A Born Bad Seed

This stretch was all paved road, so it was easy enough to travel. The trouble was the weedy ground between them and the railway. It had rained, leaving the ground muddy and damp.

Su Huan was mainly worried that something like a Blood-Thirsty Vine might puncture the tires.

His thoughts raced chaotically through his mind. He ran at full speed in the heat of over thirty degrees, his chest feeling as though it were on fire.

As if in a trance, Su Huan raised his head and glanced to the side of the street.

He couldn't make out anything in the pitch-black building, but he could feel a fierce killing intent fixed on him!

"Gao Zhe!"

As the thought flashed through his mind, half a length of sharpened rebar shot toward him, nearly invisible in the night.

But Su Huan wasn't one of those careless guards. The moment he spotted Gao Zhe, he had already drawn his pistol and fired, ducking down at the same time.

Bang!

The rebar punched through the pickup's side window and buried itself in the front passenger seat.

But that also meant all five shots Su Huan fired in return struck the wall.

The fight had erupted so suddenly that Wang He and the others only heard a string of loud bangs. They had no idea what had happened.

Screech!

Several vehicles braked at once. In the silent night, all that remained was the group's ragged breathing.

"I can't hear him," Yu Yue said quickly.

Su Huan glanced at the shattered window, stood up, and said calmly, "Just stay back. You don't need to come over."

"The Conductor still has time to worry about a woman at a moment like this? Heh..."

Gao Zhe's voice echoed again and again from inside the pitch-black building. He was laughing, but the sound was like a lone wolf snarling through gritted teeth.

Su Huan grinned. "I didn't expect you to survive the Evolutionary Beast horde."

"As expected of the Conductor. While everyone else is fighting over a little food, you've already started using the rules of the apocalypse to your advantage."

Gao Zhe's voice carried genuine admiration.

Su Huan narrowed his eyes, recalling Gao Zhe's attack just now. Both its force and its timing had been terrifying.

"You've grown fast, too. Fast enough to keep me awake at night. How about coming out so we can have a proper chat? My gun's out of bullets."

His tone was sincere and frank, as if they were two old friends making conversation rather than enemies who had been trying to kill each other a moment ago.

"Ha. The people who boarded with me are practically overgrown with grass by now."

"Even without me, they would've ended up that way."

"Do you know how many people were in the Water Plant?"

"Hu An said over forty."

"They're all dead."

"Mm."

"I killed them."

"Hm?"

Su Huan raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Yu Yue quietly came up behind him and pointed toward a spot upstairs. It was on the second floor. The window was broken, but all he could see beyond it was darkness.

Su Huan waved her away.

He could tell the other man hadn't moved.

"Hu An's dead, then?"

"What do you think?"

Su Huan's smile was faint.

He moved silently toward that spot.

Upstairs, Gao Zhe leaned against the low wall behind him. With some difficulty, he pulled a cigarette from its pack with one hand, held it by the filter, and raised it over his head.

"Light this for me."

Su Huan stopped downstairs.

For a long time, there was no response. The cigarette stayed there, waiting.

At last, a high-temperature round flew over.

A smile finally appeared on Gao Zhe's tense face. He took a light drag, and the red glow illuminated his face. Terrifying black lines covered most of his skin, giving him a sinister, chilling appearance.

Gao Zhe blew out a smoke ring and called softly, "Su Huan."

"Hm?"

Su Huan's calm reply came from downstairs. They were very close, one above the other.

"You really are a born bad seed!"

"Heh."

Gao Zhe suddenly sprang into action and tossed the bundle wrapped in his clothes downward. What filled Su Huan's view was a vast burst of light.

Boom!

The explosion blasted the wall apart, drowning out the crisp crack of a gunshot.

In the darkness, heavy footsteps sounded upstairs. Down below, Su Huan quickly stripped off his jacket.

He backed away more than ten steps, not even bothering to look, and pulled a bottle of saline from his waist pack to rinse himself down.

After a while, when he felt nothing unusual, he finally relaxed.

He chuckled and muttered, "A Defender, and you're playing with poison now."

Liang Kuan held a crossbow and hesitated. "Should we chase him?"

Su Huan waved him off. He had seen clearly when the light flared. Gao Zhe was poisoned, probably by an Evolutionary Beast in the river.

On top of that, Su Huan had shot him. Even if he escaped, he probably wouldn't last much longer.

But there was no telling. Su Huan had a feeling the kid was hard to kill.

Besides, he had used up a lot of his energy breaking through that damn wall. You'd have to be crazy to hunt down a Defender in narrow terrain.

"Let's go. We need to get back as soon as possible!"

The pressure left behind by the White Snake Desert River still lingered, so the group hurried back to the train.

The water purifier was too tall to fit in the rear carriage without cutting through the roof, so they simply put it inside Observation Car No. 2, taking up part of the second-floor space.

It was getting farther and farther from Su Huan's original plan.

But it was still a good choice.

When the purifier was finally set down in the carriage, the weight on Su Huan's mind lifted.

With the purifier, the train would never have to worry about its water supply again.

With a processing capacity of 10 m³ per hour, there'd be more than enough for drinking. They could even give everyone on the train a bath every day.

"Boss Su, we're done."

Wang He's voice interrupted Su Huan's thoughts. He looked up to see over twenty men drenched in sweat, as if they'd just been fished out of a water tank.

Su Huan had been watching them work. Wang He might haggle with him, but when it came to the job, he never slacked off. They were honest men who put their backs into it. When the purifier wouldn't fit into the carriage, they'd worked with the forklift to lift it aboard.

Su Huan turned and gave Liang Kuan a few instructions.

Before long, he and Yu Yue carried over several boxes.

Su Huan said to Wang He, "One bucket of instant noodles, two bottles of drinks, and five compressed biscuits per person. That's an extra reward for the twenty of them. As for what I promised you earlier, that still stands."

Wang He smiled at that. "Thank you, Boss Su."

Su Huan continued, "Don't go yet. Pick a few more workers in a bit and get the purifier installed tonight. I'll provide a meal for them, too."

Wang He readily agreed.

He left the supervision to Yu Jing and the others.

Back in his room, Su Huan peeled off his sticky clothes.

He used up the rest of his stored clean water all at once, filling the bathtub to the brim.

Drenched in sweat, Su Huan slowly sank beneath the water.

As the cool liquid enveloped him, his mind, dulled by the heat, gradually cleared.

He slowly went over everything that had happened that day, reviewing each detail carefully.

With a splash, Su Huan surfaced and picked up the log beside the bathtub.

He wrote the words in damp, uneven strokes:

"December 20, evening, 29°C–34°C"

"Damn, I think I've become the villain in a novel."

—"Conductor's Log"