Chapter 113 Teaching

It was almost noon, and the sun was scorching hot.

The outline of a small county town came into view ahead, with low and dilapidated buildings. Ruan Ning had the convoy stop on the outskirts of the town and chose a relatively independent, walled six-story hotel as their lunch stop.

The car was parked outside the hotel's courtyard wall. Ruan Ning got out of the car and quickly scanned the hotel's main building with her mental energy.

“There aren’t many zombies inside, about twenty, and they’re all ordinary ones, scattered across different floors.” She withdrew her senses and said to Zhou Min, “Go and tell the people behind to go in and clear them out themselves. You follow them and teach them how to deal with the zombies quickly and effectively. Remember, you teach them, you don’t kill them for them.”

She then looked at Lin Yan: "We'll stay outside with the fire to keep watch and deal with anything that might be attracted by the noise."

Zhou Min nodded, picked up the knife, and walked towards the five cars behind. Sun Hong and the women were anxiously peering into the silent hotel.

“Captain Ruan said,” Zhou Min tried to make her voice sound as cold as possible, “there are more than twenty ordinary zombies in the hotel, and you need to go in and clear them out yourselves. This is something you must learn. I will go in with you and tell you how to deal with them. Remember, don’t panic, don’t run around, form groups of three or four, cover each other, and attack the head or neck.”

Fear crossed the women's faces, and some of their hands began to tremble. But no one flinched. Sun Hong gritted her teeth: "Did you all hear that? Grab your weapons, divide into groups! We have to go in, even if we're scared! Otherwise, we'll always be waiting to be rescued! Haven't we had enough of this humiliation yet?!"

The women looked at each other, gripped their machetes and iron bars tightly, and quickly divided into seven or eight groups, each with three to four people.

Zhou Min led the way, pushing open the hotel's glass door. A musty and rotten smell hit her. The lobby was empty, with only overturned tables and chairs and a thick layer of dust. But from the stairwell leading upstairs came dragging footsteps and low, hoarse sounds.

"They're here!" Zhou Min hissed, gripping her knife tightly. "First group, follow me! The rest of you, keep your distance, watch your sides and rear!"

A zombie dressed in a waiter's uniform appeared from the corner of the stairs, baring its teeth and claws as it pounced down.

"Don't be afraid! It's slow!" Zhou Min shouted. "Those on the left, draw its attention; those on the right, chop its legs! Those in the middle, attack its head!"

The three women in the first group turned pale, but they did as instructed.

A woman with a spear trembled as she thrust it forward at the zombie, drawing its claws; a woman beside her closed her eyes and wildly slashed at the back of the zombie's knees with a machete; the woman in the middle screamed as she smashed an iron bar at the zombie's head—missing the head, it hit the shoulder instead.

The corpse staggered, but did not fall.

"Aim for the head! Strike hard!" Zhou Min finished the job, severing the zombie's neck, splattering blood everywhere. "See that? Be accurate! Be ruthless! Don't hesitate!"

The women gasped for breath, looking at the fallen zombies, their eyes still filled with fear, but with something else in them.

The cleanup process was slow and difficult.

There are several zombies on each floor.

The women went from initial panic, screaming, and wildly swinging their weapons to gradually learning to cooperate.

Some were responsible for using long weapons to hold off the zombies, others attacked their joints from the side to throw them off balance, and finally, the braver ones would stab them in the neck or eye socket. There were many mistakes; some fell and were injured, some were so frightened that they collapsed to the ground and had to be dragged away by their companions. But no one gave up.

Zhou Min only offered assistance in the most dangerous situations, mostly giving loud commands and demonstrating vital attacks.

Her skills were indeed not as agile as Ruan Ning and Lin Yan, but precisely because of this, these ordinary women found it easier to imitate and keep up with her methods and rhythm.

In the open space outside the hotel, Ruan Ning and Lin Yan were also busy.

The commotion in the hotel did indeed attract several wandering mutants.

A speed-type mutant beast, resembling a skinned cat, darted in from outside the wall, only to be repelled by a precise burst of flame from the raging fire, and then killed by Lin Yan in close combat. Two stiff but powerful zombie dogs attempted to approach, but were pinned down at a distance by Ruan Ning's water arrows.

They cleaned quietly, making sure not to disturb the "teaching" inside the hotel or cause any further trouble.

Two hours later.

The sounds of hacking and screaming in the hotel finally subsided completely.

Zhou Min led a group of women out, covered in blood, drenched in sweat, nearly exhausted, but with unusually bright eyes. Their weapons were still dripping black blood, and many had fresh abrasions, but they stood straighter than when they went in.

“It’s all done,” Zhou Min said to Ruan Ning, her voice sounding tired. “Twenty-four ordinary zombies in total. They’ve finished.”

Sun Hong stepped forward, her face smeared with blood, and looked at Ruan Ning. Her voice was hoarse but carried an unprecedented strength: "Captain Ruan, the hotel is clean."

The other women also watched Ruan Ning silently, their eyes filled with mixed emotions—fear, exhaustion, but more profoundly, an unbelievable sense of confidence that she had earned with her own hands.

For the first time, they realized that those terrifying, man-eating monsters could be killed by them, the "weak." They realized that they weren't just destined to wait for rescue or endure suffering.

Sun Hong vigorously rubbed her hands on her dirty trousers, then carefully took out five rhomboid crystals from her pocket, each stained with a dark red color and gleaming with a slightly milky white sheen.

These were the skulls they had dug out while cleaning up the zombies in the hotel, at Zhou Min's insistence, despite their nausea and fear. At first, some of them vomited, and their hands trembled so much they couldn't dig them out, but after a few tries, although their faces were still pale, their movements gradually became more skillful.

“Captain Ruan,” Sun Hong’s voice was a little hoarse as she opened her palm, “these were found inside zombie heads. Sister Zhou said they were crystal cores. We…we don’t know what they’re used for, but they should be good stuff. Here you go.” The women behind her watched silently, no one raising any objections.

Ruan Ning's gaze swept over the five most common attribute-less crystal cores, then looked at the expressions on Sun Hong's and the other women's faces—a mixture of exhaustion, a hint of accomplishment, and lingering fear. She didn't reach out to take them.

"Keep them safe." Ruan Ning's voice remained calm. "Once you reach the Northwest Base, or any other large, orderly settlement, these attribute-less crystal cores are basic hard currency. You can exchange them for food, water, medicine, weapons, and even shelter. Those with attributes are even more valuable. Remember to dig out the crystal cores when you kill zombies or mutants. You earned this yourselves."

Sun Hong was stunned for a moment, clearly not expecting Ruan Ning to refuse. She looked at the crystal core in her hand, then at Ruan Ning: "But... this is from everyone..."

“You killed them, so they belong to you.” Ruan Ning interrupted her, her tone calm but undeniably authoritative. “If you want to survive, you have to learn to earn your own resources. I don’t need your things.”

After she finished speaking, she turned and walked towards the hotel entrance to check the cleanup inside, leaving Sun Hong and a group of women looking at each other in bewilderment.

Sun Hong gripped the crystal core tightly in her hand, the rough crystal digging into her palm.

She watched Ruan Ning's retreating figure, then looked down at the crystal core, took a deep breath, and turned to the women, saying, "Did you all hear that? Captain Ruan didn't want it, she told us to keep it ourselves. From now on... from now on, we'll keep all the crystal cores from the ones we kill ourselves! This is our capital!"

The women whispered amongst themselves, their gazes shifting as they looked at their weapons and at each other. It turned out that killing those monsters not only brought safety but also real money.

Zhou Min watched from the side without saying a word. She understood what Ruan Ning meant.

Giving a man a fish is not as good as teaching him how to fish. Giving them weapons and shelter is the first step, teaching them to fight is the second step, and letting them own and control their own spoils is the key step to truly enabling them to face the apocalypse independently.

Although this first step only involves five of the lowest-level crystal cores.