Chapter 153

The cafeteria auntie who had survived at Guangxiu District’s No. 14 High School told the teachers and parents, “We’re running out of meat.”

If anyone was to blame, it was the principal.

The new principal, who had taken office after the first disaster, wanted the children to eat fresher food. He had ordered them to use up the frozen meat in the cold storage as quickly as possible and to buy chilled meat whenever they could.

Now the meat was almost gone.

A bunch of middle schoolers ate like growing boys—enough to bankrupt their parents.

The teachers and parents discussed the matter and decided to make a trip to the nearby market to stock up.

The nearest market was four blocks from the school. The students had already cleared out most of the streets around the school. Expanding their patrols a little farther would bring them to the market.

The survivors of No. 14 High had no plans to flee to the Science and Technology New District right away, but neither did they intend to hide on campus forever.

The children in particular were in remarkably high spirits. In the midst of such a disaster, they displayed a vigorous will to live and a fearless courage.

The children with superpowers practiced their abilities every day.

The ordinary children practiced formations and teamwork every day.

And the less physically robust children spent each day dreaming up all sorts of wild ideas to make the superpowers more useful and help everyone kill zombies more efficiently.

Everyone took turns helping in the cafeteria and cleaning, doing their best to maintain a “not too bad” living environment.

Everyone agreed that they should go out.

They needed to replenish their food, of course, but they also needed clean clothes and detergent. Besides, September had arrived and the temperature had noticeably dropped. The adults were already thinking about how to keep warm.

The market had a food market on the first floor, while the second and third floors sold clothing and various other small commodities. It ought to have everything they needed.

And so everyone set out, all of them wearing armor and carrying weapons.

They cleared the zombies from the streets along the way.

The children had already encountered three generations of zombies. Third-generation zombies really were cunning. Some hid inside buildings along the street, while others stood openly in the road, pretending to be ordinary second-generation zombies and lulling people into carelessness. But the children had also accumulated plenty of combat experience.

The superpowered ones had support personnel.

The ordinary people used three-person teams—a system proven through the fires of modern history to be the most effective combination. It was extremely practical.

The idea had been proposed by a high school student who was a military enthusiast. After plenty of practice and real-world testing, everyone had adopted it.

The children’s growth was astonishing.

The student army soon reached the market.

It was called a market, but its full name was Hong’an Market.

There were far fewer zombies inside than they had expected. August 29 had not been a busy time of day for shopping.

The elderly had already finished buying their groceries early that morning, while office workers would only stop by to shop for vegetables after getting off work.

At this hour, most of the zombies were the market vendors—the hard-working people who had gotten up at three in the morning to buy and prepare their stock.

Even so, no matter who they had been in life, once they became zombies, they were zombies. There was nothing anyone could do about that.

The students were completely fearless. Working closely together, they spent more than an hour clearing all the zombies from the first floor.

The teacher put his hands on his hips. “That’s a lot of vegetables. What a shame they’re not very fresh anymore.”

After all, they had been sitting there for a week. And at the end of August, there had been several especially hot days, practically summer weather. It had only just started to cool down.

A lot of the vegetables had rotted.

Everyone lamented the waste.

“Come on, there are still the second and third floors.”

“Upstairs!”

As they climbed, everyone exchanged their experiences. “This shovel really comes in handy.”

After seeing the crescent-shaped shovel in Jiang Cheng’s hands on television, Wu Shuchen had copied it. By now, half the people had bravely switched to shovels, while the other half were accustomed to using iron rods and refused to change.

The shovel seemed to be winning out. Once sharpened, it could cut through things; turned sideways, it could also smash them flat. It did both jobs well.

At the front of the group was a fire-powered student. Even though he had a superpower, he still carried a crescent shovel. Superpowers could run out of strength, after all. A weapon was still necessary.

He had tried it himself just now, and the crescent shovel really was useful. As they reached the bend in the stairs, he heard someone beside him say, “If I’d known, I would’ve switched too.”

He turned to the person and said, “I told you—”

Before he could finish, several people shouted, “Watch out!”

The fire-powered boy felt a sudden tightness around his neck. In an instant, he couldn’t breathe. His body was lifted off the ground and then slammed onto the stairs, where he was dragged down step after step with a series of loud bangs. His metal shoulder armor screeched against the steps.

His head jolted up and down until he was dazed. He had no idea what had happened.

All he could hear were people shouting around him.

“Hold on to him!”

“Cut it! Cut it!”

Suddenly, his body stopped moving.

There was a flurry of footsteps around him as his classmates charged upstairs. “After it!”

A few students came over and clumsily untangled the thing wrapped around his neck. “Are you all right?”

The boy sucked in a deep breath and immediately began coughing violently.

Several people patted his back and helped him catch his breath.

“Are you hurt?”

The armor had a raised, shell-like piece at the back of the neck to protect the neck, the back of the head, and the ears. Thanks to the armor, he had avoided being scraped, but bruises from the impact were unavoidable.

After finally regaining his breath, the boy stared fearfully at the section of blue-green thing lying on the floor. “What was that? A snake?”

“No.” Someone prodded it several times with an iron rod, then crouched down to examine it more closely. Finally, he understood. “Holy shit!”

He stood up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted to the people upstairs, “Everyone be careful! It’s a tentacle! Not a snake—it’s a tentacle! A tentacle!”

When the students had been climbing the stairs, the fire-powered boy at the front had turned around to speak. That was when many of them saw a long, blue-green, rope-like object shoot down from above. With a snap, it slipped into the gap between the boy’s armor and the back of his head and wrapped around his neck.

Their first thought had been: snake!

The “snake” coiled around the fire-powered boy and dragged him toward the second floor.

Everyone reacted at once, each person doing something different. Some reached out to grab him, others gave chase, and still others shouted warnings.

In the end, the person running at the front managed to cut through the “snake” with a crescent shovel and rescue the fire-powered boy. The whole group surged after it.

“Don’t let it get away!”

The second floor sold all kinds of everyday odds and ends: buckets, washbasins, brooms, mops, plastic stools, hardware, bedding, Buddhist statues, framed art, and countless other things. The shops stood in rows, each separated by partition walls, while the ceiling overhead was open and connected throughout.

But there were far fewer zombies on the second floor than everyone had expected.

By the time the group caught up, the “snake” had vanished.

They were searching for it when their classmates below shouted, “It’s not a snake! It’s a tentacle! It’s a tentacle!”

Everyone looked at one another. “What?”

Suddenly, a girl let out a scream. She was knocked off her feet and began sliding across the floor, the metal armor on her body scraping loudly against the ground.

The tentacle had wrapped around her ankle and was dragging her away. It was astonishingly fast—even knocking over two zombies as it went.

The students raced after it, killing the zombies blocking the corridor as they ran. Fortunately, they were all primitive zombies, slow and clumsy.

The girl screamed as she was dragged along. When the tentacle pulled her around a corner, she suddenly grabbed hold of the wall of one of the shops.

The aluminum-alloy partition wall was very thin—thin enough to grip with one hand.

The girl screamed, “Help me!”

A classmate who had come racing after her raised a crescent-shaped spade and was about to chop down when the “tentacle,” as if it had learned its lesson, suddenly released the girl’s ankle before the sharp spade could reach it. Then it lashed out like a whip, smacking the classmate across the face and sending him spinning like a top. The spade flew from his hand and clanged to the floor.

What incredible strength.

That one blow had knocked the classmate senseless.

The girl also managed to scramble up, and the two of them sat on the floor—one dazed, the other gasping for breath.

The “tentacle” had already vanished.

The corridors between the shops formed a grid, crisscrossing in every direction.

The students’ scattered footsteps could be heard everywhere.

“Over here!”

“It disappeared again!”

“It’s on our side!”

“Ow—there’s a zombie!”

There were only a few scattered zombies on the second floor, and they were relatively easy to deal with.

Suddenly, someone shouted, “It’s gone up to the third floor!”

Everyone rushed toward the third floor in a noisy wave.

The third floor sold clothes. The shops were packed even more tightly than on the second floor, and the passageways were narrower.

At a glance, they couldn’t see a single zombie.

The students split into several groups and spread out along different routes. They gripped their weapons tightly and kept their eyes fixed on the floor—the “tentacle” was elusive, sliding along the ground like a snake with a slippery shhh-shhh.

Suddenly, someone shouted, “Over here!”

Everyone thundered toward the sound.

The boy bringing up the rear of one group suddenly felt something tighten around his neck. He opened his mouth to shout, but something immediately clamped over it, preventing him from making a sound.

The weapon in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter. Unfortunately, the students in front were running and shouting so loudly that no one noticed.

The boy was dragged along the floor, watching helplessly as the shops on either side seemed to shoot backward.

He desperately clawed at the “tentacle” wrapped around his mouth and neck. But although the thing looked soft, its outer skin was actually extremely tough, and its strength was terrifyingly immense. It squeezed so tightly that he was on the verge of passing out.

I’m done for. The boy’s heart sank. I’m going to die.

Just then, a sharp crescent-shaped spade came crashing down. It landed perilously close to the boy’s head and severed the “tentacle.”

It was the girl from the second floor—the one whose ankle had been caught and dragged away. Frightened, she had sat on the floor gasping for a while before following the boy who had been sent spinning like a top to catch up with the main group.

As soon as they reached the third floor and hurried inside, she saw, at the intersection ahead, a “tentacle” sliding swiftly across the floor.

She reacted quickly. Before she had time to think, she charged forward and chopped down with her spade, severing it cleanly—and landing the blow right above the head of the boy being dragged away.

If she had been even a moment slower, she might have struck him in the face instead.

“Over here!” the boy who had come with her shouted. “It’s over here! It’s got someone!”

A great many people came running over.

The girl helped the boy on the floor free the “tentacle” wrapped around his neck and mouth. “Are you all right?”

The sensation in his mouth was disgustingly nauseating.

The boy might have been the first person to touch a zombie with his tongue. It was revolting beyond words.

He scrambled to his feet and vomited up his breakfast. Afterward, he wiped his mouth and snarled viciously, “Where’s my spade? Where’s my spade? I’m going to turn this thing into sizzling squid tentacles!”

He searched everywhere for his spade.

Everyone tried to surround and cut off the “tentacle,” but it was incredibly cunning and terrifyingly fast. It also kept ambushing whoever fell behind.

They chased it again and again, but couldn’t catch it.

In the end, the two students with electrical superpowers discussed the situation and stepped forward.

“Everyone move back. Get to the stairs.”

The teacher wanted to stop them, but the two students said, “There’s no other way.”

One of the parents said, “Let them try.”

Another parent advised, “Don’t hold back. Start at maximum power.”

The two students nodded and walked resolutely into the depths of the market.

Wu Shuchen tightened his grip on his spade.

Senior Huang Xuetao, can you see this?

The other seniors are all so brave, too.

So am I.