Five days ago. Qingyun Town, "Haizaiduo" Convenience Store.
At this time, Qingyun Town had not yet seen military intervention, and the entire town was immersed in a suffocating, rotten silence. The convenience store's rolling shutter door was half-closed, and the heavy anti-theft lock gleamed with a cold metallic sheen. Inside, the once-orderly shelves had long since toppled in the chaos, expired bread bags, broken glass bottles, and dried blood intertwined, exuding a unique decadent aura of the apocalypse.
"Brother Hu, these two guys still won't hand over the key to the basement in the backyard garage."
Haozi's sharp voice was particularly grating in the empty store. He held an iron hook stained with dark red rust and looked fawningly at the man sitting on the cash register.
Brother Hu, once a tyrannical dump truck driver in town, was now shirtless, revealing a body of greasy yet solid flesh. He had a half-smoked cigar, found God knows where, dangling from his mouth, and stared ahead with chilling eyes.
In front of him, two men were tightly bound to a sturdy load-bearing pillar with rope. One was Old Zhang, a deliveryman from town, and the other was Xiao Li, a young courier. Both their faces were covered in bruises and dried blood, and their eyes were filled with terror and pleading.
"Old Zhang, you're a smart man." Brother Hu exhaled a puff of smoke, slowly stepped down from the cash register, his leather boots making a harsh scraping sound on the broken tiles. "In this day and age, life is cheaper than paper. Hand over the basement key to me, and I can guarantee you and your beautiful wife will live well here. Otherwise..."
He suddenly stopped, pulled out a heavy pig-slaughtering knife from his waist, its blade flashing a cold glint under the faint emergency light.
"Brother Hu... please, the basement key really isn't with me... I really lost it when things got chaotic that day..." Old Zhang's voice trembled violently, his teeth chattering incessantly.
"Lost it?" Brother Hu sneered, then swung his knife abruptly.
"Ah!!!"
A piercing scream instantly permeated the entire convenience store. Old Zhang's left pinky finger was severed at the root, bright red blood splattering onto the grayish floor and onto Brother Hu's ferocious face.
"Haozi, go, bring those women out. Let this honest man, Old Zhang, see the price of being stubborn."
Soon, Haozi and three other thugs—nicknamed "Big Mouth," "Squinty Eye," and "A-Qiang"—dragged three disheveled, dazed women out of the small storeroom. One of them was Old Zhang's wife; her pajamas were torn beyond recognition, her exposed skin covered in purplish pinch marks, and her eyes held a deathly despair.
"Old Zhang... save me... save me..." The woman moaned weakly, but Big Mouth grabbed her hair and forcibly pressed her onto a dusty folding table.
"Brother Hu, this woman's skin is so tender. Old Zhang must have doted on her quite a bit." Big Mouth grinned menacingly, beginning to unbuckle his belt.
"Beasts! You animals!" Xiao Li, tied nearby, roared in anger, struggling desperately, trying to rush over, but the ropes tightened even more.
"Oh, young man, quite a temper, aren't we?" Brother Hu turned his head, a cruel glint in his eyes. "Since you're so eager to step forward, then you can go first."
Without hesitation, Brother Hu lunged forward, the pig-slaughtering knife in his hand whistling through the air as he fiercely plunged it into Xiao Li's chest.
"Pfft!"
The sound of the blade piercing ribs was clearly audible in the silent night. Xiao Li's movements stopped abruptly; he stared wide-eyed, a large amount of bloody foam gushing from his mouth, his body slumping like a sack drained of strength.
"Xiao Li!" Old Zhang's eyes were bloodshot as he roared in despair.
"So noisy." Brother Hu expressionlessly pulled out the knife, wiped the blood on Xiao Li's clothes, then looked at Haozi. "Since this old man is useless, send him on his way too. Remember to throw the body into the back alley; don't let it stink up our living quarters and attract those zombies."
Haozi walked forward with a sinister grin, swinging his iron hook down abruptly, hooking it directly into Old Zhang's lower jaw, then yanking hard.
Amidst Old Zhang's pained whimpers, Haozi tightly strangled his neck with a thin iron wire. Old Zhang's legs thrashed wildly on the ground, his face turning purple from asphyxiation, his eyeballs bulging, until he finally stopped moving altogether.
"Old Zhang!!!" Old Zhang's wife, who had witnessed the entire horror from the side, let out a heart-wrenching wail.
Two vibrant lives, in less than ten minutes, were disposed of like trash by this group of devils.
"Alright, the unlucky things have been cleaned up." Brother Hu sat back in his chair, looking at the women by the table, who were being wantonly humiliated and crying in despair by his subordinates. His eyes showed no pity, only a perverse pleasure. "Haozi, go bring out that box of ham sausages from the warehouse. Brothers, you've worked hard tonight; let's have a 'train'!"
"Alright, Brother Hu! It's great following you!"
Inside the convenience store, violence and atrocities grew unchecked in the darkness. In this isolated town, they established a primitive jungle law belonging to thugs and hooligans. They raped women, massacred other survivors, hoarded supplies, and turned the convenience store into a miniature living hell.
I am the dividing line —————————————————————
Time returns to the present.
The previously tightly closed aluminum alloy rolling shutter door opened a crack, and a head just poked out, "Sir, I..."
This saved the soldiers from having to violently break down the door.
"Flashbang! Throw it!"
With a rough roar, two flashbangs cut through the darkness, exploding into two blinding white lights within the narrow confines of the convenience store.
"Ah! My eyes!"
"Don't fire! It's us! Military brothers!"
Amidst the chaos and screams, the Marine Corps members stormed in like ghosts. Wearing tactical goggles and gas masks, their rifles equipped with powerful flashlights, the crisscrossing beams of light instantly illuminated every dirty corner of the convenience store.
The Marine Squad Leader strode over the rubble, his combat boot-clad foot stomping heavily on the hand of a thug attempting to rub his eyes, the sound of bone cracking clearly audible in the now-quiet room.
"Everyone, kneel! Hands behind your head! Otherwise, you will be immediately shot!" The Marine Squad Leader's voice was utterly cold, his gun barrel steadily pointed at the most heavily built man—"Brother Hu."
Brother Hu was squinting hard, trying to adjust to the light. That flash had made him drop his pistol. Now, he forced a twisted, fawning smile, slowly raised his hands, and knelt down: "Officer... Officer, don't shoot! I'm in charge here, we're survivors! We've been waiting for the government to rescue us! There are many affected people here, and we've been protecting them..."
The Marine Squad Leader ignored his pleas, his sharp eyes scanning the surroundings behind his mask. As a veteran of the Marine Corps, he had clearly seen such situations on the battlefield.
He walked to the counter and used the gun barrel to pick up a torn, blood-stained lace bra. Then, his gaze fell on a pile of uncleaned empty wine bottles and scattered expired premium canned goods on the floor. Finally, he looked at the tightly locked, slightly trembling wooden door of the warehouse.
"Protect?" The Squad Leader let out a contemptuous snort. He walked up to Brother Hu and, without warning, slammed the butt of his rifle hard into the other man's mouth.
"Pfft!" Brother Hu spat out broken teeth and blood, collapsing to the ground.
"Rat, you reek of scum; I can smell it even through my gas mask." The Squad Leader said coldly, then turned to the warehouse. "Soldier, open the door."
A soldier stepped forward and kicked open the warehouse door.
At that moment, the previously stern Marine Corps members instinctively tightened their grip on their rifle stocks. Inside the warehouse, a dozen women huddled, barely clothed, between the shelves. Their hands and feet were bound with rusty chains, and their exposed skin was covered in burns, bruises, and some nauseating dried fluid. The air was filled with a strong, foul odor of human waste and festering wounds.
"Save... save us..." Sister Hua looked up, her once lifeless eyes bursting with a nearly insane light upon seeing the soldiers in their uniform combat gear. "They're not human... they killed my husband... every day they..."
Her words were left unfinished, turning into choked sobs.
The Marine Squad Leader's eyes instantly turned icy cold. He turned around, looking at the five thugs trying to shrink back, his voice imbued with a strong scent of death: "Assessment complete. Targets identified as: uninfected scum. Charges: rape, abuse, murder, illegal hoarding of supplies."
"No! Officer! You can't do this! We have a right to survive! We demand a trial! We demand the law!" Brother Hu shrieked in terror, realizing that these soldiers were not here to discuss human rights.
"A trial?" The Squad Leader scoffed, connecting to the Command Center channel. "Viper Commander, five social degenerates found. Recommend immediate 'violent filtration' to save on transportation costs and rations."
Viper's calm voice came through the communicator: "Authorization granted."
"Received."
The Squad Leader turned off the communication and gestured to the three soldiers behind him.
"Drag them out, line them up on the steps."
"Mercy! Officer! I have money! I have gold bars! They're all yours!"
"I was forced! Brother Hu made me do it!"
The four subordinates were dragged like dead dogs, crying and wailing, to the steps in front of the convenience store. Brother Hu was personally grabbed by the Squad Leader by the collar and thrown into the middle like trash.
At this moment, the survivors hiding behind windows on the street, as well as the women rescued from the warehouse, all stumbled to the doorway. Supporting each other, they stared intently at these five beasts with eyes mixed with extreme hatred and pleasure.
The Squad Leader stood on the steps, drew the pistol from his waist, and slowly racked the slide to chamber a round.
"In this base, I am your law." His voice echoed through the convenience store.
He walked behind the first subordinate, placing the muzzle against the back of his head.
"Bang!"
Blood splattered, the thug's head exploded like a rotten watermelon, and his lifeless body rolled down the steps.
"Good!! Kill him!" A woman, almost unrecognizable from torture, suddenly shrieked. She clapped her hands frantically, not caring even as her palms bled.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three more dull gunshots. The other three thugs were precisely executed amidst their desperate pleas, their bodies neatly piled together.
Finally, the Squad Leader walked up to Brother Hu. Brother Hu was so terrified that he had soiled himself, completely limp in a pool of blood, only able to make meaningless gurgling sounds.
The Squad Leader didn't shoot immediately. Instead, he looked at the suffering women and coldly asked, "How do you want him to die?"
"Kill him!!!"
"Beat him to death! This beast!"
The cheers and applause of the survivors reached their peak at this moment—a carnival of long-suppressed despair finally unleashed.
The Squad Leader nodded, slowly lowering his gun to aim at Brother Hu's crotch.
"The first shot is for the women you ruined."
"Bang!"
"Ahhhhhh!!!" Brother Hu let out an inhuman scream, rolling frantically on the ground.
"The second shot is for the people you killed."
"Bang!" The bullet pierced Brother Hu's knee.
Finally, the Marine Squad Leader moved the gun back to his forehead, his eyes devoid of any emotion.
"This last shot is to save air."
"Bang!"
Brother Hu's screams abruptly ceased, half of his head blown off by the kinetic energy of the close-range shot.