t Qingshui. They couldn’t guarantee that every shot would hit.
If anything, the pressure would only shatter their composure and send them into an even greater panic.
“Ji Feifan, Chen Yuhui, Zhou Yaping.” Qingshui turned to the three who would remain behind. “We’re leaving the rear to you.”
Ji Feifan and Chen Yuhui nodded steadily. Zhou Yaping also did her best to straighten her little back.
“Let’s go.”
Qingshui said nothing more.
An Xiaolin and Lin Hao exchanged a glance. Lin Hao gave Zhou Yaping’s head one last pat, then turned and followed Qingshui.
…
The three of them moved swiftly through the darkness like ghosts.
Qingshui and An Xiaolin were already accustomed to this kind of stealthy approach.
But for Lin Hao, this was the first time he had willingly left the relative safety of their base to venture out with his companions.
It felt completely different from fleeing for his life with Madmen on his heels. His heart pounded in his chest, and cold sweat kept seeping from his palms.
He clutched Ji Feifan’s length of rebar tightly and forced his eyes wide open, willing his pupils to adjust to the darkness as quickly as possible.
He could see.
The person-high dead grass rustled as they passed, but the faint sound was drowned out by the louder swish of the wind through the grass.
Lin Hao fought to steady his breathing as he followed Qingshui.
Qingshui led the way, her steps light, crisp, and nearly silent. Every one of her senses was honed to its limit as she listened to everything around them.
“Rustle…”
“Huff…”
“Rustle…”
Something was wrong.
Beneath the sound of the wind was another, stranger scraping noise. And it was… getting closer!
Before Qingshui could warn the others, several blood-smeared, grinning faces slowly rose from the weeds around them, their eyes brimming with crimson, bestial malice.
“Huff… huff…”
She couldn’t shoot! They were too close to the cement plant. She couldn’t put Yuhui and the others in danger!
Qingshui stopped dead, her military dagger flashing into her hand.
But then–
“Whoosh!”
A vicious gust came from behind them.
No!
The instant Lin Hao went on alert because Qingshui had stopped, the wild grass beside him exploded outward!
A dark figure reeking of blood and madness lunged at him with astonishing speed!
Time seemed to stretch on forever.
Reflected clearly in Lin Hao’s pupils was a horrifying face with its mouth crammed full of gravel, contorted in a soundless, maniacal laugh!