Chapter 51

'Gaydar Locator...' Zhou Rong thought to himself. 'No, the military signal transmitter is vibrating. Could Yan Hao be nearby?'

But how could Yan Hao be nearby? Didn't they go to the South Sea?!

The situation suddenly became very chaotic. Zhou Rong also realized the robbers were likely fake People's Liberation Army soldiers. Seeing that a few of them were struggling to get up from the ground, he knew there was no time to capture and interrogate them. He immediately said decisively, "Si Xiaonan, stop shooting! Hold on tight! Tell me the direction of the signal!"

With a loud bang, Zhou Rong stomped on the gas, and the battered SUV sent those men flying.

"Turn right, three o'clock," Si Nan said, glancing at the rearview mirror. Someone had raised a shotgun again, and he immediately shouted, "Get down!"

The two of them ducked down simultaneously. With a loud crash, the rear window shattered, and steel balls mixed with broken glass sprayed the back of the car once again!

Luckily, they reacted quickly. If the blast had hit the back of their heads, both of them would be headless by now. Even so, Zhou Rong still hissed. A shard of flying glass had cut the back of his ear, leaving a gash that trailed a long trickle of fresh blood.

The flash of red reflected in Si Nan's eyes. His brow furrowed. He grabbed the submachine gun, set it to single-shot mode, and without even turning his head or aiming, he pulled the trigger with a backward motion—

The bullet left the chamber.

The bullet passed through the glass-strewn rear of the car, cut through the smoky, dusty road, and flew across a distance of several dozen meters. Time seemed to slow to a near standstill.

The next moment, it appeared before the forehead of the "soldier" who had fired, pierced through his skull, and bang!

A spray of red and white brain matter burst out. The "soldier's" body swayed and then collapsed abruptly.

"..." Zhou Rong praised, "Nice shot! In the future, we'll have a sniping contest to decide who does the dishes!"

Si Nan said blankly, "What, do the dishes?"

The car roared as it leaped over and crushed the highway guardrail, flying into the wooded wilderness. The men behind didn't dare to give chase, afraid of being headshot by a sniper bullet from a distance. They scattered in all directions and vanished in an instant.

"Eleven o'clock, straight ahead! There are people over there!"

Zhou Rong turned the steering wheel, the tires crunching through bushes and weeds. After driving for about three or four hundred meters, he suddenly saw a group of people gathered not far away, all talking at once, seemingly trying to mediate something. In the middle of the group, two people were clearly scuffling.

Zhou Rong's eyebrows shot up. "Yan Hao?!"

Yan Hao cursed something, got up, and threw a vicious punch, knocking the other man to the ground. Several people around them immediately rushed forward to break up the fight, but their intervention was clearly biased. They were almost all holding Yan Hao back, allowing the other man to get up, clutching his nose, and rush forward to land several kicks on Yan Hao's stomach.

Clearly, this group was ganging up on Yan Hao!

"Damn it!" Zhou Rong cursed, slamming on the brakes. He jumped out of the car and strode over.

Before the group could react, Zhou Rong had already walked straight into their midst, grabbed the man, and sent him flying with a standard shoulder throw!

"What are you doing?"

"Fuck, stop!"

The men shouted curses and came to grab Zhou Rong, but before they could even touch him, he took them all down with lightning speed. He then grabbed their leader, the one who had just kicked Yan Hao, pinned his arms behind his back, grabbed him by the collar, and slammed his head against a tree!

Yan Hao took the opportunity to break free. "Captain!"

"Hey, wait!" Zhou Rong paid him no mind, slamming the man's head against the tree and cursing with each blow. "That's for hitting my man!"

"That's for ganging up on him!"

After a few more thuds, Zhou Rong pulled the man up by his hair and asked, "Have you had enough?"

The man, already bruised and swollen from Yan Hao's punches and now bleeding from the head thanks to Zhou Rong, cursed loudly, "I'll fuck your ancestors! Brothers, get them! Take them..."

Before he could finish his threat, there was a sudden—BANG!

The gunshot rang out, and everyone froze.

Si Nan stepped out of the car holding the submachine gun. He gave Yan Hao a slight nod, then narrowed his eyes and scanned the crowd. Just as his feet touched the ground, one of the men secretly reached for his back pocket. But just as he pulled out his pistol, there was another BANG!

Si Nan's shot was incredibly precise, sending the pistol, which the man had not yet raised, flying far away.

The clearing fell into a dead silence.

"Who wants to die," Si Nan said softly. "Step forward."

Everyone looked at each other, their faces filled with resentment, but none of them dared to make a move.

THUD! With one last heavy sound, Zhou Rong again grabbed the man's hair, forcing him to lift his blood-covered face. "Have you had enough?"

The man's lips trembled as he gasped, "I've... I've had enough..."

Yan Hao spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and finally, belatedly and hypocritically, played the peacemaker. "Captain, stop hitting him. He's one of us. It's a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding."

"Good." Zhou Rong said with satisfaction, letting the man collapse to the ground. He dusted off his sleeves and asked Yan Hao, "What are you doing here? Was that you sniping just now? Who's 'one of us' with this bunch of guys?"

Zhou Rong's three questions were each harder to answer than the last. Yan Hao let out a bloody breath and gestured for him to wait. He then walked over to the man and, ignoring his struggles, helped him up.

"Brother Wan," Yan Hao said coldly, "things happened so suddenly just now, I didn't have time to introduce you. This is our squadron leader, the one we were separated from."

The man surnamed Wan leaned against a tree, panting nonstop. He raised his blood-blurred eyes and sized up Zhou Rong, his gaze full of fury.

Yan Hao imperceptibly took half a step, blocking the man's hateful stare at Zhou Rong. "I told you I knew them. I couldn't just stand by and watch them be held at gunpoint, so I grabbed your gun to snipe those robbers. I know you had your so-called 'mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind' plan, but if we had followed it, my captain and my teammate would have been in mortal danger. That's why I couldn't hold back and acted first. I'm very sorry."

Yan Hao's explanation was quite clear, and the doubts in Zhou Rong's mind eased slightly.

—Yan Hao must have had some reason to be forced to cooperate with this group. But when he realized the targets of the robbery were Zhou Rong and Si Nan, he had opened fire first, killing four of the robbers and nearly ruining this group's plan to be the "oriole." That was why they were beating him.

"I'll explain this to Miss Chen myself when we get back. People with different principles can't work together. Now that we've reunited with our captain, we can immediately pick up our other three teammates and set off for the South Sea." Yan Hao stood over him with his arms crossed and said lightly, "Thank you for putting up with us during this time. We'll repay you in the future if fate allows."

The only sound in the clearing was everyone's heavy, ragged breathing.

Zhou Rong, Si Nan, and Yan Hao said nothing. After a long moment, the man surnamed Wan let out a cold, sarcastic laugh. "I wouldn't dare, I wouldn't dare. You're someone Sister Chen values highly. We brothers can't compare to you special forces soldiers... Just explain it yourself when you get back."

He struggled to his feet, tough to the end, refusing anyone's help. He staggered toward his men. "Let's go! Pack it up, back to the base!"

The group had arrived in a truck, an open-top pickup hidden in a concealed spot behind a small grove of trees. After this fight, Yan Hao had completely fallen out with them, so he couldn't go back in their truck. He got into the bullet-riddled SUV with Zhou Rong and Si Nan.

Yan Hao's eyes were red-rimmed. He stepped forward to hug Zhou Rong, and then Si Nan.

"Comrade Yan Hao, your enthusiasm is making your ge a little overwhelmed..." Zhou Rong rubbed his chin and said thoughtfully, "For a dissident like you, who never calls me Rong-ge and only ever says 'Captain,' this seems to be the first time you've hugged me willingly. Could it be you've finally realized how precious your Rong-ge is...?"

Yan Hao leaned on Si Nan's shoulder and choked out, "This is great. You're alive." Then he suddenly smelled something, and his whole body stiffened.

"...You two..." Yan Hao stared at Si Nan, who returned his gaze innocently.

"Don't tell me... you've already..."

Zhou Rong rubbed his nose and coughed. "It's pretty much what you think."

After an Alpha and an Omega marked each other, their scents would mix in their Pheromones. Although Si Nan's Inhibitor hadn't completely worn off yet, if one got close enough, one could indeed smell a trace of Zhou Rong's scent near the glands on the back of his neck.

Yan Hao stared blankly for a long moment, his eyes growing even redder. With a trembling hand, he covered his face.

Zhou Rong shook his head helplessly at Si Nan. "He must be thinking: How is that bastard surnamed Zhou still alive?"

Si Nan: "..."

"Alright, I know I've wronged you." Zhou Rong forcefully slung an arm around Yan Hao's shoulders. "Stop your whimpering and get in the car!"

Yan Hao was dealt a huge blow. He refused to sit in the front passenger seat and insisted on sitting in the back by himself.

Helpless, Zhou Rong had Si Nan drive and squeezed into the back seat himself. Patting Yan Hao's shoulder, he said earnestly, "There are plenty of fish in the sea, why be hung up on just one? Your ge didn't expect it either, really. We were trapped deep in the mountains back then, and heavy snow blocked the roads for half a month. It wasn't that I deliberately denied you a chance to compete fairly..."

Si Nan drove, following the pickup truck closely, while glancing at Yan Hao in the rearview mirror, as if wanting to comfort him. But comforting people is a delicate art that requires emotional intelligence. Si Nan thought and thought, and after a long moment, he blurted out, "Um. I seduced him."

Zhou Rong: "..."

Yan Hao: "..."

Yan Hao almost burst into tears.

Zhou Rong had a hell of a time persuading the despondent Yan Hao not to jump out of the car, and Si Nan thoughtfully kept his mouth shut. The SUV, ventilated on all four sides, rumbled over the hillside, following the truck toward the survivor base in the distance.

"The night the Captain jumped from the helicopter, I wanted to jump too, but Chuncao held me back for dear life..." Yan Hao swallowed, his handsome eyes reddening again.

'What a good daughter daddy has,' Zhou Rong thought. He offered a few more insincere words of comfort, then asked, "How come you guys didn't make it to the South Sea? You still have the Antibody, right?"

"We have it. Even if we die to the last man, we'll protect the Antibody and the data." Yan Hao pointed to the truck ahead. "The one surnamed Chen and this group only think we were separated from the main force. They don't know we're carrying anything, so don't mention it when we get inside the base."

Zhou Rong asked suspiciously, "Who is this person surnamed Chen?"

"Her name is Chen Yajing. She's an Omega, a woman, the head of the survivor base," Yan Hao said. "The night the helicopter crashed into the sea, we were rescued by a civilian patrol team on the coast and were immediately taken to her base..."

Late on the night they left Changsha, the helicopter was passing through Guangdong and flying toward the coast when it encountered a rare storm. They were completely unable to find any trace of the South Sea Base and had to turn back for an emergency landing at the port.

However, in the harsh weather conditions and poor visibility, both helicopters crashed into the sea one after another.

The only silver lining was that they crashed near the coast, and there happened to be a civilian patrol team at the port. They immediately launched lifeboats to bring the survivors aboard. This patrol team was affiliated with the largest local survivor base. After Yan Hao and the others were rescued and taken back, they met the leader of the base: the female Omega named Chen Yajing.

"She's very strange," Yan Hao said with a frown.

Zhou Rong asked warily, "Strange how?"

"Disfigured, disabled, and unable to stand. The base itself is a subordinate research institute of the G Military Region. She was the deputy director's wife. After the virus outbreak, many people, including her husband, died. She led a group of cadres from the institute and took in tens of thousands of people from the surrounding area. The original staff of the institute are all completely obedient to her... No, she's very frail, not the same type as Si Nan at all."

In the law-of-the-jungle apocalypse, for a female Omega with no strength to even truss a chicken to become the leader of tens of thousands of people, surrounded by a pack of wolves, was something that naturally made Yan Hao, Chuncao, and the others very curious.

Of course, Chen Yajing was also very curious about their group's background.

So Yan Hao told her that he had been separated from his main unit and that his captain was also missing. He now wanted to take the survivors they had rescued along the way to the South Sea Base. Yan Hao concealed the part about the Antibody and the virus research data, and Chen Yajing didn't grow suspicious.

But when it came to how to handle the disaster, this civilian female leader and the few special forces soldiers had a considerable disagreement.

Yan Hao hoped she could send people to help search for a ship along the coast so they could go out to sea to find their headquarters base. But Chen Yajing said that she had once sent people to repair the local communications base station at an unimaginable cost, but to this day had not received any official signals. Even if the base Yan Hao spoke of really existed, the government had already abandoned the masses.

She greatly admired the special forces soldiers and sincerely hoped they would stay, stating that she would do everything in her power to lead all the survivors to overcome the disaster.

"Too naive," Zhou Rong said with a frown. "This disaster is global. It requires the cooperation of all countries, of all humanity. Does she think she's the Virgin Mary?"

"That's what's strange about it," Yan Hao said. "It's not just her who has this naively foolish confidence; the Alphas under her who manage the base have it too. This shared conviction seems to be the cornerstone of her leadership position in the base."

"They're not running a cult, are they?" Zhou Rong asked.

"I haven't seen any signs of it so far."

Zhou Rong nodded grimly.

The truck rattled over the hill. Dust swirled ahead, and gradually, a vast expanse of base buildings came into view.

Electrified brick walls and iron fences stood tall under the sky, protecting humanity's settlement in the apocalypse. Zombies shambled about blankly in small groups, gathering at the foot of the walls, wailing and slapping against the fences.

"When you insisted on going to the South Sea, did she try to stop you by force?" Zhou Rong asked again.

"No, she didn't," Yan Hao said with a small, bitter smile. "That's the tricky part."

Chen Yajing not only didn't restrict the special forces soldiers' freedom, but instead provided them with good food and drink, treated them with sincerity, and properly settled the nearly seventy survivors the soldiers had brought with them. When Yan Hao and the others wandered around the base to observe, she acted as if she didn't see them and did nothing to stop them. Her attitude could only be described as completely open and magnanimous.

—Aside from her lack of cooperation in searching for a ship to go to sea, all her actions were impeccable. Yan Hao was almost convinced she was a perfect civilian leader.

On one hand, he felt bad for accepting her hospitality for free, and on the other, he hoped to run into Zhou Rong who might be heading south. So, Yan Hao proactively asked Chen Yajing to let him join the guard team to help them clear out zombies and rescue civilians in the surrounding areas.

Chen Yajing readily agreed without any hesitation.

Not only that, but she also called over several of her guard team leaders, including this man named Wan Biao, and ordered them to treat Yan Hao with courtesy and to pay special attention to learning from the special forces soldier.

"Oh, is that so?" Zhou Rong seemed to find this very interesting and smiled. "It seems this Miss Chen really values you. So why does that guy surnamed Wan dislike you so much?"

Yan Hao said coldly, "I don't know, Captain. You'd best ask him yourself... Don't look at me like that! I don't know anything, and I don't want to know!"

Several guards rushed out from the base's guardhouse, mowing down the zombies outside the fence with gunfire, and then worked together to pull open the gate.

The truck rumbled in, and the SUV followed it through a cloud of swirling dust, the air echoing with Zhou Rong's unrestrained, wild laughter.

Wan Biao jumped out of the truck and, without even a glance at Yan Hao's group, led his men straight into an office building ahead. Yan Hao motioned for Si Nan not to mind them and to drive straight past the building. Several hundred meters behind the administrative area stood rows of collective dormitories.

The special forces soldiers' quarters, however, were far from the dormitory area and right next to the management's, in a separate small courtyard.

It seemed that woman, Chen Yajing, did indeed treat them with great courtesy. This small courtyard was a stand-alone building with white walls and green tiles; anyone could tell it was special treatment. Si Nan parked the car in front of the courtyard gate. Zhou Rong slammed the horn and yelled arrogantly, "Get your asses out here! See who's arrived!"

"Dad—Dad—!"

With tears streaming down her face, Chuncao scrambled forward like a fired rocket and launched herself into an enthusiastic hug with Zhou Rong, and was promptly lifted into the air by her cheap dad and spun around a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

"Where are Xiangzi and Da Ding?"

"They're on duty, they'll be back later... Ah! Si Xiaonan!!"

Chuncao wailed, rushing forward to hug Si Nan so tightly that she nearly knocked him, having just gotten out of the car, back into the driver's seat.

"I thought you were dead! Si Xiaonan!" Chuncao asked between sobs, her eyes blurry with tears, "Did you two do it? Have you finally become my new mom? It took you a month to meet up with us, did you go off to make me a little brother or sister?"

The trace of emotion that had just managed to surface in Si Nan vanished in an instant.

"Zhou Rong," he said expressionlessly, "please come and take Lieutenant Yang Chuncao away."

The small courtyard was filled with noisy, lively shouting. Zhou Rong had his hands in his pockets, watching his team members with a smile, when suddenly he heard an extremely soft and polite cough from behind him.

He turned around sharply and saw Wan Biao pushing a wheelchair, stopped at the entrance to the front yard.

In the wheelchair was a young, slender woman with delicate features, though her left cheek was disfigured by a reddish scar. Her hair was tied back, she wore a light gray sweater, and a blanket covered her legs. When her gaze met Zhou Rong's, she gave a modest nod, then her eyes swept over everyone else in the courtyard.

Zhou Rong narrowed his sharp eyes.

He noticed that when the woman's gaze passed over Yan Hao and Chuncao, it was swift and unremarkable. But when it landed on Si Nan, it clearly paused, as if in uncertainty, and her expression changed slightly.

—But it only lasted for half a second, so fast it might have been an illusion.

"You must be Captain Zhou." The woman composed her expression and solemnly extended her hand. "I am Chen Yajing. I've heard so much about you. It's an honor to meet you."