Chapter 75
Chapter 75
Bang!
A deafening gunshot shattered the silence of the night.
It was An Xiaolin!
The instant Lin Hao was attacked, she raised her arm and pulled the trigger almost on instinct.
There was no time to aim properly. She merely pointed the muzzle toward the dark figure lunging at him.
Flame burst from the barrel as the bullet flew, striking its target by sheer luck!
The smiling face, its mouth crammed with stones, snapped backward. Dark red fluid sprayed through the air as the figure crashed heavily at Lin Hao’s feet.
A cold gleam flashed through Qingshui’s eyes. Now that they had opened fire, there was no reason to hold back!
She raised her rifle without the slightest hesitation and swiftly locked onto the three or four figures charging toward them.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Her shots came in rapid, steady succession, each one landing with deadly accuracy.
“Tell Yuhui! Warn the others that we’ve opened fire. The gunshots may attract the Madmen, so they need to stay alert and be ready for anything!”
Qingshui issued the order to An Xiaolin in a rapid voice as she advanced, her gaze constantly sweeping their surroundings for more Madmen drawn by the gunfire and the smell of blood.
An Xiaolin quickly pulled out her radio, pressed the transmit button, and relayed the message in a low, urgent voice.
Still shaken, Lin Hao sucked in a breath. His heart was pounding so violently it felt ready to burst.
He glanced at the Madmen lying on the ground with their heads blown apart, then at Qingshui’s calm, deadly profile and An Xiaolin’s grave expression. A strange rush of lingering fear and exhilaration surged through him.
He had nearly died just now.
“Move!” Qingshui wasted no time and continued forward at a brisk pace.
An Xiaolin motioned for Lin Hao to go first. Gritting his teeth, he tightened his grip on the steel bar, forced himself to focus, and followed closely behind Qingshui.
Holding their breath, the three of them hurried toward the park.
They were barely a dozen meters from the rockery, close enough to make out the shapes of the artificial rocks, when an extremely faint rustling came from behind it, a sound that unmistakably wasn’t the wind.
Qingshui’s heart sank. She immediately raised a hand, signaling them to stop.
Turning slightly, she lifted her rifle and began moving sideways with painstaking caution.
The instant she drew close…
A cold flash glinted from the other side!
Qingshui’s finger pressed against the trigger, every muscle in her body tensing. Yet in that split second, she abruptly stopped herself.
It wasn’t the twisted face of one of the Madmen.
By the dim moonlight, she saw four figures huddled in the shadows between the rocks.
Two men and two women, all of them young. Their faces were filled with terror, exhaustion, and the savage desperation of people with nothing left to lose.
One of the taller young men was clutching a bloodstained kitchen knife. That was what had produced the cold flash just now.
When the four saw Qingshui and the gun in her hands, the tension visibly eased from their faces. The wariness in their eyes remained, however, and the barrel pointed at them only made them more anxious.
The young man holding the knife swallowed. His voice was dry and trembling, tinged with almost disbelieving hope.
“A-Are you a police officer? Were… were those your gunshots just now?”
His gaze darted over Qingshui, then toward the faint outlines of An Xiaolin and Lin Hao behind her.
Qingshui slowly shook her head, barely moving.
She said nothing. Her arms remained perfectly steady as she kept the gun trained on them, while her free hand slipped behind her back and signaled An Xiaolin and Lin Hao to move quickly and keep their distance.
Her eyes never left the four strangers.
Only after she heard the other two retreating did she begin to edge backward and to the side. The muzzle moved with her, keeping the strangers pinned down as she carefully widened the distance between them one small step at a time.
Disappointment flashed through the young man’s eyes when Qingshui backed away without a word, but he still warned her, “Be careful. There are Madmen out on the road…”
Qingshui continued to ignore him.
Once she was far enough away to ensure that even a sudden attack couldn’t immediately threaten An Xiaolin and Lin Hao, she spun around, quickened her pace, and swiftly caught up with the two after they rounded the rockery.
The unexpected encounter barely occupied their thoughts.
Before long, they passed through the last stretch of overgrown landscaping at the edge of the park and stepped onto the road beyond.
Silence.
An unsettling, deathly stillness descended over them. There was no wind and no chirping of insects, only the faint scrape of their shoes against the gravel and the magnified pounding of their own hearts.
The three of them moved cautiously through the darkness.
Then, without warning…
“You filthy animals! I ##*** you **!”
A furious scream so shrill it barely sounded human erupted from around the bend ahead, mingling with wild, excited laughter!
All three instantly ducked and threw themselves into the weeds by the roadside, holding their breath.
In the middle of the road, a band of Madmen came staggering toward them.
One of the Madmen was exceptionally muscular. It was dragging a mangled corpse behind it: the same corpse whose abdominal cavity had been stuffed with a supply case.
Another three or four Madmen were gleefully carrying a still-wailing “thing.”
It was a young woman. Both her legs were gone, leaving bloody, ragged stumps.
Her screams and curses were heartrending, filled with unimaginable agony and rage.
“You fucking bastards!”
A cold glint flashed in Qingshui’s eyes. Without hesitation, she silently raised her rifle.
Beside her, An Xiaolin and Lin Hao immediately turned their backs to the road and raised their weapons, watching the darkness on either side and behind them.
Through the scope, Qingshui centered her sights on the head of the muscular Madman, who was dragging the corpse.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The rapid, continuous bursts shattered the deathly silence of the road.
Bullets punched cleanly through one violently thrashing head after another.
The one dragging the corpse, the ones carrying the woman, those copulating, those cavorting nearby… More than a dozen twisted figures dropped one after another in the space of two or three seconds.
One final shot rang out.
Qingshui lowered her muzzle slightly, aiming at the legless young woman lying in a pool of blood, still hurling curses.
For an instant, Qingshui’s eyes went blank, then hardened with cold resolve.
Bang.
The woman’s voice cut off abruptly.
Silence descended, leaving only the smell of gunpowder drifting through the air.
Qingshui lowered her eyes, her long lashes casting faint shadows across her pale cheeks.
She did not move right away. Keeping her rifle raised, she swept a frigid gaze over both ends of the road.
She counted down silently.
Five…
Four…
Three…
Two…
One…
No fresh peals of manic laughter. No hurried footsteps approaching. Only the night wind moaning across the empty road.
“Go!” Qingshui barked.
An Xiaolin and Lin Hao shot out of hiding like arrows loosed from the string, sprinting straight toward the corpse with the case stuffed inside it.
They moved swiftly, reaching the middle of the road in seconds.
An Xiaolin stepped over a headless body. Working together, she and Lin Hao wrenched the slick case from the corpse’s abdominal cavity. Without even stopping to wipe it off, they shoved it straight into a backpack.
Their movements were quick and efficient, without a second wasted.
The two scanned their surroundings. The moment they secured the case, they turned and sprinted back to Qingshui’s hiding place at full speed, keeping low as they ran.
“Move!”
At Qingshui’s terse command, the three of them melted back into the roadside shadows and continued along the edge of the road.
On the way, they passed the familiar intersection again, along with the bloodstained bench.
The woman’s corpse that had been nailed to it was still there, except… her head was gone.
The empty stump of her neck pointed toward the gray sky.
The three carefully circled around it.
But just as they rounded the corner and prepared to continue toward the construction site–
“Careful.”
Chen Yuhui’s voice came through the radio in An Xiaolin’s breast pocket.
All three stopped dead.
Ahead of them, a dense mass of figures slowly “flowed” out into the open area at the junction.
A dozen, perhaps more.
Most were naked or dressed in rags. Many of them writhed and rubbed against one another, committing obscene acts as they immersed themselves in a collective frenzy.
Then several of the Madmen at the front of the slowly advancing mass happened to sweep their bloodshot gazes over Qingshui and the others as they emerged from the shadows…
For an instant, time seemed to freeze.
Then, in the next second–
The entire horde of Madmen exploded like ignited dynamite, their numb writhing instantly transforming into a frenzied charge!
They laughed, but seemed to have forgotten how to scream or curse. Shoving their own kind out of the way, they simply cackled and hurtled straight at Qingshui’s group!
“Cover all sides!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, An Xiaolin and Lin Hao pressed their backs against Qingshui’s, forming a triangular defensive formation.
Qingshui’s finger was already back on the trigger.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Precise bursts rang out once more.
The first few Madmen toppled on the spot, becoming obstacles for those behind them. But more Madmen trampled over the fallen bodies without the slightest fear, surging forward with even greater excitement.
Perhaps it had been too long since they had seen living people. The Madmen’s eyes bulged in their sockets, blood-red pupils churning with a ravenous thirst for blood as drool streamed from the corners of their mouths.
Qingshui kept firing steadily while coldly counting the rounds in her head.
Fifteen left… twelve… nine…