He Yuan chewed on some snacks as he drove until he arrived close to the only mall that was located in the countryside. Through his scouting the day before, he was aware that the mall had the highest concentration of zombies.
Since it had only been a little over two months since the spread of the infection, a lot of the zombies in the countryside had drifted over to large cities in search of humans.
The humans too had run to larger cities in panic so they could find companionship against the infected foes. This meant that the mall still had some supplies left.
He Yuan parked the car five blocks away from the mall, emptied the contents of his bag and stepped out of the car with just the machete. He couldn't carry too much stuff else he would be incapable of protecting himself.
"ARGH!" A zombie stiffly ran towards He Yuan with its claws extended and He Yuan quickly hacked at it with the machete, creating a gaping hole in its midriff.
Thick black blood poured from the hole but the zombie did not stop its advance so He Yuan aimed at its head next, ending its miserable life.
With the bag on his back and the blood stained machete held tightly in his hand, He Yuan cautiously approached the mall. He soon realized that there were fewer zombies than he expected and some of the creatures seemed to be heading in the direction opposite of his.
This made him curious but there was no way he was going to find out why. This opportunity could not be wasted!
He Yuan rushed into the mall. There was blood and rotting body parts with a shit ton of flies hovering everywhere and he even spotted some zombies with missing limbs crawling around. He raised his shirt to cover his nose and filter the horrible smell as he went straight to the supermarket section.
"Fuck!" The supermarket had been wiped clean. The only thing that had been left behind were the cans and wraps that had burst open during the scramble for food that must have taken place sometime ago.
He Yuan was about to turn back when he spotted a large potato sack with a mangled corpse next to it. He walked over slowly and nudged away the corpse that looked more like a jigsaw of blood, limbs, maggots and intestines.
After untying the sack, He Yuan let out a breath. It was full of canned food and snacks. It seemed this person had been attacked on their way leaving. He quickly hefted the bag over his shoulder with a grunt. It was quite heavy.
Next, He Yuan headed to the pharmacy. The shelves still had drugs on them. The scramble for medicine was not as intense as the one for food at the moment. Thank goodness. He Yuan filled his own bag with whatever drug he could find whether he knew its uses or not.
After hanging the bag and picking up the sack of food, He Yuan rushed out of the mall. He still needed to find a map but the bags were quite heavy so it was better to take them to the car first and come back.
He had no idea if there was even a map in the mall and the zombies could return anytime. It was better to get the heavy stuff out of the way. He was very thankful that Du Ling was a person who kept fit.
With no zombie in sight, He Yuan carried the bags five blocks away, to the SUV. He stored the sack of food in the boot of the car, making sure to keep it away from the gasoline whilst he kept the bag in the passenger seat before returning to the mall.
After searching high and low, He Yuan couldn't find a map of the state or country. He found a map of the countryside and even though it was basically useless to him at the moment, he still picked it up. Another thing he found were six zombies but the mall was large enough to avoid them.
In the end, He Yuan rushed to the phone section and grabbed two phones and an aux cord and slipped them into his pocket. There was no cell reception in some places but the phones might come in handy somehow.
Just as he was about to leave, He Yuan heard the snarls of zombies and the screams of people coming from outside. He quickly backed away from the door and ran to the side exit instead.
A group of five humans were trying to fight off a large horde of zombies. He Yuan's eyes widened, he finally found the reason for the low amount of zombies in the mall.
Usually, He Yuan would help but at a time like this, that was basically suicide. He was not about to end up like Du Ling in the original storyline so he tried to sneak off to his car.
"WAIT! HELP!" A female member of the group spotted He Yuan and called out as she fought off the zombies but He Yuan continued on his way.
"WE HAVE A MAP!" The woman shouted. Every human knew how important a map is at these times so she was sure that her words could sway this stranger she just found.
Her words did indeed make He Yuan pause and look back but he turned around again. He desperately needed a map but the amount of zombies was just too much. Even ten of him would not make a difference. He needed to be alive in order to utilize a map.
A few zombies had already spotted him and were rushing over so he quickly ran away. On the way, he caught sight of a pickup truck and an idea formed in his mind. He had to admit that the idea of leaving those people to get eaten alive or infected made him a bit uncomfortable.
"ACK!" One of the chasing zombies leaped at He Yuan and he turned back and slashed the thing in two whilst it was still in midair.
Two others came from the sides and He Yuan sent one flying with a roundhouse kick and turned to hack the head off the other one. The first one came back and He Yuan sent another kick to its neck before cutting his head off.
He Yuan smiled in satisfaction. Now that this body had more energy, he could handle the zombies better and his three pages worth of martial arts techniques was also doing wonders.
He Yuan jumped into the pickup truck. There was no key so he hot wired the car and drove over to the centre of action. When he got close, he rolled down the window and shouted, "GET READY TO HOP INTO THE CARGO BED!" And then he rolled up the windows once more.
The five people looked over and He Yuan didn't miss the looks of relief that washed over their features before they went back to hacking zombies.
He Yuan drove through the horde of zombies, gritting his teeth as the truck ran over the zombies that fell to the ground. Some zombies began banging at the window but he drove past them before they caused too much damage.
Whenever he got close to a member of the group, the person would extend an arm and hop into the cargo bed, even as they continued hacking at the zombies. And that was how all five members got into the back of the pickup.
There was no rest as the zombies tried to get into the cargo bed too. He Yuan noticed that the five of them were sweating profusely and getting increasingly weaker so he tried to drive faster.
One of the members noticed a long scratch on another member's arm and immediately shouted. "RU WAN GOT SCRATCHED BY THEIR CLAWS!"
He Yuan watched through the rear mirror and his eyes widened in horror when the man, who he assumed was the leader of the group, picked the Ru Wan up with an arm and threw her to the horde of zombies.
"AAHHHHH!" The young girl screamed as the zombies rushed at her like a pie from the sky, effectively lessening the burden on the other group members.
He Yuan immediately thought of Du Jian and his nostrils flared in anger. There was no proof that the girl was scratched by zombies! But even if he was angry, he didn't stop driving the truck. If he did, he would be in deep shit with the rest of the group.
They managed to loose trail of the zombies and drive out of the countryside. Once He Yuan found a relatively safe spot to park, he got down from the truck, walked over to the cargo bed and threw a sucker punch at the nose of the leader.
"What was that for?!" The man exclaimed as he held his bleeding nose.
"You had that girl killed for no reason!" He Yuan said as he heaved in anger.
"She was turning into a zombie!" The leader shouted and the team member who had cried wolf at the girl looked away guiltily.
"You had no proof!" They were all aware that it took three days for an infected to fully turn and in those three days, their claws or bites could not infect another person so it was possible to verify the girl's state without harm coming to any of them!
The leader only shrugged with a sadistic grin, the idiot who shouted the false alarm lowered his head, the map lady looked disgusted at the former two and the last team member was expressionless.
He Yuan knew this might not be the first time such a thing was happening so saying anything else was pointless. He looked to the map lady, "The map?"
The lady reached into her bag and pulled it out but before she could hand it over to He Yuan, the leader pointed a gun at her head. "Take one more step further and I would blow your brains to bloody bits."
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