Chapter 296: Three Not to Kill

"Good person brother, heh heh, I... I'm injured, quite badly. I don't know if I can be saved, but I'd like a drink of water right now. Do you have any?"

Pan Guoliang was overly familiar, reaching out his hand to ask Zhang Su, who was standing by the hatch, for water, still wearing that optimistic smile.

Zhang Su waved to the people around him and said, "Give me a bottle of water."

"Catch, Brother Su."

Wu Lue hurriedly took a thermos from his bag and threw it over.

Zhang Su caught the thermos, squatted down, and lowered it, dropping it right beside Pan Guoliang.

"Ah, water is good stuff, but if there were some liquor, that would be even better!"

Muttering, Pan Guoliang unscrewed the thermos with some difficulty and gulped down a few mouthfuls.

Taking this opportunity, Zhang Su saw Pan Guoliang's general condition: there was a large tear in his clothes at the ribs, and that area had likely been cut open. As for exactly how bad the injury was, he would have to take off his clothes to know.

Zhang Su waited for him to finish drinking and said, "I heard from Xin Qi that Squad 1 and Squad 2 are combat elites. Comrade Elite, it seems you're a tank gunner?"

Pan Guoliang tremblingly took a cigarette case out of his pocket, opened it, and saw only a lighter left...

"Heh heh, I said this business of collecting protection fees wouldn't last long, but they wouldn't listen! Anyway, it's too late to say all that now. Even if there were three more squads in the barracks, the end result would be the same—everyone dies."

"Do you know the whereabouts of Ma Juguang and Yao Xiaobin?"

The Type 99 tank had a three-person division of labor: a commander responsible for the whole vehicle's command and communication, who also assisted the gunner in observing targets and operating the machine gun; a gunner responsible for aiming and firing the main gun and machine gun, as well as a very important task, loading shells; and a driver, who, as the name suggests, drove the tank.

"Gunner my ass, I'm just a deserter! Damn it, those crazy people cooked up a perverted monster that went on a killing spree. I was in the front fighting zombies for my life when a piece of color-coated steel tile flew at me like a throwing knife. Luckily I dodged, otherwise I would have been cut in half. I fought my way into the tank, which saved half my dog's life!"

"I don't think I'm going to make it. Good person brother, give me a cigarette, how about you see me off?"

Pan Guoliang smiled nonchalantly. Things had reached this point, and there was nothing left for him to worry about. He looked up and said, "The one who decided to collect protection fees wasn't me. Every debt has its debtor; good person brother, you need to find Ma Juguang and Yao Xiaobin. There's no grudge between us. See me off, and I'll bless you as a ghost, how about that?"

Zhang Su admired Pan Guoliang's optimistic attitude.

Pan Guoliang moved his body with difficulty and said, "Since you guys were able to come over, Old Sun, Old Hou, and 'Shark-Arm' Liu's three squads must have been wiped out by you, right?"

Zhang Su spread his hands, feeling it was quite dramatic.

When he got to the end, Pan Guoliang smiled bitterly and made a joke.

"Ha, you don't even know who I am, yet you ask me for water and cigarettes, and we've chatted so much?"

Pan Guoliang asked without any emotional fluctuation. Collecting grain wasn't the elite squad's job, so he didn't feel much involvement.

Zhang Su had only ever heard "I won't let you go even as a ghost," but this was the first time he'd heard someone say they'd bless him as a ghost. The people around them secretly found it funny.

"Cough, cough..." Pan Guoliang coughed twice with some effort, leaned against the cold console, and laughed: "Didn't Xin Qi say it? You're a good person, so I call you good person brother. As for your real identity... to a dying man, it doesn't matter who you are. Anyway, I don't have any relatives left, so there's no such thing as a long-lost brother, haha."

"Ha, so good person brother is here for revenge?"

"'Shark-Arm' Liu..." Zhang Su knew the other party was talking about Squad 6 Captain Liu Lei. It was quite fitting; that guy looked like a shark-arm (idiot) no matter how you looked at him, so he nodded: "That's right."

"We did have that idea before, but before we could act, you guys were surrounded by the horde."

"I came from Lishan, the very Lishan where your Green Dragon Corps sent three squads to collect grain."

Zhang Su identified himself.

Pan Guoliang tried hard to look up at Zhang Su and raised his hand in a 'V' sign, meaning: give me one.

Zhang Su frowned and pressed for an answer. These two were the Corps Commander and Deputy Commander; it was very possible they weren't dead.

However, Pan Guoliang's answer was somewhat unexpected.

"Of course I know. As long as good person brother sends me on my way, I'll definitely find those two guys' souls in the underworld, and I'll help you beat them up then, how about that?"

"Dead? Are you sure?"

Zhang Su was very surprised. Currently, it showed that eight members of the Green Dragon Corps were still alive. This guy was one, leaving seven others. The two most powerful people were actually not among them.

"What's there to be unsure about? 004 was released from the lab, and before it could even identify the direction of the pheromones, it just casually sliced those two up. Their intestines were longer than hand-pulled noodles. Oh, I'm starving; if only I could have a bowl of hot hand-pulled noodles."

Pan Guoliang's erratic thinking made Zhang Su gasp.

"Do you know if there are any other survivors here?" Zhang Su tossed a cigarette into Pan Guoliang's lap.

"Heh, thanks!" Pan Guoliang lit the cigarette first, took a puff, and the light smoke drifted inside the tank. He continued.

"There might still be people in the lab under the command post. There's also an underground storage room near the weapons warehouse. Other than that, check the other tank. Those are the only places people could hide!"

Zhang Su turned his head toward the command post. There was a lab hidden under the ruined building. Regardless of whether there were people or not, he had to check the situation.

"Hey, Comrade Elite, what's the situation with your injury?"

"If the medical squad people were all alive, lying there for a month or so, I definitely wouldn't die. But as it stands now, I'm in a pretty tough spot."

Pan Guoliang held the cigarette in his mouth and slowly lifted his clothes. A three-inch-long gash lay on his ribs. Emergency treatment and staying in a special position meant there wasn't massive bleeding, but waiting for it to heal on its own was pure nonsense. It was only because the weather was cold; if it were the height of summer, it would probably have festered and rotted already.

If no one had found Pan Guoliang, he could have survived in the tank for at most two more days. He could freeze to death, die of thirst, die of hunger, or die of blood loss—there were many ways to die, all for him to choose.

"I can save you, but it depends on whether you're worth saving."

Zhang Su glanced at the people from Dachiabao Township who were busy, squatted down, lit a cigarette himself, and said slowly.

"I'm worth it! I have a full set of skills, proficient in the use of various weapons. If it weren't for the fact that I couldn't be bothered to suck up to those people above, I wouldn't just be a deputy captain. Good person brother, listen to me, save me, and you'll never regret it!"

Pan Guoliang seemed to see the dawn of hope and immediately began to brag. He could face life and death calmly, but if there was a chance to live, he certainly didn't want to die!

It was just a pity that his forceful performance seemed somewhat unreliable to Zhang Su.

"Cough..." Zhang Su had never seen someone who was about to die be so glib. He patted the tank's thick steel plate and said, "Then can you use this thing?"

"I can! Squad 1 and Squad 2 have all trained. How could I not? Commander, gunner, or driver, I've been them all!"

Pan Guoliang was very excited, but due to his wound, he didn't dare to move around.

"The first shot that went wide that night, that was you, that half-baked amateur, right?" Zhang Su asked.

"Ah?" Pan Guoliang was stunned. A thoughtful look appeared on his dirty face, then he shook his head with a strange expression: "I wasn't even in the tank the night before last. Good person brother, to be honest, I missed my only chance at real combat. It's a damn shame!"

"I'll believe for now that you have good ability, but there's one thing you must understand: I save you, and you have to work for me in the future. Loyalty is the most important thing. If you dare to cause trouble in my camp, I won't give you a chance to regret it."

Zhang Su said in a flat tone. The ability of an elite squad deputy captain was beyond doubt; even if not top-tier, he was still very useful, but the premise was loyalty to him.

"Good person brother, I'll be content if I can just live. Where I stay doesn't matter, who I work for doesn't matter. Still the same thing I said before: only a portion of the Green Dragon Corps advocated collecting protection fees. Many brothers didn't approve, they just couldn't be bothered to argue. Don't look at us all as people who collude with evil... Anyway, as the old saying goes, don't save someone you doubt, don't doubt someone you save. You decide!"

After Pan Guoliang finished speaking, he took the last puff of the cigarette butt and then snuffed it out on the console, smacking his lips as if it were the last cigarette of his life.

"Well said: don't save someone you doubt, don't doubt someone you save! My name is Zhang Su. Saving you isn't hard, but after I save you, you must work for me honestly and not have any ulterior motives. Do you hear me?"

Zhang Su looked down at Pan Guoliang in the tank and asked seriously.

The sudden solemn atmosphere made Pan Guoliang know this question was unusual. He also put away his dissolute, joking attitude, nodded, and said: "Brother Zhang, no problem following you, but I have principles. There are three types of people I don't kill!"

"Oh? Then tell me!"

Zhang Su looked at Pan Guoliang curiously. The other party also knew that in the apocalypse, killing was inevitable. Since he was at the point of life and death and still willing to put his words out there first, that was not bad.

"One, I don't kill infants under three years old, because such small children have no memory and can be cultivated to continue human civilization. Two, I don't kill those without the ability to act; I can let them fend for themselves, but I don't want them to die by my hand. Finally, the third is that I don't kill those who have shown me kindness."

Pan Guoliang counted on his fingers seriously.

Everyone had their own principles. Zhang Su felt that only the second point was slightly inappropriate, but it didn't matter; if they had no ability to act, it was the same whoever did it.

Combining it with the third point, the corner of his mouth curled up, and he said playfully: "So, if I save you, does that count as me being someone who has shown you kindness?"

"Of course it counts. Kindness equal to rebirth, you're like a second parent... cough, cough, cough."

Pan Guoliang started coughing violently when he got excited. It took a while for him to catch his breath. When he lifted the palm he had been pressing on his wound, he saw it was soaked with quite a bit of fresh blood.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 297 =====