Go Evacuate with Us!

Ever since news of the evacuation came, Jiang You had noticed that there were clearly more people moving around outside.

She lay on the balcony, watching below through a telescope.

Da Zhuang seemed to have made enemies with some animal outside recently. Every night, he went out to fight, then came back covered in wounds in the morning. Jiang You would bandage and disinfect him, but as soon as night fell, the cat would come back to life at full health and head out to fight again.

It was daytime now. Da Zhuang was wrapped up by Jiang You like a mummy, listlessly lying on a block of ice to cool off.

He lazily glanced outside. The air was visibly distorted beneath the vicious sun. Yet even in such high temperatures, that woman trained outdoors all day, looking this way and that. She practically had a self-abuse problem.

Fortunately, at least she hadn't stopped supplying ice to the building.

Da Zhuang yawned and rolled over, pressing his back against the ice. He was so comfortable that his entire body nearly melted into a flat pancake.

Because the community gate had been completely repaired, with a long greenbelt between it and the buildings,

as long as no particularly loud noises were made, the zombies on the street wouldn't be attracted over.

The two or three zombies wandering outside the large iron gate would occasionally bump against it, making loud clanging noises, but they weren't persistent.

After bumping it twice, they would wander off somewhere else.

Several more survivors entered the Thunder Team's building, a three-story structure. This was already the sixteenth group to go inside.

After entering the community, the Thunder Team had immediately repaired the neglected community gate, isolating the zombies on the street outside.

They had also cleared out the zombies wandering throughout the community, improving the area's overall safety to some extent. After a series of subsequent actions, they had unknowingly become the leading group in the area.

The other teams vaguely treated them as their leaders. Several large-scale zombie-clearing operations and supply searches had all been organized by the Thunder Team.

The Thunder Team's captain was a young red-haired man who looked under thirty and was very tall.

The reason Jiang You remembered him after seeing him only once wasn't because he was handsome, but because he had managed to keep a neat head of red hair even in the apocalypse. Wherever he went, he was extremely eye-catching.

Now, Jiang You was counting the survivors entering the building.

In the space of one morning, at least two hundred survivors had entered the building.

She gnawed on a duck neck while holding the telescope.

After standing in the sun all morning, Jiang You was sweating all over, and her skin had turned slightly red from the exposure.

She turned around. She had nearly finished the duck neck in her mouth and spat the bone onto the ground.

Before it could even land, Da Zhuang swiftly opened his mouth and caught it, then chewed and swallowed it.

Jiang You took another duck neck and put it in her mouth, continuing to gnaw. Whenever she got thirsty, she took a sip of ice-cold sparkling water. Life was quite pleasant.

The scorching sunlight shone on her skin. Although the heat caused a faint, slight stinging sensation, it somehow felt oddly comfortable.

She drank through a straw, her eyes fixed on the catnip in the flower bed that was barely clinging to life.

Judging by the looks of it, these people were probably discussing the evacuation.

After all, supplies were scarce in the city, and much of the food had been ruined by the earlier heavy rains.

With so many survivors, they had to seek out a new direction for their lives.

But she had no intention of leaving. At least for now, she was quite comfortable here and couldn't be bothered to go.

"Looks like all these people are going to leave, Da Zhuang. Do you want to leave the city?"

The tabby cat chewing on a bone raised his head and glanced at her. He bared his teeth, his fur standing on end.

"Meow!!!"

You don't want me anymore?!

"What are you baring your teeth at me for? If you keep acting like this, no female cat will ever like you. Are you planning to leave those two lychees unused forever?"

Da Zhuang rolled his eyes at her, padded back into the room, and continued lying on the ice to cool off.

Jiang You pointed at the few mice still jumping around energetically in the fish tank. "Those are your duck necks. Go eat your duck necks!"

This cat had gotten smarter. Before, he had caught one mouse and eaten it immediately.

Now, he caught several mice and tossed them into the empty fish tank. Whenever he wanted to eat, he simply opened the tank and helped himself. Whenever the fish tank was nearly empty, he replenished the supply himself.

Jiang You didn't think there was anything wrong with a cat eating mice.

After all, once she had seen him gnawing on a zombie's brain, she felt that as long as he wasn't trying to eat her, she could accept anything.

Sure enough, when Jiang You went downstairs in the afternoon, she saw quite a few survivors already packing their luggage.

On her way downstairs, she also ran into Hao Hong, who had just returned from outside.

Hao Hong was carrying a somewhat dirty hiking backpack. It was bulging with something, though Jiang You had no idea what was inside.

She held a curved blade in her hand, and her entire body was drenched in sweat.

When Hao Hong saw Jiang You, she froze for a moment before asking,

"Jiang You, are you leaving?

"We plan to organize an evacuation at dawn tomorrow. Many survivors nearby are forming groups and leaving together. There'll be better chances of breaking through with more people. Come with us!"

As she spoke, she wiped her face. The blood and grime on her hand immediately smeared across it, but she didn't care about such small details at all.

The blackened, foul-smelling blood was obviously from zombies. Of course, it might have come from humans too.

Jiang You hadn't expected her to know her name.

Nor had she expected Hao Hong to take the initiative to greet her. She shook her head. "I'm not leaving."

"Are you stupid? You're not leaving? The city is full of zombies now, and there are fewer and fewer humans!"

She grabbed Jiang You by the arm and pulled her into a corner, lowering her voice as she spoke.

"I'm telling you this in secret: the powerful and influential people already evacuated ahead of the first group. Although the announcement says this is the first evacuation, it's actually the second! This is our only chance as ordinary people!

"If you don't leave now, there won't be any army escort when you want to leave later!

"Guangming Base is more than a hundred kilometers from here. How are you going to get there?

"You'll have to travel on your own and outrun all the zombies!

"But if everyone leaves together in a large group, then whenever we encounter a horde, all you need to do is outrun the person in front of you!

"If you don't leave now, you won't be able to leave even if you want to later!"

For some reason, when Hao Hong first met Jiang You, she hadn't liked this girl who was almost excessively beautiful.

Especially after learning that her own elder brother liked Jiang You.

But after seeing Jiang You kill someone right in front of her that time, she had begun paying attention to the girl, intentionally or otherwise.

Despite her young age, she was extremely capable.

Hao Hong often saw her leave with a crossbow or a long saber strapped to her back. She had also happened to see Jiang You fighting outside.

She was a little rose, a little rose growing amid thorns.

She didn't need to rely on anyone.

Hao Hong hoped that this beautiful flower could keep blooming, continuing to flourish throughout the apocalypse.

So when the evacuation was being planned, Jiang You naturally came to mind.

Since she happened to run into her today, Hao Hong urged her, "Don't be stupid. The whole world has collapsed, and nobody has the time to look after ordinary people like us. If you don't seize this opportunity, you'll either be eaten by zombies or turn into one yourself."

"I've said so much. Do you understand any of it?" Hao Hong asked anxiously, staring at the girl before her.

"Come with us. The base has to be safer than a city full of monsters!"

Looking at the girl before her, whose radiant beauty was mixed with an indescribable innocence, Hao Hong suddenly felt like the eunuch worrying more than the emperor.

She was so anxious that she was hopping around like a monkey, while Jiang You remained completely unperturbed!

Even after hearing such a long speech, Jiang You still shook her head.

"Thank you for your concern, but I don't want to leave for now."

Hearing that, Hao Hong was so furious that she wanted to knock her unconscious and carry her away.

But when she saw the cold gleam of the Miao Saber in Jiang You's hand, she clearly remembered how smoothly it had cleaved a zombie in two.

At the instant it split open, Hao Hong had even seen the zombie's internal organs clearly.

That blade was cool—and fast.

So she swallowed and gave up on knocking Jiang You out.

"Fine, fine, fine. I've already warned you. Whether you leave is up to you. We're setting out tomorrow anyway. See you around!"

"Mm. See you."

Jiang You waved politely, then walked away.

Hao Hong stared at her retreating figure in disbelief. She left? Was that really all there was to their goodbye?

"Honghong, what are you looking at?"

A man came up beside her. Seeing her staring wide-eyed at the slender back of a woman, he teased her frivolously,

"Honghong, why are you looking at a woman like that? Look at how fair and tender she is, and how slim her waist is. She's probably another woman who survives by relying on men. Don't stoop to their level.

"Not everyone can be like you—so beautiful and so capable."

The man deliberately emphasized the pronunciation of the last word.

Hao Hong was disgusted.

Seeing Jiang You's slender back and the fair, tender skin she had revealed, he remembered the woman he'd traded a moldy steamed bun for one night earlier. His gaze began to wander.

He did like Hao Hong, but her elder brother wasn't someone to be trifled with. So at most, he took liberties with his words and didn't dare go too far.

"But this woman looks pretty good. I should give her a try if I get the chance. I wonder how expensive she'll be?"

He rubbed his chin and grinned, his eyes narrowing into slits. He looked just like a rat hiding in the shadows.

Hao Hong glared coldly at him. "Fuck your mother! If you've got nothing to do, then get the hell out of my way. A good dog doesn't block the road!"