Chapter 53 Part 2

"Si Xiaonan?" Zhou Rong patted him and asked in a low voice, "Don't sleep. What did you just say your parents did?"

"..." Si Nan lifted one eyelid, his sleepiness making him look extremely pissed off. Zhou Rong couldn't be bothered with that now. He patted and nudged him awake, asking in rapid succession, "What do your parents do? Tell me in detail."

"What do they do?" Si Nan sat up rubbing his eyes, baffled and extremely displeased. "I told you I don't remember, didn't I?"

Zhou Rong said angrily, "What time do you think it is? Stop sleeping and think!"

Si Nan: "Looking for a fight?!"

Zhou Rong: "..."

"Babe," Si Nan said seriously, "You don't want to know how the last Alpha who tried to wake me up died. It was very painful for him in the end. Wait until I wake up from my nap, and I'll tell you in detail..."

"..." A million alpacas stampeded through Zhou Rong's mind. 'Is this just being grumpy from being woken up? This is a whole personality switch!'

Si Nan flopped back down, grunted twice, and hugged his pillow, adjusting into a comfortable position. Just as Zhou Rong was pondering whether he should risk divorce and wake him up again, he suddenly heard faint voices in the distance, followed by the roar of a vehicle and an alarm siren piercing the night sky.

"Level two alert! Level two alert! Zombie horde surrounding the city!"

"All males between sixteen and sixty, come get your weapons! Combat personnel, assemble immediately—!"

The dormitory lights flashed on one after another. Panicked discussions and the sound of footsteps swept through the entire base.

"..." Si Nan rolled over, covering his eyes with the back of his hand, and said helplessly, "It's getting harder and harder to get some sleep these days..."

·

Ever since Chen Yajing established the survivor base, she had organized all able-bodied men between sixteen and sixty into a self-defense force. They were divided into groups of ten, with ten groups arranged each night to patrol a one-kilometer radius with guns. At the slightest sign of trouble, they would immediately fire a signal flare to warn and prevent a large-scale zombie siege at night.

However, tonight, whether it was due to the weather warming up and making the zombies more active or some other reason, a large horde of zombies had silently slipped past the patrol team under the cover of night and the mountain rocks. By the time the base's duty officer smelled the thick stench of decay on the wind, the entire outer fortification had been surrounded.

The dense horde of zombies roared and continuously pounded on the walls, converging into a shocking sea of blood under the pale moonlight.

"How are there so many?!" Chuncao shouted in disbelief. "Rong-ge! This way! Over here!"

Zhou Rong pulled Si Nan through the crowd. He saw hundreds of torches suddenly lit around the base's perimeter, illuminating the area as bright as day under the night sky, with a clamor of voices. The populace was passing up torches and ammunition in an organized and orderly fashion, while the trained self-defense force lay prone atop the defensive fortifications, firing down in turns with machine guns, knocking back the zombies climbing up the iron mesh.

A steady female voice rang out: "There are too many! Firing squad, temporary retreat!"

—Chen Yajing had actually had someone push her to the very front line. She looked down at the waves of zombies below without a trace of fear and shouted sternly, "Turn on the electric fence!"

The firing squad got up and ran back. Wan Biao, his face covered in sweat, staggered towards the duty room, opened the electrical box with a flashlight clenched in his teeth, and forcefully pulled down the main switch.

Bzz—

Electricity instantly flashed across the iron mesh of the entire outer fortification. Countless sparks erupted, and the front few rows of zombies were instantly fried to a crisp!

The current crackled as it passed through, and rows upon rows of zombies fell in an instant. A thick, burnt stench rose to the sky!

"Area C3 requests backup, Area C3 requests backup." An anxious voice crackled over the short-wave radio: "The zombies have piled up into a ramp and are charging this way, requesting backup!"

Chen Yajing saw Zhou Rong in the crowd. There was no time for greetings; she only gave him a quick nod before roaring into the radio, "Open the warehouse and transport the detonators! All machine gunners, to the front!!"

The re-killed zombies had piled up against the fortifications, forming a ramp. The subsequent zombies scrambled over their own kind, rushing upward. The machine gunners indeed fought to the death, firing frantically, but there were simply too many zombies. In the hail of bullets, they trampled each other to reach the corner tower windows. Countless withered hands grabbed the machine gunners, tearing them to shreds alive!

Blood exploded amidst the screaming crowd. Zhou Rong, panting heavily, suddenly strode forward. "Give me the gun! Get back!"

Wan Biao let out a grief-stricken roar and charged towards the zombie horde with his assault rifle, but was suddenly stopped by an iron-like grip on his shoulder. He turned his head and saw the firelight reflecting on Si Nan's cold face. "Give it to me," he said.

"You get back—"

Before Wan Biao's rebuke could leave his lips, his arms felt empty. Somehow, the assault rifle was now in Si Nan's hands.

Si Nan's physique was by no means strong; due to his gender, he was even rather thin. On such a cold winter night, he wore only a thin jacket. He raised the machine gun, walked past Wan Biao, and strode towards the zombies scrambling to climb the edge of the fortification.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang! Bang!

Every shot of the burst fire hit its mark. Each gunshot was accompanied by a zombie's head exploding, its brains splattering, as it swayed and collapsed.

Si Nan stopped, standing beside Zhou Rong, and with a 'click', switched the assault rifle to full-auto mode.

In front of them was an endless tide of the living dead, and beyond that, the pitch-black night; behind them was a crowd of screaming, terrified people, and torches that burned the night sky red.

They looked at each other. Zhou Rong smiled and asked, "I have twenty-six hundred rounds. You?"

"Twenty-two hundred." Si Nan narrowed his eyes, staring through the scope. He said softly, "But it's enough to smoke you... Alpha."

Zhou Rong returned his words with an arrogant chuckle. The two casually bumped fists, stood back-to-back, and opened fire simultaneously!

The proficiency in rate of fire, accuracy, and bullet efficiency of top snipers trained by the special forces with hundreds of thousands of rounds was far beyond what a civilian shooting team could compare to. The zombies that originally took an average of seven or eight bullets to kill were now being taken down with almost one bullet each, or even several with one bullet, under their high fire rate of 15 to 20 rounds per second. Brains splattered everywhere in an instant!

With their suppressive high firepower, Zhou Rong and Si Nan advanced steadily towards the zombie horde. The muzzles of the two heavy machine guns blossomed with dazzling sparks, truly invincible. The tide of living dead retreated backward!

"Detonators! Incendiary bombs! Follow-up fire, keep up, quick! Armored vehicles, prepare to depart!" Chen Yajing practically roared her orders. She then threw down the radio, picked up a megaphone, and stood at the very front of the fortifications, yelling, "—Everyone, press forward! Machine gunners, do not retreat!!"

"Behind you is your base! Your home! Your wives and children!!"

"For all who are sacrificed," she paused, her voice lowering and carrying across the entire battlefield, "the base will provide for your families and raise your children on your behalf, until the very last moment of humanity's existence."

The machine gunners' eyes turned red. They agreed heroically and followed behind Zhou Rong and Si Nan, pressing forward while frantically strafing the zombie horde.

Even women and children ran from the camp to help pass ammunition and explosives, forming a human transport chain amidst the intersecting firelight. The men grabbed burning alcohol bottles, rushed onto the fortifications, and threw them recklessly into the surging waves of zombies.

The explosions rose and fell one after another, shaking the earth.

The zombie horde roared, like the helpless shrieks of the god of death, echoing through the night sky amidst blood and fire.

A few minutes later, the living dead who had climbed the fortifications were completely cleared away. Corpses littered the ground, flesh and blood intermingled, making it impossible to distinguish between the fallen living and the zombies.

The machine gunners had practically fought their way out of a tide of corpses. Overwhelmed with joy, they broke down and cried, collapsing to their knees on top of the wall.

—And below them, on the vast, open hillside, packs of explosives were thrown into the zombie horde like raindrops. Countless bits of flesh and blood flew into the sky. The besieging zombie horde in front of the barbed-wire fence was finally no longer a solid wall but had been initially cleared out to create a few meters of open ground.

"Open the gate!" Chen Yajing's shout echoed across the battlefield. "Armored vehicles, move out!"

A roar grew from the distance. Chuncao and Ding Shi each drove a modified armored vehicle, charging out of the iron gate that everyone had pulled open together, and crushed towards the zombies not far away.

"Si Nan!" Yan Hao patted the vehicle-mounted heavy machine gun and laughed heartily, "Not coming down? I'll catch you!"

Si Nan raised an eyebrow slightly, took two steps back for a running start, and amidst everyone's gasps, leaped down from the top of the seven or eight-meter-high fortification like a flash of lightning. He rolled upon landing, rose to a single knee, and raised his machine gun.

Zhou Rong roared, "Does the vice-captain want to get fucked? Trying to steal my man right in front of the captain?!" Then he also jumped down.

The zombies on the ground, attracted by the scent of the living, rallied once more and converged into a stream charging up the hillside. They were immediately met head-on by the armored vehicle, which had been modified with a battering ram. Its tracks crushed a path of flying rotten flesh.

Zhou Rong landed, got up, and opened fire again at the same time as Si Nan. They were like two living human turrets. Their extremely high rate of fire fed the bullet belts into the barrels at lightning speed, like dancing giant pythons. Under the cover of the vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns, they pressed forward step by step.

"Didn't you say you were going to smoke me?" Zhou Rong teased amidst the flying shell casings.

Si Nan said nonchalantly, "Smoking you would be easy."

"...Comrade Xiao Si."

"Hm?"

"Do you know why those Alphas before were fucked by you until they cried for their mamas and papas?"

Si Nan shot a sideways glance from behind his scope, his eyes meeting Zhou Rong's. The corner of the latter's mouth curved up wickedly.

"Because the Alphas you met before were all too weak," Zhou Rong smiled and pulled the trigger.

—Bang!

The bullet flew through the night sky, accurately hitting and detonating the Molotov cocktail that Chuncao had thrown from the armored vehicle.

The fiercely burning metal fragments traced hundreds of fiery arcs, instantly slicing into the heads of countless zombies!

Si Nan's pupils narrowed. He coolly sized up Zhou Rong for several seconds, then with a 'click', switched the machine gun to single-shot mode.

"That bet of yours about doing the housework," he asked, "is it still on?"