Chapter 40 Entering the Supermarket
The rain lasted for three days.
Over the course of three days, a musty smell gradually filled the temple. When the sun came out, Tang Zhao couldn't help but let out a joyful shout and ran around in circles in the sun like a fool.
Bai Tao was affected by his emotions; while she was disgusted, she couldn't help but go out to bask in the sun.
Zhou Zhuohua threw away the rotten plants in her hands and sighed regretfully. The rain had lasted too long, and her herbs hadn't been able to dry.
Although there was food in the vehicle, they mostly tried to save as much as possible, using whatever they could find. Unfortunately, there were only a few wild fruits around this time, so all five of them now felt the urgency to stock up on food.
The five people huddled together, discussing their next destination.
Bai Chenzhu originally wanted to hitch a ride, but he hadn't decided on a destination yet. Jiang Ye said that they were short of supplies and their priority was to stock up on consumables.
Upon hearing this, Tang Zhao rummaged through his backpack a couple of times, then told Bai Chenzhu with a pained expression that he also wanted to stock up on some supplies.
This is a very reasonable suggestion.
Bai Chenzhu had no reason to refuse. Looking at Jiang Ye's smile, he finally nodded, "Then it will be troublesome. If there is any danger, Tang Zhao and I will also lend a hand."
——
The group chatted for a while about the rest of the journey before dispersing.
Bai Chenzhu gathered up his dried clothes and turned around to see Jiang Ye staring thoughtfully at the algae in the stone vat. He put the clothes away, tiptoed over, reached out, and stared at Jiang Ye's shoulder, intending to give him a scare.
Unexpectedly, his hand was intercepted mid-air as soon as he reached out.
"I knew it was you." Jiang Ye let go of her hand without turning his head.
Bai Chenzhu walked over with interest and joined him to look at the algae inside. The water was so clear that it reflected their images. Bai Chenzhu peered in for a while but couldn't figure it out, so he just asked.
“I’m thinking about things from the past,” Jiang Ye said briefly.
"I see." Bai Chenzhu murmured, asking the question that had been on her mind for a long time, "Jiang Ye, I've always felt that you're a very contradictory person. You keep saying that you don't care about so much, that you don't want to build any more bases, and that you don't want to be some kind of savior, but you're very obsessed with the fragments. The other day when I saw you go to kill the mutated cow with your eyes red, to be honest, I thought you were crazy."
Jiang Ye came to his senses and only heard the second half of Bai Chenzhu's sentence, but that did not prevent him from understanding what Bai Chenzhu meant.
He stared intently at Bai Chenzhu, his Adam's apple bobbing, as if he wanted to explain, or perhaps he wanted to brush it off lightly.
"With your abilities, even in the worst apocalypse, protecting yourself shouldn't be a problem, right?" Bai Chenzhu glanced at him and said softly.
Jiang Ye looked down at the stone vat and chuckled self-deprecatingly, "I'm not a good person, haven't you seen that?"
He looked at his reflection, and through the youthful shell, he saw a fleeting glimpse of a cold, indifferent soul.
"To be honest, I never did it for anyone else."
In fact, Jiang Ye was very willing to share his thoughts with Bai Chenzhu, and only Bai Chenzhu could understand them. Thinking about it this way, he did begin to regret letting Bai Chenzhu distance herself from him.
He spoke in a calm tone, yet uttered the most extraordinary words.
“I’m not a good person, I’m just a little resentful. After all, I’ve worked so hard for so many years, and in the end, everything has vanished because of such a ridiculous result. My base, my relatives and friends, my life, all gone. I’m not convinced, I can’t swallow this anger.”
"Even in my dreams, I often see the final scene of reincarnation."
"The more they fear something, the more I will do it." Jiang Ye thought for a moment, as if he had already imagined the scene of dismembering his enemy, and chuckled as he plucked a wildflower from the side.
“Sometimes, I get a little impatient. I’m in a rush to find them from the fragments and then kill them all.”
To the unsuspecting, the two would have thought they were having a pleasant conversation. For example, Tang Zhao, who was passing by, waved to them from afar and helped carry Zhou Zhuohua's half-empty medical kit into the car.
"That's really no good," Bai Chenzhu thought to himself. "He's quite vindictive. I don't think I've done anything to offend him, have I?"
He looked up at the sky and down at the ground, and when he saw Tang Zhao passing by not far away, he changed the subject to something a little less depressing, "By the way, do you know Tang Zhao?"
This 'understanding' is definitely not referring to the present moment.
“I don’t know him at all.” Jiang Ye knew what he wanted to know, raised an eyebrow, and shattered his fantasy. “But that doesn’t matter, does it? At least I know him now.”
At least we completely changed his fate.
Bai Chenzhu hadn't expected Jiang Ye to be more insightful than him. He rubbed his forehead and smiled wryly, "That's right, I was just being stubborn."
He often gets stuck on strange and complicated ideas, and Bai Chenzhu sometimes feels helpless about this, yet he gets stuck in it all.
Jiang Ye plucked a flower and gently touched it to the water's surface, shattering the picturesque reflection, much like the chaotic mess that had just been created.
——
After packing everything up, Zhou Zhuohua backed the car out of the small courtyard behind the temple, and Bai Tao jumped directly into the passenger seat, happily humming a new tune.
Three big men squeezed in the back.
The journey was long, and Tang Zhao yawned, his mind drifting, and his head landed on Bai Chenzhu's shoulder. Without hesitation, Bai Chenzhu slapped his head against the glass.
Jiang Ye watched from the sidelines, making a gloating sound. He said to Bai Tao, "Stop humming these. Why don't you just write a new song yourself? That way, when the apocalypse ends, you can become a pop star."
Given the frequency of holding a 'concert' every three to five days, it's not impossible.
"I agree!" Tang Zhao immediately woke up and exclaimed excitedly, "Change it, change it, help! Who knew that hearing her sing would remind me of those days of flag-raising ceremonies! Also, why do we even sing the same motivational songs during breaks?!"
The car drove along the main road, and Bai Tao smiled smugly, swaying back and forth, deliberately singing an old song that would give Tang Zhao a psychological trauma.
——
Several hours later.
Bai Chenzhu covered his nose and closed the window. There were many indescribable things on both sides. Seeing too many corpses of his own kind made him nauseous.
Jiang Ye was determined to tie Bai Chenzhu's hair into a ponytail, but unfortunately he didn't have many materials on hand. So he grabbed the drawstring from Tang Zhao's hoodie to use as a hair tie. It took him a long time to finally tie a small low ponytail, which he was showing off to Bai Chenzhu.
Tang Zhao was fast asleep, clutching his backpack, while the eldest brother was curled up in a ball, looking like a piglet.
Zhou Zhuohua glanced at the group of people sleeping haphazardly in the rearview mirror and had to remind them, "Gentlemen, wake up, we're about to enter the market."
Bai Tao woke up groggily and almost jumped up when she heard this. "Why do we need to enter the market?"
Zhou Zhuohua looked at the red mark on her face and smiled, "Because you can already see the supermarket sign from here. Look, there—that's right at the entrance to the city."
Following her directions, Bai Chenzhu saw a huge chain supermarket sign, right on the outskirts of the city's buildings.
Zhou Zhuohua finally confirmed: "Where are we going?"
Everyone agreed.
This supermarket has small shops on the first floor, and only the second and third floors are the supermarket itself.
After getting out of the car, Bai Chenzhu found a badminton racket in a sporting goods store by the roadside, weighed it in his hand, and used it as a weapon. He looked back and saw Jiang Ye taking out his beloved baseball bat from the store.
Jiang Ye flipped it over and looked at it. "It feels alright, but not as good as your last one. Where did you find your previous one?"
Bai Chenzhu said, "I just picked it up casually, I really don't remember it."
The shop on the first floor looked like it had been ransacked; everything edible, drinkable, and clothing had been swept away. Tang Zhao grew increasingly uneasy. "Is the upstairs empty too?"
Bai Tao gestured, "How could that be? It's such a big supermarket."
Zhou Zhuohua dug up something interesting, tried it out, and quickly handed it to Bai Tao, "Look! A little bee!"
Bai Tao's eyes lit up immediately, and she couldn't wait to put it on her. The other four people felt a chill run down their spines when they saw her clearing her throat, but fortunately, Bai Tao didn't intend to betray her teammates at the moment.
The elevator was blocked, so three men led the way, while Zhou Zhuohua and Bai Tao followed behind on guard.
Jiang Ye suddenly called out Bai Chenzhu's name.
"What's wrong?" Bai Chenzhu was suppressing her nausea as she swatted a zombie away, looking disgusted at the growing stains on her clothes, and decided to get a few more clothes later.
Jiang Ye's eyes sharpened. "Go wait in the back."
Bai Chenzhu turned around and found that there was no space in front of him, but two or three supermarket sales clerks were guarding the supermarket entrance, and the surrounding area was a mess.
When they saw the approaching people, their eyes, which had been covered by a layer of gray gauze, lit up, and they sniffed as they came.
Bai Chenzhu immediately realized the attraction his mental power had for the mutants. He was on high alert and slowly retreated behind Jiang Ye and Tang Zhao, saying, "Be careful."
"Me too! Let me try my little bee!" Bai Tao excitedly squeezed into Bai Chenzhu's original spot. As soon as she came out, the four of them immediately covered their ears.
Bai Tao cleared her throat, picked up her little bee, and began to sing in a melodious, rhythmic voice, as if reciting an essay.
Bai Chenzhu covered her ears tightly, and only a few 'spectators' could be seen crawling over, covering their heads and shrieking, writhing on the ground until they stopped moving. Only then did Bai Tao reluctantly turn off the little bee.
Just as she turned off the little bee, a dark shadow pounced on her.
Jiang Ye raised the stick and slammed it into the face, slamming the man against the wall. The force was so great that the newly acquired baseball bat broke in two.
Tang Zhao shouted, "Holy crap! So ugly!"
A person slowly descended from the wall. He had a buzz cut, a pale face and clear eyes, and his limbs were twisted. He was twice the size of a person and was wearing a janitor's uniform that was bursting at the seams.
Jiang Ye focused his mind: "It's a more advanced mutant. Bai Tao's mental power is a provocation to it."
After the small one was beaten, the big one came.
This was the first time Bai Tao had ever seen her invincible mental power turn into something tempting. She took a step back and stared intently at the cleaner.
But she clearly saw that after the cleaner was initially attracted by her voice, his attention was completely focused on Bai Chenzhu in the team.
"Trouble really comes from the mouth," Bai Chenzhu cursed inwardly.
The cleaner, who was lying on the ground like a toad, suddenly jumped up. Bai Chenzhu pushed Zhou Zhuohua aside and then rolled twice on the ground in the opposite direction.
He raised the badminton racket in his hand, and as the cleaner rushed over again, he swiftly and accurately struck its twisted, fat face. The racket snapped in two, the shaft embedding itself in the fat flesh, and murky black blood splattered all over its body. Bai Chenzhu's pupils constricted sharply.
"Watch out!" It was Jiang Ye's voice.
A strong force pulled him away from behind, and the 'toad demon' missed its target.
Bai Chenzhu fell to the ground, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw Jiang Ye and Tang Zhao besieging the sanitation worker.
But no matter how they attacked it, this guy was practically indestructible; even when it was covered in blood, it didn't affect its nimble movements.
Just as Jiang Ye was knocked away and Tang Zhao was slammed against the wall by the janitor's hand around the neck, Bai Chenzhu seized the opportunity and pulled out the gun from his pocket.
Bang--
The cleaner turned her head, and the bullet grazed her ear and embedded itself in the wall.
It abandoned Tang Zhao and rushed towards Bai Chenzhu at an incredible speed. Bai Chenzhu didn't even have time to turn and run before the gun was knocked away and rolled to the ground. He was pinned to the ground, his legs feeling as if they were crushed by boulders, unable to break free.
He gripped the cleaner's neck tightly with both hands, his gaping maw dripping foul water, its sharp teeth repeatedly trying to bite off his head.
"Brother Bai!"
"Xiao Bai!"
Zhou Zhuohua and Tang Zhao rushed forward, attacking the monster's head, only to be shocked to see the monster still able to turn its head even with a hole in its head from a fruit knife. The next second, the two were thrown away by the monster.
Bai Tao activated her little bee to try and attract the monster, but the monster only stared at Bai Chenzhu.
"Ho~ Ho!" The monster broke free of its restraints and opened its mouth wide.
Another gunshot rang out, and this time, the monster's fatal point in its head was pierced, and it howled in agony with its turbid eyes rolling around.
Seeing that the mountain-like body was about to fall, Bai Chenzhu immediately tried to crawl to the side, but the body was too heavy and he couldn't climb out at all.
Just as he was wondering if he would be crushed to death, Jiang Ye kicked the cleaner away and pulled him up from the ground.
"Your aim isn't good enough; you need to practice more with the gun." He flipped the gun around in his hand, then stuffed it into Bai Chenzhu's pocket.
Bai Chenzhu broke out in a cold sweat, patted his chest with lingering fear, and looked at his savior with burning eyes, "You'll teach me?"
"Okay." Jiang Ye saw that he was alright, and then went to check on the others.
Bai Chenzhu touched the gun in his clothes, wondering whether he should give it to Jiang Ye, who was more skilled at using it, but he gave up the idea after only two seconds.
Jiang Ye is strong and healthy; he can protect himself without a gun. But since he attracts so many monsters, he needs something to defend himself. It would be great to make him a weapon that can be used to surprise them.
After resting for a while at the supermarket entrance, the group looked at the bodies of the sales clerks and cleaners and began to have second thoughts.
Tang Zhao patted his chest, still shaken: "Could there be something even more powerful inside?"
"No, these are probably just the most ferocious ones." Jiang Ye examined several monster corpses, glanced around, and dispelled his doubts. "If there were more, they would have come out with that monster just now. Bai Tao, you drive the little bee and hum a song."
Bai Tao stammered, "Is this...is this really okay? Won't another monster appear?"
"Take it down as soon as it comes out." Jiang Ye's words were rough, but the principle was sound.
“Since we’re already here,” Bai Chenzhu agreed. He stood up, stepped on the monster, grabbed the racket shaft with both hands, and pulled hard, managing to free his racket—although it was now unusable.
He weighed it in his hand; thankfully, the pole was still usable.
Fortunately, upon entering, they encountered only three or five ordinary zombies wandering around.
The group dealt with the zombies while packing their belongings.
Until the snack section, a painful sound came from behind the shelves.
The group was on high alert, and Bai Tao dared not utter another sound, staring intently at the shelf.
Two furtive men emerged from behind the shelves, their clothes soaked in black blood, staring at them with fear. "You... how did you get in?"
"Where is that monster???"
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