Chapter 57: Light the fire!
Zhang Xiao Qiang got Yang Ke’er to guard the vehicle, while he followed He Wen Bin and the rest. They followed closely behind him, watching the tall grass nervously from time to time, obviously fearful.
As they passed a patch of wild grass, they saw an S-Type feasting on a corpse. Seeing the corpse, He Wen Bin and the rest turned green.
One of the Common-Faces took out his sharpened steel beam and handed it to Zhang Xiao Qiang. He weighed it slightly, thinking: “It’s not as comfortable as the Beast Horn Spear.”
They were still a distance away from the S-Type, which was only focused on consuming its meal, and seemed to be oblivious to Zhang Xiao Qiang and the rest.
Zhang Xiao Qiang raised the steel beam spear and threw it towards the S-Type, which soared in the air and pierced the S-Type in its leg, nailing to the ground.
“Great!” He Wen Bin looked at that blow from Zhang Xiao Qiang and exclaimed.
Zhang Xiao Qiang maintained a deadpan face, but he was starting to feel flushed. He had actually aimed for the head, who knew his throw was poor and hit the leg instead. He Wen Bin and the rest didn’t know and actually applauded him for being accurate.
“Aoo~~~~” The S-Type howled and begin struggling violently to stand up.
Zhang Xiao Qiang walked over casually, raising his hand and ‘Peng’, fired a shot at its head.
While holding the gun in his left, he pulled out the steel beam spear with his right hand before throwing it back to Common-Face. He watched him catching it nervously, and carefully observed the rest of their reactions.
He had used his gun to demonstrate his power, letting them know he had a gun as well.
Who would have expected, they were uninterested in the gun at all!! They felt that it had been too normal to use the gun, and even thought that Zhang Xiao Qiang must have wanted to prevent his clothes from being dirty, that was why he used it.
He Wen Bin took the Long Quan blade from Old Frank and handed it to Zhang Xiao Qiang: “Brother Cockroach! Use this! You can try to save bullets as much as possible!”
He was the one who felt heartache at Zhang Xiao Qiang’s expenditure of ammo. Zhang Xiao Qiang was speechless, realizing his play had been for naught. He received the Long Quan blade and immediately discovered it was something special.
This Long Quan blade was not like the usual prop that most old ladies used in their wushu practice. This was heavy, especially heavy!
Right now, Zhang Xiao Qiang’s strength was not like in the past, he had become so much stronger than his past geek self. Especially after drinking the rainwater for the 2nd time, his strength had been increasing daily.
Just now, that steel beam spear had felt too light in his hands, yet this sword felt just right.
“Brother Cockroach, take a look, there are some inscriptions as well!” He Wen Bin pointed to the hilt and piped in.
Zhang Xiao Qiang looked at the flowery patterns on the hilt, with two words: “Jing Wei”.
The entire blade looked extremely normal, other than the patterns near the hilt, the rest was not exceptional.
The blade itself was plain, and it didn’t seem to have been utilized before. The mouth of the sheath looked like an ingot shape, and its color was dark, with some slight copper rust. The hilt was simply made of wood, and when held in his hands, the grooves felt extremely comfortable.
In short, all in all, this blade was not that different from a stainless steel Long Quan blade.
He held this Jing Wei Blade and looked to He Wen Bin with slight confusion. He Wen Bin saw his doubt and hurriedly explain.
This time, when they had come out to scavenge for resources, they had discovered a secret basement in an old house. There were a few antiques and collector items within. It must have been some store of family heirlooms.
Initially, they had thought that the antiques were worthless in the apocalypse now, and couldn’t really bother with them. However, Old Frank was up to his usual tricks and managed to find a secret device, revealing a wood box, which contained this sword within.
This plain-looking sword had actually been kept in the most secretive of places. Old Frank had not let go of it ever since.
Zhang Xiao Qiang looked back towards Old Frank, if he couldn’t bear to, he would return it. After all, he had the Beast Horn Spear, and that was the true treasure.
Old Frank saw Zhang Xiao Qiang actually looking to him for his opinion, and was moved. His expression also became warmer.
“It’s fine, it’s fine! You keep it. I have no use for it.”
Seemed like Old Frank still felt good about being appreciated.
Like this, Zhang Xiao Qiang wielded the blade in his left hand and the .54 in his right. The group proceeded towards the place where their comrades were holed up in.
Seeing the horde in front of him, Zhang Xiao Qiang felt his scalp go numb, “So packed! Not a dozens, not hundreds but a few fucking thousands?!”
Zhang Xiao Qiang twisted to look at He Wen Bin, who like the rest, had horrified expressions.
“How come it’s like this? How come? It wasn’t like that earlier!” Old Frank saw the horde of zombies and his face turned green, his lips pale. His eyes were opened wide in disbelief
It was the first time that Zhang Xiao Qiang encountered a horde of this size. Each time he came across a group on his journey, the largest was about 200 or 300. Even a human crowd of more than 10,000 would look vast, the sight of a few thousand was pretty shocking.
The area they were at was a village near J City, and they were currently at the top of a hill. There were a few old houses at the foot of the hill. Looking at the various trees and rundown condition of the houses, the village looked to be old.
With the small bridge, flowing waters, spring and huge trees, the village looked like something out of another world, except for the slight construction site at one corner.
The district was halfway done, with the tall buildings not roofed up. Countless cranes and supportive scaffolding were all around. 2 silhouettes stood on top of one of the scaffolding, observing the zombies below.
From looking through binoculars, their desperation and dismal expressions could be seen, as there would be one or 2 S-Types clawing at the scaffolding.
The funny thing was that after turning into zombies, the creatures forgot how it was to be human, and they would drop back on the horde during each attempt to climb the scaffolding.
“What do y’all think?” Zhang Xiao Qiang looked towards the rest.
“Why don’t….why don’t we retreat for the time being? Let’s think of a plan?” He Wen Bin began to think of falling back, and the 2 Common-Faces nodded in agreement. Even Old Frank wanted to get away from here, he was just embarrassed to say it out.
Zhang Xiao Qiang glanced at them then surveyed the surroundings again. The 2 people were trapped at the upper level of the half-completed bungalow, while the zombies were below. Not far away, there was a mid-sized truck, and there were many sacks of rice that could be seen.
The distance from the hilltop to the bungalow was only about 100m and the 4 men were already shaking in their boots, not to mention the 2 above the zombies!
“Is that vehicle yours?” Zhang Xiao Qiang pointed to the truck and asked.
He Wen Bin nodded, as the 2 Common-Faces replied: “We drive it usually, we’re familiar with the road!”
“Where’s the nearest gas station?” Zhang Xiao Qiang thought of using inflammable gas.
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The last zombie laid slumped to the floor. Zhang Xiao Qiang admired the Jing Wei blade in his hands, feeling satisfied. Cutting through bone was as easy as slicing tofu. It didn’t look sharp but was, in fact, capable of splitting hairs. Even after slicing through a dozen zombies, it had no sign of wear.
The entire gas station had been cleared of zombies, and there was an oil truck parked by the side. Zhang Xiao Qiang got the rest to search for the keys.
While they were looking for the key, Zhang Xiao Qiang noticed a car repair shop nearby, and there were some old tires lying about. Some of the stacks of old tires were even higher than him.
At last, the key was found on one of the zombie corpses, and Zhang Xiao Qiang directed them to load the old tires onto a truck that was supposed to be repaired. He then used a metal chain to hook the truck to behind the oil truck, as they drove the oil truck towards the location where the other 2 people were still stuck.
A number of old tires rubber tires were stacked on the hilltop. They got the diesel from the cans and tanks and doused the rubber tires. Meanwhile, there was no reaction from the zombies that had squeezed closely together.
“Light it up!” The 2 tires were set on fire, and the moment the diesel doused on the rubber was lit, Zhang Xiao Qiang directed He Wen Bin and the rest to push the tires down the slope.
Only to see 2 rolling balls of flame heading towards the zombie horde and came crashing into them as they burnt. The zombies within the horde tried to escape outwards, while the zombies on the outside squeezed inwards. It was extremely chaotic. From atop the hill, they could hear the agonized wails of the zombies!