Chapter 58

Two of the chosen survivors were led by soldiers into the canteen.

The people standing on the playground watched them with eager eyes, holding their breath in unison, trying to distinguish the faint, slight sounds of chewing in the air.

It's hard to imagine, unless you've experienced it firsthand, what a bowl of steaming rice means to someone who lives on cold biscuits every day.

A man in a brown sweater took a few steps forward, his voice hoarse as he shouted, "Why, why not me?"

Another woman, her face pale, followed closely behind. Though her voice was low, it carried a determination no less strong than anyone else's: "I, I want to be like them too."

Immediately, a voice from the side echoed, "I want to eat. Why should they get to eat and not me?"

The crowd began to grow restless, the survivors pushing forward step by step, and the situation quickly became uncontrollable.

Wu Guoguang's face darkened. He raised his right hand and pointed forward. Several soldiers standing around immediately rushed into the crowd, swinging their fists at the most vocal people. Screams, curses, and roars erupted, and the scene became chaotic.

All the soldiers had been injected with a first-stage enhancement serum. Although they hadn't taken the silver bone to strengthen their bones, their strength and physical flexibility had long surpassed the limits of ordinary people.

Though the survivors were many, they lacked the resolve to fight to the death. With other soldiers standing guard with guns, the chaos on the playground gradually subsided.

When the soldiers beat the leading survivors to the brink of death and threw them over the steel fence in front of the command post, everything returned to calm.

Wu Guoguang stood on the second floor, his hands behind his back, legs apart, like an iron tower, coldly overlooking the remaining people.

"You seem to still not understand that the world has changed, it's no longer what it used to be. No matter how you think, how angry you are, or how you curse with the most venomous words, there are some things I still need to say, and I hope you can pass them on to others—The army has no obligation to protect you. We only need capable strong people. You have all been injected with the immunity serum, so being bitten by zombies won't cause mutation. There are many places in this city where you can find food, the land outside the city can be cultivated, and nearby water sources can be used for drinking. In short, the environment here can meet the most basic living needs. If..."

"I want to leave here—"

A middle-aged man with a turtleneck sweater and slightly balding hair interrupted him, his voice shrill and agitated: "You can't fool me. You can't do this. We need food, we need clothes. I am from the Municipal Party Committee Office..."

"Your mother's bitch—"

Wu Guoguang glared at the middle-aged man, his voice several times louder, roaring angrily: "I don't care who you are. If you're not qualified, get out of here now. Don't talk to me in that high and mighty tone, it's no different from being a fool. Even if your father is the President of the United States and your mother is the Queen of England, you're still a product of male and female intercourse. If you keep talking nonsense, I'll shoot you. Get out! Get out now—"

These words severely hurt the middle-aged man's self-esteem.

He trembled with anger, standing straight, staring at Wu Guoguang with a cold, resentful gaze, his face flushed with rage.

The soldiers pushed the other survivors toward the door.

This action soon extended to the middle-aged man, who immediately erupted like an injured wild animal, growling and fighting with the soldiers.

In terms of strength and speed, he was far inferior to the armed soldiers. Without an order to shoot, the soldiers' hard rifle butts rained down like heavy hammers. The middle-aged man's tall, thin figure gradually weakened, his forehead cracked and bleeding, his cheeks and shoulders showing purplish bruises. He showed no signs of giving up, still swinging his iron rod fiercely, until a soldier's rifle butt struck his neck, and he fell with a惨叫.

Wu Guoguang walked down from the second floor and stood in front of the man who was on the brink of death.

He grabbed the middle-aged man's disheveled hair, lifting him up, and said with deep resentment, "Leave now, and I'll let what happened just now go unpunished."

The middle-aged man weakly opened his swollen eyelids and replied with difficulty and determination, "Take me with you, like those two."

Wu Guoguang's eyes narrowed. After a moment of silence, he pulled out the dagger on his waist and forcefully slashed the man's neck. The thick sweater immediately split, quickly soaked with blood. The man's eyes widened, his mouth opened wide, and his hands involuntarily grabbed at his chest... About half a minute later, his eyes lost their light forever.

Letting go, Wu Guoguang looked at the limp body at his feet, a hint of pain in his cold eyes. He controlled his emotions and said coldly to the soldiers, "Throw him out, feed him to the dogs!"

...

When Su Hao was brought into the office by a soldier, Wu Guoguang was staring at his blood-stained hands in a daze.

Noticing someone had entered, he put away his dazed expression and resumed his stern, rugged military appearance.

Seeing Su Hao, Wu Guoguang's expression changed slightly.

"Why is it you?"

He remembered this young man he had seen before. Wu Guoguang frowned slightly, and his next words inevitably carried a mocking tone: "What, have you thought it through? It's not too late to leave now. I'm sure you saw what happened just now. Many people want such an opportunity, but they..."

"I have something to discuss with you."

Su Hao rudely interrupted him, then took out a notebook from his backpack and laid it flat on the table.

Wu Guoguang looked at him in confusion, picked up the notebook, and opened it.

"This is the record I started making from the day the chaos broke out."

Su Hao carefully observed Wu Guoguang's expression and said calmly, "I am an amateur biology enthusiast. Before May 11th, no zombies had ever been discovered on Earth, nor had there been any cases of similar viral infections leading to mutations. They appeared like alien life forms suddenly landing on Earth. I observed the pus samples from infected bodies under a microscope, and this virus has a strong phagocytic property. The immunity serum you gave me can indeed suppress it. I don't understand—since you have this, why didn't you distribute it to the public earlier? And why do you need to select suitable people from the survivors? What... do you really want to do?"

Wu Guoguang flipped through the notebook and replied unperturbed, "I just killed someone, don't force me to do it again."

Su Hao smiled faintly and stopped pressing.

He found no answers from Wu Guoguang.

In the future world, Su Hao had been searching for the secrets of the virus outbreak and the Black Era. He searched through libraries, computers, and military archives that his identity and authority allowed him to access, but found nothing. Much of the information was covered up by the military, and outsiders couldn't get a glimpse.

Wu Guoguang was a lieutenant and one of the first military inspectors stationed in this city.

Often, "first" has a special significance that other numbers cannot match.

Although he was a junior officer, Su Hao instinctively felt that Wu Guoguang might know something.

The same event, when done for the first time and the tenth time, yields vastly different results. The former has no experience, while the latter can continuously improve and perfect based on the former. It has a more solid defense and a sharper offensive edge, while the former is full of flaws.

It was the early Black Era. Even the military had no experience in dealing with such terrifying creatures. Su Hao had seen many military inspectors in the future world. They were very cold-blooded, with no emotions, and everything was measured by military regulations. To them, survivors, or the future refugees, were only "qualified" or "unqualified."

Wu Guoguang was different from those cold-hearted future military officers.

At least, his heart was still warm, not completely cold.

Su Hao wanted to win him over. By gradually increasing their interactions, he aimed to build familiarity and intimacy. When the day came, Wu Guoguang would be willing to accept the injection of his blood, and the goal would naturally be achieved.

Forced injection would only have the opposite effect. He would refuse to become a "worker bee" and might even turn against the "queen bee."

Wu Guoguang was so engrossed in reading that he didn't notice the meaningful look in Su Hao's eyes.

"This notebook is very good. The details are recorded comprehensively and have great research value."

These words were not exaggerated.

Although a military man, Wu Guoguang still had a keen eye. The notebook contained tens of thousands of words, with records starting from the early stages of the virus outbreak and ending yesterday. The content included observations and studies of over a dozen zombies and several different-sized zombie groups from different distances and angles. It covered the zombies' living habits, feeding content, excretion and water intake, food supplementation and heat estimation, movement patterns, and reaction speeds.

The notebook was written by Su Hao, but he was not the true author.

He compiled the comprehensive research on "Level -1" creatures from the future world, the insights of many zombie hunters during battles, and several papers on early-stage zombies from the authoritative academic journal "Biology and Evolution" in 2026. After omitting some potentially suspicious data and academic terms, he replicated this notebook with considerable research value.

In the notebook, Su Hao portrayed himself as a survivor who had been fighting and fleeing since the virus outbreak.

Out of interest in biology, he used abandoned residential homes to imprison several zombies for close observation. He fed these zombies various foods, such as rats, mosquitoes, cockroaches, rotten meat cut from corpses, and various plants. To gather more data, he dissected dozens of zombies, providing extremely detailed records of their body structures. For safety reasons, observations of large zombie groups could only be done with binoculars. Despite this, the notebook included information on the zombies' temperature preferences, the impact of temperature differences, their activity levels during the day and night, and their mutation speed and muscle decay.

This was essentially a compilation of future world survivor diaries, partial military research results, and zombie hunter battle records.

Of course, the content was limited to "Level -1" zombies.

Future world archives indicated that the military had already begun systematic research on zombies more than two months ago. Su Hao believed that the military had more detailed data on more than half of the content in the notebook. However, due to their unfamiliarity and fear of zombies, they only saw them as monsters resulting from human mutations, not as a new species.

Therefore, the military had not noticed certain details mentioned in the notebook.

For example, the possibility of a new circulatory system in zombies, the relationship between cells and parasitic viruses, and the regeneration of bones and muscles.

These aspects would only be gradually included in research projects a year later. Currently, they were a blank slate for military researchers. Su Hao only mentioned the beginning in the notebook, and professional researchers could extend these hints into more detailed professional insights.

No one would doubt this.

The content and recording methods of the notebook clearly showed the work of an amateur. The difference was like a child in the 50 years before the invention of penicillin suddenly becoming interested in a moldy apple. He collected some mold and observed it under a microscope but did not conduct further research, treating it as a boring game to pass the time.

"This is the research record I started a few months ago."

Su Hao said calmly, "It might be useful to you. I want... to exchange it for something more valuable from you."

Wu Guoguang closed the notebook, raised his eyelids, and carefully looked at Su Hao.

Compared to the last time they met, this young man was much more composed. He had less dirt on him, and his clean face exuded a refined and determined aura. His eyes were black and bright, with a stubborn determination to never give up on a goal. Although he was thin, his skin looked healthy. His arms and shoulders were strong, even stronger than many new recruits in the training camp.

"We should have a good talk."

Wu Guoguang softened his tone, his attitude becoming slightly more gentle: "This is a disaster that cannot be fought with personal strength. We need many people like you. This is a war, a war between the living and the dead. You should join the army, be with others, unite, and have a chance to win."

Su Hao's face was heavy. He looked at Wu Guoguang calmly, "Actually, I've been observing you nearby for some time."

Wu Guoguang's eyes twitched, and his right hand, hidden under the desk, subconsciously gripped the gun on his thigh.

"I watched the survivors break out of the zombie encirclement, full of hope, and walk through that door. I also saw you select the so-called qualified strong people, inject the rest with the immunity serum, and drive them out. I don't know what you're trying to do, or what the meaning of it is. As you said—this is a war that requires everyone to unite to win. But why... why do you abandon those people?"

Wu Guoguang slowly released his grip on the gun, his gaze and voice suddenly becoming stern: "There are some things you don't need to know."

"You're right!"

Su Hao shook his head with a hint of sarcasm: "Ignorance is bliss. This has always been the best tool for rulers to control the common people. If so, I also have the right to choose and refuse."

Wu Guoguang frowned, sighed, and shook his head regretfully: "You will die."

"I am not alone, I have many companions, many friends."

Su Hao smiled faintly: "I can't abandon them. You said, we need to unite."

A long silence of nearly three minutes.

Across the table, Wu Guoguang saw the unwavering determination in Su Hao's eyes. He sighed again, put away the notebook on the table, and his expression turned serious: "This notebook does indeed contain a lot of valuable information... Speak! What do you want?"

"Five hundred immunity serums."

Su Hao's voice remained calm and indifferent, as if he were making a trivial request: "Enough military-grade rations for two hundred people to eat for a week, three hundred sets of waterproof clothing, a high-power radio transmitter, two hundred sets of '95' automatic rifle repair parts, and five hundred spare barrels. Additionally, I need twenty thousand 5.8mm caliber bullets."

Wu Guoguang did not respond. His facial muscles involuntarily tightened, and his expression became stern and serious. His mind subconsciously associated Su Hao with the image of the underground arsenal saboteur.

He instinctively felt that there was something wrong with this young man.

But reason told Wu Guoguang: This was impossible.

The virus outbreak was not a war between countries or a conspiracy orchestrated by a certain interest group.

This was a disaster that all of humanity had to face.

If someone wanted to gain benefits from him through this method, it made no logical sense.

Recalling the last time they met, when Su Hao mentioned "camp" and "companions," Wu Guoguang's stern and fierce expression gradually faded, and his expression became more relaxed.

He did not associate Su Hao with the term "enhanced human."

Because that was impossible.

"What do you need so many supplies for? How many people are there?"

Understanding this, Wu Guoguang no longer harbored hostility toward Su Hao, but his tone remained cold.

"About three hundred. I'm not sure of the exact number because new people join and others may die at any time."

Su Hao answered seriously. There was no need to hide or conceal this information.