Liu Yuxuan, true to his name, was a man of impressive bearing—tall and dignified. He was a fanatic about car modifications.
Seeing the fervor with which he led everyone in modifying the off-road vehicles, I once joked with him: "Liu, take it easy! You're not earning a single penny from this!"
Liu excitedly replied that this was more thrilling than any paid work he'd done before!
Soon, he took on several apprentices, all car enthusiasts. These apprentices were survivors from other units, newly joined men and boys of the Action Group. It seems that, regardless of age, men's love for cars is eternal!
These apprentices were named: Erbao, Fatty, and Xiaoye.
Liu focused on training these three, and now the four of them formed an invincible off-road modification team.
Each of these true men had his own distinct personality. Erbao was an optimistic young man, just 25 years old, with a pleasing, round-faced appearance, always smiling. He used to be a real estate agent, articulate and smooth-talking, though sometimes quite silly.
I figured this had something to do with the constant morning, midday, and evening meetings and various employee motivation mechanisms in real estate companies. Because Erbao would often suddenly clench his fists, widen his eyes, and shout slogans like: "We are the best! We are invincible! Let the zombies eat shit! Let us create a new century together!..."
He frequently startled everyone by yelling unexpectedly! But I really liked Erbao's optimistic fearlessness. In such an environment, pessimism and despair are particularly negative, easily making people lose the will to survive. Erbao genuinely managed to make everyone laugh and feel instantly lighter!
Fatty, 24, was a stout guy. While he looked a bit rough, his speech often revealed unexpected literary flair—sometimes passionately fiery, other times reserved and low-key, even mysteriously so!
In my eyes, he was just an immature young man trying hard to appear profound, a somewhat pretentious literary fat youth. He previously sold computer components in a tech mall. He secretly told me that his grand ambition was actually to become a literati, free and unfettered, roaming the landscapes of the motherland, composing poetry and painting every day, followed by countless adoring young girls with starry eyes, crying and vowing to marry no one but him, to live and die for him, devoted for life!
Watching his self-intoxicated expression, I suppressed the urge to burst out laughing and expressed complete understanding! Because I had many dreams when I was young too—like an Arab sheikh suddenly appearing, claiming I was a lost princess from their country, then with a wave of my hand, all their oil would belong to my family at ten cents per catty! No bargaining allowed!
After hearing my princess dream, the little fatty walked away speechless. The look in his eyes clearly said he thought I was an idiot. Okay, I just wanted to tell him: let's be realistic! After all, no matter how powerful a love poem is now, it won't move the hearts of those zombies outside!
Xiaoye was a typical otaku, 22 years old, with delicate features, thin and weak. He was a student from a local university who hadn't graduated yet and was in his internship period. He used his internship time to research network technology, striving to become a glorious hacker—at least, that's what he said. I noticed he was actually studying Plants vs. Zombies, always telling me that if he had potato mines, he'd blow up those damn zombies outside...
I'd been obsessed with that game too; did he think I didn't understand? Always focusing on useless stuff!
However, regardless of these boys' former ambitions or skills, they were now, under Liu Yuxuan's influence, obsessed with modifying all the off-road vehicles scavenged from the streets. The iron bars they welded were becoming increasingly neat and proficient!
The compound now had 23 off-road vehicles, all modified. Of course, not all were Land Rovers; there were also Subarus, CRVs, and other models. But Land Rovers still gave us a greater sense of security. Seeing there was no immediate work, the modification team planned to search other streets for more abandoned Land Rovers with keys available.
With nothing urgent at home, I discussed it with my husband and decided to go out with the modification team. There was something I needed to get. Previously, we'd mainly focused on frantically moving daily necessities. This particular item, no one had thought to grab a few boxes while they were at it.
There was a reason. Liu Yuxuan's wife, Ling, suddenly approached me yesterday, shyly asking, "Sister Duo, do you have any pregnancy tests?" I understood immediately and quickly asked her, "What? Are you pregnant?" Thinking to myself: isn't this asking for trouble? What timing is this? If you really are pregnant, what will you do when it's time to give birth!
How did Lori, the female lead in The Walking Dead, die? Wasn't it because there were no conditions for a cesarean section? Cutting the baby out alive with a knife is no joke! Who knows if we'll have safe conditions in ten months? If we need to flee everywhere, a pregnant woman suddenly going into labor is unimaginable!
"You and Liu Yuxuan don't use protection?" The more I thought about it, the more serious it seemed, and my tone became stern. They're both adults; how could they be so irresponsible? Even in normal times, if you don't plan for a child, you should use protection! I was starting to get angry at this couple's recklessness.
"This happened a month ago. We ran out of condoms at home and hadn't had time to buy more. After the incident, we were utterly despairing and didn't even think about protection; we never thought we'd survive. So... But my period is several days late now, and I'm scared! What should I do if I really am pregnant?" Ling was on the verge of tears as she spoke. Sigh, such a typical woman!
"Don't worry. I'll make time to get pregnancy tests from a pharmacy for you! If you really are pregnant, we'll discuss it then." I genuinely hope this hasn't happened! The consequences are too dreadful to consider.
Liu Yuxuan knew about this too. He was full of regret, but given their state of despair, it's understandable. Forget it, I don't want to blame him.
There are quite a few surviving couples in the compound. I think this is an issue that needs attention: taking preventive measures! We can't survive the zombies only to be defeated by ourselves in the end.
So, we need to get more birth control supplies for everyone. Well, that is, Durex. Married people understand.
So I held a small meeting with the women, emphasizing the importance of this issue. Honestly, not many women really like watching zombie shows. After I told them how Lori died in The Walking Dead, they were all terrified.
Being scared is good. Fear makes people pay attention.
And at my request, Canaan also held a small meeting for all the husbands in the compound. The main idea was similar: if you don't want your wife to die such a terrible death, don't take this lightly. Everyone expressed gratitude and agreement.
This time, we went again to the Shuncheng Pharmacy where we took Dr. Xiaoshuang for children's medicine. The pharmacy was still cold, empty, and deserted. The small door with the warning sign was still tightly shut. Thankfully, no one had been foolish enough to release the living dead inside!
I easily found what I was looking for in the family planning section. There were all kinds of brands. Whatever, confiscate them all! I swept all the pharmacy's stock into the bag I brought, also grabbing many health supplements. Since we're alive, we should live well, right? At least ensure we live healthily! Well, I won't go into detail.
Leaving the pharmacy, we continued towards the city center. It was strange today; along the way, there were so many abandoned cars, but not a single Land Rover. In peaceful times, whenever you went out, the streets were clogged with Land Rovers in traffic jams. Why were they all hiding now when we needed to find them?
Searching as we went, we gradually approached the city center—a dangerous area we never ventured into. But seeing the number of zombies on the road wasn't high, we decided to take a risk, tentatively extending our search there. If any situation arose, we'd immediately flee!
Near Shunli Street, we finally spotted a black Land Rover parked in front of a baby supplies store. Excellent! Finding even one meant this trip wasn't in vain!
A baby supplies store! I suddenly thought of the many babies of all sizes in our compound. Their needs were great, but our supplies were low. We'd been focused on scavenging daily necessities from Carrefour; for the babies, aside from formula, we hadn't stocked much, and now the formula was running low.
This baby supplies store before our eyes had all kinds of child food and supplies. Since we'd have to come out to stock up for the children sooner or later, why not take advantage of today? Take as much as we could. For what we couldn't carry, we'd come back with more people to move later.
After I explained my idea to everyone, we parked the vehicles in front of the store and prepared to go in and sweep the goods.
This store faced the street and appeared to have two levels. The main door was tightly shut. Display windows on either side featured child mannequins wearing this year's latest down jackets. Yes, we needed to stock up on warm clothes and cotton-padded shoes for the children too. After all, we didn't know when we might need to evacuate entirely, or rather, escape.
I hoped that day would never come.
The main door was deadbolted from the inside! Were there survivors inside?
We quickly knocked, but no one answered. My heart sank. The incident had happened over a month ago. This was a baby supplies store, not an adult food store. Had the survivors inside already starved to death or...
This place was already very close to the city center. We could see zombies sporadically wandering ahead. The incident day had been a Sunday!
That day, the number of people shopping downtown would have been enormous. Of course, people in our city loved shopping underground. The reason the number of zombies on the downtown streets wasn't massively huge was that a large portion of them were concentrated in the underground malls.
But the number of zombies on the various streets downtown certainly wouldn't be small. We couldn't afford any wishful thinking.
We didn't dare yell into the house to see if anyone was inside. If we really attracted a horde of zombies, our small team wouldn't be able to handle it. We had to be like thieves: come quietly, leave quietly, no shooting...
But what could we do about this door? Whether we pried it open or smashed it, it would create a huge noise. We were instantly torn.