Rescue

"Captain Meng, it's settled. When are we leaving?"

Bai Yaoyao used Teleportation to return and calmly addressed Meng Qilin.

Meng Qilin was just as surprised as everyone else. He had no idea how Bai Yaoyao had gotten over there or how she had returned.

Seeing Lin Yiran kneeling on the ground, her face deathly pale, he secretly reveled in her misery. It took a villain to deal with a villain. Ha! Captain Bai wasn't a villain, of course, but she was definitely ruthless.

She had settled the matter so quickly. What a relief! He firmly suppressed the urge to laugh out loud, took a deep breath, and said, "All teams, move out!"

"Sister Yao, this truck's pretty nice. How about getting one when we get back?" Monkey said.

"Sure, I'll figure something out." Bai Yaoyao nodded in agreement.

The authorities had assigned six large military trucks to the Dark Night Squad, and riding in them felt fantastic. Since vehicles had been provided, they naturally didn't want to drive their own. They didn't have many vehicles, so they saved them whenever possible.

Everyone crouched in the truck beds, taking turns killing any zombies they spotted by the roadside and checking for crystal cores to see who had the best luck. With laughter and chatter all along the way, the ride wasn't boring at all.

The Little Soldier driving had happened to join Captain Meng in mooching breakfast off the Dark Night Squad that morning. He already had a good impression of them, so he was quite happy to be assigned to their group.

Watching them kill the zombies blocking the road as though they were playing a game, he felt even luckier. He didn't even need to say anything; people cleared the road for him while he drove. This was fantastic.

Usually, getting those ability users to lift a finger was next to impossible, especially the Aiyi Alliance. They had little skill but enormous tempers, and they were ridiculously fussy.

Zhenglin Avenue was quite far away. Even with a smooth drive, it took them an hour to arrive.

Their first stop was an upscale residential complex with six buildings, each twelve stories tall. Judging by the windows, there were probably two or three apartments per floor.

The Little Soldier was about to stop and get some tools to remove the vehicle barrier when Xiao Shiliu released a gust of wind. Together with Keke's vines, it cleared the barrier away.

"Don't get out. Just drive in, young man," Bai Yaoyao said.

"Oh, okay. Thanks..." The Little Soldier was a little dazed. Could abilities really be squandered like this? Didn't they need to save them for killing zombies?

"You're welcome." As Bai Yaoyao answered, she sent out her mental power to scout the area. There were no particularly formidable enemies. The strongest was probably a level-three zombie, which happened to be in Building One, closest to the entrance.

"One level-three zombie in the building on the right. Around twenty level-two zombies, evenly distributed." Bai Yaoyao shared the results of her scan with everyone.

"Understood!"

When it came to serious business, everyone seemed to become a different person. Even Monkey, who loved wisecracking most, became much more serious.

"Young man, gather your people together. We'll go kill the zombies first. We probably won't be able to look after you," Bai Yaoyao told the Little Soldier.

"It's fine. Don't worry about us. We can protect ourselves!" The Little Soldier spoke into his radio, and everyone quickly gathered together.

Because Bai Yaoyao's group had a heavy rescue workload and few people, Captain Meng had assigned them twelve personnel from the authorities. They had all worked on the front lines before the Pre-Apocalypse. They might not have been exceptionally capable, but they could defend themselves. They simply hadn't awakened any abilities.

Having just heard Captain Bai mention a level-three zombie, the soldiers hurriedly set up their machine guns. Every encounter with a level-three zombie resulted in heavy casualties. They hoped Captain Bai and her people could lure it out safely so they could help concentrate fire on it.

"Fat Brother! Sixth floor on the right!"

"Got it!"

Fat Brother formed a large chunk of earth and hurled it hard at a sixth-floor window.

With a furious roar, the zombie leaped straight out of the window and flung a dense barrage of sharp little spikes at everyone.

"Holy shit, a metal-type zombie! Fat Brother, Stone, save us!" Monkey shouted.

Fat Brother and Stone quickly formed an earthen wall. Everyone hurried behind it.

Like a complete idiot, the zombie broke one of its legs on landing. It got up and staggered forward unsteadily.

Bai Yaoyao had Chenxuan amplify her power, then seized the chance to use Mental Piercing on the zombie. It dropped straight to its knees, and Lulu immediately followed up with a bolt of lightning...

They had so many ways to attack now. A dense barrage of concentrated fire slammed into the zombie, leaving the Little Soldiers watching nearby utterly dumbfounded.

This... wasn't quite what they had imagined. All twelve members of the Dark Night Squad had fucking abilities!

And that tree was ridiculously badass too!

By the time they came to their senses and wanted to help fire a few shots, Little Crook had already thrust willow branches into the zombie's head to dig out its crystal core.

Bai Yaoyao took the crystal core and said, "Teams of two. Bai Yaoyao and Xiaomi, Building One. Lulu and Peiqi, Building Two. Fat Brother and Monkey, Building Three. Stone and Dada Juan, Building Four. A-Dai and Chenxuan, Building Five. Keke, Xiao Shiliu, and Little Crook, Building Six.

"First, we'll clear the courtyard together. Call for help if there's a problem. No need to negotiate with the survivors; tell them to gather at the entrance. Try to finish the fighting within an hour."

"Understood!"

Everyone quickly set off after receiving their orders. Bai Yaoyao was just about to enter Building One with Xiaomi when she heard the Little Soldier calling to her from behind.

"Captain Bai, how about we send two people to each building too?"

Bai Yaoyao declined tactfully. "Sorry for the trouble, but could you handle communicating with the survivors? Meet them downstairs. Our squad members are all rather reserved and aren't very good with words."

"Ah... okay..." Reserved? Surely she doesn't mean the kind of reserved I'm thinking of? Captain Bai really knows how to joke.

Bai Yaoyao smiled and said, "Thanks for your hard work."

With that, she and Xiaomi headed straight to the top floor through the emergency stairwell. There were two apartments on each floor. They began knocking on doors one by one, kicking them open if no one answered.

In the first apartment they entered, three zombies greeted them as soon as the door opened. Seeing that they were all level-one zombies, Bai Yaoyao left them to Xiaomi for practice and went next door herself.

No one answered her knock there either, but her Mental Power detected someone inside.

Bai Yaoyao wanted to see whether her teleportation could pass through walls now, so she gave it a try.

Her whole body hit the door with a thunk, and she let loose a classic Chinese curse!

While killing the zombies, Xiaomi caught this extraordinary sight out of the corner of an eye and asked in bewilderment, "Sister Yao, couldn't you just kick it open? Why ram it with your head?!"

"Kill your zombies!" Bai Yaoyao said, rubbing her forehead.

"Oh..." Xiaomi obediently went back to work, but still couldn't make sense of what had happened. Why had she rammed the door? Was Sister Yao practicing Iron Head Kung Fu?

Bai Yaoyao kicked the door open hard. A scream rang out immediately, followed by the cries of a woman and a child.

A woman of about thirty was holding a baby just a few months old.

The woman clutched the child tightly to her chest and quickly turned her back to the doorway.

Bai Yaoyao knocked on the door and said, "Hello. The official rescue team is here. Pack your things, and once you hear the call from downstairs, you can head down."

After speaking, she saw that Xiaomi had just finished killing the three zombies next door, so she headed straight to the next floor.