Chapter 102

No matter how they had died, those two zombies were dead. And with no other zombies wandering in, Guo Jun and Brother Dong began considering closing the warehouse door.

The two of them went down together.

They crept forward quietly. A zombie suddenly flashed into view outside, and the two hurriedly ducked out of sight.

Once it had passed, they dared to emerge again and continued forward on tiptoe. They put their hands on the door and pushed upward together.

The warehouse door was broad and massive, large enough for a forklift to pass through.

It made a lot of noise when opened or closed.

The two men tried to lift it slowly as they shut it, so it would not scrape against the ground or make too much noise at the hinges.

Just then, a thread of cold air drifted over from the shopping area.

Though it was already late August, the lingering summer heat was still fierce. Yesterday, the outdoor temperature had been 32 degrees Celsius, and the building’s air conditioning was running as if it were still midsummer.

The warehouse had ventilation but no air conditioning, and it was stiflingly hot.

Brother Dong suddenly shivered all over. Then an uncontrollable rush of air surged through his nostrils. “Ah—choo!”

The sneeze was crisp and thunderously loud! It even echoed through the warehouse!

Guo Jun spun around and bolted without hesitation!

To hesitate for even one second would be a betrayal of his own survival!

Brother Dong had closed his eyes to sneeze. When he opened them, a zombie’s face was right in front of him! An old woman, her face covered in wrinkles!

Brother Dong nearly lost his soul. He let out a shriek and fell flat on his backside, then scrambled up and fled for his life in blind panic.

Several zombies had rushed in. Worse yet, the first two were second-generation zombies.

That bastard Guo Jun had already vanished into who knew where. When trouble came, he was absolutely useless as a companion!

At that moment, Brother Dong had completely forgotten that he himself had been the first bastard—stealing the supplies and abandoning his coworker. His mind was filled only with: “Bastard, bastard, bastard! I don’t want to dieeeee!”

But when he turned his head, the zombies were right behind him, almost pressed against his back. Those grayish-green hands were about to claw at his shoulders!

One swipe would leave bloody scratches, and then he would be finished.

In that split second between life and death, what came to Brother Dong’s mind was the moment at the door just now: cold air rushing against him from the front, hot air billowing behind him, the two vastly different currents of air colliding, merging, seeping into one another, winding together.

Why he thought of that, he neither knew nor understood. But something in the part of his mind that had been pricking with pain on and off since yesterday suddenly burst open!

In that instant, he looked back and saw a zombie’s claws closing in on the tip of his nose.

Then he turned forward again. Following his will, he slashed through the air before him. The air split and churned, forming a current that pushed him from behind.

Brother Dong suddenly felt weightless, as if the floor no longer had any friction. His whole body was seized by the sensation of being propelled forward.

The airflow was pushing him.

Brother Dong shot forward with a whoosh!

Another wind-type ability user.

Guo Jun was actually hiding on the bottom shelf of a rack. In such a short amount of time, there had been no way he could have climbed any higher.

He gripped a crowbar in his hand, his knees slightly bent.

The first shelf was only as high as a person’s neck, so he had to crouch a little to fit beneath it. Naturally, his head was pressed against the underside of the shelf above.

Only the upper half of his face showed through the piled-up goods.

He watched Brother Dong flee in a desperate panic, zombies chasing behind him. Then, for no apparent reason, it was as if an engine had suddenly started up in his ass, and he shot away?

Guo Jun: “...??”

Guo Jun stared after him for two seconds, then looked back—only to meet a pair of pitch-black eyes!

A zombie stood in front of the rack, staring at him through the stacked merchandise.

Guo Jun handled it a little better than Brother Dong. He did not scream. Mainly because he was already crouching, with his head pressed against the shelf above. When his body tensed and he instinctively tried to jump up, the upper shelf stopped him.

His natural startled reaction had been interrupted just like that.

And it was a good thing it had!

Without a second thought, Guo Jun jabbed forward with the crowbar, driving it straight into the zombie’s eye socket.

This shallow stab was not enough to kill a zombie. He would have to drive it deeper, straight into the brain, and destroy it.

But at that moment, Guo Jun’s desire to survive was so strong that something seemed to spark in his mind with a pop. An electric current sprang from his palm, flashing like a snake as it crawled along the iron crowbar and entered the zombie’s eye socket, seeking out its brain on its own.

The zombie let out a howl.

Guo Jun had never heard a zombie make such a howl before. It sounded... rather painful?

But the howl clearly drew the attention of the other zombies that had lost Brother Dong while chasing him. They turned back and came this way.

Guo Jun took one look and thought, Fuck, he couldn’t just stupidly stay here and wait to be surrounded by zombies. He hurriedly shoved aside the large bundles of goods in front of him, stepped over the merchandise and the zombie corpse, and crawled out.

When he opened his palm, currents of electricity—sometimes white, sometimes pale blue—darted wildly between his hand and arm like little snakes.

And the iron crowbar could conduct electricity!

He still had no idea what was happening, but in this dangerous moment, he could feel his body brimming with a strange, marvelous energy.

Even so, Guo Jun could not take on several zombies alone. He took off running too, shouting as he ran, “Fuck your ancestors, Dong Guangchao! Get out here and save meeeee!”

Brother Dong was in much the same state of mind as Guo Jun. He had not figured out what was happening yet, but he could feel the power of his ability.

Once he realized the zombies could not catch him at all, he calmed down considerably.

Hearing Guo Jun call for him at the top of his lungs, he grabbed a crowbar as well, forced open the air currents, and ran toward him.

Guo Jun felt a gust of wind whoosh past him. The zombies behind him all tumbled to the floor.

Brother Dong slowed down, turned his head, and shouted, “You kill them—I can’t control it very well yet—”

Unlike Zhou Wang, who had already had time to adapt, adjust, and even improve, Brother Dong’s speed was fast but his control over the airflow was poor. When he had tried to strike while running just now, the airflow had thrown off the crowbar’s aim. He had missed the killing blow, merely knocking the zombies down.

Guo Jun ran several steps to the nearest zombie and drove the crowbar down.

The zombie happened to shift its body, and the crowbar pierced its temple. Blue-white electricity wrapped around its head, and within seconds, its brain was fried.

The zombie died.

Another zombie got up. It looked like a second-generation one.

Having killed two zombies in a row, Guo Jun’s confidence soared. He tightened his grip on the crowbar, ready to face this second-generation zombie.

The second-generation zombie sprang into the air and pounced at Guo Jun. Brother Dong swept over like a gust of wind again, smacking it out of the air with one blow of his crowbar before running off again.

Brother Dong had figured something out: it was easier to control when he kept running without stopping than when he ran, stopped, then ran again. Not only did this save the airflow the initial effort of starting up, it also maintained its strength and made it increasingly smoother to control.

So he would rather run circles around the shelves than stop.

“Kill it! Kill it!” he shouted.

Guo Jun was delighted. He rushed forward and jabbed the crowbar into the zombie’s ear. Electricity crackled and sizzled as it slipped into the ear canal.

Whenever their brains were attacked, these zombies howled. Clearly, they could feel pain.

It died within seconds. This took far less effort and was much more efficient than battering them violently with a crowbar.

The last few zombies were finally dead, and Brother Dong stopped at last. He stood beside Guo Jun, both of them with their hands on their hips, staring at each other in bewilderment.

Brother Dong asked, “What was that?”

Guo Jun raised a hand. Blue-white light flickered constantly, winding around his palm.

“Electricity,” Guo Jun said with absolute certainty.

Then he asked, “What happened to you? Did you turn into the Flash?”

Brother Dong held up his crowbar and made a pushing motion with both hands. “The wind was pushing me from behind!”

With that, the two of them went back to staring at each other.

“What’s going on?”

“How should I know?”

A cacophony of noise came from outside. The two of them jumped, and Brother Dong shot off to investigate.

Guo Jun couldn’t help marveling. That sure was convenient.

Outside, zombies were surging toward the checkout counters in a great wave. Before long, the sounds of fighting rang out.

It turned out to be Jiang Cheng and the others. They had fought their way in.

“She’s here. She really came.”

Even after gaining a superpower and becoming much stronger than before, Guo Jun was still so moved that his vision blurred with tears.

The two of them had superpowers now, but they had no armor.

Seeing that there were quite a few fighters outside, all of them wearing armor, the two men stood just inside the storeroom door with their crowbars in hand, peering out through the half-open doorway.

Brother Dong had been hiding in a courtyard in the rural outskirts. There were few people and few zombies in that area, and by the time the government called on everyone to mobilize, there weren’t many zombies left nearby.

This was the first time Brother Dong had ever witnessed a human battle against zombies on such a large scale.

There were teams of three or four, and some even had five members. Why were several elderly men and women mixed in?

Huh. Those old men and women were pretty capable.

Whoa, they were even working together? And coordinating quite well, too. One person lured the zombie, another defended, and a third attacked. In just a few moves, they harvested a zombie—clean and efficient!

Brother Dong considered himself a man who valued his life and was rather selfish, yet watching this, he couldn’t help feeling his blood heat up.

People really were products of their environment.

Wait. What was that?

Brother Dong quickly nudged Guo Jun. “Look!”

Two U-shaped forks pinned down a zombie. A young man stepped forward, spread both hands, and aimed them at the zombie’s eyes from a distance, as if casting a spell.

Thin white currents of electricity crackled as they tried to pierce the air. But the distance was a little too great, so the man had to stretch his hands farther and farther forward until he finally found the range at which the current could pass through.

It was probably less than fifteen centimeters—certainly no more than twenty. At that distance, the white electricity pierced the air and struck the zombie in the eye sockets. The zombie let out a howl. After screaming for a while, it finally died.

The young man beamed. “I did it!”

Brother Dong and Guo Jun stood there with their mouths hanging open.

What they had seen was completely unexpected.

First of all, Guo Jun wasn’t the only person with this kind of ability. There might even be quite a few others.

Then Brother Dong nudged Guo Jun with his elbow and asked, “Why’s he doing it like that? Why doesn’t he do it the way you do?”

He used the crowbar in his hand to imitate Guo Jun, making repeated jabbing motions.

Guo Jun couldn’t understand it either.

Iron conducts electricity. Why not just stab the zombie with an iron rod?

What on earth was he doing? Look at him—his forehead was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, gleaming under the supermarket lights.

Guo Jun had no idea that Gao Yuxuan had suffered from being too well educated.

Gao Yuxuan especially loved foreign movies. He had watched countless films, and in all the foreign science-fiction movies he had seen, every superpower—whether it involved metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, electricity, or anything else—was used from a distance.

It made for a much more dramatic shot, with special effects turned up to the max.

As a result, Gao Yuxuan’s subconscious mind was firmly convinced that superpowers were supposed to be used from a distance.

Guo Jun watched as they brought over another zombie to try again.

He could stand it no longer and stepped outside. “Hey, hey!”

Gao Yuxuan was in the middle of unleashing electricity with both hands when Master Guo suddenly appeared in front of him.

Gao Yuxuan was delighted to see him. “Master Guo, you’re all right.”

The two of them were actually fairly familiar with each other. During the disaster, Gao Yuxuan had often volunteered to help people repair their electrical wiring.

That was why Aunt Pan had assumed he was an electrician.

“I’m fine.” Guo Jun asked, “But why don’t you do it like this?”

He raised a hand. The other end of his crowbar pressed against the zombie’s head.

After a few crackles, blue-and-white electricity rapidly coiled around the zombie. The zombie howled for only a few seconds before dropping dead.

It was several times more efficient than Gao Yuxuan’s attempt.

Gao Yuxuan: “...”

Only then did Gao Yuxuan realize that science-fiction movies had led him astray.

Aunt Pan and Zhao Yi were nearby, and they had both seen Guo Jun use his electrical superpower.

Aunt Pan’s booming voice rang out. “See? I told you—the electrician’s power is electricity!”

Gao Yuxuan: “...”

Although I’m not an electrician, Big Sis, you may have actually discovered the connection.