Chapter 78

Chapter 78

Once the decision was made, all that remained was to carry it out.

No one spoke during the two hours they spent preparing. The only sounds in the room were the quiet rustles of people sorting through their belongings.

An Xiaolin was familiarizing herself with the rifle. It was heavier than she had imagined, and colder too.

She repeated the motions Qingshui had taught her: inserting the magazine, racking the bolt, switching the safety on and off. She strove to perform every movement correctly.

Ji Feifan leaned against the wall, inspecting his rifle and several fully loaded magazines. His eyes were vacant, his thoughts impossible to read.

In a corner, Qingshui tended to Chen Yuhui’s wound.

She rewrapped Chen Yuhui’s calf tightly, and her brow relaxed a little. The infection had not worsened. There was a good chance it would improve.

But for Chen Yuhui, every step of the six-kilometer journey would be torture.

Lin Hao called Zhou Yaping over. The little girl was quiet, but her large eyes brimmed with unease. Lin Hao crouched down and slung a messenger bag he had dug out of a pile of trash over her shoulder. Inside were two bottles of water, several compressed biscuits, and a fully charged phone.

“Pingping, this bag is light, so you’ll carry it yourself. Keep hold of your knife. If we have to run, I might not be able to look after you. You need to stay close. Understand?”

Zhou Yaping nodded hard. The hand holding her knife clenched tightly around the strap of her bag.

Time was up.

Everyone checked their equipment one last time. Food and water had been divided evenly, weapons and ammunition distributed according to their roles, and the first-aid kit and tools placed where they could be reached most easily. Every backpack bulged with a heavy load.

Qingshui stood by the door and took one final look at the place that had sheltered them for a time.

There were no farewells. She pulled the door open.

The night had grown even darker.

“Move out.”

The group formed a silent line and disappeared into the night.

Six kilometers.

The number pounded through all their minds over and over again.

Qingshui led the way, with An Xiaolin close behind and slightly to one side. Chen Yuhui walked in the middle with a stick for support, alongside Zhou Yaping. Lin Hao followed the two of them, while Ji Feifan brought up the rear.

They moved cautiously along the strip of greenery at the edge of the road.

In the darkness, they occasionally encountered Madmen engrossed in their twisted revelry. Each time, the group could only flatten themselves against the ground, hold their breath, and crawl carefully past.

The silhouette of the city receded farther and farther behind them.

After they had covered roughly three kilometers, the open surroundings abruptly gave way to a neatly planned modern commercial plaza.

It appeared to be part of an area that had yet to be developed. The place had already been deserted before, but now all that remained was a deathly wasteland.

The storefront windows were covered in spiderweb cracks. The smiling faces on the advertisements had been smeared with blood from mouth to ear and covered in all manner of obscene insults.

Under the moonlight, the painted steps leading down into the sunken plaza resembled a road descending toward death.

Qingshui crouched in the shadow of a corner, her gaze sweeping across the plaza.

“Stay alert,” she whispered, her voice so low it was almost swallowed by the wind.

They had only just stepped onto the painted stairs and were preparing to hurry across the plaza when–

ROAR-VRRROOOM!!!

The deafening howl of an engine, mingled with shrill laughter crazed beyond reason, burst from around a street corner on the other side of the plaza!

A pair of blinding headlights tore through the night!

Everyone threw themselves to the ground and rolled behind the nearest flower bed. Their faces drained of color as they stared at the car careening wildly through the darkness.

The sedan, smeared with filth and blood, roared into the plaza in a frenzy!

It wasn’t driving along the road. It was plowing through everything in its path.

It smashed through trash cans and scraped against railings, sending sparks flying.

But what truly made their scalps crawl was the Madmen’s “game.”

Two laughing Madmen had been crudely tied to the car’s front bumper.

“Ohhh-yeah!! This is amazing! Faster! Go faster!!”

The Madmen were dragged and battered beneath the front of the car, their bodies staining the pavement a muddy crimson and leaving a twisted trail of blood behind them.

Every jolt and crushing impact sent the driver’s warped laughter soaring even higher.

“Meat patties! I’m gonna flatten you into meat patties!!”

“Still not smashed enough! Again! Hahahaha!!”

The windows rolled down, revealing two faces contorted with excitement and smeared with someone else’s blood. They laughed wildly as they wrenched the steering wheel back and forth, deliberately swinging the Madmen tied to the bumper into lampposts. The sickening crunch of shattering bone and flesh scraped at everyone’s nerves.

This was torture inflicted purely for entertainment.

“Don’t move.”

Qingshui barely breathed the words. Her rifle was already aimed at the driver’s window, but she did not pull the trigger. A gunshot would reveal their position, and with the car moving, it would be difficult to kill the driver with a single shot.

They held their breath and pressed themselves flat against the ground, hoping the crazed “death bumper car” would leave once its occupants had tired of their game.

The car tore around the plaza several times. By then, the “toys” it had been dragging had long since become shapeless smears of blood and flesh. The driver finally seemed to grow bored and floored the accelerator. With a shriek of its engine, the car sped away and vanished into the night.

“Go.”

Qingshui raised herself and led the way down. The others followed close behind.

One step. Two steps. Three.

They descended the stairs one step at a time.

The wide-open plaza unfolded before them. After waiting another dozen seconds and confirming that they could no longer hear the engine, Qingshui stepped off the final stair and started forward.

Just then–

From the corner of her eye, Qingshui caught sight of something hanging above them at an angle, suspended from a utility pole that stretched across the plaza.

She slowly raised her head.

Moonlight spilled down.

Then she saw it clearly.

It was one of the Madmen!

A coarse rope suspended the Madman upside down from the utility pole. Head dangling toward the ground, the body swayed gently in the night breeze like a little weather doll.
Its naked body was drenched in blood, long hair hanging loose around a face smeared crimson.

Qingshui saw its eyes staring straight at her.

It was smiling. Its mouth, stretched all the way to its ears, slowly opened.

It was about to… raise the alarm!

“We’ve been spotted! Run!” Qingshui forced the words through clenched teeth, but her body was already moving before her mind could catch up.

The Madmen hanging upside down suddenly opened its mouth wide and let out a shrill, crazed laugh.

“Piglets! I’m gonna carve you bastards to pieces!”

Its voice pierced the night sky. For one brief instant, the world fell deathly silent.

Then came a thunderous roar.

From the darkness, the screech of tires against pavement rapidly drew closer, accompanied by maniacal laughter.

Qingshui and the others were already nearing the stairs. They immediately quickened their pace, but there was no outrunning a car.

Blinding headlights washed over them once more.

“New toys!”

The engine roared, and the sedan charged at Qingshui’s group like an enraged bull.

“Go back!”

Qingshui screamed and retreated, but it was already too late. Everyone was forced to scatter.

Laughing wildly, the Madmen behind the wheel floored the accelerator again and sped straight toward Qingshui. She broke into a sprint, twisted around, and fired several shots.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The rifle rounds shattered the windshield but missed the Madmen. Shards of glass slashed across its face, only making it laugh even louder.

“Ohhh! The little bastard’s fighting back! Ohhh! Run faster! Run faster! Or I’m gonna run you over!”

Qingshui abruptly sidestepped and tried to take aim at the speeding tires, but the car was moving too fast. The wheels were nothing but dark blurs in her vision, impossible to lock onto in time.

Half dragging Chen Yuhui and Zhou Yaping by their arms, Lin Hao desperately retreated toward the blind spot beside a flower bed. Chen Yuhui’s face had gone deathly pale from the pain, but she gritted her teeth without making a sound.

“Run her over! Kill that bastard! Aaaahahahahaha!”

The Madman on the utility pole was still cackling, its shrill voice grating on everyone’s nerves.

Qingshui’s gaze sharpened. Without looking at the sedan behind her again, she raised her rifle, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet punched through the upside-down Madman’s forehead. Its laughter stopped dead, and its body went completely limp, hanging like a macabre weather doll.

In those few seconds, the roar of the engine had closed in behind her. Qingshui tried to make it back to the stairs and use them to block the Madmen’s charge, but the sedan’s hood was already at her back.

“Over here!” Ji Feifan suddenly shouted.

He and An Xiaolin had already crossed the stairs and reached the platform above. Both were leaning over the railing, rifles clutched tightly in their hands.

Qingshui instantly understood what they meant.

She abandoned her straight-line sprint and began weaving back and forth, circling the Madmen as she quickly closed in on the spot directly below An Xiaolin and Ji Feifan.

The sedan roared again. The Madmen had completely lost patience with the game and slammed the accelerator to the floor.

A wave of scorching engine heat mixed with the metallic reek of blood surged toward her from behind, threatening to swallow her whole.

Just as the sedan’s hood was about to strike her ankles, Qingshui kicked off the ground and launched herself upward like an arrow released from a bow.

Her right hand caught the metal railing at the platform’s edge with perfect precision.

At almost the exact same instant–

Crash!

The sedan slammed head-on into the platform below, its hood instantly crumpling inward.

The Madman driving was left badly dazed by the steering wheel and seat belt. The Madman in the passenger seat was flung from its seat and landed sprawled across the hood, its face covered in blood. Still laughing strangely, it reached for Qingshui, who was dangling just within reach.

Bang!

An Xiaolin blew its head apart with a single shot.

Rather than showing fear, the Madmen behind the wheel went completely berserk. It threw the car into reverse, desperately trying to ram them again.

“Hahahahaha! Three bitches! Here I come!”

“Shoot the driver!” Ji Feifan roared.

Ji Feifan and An Xiaolin fired at the driver’s seat at the same time.

The Madmen behind the wheel went rigid, but its foot continued pressing the accelerator reflexively, leaving the car to rev uselessly.

The battle had begun without warning and ended just as quickly.

Only the ragged breathing of the survivors remained in the plaza.

Qingshui released the railing and strode toward the smoking sedan. The Madman driving it lay slumped over the steering wheel, a bloody hole in its forehead. She leaned inside, turned the key to shut off the engine, and pulled it from the ignition.

“Drive!”

Lin Hao hurried over with Chen Yuhui and Zhou Yaping.

Ji Feifan quickly inspected the vehicle. “That was a hard hit. I don’t know if it’ll still run.”

“Clear it out. Drag the Madmen outside.”

Working as fast as they could, they hauled both corpses from the car and dumped them on the ground.

Lin Hao and An Xiaolin used some rags they found to wipe the blood from the driver’s seat as best they could. Then they helped Chen Yuhui and Zhou Yaping into the back seat first.

“Will it run?”

An Xiaolin climbed into the driver’s seat and tried the ignition.

The engine groaned and shuddered several times before somehow sputtering back to life.

“Yes, but we’re almost out of gas.”

“We’ll go as far as we can.” Qingshui opened the passenger door and climbed in, laying her rifle across her knees.

The others squeezed together in the back seat. Despite the cramped space, the car gave them an unexpected sense of security.

An Xiaolin drew a deep breath, tightened her grip on the steering wheel, and said in a low voice, “Hold on.”

The engine roared.

Carrying all six of them, the battered sedan jolted away from the blood-soaked plaza and continued toward Renhe Toll Station, three kilometers away.