Abnormal survival in the end times

Chapter 266 Return to the city
The morning after the heavy rain stopped, a series of urgent knocks sounded from the heavy stone gate of the Pengcheng North Expressway entrance—
"Open the door! Open the door quickly! I'm He Yan, He Ningzhu's younger brother from the management office! Open the door!"

He Yan stood shivering at the gate. Although he was wearing long sleeves and trousers, they were all very thin. In the current temperature of less than ten degrees Celsius, his lips were so cold that they turned purple.

The two soldiers standing inside the gate exchanged a glance but did not move.

They spotted He Yan when he was still more than a hundred meters from the gate and reported it to Xu Bo, the team leader on duty that day.

Originally, Xu Bo wasn't required to be on duty at the entrance, but because of the heavy rain that lasted for more than five hours yesterday, and the busy investigation that lasted until midnight after the rain stopped, he replaced Xi Yu.

The young couple is newly married; give him more time to spend with his wife.

Xu Bo ordered someone to carefully observe He Yan's back from the guard tower, but did not have anyone open the door.

Therefore, no matter how loudly the door was pounded, the two soldiers remained unmoved, their eyes fixed straight ahead.

"Captain, He Ningzhu's younger brother, He Yan, left the city with five other young men at nine o'clock yesterday morning. There were six of them, but only he has returned. It seems that he has no one with him now."

Xu Bo flipped through yesterday's duty log. Before the heavy rain, He Yan's parents had come here, wanting someone to go out of the city to help them find their son, but that was definitely not an option.

However, apart from He Yan's parents, the families of the other five did not come.

He closed his notebook, picked up the walkie-talkie beside him, selected a frequency, and contacted Liu Xu, who was in the reclaimed land outside the city.

During yesterday's heavy rain, Liu Xu's men gathered all the survivors from the reclamation base into the largest house. Their men guarded the doors and windows, and they managed to get through this safely and without incident.

They were smart enough to wait until the rain stopped before bringing people out to deal with the rampaging animals that had wandered into the yard.

Generally speaking, the heavier the rain, the more likely animals are to be affected and become more agitated. After the rain stops, a small percentage of them will regain their senses, and even if they don't, they won't be as frantic as during the heavy rain, either bewildered or restless, and are much easier to manage.

The management office didn't leave everything to Liu Xu and his team; they also sent a group of people to provide support, and they hadn't returned by the next day.

Therefore, Xu Bo contacted Liu Xu mainly to ask the management office's patrol team to check along the direction He Yan came from to see if there was anything unusual.

The patrol team leader also had a walkie-talkie, but it was accidentally dropped into a puddle while he was cutting down snakes yesterday and is no longer usable.

Not long after, He Yan, who was still banging on the door, didn't notice that a patrol car was slowly approaching from behind on the highway.

"Stop filming, come here."

He Yan, whose hands were numb from banging on the door, suddenly froze.

He kept reassuring and guiding himself: Stay calm, stay calm, they can't see anything, they definitely can't see anything.
He Yan hunched his shoulders and walked over cautiously.

The patrol captain looked him up and down. His shirt and pants were wrinkled and covered in mud and blood. There were also two small cuts on his face, as if they had been made by tree branches.

He asked, "Your name is He Yan?"

He Yan nodded hurriedly, "Yes, my name is He Yan, and my sister's name is He Ningzhu. She works at the management office and often does entry and exit registrations for people here. You should know her, right?"

The patrol captain ignored his question and asked again, "You couldn't get back before the rain yesterday, where did you hide? What about the others who went out with you? Why are you the only one who came back?"

"Huh? Am I the only one who came back? None of them came back?" He Yan looked blank, seemingly unaware of his companions' whereabouts. He hunched his shoulders, trembling, and said with a wronged expression, "We got separated when it was raining yesterday. I'm slow, and they didn't wait for me. I thought they had already come back yesterday."

This explanation seems reasonable: they were slow and fell behind, then a heavy rain came, and they had to find a place to hide for the time being.

But the patrol captain didn't rush to make a decision. He looked at He Yan scrutinizingly and continued to ask, "Where did you hide last night?"

They're really asking such detailed questions. Are they going to go and find out where he's hiding?
Oh shit
He Yan cursed inwardly and was about to speak when he heard a creak from the stone gate behind him. He and the patrol team turned around and saw a military green jeep slowly driving out after the gate opened.

When the patrol captain saw Qiao Fei in the passenger seat, he was taken aback. He then jogged forward and saluted at the passenger window.

"Captain Joe!"

Qiao Fei nodded to the other person, glanced at He Yan, and asked, "What's going on?"

The patrol captain quickly recounted everything he had just learned, word for word.

Qiao Fei's face remained expressionless. He merely glanced indifferently at He Yan and said to the patrol captain, "Take him with you and go check on the place where he took shelter from the rain yesterday."

The patrol captain was secretly pleased. They had been called in with the responsibility of checking things out, and he was about to go himself, but he was also worried that something might happen that was beyond his control. After all, the heavy rain had just stopped last night, and many people hadn't been cleaning up outside the city, yet they hadn't found He Yan. That could only mean that he was hiding somewhere outside the area they had previously searched.

So he was a little apprehensive, but now that he had Captain Joe with him, there was nothing to be afraid of.

The patrol car ahead carried He Yan north along the highway. As they were about to leave Ancheng and reach Gaocheng, the patrol captain looked at He Yan with suspicion. With such a small frame, how did he manage to travel so far yesterday?

"Turn here, turn right, turn right."

What the patrol captain didn't know was that He Yan was going through a real internal struggle the whole way.

When those people released him, they knew he would be questioned when he returned to Pengcheng, so they took him to a storeroom in a shop that one of their men had previously worked in and told him that if they asked him where he had been hiding alone yesterday, he should say it was here.

The place was easy to find, and he didn't get lost. The reason he was torn was that he had been considering whether or not to take them directly to deal with that group of people.

He's not stupid. He initially tried to persuade them to let him go, but he never actually planned to go back.

He'd trade that foreign kid for his friend?

Don't be ridiculous. Let's not even talk about whether he can get the child from that woman Liu Ying. Even if he could, how would he take the child out?

Despite his parents' usual praise of his sister, he knew in his heart that she was just a low-level employee in the management office, and letting him and his so-called friend out of the city was the most authority she could exercise.

There were also soldiers and superhumans at the gate. I heard they were exceptionally perceptive and might spot the child in his bag even before he got close to the gate.

Even if we assume they didn't notice anything unusual in the bag and he successfully got the child out, who can guarantee that he won't be murdered to silence him when he hands the child over to them?
Although he thought this way, He Yan ultimately changed his route and went to the pre-arranged warehouse instead of taking them there. Having witnessed the power of those people, he feared that the patrol team and the few men behind them would be no match for them, and that they might kill him in a fit of rage.

Therefore, his best course of action was to stay at home and not go out after returning to the city.

Sneak into the city and kill his whole family?
Who are you trying to fool?
Pengcheng won't let just anyone in now. In other words, even if one of them could get in, Pengcheng is so big, would they even know where he is?

So for safety's sake, it's best to avoid meeting those people again.

As for his friends
He Yan sneered inwardly. He hadn't lied when he first said it. When those people tried to arrest them yesterday, his so-called friends not only abandoned him and ran away, but one of them even deliberately tripped him, trying to make him cover their retreat and buy them time to escape.

So why would he risk his life to save them? He'd rather they all die.

The warehouse was small and had no windows, but the only iron door was quite sturdy, making it a good place to take shelter on rainy days.

After checking it over, the patrol captain felt there was nothing wrong. He then turned to look at Qiao Fei, only to see him walk to a corner not far from the warehouse and squat down.

He stared at the cigarette butt crushed under his foot on the ground, his eyes darkening.

Qiao Fei walked out of the storefront and stood by the car. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw He Yan coming out behind him and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

He didn't say anything, but called over the patrol captain and told them to go back first. Before he left, he whispered something to him.

Today he brought four people with him. Sanpao drove, and the other three each had special abilities. Their fighting power was no less than that of Lao Sheng and Ren Bin. If they really encountered any tough opponents, he was confident that he would not suffer any losses.

However, the patrol team members were not very capable. The morning after the heavy rain stopped, in addition to guarding against animals, the plants outside were not very safe either.

So he told them to go back first, and then sent someone to secretly keep an eye on He Yan after they entered the city.

After everyone left, Qiao Fei sent Xiao Han, who was similar to Lao Sheng in terms of speed, to search for clues about outsiders on the road after the heavy rain.

An hour later, Qiao Fei and the others stood in front of a 32-story office building in the urban area of ​​Gaocheng.

They then broke down the door to apartment 1101 on the eleventh floor, but the apartment was already deserted. Apart from the fact that someone had been there a few hours ago, there was nothing else inside.

At the same time, He Yan, who had been allowed to enter the city, finally made it home with great difficulty, only to run into his sister He Ningzhu at the door.

He Ningzhu had already gone to work, but she returned home not long after. She packed her clothes into a somewhat worn backpack, and when she went out, she saw He Yan standing at the door as soon as she opened it.

"sister"

He Yan frowned, about to question his sister about why she hadn't gone to look for him yesterday, when he saw her only glance at him indifferently. Her eyes showed neither the joy of seeing her younger brother survive, nor the usual exasperation.

She only showed a cold indifference, as if she were looking at a stranger, as if his life or death was none of her concern, whether he was alive or dead, she didn't care.

He Yan had never seen that look in her eyes before. He stood there dumbfounded, and by the time he came to his senses, his sister had already walked past him and left downstairs.

I didn't say a word to him the whole time, except for that one glance at him.

what happened?
I was locked outside the city for a day and a night, and she got angry?
He Yan was baffled. He turned his head and stared at the empty staircase, his face looking very unpleasant.

"Xiao Yan? Oh my god, son, you're back!"

Hearing the door open, He's mother came out of the bedroom and immediately saw her beloved son standing at the door. Overjoyed, she rushed over, hugged her son, and burst into tears.

"Waaaaah... Mom thought something had happened to you and you'd never come back. Waaaaah... If anything were to happen to you, how could Mom go on living?"

The safe return of her son caused Mrs. He to lose control for a moment. She cried loudly at the door of her house, which attracted all the neighbors upstairs and downstairs to open their doors and see what was happening.

When they saw He Yan, the families whose children had left the city with him immediately rushed over, some downstairs and some upstairs, all asking him a barrage of questions.
"He Yan, you're back. But where's my son? Why didn't he come back? Where is he?"

"And my little Ci."

Where is my Xiaotong?

"."

When He's mother saw them interrogating her son so aggressively, she became anxious. She stopped crying and forgot about the saying that distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors. She grabbed her son and shielded him behind her, and said to the crowd with displeasure, "How can he say anything if you all ask him at once? Ask him one by one what you want to ask."

After saying that, she turned to look at her son, waiting for his answer.

He Yan's expression instantly returned to the bewildered look he had when being interrogated by the patrol captain at the gate, his face full of surprise and confusion. "Xiao Ci and Xiao Tong haven't come back? How is that possible? We ran back before it rained yesterday, but I couldn't run as fast as them and fell behind. Just as the rain was about to start, I heard the roars of mutated animals, so I quickly found the nearest house to hide in. I hid there until nightfall and drifted off to sleep. When I woke up, it was already this morning. Seeing that it was quiet outside, I quickly ran back. I happened to run into the patrol team on the way and hitched a ride back to the city with them."

I thought they got home yesterday, what? They're still not back?

He Yan is seventeen years old this year. Because he has never done much work or suffered much hardship, his naturally fair skin appears even more delicate and smooth. This makes the small wounds on his face from the slippery branches even more bright red and conspicuous. Coupled with his innocent and pure eyes, the boy looks very pitiful.

No one could tell he was lying.

Oh, it's not exactly lying, at least some of it is true.

Even so, the onlookers still found it hard to accept. If He Yan, such a good-for-nothing, had returned safely, there was no reason why their son couldn't come back.
"Now you know, right? They got separated, and Xiao Yan was abandoned by them. They ran away first, and as for why they haven't come back yet, that's their business and has nothing to do with my son."

Mother He was very angry. Yesterday she pressured them to have a child, and what happened?

Those brats actually abandoned Xiao Yan and ran away on their own.
It's true that evil deeds get their just deserts; they deserved to die out there!

For once, Mother He stood her ground, pulling her son back into the house and slamming the door shut.

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