End of the World

"Finally gone!"

Qiao Xinghua got out of the RV and stretched, but the Mengshi car was gone.

Before leaving, Ye Jianfeng left two boxes of ammunition for Wu Bin, both of which were moved from the Qishan base, as a small token of gratitude for his daughter's care.

He Yuxin looked back at the RV. Xiao Yuanxin was still sleeping soundly. She didn't know that her father had come and the convoy had left for all these days.

Although the little girl didn't say it, she actually missed her father very much, and she also knew what the outside world was like.

"Okay, everyone, get ready for breakfast!" Wu Bin waved to others. Today's task was to go to the town to see if there was a suitable place for the convoy to stay.

There are still tens of thousands of zombies in Dongxi Town. Their locations have been marked on the map. It will take a few days before we can deal with them.

Qiao Xinghua got on the Hummer, along with He Yuxin and Chen Guangjun, while Wu Bin stayed in the convoy.

Brothers Li Zile and Su Yun followed closely behind in their car, and the two cars drove towards the town.

The tallest building in the town is the newly built Hongyun Building, which is sixteen stories high. The first, second and third floors are Jiahua Supermarket. It is in a mess inside and most of the food has been taken away.

"This building looks good. Our mission will be completed after inspecting the building today!" Chen Guangjun said. Several people nodded and got out of the car with guns.

There is a small highway roundabout in front of Hongyun Building, which encloses the streets on all four sides, so it can be used as a base.

Jiahua Supermarket is the largest supermarket in Dongxi Town and has only been in operation for a few years.

Several people walked into the supermarket cautiously with caution. The shelves were basically empty, and there was a pile of garbage left on the ground.

Chen Guangjun noticed that the roller shutter door in the glass window on the first floor was partially locked and reinforced with wooden boards, indicating that someone might have lived here for a period of time.

Most of the zombies in Dongxi Town were killed by the army in the early days. The people living here should have come later. I don’t know why they left the supermarket.

There were many bullet holes on the walls of the supermarket, and it was unclear whether they were left by the army or survivors. However, Chen Guangjun could tell that some of the damaged shelves were left behind when the zombies were cleared out of the supermarket.

The interior of the supermarket was dimly lit and there was a very unpleasant smell, like rotting food and corpses.

Chen Guangjun bet that there would be a lot of bloodstains left where the ground was buried with garbage.

It was already pitch black inside. Several people turned on their flashlights. There were signs that the shelves here had been moved. In the garbage pile, He Yuxin saw a mattress and a quilt cover.

There were traces of burning candles on the table top supported by cardboard boxes. Qiao Xinghua found several pairs of red candles, the kind used for offering tributes in ancestral halls.

The six people were divided into three groups and checked the first floor of the supermarket from three directions. Chen Guangjun and He Yuxin walked in the middle, and the other four walked on both sides.

If there is danger, just shout loudly.

Part of the ceiling in the middle of the supermarket collapsed, taking with it some air-conditioning ducts and lighting circuits.

The two men walked around the collapsed debris and saw two escalators of the supermarket behind them. The space suddenly became clear, a three-story square space with rounded corners. They could see that the supermarket had three floors, all covered with glass railings that surrounded the escalators.

When I shone the flashlight, the glass was reflective, and there was a large crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It must have looked great when it was lit.

A supermarket in a small town was decorated so well and was of such a large scale that He Yuxin thought it was a big shopping mall in Dongzhou Commercial Street!

"How did the mayor convince the boss to open a supermarket here?" It was also the first time that Chen Guangjun saw such a supermarket in an ordinary town.

The decoration is not inferior to the shopping malls in big cities. Of course, to be precise, it is still a little smaller than the city shopping malls.

I have never seen a branch of Jiahua Supermarket in Dongzhou, and I don’t know whether it is a local chain supermarket brand. Now these are no longer important.

The six people walked around the first floor and found nothing special except garbage all over the floor. They didn't even see a dead body, but the stench in the air would not lie. It might be somewhere in the corner.

"Wow! I really want to see what the supermarket looked like before!" Qiao Xinghua sighed. If it were in a big city, such a supermarket would be very lively.

"Don't dream about it. The chandelier above is almost 10,000 watts, and we don't have the electricity to power it!" Chen Guangjun didn't mind pouring a bucket of cold water.

Many things are just decorations and may not be used except for testing during installation.

"Hehe, I'm just talking!" Qiao Xinghua said with a smile.

Several people checked the second floor separately, which was the daily necessities sales area with many clothing counters. It was surprisingly not as messy as the first floor. They were afraid that the survivors had treated the first floor as a garbage dump.

The third floor is an electrical appliance store, with obvious signs of life there, including a lot of household garbage. When you come up from downstairs, you can see a corpse hanging from the ceiling at a glance.

A dried female corpse, wearing loose casual clothes, which looked like summer clothes, so it should be the body left behind last summer.

What's strange is that the signs of life here seem like there were people here a few months ago. What kind of strange person can live among corpses?

"You two brothers stay in the supermarket. Our car is downstairs. Don't let anyone steal it!" After the supermarket was confirmed to be safe, Chen Guangjun said to the Su brothers.

"Okay, contact us anytime!" Su Yun and Su Yuan nodded.

There is a residential building above the supermarket. There is an entrance to the residential stairwell, but the fire door was locked. Chen Guangjun fiddled with the door with small tools for a few times but failed to open it.

The four people could only go to the back of the building, but the door on the first floor could not be opened. It was blocked by piled up debris inside, and even the zombies could not break it open.

"If you can't get in, just pry the window open!" Qiao Xinghua said, turning back to the car and carrying a toolbox.

The first to third floors are all supermarkets, leaving only a space the size of a stairwell, so there are only windows for lighting, which are not big and are very high from the ground.

Qiao Xinghua raised his feet, used tools to remove the anti-theft net on the window, opened the window, shone a flashlight inside, and sighed.

"Let's find another entrance, the stairwell is blocked!"

"Since we can't get in here, we can only break open the fire door in the supermarket." Chen Guangjun said. The four of them returned to the third floor of the supermarket and smashed the lock core with a chisel.

When the door was opened, there was a dusty smell, but it was better than the rotten smell in the supermarket.

A building like this one is so large that more than a dozen families can live on one floor. Most of the rooms are locked. The army cleared the zombies on the streets without entering the homes to clean up.

Leaving the locked room alone, the four of them checked the rooms whose doors could be opened. The rooms were covered with a thin layer of dust. After confirming that there was no danger, He Yuxin used chalk to leave a mark on the door.

There were still some zombies left in the house, but they were stabbed by Chen Guangjun before they could react.

White bones can often be seen in the corridors, and their smell lingers in the enclosed space for a long time.

After two or three hours, the four of them reached the tenth floor and had to stop to rest. The house clearing work was too tiring, and cleaning the room later would be even more difficult.

Chen Guangjun recorded the progress of his work and the number of zombies killed in a small notebook.

The Su brothers were relatively idle on the second floor of the supermarket. There was no one around outside. Su Yun was watching the vehicles downstairs, while Su Yuan went to the side of the mall to shop.

If I had known earlier, I should have called more people over so that the work could have progressed faster. Jiang Hong led people to scout the zombie group to see if there were any mutated zombies among them.

Reconnaissance work is also a hard job. There are always risks when going out. Su Yun missed the days on Orange Island. He had experienced so many things without realizing it.

While they were distracted, several furtive figures suddenly appeared downstairs. Three strange men and two women approached their vehicle stealthily.

Su Yun immediately stood up, called Su Yuan back, and stared at the five people below. They did not immediately notice the two people who were on guard on the second floor.

"Brother Jun, Brother Jun, five survivors appeared downstairs!" Su Yun called on the intercom.

The four of them were about to enter the house for inspection. Chen Guangjun's intercom on his waist rang. He took it and replied: "Got it. Be careful to hide. We will be down soon!"

The four men rushed down from the tenth floor. The survivor had already reached their vehicle. He opened the door and took a look inside the car, as if he wanted to steal it.

However, Wu Bin had long thought that the vehicles might be easily stolen by others if they were outside, so he asked Zhao Bofeng to modify them and add a power switch to each vehicle, the location of which only the team members knew.

Without a power source, they can't start the car even with the key in the car.

"They are too careless, something is wrong!" Chen Guangjun and three others returned to the third floor and saw five survivors below.

Anyone who can survive to this day must have some skills. Chen Guangjun's intuition told him that there might be a trap, or these five people were just baits.

"Yuxin, find a spot next door and observe the front, there may be an ambush!" Chen Guangjun said.

"Okay!" He Yuxin nodded.

"You two, find some cover and spread out!" Chen Guangjun said to Qiao Xinghua and Li Zile.

He took out the intercom and told Su Yun and Su Yuan downstairs not to act rashly.

He Yuxin went to a load-bearing column of the building, put down the sniper rifle, and looked at the buildings in front of the supermarket with a telescope. She imagined that the supermarket was the target and wondered which position of the enemy would have a more ideal shooting angle.

There are houses of varying heights on both sides of the road past the roundabout in front of Hongyun Building. If there is a gunman, it would be difficult for him to find his position unless he opens fire.

There may be people hiding in the buildings around the supermarket, but we don’t know how many people are there.

“Ka-ka-ka!”

There was the sound of a vehicle starting downstairs, and the starter would turn, but the vehicle just wouldn't start. This was Zhao Bofeng's cleverness, he made you mistakenly believe that the vehicle could start, but it just couldn't.

"It's really a car thief, don't move!" Chen Guangjun took a rifle to the window and fired randomly at the ground.

The sudden gunshot frightened the men and they quickly hid behind the car.

"You little thief, come out and surrender your gun and you won't be killed!" Chen Guangjun shouted to the people below.

"How is it?" Chen Guangjun looked at He Yuxin, and she shook her head to indicate that she didn't see anyone else.