Industrial Cthulhu doesn't believe in the end times.

Chapter 108 Mutual Aid Society (5.6k)

"We're almost there! Xiaoyun, don't fall asleep, hang in there!"

Han Zhong, carrying a girl named Xiaoyun, had just hidden in a narrow alley.

The little girl had a gunshot wound that went through her shoulder, and blood was seeping out, staining half of her body red.

They had actually reached the border of Xinfu City, but there was still a considerable distance to go from there to the city center.

Are those people... still behind us?

Before Han Zhong could speak, several bullets answered the question, the bullets creating a series of small craters in the wall beside him. He quickly turned to the side, using his back to shield himself from the shattered fragments.

The violent shaking aggravated the girl's wound, and she let out a soft groan in pain.

"Han Zhong, am I going to die?"

The little girl was extremely weak, curled up in Han Zhong's arms, letting him carry her deeper into the town.

"Don't overthink it. We've come this far, we'll find our organization soon."

"You're a superhuman, you won't die so easily."

That's just how it is. If this girl didn't have special abilities, such injuries, even just the blood loss, would have been enough to kill her.

What Han Zhong was most grateful for was that these people didn't have any heavy weapons, otherwise the two of them would not have had a chance to survive.

The cause of the incident was not complicated. All kinds of people exist in this world. There are scavengers like Boss Zhao who can be considered stable and law-abiding, as well as some thugs who take advantage of the collapse of supervision and act recklessly.

As they approached the border of Xinfu, Han Zhong and his group encountered this group of people, and unfortunately, they witnessed their cruel acts.

At this point, they found themselves in a situation where they were being hunted down.

Xiaoyun's condition was getting worse and worse, and Han Zhong was very anxious, but he couldn't think of any solutions.

The winding alleyways offered them shelter, but only temporarily. There was more than one superhuman among the group, and it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.

"Just throw me away, just leave me by the roadside. The zombies will eat me, and you don't need to collect my body."

"Shut up and stop talking nonsense."

"Didn't you tell me to say a few more words..."

A smile appeared on the little girl's pale face: "So you won't abandon me, right?"

"Get lost, get lost right now! You're always arguing with me, I hope you get eaten by zombies!"

Han Zhong turned into an even more secluded corner, holding the girl and leaning against the back of a pile of garbage. Outside, the thugs on the street were still patrolling in their cars, honking their horns indiscriminately.

"They want to lure the zombies out and expose our location."

"Going in circles like this isn't going to work. Just bear with it a little longer, we'll figure out a way to break out... Xiaoyun? Xiaoyun!"

Unbeknownst to them, the little girl in their arms had fallen into a coma, her wrists hanging limply at her sides, her thin chest barely rising and falling.

Han Zhong took two deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down, and just then, he heard a barely audible shout.

"Young man...young man! Over here, over here!"

Following the sound, he saw a courtyard in the distance with its iron gate slightly ajar. Behind the gate stood a figure whose face he couldn't make out, but judging from the voice, it was an elderly woman.

After only a moment's hesitation, Han Zhong ran over there, and the other party opened the door and let him in.

The person who called him in was indeed an old woman with a lot of gray hair. After Han Zhong entered, she found some wood and used it to firmly block the iron door.

Han Zhong looked around but didn't find anything unusual. The courtyard wasn't small and seemed to have originally been a small workshop. There was a lot of firewood and various scraps of unknown use piled up in the courtyard, and some vegetables were growing there. It looked quite well-maintained.

The woman wasn't the only one living there, but when Han Zhong looked into the room, he only saw eyes peering through the windows and door cracks.

“They don’t dare to get involved in this matter. You don’t need to contact them. Come on, quickly carry this little girl inside. I have some medicine. See if you can use it.”

Han Zhong nodded quickly and followed the woman into the room, placing Xiao Yun, whom he was holding, on a bed in the room.

Han Zhong's eyes lit up when he saw the woman pull out a military green box from the corner of the room. This was the resource box that had been placed on the street before the apocalypse began. Han Zhong and his companions had encountered it several times along the way, but most of them had already been emptied.

In the box in front of them were indeed some emergency medicines they urgently needed. Han Zhong changed Xiao Yun's bandages and applied hemostatic and anti-inflammatory medication.

Looking at the little girl lying on the bed letting Han Zhong treat her wounds, the woman sighed, a look of heartache on her face.

However, the physical condition of superhumans is indeed much more resilient than that of ordinary people. After the medicine was applied and the bleeding was stopped, her breathing quickly stabilized.

Seeing this, Han Zhong breathed a long sigh of relief and turned to the woman, sincerely thanking her.

"Since you're wearing these clothes, I absolutely have to help you. Otherwise, I'll never be able to live with myself until I die. So you don't need to thank me; thank these clothes instead."

Han Zhong glanced down at his militia uniform, now stained with blood and filthy. Something gripped his heart, and he didn't know how to answer. So he changed the subject: "Why are you staying here? Didn't you go to the safe zone?"

"I didn't want to go before, but now I can't go."

"At the beginning, a military unit came and cleared out the zombies here once, trying to take us away."

"At that time, some people felt that this place was almost safe, especially those of us who were older. We were reluctant to part with the scrap metal we had accumulated over our lives. We had lost our children and had few relatives left, so we planned to just stay here and die."

At this point, the woman spat out, "Who knew that such a bunch of beasts would come along and make this place so unsafe?"

"If the country were still doing well, how could we tolerate such people running amok? Sigh!"

Han Zhong lowered his head: "If we hide here, we might implicate you."

"They won't come looking for us, we've been hiding here for a long time..."

"Bang bang bang!!"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a knocking sound rang out, which quickly escalated into a banging on the door.

Han Zhong suddenly realized that the horns outside had stopped sometime earlier. He was relieved that the other party's body-enhancing ability user had been killed by Xiao Yun earlier, otherwise the big iron gate outside probably wouldn't have been able to stop these people.

The woman's face also turned ugly. She exchanged a glance with Han Zhong, then suddenly turned around, picked up the remaining medicines from the resource box, and handed them to Han Zhong.

"There's a back door to this yard, hurry up and take the child and go that way!"

Han Zhong was startled: "Then what will you do?"

"What can those little bastards do to me, I'm just an old man?"

"I've had enough of living. If they really want to fight, I'll fight them to the death and take a piece of their flesh!"

"You are still young, this child hasn't grown up yet. You have to live, our country's future depends on you!"

The woman had already stood up when the door was suddenly pushed open. A bald old man wearing a vest entered, who appeared to be one of the other residents of the courtyard. He was carrying a Type 81 rifle of unknown origin. As soon as he entered, he glanced at the little girl lying on the bed and then shifted his gaze to Han Zhong.

Han Zhong had already placed his fingers on the grip of his 191 and stepped forward to block the front. He could see that the gun in the other person's hand was not on safety and he was confident that he could strike first.

At this moment, the woman came out and said in a deep voice, "Brother Liu, are you going to blame me for letting them in?"

The old man surnamed Liu stared at Han Zhong and snorted, "What's the use of blaming him now? Besides, what right do I have to blame you? You just did what we wanted to do but didn't have the guts to do."

"I chickened out before because it was none of my business if people were fighting to the death outside. But now these bastards are bullying me. Am I still going to chicken out at a time like this?"

“We don’t have such a cowardly son in the Liu family! I’m afraid my father won’t recognize me as his son when I’m working in the fields.”

"You go with them. We'll hold these bastards off. Do you think honest people are easy to mess with?"

"I……"

Old Liu interrupted the woman who was about to speak: "You're younger than us. We older folks will do the deadly work. Let's go!"

There was a knock on the window. The group turned around and heard several figures outside urging them, "What are you dawdling for? Hurry up!"

Those were the survivors living in the courtyard, all with gray hair. Some were holding guns, some were holding knives, and some had just found a handy wooden stick from somewhere and were waiting there.

Han Zhong stared blankly at everything before him until the old man punched him: "You little rascal, you're a good man. Go out and find the organization, come back and wipe out these bastards. It won't be in vain that we took you in." Time was of the essence, and there was no room for hesitation. Xiao Yun was light and agile, and Han Zhong snapped out of his daze and scooped her up in one swift motion.

They're right. This isn't the time to be reckless and risk everyone's lives here. We must survive, and someone must get out.

As I stepped out of the room, before I could even head towards the back door, I suddenly heard a burst of gunfire from the front door.

The group felt a chill, thinking that the bandits outside had lost patience, but they soon realized that it seemed that someone was fighting outside the door.

"what happened?"

"Go out and see!"

Han Zhong then handed Xiao Yun, whom he was holding, to the woman. Although the woman was thin and haggard, her hands were exceptionally strong, and she held the little girl firmly in her arms.

A group of people rushed toward the iron gate, and the gunfire outside grew more intense, with screams and curses constantly echoing through the air.

Just as Old Liu was about to move the wooden block blocking the door, Han Zhong stopped him.

"No, that's too dangerous. Uncle Liu, come and lend a hand. I'll go up the wall and check the situation."

"it is good."

The old man nodded and beckoned to another old man among them who was still quite healthy. Both of them braced themselves against the courtyard wall and stood firm. Han Zhong hesitated for only a moment before lifting himself up onto their shoulders.

Han Zhong peeked out for a moment before immediately pulling his head back. Just as expected, outside the wall, someone was fighting with the bandits. The people who were fighting were quite far away, and he couldn't see what was happening. Meanwhile, the bandits gathered at the door had already left behind several corpses and were hiding behind several cars, exchanging fire with the people in the distance.

"Uncle, hang in there a little longer!"

"It's okay, I can manage!"

The two men carrying him shouted something, and Han Zhong took a light breath as he cocked his rifle with a click.

He silently reviewed the positions of the people he had just seen, then suddenly stood up, emptied his magazine at those positions, and without caring whether he hit them or not, immediately pulled back down and jumped back to the ground.

He was only a low-level superhuman and not immune to bullets. He dared not forget the necessary caution, but he was quite confident about those few shots. With his control and reaction speed, he was sure that the shots would not be too far off.

As he had expected, a series of screams rang out outside, and the firing suddenly subsided. He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the surprise attack had been successful.

A moment later, the gunfire stopped, and someone knocked on the courtyard gate.

Han Zhong and the others exchanged glances, not daring to open the door immediately, but instead asked loudly, "Who are you people?"

"We're just ordinary people. Someone from our group was injured, and we were wondering if there's a place here where we can rest."

Han Zhong had no say in the matter, so he could only look at Old Liu and the others. They looked at each other, and finally Old Liu gritted his teeth and said, "Open it! Why can't we open it!"

After moving the wooden bar blocking the door and pulling open the warped iron door, several young men appeared before them. Surprisingly, their equipment was quite good; they not only had well-maintained new rifles, but each also carried a long knife, bulletproof vest, and some even had crossbows.

Their clothes were all different, which didn't seem like an official organization.

"Who's hurt?"

Han Zhong glanced around but didn't notice any injured people. He instinctively pressed his hand against his gun. A young leader smiled and said, "Hey, don't be nervous. One of our teammates is indeed injured, but it's not serious."

The man had a fair complexion and a friendly demeanor, which made Han Zhong subconsciously lower his guard. As he spoke, he shifted his feet, revealing a somewhat chubby teammate behind him.

Upon being pointed at, Han Zhong noticed an inconspicuous small hole in the man's bulletproof vest. The man's complexion was also not good, and he was covered in sweat, which was probably not all due to heat.

"I got hit." The man said with a wry smile, gasping for breath as he spoke.

Indeed, even if the bullet is stopped by the bulletproof vest, it can't be said that there is no harm at all. If you're unlucky, you could be injured by the shock. The people in the yard quickly moved away.

"Come in quickly, there might be more zombies coming from outside soon."

"Do you need any help? We have some medicine here!"

The leader smiled and said, "No need. We have a doctor in our team and our own medicine. I see this man has a lot of blood on him. Is he injured?"

Upon hearing the word "doctor," Han Zhong immediately became agitated: "I'm not injured, it wasn't me, it was...it was my sister who was injured. Could you please take a look?"

"Of course." The man turned to a beautiful, gentle-looking girl with long hair in the group and called out, "Sister Xiaoyue, please help me."

The woman nodded and took a few steps forward. Han Zhong quickly led her into the courtyard, and the others followed behind.

"Hey, Sister Xiaoyue, what about me? When can I see you?"

"You? Just bear with it for now. At worst, you'll just break a rib."

These words made their teammates laugh. Han Zhong didn't know why they were laughing, but he felt very guilty. However, thinking of Xiao Yun's injury, he still didn't say he would refuse.

After the gunfire subsided, the old woman who had opened the door for Han Zhong put Xiao Yun back on the bed. The long-haired girl glanced at her briefly and then told everyone else to leave the room so she could re-bandage the girl.

Han Zhong had no choice but to follow the group outside the courtyard. Several old men told the fat man to go to another room to recuperate, leaving only him and the remaining young men outside the door.

He looked nervous, and the leader reassured him, "Don't worry, she'll be fine."

Han Zhong nodded. It wasn't realistic to say that he could completely relax, but in reality, it was alright. He had personally treated the girl's wounds and knew what the situation was. In addition, she was a superhuman, so as long as she received proper treatment and recuperation, there wouldn't be any major problems.

So the group started chatting in the courtyard, and Han Zhong soon learned that the young man leading the group was named Pei Che, and that their team was full of extraordinary individuals.

No wonder they were able to overpower those bandits.

"...Survivors' Mutual Aid Association?"

“Yes, we want to create such an organization, but right now it's just a few of us.” Pei Che smiled. “Our mission is to help those in need during the apocalypse. Even if we can't do much, we'll still contribute our share.”

"What's that saying again? 'Give off whatever heat you have, give off whatever light you have, don't wait for a torch. If there is no torch after this, I will be the only light.'"

At this point, he smiled somewhat embarrassedly: "That's a bit of an exaggeration, hahaha. Of course, there are still torches in this world. Take, for example, the person who wrote the survival manual. It's just that we yearn for freedom and ease."

"Compared to this, we're just fireflies," the young man chuckled, adding to his teammates, "Don't you think calling us the Firefly Mutual Aid Association would be a good idea?"

The other young people didn't care about the matter at all, and just laughed and let him decide.

Han Zhong did not comment on the young man's self-deprecating words, but his previous sentence made him nod in agreement. Wasn't that Commander-in-Chief Su the torch guiding them forward?
The two found common ground and chatted more and more congenially. Pei Che invited, "Brother Han, you seem to be a superhuman as well. Would you like to join us?"

Han Zhong paused for a moment, looking at the confidence and carefree attitude on the faces of these young people. For a brief moment, Han Zhong really had an impulse to walk among them.

But remembering his purpose in coming all this way, he finally replied, "I...I have more important things to do."

He was unwilling to explain his purpose in much detail, but Pei Che didn't seem to care, as if these people didn't force outsiders to join.

"You're going to Xinfu to find officials?" Pei Che pondered for a moment, then exchanged glances with his teammates before solemnly saying, "I support you. You must have your own convictions and be doing what you believe is more worthwhile."

"In that case, once your sister's injuries have been treated, our team can escort you to Xinfu City."

Han Zhong was stunned for a moment, then deeply moved: "Thank you so much, I..."

Pei Che smiled and shook his head: "No need to say too much, this is why we've gathered here. By the way, we'll only take you to the city center. We don't want to have any contact with those government officials for the time being."

"This...why?"

Pei Che laughed loudly: "No reason, I'm afraid of being recruited, hahaha. We're used to being carefree and just want to do what we want to do."

Han Zhong nodded knowingly. Although rationally speaking, joining the official ranks might allow him to play a greater role, then again, as long as he could contribute, what difference did it make where he was? Under this premise, following his own heart was enough.

Looking at these young people, who seemed to be around the same age as college students, full of fighting spirit and expectations for the future, firmly pursuing what they believed to be the right path, such spirit was almost out of place in this dark and oppressive era. For a moment, Han Zhong truly felt that he was illuminated by the light emanating from them.

Just as he had thought, there are all kinds of people these days.

There are people like Boss Zhao, people who have become bandits, people who open the iron gate to lend a helping hand to strangers, and people who have been honest all their lives but dare to pick up a wooden stick and fight bandits to the death.

There are also people like Pei Che who are trying to illuminate this world that has fallen into a long night.

People like them are probably active elsewhere as well.

(End of this chapter)