Chapter 46

No matter at the guard command post or the KD01 research institute, Su Hao did not find anything like a bullet production line. This meant that the ammunition consumed by the survivor team could not be replenished through self-production. The only way to deal with it was to conserve as much as possible.

Su Hao put away the tube containing the decayed fungus hormones, walked to the SUV, opened the rear compartment, and took out a high-capacity battery.

Xin Yan walked over with a blood-stained steel pipe and said seriously, "Did you feel it? These zombies seem to be much faster than before. Their movements are no longer clumsy, and they are stronger."

After a moment of silence, Su Hao nodded.

Xin Yan's perception was very accurate—the zombies were indeed getting stronger.

This change was very subtle, and it was hard for those who did not frequently fight zombies to notice. The most significant feature was that the muscles on the zombies' bodies were no longer decaying but were entering a normal growth state.

"—1" is the lowest and weakest level index among all monsters.

From the outbreak of the virus to now, a few months have passed, and the zombies have already moved past their initial weakened state. They will gradually learn to run and jump instead of shuffling along, and their attack methods will become more diverse. By then, the zombies will evolve to the true "1" level.

Humans can ignore rats, but no one would overlook a tiger crouching beside them. The strength difference between these two animals is significant, and the same applies to zombies.

Su Hao smiled faintly and said calmly, "This isn't strange. Don't forget—they eat meat, not vegetables."

The teasing words did little to alleviate Xin Yan's worries. She still frowned and walked with Su Hao toward the office on the other side of the passage.

...

Gas stations usually have two entrances or exits facing the street.

Just as Su Hao was about to push open the glass door of the office, several figures suddenly appeared at the other entrance, about ten meters away.

They were a group of young men in their twenties, three in total. The leader was tall and slender, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts. The strong sunlight shone on his newly shaved short hair, revealing a layer of wet sweat.

They held sticks and steel pipes, and one of them had tied a knife to the top of an iron pipe to make a more suitable long weapon for combat. Two of them carried buckets, which seemed to be for holding oil. The sight of Su Hao and his group standing on the office steps surprised them, and they instinctively took a few steps back, looking very wary.

"Who are you?"

The young leader raised the stick in his hand and shouted sternly, "Why are you here?"

Su Hao and Xin Yan exchanged a glance, and the two immediately spread out. Xin Yan and Yang Lulu quickly walked to the SUV, taking up a position that was advantageous for both advancing and retreating. Su Hao put down the battery and took a few steps toward the strangers, shrugging, "If I'm not mistaken, our purpose should be the same—to get gasoline."

The three young men stared at him, confirming that Su Hao was not infected and had no signs of decay typical of zombies, before their gaze shifted to the zombie remains on the ground.

"You scared me for a moment."

The leader put down his stick and looked at Su Hao with a puzzled and wary expression, glancing repeatedly at Xin Yan and Yang Lulu, who were standing by the SUV with automatic rifles. He said, somewhat enviously and angrily, "The gasoline here is not for outsiders. You'd better leave and try somewhere else."

His words were cold and hostile, and his meaning was clear.

Su Hao narrowed his eyes and took two more steps forward, "I don't quite understand what you mean."

The man stared at Su Hao, his cold eyes filled with anger and fear. He kept glancing at the gun on Su Hao's belt, trying to force a smile but looking impatient, "This gas station is ours. Yes! If you urgently need gasoline, I can give you some. But don't expect it to happen again."

"Oh?"

Su Hao was a bit puzzled, "Are you the owner of this gas station?"

This question seemed rather naive. From Su Hao's perspective, it was the most reasonable and logical conclusion based on the man's words. However, his question elicited very different reactions from the three men—they were stunned for a moment, then their faces showed strange expressions, and they laughed wildly and without restraint.

"Ha ha! Brother Tao... he actually, actually said you're the owner here? Ha ha ha ha!"

A young man with a somewhat unconventional style laughed until he was out of breath.

Beside him, another man in a gray shirt stopped laughing and said with a mocking and boastful tone, "If you want to interpret it that way, it's not impossible. This area is our territory, including this gas station."

Su Hao subconsciously touched his gun, feeling an urge to shoot.

He scanned the group with a cold gaze, turned to the SUV, and said to Xin Yan, "Call Du Tianhao over. Tell him to bring a few people and the two oil tankers he mentioned yesterday."

The camp and the small bank building communicated via radio, and the commonly used vehicles were equipped with short-range call devices. With Su Hao's professional knowledge, it was easy to make such simple communication devices using various materials.

After saying this, he put the battery back in the car, took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and coldly watched the arrogant young men.

The word "territory" reminded Su Hao of the future era.

In cities and the wilderness, there were no actual controllers. The areas occupied by the military were often important resource or food production zones. Most abandoned cities were occupied by powerful individuals. In that era, every settlement had an owner. As long as you had guns, strength, and were stronger than others, you could become a ruler. Outsiders had to pay taxes to the area controllers or choose to depend on them. Standing at the top of power felt great, but you had to be constantly wary of the knife in the back.

Killing and being killed had become the eternal theme of the future world. By eliminating the ruler, you could inherit everything he owned—property, food, women, territory...

Su Hao had always been low-key.

He knew that many people were still alive in this city.

Du Tianhao had also mentioned that there were other survivor teams around the small building.

However, Su Hao did not feel he was weaker than those people—he had taken a unique prototype drug, came from the future, and had hundreds of loyal subordinates, at least at the first stage of enhancement. Apart from the military and the constantly evolving zombies, Su Hao, with his knowledge of history, could not think of anyone stronger than himself.

Now, someone was actually standing up and saying, "This is our territory."

The feeling... was really absurd.

If he had opened fire when he first encountered those people, things would not have escalated to this point.

Su Hao did not like to kill indiscriminately.

Moreover, these people did not pose an actual threat to him.

Perhaps, those young men subconsciously believed he would not shoot.

After all, there was only one man on their side—Su Hao.

Xin Yan looked frail, and Yang Lulu was only nine years old.

They were clearly very afraid of the guns in Su Hao's group's hands. Therefore, they did not continue to argue. The three young men walked to the side of the yard where the external oil tank was located. One of them climbed to the top of the tank, opened the iron lid, and inserted a hollow plastic tube. The other two sucked on the tube below, using buckets to collect the gasoline. During this process, they kept looking at the SUV, their eyes wary and full of caution.

After watching for a while, Xin Yan shook her head and said to Su Hao, who was standing at the other end of the car, "They seem to know nothing."

Su Hao smiled slightly but did not say anything.

This type of ground-level oil tank was not very large, with a capacity of no more than 300 liters. It was mainly set up for special purposes, such as needing a small amount of gasoline to clean dirt or refuel some self-modified vehicles. Usually, only large gas stations had such external tanks, and the stored oil was often not much, sometimes even empty.

In a power outage, a battery could be connected to the main control equipment in the office to make the entire gas station operational again. This method was not a high-level special skill, but not everyone could master it. Su Hao did not want to kill over trivial matters, and these people did not have significant conflicts with him. He only needed the fuel in the underground storage tank. As for the territory... since the other party was being so stubborn, he would let them have it.

The three young men were not new to extracting oil from the external tank. Soon, the two buckets were filled with gasoline. Su Hao watched them casually and noticed that about two-thirds of the plastic tube used for extraction was already in the tank. Clearly, the stored oil was almost gone.

They did not pick up the buckets and leave. They kept looking at this side, their greedy eyes fixed on the SUV and the guns, watching Su Hao, Xin Yan, and Yang Lulu with interest.

"Where did they get those guns?"

The man in the gray shirt said enviously and jealously, "Those things are much more useful than knives. I say, shouldn't we go over and talk to them properly? Damn, even the women and kids have their own guns. These guys are really rich. Especially that girl, she's quite pretty, with long legs and a big chest. I just want to fuck her."

"If you don't want to die, shut your mouth—"

The young man called "Brother Tao" coldly shouted, his face dark, "Even if we get the guns, what can you do with them? Do you know how to use them? How to take off the safety? How to change the magazine? What to do if the gun jams? What's the difference between burst fire and single shot? I wanted to say this to you earlier—what do you mean by 'our territory'? Do you know who they are? Just saying that kind of thing could get you killed. If you want to die, get lost and don't drag me down."

The scolding was merciless, and the man in the gray shirt's face turned red and white, his eyes filled with fierce and wild looks. He bared his teeth, glaring at the young leader like an injured wolf, and his knife was in an attacking position. Despite the distance, with his enhanced vision, Su Hao could clearly see the disdain and mockery in "Brother Tao's" eyes.

"…Why am I with such a low-intelligence, arrogant idiot?"

Lu Tao, the young man called "Brother Tao," shook his head and remained cold and silent.

Since the outbreak of the virus, this thought had crossed his mind more than once, and it was becoming stronger.

He was a local, studying for a master's degree in Chinese literature at a prestigious university in the north.

Since last year, his parents had repeatedly called, urging him to come home. Lu Tao had applied for a job at a company in the area, so he returned and, following his parents' wishes, wore a new suit on May 11th to meet his arranged marriage partner in a park where two families had agreed to go for a walk.

She was a sweet-looking girl with a gentle personality. Both Lu Tao and the girl were satisfied with each other, and the parents on both sides were happy. The four elders even joked that they could get married around this time next year and urged them to have a child soon.

That happy and joyful scene was shattered by Lu Tao's mother-in-law-to-be—she suddenly turned into a zombie and, like a wild dog, pounced on her daughter standing beside her, biting through her throat in a few bites.

Everyone, including Lu Tao, watched in shock. His mind was a mess, and everything seemed unreal. It wasn't until a sudden, powerful force pushed him aside that Lu Tao snapped out of his daze and realized that his father had also turned into a monster from a horror movie. If his mother hadn't pushed him away with all her strength, the one being chewed by the monster's sharp teeth would not have been his mother's face but his shoulder, arm, or chest...

The entire park fell into chaos, with cries for help and screams everywhere. The clean road, just swept by the sanitation workers, was stained with blood. Almost all the elderly people exercising in the park turned into zombies, howling and pouncing on a man in a black belt performing a high-kicking karate move by the lake. The man was quickly torn to pieces, his head split in half.

The future mother-in-law was gnawing on the arranged marriage partner.

Beside her, the future father-in-law had his arm torn off by a park manager who had already mutated and was wearing a red armband.

The mother's abdomen was bitten by the father, who pulled out her liver and chewed it with abandon.

An elderly woman practicing a few meters away roared and charged over, swinging her sword and stabbing it into the father's back. She was very brave, pulling the sword to stab the future mother-in-law while shouting at Lu Tao to call the police. Before she could finish, a woman in black tights who had just mutated grabbed the sword, dragged the old woman to her, and bit into her throat.

The sun was as bright as usual that day, but the earth was filled with blood.

Lu Tao had forgotten how he escaped from that terrifying park.

He seemed to have picked up a tape recorder. It belonged to a group of morning exercisers who were practicing dance, and it was playing the cheerful "Today Is a Good Day." Accompanied by Song Zuying's singing, Lu Tao swung the tape recorder like a madman, smashing the heads of several zombies, and stumbled out of the park.

The streets were even more chaotic than the park.

Many cars had crashed into each other, and the mutated zombies crawled out from under the wheels, pouncing on the terrified people. A patrol car had flipped over in the middle of the road, and the zombies dragged the injured and unconscious police officers out of the car, tearing them into pieces and sitting on the street, eating the human limbs. The city was engulfed in a chaotic and terrifying storm, with screams and cries everywhere. People were jumping to their deaths from high buildings, and zombie arms were waving out of the windows behind them. A woman in a suit had her high heels stuck in a rain grate and was unable to escape, being pounced on and bitten through the ankle by the pursuing zombies. A middle-aged man tried to climb a roadside tree but slipped and was surrounded by zombies. He fought desperately, roaring and breaking through the zombie crowd. His intestines slipped out of the wound in his abdomen, grabbed by a zombie, and the man and the zombie were like flying a kite. He clutched his abdomen and ran for several meters, then had to run back, kicking and punching the zombie that was eating his intestines... until he was finally overwhelmed by the dense crowd of zombies, his face, once fierce and wild, was now pale and terrifying.

Lu Tao kept calling "110" on his phone, but he soon gave up this futile effort—everyone fleeing on the streets was doing the same thing. No matter where you were, you could hear people shouting for help into their phones, and in the distance, the sharp and urgent sound of car alarms.

The chaos lasted for a long time. Lu Tao hid in a garbage room by the roadside. He took off his suit to cover his mouth and nose, covered himself with various rotten and smelly discarded items, and hid in a dirty corner, motionless, letting cockroaches and other insects crawl all over him... until his phone no longer received any signals, the noisy static turned into dead silence, and the garbage room outside was completely quiet. Only then did he crawl out of his hiding place, trembling, and with eyes full of feces, saliva, and tears, he looked at the world filled with corpses and death in despair.

He wandered the streets like a homeless dog, searching for food and encountering zombies multiple times. Gradually, he realized that the head was the zombies' weak point. With his experience of fighting in high school and two years of practicing sanda, Lu Tao began to unleash his revenge. He collected sticks and knives as weapons and found a small room as a hiding place. This solitary life lasted for several weeks. One day, while searching for food, he encountered a survivor group of about 200 people.

So, he chose to join.