Ch141.1 - Raising a Big Cat in the Apocalypse (20.1)

translator: xiin

editors: apricot & juurensha

About a quarter of an hour later, the sound of gunfire died down.

After being under guerrilla attack and led around like headless flies for such a long time, the new humans finally came back to their senses. They were all angry, frustrated, and helpless.

Their dependence on AI made them extremely unfamiliar with this type of primitive confrontation, and the loss of their light sources made the new humans directly fall back into the predicament of being faced with an endless night, like how it’d been at the start of the apocalypse.

The stored energy in their laser guns were soon exhausted, their former police captain, Shu Wenqing, who was good with all kinds of old-fashioned weapons, was absent and not in command right now, and their automatic aiming was being interfered with by some kind of signal. The functionality of the laser guns had been downgraded, and they had practically been turned into portable flashlights.

The current captain of the police force shook the communicator in his hands. “Can anyone hear me? Hey? Speak up!”

Through the communicator came the intermittent sounds of a former pop singer’s song.

“Damn it!”

He smacked the communicator with his hand, then lifted up his flashlight. A powerful light broke through the fog and swept through one of the cages in the stands.

The inside of the cages were empty. It was obvious that the slaves had escaped.

He became even angrier when he saw this, and his voice leapt up by an octave as he yelled into the noisy communicator, “Hello? Hey, hey! Anyone there? Is there anyone who is still breathing?”

Suddenly, a warm body ghosted up from behind and pasted up to him.

Gu Xinzhi stuck up against his side and said genially, “There is. But I need you to cooperate for a bit.”

After that, he skillfully wrapped the gun belt hanging off the other man’s right shoulder around his throat, crossed his hands, and lifted his entire body up onto his back.

This move instantly broke the bones in the captain’s neck, but the new human’s strong healing ability made it so that he only felt a terrible ongoing sense of suffocation.

This feeling of suffocating made him go crazy. He pounded at the attacker’s waist and abdomen his elbows, and every hit landed on flesh, making audible sounds, but the other side didn’t even seem to feel the pain. He didn’t flinch or shrink back, and basically didn’t even suck in a breath.

... Could it be a new human?

When he thought of how the other side might be a new human, the captain fell into despair. He scratched frantically at his neck, leaving bloody scratches on his own flesh.

Ding Qiuyun picked up the communicator that he’d dropped on the ground and shook it twice amidst the crackling sound of electricity, saying simultaneously to Gu Xinzhi, “Don’t torture people. If you’re going to kill or cut him down, then just get it done.”

Gu Xinzhi answered with silence, but he dragged the man who was close to madness towards the end of an alley.

Under 061’s intervention, the communicator that had originally lost its functionality immediately connected successfully.

Some of their team members’ voices came out of the public channel, but they were so distorted by the static, it was difficult to decipher their words.

“Cap...”

“Captain, have you... see?”

“Should&#k2026; we&#k2026; still fight? The gun&#k2026; not enough.”

In the nearby alley, that police captain also seemed to hear the sounds from his direction and kept on making dying whimpers, attempting to attract his team members’ attention.

Ding Qiuyun covered the communicator and shot a &#k2018;shhh’ sound at the alley.

All sounds in the alley cut off in an instant.

After confirming that there would be no other sounds interfering from that side, Ding Qiuyun spoke very naturally, “Cease fire temporarily and gather together in front of the east square. First wait for everyone to get together before deciding on the next step.”

Radio waves could easily distort people’s voices until they sounded different. The dozens of headless flies in the channel weren’t on guard against his voice at all, and they all answered positively before hanging up their communicators and rushing collectively to the east square.

Ding Qiuyun took out the pencil from his pocket and pressed down on the ‘eraser’ on one end. “Lanlan, tell Shu Wenqing that it’s time. Follow my command to close in around the targets.”

Inside the ally, Gu Xinzhi didn’t follow Ding Qiuyun’s instructions to finish things off quickly.

Gu Xinzhi hated the new humans. This was because, every time he saw any new human, he would think about how they had caused him to lose Ding Qiuyun. He’d first lost the man, and now he’d lost his heart.

However, he’d promised Ding Qiuyun that he wouldn’t twist people’s heads off. At the very least, he couldn’t do it in front of Ding Qiuyun.

So, Gu Xinzhi kept strangling the other party’s neck ceaselessly. At the same time, he leaned in close to the other party’s ear and spoke to him in a very low voice:

“Don’t you feel so bad that you really want to die?”

“Seriously, I really want to satisfy you, but when it comes to things like this, you have to achieve it for yourself.”

As he spoke, he led the man who was on the verge of madness to a broken pipe. He used his eyes to gesture at a sharp rusty edge, and whispered to him, “Come on, just do it yourself.”

Very soon after, he came out of the alley with the man’s gun slung over his back. When he found that Ding Qiuyun was still waiting for him, he pursed his lips and went to meet up with him very happily.

Ding Qiuyun asked him, “Is it done?”

“I didn’t kill him.” Gu Xinzhi spoke in as gentle of a tone as possible, “He committed suicide.”

Ding Qiuyun laughed briefly and declined to comment. He turned and left.

Gu Xinzhi followed him. “Captain Ding doesn’t believe me.”

Ding Qiuyun asked him, “Does Vice-captain Gu feel that he’s trustworthy?”

Gu Xinzhi thought about it seriously, then laughed reluctantly as he gave Ding Qiuyun the gun and flash bomb he’d seized.

Ding Qiuyun didn’t act polite with him and accepted it all.

Gu Xinzhi looked at Ding Qiuyun’s side profile, and his eyes were incredibly soft. He hid his bloody hands behind him and clasped them at his back, like a student following obediently behind Teacher Ding Qiuyun.

The fog dampened Ding Qiuyun’s hair. Gu Xinzhi wanted to touch the hair on his forehead that was wet with dew; his fingers were eager to move, but then obediently retracted them back to their original position.

The figures of the two men, one in front and one behind, melted back into the fog.

Ding Qiuyun had revised his plan on short notice after reaching a deal with Shu Wenqing, but he didn’t intend to join in on the internal conflicts between the new humans.

He would not let his team become involved in Shu Wenqing’s troubles for the moment. Playing around the periphery wasn’t a problem, but he would never send his team members to the center of the conflict to take risks.

Moreover, their previous fight had already helped Shu Wenqing by using up their opponents’ ammunition, so it could be considered as a helpful act. The main purpose of their trip was still the slaves.

Guns were very rare during the apocalypse. New humans who came to buy slaves, such as the member of the supply team who’d wanted to buy Gu Xinzhi, would only use their guns to protect themselves and ensure that they could get away if they had a gun. At most, they would only try to snatch away two or three slaves in the chaos and would never waste precious bullets on maintaining the internal security of the slave town.

The old humans in the north and south warehouses had already been rescued. Some of them had already driven away in slave cars, choosing to travel together to find their loved ones, while most of them had chosen to leave with Ding Qiuyun and the others; the east warehouse was currently in the midst of a head count and the results would soon be known.

What was troublesome now was that they had to be careful of the guns from the townsmen who made a livelihood from keeping slaves.

When Ding Qiuyun arrived at the east warehouse, a member of the team had been wounded by a gunshot. He was leaning against the truck tire as his teammate helped bandage his wound.

A few small wounds on his shoulder had been created by iron shrapnel. Although it was only a flesh wound, no injury could be underestimated due to the shortage of medicine during the apocalypse.

Ding Qiuyun checked over the condition of the injured person, then turned back and asked, “Who shot him?”

Countless silent and angry gazes turned to the guard of the east warehouse who was tied up in the corner.

... It was an old human.

The man realized that the situation wasn’t good and quickly said, “I surrendered! I surrendered! You guys can’t kill me––”

Ding Qiuyun decisively shot him in the shoulder.

His cry for mercy was replaced by a cry of pain.

Ding Qiuyun didn’t do anything further. He didn’t try to take his life, and he didn’t continue torturing him. He only told another man to move his teammate to the car and ordered him to take some medicine to relieve the pain and inflammation. Then, he hefted the Browning, which was still hot, and turned to reach into Gu Xinzhi’s trouser pocket.

The feeling of having his thigh touched made Gu Xinzhi hiss out a breath, and his smile disappeared immediately. “... When did you find out?”

Ding Qiuyun took out five or six bullets, thumbed them against the palm of his hand, then pushed them into the gun chamber one by one. “You just robbed three people of their weapons, and they were all guns from the same specs. You stole them, but didn’t use them and only took the bullets...”

As he spoke, Ding Qiuyun pushed the loaded magazine back into its original position and moistened his lower lip with his tongue. “Don’t worry, there are plenty of bullets in the range.”

Gu Xinzhi looked at Ding Qiuyun with infatuated eyes. His hands trembled with excitement, but he still tried hard to control his emotions, wringing his hands behind his back and taking small, deep breaths.

By the time they came out of the east warehouse, the ping-ping sounds of guns from the east square had already come to a stop.

When Ding Qiuyun passed by, there was a group of new humans as well as a few old humans tied up with iron chains. One of them was the old human that Ding Qiuyun had seen knocking against the cages and threatening slaves just earlier.

His face was covered with frozen tears, his shoulders twitched heavily, and he looked miserable.

After clearing out the neighborhood, Shu Wenqing came back to look at the prisoners. Her eyebrows raised up slightly when she saw this person.

Her subordinates kicked the man in the back with ugly expressions on their faces, “Captain Shu, we brought him back for you.”

Shu Wenqing replied politely, “Thank you.”

It was a few short sentences, but it was enough for Ding Qiuyun to guess at this man’s true identity.

After seeing the person in front of him, the man immediately began to cry bitterly. He crawled forward on his knees and rubbed against Shu Wenqing’s knee with his face. “Wenqing, listen to me. I want, I want to live––”

Shu Wenqing reached out and grabbed him by the back of his neck. She pinched it twice, then whispered as if coaxing a child, “Alright, alright. I know.”

The man acted like he’d been saved as he tilted his head back to look up at his former lover.

Shu Wenqing turned her head and spoke to Yan Lanlan, who’d been following her the whole time and was currently still poking her head out curiously. “Little girl, turn around and close your eyes.”

Yan Lanlan might be a little bratty, but she was more obedient than not and was especially sensitive to such commanding words––this habit had been trained by Ding Qiuyun.

She quickly turned her head and obediently closed her eyes.

“You don’t have to explain to me.” Shu Wenqing lowered her head and grabbed him by his hair. She took two steps back, then released her hand. “My friends are down there. You can go and slowly explain things to them.”

With that, her left hand wrapped around the machete behind her, and she swung it out horizontally. Her movements were clean and neat as she cut his throat.

She’d moved so fast that the light of hope in that person’s eyes hadn’t yet faded by the time he toppled over with blood gushing out of his throat.

Under such constrained circumstances, this was already the most just way that Shu Wenqing could think of for him to die.

She waved the bloody machete and flicked off a line of blood, then turned around. Her eyes narrowed slightly and she found that some of the blood had splashed onto the back of Yan Lanlan’s neck.

She stepped forward, walking towards the place where Ding Qiuyun was standing. When she passed by Yan Lanlan, she wiped away the bit of blood at the back of her neck.

Yan Lanlan was oblivious to it. She had the back of her neck stroked like a little puppy, and she rubbed at her neck, a little confused.

Ding Qiuyun had already finished the preparations he needed to make. After meeting with Shu Wenqing face to face, he took the initiative to hand over control over the main loudspeakers that were installed in all parts of the town to notify the townspeople regarding any special affairs.

She accepted it, then looked at the captives. Her voice didn’t fluctuate as she spoke to the people who were huddled in the dark like turtles in the residential areas, “Hear this, people of the town. From tomorrow, we will start counting all the weapons and smash all the cages. Anyone who still wants to continue with the slavery business, anyone who thinks that the new humans are superior to the old humans, please leave town on your own before 5AM the day after tomorrow. This is not a trade center, and it’s not a business arena. It’s a world of humans, and I won’t hand it over to animals who insult and sell their own kind.”

... And she’d never been soft when it came to killing animals.

There was silence all around. No one replied to her, but Shu Wenqing didn’t care. She tossed the loudspeaker to her subordinate, then said to Ding Qiuyun, “Captain Ding, can you leave some people behind to help me?”

Ding Qiuyun agreed, “But before dealing with the people, I suggest that you deal with the real animals first.”

After speaking, he turned his face towards the darkness.

A black leopard slowly came out of the shadows, holding a dying hound in its mouth.