Surviving the apocalypse with a wife and a system! [GL]

Chapter 235: Killing 5.

The second got its throat opened. The third lost its balance after a short kick to the knee and was finished on the ground. The fourth tried to bite and got stabbed through the face. The fifth turned the wrong way and was split at the back of the neck.

That left the last few.

Bai Li moved through them with the same steady speed. Her dagger never left her hand. Every stroke had a purpose. Every motion was tight. Every step looked almost wasteful if you only watched the surface, but it was exactly the kind of efficiency that made her dangerous. She was not overworking herself. She was not swinging wildly. She was using the smallest possible movement to end the fight as quickly as possible.

A zombie reached for her from the front and found air.

She had already stepped aside.

A second one came from behind.

She had already turned and cut.

A third one, damaged and slow, tried to keep going anyway. Bai Li met it with a cold, direct thrust that pinned it in place for a second before she pulled the dagger free and let it fall.

The last one of the forty five was still staggering toward her when Bai Li lowered her shoulders, stepped in, and ended it with a clean slash that cut through the throat so fast that the body kept moving for half a second before finally collapsing.

Then she stood still.

The whole courtyard was covered in the aftermath now. Corpses. Blood. Broken bodies. Rot and metal and dust. Bai Li’s chest rose and fell a little faster than before, but not by much. The fight had been intense enough to make her alert and warm, not enough to exhaust her. Her hand tightened once on the Whisperfang dagger, then relaxed. She scanned the area carefully to make sure there were no hidden surprises left.

Only after that did she look past the bodies toward the place where the impact had happened.

Hu Xuecheng’s body lay there in a wrecked, impossible shape.

At first glance, it was barely human enough to identify as a man. The fall had flattened parts of him badly, and the blood had spread in a wide ugly pattern under and around the body. His limbs were broken in several places, twisted and bent in ways that made the whole thing look like a ruined puppet with its strings cut. His face was a mess too, enough that the features had lost most of their shape. The only thing that really remained clear was that this had once been a person and that person had not survived the drop.

Bai Li’s eyes stayed on him for a second longer.

Then she asked the system in her mind, very quietly, "Was that Hu Xuecheng?"

A beat passed.

Then the system responded in its usual metallic voice, calm and annoyingly steady. "Yes. It is Hu Xuecheng."

Bai Li let out a small breath through her nose. That confirmed it, then. She looked at the body one more time, no pity in her face, only a kind of flat attention. He had tried to kill her a moment ago. Now he was a ruin on the ground. That was the whole story, simple enough.

Her gaze shifted away from the corpse.

Then it landed on a metal object lying a little farther to the side.

A revolver.

Bai Li walked over to it, her boots stepping carefully around a blood soaked patch of ground. She crouched and picked it up with two fingers at first, then adjusted her grip once she confirmed it was safe enough to handle. The model was easy enough to identify once she held it properly. Smith and Wesson Model 686. A solid revolver. Heavy frame. Reliable. The kind of weapon that could stay accurate and survive rough use better than a cheap piece of junk. No wonder Hu Xuecheng had trusted it enough to point it at her from across the building.

Bai Li turned it over in her hand once, examining the cylinder, the grip, the barrel, the weight.

Then her eyes went cold again.

This was the same gun he had used to try and kill her.

The same stupid, ugly little object that had nearly taken half her face off.

She checked the chamber next, her fingers moving with casual confidence. The weapon still carried the smell of gun oil and metal mixed with the faint heat of recent use. It was not some random tool picked up in a panic. It had been kept in decent condition. That alone told her Hu Xuecheng had either practiced with it or liked showing it off too much. Maybe both. She could imagine him holding it, thinking himself powerful, thinking himself untouchable, thinking the gun made him more than the coward he really was.

Bai Li gave the revolver another slow look.

Then she closed her hand around it fully.

The body behind her was still dripping blood into the cracked ground. The courtyard remained silent except for the distant, ugly shuffling of zombies and the faint, unsettled noises coming from the building. Somewhere above, people were probably still staring, still whispering, still trying to understand what had happened. Bai Li did not care much about their guesses. Their confusion was none of her business. The only thing that mattered now was what she had found.

She looked down at the revolver in her hand, then toward the body, then back at the gun again.

This was useful.

Very useful.

And it was hers now.

She then checked the magazine and found only one bullet missing, the one that had just been used on her. There were still five bullets left inside, and to Bai Li that meant five more chances, five more chances to survive, five more chances to turn the tables if something ugly happened again. Guns were not something she planned to rely on in every fight, but in a world like this, having one was still better than not having one at all.