Chapter 369: Detour from Xiangcheng
Chapter 369: Detour from Xiangcheng
The world is evolving rapidly. Humans, once at the top of the food chain, waste too much time on internal strife and now find themselves at the bottom.
Even ordinary mutant rats can ride on people’s heads and chase them everywhere.
Not to mention the copper-skinned zombies—they are the natural enemies of all species.
Look at Luo Feifan. The more intense the moment, the more he insists on having verbal battles with Zhan Lian, as if he can’t relieve the pressure any other way.
The medical and cargo trucks behind also follow Luo Feifan’s jeep, making a forced U-turn to head back toward the county, where the cat-and-mice battle is raging. Coming toward these four vehicles is a swarm of mutated rats.
An Ran is held tightly by Zhan Lian, and she holds Doll firmly. In the speeding vehicle, they struggle to keep her from bumping or getting hurt.
Taking a moment, An Ran glances at the mutant rat horde closing in from the opposite side, then looks back at the copper-skinned zombies trailing the convoy and asks, “Do you think these rats can fight those copper-skinned zombies?”
Zhan Lian thinks it’s a good idea. He leans close to An Ran’s face, then pats the back of Luo Feifan’s seat.
“Turn right at the intersection and take the national highway to Xiangcheng.”
The vehicle turns at the intersection, leading the rat pursuers to the right down another street to circle around. The cargo truck, medical vehicle, and Zhang Boxun’s car all follow Luo Feifan’s lead. After crossing the intersection, the rat horde and the copper-skinned zombies merge.
Taking advantage of the moment, everyone checks their rearview mirrors to observe the effect of their bait strategy. They want to see which is stronger—the copper-skinned zombies or the rats—but are surprised to discover that the copper-skinned zombies are eating the rats???
Though fewer in number, Zhang Boxun manages to lure over a hundred copper-skinned zombies off the Beijing–Hong Kong Expressway.
The zombies’ bodies are crawling with rats, but the rats can’t bite through the zombies’ skin. Instead, the zombies act like they’ve found a food warehouse, grabbing rats and biting them with their fangs, tearing the flesh apart.
With so much food, the zombies ignore An Ran’s convoy.
Only a small number of rats continue chasing them, and Luo Feifan’s fireballs combined with Zhan Lian’s flying knives quickly clear them away.
Soon, everyone breaks free from the siege of rats and zombies.
Several cars on the road join the fleeing group. They haven’t caught up with Tang Jianjun’s main force, so they follow Zhang Boxun and prepare to escape with him.
Because the Beijing–Hong Kong Expressway is full of copper-skinned zombies, Zhang Boxun plans to lead them back into Tiesi Village. After entering, the zombies seem to discover a new territory, allowing Zhang Boxun to slip away safely. He then plans to avoid the Beijing–Hong Kong Expressway and take the highway toward Xiangcheng to pursue Tang Jianjun.
Coincidentally, Zhan Lian and the others have the same plan: to detour around Xiangcheng and find a way north.
Soon, they encounter the tail end of Tang Jianjun’s team leaving the village.
The detour along the national highway is longer. Normally, it takes only a few hours to get from Xiangcheng to Tiesi Village by highway before the apocalypse. But after the apocalypse, it takes An Ran and Yun Tao half a month to travel that distance on foot.
Of course, during those two weeks, they rarely travel continuously; most of their time is spent killing zombies, training, practicing their abilities, and taking care of Doll. Their pace is hard to measure.