Chapter 153

"Old Tan, Lanlan, come quickly, let's scavenge for supplies together!"

After suffering such a huge blow, Zhang Su didn't let Tan Huajun and Mo Qianlan grieve alone; he called them to join in the labor, which could help resolve their grief faster.

There wasn't much food or drink in the five-story furniture mall, but there were still many useful things. With the arrival of the apocalypse, many industrial products that were previously unremarkable would appear exceptionally precious, such as tools and weapons. The fire axes and fire extinguishers equipped on every floor had to be taken.

Even the fire hoses weren't spared; sturdy water hoses were excellent for tripping zombies.

There were many things they wanted to take, but due to transport capacity, everyone could only choose to take the high-priority items.

Past seven o'clock, the sky brightened, and everyone loaded things onto the vehicles bit by bit. Zhang Su stood on the RV, looking left and right, wanting to test the specific improvement of his vision. Unfortunately, without any instruments, just like his hearing, there was no way to make a specific quantification.

Finally, he reached a rough conclusion: apart from night vision, his eyes could zoom in by ninety percent of the distance. Seeing about a hundred meters away was equivalent to ten meters in front of him, and things a kilometer away were similar to seeing them from a hundred meters away normally.

Most importantly, Zhang Su discovered a wonderful use: it could be superimposed with binoculars, greatly increasing the field of view.

It didn't reach the exaggeration of "thousand-mile eyes," but if the terrain was open enough, ten kilometers wasn't a big problem. In reality, it was hard to have an open view of ten kilometers, so it was completely sufficient!

After a bout of practice, Zhang Su went from initially feeling dizzy every time he adjusted the focus to now slowly adapting to his enhanced eyes.

"Brother Su, we're done. What do you say, eat before we go, or set off now?"

Lu Yubo didn't know where he found a nuclear-carved bracelet in a shop, playing with it in his hand. Paired with the bloodstains on his clothes, it looked so discordant.

"Eat first, then set off after eating!"

Zhang Su withdrew his gaze, calculating the plan for later in his mind.

With the growth in the number of team members, the speed of food consumption was also slowly increasing. Fortunately, they had replenished a wave from Shuwa Village, so it was currently still very abundant.

Rice, flour, grain, oil, and various seasonings were all ready. Coupled with the cooking equipment on the RV, even making a bowl of dough-drop soup made people eat with relish in this late autumn and early winter season.

After everyone had eaten, the convoy set off again, slowly driving toward the eastern end of Wenhua Road. From the furniture mall, it was a large straight road of just over two kilometers.

"The road is very quiet..."

Zhang Su drove forward. There were almost no zombies on the road, and not even many vehicles, which made him feel quite surprised.

"The streets here are just like this, there's never been much popularity. The house I bought is just past that street, Xicheng Huayu... I only knew there was an important unit here before, so there were no other large-scale plans. I didn't expect it was actually because there were troops stationed here."

Zhong Xiaoshan's voice came from behind.

"You bought a house so far out?"

Zhang Su quickly turned his head to glance at Zhong Xiaoshan. He really didn't know where Zhong Xiaoshan lived before; this was the first time he heard her say it.

Zhong Xiaoshan smiled at Zhang Su in the rearview mirror and said: "No money, right? And I wanted to live in a big house. The houses here have large areas, and it was quite cheap when I bought it, only three thousand-something per square meter. Plus, I like quietness myself, so I bought it."

"Three thousand-something... that's really cheap."

Zhao Dezhu expressed his emotion. Before the disaster broke out, he had also been paying attention to housing prices; it was either eight thousand or ten thousand, which gave him a headache.

"Then why didn't you say to go back to the residential area entrance and take a look around just now?"

Zhang Su asked.

"Not going, it must be littered with corpses, it's sad to look at..." Zhong Xiaoshan shook her head, but she still couldn't help but look in the direction of the residential area, mocking herself: "Twenty-five-year mortgage, just paid off five years."

"Then you're much better off than me. I paid in full, and it burned just like that."

Zhang Su shook his head speechlessly. Then his gaze froze as he looked into the distance, his smile gradually disappeared, and he slowly stopped the vehicle on the side of the road.

"What's wrong?"

Zheng Xinyu, who was tuning the radio frequency, asked somewhat puzzled. There was no village in front or shop behind in this vicinity, and there weren't even many shops on both sides of the street. She didn't know why Zhang Su stopped the vehicle here.

"Can't go any further!"

To see more clearly, and also to provide cover, Zhang Su picked up the binoculars to his side and looked ahead.

Others couldn't see clearly, but he could clearly see the horrifying scene seven or eight hundred meters away. Zombies were densely packed, entrenched on the highway, stretching to the end of his line of sight—at least three to five thousand of them!

Even after more than half a month of wind and rain, one could still see that some of the zombies were wearing camouflage uniforms!

Through the gaps occasionally revealed by the zombie crowd, one could see the shadows of armored vehicles, artillery vehicles, and other combat vehicles lying on the street, as well as a destroyed tank...

The trees on both sides were left with only lonely stumps, their crowns long gone. One couldn't help but wonder what they had encountered before.

There were also quite a few corpses on the ground. Basically, for every wandering zombie, there was a pile of corpses on the ground. After being washed by the waterlogging, many corpses were piled together, and the scene was quite shocking.

Even though they were a kilometer away, Zhang Su felt as if he could smell the soaring stench of rot. The hellish scene made his heart heavy.

It was hard to imagine what kind of earth-shattering war had taken place here days ago—a war between species.

"Big brother, what's the problem?"

Zhao Dezhu walked from the back to the driver's cabin and asked while looking ahead.

Zhang Su handed him the binoculars and said: "See for yourself."

"See for myself?" Zhao Dezhu took the binoculars, put them to his eyes, and adjusted the focus. The expression on his face suddenly froze.

"This... I... they... how could it be like this!"

The scene in the binoculars left him wide-eyed, not knowing what to say.

Whenever he felt he had seen the most tragic scene, there would always be a new height to refresh his cognition.

"What should we do, big brother, are we still going?"

Zhao Dezhu put down the binoculars and asked with a frown.

"Go my ass, how are we going to go? Didn't you see the tank was blown up?"

"That's true, how could the tank not have charged out..."

Zhao Dezhu scratched his head.

"You think the tank is invincible? The ammunition storage capacity of active-duty tanks is much worse than in World War II. And this is a camp, not the front line. It's questionable whether there was even reserve ammunition on the tank. Besides, to fight in a tank, at least three people need to coordinate!"

"But this doesn't explain how the tank was blown up..."

"There is one possibility..." Yu Wen participated in the debate and said: "In the urgency and chaos, perhaps there was friendly fire."

Everyone looked at each other.

"Damn, that's really possible. Zombies aren't like people; they don't fear death when they attack. I think it's even more terrifying than a real war. In a panic, the possibility of friendly fire is very high."

"Alright, let's consider practical problems first."

Zhang Su lit a cigarette somewhat irritably.

He could imagine that all survivor teams definitely wanted to get their hands on thermal weapons. They currently had three small pistols. If they really encountered a team that had swept a military camp or a special police armory, they would definitely suffer a huge loss!

Just as he was thinking, Lu Yubo jumped onto the tire and asked: "Brother Su, what's wrong?"

"Turning around and leaving. There are thousands of zombies ahead, can't get through!"

Zhang Su opened the window and handed a cigarette to Lu Yubo.

"Thousands of zombies? Holy crap, it seems there really is a situation. Are those densely packed things all zombies?"

Lu Yubo didn't need binoculars; he could vaguely see a large black shadow with his naked eye.

"Brother Su, how about we find a way to take a detour and go through the other side?"

"Or how about we split up and lure the blocking zombies away, is that possible?"

Zheng Xinyu proposed another opinion.

Zhang Su glanced at the road conditions around him and shook his head: "Too many. And we don't know what the situation is inside the military camp. What if it's the same as outside? Let's go, according to the original plan, find a bridge to cross the river and head north!"

The method of using sound to attract zombies had great limitations. Coupled with the fact that the situation nearby was unclear and full of uncertain dangers, no one knew what was behind the next turn. If they were surrounded from both ends, even a god couldn't save them!

Unless they had a god-tier tool like a drone, but unfortunately, they didn't have one on hand.

Learning that they couldn't enter the military camp, everyone was a bit depressed. After witnessing the evil of human nature, everyone hoped to get guns as soon as possible. Even if they didn't know how to use them, as long as they had them, they could learn slowly.

The three vehicles turned around and returned the way they came, heading west along Wenhua Road. As they walked, Zhang Su caught a glimpse of two sensitive words in his peripheral vision: Communication!

"Turn, turn!"

Zhang Su picked up the walkie-talkie to notify them, turned the steering wheel, and turned toward the street with the communication equipment.

"Oh my..." Zheng Xinyu saw that some shops on the street were empty, and without guessing, she knew that this place had been swept more than once. She said with an exaggerated expression: "Brother Su, what are we doing here?"

Zhang Su nudged his chin forward and said: "I suddenly remembered there's a shop here that sells communication equipment. When we installed surveillance equipment in the convenience store before, we found them."

He fabricated a reason to brush it off, and the vehicle drove to the front of the communication equipment shop.

"Brother Su, this street is quite clean, I can't even see the shadow of a zombie!"

Getting off the vehicle, Lu Yubo looked around vigilantly, very surprised.

Zhang Su nodded and said: "There were few residents here to begin with. Apart from a few restaurants, the things sold in other shops are quite niche, so it's normal that there aren't many people. Plus, having been swept several times, even if there were zombies, they would have been dealt with by the survivors who came before."

"Xiao Liu, Xiao Chen, Pei Lan, Old Tan, and Lanlan, you five keep watch outside. Zhuzi, Xinyu, Xiaoshan, Master Jia, come with me to the communication equipment shop to rummage around. Others go to the surrounding shops to see if there's anything else that can be used."

Upon the order, everyone became busy.

The shops on this street had been swept several times, but the people who came before didn't seem to have much interest in communication equipment. The glass doors of the shop were smashed, but there was still plenty left inside!

Zhang Su and his party found many professional devices in the communication equipment shop, such as gateways, routers, network adapters, and network transceivers, but these weren't the key. The most useful were the thirty-plus walkie-talkies of different models!

"Haha, this is awesome, we can have one for everyone now!"

Zhao Dezhu looked very excitedly at the brand-new, unopened walkie-talkies in front of him.

"Stop, speak from right there, don't come any closer!"

However, just at this moment, Tan Huajun's voice rang out on the street.

"Someone?"

Everyone in the shop was startled and rushed out of the shop in a flurry, only to see a man standing in the middle of the street with his hands raised.

(End of chapter)