When the large family occupying one side of the camp had finished eating and, after tidying up, were sitting and resting to aid digestion, the camp gate was opened.
This gate and lock were only meant to keep out zombies, not humans; anyone passing by the camp could enter.
A woman covered in grime ran into the camp. She glanced once at the large family on the left, then without hesitation ran toward Wen Jiuzhe’s weathered modified vehicle.
As she ran toward the corner, Wen Jiuzhe had already stood up, gathered Xue Ling into his arms with one hand and stuffed her into the vehicle, slammed the door shut with a bang, and blocked the woman’s path.
“Stop.”
The woman’s hair was disheveled, her clothes in disarray, her body covered in many wounds, making her look especially pitiful.
“Please help me, someone is trying to catch me, can I hide in your car for a moment?”
The woman pleaded, revealing a pale, delicate face full of helplessness.
Wen Jiuzhe was unmoved and issued a cold warning: “Get lost.”
Curses rang out from outside the camp as three men holding weapons walked in.
When the woman saw them, she sobbed, lunged toward the car and reached for the door. Before she could touch it, Wen Jiuzhe had already grabbed the back of her collar and flung her aside.
“I warned you. Come any closer…” Wen Jiuzhe drew his blade, his meaning unmistakable.
The woman fell to the ground and froze. The three men who had entered also paused, but soon the man in front cursed, “Bitch, you still dare to run? I was wondering why you ran here—this man is your adulterer, isn’t he!”
The woman cried in fear, looking at Wen Jiuzhe with pleading eyes.
Wen Jiuzhe found the farce before him extremely boring. His face showed neither pity for the woman nor disgust toward the men; he simply stood blocking the front of the vehicle.
The men were used to normal reactions. Suddenly encountering someone so impervious, they almost couldn’t continue acting for a moment.
The slightly shorter man suddenly said to the woman in a lewd, slippery tone, “Come over here and go back with us, or we’ll beat you to death!”
“No!” The woman screamed and cried toward Wen Jiuzhe. “Please save me, they really will beat me to death. As long as you save me, I’ll do anything!”
Wen Jiuzhe held the short blade without reacting. Instead, among the large family opposite, a young girl couldn’t hold back: “Are you even human, beating her into this state!”
The girl’s mother immediately pulled her behind her. The men of that family, young and old, all stepped in front of the women, vigilantly picking up their weapons.
The three vicious-looking men turned and glared at them, shouting in rough voices:
“This woman was bought by us with supplies. We can beat her however we want! You pity her? Fine, bring supplies to trade, and we’ll give her to you!”
“How about it, if you want this woman, you can also trade supplies for her.” The ferocious man said to Wen Jiuzhe.
The young girl on the other side showed hesitation, wanting to say something, but was stopped by the elder in her family. That elder probably also sensed something was off and told the girl not to speak.
Wen Jiuzhe suddenly stepped forward, raised his hand and grabbed the woman, twisting his wrist to press the blade to her neck. “Fine. You bring supplies to trade for her, or I’ll chop her up.”
The three men froze, not expecting this turn of events. The man in front couldn’t hold his expression. Seeing the blade at the woman’s neck, a trace of nervousness appeared.
“What do you mean? This woman was bought by us with supplies, we’ve already had enough fun with her, and you still want to use her to threaten us!” the man shouted, fierce in appearance but weak inside.
Wen Jiuzhe gave an oh. “Then I’ll help you deal with her?”
As he spoke, he grabbed the woman’s hair and yanked her head back forcefully, the blade pressing closer to her upturned neck. With a slight application of force, it cut a small gash.
Feeling her neck turn cool, then burning with pain, the woman let out a shrill scream, louder and more terrified than before.
“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, save me, husband!”
The three men’s expressions all changed instantly. The one in front couldn’t help taking two steps forward. “We can talk this out, don’t do anything!”
He was probably the “husband” the woman had called out to.
The other two also couldn’t help saying, “You can even lay hands on a woman—are you even a man.”
These three men and one woman were a family. The leading man was the woman’s husband, and the other two were her younger brothers.
They had been running this kind of scam for two years, and each time they managed to get something out of it.
If they ran into a lustful type willing to trade supplies, the woman would take advantage of the situation to get into the vehicle, figure out how many good things were inside, then work together with her husband and brothers, coordinating from inside and out to swallow everything.
If they ran into someone soft-hearted, willing to trade for her, they could also follow the same routine and sweep away all the supplies.
If someone refused to trade, the three men would threaten and make a big scene viciously. Most people would still be willing to give a little something to settle the matter—either way, they never lost.
These people also had a bit of petty cleverness. They knew not to provoke large convoys, only targeting those with few people who looked like they had good stuff.
The moment Wen Jiuzhe’s vehicle drove into the camp, they had set their sights on it.
They just hadn’t expected to run into a tough nut this time.
“I don’t have the patience to waste time with you,” Wen Jiuzhe said. “Bring gasoline and other common supplies to trade. I’ll wait half an hour. If you’re late, you can collect her corpse.”
The three men exchanged looks. Two of them went back to fetch the supplies.
This sudden turn of events made the other large family look strangely conflicted, and Xue Ling in the car also widened her eyes, unable to react.
About half an hour later, the three men really did bring supplies and exchanged them for the woman.
The badly frightened woman clung to her husband and cried. Her two brothers even threw out harsh words, pointing at Wen Jiuzhe and saying they would remember him.
When Wen Jiuzhe smiled and took out his gun, aiming it at them, the three men and one woman were so scared they shut up, scrambling and tumbling as they ran out of the camp.
Only bluffing, Wen Jiuzhe put the supplies he had gotten for nothing into the vehicle, pulled open the door, and saw Xue Ling inside.
The faint smile on his face instantly became much more genuine. He said cheerfully, “Your eyes are wide like copper bells.”
He casually lifted Xue Ling’s chin with a hand. “Don’t let your jaw drop—if you can’t find it later, that’d be troublesome.”
Xue Ling hurriedly took out her writing board. “How did you notice something was wrong?”
After seeing this kind of thing enough times, you could tell at a glance when something was off.
In these past three years, Wen Jiuzhe had encountered all kinds of monsters and demons. This sort of thing was the most insignificant of all—normally he wouldn’t even bother pulling out a gun.
“Isn’t this obviously a honey trap? You really couldn’t tell?” Wen Jiuzhe asked.
Xue Ling truly hadn’t been able to tell. When she saw the injuries on the woman’s body, she had felt the woman was pitiful, and just now she had even been genuinely worried about what the woman would do afterward.
“Someone who eats well, has good skin, and black hair isn’t someone who’s truly been abused. Those wounds on her body were fake at a glance.”
Wen Jiuzhe’s tone was flat.
He suddenly felt a bit fortunate that Xue Ling was a zombie. Otherwise, in these three years, how many times would she have been tricked.
He had seen too many truly abused, pitiable people. If Xue Ling had also suffered those things…
Xue Ling was still lowering her head to write, wanting to ask him whether he had often run into things like this before, when she was suddenly pulled over and tightly hugged by him.
His hand kept stroking her hair.
A zombie’s hair couldn’t compare to a living person’s—it was a bit dry—but he seemed reluctant to let go, smoothing it with his fingers for quite a while.
Xue Ling felt he was acting inexplicably. The moment those people appeared she had already hidden in the car, even watched a whole live drama unfold. She hadn’t been frightened at all. What was he even comforting her for?
Those few pulling an immortal jump scare had been far more terrified.
When he grabbed that woman by the hair, Xue Ling had almost thought that in the next second his blade would slice down at her neck.
But thinking about it now, Wen Jiuzhe wasn’t some murderous maniac. When they ran into robbers, as long as the other party didn’t want to kill him, he wouldn’t take their lives either—at most, he would just teach them a lesson.
This group had extorted supplies, and hadn’t Wen Jiuzhe only taken a bit of supplies before letting them go?
The way he demanded supplies was so practiced, even more practiced than those running the immortal jump scare. At a glance, it was obvious he hadn’t done this kind of black-eating-black business only once or twice before.
Xue Ling erased the unfinished words on her writing board and rewrote: “You’re really skilled. Black eating black.”
Wen Jiuzhe released her. “Black eating black to grab supplies is much faster than honestly following a convoy to earn supplies.”
He noticed there was still a bit of blood left on his short blade and wiped it off with paper.
Xue Ling poked him with the writing board. Wen Jiuzhe saw what she wrote: “You used this knife—she won’t turn into a zombie, right!”
Wen Jiuzhe: “You’ve practically ground a whole layer off my knife, polishing it this clean. Do you think she’ll turn into a zombie?”
Xue Ling: “…” Then she probably wouldn’t.
When Wen Jiuzhe had encountered things like this before and needed to use a blade, he generally didn’t use this knife for hacking zombies. The other knives in his car were meant for moments like that.
He liked using the one with rust on it. Anyone daring to rob him, if they got cut, would just have to consider themselves unlucky. There was no place now to get a tetanus shot.
But now, all those “enchanted” knives of his had been polished bright by Xue Ling, their lethality greatly reduced.
Tonight was destined to be a restless night. While the two were talking in the car, the camp gate was opened again, and two vehicles drove in.
These two modified vehicles looked somewhat similar to Wen Jiuzhe’s. Five or six men got out, laughing loudly as they talked.
They had conspicuous lion-head tattoos on their arms, and carried a similar dangerous aura.
Seeing them, the large family who had been sitting outside chatting immediately got into their vehicle. Several young girls and women went in first, followed by the elderly and children of the family.
One of the lion-head–tattooed men took a few extra looks at the young girl from that family. Seeing the men, young and old, guarding the side of the vehicle, he curled his lip in boredom.
“Brother Gang, how much longer before we can head back? Eating out every day is awful, and there isn’t even a woman.”
“Always so troublesome. Don’t stir up trouble.” The buzz-cut man who got out last warned coldly.
They didn’t light a fire. They took out various canned and instant foods from the vehicles, occupied the table that the family hadn’t had time to put away, stepped on the stools, and started eating.
From inside the car, Wen Jiuzhe saw the lion-head tattoos on this group’s arms, and his gaze suddenly sank.
This group was from the Yi Lion Base, and they were the desperate lot under the Yi Lion Gang boss.
That buzz-cut man, Brother Gang—Wen Jiuzhe recognized him as well. They had clashed before.
Xue Ling saw him suddenly grip his gun, his body tense as he stared at the newly arrived group.
“Who? An enemy?” Xue Ling asked.
Wen Jiuzhe said, “Yes. I told you before—there’s a base with a very bandit-like style. I once escaped from them by the skin of my teeth.”
That was the time his abdomen had been slashed open.
What he told Xue Ling was only a very small part of it.
The enmity between him and the Yi Lion Base ran deep.
At that time, Wen Jiuzhe was still searching everywhere for Xue Ling’s whereabouts. Every base he went to, he would ask about her.
When he arrived at the Yi Lion Base, he asked as usual whether there was a woman named Xue Ling there.
At the Yi Lion Base, young women were basically never seen on the streets. When he asked about someone—especially a young woman—someone sneered strangely and told him that the young women here were all in one place.
The place where the Yi Lion boss rewarded his subordinates. They called it the “Lioness Camp.”
Every man in the entire base wanted to become a member of the Yi Lion Gang. Once they tattooed a lion’s head on themselves, they could enjoy the best treatment and could freely go to the Lioness Camp for pleasure.
“You’re looking for someone named Xue Ling? I’ve been to that Lioness Camp—there seems to be a woman there with that name…”
Wen Jiuzhe often toyed with his knife. That was the first time he had cut himself with it.
He looked at the glaring bead of blood on his thumb, and only after a long while did he raise his head to confirm, “You’re saying there’s someone there named Xue Ling?”
The drunken man revealed an indecent smile. “Yeah. She looks pretty well-behaved, too. If you want to find her, you’d better hurry. If you’re late, she might get played to death. Corpses get carried out of there all the time.”
Wen Jiuzhe slowly wiped away the blood on his hand, telling himself that it was fine—he would go find her immediately.
It was fine. He would kill them.
Was it her?
Was she still alive?
What had she suffered?
These questions had tormented him countless times, so at that moment, Wen Jiuzhe was unusually calm.
The Yi Lion Gang was constantly recruiting members. They wanted fighters. Wen Jiuzhe went straight to them and was easily accepted.
He also very quickly went to the Lioness Camp and found the woman called “Xue Ling.”
Her expression was numb, and a rotting stench emanated from her body. She was not the person he was looking for.
His heart sank heavily. Relief, disappointment, lingering fear—only then did all these emotions pull him out of that state of extreme calm.
The fearful looks those women cast toward him, and their painful appearances, he saw them all.
The emotions of surviving a disaster mixed with emptiness and loss forced him to make a move against the Yi Lion Gang.
He injured the Yi Lion Gang boss, blew up the Yi Lion Gang’s building, causing them heavy losses and creating an opportunity for those women to escape.
That was why the subsequent pursuit came.
One of the Yi Lion Gang’s leaders brought dozens of men and still couldn’t kill him. Instead, he was killed by Wen Jiuzhe, who seized a vehicle and escaped.
It went without saying that he was definitely on the Yi Lion Base’s kill list.
If that Brother Gang saw him, he would definitely recognize him.
Wen Jiuzhe made the worst-case assumption—they would probably end up fighting here.
His tightly tensed shoulder was suddenly nudged. Xue Ling leaned over.
Wen Jiuzhe lowered his head and saw her dark red eyes. She didn’t know what had happened; there was only faint confusion in her eyes, and concern for him.
“It’s fine.” He smiled, rubbed her cold cheek with his thumb, then lowered his head and kissed her hair.
After that large family got into their vehicle, amid the loud laughter and chatter of the Yi Lion Base men, they slowly started the engine and tried to leave the camp, not even taking their table with them.
“Damn, what’s their deal, they don’t want to stay in the same camp as us?”
“Hahahahaha, Zou Hong, it’s because your look just now was too sleazy, you scared them off, right!”
Zou Hong stood up unhappily, his hand moving to the gun on the table, only to be yanked by Brother Gang beside him. “Stop causing trouble for me! If you don’t want to sit here, then get back in the car!”
Zou Hong sat down unwillingly and spat toward the rear of that family’s vehicle.
“Then there’s only us left in the camp now… oh no, that’s not right, there’s still a car over there in the corner.”
Those words made several of them look toward the corner.
Brother Gang only glanced over casually, but his gaze suddenly paused. That vehicle looked very similar to the ones their gang had modified.
