Ouroboros

Chapter 17

The two were escorted into the car and the first thing that was done was a body search.

The communicator on the wrist was taken off and thrown out the car and the dark-skinned man also instructed the others to take away Song Qinglan’s knives, fist hooks and the likes.

In the twenty-six years of Song Qinglan’s life, this was his first time being tied up in such an undignified manner with a gun pointed to his head. And the key point was that it was buy-one-get-one-free; he had suggested it himself.

Next to him, Ji Yushi was also getting searched.

With slightly furrowed brows, he had both his arms raised as a man checked him from top to bottom. They took away his Diamond Bird, box of medicine and the likes and also found a black and white device about one and a half palm in size.

The dark-skinned man was suspicious, “What is this?”

Ji Yushi, “Game console.”

‘Smack.’ All those things were tossed aside.

Ji Yushi looked over. That small game console was broken into several parts and even the battery rolled out. When he restored his gaze, his clear eyes held no emotions but for some reason the dark-skinned man felt a little uncomfortable. That look of his was a little unnerving.

Song Qinglin felt some pity for the dark-skinned man.

“What are you looking at?! Who knows if there’s a tracker in there?!” The dark-skinned man’s face had completely darkened, and he pushed Ji Yushi back, “Tie this one up too and throw him next to his man!”

This time Ji Yushi also had his arms tied behind his back and was thrown into the corner of the car.

With the two in this predicament, Song Qinglan lowered his head and whispered beside his ear, “Advisor Ji, having fun?”

The masculine voice entered his ears, and his breath could be distinctly felt.

Ji Yushi quivered slightly. He turned back and created some distance between them before whispering back, “I’ll explain it to you later.”

Song Qinglan talked through gritted teeth, “You think I’m asking about that?”

Ji Yushi, “What is it then?”

Song Qinglan: “…….”

Ji Yushi’s beautifully shaped lips gently moved, “Cap Song, homophobia is a sign of a deeply closeted gay. I’m helping you understand yourself better.”

These people probably didn’t have a high level of education. They spent a long time but was still unable to set the spacecar into high-speed mode, so the car wasn’t travelling very fast.

The dark-skinned man was very careful. Once they reached a place, he suddenly called for them to stop: “Those people will definitely come after us. Seal the road here first and then take the other one!”

Three people opened the rear door and jumped out.

Zombies rushed over. Two of them stood guard while the third one acted. He pressed the road closure button on the side of the road, and something appeared from the ground, completely sealing the road.

It was a wire fence.

It was just like the one the car had ran into when they escaped from the bookstore last time.

Song Qinglan looked back. It just happened that Ji Yushi was also looking at him.

The wheel of time turned again and again. The memory of death was just too vivid. The loud noise, the car overturning, the blood on the glass shards and even the scene of Zhou Mingxuan’s head drooping down seemed to replay right in front of them.

It was an unexpected gain.

“Bang!”

The door was closed again and nothing could be seen.

*

There were some equipment the team had originally left in the car and, with the addition of the Diamond Bird and Shen Mian, their harvest this time was quite impressive.

This group of people didn’t seem to be people from the same place and are at this moment dividing up their spoils.

The woman with a child had no share or status. She was probably just a chess piece.

The car was sultry hot. She placed the little girl aside and took off her robe, revealing very pale skin. She suddenly heard Ji Yushi ask, “How long have you been away from the sun for?”

The woman glanced at the group of men, hesitating over whether or not she should talk to Ji Yushi.

Ji Yushi asked again, “Was it from before the catastrophe?”

Song Qinglan didn’t understand why Ji Yushi was asking this but he knew that there must be a reason.

The woman finally nodded.

Ji Yushi asked very naturally. “Did it start since the launch of Golden Crow No. 2?”

“Yes.” The woman whispered in hast, “Are you police from PU-30? I heard there is no mutation there. Can you take my daughter and I there?”

“No.”

He was tied up but he sat there and spoke like he was a high-ranking judge.

“I’ll find a way to help you!” The woman immediately broke down, “Please, I’m begging you. Can you just take my daughter? Ever since Golden Crow No. 2 was launched, my daughter has not been exposed to the sun. She definitely won’t mutate!

Song Qinglan said: “If you don’t go, the black wall will devour you.”

The woman was stunned, “What black wall?”

‘Bang!’

There was a gunshot in the car. Someone’s head was blown open and blood sprayed onto the walls of the car.

Faced with such good resources including weapons and the spacecar, the men couldn’t come to an agreement and a fight had started.

The woman looked back and screamed in fright.

The little girl remained in her own world, silently playing with her doll.

Ji Yushi wasn’t surprised by this, but he whispered, “Soon.”

He looked as if he wasn’t involved and was just an onlooker.

The person who fired the gun had the gun snatched away. The body laid there with his eyes wide open, but these people turned a blind eye to it.

The argument escalated and they started to get physical. Immediately afterwards, the spacecar made a sharp turn before continuing to drive on ahead at a steady speed.

Someone shouted, “Kill them all and take the spacecar!”

Everyone fell silent for a second and then they all threw themselves towards the pile of equipment.

Gunshots sounded.

The car leaned sharply to the side and the control panel at the front was hit by a stray bullet!

“Ahhhhh!!!” The woman screamed.

The out-of-control spacecar carrying a group of desperadoes shot forward. Song Qinglan used this opportunity to roll forward but a cold muzzle was pressed against his forehead.

He raised his head. The dark-skinned man held Shen Mian with a murderous expression and pulled the trigger.

Song Qinglan hooked up his lips, “It needs fingerprints, stupid.”

As soon as he finished saying that, the hands tied behind his back suddenly broke free. When he rolled forward just now, he had at some unknown point in time picked up a knife. His movements were so fast, even Ji Yushi had trouble following. He only saw him leaning to the side and, sweeping his long legs out, the dark-skinned man was thrown onto the ground.

Song Qinglan threw himself onto him, grabbed the man’s head and smashed it against the ground. The dark-skinned man cried out in pain and fresh blood coming from his broken nose covered his face.

At the same time, Song Qinglan kicked a knife with his boots, sending it whirling over towards Ji Yushi’s direction.

“Fucking kill him!”

“Stop the car!!”

‘Bang, bang!’

Bullets hit the metal car walls. Sparks flew everywhere.

In the dim light, Song Qinglan stepped on the car wall and used the force to propel himself off. As soon as he landed, he broke someone’s neck with a loud crack.

“The car is out of control!!”

Ji Yushi shouted this and watched Song Qinglan raise his Shen Mian to kill two survivors in front of him. Hearing the shout, he immediately went to the control panel, but someone rushed over from behind and grabbed his neck.

“Boom!!”

The car made a loud noise and everyone inside was thrown about.

The outer shell of the car grazed against walls outside, only stopping after going through several of them.

“Cough, cough, cough!!” Ji Yushi coughed nonstop from the impact.

The windows of the car were broken. Dust filled the air inside. The car itself had become deformed. Everything was now quiet.

The woman had been shot in the head and blood spilled onto the floor. The ground was littered with corpses and the little girl was also laying there face down with blood flowing from under her body.

Someone grabbed his ankle.

Ji Yushi looked down. The dark-skinned man with a bloodied face wasn’t dead yet. His other hand holding the Diamond Bird slowly raised.

Ji Yushi still had the knife in his hands.

“Grrr.”

A dead man stood up.

Following another sound, the little girl also stood up while holding the doll.

Ji Yushi’s beautiful eyes looked at the dark-skinned man and he took away his gun from his weak hands.

Following that——-

He ruthlessly used the knife to stab his hand to the floor!

“Ahhhh!!!!” A cry that sounded like a pig being slaughtered rang out.

“Hurry!” Song Qinglan pushed away the bricks piled over him. His body was covered in dust and blood, looking very pathetic, “Ji Yushi!”

The two jumped off the spacecar.

Zombies from all directions rushed towards the spacecar which had made a large sound just now.

The two were like a single lifeboat floating among the tide of corpses. It was difficult protecting themselves from the surging tide. Shots were fired non-stop until even their hands felt numb. Even Song Qinglan’s Shen Mian couldn’t deal with the large onslaught of zombies.

“Grrr!!”

“Grrrr———”

Rotting flesh and heat wave. An indescribable smell filled the nose.

The communicator had been thrown away and the channel in the subcutaneous communicator was still set as public.

Having reached the other teammates communication range, broken voices entered their ears, “Cap Song?! Hello?…..Cap Song? Is it you?! We heard a loud noise nearby!”

It was Tang Qi.

“It’s us!” Song Qinglan replied while shooting, “We’re surrounded by a wave of zombies!”

Tang Qi: “……Currently locating!……Be there soon!!”

The connection broke.

On the side of the road not too far away, there was a green mini kiosk that attracted Song Qinglan’s attention, “Go there to hide!”

The two rushed over while shooting.

“Clang!”

Song Qinglan kicked opened the door. The zombies behind them were shot down by Ji Yushi and they both quickly squeezed in.

The kiosk was completely dark, and it was only one square metre in size; very pitifully small.

Song Qinglan panted heavily with his back against the metal door and a few seconds later, he actually laughed out loud, “Advisor Ji, can you change your way of explaining next time?”

Ji Yushi stood face to face in front of him. The darkness made it hard for them to see each other’s expressions clearly, “Explain what?”

The growls from the zombies were quite terrible. Scratching sounds came from all four sides of the kiosk and clanging of the metal reverberated throughout. It wasn’t hard to imagine what it would be like once the zombies managed to break through.

It couldn’t be about explaining homophobia, is it?

Song Qinglan, “Explaining the theory you want to tell us next.”

In the last round, they had passed this area.

That blocked road, the damaged spacecar and the little zombie they encountered in the alley, it all coincided with their current situation.

Song Qinglan originally didn’t understand what Ji Yushi wanted to do.

It wasn’t until Ji Yushi mentioned the movie <Dawn of the Dead> that he remembered what the situation was like when they were discussing about it in the car last time.

It was difficult for ordinary people to accurately recall.

For Ji Yushi whose memories were deeply embedded, even the small zombie that he briefly caught sight of as well as the doll in the red dress in her hands, it was all firmly imprinted into his mind.

Ji Yushi’s clear voice sounded, “In fact——-”

There was a loud noise.

The little kiosk was knocked down by the zombies!

The two crashed onto the ground. Crushed by Song Qinglan, Ji Yushi let out a painful grunt. The second half of his words where choked out, “Cough, cough——There was no other way to explain it.”

Suddenly.

There was a shimmer of white light.

The screen above the two lit up and animation and text appeared. Song Qinglan however was on top so the screen was mostly blocked by his back.

“Grrr—–”

The zombies were still pushing this long rectangular kiosk around.

The two piled on top of each other were shaken. Their bodies pressed tightly together, and their warm breathing could be distinctly felt by the other party.

In the dim lighting, Song Qinglan could clearly see Ji Yushi.

His eyes were calm and beautiful, his white cheeks were stained with dirt and his eyelashes were long and dense.

He was clearly a man but for Ji Yushi, even the colour of his lips was different to the rest of the rough men here.

This silence lasted about four or five seconds. Ji Yushi’s eyelashes fluttered, and he turned his head away slightly, his gaze looking elsewhere, “Cap Song, are you really straight?”

Song Qinglan’s elbows were pressed against the ground, supporting him up. He replied with some difficulty, “Advisor Ji, are you trying to slander me again?”

It seems that Song Qinglan didn’t have an excuse.

Ji Yushi said, “That look of yours just now, it was like a pervert staring at me in a bar.”

Song Qinglan had the urge to laugh. He snorted coldly, “At such a close distance and with just the two of us, if I don’t look at you, am I supposed to one-sidedly close my eyes?”

Ji Yushi: “Alright then, your words make sense.”

Song Qinglan wanted to use this chance to gain the upper hand, “And someone like you visit bars?”

Ji Yushi turned his head back, “Of course it’s a gay bar.”

Song Qinglan: “………..”

My bad.

“Grrrr.”

“Grrr!”

Zombies were still pushing the poor little kiosk around. Amidst the shaking, the two of them tacitly chose to close their mouths. If they were to make a strange sound in a situation like this, it would be too embarrassing.

Suddenly, a short and upbeat music sounded from the screen behind them.

A sweet female voice then spoke: “Thank you for choosing this product. I wish you a good time~”

Whoosh! Something fell from below the screen, falling next to them.

The shiny package had writing printed in standard Chinese: [PU-31 Ultra-realistic and extremely satisfying, a replacement for your other half.]