Chapter 57

Wei Wenyuan was very familiar with this man.

He... seems to have the surname Wang? He has already forgotten the name, but everyone in the building, upstairs and downstairs, calls him "Old Wang."

For some reason, Wei Wenyuan suddenly remembered last year, when he passed by an internet cafe and saw through the glass window a few young people laughing at a computer screen. They were talking about a cartoon on the screen in a mocking and teasing tone. It was a very ugly head, which felt... like an eggplant that had been dried and then soaked in soy sauce. The young people said that the extremely ugly person in the cartoon was named "Wang Nima."

"Old Wang, Wang Nima, hahaha————"

Wei Wenyuan's facial muscles twisted, squeezing countless wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, making him look like a chrysanthemum that had just been nourished by fresh cow dung. He grabbed Old Wang's hair, looked at the head that was full of infinite fear and despair, with tears streaming and struggling, making a pleading "uh uh" sound, and said in a strange, distorted voice: "Don't worry, Wang Nima, I'll send you to see your mother right now."

"Whoosh————"

The sharp knife brutally pierced through the throat, and a terrifying wound immediately appeared on the skin's surface.

Wei Wenyuan was not a professional killer and had not received similar training. The knife was immediately stuck by the epiglottis. He frowned, impatiently gripping the handle and rubbing it back and forth. The unfamiliar movements caused Old Wang to feel an extraordinary pain. He opened his eyes wide, like an eel, twisting his body, and tried to pull his neck to escape the restraint.

Old Wang felt a sharp knife cutting back and forth inside his throat. His brain felt more pain, but even more fear. At that moment, he subconsciously thought of a pig with its hind legs hanging high, while the butcher grinned and inserted a sharp knife into its neck.

"Move your fucking ass! If you move again, I'll kill you————"

Wei Wenyuan was very angry.

Using a knife to kill was clearly not as simple as he had imagined. He gritted his teeth, using all his strength to pull the knife out from between the bones. The rough and brutal movements immediately caused Old Wang's neck to spurt blood. Wei Wenyuan, uncontrollably angry, pressed the back of Old Wang's neck, grabbed a basin he had prepared in advance, and forcefully pressed Old Wang's head into it, then wildly stabbed at his head with the knife.

Eyes, nostrils, lips, cheeks... the wild and frantic movements had no practical significance, purely to vent his anger. Each stab brought even greater pain to the still-living Old Wang. He felt his eyes being gouged out, his nose being completely cut off, his teeth being knocked out, his tongue and lips being shredded, and his face being torn to pieces. Especially the hard sensation when the knife hit the cheekbone almost drove him mad, and his fear almost deprived him of all thought.

"Uh, uh————"

Suddenly, Old Wang, with an unknown burst of strength, broke free from the ropes. Instead of attacking Wei Wenyuan, he covered his severely injured face with both hands, tore off the cloth that had been tied around his mouth, and, like a wild dog, howled in agony, stumbling toward the door.

If Su Hao were present, he would not find it difficult to see that Old Wang had entered the initial stage of a first-level enhanced human.

This sudden mutation was not caused by silver bones or drugs, but by the intense fear deep in his heart. The brain instantly increased its thinking speed by dozens of times, and the pineal gland simultaneously produced extremely mysterious biological hormones. The combination and neutralization of these two factors was the source of human evolution in the future world, where people could naturally become strong without taking any drugs.

Anything could become a stimulus——anger, sadness, joy... Once the brain's thinking limit was broken and entered the state called "rage" by future biologists, enough hormones would be produced to become an enhanced human.

Old Wang did not notice the significant changes in his body. He still ran outward with the steps he had been accustomed to for decades, like a normal person. The pain and terror had completely eroded his courage to resist. He did not even think of fighting Wei Wenyuan to the death; he just wanted to run faster and farther.

The mutation left Wei Wenyuan somewhat stunned.

He immediately became furious, grabbed the axe beside him, and in a few steps caught up with the staggering Old Wang. He aimed at the head, whose neck veins had already been partially cut and whose face was unrecognizable due to the blood and flesh, and fiercely chopped down.

"Thud————"

The axe blade drew a curved trajectory in the air and deeply embedded itself in the left side of Old Wang's neck. Old Wang screamed and fell again, feeling the connection between his head and shoulders become noticeably loose. He pressed his head, trying to close the gap between his body and head. This futile action further enraged Wei Wenyuan. He rushed forward, pulled out the axe, and brutally hacked away until the newly enhanced Old Wang lay motionless at his feet.

Enhanced humans were not invincible. Ordinary people could still kill them.

The chaos quickly drained Wei Wenyuan's already limited physical strength.

He panted, dragging the headless corpse lying on the ground, and staggered to the roadside. He returned to the store, picked up the basin that had collected the blood, and approached the severed neck of the corpse. The previous struggle had drained most of the blood from Old Wang's body, but the remaining fresh red liquid still filled half a basin.

With his partially recovered strength, Wei Wenyuan picked up the axe again and chopped the corpse into more than a dozen pieces. He loaded the basin of blood and the chopped meat onto the tricycle, not even leaving the soft and fragile internal organs behind. Finally, he picked up Old Wang's head, which was unrecognizable with the tongue hanging out of the mouth, and stared at it for a long time, laughing in a very strange "hehehehe" manner.

Wei Wenyuan's clothes were soaked in blood. He took off his shirt and pants, wiped his chest and face, and, wearing only the remaining underwear, climbed onto the tricycle and pedaled toward the direction of the small bank building in the distance.

The intense blood smell gradually dissipated in the city, and the dark streets and alleys echoed with the terrifying howls of hungry zombies.

..

"Creak——Creak——"

The tricycle, lacking oil, emitted a sound like a rape victim's moan. After more than ten minutes, Wei Wenyuan had already ridden to a crossroads about half a kilometer from the small building.

He stopped the tricycle, turned his head to look at the dense, ink-like darkness behind him, and smiled with his toothless mouth.

Wei Wenyuan jumped off the tricycle, lifted the canvas, and revealed more than a dozen cages made of wire, about the size of bamboo cricket cages.

Each cage contained a rat. Their small eyes glowed red, fierce and cruel, making one shudder.

All the rats' anuses had been plugged with dried soybeans and carefully sewn shut with needles and thread.

In at most half a day, the soybeans, swollen by the damp feces, rapidly increased in size, strongly squeezing the rats. Unable to excrete and unable to remove the soybeans from their bodies, the indescribable pain drove the rats mad. They fiercely bit their companions, gnawed at the hard wire with their teeth, and used their heads and feet to struggle. They had no appetite or sexual desire; their only thought was to relieve themselves of all the contents in their bellies. Soybeans, feces, intestines... nothing left.

Taking a rat out of the cage, Wei Wenyuan suddenly felt——this terrifying little creature was not much different from himself. He held the rat by the skin on the back of its neck with his left thumb and ring finger, and the tail with his index and middle fingers. He picked up a prepared empty tin can from the tricycle, tied it to the rat's tail with wire, and then let go, watching the rat, desperate to commit suicide, jump around on the ground, dragging the tin can and fleeing madly toward the end of the road, making a clear and piercing "ding ling gang lang" sound.

After doing this, he picked up Old Wang's right hand from the tricycle and casually threw it on the road.

Pedaling the tricycle, he rode forward for fifty to sixty meters, threw a rat with a tin can tied to its tail, and then threw a piece of human flesh or splashed some blood.

Behind him, the chaotic footsteps and howls grew louder.

Without looking back, Wei Wenyuan knew that there were hundreds of zombies.

He had been surveying the area for some time, and the route and the location of the small building were deeply etched in his mind. The fresh flesh and the empty tin cans dragged by the rats were enough to attract all the zombies along the way. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands... these terrifying flesh-eating creatures had no intelligence. He could use human flesh to command and order them, like a tsunami, to flood that damned building.

Wei Wenyuan's mind was filled with the desire for revenge. He imagined Su Hao being torn apart by zombies and himself repeatedly ravaging Xin Yan.

In the past, he would have just talked about it or vented his anger in private, and he would not have made such a big move just because the things in the convenience store were stolen. Now... hahaha! This world is truly fucking beautiful——no police, no laws, I can kill whoever I want, and whoever offends me, I will kill them!

A man pedaled a tricycle, slowly moving forward under the dark night sky.

Behind him, thousands of zombies, attracted by the smell of flesh and blood from all directions, followed.

..

Su Hao stood on the rooftop of a building more than 200 meters away, silently watching the dense horde of zombies moving in the moonlight. Although the light was dim, his enhanced vision was enough to see the black tricycle and the tide of zombies.

Lu Tao's warning was very timely.

Su Hao quickly led everyone to evacuate the bank building and sealed all the exits. The building had some supplies, and if there were no problems, they could last at least a week.

After the camp was built, the team in the small building usually maintained around twenty people. Su Hao did not want too many people to notice the abnormality here, nor did he want the Supervision Administration Bureau to take an interest. Since last week, Cao Rui and Tao Yuan had each led a team of thirty people to find suitable buildings in the east and north of the city as the second and third bases.

"This guy must be crazy. He's actually leading zombies around the city. Does he think he's a monster tour guide? Or a free one?"

Beside him, Du Tianhao's deep, masculine voice echoed. He picked up a "Type 99" sniper rifle, placed the heavy tripod on the edge of the rooftop, and, with a grim expression, aimed and pulled the trigger.

"Bang——"

The harsh and violent gunshot echoed through the sky, even shaking the air around the building. From a distance, Su Hao saw the tricycle being flipped over by the powerful bullet, Wei Wenyuan's left leg blown off, and his right leg still connected by a bit of flesh. He was pinned under the overturned tricycle, unable to move, surrounded by scattered human body parts and organs, and let out a desperate, inhuman scream.

The horde of zombies accelerated its forward movement. They were excited and agitated; nothing could be more appetizing than a fresh, immobile prey. A few minutes later, the zombies completely engulfed the tricycle, tearing, biting, and chewing... the night wind carried the high-pitched, piercing screams mixed with the smell of blood.

..

Continuous rain for more than a week made the almost dead city even colder and more humid.

Su Hao drove a pickup truck and stopped at the gate of the military command headquarters. He jumped out of the driver's seat with a backpack, got permission from the guard, and walked in.

On the parade ground, more than a hundred people were standing.

Judging from their appearance, they were all survivors stranded in the city.

Their clothes were tattered and dirty, and some were dressed very neatly. Their weapons were varied, including machetes, sticks, and steel pipes. Some had long hair, and others had very peculiar hairstyles, messy like bird nests that had been ravaged.

Months without trimming had made the beards and hair of anyone look like jungle natives. Without professional barbers, many survivors could only use scissors to groom themselves in front of a mirror. The result was that their appearance lacked any image or charm, and they looked like a group of beggars with weapons, always on guard.

On the top floor of the office building, fully armed soldiers stood, and two heavy machine guns on the third floor formed a crossfire. Facing the black muzzles, the survivors clearly felt fear. They gathered in groups, full of hope, watching their two companions, who had just been brought into the camp and changed into new military uniforms without rank insignia.

Those two were the chosen ones. They would board the next supply helicopter to the Chengdu base.

It was lunchtime.

The canteen, which had been cleaned and put back into use, emitted the tempting aroma of food. Through the steaming windows, one could vaguely see steamed buns, red-braised pork with a dark red sugar sauce, and stir-fried cabbage with red peppers.

The KD03 base had resumed operations, and supplying the city's supervision stations was not difficult.

Except for Su Hao and the soldiers standing beside him, all the survivors' throats were moving, desperately swallowing saliva. They saw the beautiful scenes of tables filled with food, and many involuntarily recalled memories of eating.

A woman in her thirties pressed her empty, flat abdomen and sobbed.

A tall, middle-aged man with a weathered face kept licking his lips.

Some people's bodies trembled slightly, and their nostrils twitched. They slowly moved toward the canteen but found the soldiers on the rooftop staring coldly, pulling back the bolts of their guns, and aiming at their heads.

Wu Guoguang stood on the second-floor corridor of the office building, expressionless, looking down at the ragged group of people below.

Since the establishment of the supervision station based on the military command headquarters, more than four hundred survivors had come here. Their requests were all similar: to get food and clothes, ask for military protection, and then leave the city.

"Even if you leave, where can you go?"

Wu Guoguang muttered to himself, sighing imperceptibly, his eyes dimming.

He recorded the identity information of every survivor. They did not know the true purpose of this. Many survivors' logical thinking was still in the peaceful era. They tried to raise their status, constantly stating that they were officials of a certain agency, wealthy merchants with assets in the millions, or authorities with significant achievements in a certain field. A few young people repeatedly emphasized their participation in "Super Girl" or "Super Boy" competitions, having been shortlisted, or winning enviable awards, holding national certification as construction engineers, passing the English level six exam, and even the "IELTS," and having relatives abroad.

An old woman eager to leave the city bluntly claimed that the former U.S. President Obama was her illegitimate child.

It was chaotic! A mess!

At first, Wu Guoguang was still patient in persuading these people, stating that only recognized survivors could become reservists.

However, many did not understand and still believed that raising their status would get them military help. They gathered at the gate of the headquarters every day, shouting, crying, cursing, and even kneeling to beg to be taken away.

Wu Guoguang was not cold-blooded; he felt that these people were really pitiful.

But the only thing he could do was to squeeze out some food from the reserves and distribute it to those who were physically weak and truly needed help. At the same time, he gave all the survivors an immunity injection.

During the training at the Chengdu base, the superior officers repeatedly emphasized: it was strictly forbidden to provide excessive help to any survivors. The army did not have the ability or the obligation to support them. The immunity injection was only to prevent the living from being threatened by the virus. Whether they lived or died in the future still depended on their will and their ability to fight the zombies.