Courting Death

Eighteen's remark instantly changed the tense atmosphere. Shang Jiudi's mouth twitched, but she ultimately said nothing. Chen Shaoye wanted to laugh, but with their lives on the line, he simply couldn't.

"Jump down!" someone suddenly said.

"Right, jump out the window! This is the second floor. We can tie ropes or something together and climb down!"

Chu Han's heart skipped a beat. He looked out the window, then ignored everyone's baffled stares and grabbed Ye Tianlong's corpse from the floor, carrying it to the window.

The night sky was murky, the moonlight seeming to be shrouded in a blood-colored fog. A strange red glow illuminated the plaza below.

It was packed with zombies. Their rotten, pale heads were enough to make even those without trypophobia unable to bear a second look. Their grayish-white pupils, devoid of any human trait, resembled ghosts from hell.

"What are you trying to do?" Shang Jiudi asked with a frown. Then her eyes suddenly lit up. "Use the corpse to distract the zombies? Right, why didn't I think of that? Then we can rush out—"

"No." Chu Han cut her off. "One corpse isn't enough. There are too many of them. They'll devour it in no time, and we won't have enough time at all."

The surviving people were startled. Anger and fear instantly made them exceptionally sensitive.

"Y-you, what do you mean?"

"What do you mean, one corpse isn't enough?"

"What are you planning to do to us? Kill us and feed us to the zombies, then help yourselves escape?"

"You bastard!"

"And I thought you were a cop!"

As if they had planned it beforehand, they immediately gathered together and stood far across from Chu Han and the others, their faces carrying varying degrees of wariness and hostility.

Chu Han remained expressionless. Having spent ten years in the apocalypse, he did not care about these people's feelings in the slightest. He would not even waste time explaining that he was not a police officer.

"Chen Fatty, do you still have the strength?" Chu Han began giving orders, pointing at the pool of blood on the floor. "Soak up that blood with the bedsheet, then give it to me."

"O-oh, okay!" Chen Shaoye had been scared out of his wits by Chu Han's earlier remark that one corpse was not enough. Yet when Chu Han gave him a task, he still chose to obey immediately, though he had no idea why he listened to Chu Han so readily, nor why Chu Han wanted him to do this.

"I need a gun, and plenty of bullets." Chu Han fixed his eyes on Shang Jiudi. The guns belonged to the two women.

"Brother Chu Han?" Eighteen suddenly spoke. With a trace of uncertainty on her face, she shoved her gun and a large number of magazines into Chu Han's hands. "Use mine."

Chu Han froze for a moment before accepting them. "Thank you."

Eighteen pursed her lips. "If we survive this time, you have to give them back to me later."

The corner of Chu Han's mouth tugged stiffly. There probably wouldn't be such a chance...

He looked at Shang Jiudi, and the woman met his gaze at once.

"Keep an eye on Chen Fatty for me. Don't let him do anything stupid." Chu Han sounded as if he were giving his last instructions.

"Boss?" Chen Shaoye, who had just finished soaking up the blood from the floor with the bedsheet, was startled. "What are you going to do, Boss?"

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The zombies at the stairway had entered their final desperate struggle. The wall made of piled-up corpses had already begun to collapse, and mutilated limbs and rotten flesh tumbled down. Everyone could now clearly see the grayish-white pupils of the zombies on the other side.

The barrier was about to give way. A massive swarm of zombies was about to pour in!

Chu Han let out a heavy breath and glanced at the equally frenzied zombie horde downstairs, which was pounding desperately against the concrete wall.

"Fatty." Chu Han turned around, his gaze carrying an unusual warmth. "Don't be so timid. No matter what happens in the future, face it bravely. You have great potential. Believe in yourself."

"Y-you?" Chen Shaoye's voice immediately choked up as an extremely bad premonition rose in his heart.

Without a word, Chu Han arranged the magazines, strapped the gun to his chest, then lifted Ye Tianlong's corpse in one hand and took the blood-soaked bedsheet from Chen Shaoye with the other.

"Blood attracts zombies. The blood on the floor has already been cleaned up. I'll take the smell of blood outside, and those zombies will move with the scent. As for you—" Chu Han looked at the shocked faces around him. "As long as you stay quiet, the zombies at the stairway will gradually disperse."

The murmurs abruptly ceased. Everyone stared at Chu Han in disbelief. Just moments ago, they had blamed him and even lumped him together with a beast like Ye Tianlong. Yet now, they had never expected him to say something like this.

He was going to draw the zombies away by himself?!

Eighteen's small body suddenly trembled, her expression incredibly complicated.

Shang Jiudi's pupils constricted sharply, her eyes widening as she firmly objected, "You're pushing yourself too hard! You'll die! And you—"

"I know." Chu Han interrupted her, his gaze sweeping over Eighteen, Shang Jiudi, and Chen Shaoye one by one. "And even if I die, it might not work."

"Then why are you still—" Shang Jiudi simply could not understand Chu Han. She even wondered whether his intelligence was below zero, for him to do something so obviously suicidal and utterly without benefit.

Chu Han smiled faintly, a smile warmer and more beautiful than ever before.

"At least I can buy you some time."

As soon as he spoke—

WHOOSH!

Chu Han suddenly launched himself into the air and jumped through the open window. Yet a trace of cunning flashed through his eyes.

Buy them time? Yeah, right!

"Boss—" Chen Shaoye's nearly broken voice was deafening.

Both Shang Jiudi's and Eighteen's hearts seemed to stop. This man had actually jumped down! And his only reason was to buy them time?

The second-floor window of the rest stop was immediately crowded with people. They craned their necks, staring in terror at Chu Han as he leaped down wrapped in a bedsheet.

This rest stop was not an apartment building. Every floor of the structure was unusually high; its second floor was nearly equivalent to the third or fourth floor of an ordinary building. Jumping directly from such a height would be fatal even wrapped in a thick quilt, let alone when Chu Han was holding only a thin bedsheet.

Chu Han would be crippled even if the fall did not kill him!

Many people panicked and wept, filled with regret and heartache. They had actually harbored such vile thoughts just now. They had actually doubted Chu Han's motives!

There were many zombies in the open space outside. The moment they spotted the human falling from above, it was as if they had been injected with stimulants. The infected grew wildly excited, letting out hoarse howls, their expressions subtly resembling beasts feeding.

Their foul, paper-thin mouths split all the way to their ears, taking up a full third of their faces and revealing abnormally sharp teeth, as well as rotten, stinking tongues that had nearly become strips of decayed flesh and lost their normal function.

Roar—

Roar—

The zombies screamed, desperately flailing their arms and jumping, trying to catch the human who was about to fall.

The sight was filled with fangs!

Many thanks to Meng Douzi and Black to the Depths for the rewards!! There would be an extra chapter tonight—first, to thank everyone for their rewards and recommendation votes, and second, because the story had reached a point of conflict. Hopefully, the extra chapter would make it even more satisfying to read.