Chapter 236: Target Discovered

"Master Xin is different from before; his temper is much better, and he's quite polite to people now."

Tan Hua peered out to watch the tank driven by Zhao Dezhu moving into the distance, remarking with a sigh.

On the road full of potholes, Zhang Su drove the RV with focus. Hearing Tan Hua's words, he smiled and nodded. "Indeed, people always change with their environment. Back at Phoenix International, he was the high-and-mighty leader of the Salvation Society, but now he's just a team leader in the Survivor Alliance. What else can he do but keep his tail tucked? Damn, can that guy Pillar even drive?"

As he spoke, Zhang Su saw the FJ Cruiser ahead swerve violently to avoid a pothole. The rear right wheel lifted high into the air, wobbling twice before slamming back onto the ground—a hair's breadth away from flipping over!

Zhang Su picked up the walkie-talkie, intending to start berating him, but thought better of it and put it down. Zhao Dezhu's driving skills were poor to begin with; distracting him now would only make things worse.

Originally, Tan Hua had been scheduled to drive, but Zhao Dezhu had begged incessantly, claiming his skills had improved and he wouldn't repeat the embarrassing incident of driving onto the green belt. The result, however, was the same as ever.

"Hey, brother, this car is a real pain in the ass to drive, and the road is trash. I'm exhausted; I'm never driving again."

Having passed the potholed section without further incident, the walkie-talkie in the Mercedes RV crackled to life. Zhao Dezhu began complaining, attempting to cover up the embarrassment of nearly flipping the car.

Awoo...

After watching for a moment, Zhang Su returned to the vehicle, took out an improved riot control fork, and said, "Pillar, your driving just now was like shit. Now, I'm punishing you to go lure the zombies. If you bring back two, I won't tell anyone about your screw-up. If you bring back three, I'll let everyone know your driving skills are a pile of mush. If you bring back four, you don't get dinner. Deal?"

Zhang Su picked up the walkie-talkie, responded to Zhao Dezhu with an awkward laugh, and then tossed it aside. He picked up the walkie-talkie specifically for contacting Xidaying Village, but after a moment of thought, he put it back. It was necessary to find a more formal opportunity to talk to him.

Zhao Dezhu was extremely arrogant.

"Yeah, in this world, living well is... hmm?"

Zhang Su observed carefully for over half a minute. Finally, using a comparative method, he discovered a distinct difference among those zombies. If nothing went wrong, those were the petrified-skin zombies generated by the mutation in the quarry!

They had always avoided zombies, rarely charging at them. The two vehicles traveled along the narrow dirt road in the countryside, quickly approaching the zombies wandering on the ridges of the fields.

"I've also spoken with Pang Dakun. The kid is quite sensible; he didn't make a fuss and said he'd put more effort into his training from now on."

"Get to work. Catch one and bring it back so we can study it slowly!"

"I know, Brother Su, I never talk about these things with Lanlan."

"Heh..."

Tan Hua followed up, "I won't tell Lanlan either. By the way, Brother Su, I've noticed Lanlan seems to be getting very close to Little Lu. Are they...?"

After hearing Zhang Su's words, Tan Hua couldn't help but twitch the corner of her mouth. What kind of talk was that? Calling someone a bit fickle while also saying they were good to girls—it was truly contradictory.

Seeing Zhao Dezhu's lecherous expression, Zhang Su tilted his head and said to the two people beside him, "It doesn't look secure at all. Prepare for battle!"

The zombie, attacked for no reason, turned its head. Its scarlet eyes flickered like breathing. Suddenly, a red light flashed in its eyes, and it let out a strange, howling cry.

"Who are you looking down on? Just wait and cry, you two!"

Just then, Zhang Su felt something flash in his peripheral vision and immediately turned to look into the distance on the left side of the road.

"One pack is too little, I want two! And I get to pick the brand."

Tan Hua and Chen Hanzhou didn't speak, just nodded and drew their sidearms.

"Pillar, zombies spotted. Stop the car!"

Hearing this, Chen Hanzhou turned his head with a strange expression. He felt very awkward. Although it was Pei Lan who made the choice not to be with Lu Yubo, he hadn't rejected Pei Lan's confession either, and he always felt a slight rift had formed between him and Lu Yubo because of this.

"They've been lured far enough; they've all run over here!"

Swoosh, slap!

The clod of dirt was thrown. It had to be said, the precision was quite high, hitting the head of the nearest zombie squarely.

Thinking about it, United Village was truly miserable. Facing mutated zombies was bad enough, but they had also been set on fire, nearly being wiped out entirely.

"Eeya, holy shit!"

"Very good, there are petrified-skin zombies. Let's go, find a way over!"

Hearing Tan Hua's words, Zhang Su smiled and said, "I heard it from Bozai. Don't worry, Old Tan. Although Bozai is a bit fickle, he's still very good to girls. His reputation in that regard is decent."

"Ha, you've noticed Pang Dakun likes your daughter too? I've talked to him. There's no way around matters of the heart; it's all about mutual choice."

"Do not tell anyone about what happened with the Survivor Alliance today after we return. I want to observe the reactions of Duan Wuhu and Fu Weijun."

Regarding today's events, he felt Ma Changshou had acted very reasonably. Of course, the primary motivation was for the benefit of Xidaying Village, but he had also considered many other aspects simultaneously, which was truly not easy. If it had been Tian Ma Yu encountering this, he wasn't sure he could have handled it better than Ma Changshou.

Zhao Dezhu patted his chest. He had already aimed at a lone zombie that looked quite like a petrified-skin zombie.

Zhang Su nodded. "No problem, two packs. But if it's more than four, you owe me one pack. That's fair, right?"

The two vehicles slowly stopped on the side of the road. Zhang Su took out his binoculars to look into the distance. This time he wasn't just putting on a show; because the zombies were very far away and scattered in a large area, he needed optical zoom to see clearly whether there were any petrified-skin zombies in that group.

Before Zhao Dezhu could accept the bet, Chen Hanzhou hurriedly raised his hand. "I'm in too. The stakes are the same as Brother Su's!"

After speaking, Zhao Dezhu used his good arm to roll up the sleeve of his other arm and crept toward his targeted goal. He had watched Zheng Xinyu lure zombies more than once and felt he had gained quite a bit of insight.

As the distance closed and the field of view widened, everyone finally discovered that there were hundreds of zombies scattered across the open field. At this distance, everyone except Zhang Su could also see the difference in the zombies.

Chen Hanzhou nodded. Young couples were busy being lovey-dovey; where would they find the time to talk about anything else?

Ordinary zombies had greenish skin, while petrified-skin zombies were gray all over. It wasn't just the color; there were differences in the skin texture, which showed patterns similar to rock. Of course, this difference was meaningless for long-distance observation; ordinary people would at least need to be face-to-face to see it clearly.

Although it was difficult to distinguish petrified-skin zombies from a distance, once close, it was obvious that they were stronger than ordinary zombies. The power contained under their hard skin was more abundant, and with skin as hard as rock, one was stronger than three.

He felt very depressed, but to be safe, he still lured the lone zombie away and dealt with it before starting to look for a new target.

"Damn, looking down on people. What if I only lure one over? And I'll only lure one petrified-skin zombie over. What do you say to that?"

Zhao Dezhu slowly crept closer, only to discover that the lone zombie was not a petrified-skin zombie. It was precisely because it was alone and lacked a comparison that he hadn't noticed.

Being able to deal with zombies neatly with one arm was indeed impressive, but in the eyes of Zhang Su and the others, they couldn't help but break into a cold sweat for him.

"Hehe, bet against me, I'll make sure you lose!"

Thinking happily to himself, he didn't relax his actions in the slightest. Zhao Dezhu carefully crept forward. When he was about thirty meters away from the petrified-skin zombie, he picked up a clod of dirt from the field.

Zhang Su said to the two people behind him, seemingly feeling that the emphasis wasn't strong enough, and added before they could answer, "Old Tan, don't even tell your daughter. Little Chen, same for you, don't tell Pei Lan!"

Soon, Zhao Dezhu finally found a suitable entry point. There were two petrified-skin zombies standing together, but he thought of a clever trick: solve one in advance, and he would win for sure...

Tan Hua and Chen Hanzhou also leaned on the window to look into the distance. Straining their eyes, they could only see black dots in the distance, unable to even tell if they were moving.

"I don't mean anything else, as long as she doesn't hurt Lanlan, I don't care about the rest. I see they both look quite happy, it's just that the kid Dakun is a bit sad."

"Ha! If you really only bring back one petrified-skin zombie, I'll pay out of my own pocket to reward you with a pack of cigarettes!"

Awooooo!

The strange cry seemed to convey some kind of information, attracting the attention of the surrounding zombies!

Zhao Dezhu crouched at the edge of the field, drawing his standard Tian Ma Yu steel bar from his waist. Just as he was fantasizing in his mind about fighting and retreating to face the zombies, he suddenly saw a dozen zombies turn around and charge at him, like a group of refugees rushing toward a roasted whole cow.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 237 =====