It was very late, and Zou Ming was taking a shower in the bathroom. Fine streams of water fell from the shower head and splashed on Zou Ming's body. He pushed his black hair behind his head, and his chest and back were covered with dense old wounds.
There was a hideous wound on his right shoulder, as if someone had tried with all his strength to split him in half.
Zou Ming turned off the water, wiped the remaining water droplets on his body, wrapped the bath towel around his waist, walked out of the shower room and went to the mirror.
He looked at the scar on his shoulder in the mirror, raised his left hand and gently touched the scar.
The moment he touched the wound, he seemed to have thought of something, and his tightly pursed lips curled up slightly.
Zou Ming changed into his pajamas, opened the bathroom door, looked up and saw Ye Zhou lying on the bed, already fast asleep.
Ye Zhou spent too much time selecting weapons at night and fell asleep due to exhaustion.
Zou Ming stopped beside Ye Zhou's bed and looked down at the still slightly innocent face.
Without the baptism of blood and fire, without the experience of conspiracy and intrigue, Ye Zhou still doesn't dare to kill anyone.
A person living in a peacetime era, a person who has been taught since childhood that only the law can punish criminals, what kind of mental struggle must he go through to say something like "If I must kill him, then I have to do it."
Zou Ming stared at him intently, tracing his facial lines with his eyes.
He had forgotten when he killed his first person. It seemed like he was six years old, or maybe five.
The base is always dark and gloomy. It is a fortress and a prison. People at the bottom are worse than slaves, while people at the top lead a more decadent and luxurious life than before the end of the world.
But he remembered that he never hesitated or struggled with it.
Either the other party dies or he dies. This choice is too easy to make and is natural.
If not...
Zou Ming withdrew his gaze. His footsteps were so light that there was no sound at all. Only a slight "creak" sound was heard when he opened the door.
Ye Zhou turned over in the room but did not wake up.
Only then did Zou Ming press the door handle and close the door.
He walked to the door of the utility room where Sun Hao was imprisoned. Sarah, who had just come out of the warehouse, stood face to face with him. She seemed to think for two seconds, yawned and said, "You go ahead, I'll go back to sleep."
She now prefers sleeping with Cao'er rather than in her own coffin.
Zou Ming did not respond, and Sarah was not prepared to wait for his response.
Zou Ming opened the door of the utility room only after Sarah left.
In the dark utility room, Sun Hao didn't know what time it was. He sat on the ground with his knees hugged, as if this could make him feel a little safe. When he saw the light coming in through the crack in the door, Sun Hao's eyes changed from numbness to excitement.
"Immortal! Immortal!" Sun Hao shouted hoarsely, "I really know I was wrong!"
Zou Ming turned on the light in the utility room and closed the door behind him.
It also closed Sun Hao's last hope.
·
Ye Zhou, who was sleeping, suddenly felt that he was stepping on empty air. The feeling of weightlessness made him open his eyes in a daze.
He covered his head with the quilt and continued to sleep.
Just when he was about to fall asleep, light suddenly shone in from the door. Ye Zhou sat up drowsily and looked over with half-closed eyes. He saw Zou Ming, who was only wearing pajamas with a shirt draped over his arm.
Zou Ming was facing the light, and Ye Zhou could only see his figure.
"Where did you go?" Ye Zhou yawned, "Did you go to the toilet?"
"I went to the utility room." Zou Ming did not hide it.
Ye Zhou, who was originally very sleepy, suddenly sat up, crossed his legs on the bed, stretched out his arm and turned on the light in the lounge. Now he could finally see Zou Ming's face clearly, as well as the healed wounds of varying sizes on Zou Ming's body.
The question he was about to ask was stuck in his tracks. Ye Zhou said in silence, "Is that a gunshot wound on your left waist?"
Zou Ming didn't care much: "I got injured a few years ago."
Zou Ming sat down beside his bed. He found that Ye Zhou had been looking at his face. This made him realize something. He reached out and wiped away a drop of blood on his cheek, leaving a light red mark.
"They are not far from us, also in this mountain." Zou Ming, "They have been monitoring us."
Ye Zhou said in disbelief: "I've been around everywhere. If there were people moving around, I wouldn't have missed it."
Zou Ming: "We are currently on the mountainside, and they are on the top of the mountain. The road up the mountain has been destroyed by them, and there is only one small path leading up. It's not your fault for not being careful."
He said calmly: "If he hadn't said it, I wouldn't know either."
"So... we have been under their noses all along?" Ye Zhou's eyes became sharp in an instant. Fear made him sober. "No, if they were far away from us, we wouldn't have to conflict with them."
Ye Zhou looked into Zou Ming's eyes and said, "There can't be two tigers in one mountain."
Although he felt that he was no different from the bandits, he had to be the most powerful in this area in order to be safe.
As the owner of a supermarket, there was no way he could get along well with a group of bandits, let alone a group of man-eating bandits.
Zou Ming: "They didn't dare to act rashly before, but this time they had already eaten up all the stock, and there were basically no people around, so they attacked Sarah and the others."
“If they succeed, this is the next step.”
Zou Ming said calmly: "I can't defend it by myself."
The employees Ye Zhou hired locally cannot be considered as combat power at all, even he himself cannot be considered as such.
Ye Zhou gritted his teeth and said: "The problem now is that Wu Yan and the others are back, but their weapons are still limited, and if I hand over the hot weapons to them..."
The current situation in the supermarket is too complicated and too unfavorable for him.
Zou Ming looked at Ye Zhou: "You will find a way."
Ye Zhou was stunned with a frown on his face, and said with a wry smile: "You have a lot of confidence in me."
Zou Ming lowered his eyes: "You will get used to it."
Ye Zhou murmured: "Really? Maybe."
He didn't know when he could go home, and it seemed like he was always on the edge of a knife trying to find a way out.
His employees all had great confidence in him and they all believed that he was omnipotent and omniscient.
But Ye Zhou knew very well that he was just a normal human being. He had never killed even a chicken since he was a child, let alone a person.
Ye Zhou: "Tomorrow, the pistols I bought should arrive. I bought two and spent all my money."
He sighed deeply: "Why am I so unlucky?"
There are so many people opening supermarkets in the world, why is he the only one here?
Ye Zhou suddenly remembered something: "Sun Hao is not dead yet, right?"
Looking at Zou Ming's appearance, he felt that Zou Ming was not a soft-hearted person.
Zou Ming: “Not dead yet.”
Ye Zhou was about to breathe a sigh of relief when Zou Ming said, "It's almost there."
Ye Zhou was choked by his own saliva and started coughing violently.
Zou Ming stood up immediately. He sat next to Ye Zhou, reached out and patted Zou Ming's back. He said in a somewhat stiff tone: "I will not show mercy."
This was not a harsh remark. Ye Zhou could understand what Zou Ming meant. He really didn't know how to conserve his strength.
Ye Zhou waved his hand: "I'll go see him."
He stood up, and Zou Ming stood up too.
Ye Zhou looked at him, and Zou Ming said as a matter of course: "I'll accompany you."
"I'm not that timid." Ye Zhou went to get the first aid kit helplessly. "It's better to keep him now. When the time comes, I'll need him to show me the way up the mountain, and I'll need him to draw the map."
Zou Ming frowned slightly, seeming a little regretful.
I should have let Sarah go earlier. Sarah was gentler than him.
It’s a pity that Ye Zhou didn’t know what he was thinking, otherwise he would definitely say that if Sarah had gone there, there would be a corpse in the utility room now.
Sarah's attack was not heavy, but she could suck blood!
What if you suck a person dry?
Moreover, Sarah killed people before to protect Wu Yan and others. Even if the employees were afraid, they would not feel that Sarah was standing against them.
But if Sarah sucked a non-threatening living person dry in the supermarket, it would be a different matter in the eyes of Wu Yan and others.
No matter what, Sun Hao is still a human being, an unarmed human being.
Zou Ming took the first aid kit from Ye Zhou. Without saying much, he walked straight to the utility room.
Ye Zhou looked at his empty hands and thought that although Zou Ming looked cold and hard, he was actually very considerate.
Although his supermarket has not officially opened yet and he has never enjoyed the feeling of being flattered by employees, Ye Zhou feels that this is probably what being flattered feels like?
Standing at the door of the utility room, Ye Zhou took a deep breath. He gave himself a heads-up before reaching out to open the door.
"Don't be afraid." Zou Ming said the moment Ye Zhou opened the door.
But Ye Zhou had already seen the scene in the utility room clearly—
The man fell to the ground, his hands and feet twisted behind his back in a weird way, two fingers scattered to the side, and a few teeth. His head was so swollen that he looked unrecognizable. He looked more like a monster in a horror story than a human.
He seemed to be dead, but his body was still heaving.
This tragic scene makes people feel that living is a pain for him, and only death can bring him peace and relief.
Ye Zhou looked at Sun Hao's face. That shifty face was now all blue and purple, especially the area around his mouth, which was horribly swollen.
Ye Zhou turned stiffly and looked at Zou Ming.
He thought that Zou Ming had tortured him to extract a confession, but he didn't expect that Zou Ming's torture was so cruel.
Zou Ming: "I told you about the environment I live in. This is the only way I know how to ask people, not because I like it."
For some reason, Ye Zhou heard a hint of grievance in Zou Ming's calm tone.
Ye Zhou: "...I don't blame you, it's just that this scene shocked me a little too much."
Ye Zhou: "Can his limbs be put back together? Or are they completely broken?"
Zou Ming walked over to Sun Hao and squatted down. He looked up at Ye Zhou and said, "You can go back, but you can't move much for the next few days."
Ye Zhou breathed a sigh of relief: "It doesn't matter if I can't move, as long as I can speak."
Zou Ming suddenly said: "I didn't cut his tongue."
After saying that, he glanced at Ye Zhou inconspicuously.
Ye Zhou: “…”
Why, should I praise you for being careful?
Ye Zhou could only say dryly: "Connect his hands and feet, and I'll apply medicine to him."
He now only felt that Sun Hao's vitality was very tenacious.
·
In the dark cave, tattered flags were hung on all four sides, with the word "Zhao" written in blood on them.
There was an unpleasant smell in the cave. There were more than a dozen men standing in the cave. On the stone steps just above was a high chair covered with a whole tiger skin.
"My lord! There's a monster!" The man kneeling in the middle of the cave was out of his mind. His whole body was shaking, and he seemed to have forgotten how to position his hands and feet. The man shouted tremblingly, "She, she took out Wang Yong, Wang Yong's heart!"
The man sitting on the tiger-skin chair stood up: "Monster? Who?"
Man: "That's the girl with the Hu look!"
The bandits surrounding them gasped.
"You're not seeing things?!" The "King" frowned, "Where are the ghosts and gods in this world?! Don't scare yourself!"
The man even said, "Not only me, but he, they all saw it!"
"Her nails can grow so long..." The man pointed out the astonishing length, "It pierced through Wang Yong's back just like piercing tofu..."
The man stammered, "That, that strange house must be the monster's lair!"
The "king" mocked, "Have you ever seen a monster release a captured mortal to do something?"
"Monster? So what if it's a monster? Can monsters never die?!" The "king" suddenly shouted, "I have the Buddha's blessing, and my body is indestructible. No matter what kind of monster it is, I will kill it!"
"You've all eaten two-legged mutton before, so what? Are you scared now?!"
"King": "I am not afraid of ghosts and gods, nor of demons. Only by conquering the mountain and occupying the monster's lair can you survive!"
The man slumped on the ground: "My king... I won't go, that's a monster, my king! I won't go..."
The "king" left the tiger-skin chair, walked down the stone steps, and came to the man. He raised his sword and said sternly before striking, "If you shake the morale of the army, I will kill you!"
He swung his sword and pierced the man's chest.
The whole room was silent.
The "king" looked at the minions around him and said, "Drag him away."
The minions bent their waists, stepped forward cautiously, and dragged the man away with all their strength, leaving only a winding bloodstain on the ground.
The "king" sat back on his "throne" and said to all his confidants: "We can't wait any longer. We must attack within three days. Now there are no living people within a five-mile radius. If this continues, the brothers will either starve to death or die in fighting. The ban was lifted before..."
He used to allow cannibalism, but once food became scarce, they would target the people around them.
You may be reluctant to kill brothers with whom you have a good relationship, but what about those with whom you have a bad relationship?
What about those who don’t even look familiar?
In the end, even he, the "king", couldn't escape.
He is also a human being. He is also afraid of death, and he also regrets that he did not take people to the south at that time.
But now that things have come to this, it is no longer something he can control.
The confidants hesitated: "My lord, that is a monster's lair after all..."
"If there is a mistake, we will all have to explain it there."
The "king" stood up and said angrily: "Don't say any more! Do you think you can survive if you don't go? We have more than 400 brothers. Even if we only eat one a day, how many days can we last?"
The confidants were touched and all lowered their heads and kept silent.
Living one more day is one more day, they cannot think that far ahead, but now listening to what the "king" says, killing each other does not seem to be a feasible way to go.
"King": "Didn't the monster only kill one? If she was really powerful, none of them would be able to escape!"
"Don't lose your composure when you hear about monsters. What's more, Wang Yong and his men have never seen a barbarian before. If a barbarian uses any tricks, it would be considered a monster."
"You're still worried about the battle. You can't win even if you can." The "king" opened his eyes wide, and with his extremely handsome square face, people felt that his words were particularly powerful.
"Since the king has said so, we brothers must go!"
"Exactly! No matter what kind of monster it is, if it blocks our way, it must die!"
"Such a big house, there must be a lot of food in it, and there are women inside!"
They laughed: "It's been a long time since I last saw a woman."
"That little girl was pretty good, but unfortunately she was disobedient and bit the king, so she had to be dragged away and made into a sheep."
"That woman has no sense. I see there are many women who have given birth in that room. When the time comes, ask them to serve the king well and give birth to a few sons for him."
The "king" had no interest in his son. He had already married and had children, and had no interest in the child born by the village girl.
But he was still interested in women: "If you keep the women, you can't keep any men. You can also keep the children. When they grow up, they will be the most loyal."
It seemed that as long as they thought about what they would get after taking down that strange house, they would forget all their fears and forget that it was the monster's lair.
"What are monsters? If monsters are really that powerful, why don't we see them often?"
"That's right! We dare to rebel against the imperial court, so why should we be afraid of a few little demons?!"
The "king" finally smiled and said, "It's great that you think this way. Tell those who shouldn't speak to shut up and don't let other brothers know that there is a monster in there."
The confidants exchanged glances and understood: "It's just right to eat and then fight."
·
"You have that pistol, and I have these two." Ye Zhou stood outside the supermarket, holding two guns in his hands, and said in a strange tone, "Usually the system will deliver the items to me the next day, why did it deliver the guns tonight?"
“Is it because guns are more expensive?”
Zou Ming: "You can distribute my pistols. My machine gun is enough."
Ye Zhou did not refuse. After all, the machine gun needed a place to set up and keep a distance from the enemy. Once the distance was widened, the pistol would be of little use.
"There are more than 400 of them..." Ye Zhou felt that he had never been so worried.
Even if they had hot weapons, the enemy's numbers were overwhelming.
They don't stand a chance of winning in close combat.
This time when he goes up the mountain, he has to bring along everyone who can use a repeating crossbow.
The best solution Ye Zhou could think of was to strike first.
You have to catch the other party off guard and scare them to death.
It would be better to kill some and let some escape, so that they would not be under so much pressure, and those who were frightened would not dare to come back.
Even if they wanted to come back, the harsh environment here would not support their actions.
"It's still because I don't have money." Ye Zhou rubbed his hair and said irritably, "If you give me a few hundred thousand more, I can buy two grenades. Even if there are only two, it will be enough to scare them."
He was originally proud of the money he earned, but now he finds that the money he earned is not enough to guarantee his safety.
"It'll be okay." Zou Ming comforted softly.
Ye Zhou discovered that Zou Ming had a strange confidence in him.
That kind of confidence was not deliberate flattery, but Zou Ming sincerely believed that he could overcome the difficulties and was more confident than himself.
"I have to let Sun Hao find the way tomorrow." Ye Zhou rubbed his hair again.
This happens to him when he's irritated. He always has to move his hands and feet. He was afraid that his hands would get dirty if he rubbed his face, so he rubbed his hair instead.
Zou Ming looked at Ye Zhou's messy hair and moved his fingertips.
Ye Zhou: "Let me give Sarah a gun."
Zou Ming's tone was cold: "She doesn't need it. She doesn't know how to use a gun, and she can't aim well."
Ye Zhou's eyes widened: "She is not an iron wall, she will get hurt in a fight, and she will die, right?"
Zou Ming: "She heals very quickly. As long as you don't hurt her with silver, she can regenerate infinitely, whether it's flesh or bones."
Ye Zhou: "That will hurt too."
Zou Ming was stunned for a moment, then he suddenly laughed and said, "Yes, it hurts too."
Ye Zhou was a little dazed when he saw Zou Ming's rare smile - he had no idea what Zou Ming was laughing at.
Is it because there is a huge generation gap between him and Zou Ming? But they are obviously about the same age.
Maybe it’s because they grew up in different environments?
Ye Zhou: "Next time you encounter this kind of thing, can you notify me before you take action?"
Ye Zhou whispered, "I know if you hadn't gone to find Sun Hao, we wouldn't have known that group of people were on the mountain, nor would we have known the way up the mountain, but I want the right to know, after all, I'm the employer, right?"
Zou Ming tilted his head slightly. He looked at Ye Zhou's serious face. His eyes lost focus for a moment, but he quickly responded, "I remember."
Ye Zhou breathed a sigh of relief. He patted Zou Ming on the shoulder and said, "I'll go get some food. We can talk while we eat. I can't sleep now anyway."
Ye Zhou quietly took four sausages and a self-heating hot pot, and then went to get two bottles of Coke and spicy strips before returning to the lounge.
"This is what I thought. Once we find the way, we'll go over there and take a look at the situation. Be careful not to be discovered." Ye Zhou, "But we have to take everything with us, and we can't act separately. If we are discovered, we must fight back immediately."
"Otherwise, if we act alone, as long as one of us gets caught, we'll be finished."
If the other party has hostages, they will have too many concerns.
Ye Zhou is not a real god, it is impossible for him to save people just by waving his hand.
Ye Zhou opened the lid of the self-heating hot pot, smelled the aroma, picked up a piece of tripe for Zou Ming, and then picked up some bean curd for himself. He was so hot that he kept exhaling hot air. After swallowing it with great difficulty, he said: "Catch the leader first. As long as we kill their leader, they should disperse."
"Anyway, no matter how many history books or military strategies are written, it's written this way. Let's give it a try. If it doesn't work, we can only kill each other."
Ye Zhou smiled bitterly: "I never thought that one day I would say the word kill."
He considers himself a good person. He may not be a good person, but he is definitely not a bad person.
The worst thing he had ever done in his life was breaking a lampshade at home and refusing to admit it. He had never even hit anyone, but now he was going to kill someone.
Ye Zhou took a sip of Coke and drank the alcohol's momentum: "If I hold you back, you will beat me up."
Zou Ming opened his mouth but didn't utter a word.
How can I bear to do that...
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