Chapter 118: Risking Life to Accompany a Gentleman
Chapter 118: Risking Life to Accompany a Gentleman
These two guns are taken from a police station that Zhan Lian and Lao Mao recently raided. They are no different from bandits, scavenging supplies all the way to the edge of Xiangcheng, where they are now preparing to enter the city.
Zhan Lian doesn't even raise his head, but he lifts a hand to push the gun back. "Shooting in the city? Do you want to die?"
"That's right!" Lao Mao takes the gun back, kicks at Zhan Lian's waist, and then takes the cigarette from his mouth. He looks down at the map Zhan Lian has spread across the front of the car. "What are you looking at the map for? Do you think Anran will be on it?"
"No," Zhan Lian replies without looking up, instead pointing to the easternmost point on the map. "Our home is here." He drags his rough finger across the map to the westernmost point. "I'm here now."
Zhan Lian doesn’t know where his ex-wife is. The vast Xiangcheng is overrun with zombies, yet Zhan Lian feels he has to return, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he can find Anran at their home.
"What if she’s gone?" Lao Mao leans against the front of the car, observing Zhan Lian quietly. He knows that he and Zhan Lian have to be mentally prepared. Zhan Lian’s wife is gone, his own mother is gone—where will they go after that?
Zhan Lian, hands on the car hood, presses his lips together without answering. There is an unspoken resolve on his hard features.
It is hard to imagine how, in just one month, he has traveled from the remote northwest to the edge of Xiangcheng. Now that he is at his doorstep, nothing will stop him from wanting to go home.
No matter if the city is full of zombies or whether Anran is alive or dead, he has to go home.
"Well, there’s an old saying... risking life to accompany a gentleman!" Lao Mao grins, ready to follow Zhan Lian into the city, from the west to the east, and no matter if they find Anran or not, they will continue south to search for his own mother.
Two days pass. In the end times, human life has become as fragile as grass, capable of vanishing at any moment. So, the disappearance of Wang Xin and Lin Liu barely makes a ripple among the survivors at Sunshine Lake Community.
Only Ren Xian mutters a few words about it. Yun Tao ignores him, continuing his daily task of cleaning up zombies and leading the survivors on supply runs, while Ren Xian stays in the security room, managing the supplies and playing with Xiaomei.
Anran and Liu Yuan stop showing up at the security room each morning to wait for their meals like the other five men. In such a large community, no one notices their absence.
The two women have stolen supplies from the security room for two consecutive days.
On the third day, Anran notices that neither Yun Tao nor Ren Xian seems to have noticed the missing supplies. Encouraged, she decides to act more boldly. As she holds Doll at home, she says to Liu Yuan, "I want to go into the office today and find my husband’s car keys."
Her ex-husband's bulletproof car, a prized possession given to Yun Tao by Ren Xian, has been parked in the square after Yun Tao drove it for two days. Every time Anran goes to the security room to steal supplies, she can't help but feel a sense of longing when she sees her car.
It seems that the zombies outside the community have been dealt with, and the supplies have piled up in the security room. Yun Tao has no need to leave the community anymore, so the car, which consumes a lot of fuel, is now just sitting idle.