Still hoarding supplies in the apocalypse? I'll just go on a killing spree and looting!

Mu Xue leaned back in the driver's seat, a shotgun resting on her knees, her fingers on the outside of the trigger guard.

She watched the taillights of the armored vehicle driving ahead.

With a flicker of his eye, he pressed a button on the police radio. "Lin You, did you used to bump into things often?"

Lin You's indifferent voice came through the radio, "We'll see. Over."

"What's going on?"

"Those you can crash into, you crash into; those you can't, you crush. OVER."

Mu Xue's lips twitched slightly. Was this considered an answer?

"Where to next?" she asked.

"Base. OVER." Lin You turned the steering wheel, and the armored vehicle left the ring road. The headlights cut through the gray fog, illuminating a road sign on the side of the road.

Z city boundary, mountainous area ahead, please slow down.

"Then what."

"Build it. Hold it. Expand it. Hold it again. Until no one can take it from me. Over."

"That sounds great."

"Chatting over, time to save electricity. OVER."

An An looked at Lin You's bald head from the side, noting the distinct angles of his cheekbones.

The dark green blood on his bald head had dried, forming several small cracks.

Her right hand rested on the steering wheel, her left hand hung at her side, and there was still a small trace of the alien beast's bodily fluids on the back of her hand.

The "OVER" sound just now made the car quiet for two seconds.

Lin You turned her head to look at An An and smiled.

An An smiled back, after all, Lin You's smile reminded An An of her family, a familiar gentleness, like the smile of her grandmother or... mother.

Lin You switched the Type 95 rifle to her other leg and moved the muzzle away from An An.

My gaze fell on the billowing gray fog outside the car window. The armored vehicle's engine roared in silence, and the heat waves spewing from the exhaust pipe swirled the gray fog behind the vehicle into eddies.

"Da da da...!"

A series of gunshots rang out from somewhere, but they could only be faintly heard from a distance.

Lin You frowned, slowed down, turned off the headlights, and looked around.

She tried to see the light from the gun barrel firing through the thick, murky fog, but she saw nothing, only heard the gunshot.

Mu Xue's voice came through the walkie-talkie, "What happened? Why have you slowed down?"

"Gunshots, OVER."

"Gunshots? Should we go check it out?"

"Location unknown, remain alert, OVER"

Less than two minutes after the car started moving, the gunshots from the depths of the gray fog grew even louder.

It wasn't sporadic single shots—it was a continuous exchange of fire, with pistols, rifles, and shotguns mixed together, interspersed with a few hissing sounds and short screams.

Lin You slowed down, and the armored vehicle slid to the side of the road and turned off.

The armored vehicle came to a stop.

"What's wrong?" Mu Xue quickly turned on the walkie-talkie and asked.

Her finger was already on the trigger guard, looking around haphazardly, trying to find something in the impenetrable gray fog.

But the surrounding fog was so dense that all that could be seen was the surging of the car headlights like waves.

"There are people ahead. Over."

Lin You's voice came through the radio, and then Mu Xue saw Lin You push open the car door and jump out.

Mu Xue hesitated for a moment, then quickly got out of the car.

The soles of the boots made a soft, grinding sound as they stepped on the gravel road.

Mu Xue walked to the edge of the roadbed, looked at Lin You who was squatting down, and took out a monocular telescope from her waist pocket.

It also has cartoon patterns printed on it, so it seems to be a child's toy.

The fog was so thick that the telescope could only see a blurry outline.

A police command vehicle overturned, with the blue and white logo of "Z City Public Security Bureau" printed on its body.

Next to what looked like a motorhome were two overturned police cars with shattered windows and scratches all over their roofs.

A dozen or so people in police and armed police uniforms formed a defensive circle and fired in all directions with pistols and rifles.

Strange beasts kept emerging from the gray fog, but they weren't the large kind.

It is a small, four-legged beast, only 1.2 or 1.3 meters tall, but it is fast and numerous. Every time it pounces, one of them crashes into the edge of the defensive perimeter.

They grabbed a person and dragged them back into the fog.

There were already four or five corpses lying on the ground.

"Police?" Lin You asked, frowning.

Mu Xue stood beside her, holding a shotgun, her gaze sweeping across the chaotic battlefield ahead.

"Alive or dead?" Mu Xue asked knowingly.

Lin You didn't answer; she recognized the car—it was a command vehicle.

In my previous life, this car appeared in the ruins of the north of the city during the first month of the apocalypse, and I heard from others that they were doing rescue work.

Yes, rescue in the apocalypse.

An official surnamed Song established a settlement nearby.

There was food, lodging, and police protecting all the civilians.

No one knows where their base is.

It seemed that everything was only circulating among the survivors, and Lin You thought it was the survivors' hope or even a wishful thinking for a better life.

Lin You wanted to find them, and in the second month, she found them, only to find that everyone in the car was dead.

He died from being shot.

He's still alive, his car hasn't been overturned, and the people inside aren't all dead.

Looking at the armed police force and a large number of police officers, Lin You seemed to guess something.

Who in Z City could command so many police officers and even the armed forces to be mobilized?

Of course there are, including major shootings.

It's probably only this case that could mobilize such a team from the entire city of Z.

Mu Xue looked at Lin You's expression. "You know them."

This is not a question, but an affirmative statement.

"They are the people who are hunting me," Lin You said.

"Chasing you?" Mu Xue was taken aback at first, but then, thinking about Lin You's actions, she seemed to have found the answer.

Mu Xue was silent for two seconds. She switched the shotgun to her other hand. "So what do you plan to do? Drive over there, or turn around and take a detour?"

Lin You did not answer immediately.

She looked at the tall man in the defensive perimeter who was firing a pistol. He was Team Leader Song, in his early thirties, with his hair shaved very short.

The beast had scratched his left cheek, and blood was flowing down his neck and into his collar, but he did not back down.

He stood on the outermost edge of the defensive perimeter.

He fired the last bullet from the pistol, then changed the magazine, his movements clean and efficient.

He wasn't aiming his gun at the beast's head, but at its legs—breaking the legs would slow the beast down, and then he'd aim for its spine.

This is the most effective fighting method in the apocalypse.

He couldn't possibly know this technique, but he figured it out on his own.

This person is very adaptable.

"The detour is too far." Lin You stood up, put the binoculars back on her waist, "We don't have enough gas."

Mu Xue looked at Lin You strangely, then at the two cars parked by the roadside. She didn't know where Lin You had gone.

But the fuel level in the tank has only dropped a little bit, so it shouldn't be insufficient.

"You must save them."

"I need to save that command vehicle." Lin You walked back to the armored vehicle and started the engine.

The roar of the diesel engine resumed, and she shifted into drive.

"The vehicle is equipped with communication devices. Once the base is established, a system will be needed to contact the outside world. The radios on the police command vehicles have sufficient power to cover the entire area."

She seemed to be convincing herself, paused, and glanced at Mu Xue. "Besides, that leader owes me a life. It'll be useful after the apocalypse."

It seems that Lin You thinks this statement is correct.

She wanted to build an impregnable base, and the first thing she needed was a population.

So how can we quickly gather a large population?

Thinking back to Lin You a month after the apocalypse, I knew how to quickly gather a population.

That is trust and hope.

The armored vehicle accelerated, its headlights came back on, and two beams of white light cleaved through the gray fog, heading directly toward the outer edge of the battlefield.

The defenses are crumbling.

The youngest armed policeman was a boy in his early twenties. His training uniform sleeve was torn in half, and his hand was bleeding, but his gun was not lowered.

He instinctively pulled the trigger, and bullets whizzed out.

The weapon struck the forelimb of a strange beast, which fell but got up again, its speed undiminished.

"Click-click-click"—the sound of bullets being loaded into the magazine.

The young armed policeman immediately bent down to change his bullets, and did so very quickly.

But the beast was faster, and the young armed policeman smelled a strange, fishy odor.

He looked up and saw those dark green eyes, with no whites, vertical pupils, less than two meters from his face.

A blinding white light shot out from behind, enveloping the entire beast in the center of the beam.

It squinted as it was suddenly blinded by the bright light, and the hook paused in mid-air.

Armored vehicles burst out of the gray fog.

A dark gun barrel protruded from the car window.

A barrage of bullets struck the beast in the front, causing its head to snap back.

Blood splattered all over its body, and the beast, having lost its balance, rolled several times on the ground before it could get up.

The young armed policeman also came to his senses, put on the magazine, and pulled the bolt.

Bullets rained down on the beast that hadn't yet gotten up.

Just a few breaths.

The strange beast was completely reduced to a pile of rotten flesh.

Another vehicle burst out of the darkness, its headlights shining forward and exposing the strange beasts to the light.