Chapter 7

"Yijia Supermarket" is located on the north side of the block, less than two kilometers from the bank office building. The store is not very large, but it has a wide variety of goods.

Stopping the armored car by the roadside, Su Hao jumped out of the driver's seat and vigilantly observed the surroundings, ensuring there were no signs of infected individuals. Only then did he take out the key from his pocket and unlock the chain lock on the supermarket's roller shutter door.

The last time he came here, he had cleared all the zombies from the store. To prevent damage to supplies and avoid further combat, he had closed and locked the door.

Su Hao did not choose a large mall with abundant supplies. It was in a bustling area, and when the virus outbreak occurred, the crowd was already very dense. No one could be sure if there were dense groups of zombies there. Although Su Hao was not afraid of the virus and his physical condition was in the process of being enhanced by the silver bone, he did not want to take risks and dared not do so.

After all, he was not yet a truly enhanced person.

Xin Yan stood at the supermarket entrance, holding a riot shotgun, constantly observing the distant street, her eyes revealing a hint of tension.

The back door of the armored car was open, and Su Hao kept shuttling between the car and the store. The cargo compartment quickly filled with bags of rice and flour, large drums of cooking oil, and unopened cans. He felt like a diligent mole, greedily gathering everything he could see. Ham, sausages, cookies, salt, various seasonings, candies... even the toilet paper stacked by the store entrance, he did not want to miss.

There was a slight movement behind the corner of the wall, and Xin Yan immediately focused on it, holding the police shotgun level with her chest.

Su Hao put down a bag of sugar he was about to put in his backpack, quickly took off the assault rifle on his shoulder, and aimed it, closely watching the circular space in the sight.

His survival experience in the future world taught him that danger often comes from those easily overlooked movements. Negligence is the most fatal factor. No one knows where extremely dangerous creatures might be hiding. When they appear or erupt, there are always some subtle signs. When the exact location cannot be determined, the best course of action is to leave early.

"Go start the car, quickly!"

Su Hao controlled the gun with one hand, forcefully closed the back door of the cargo compartment, and his eyes never left the wall where the sound came from. Xin Yan did not argue; she quickly got into the driver's seat, turned the key to start the engine. Just as Su Hao was about to get in and leave, a black shadow suddenly darted out from behind the wall.

"Hey! Don't shoot! Don't shoot! Look clearly, I'm a human, a human, not one of those monsters—"

It was a man in his thirties. He wore a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open, exposing most of his chest. Perhaps he was sure the other side would not shoot, he raised his hands and ran to the middle of the road, blocking the armored car, waving his arms excitedly and shouting in a deliberately lowered voice: "Hey! Can you see? I'm not a monster, not—"

Two more men emerged from behind the wall, holding weapons like sticks. Like the man on the road, to show they had no hostile intentions, they raised their hands and quickly walked over.

Xin Yan had already pressed the clutch and was about to release it. Seeing this, she immediately pressed it again, shifted to neutral, and quickly glanced at Su Hao, who had already jumped into the passenger seat. "What do we do now?"

Su Hao silently watched these suddenly appearing strangers, the gun's sight scanning over them.

They were very strong, with daggers hanging from their waists, and the wooden sticks were specially processed, either wrapped in iron or covered with nails. Their expressions were very excited, and their eyes were filled with joy. But for some reason, Su Hao felt that there was something hard to guess in their eyes.

"Drive—"

Su Hao's voice was cold but clear.

Xin Yan looked at him in surprise, her expression somewhat unexpected.

Su Hao gripped her hand on the gearshift, pushed it into first gear, and commanded without any room for doubt: "Leave here quickly, now—"

The slowly turning wheels made the middle-aged man nervous. His expression immediately turned angry, and the other two started cursing. They waved their sticks and quickly moved to the side of the car, heavily smashing the doors and windows, making a dull "thud" sound. These actions could not stop the armored car from leaving, and the man had to step aside. As the vehicle passed by him, Xin Yan heard a string of foul words through the window.

...

The armored car, loaded with goods, sped out of the street at sixty kilometers per hour, heading towards the west side of the city.

Xin Yan held the steering wheel to stabilize the speed, but her eyes were peeking at Su Hao's face through the rearview mirror. After a few seconds of silence, she finally couldn't help but ask: "Why... didn't you take them with us?"

Su Hao looked at the mirror outside the car window, making sure there were no followers, then rolled up the window and said calmly: "Those people are dangerous."

"How do you know?"

The girl's eyes clearly showed disbelief.

"Did you notice their clothes?"

Su Hao leaned back in his seat and said seriously: "Whether it's a tank top or a shirt, they are all a bit damp. They are very dirty, and the explanation that they washed and didn't dry doesn't make sense. The only possibility is that they sweated a lot. One of them even had a wet spot in the middle of his pants. You're young, and you might not have much experience with 'sex' and physiology. The guy who was shouting on the road was very close to me, and at that moment, I smelled the odor from his body."

"Odor?"

Xin Yan frowned.

"To be precise, the smell of semen."

Su Hao said calmly: "In this environment, to still have the interest in doing that, it means they are not lacking food, and their energy is too high. They might have women around. A group of strong and idle guys... in a certain sense, they are more dangerous than zombies."

Xin Yan bit her lower lip, her face looking a bit unpleasant.

All of this was speculation. Su Hao had no absolute evidence to prove his judgment was correct.

However, he dared not take risks. In the future world, he had seen too many similar examples. Those men might just want to ask about the situation or want a ride, but Su Hao did indeed notice something unusual about them. He did not want to verify it and was unwilling to do anything. Leaving was the best choice.

Of course, if his judgment was proven correct, he would not hesitate to pull the trigger.

...

Despite the armored car disappearing from sight, the middle-aged man continued to curse angrily. He picked up an empty wine bottle and threw it far away with all his strength. The dark green glass bottle drew a standard arc in the air and shattered on the ground, the sound piercing the empty street.

"You brainless idiot! Stop it! This will attract those monsters—"

Behind him, a very rough, angry growl suddenly came. The man instinctively turned his head and saw a tall, muscular man walking towards him. He was nearly two meters tall, wearing a highly elastic sweatshirt, with large, well-developed muscles on his arms and chest, and his face was covered with steel-like stubble. His facial muscles were twisted in anger. To avoid causing more trouble, he could only lower his voice, grabbed the man's collar, dragged him forward, and punched him hard in the face.

The man's nostrils immediately started bleeding. He felt as if his head had been hit by a speeding car, his brain filled with strange images, his eyes blackened, and his body lost balance, unable to stand.

"Brother Hu... those two guys... they are... they are police."

The man's voice sounded like a plea, as if he was trying to explain his intentions. He was very close to the man called "Brother Hu," and the huge disparity in height and strength made him unable to resist or cry out. He could only tiptoe to keep his breathing smooth, his legs trembling involuntarily.

"I have eyes, I can see for myself—"

Brother Hu rudely interrupted the man, his face dark. He stared in the direction the armored car had disappeared for a long time before letting go of the man, who was now half-dead and pale as paper. He turned around and shouted at the other two men standing nearby: "What are you all standing there like wooden posts? Go and move the stuff, take all the food. Move quickly, those monsters might show up at any time."

Hu He was a fitness coach who also loved Muay Thai and Karate. When the virus outbreak occurred, he was practicing at a nearby gym. His strong physique, strength far beyond ordinary people, and combat skills naturally made him the leader of the survivor group.

Everyone present, including the man who had just been hit, held their breath, afraid of provoking Hu He's anger. They ran into the store and quickly took the items they needed from the shelves.

At first, Hu He felt as panicked as everyone else. This panic did not last long, and he soon realized that zombies were actually easy to deal with. As long as they were not in large groups, individual zombies were no match for him.

The lack of order, the absence of restrictions and constraints, and the hopeful and helpless looks of the survivors made him truly feel the benefits of his strength. This chaotic period gave him many things he usually dreamed of, such as women and the distribution of food and water. He was very satisfied with everything and did not want to change anything.

He stared at the distant street corner, his facial muscles slightly trembling, revealing a hidden ferocity and cruelty. After a few minutes of thought, Hu He's expression gradually calmed down. He turned around and beckoned to the middle-aged man who was busy moving the goods. The man immediately put down what he was holding and ran over.

"Arrange for Hook and Iron Egg to patrol the area. Those guys' hideout should not be far from here. Find them and strike first... you can get a lot of good stuff."

Su Hao and Xin Yan were both wearing the bulletproof vests of the security team, which could easily be mistaken for police. Hu He did not want outsiders to disrupt the status quo of the gym and did not want to see any so-called order keepers. Besides, he had seen with his own eyes that they were holding guns.

...

The speed of the armored car was slowing down, but it was heading away from the bank office building. Su Hao did not want others to discover his hiding place, and taking a detour could help conceal his route.

There was no wind, and the cicadas were loudly chirping in the treetops.

The afternoon sun was very strong, making the ground scorching hot. The glaring white light made their eyes sore and made them feel drowsy.

Suddenly, a wild and hysterical roar came from the street corner ahead.

Su Hao and Xin Yan instinctively looked in the direction of the sound and then quickly looked at each other.

"It's a survivor."

The girl turned the steering wheel without hesitation and stepped on the gas pedal hard.

Su Hao frowned, opened his mouth, but said nothing.

He instinctively wanted to stop her.

Unlike Xin Yan, Su Hao came from the future, or rather, another world. In that world, human society had a completely different set of survival rules. People found it hard to truly trust each other, and the word "friendship" almost did not exist. A piece of bread could make a couple turn against each other, and a bottle of clean water could cause a killing. Strangers' eyes were filled with hostility, and you would never understand the true meaning of words like "trust" except through naked self-interest.

Su Hao still used the fixed mindset of the future world. If not for needing help, he would not have brought Xin Yan and the others out of the underground parking lot. The girl was obedient and never went against his opinions. But no matter what, Su Hao still had a faint sense of caution towards her.

He had become accustomed to being suspicious of everything.

Turning the corner, following the sound, the armored car slowly entered a relatively narrow community road. Immediately in front of them, a large group of dirty zombies appeared. They swarmed like maggots on rotting meat, crowding towards the entrance of a building unit. Through the gaps in the brick walls, they could see that their target was on the third floor, a closed door of an ordinary residential apartment.

About twenty to thirty meters away from the zombie group, there was a man with a panicked and extremely angry and frightened expression.

He was stocky, tall, with rough, dark skin, and looked to be around twenty-five or twenty-six years old. In his right hand, he held a steel pipe with a sharpened end, and in his left hand, he held the strap of a large backpack. Through the gaps in the unzipped bag, they could see it was filled with "Yummy" cookies and "Shuanghui" sausages.

The man was howling like a madman, repeatedly hitting the ground with the steel pipe, making a loud, unpleasant sound. He was trying to attract the zombies to him and reduce their numbers by stabbing the heads of the zombies that lunged at him with the sharp end of the pipe.

He was covered in blood, seemingly exhausted, and the frequency of his pipe swings was slowing down, and his shouts were becoming hoarse. But he did not give up. He ran back and forth, his face filled with bloodshot eyes and half-dried tear marks.

"We have to help him! We must help him—"

Xin Yan glared, gritted her teeth, and forcefully shifted gears, stepping on the gas pedal to the floor. The armored car lunged forward, roaring and speeding straight towards the zombie group. Two of the nearest zombies were knocked flying, and the front of the car, with the intimidating word "Security," was splattered with dark, foul-smelling blood.

The girl jumped out of the car, leveled her police shotgun, and, though nervous, fired at the zombie group with intense hatred. The large-caliber kinetic rounds exploded, spraying countless small steel balls that drilled small holes in the zombies' bodies like a beehive.

Su Hao did not speak or stop her. He sat in the car, silently watching the crazed Xin Yan. His eyes were still cold, but deep in his pupils, something he had never experienced before and had just inexplicably felt was rolling.

He suddenly realized that he had forgotten some of the most important factors, such as time and environment.

This era was completely different from the future he came from. Humans had not yet lost their most basic morals, and they still believed in each other. Interests could move people, but they were not the key to judging good and evil.

In the future, Su Hao had never heard of anyone bravely rushing into a dense group of zombies for a stranger they had never met. Such a thing was like a myth.

Now, that frail, thin girl was roaring at the zombies like a madwoman.

She was clumsy—shotguns are close-range weapons, and she started shooting from over fifty meters away. Moreover, these were police rounds with weaker firepower for riot control.

She was foolish—what did the man's life have to do with her? She just drove in and jumped out without a second thought.

Is this the end of the world?

Is this the kindness that has been abandoned in the future world?

Su Hao felt his thoughts becoming heavy, filled with things he had never considered or thought about. These unfamiliar thoughts were not unpleasant, but they touched the softest part of his heart, making him feel a slight tremor in his body... not from fear or cold, but from being moved.

"This silly girl, she didn't even say anything and just rushed in recklessly..."

Su Hao shook his head, talking to himself. He took off his assault rifle, checked the magazine, and pushed the car door open, walking towards the nearest zombie.