Chapter 59

The soldiers who went on missions with Xue Ling quickly realized the advantages of having her around.

The tasks became much easier!

In the past, when their squad went on such missions, they had to be fully armed, with firepower to suppress the zombies and quick movements to get to areas of the city that weren’t too crowded with zombies.

If it was just a quick trip, that would be fine, but they weren’t just sightseeing. They had a mission to complete, and they usually couldn’t leave quickly. They had to stay in the city for long periods of time.

The longer they stayed, the more zombies gathered from all directions.

With more zombies, they used more ammunition, and the base’s resources were limited. The weapons and ammo they had were finite.

Also, the side effect of using heavy firepower was the noise, which attracted even more zombies and made the mission more difficult.

So, even though these missions were considered routine, they were far from easy, and there was always the risk of casualties.

But once Xue Ling arrived, she took over the most difficult part of the mission.

She volunteered to have the others stay at the perimeter, while she drove into the city to gather the medical supplies they needed.

At first, the captain watched her, a small figure driving a large military vehicle into the city, feeling a bit uneasy.

However, as she brought back truckload after truckload of items—some from the task list and some not, but still valuable—he couldn’t help but feel excited.

Every time Xue Ling drove up to an intersection, a group of people quickly ran to meet her and see what she had brought back. If they weren’t worried about making too much noise and attracting zombies, they would have cheered.

They had never had such an easy mission!

Xue Ling opened the car door and showed the captain pictures and videos on her tablet. “This hospital still has these pieces of equipment. I don’t recognize them. Should we bring them back too?”

The captain didn’t know either, but he decisively said, “Take them!”

Despite the seemingly well-built Beizheng Base, they were actually lacking in everything. Life was tight for everyone, and if they could get more, they would take more.

Xue Ling agreed with this. When she wandered around the city before, she always felt wasteful seeing useful items gathering dust. Sadly, many of them weren’t things she and Wen Jiuze could use.

But now, at the base, there was a need, and Xue Ling’s urge to gather supplies was in full swing.

The only problem left was this:

“Many of the items are too heavy for me to carry.”

The captain replied, “That’s no problem. I’ll teach you to drive a crane!”

The soldiers chimed in one after another, “We’ll set up a trailer!”

“And an excavator!”

“I can drive a crane!”

The captain waved his hand decisively, “Everyone, arrange for the vehicles to come!”

One soldier even shouted, “I can pilot a fighter jet!”

Xue Ling: “?!”

“Really? Can I learn to fly a fighter jet?”

Being a fighter jet pilot seemed so cool! If she ever got the chance to fly one and took Wen Jiuze on a mission, it would definitely surprise him.

That wasn’t something she could learn right now, since there were no fighter jets available. But everything else could be learned quickly.

At a time like this, no one cared about a zombie’s driver’s license. As long as the vehicle could hit the road, there were no rules to follow, and running into zombies was no crime. They could drive as they liked.

With her prior experience learning to drive with Wen Jiuze, Xue Ling picked it up quickly.

In this city, occupied by zombies, cars had been driving wildly through the streets for several days. The noise attracted many wandering zombies.

However, after chasing the cars excitedly for a while, the zombies gave up when they realized there were no humans in them and scattered.

Xue Ling thought that if they could speak, the zombies would probably curse her for leading them on.

Today, while looting the hospital again, Master Xue, wearing a hat and gloves, began her work.

She dragged a small trailer filled with more and more tools—generators, impact hammers, drills, chainsaws, and more.

To make it easier to transport the equipment, she had even torn down a few doors.

The loud, grating sounds echoed throughout the hospital, drawing wave after wave of zombies, who surrounded her, blocking the area tightly.

If there had been a human here, they would have been done for, but for Xue Ling, the only issue was how crowded the zombies had become.

As she began hammering the walls, Xue Ling couldn’t help but feel like a construction worker.

When she began moving the equipment from upstairs, took out the instructional videos and tools given by the captain, and prepared to restart the elevator using a backup power source, Xue Ling couldn’t help but feel like an electrician.

Before the mission, she had imagined herself, with a determined look on her face, gunning down zombies with a submachine gun.

But when the mission started, she realized the end of the world was all about civil engineering.

Xue Ling’s team took several extra days compared to their original estimate to return to the base.

When they arrived back, their convoy, overloaded with supplies, passed through the base’s wheat fields, and someone started singing “Returning from Target Practice.”

Xue Ling knew the song, but she couldn’t bring herself to sing. Instead, she swayed gently to the rhythm, sitting among them, catching their pure joy and feeling deeply moved.

At that moment, she felt a sense of peace, one she had experienced when with Wen Jiuze, but it was different.

The peace Wen Jiuze gave her was a sense of “No matter what happens, he will protect me.” Now, the peace she felt was “I have the ability to protect others.”

Xue Ling had successfully completed the mission, bringing back twice the supplies listed.

Although she couldn’t earn a medal of merit for this mission, General Hao specially awarded her a certificate, wrote a thank-you letter by hand, and gave her additional rewards.

While Xue Ling received her award at the base and got along well with everyone, Wen Jiuze, who hadn’t yet arrived in Donghai City, had isolated himself from everyone in his action team.

The 40-person team, led by Captain Shen Zhang of the special forces, had Wen Jiuze placed in the middle of a group of soldiers due to his important role in the mission and his special identity.

The soldiers looked serious, sitting upright. Wen Jiuze lay across from them, flipping through a manual, not saying a word. The atmosphere in the vehicle was tense, and the only sound was the vehicle’s rumble.

They were on a forced march, rarely stopping. Every time they stopped to eat or rest, Wen Jiuze stayed alone in the vehicle, not interacting with anyone.

In fact, when he had worked with the convoy in the past, he had always been this way, seldom engaging with others.

But back then, he had habitually worn a lazy smile, giving people the impression that he had a good temper and didn’t care about much.

Now, the zombies can’t smile anymore. Without that superficial smile, Wen Jiuze’s inherent coldness was laid bare.

His imposing figure and the zombie-like grayish face made him unintentionally intimidating.

Some of the newly recruited talents, who had worked hard to pass assessments and join the special forces, were initially proud when they found out they would be involved in such an important mission. But when they saw Wen Jiuze, their wariness and rejection were evident.

Under Captain Shen Zhang’s leadership, they didn’t dare make trouble, but they deliberately spoke loudly near the vehicle, making sarcastic remarks like, “Do you think this zombie will eat people?” or “I can’t believe zombies are afraid of being attacked from behind.”

Wen Jiuze opened the car window, casually gave them the middle finger, then lay back down to read the manual.

He hadn’t read more than two lines of the complex manual before his thoughts drifted to Xue Ling. How would she react if she were in this situation?

She would probably start blaming herself, pretending everything was fine even though she felt terrible inside.

She could only be happy in an environment where everyone liked her. Once she was accepted, she would work herself to the bone to gain more recognition and love, eventually exhausting herself.

Wen Jiuze was completely different. The recognition or affection of others? What was that worth to him?

His only goal was to complete the mission, without any intention of building relationships with anyone in the team or resolving conflicts.

The few special recruits privately gathered and complained about Wen Jiuze.

They were the ones who had worked hard to pass the toughest assessments, yet there was someone in the team with even more special treatment—someone who was a zombie. How could they feel comfortable with that?

Not to mention these few people, no one in this team of soldiers had a good impression of Wen Jiuze, as they thought he was too independent.

“Do you think he’s not talking to anyone because he’s too stressed out from the mission? He didn’t act like this back at the base,” one soldier remarked.

“When the other zombie was around, I saw them chatting a lot, talking non-stop,” another added.

They analyzed secretly and suspected that the tablet that Wen Jiuze used to speak was broken, so he didn’t communicate with others.

The tablet lay discarded, black screen facing up.

The row of soldiers sitting opposite Wen Jiuze exchanged glances, nudging each other, but none of them dared to speak up and ask him about it.

Finally, after Captain Shen Zhang finished his tasks, he sat next to Wen Jiuze and seriously asked, “If you need any help, feel free to let us know.”

“No,” Wen Jiuze answered in a hoarse voice, his eyes never leaving the manual.

Captain Shen Zhang observed him, then looked at the tablet, hiding his surprise. “So you can speak. This will make communication easier.”

Wen Jiuze flipped to the next page of the manual without acknowledging it.

Even after learning that he could talk, there was no noticeable change in Wen Jiuze’s behavior. He didn’t initiate conversations with anyone.

The only time he spoke was to ask how much longer it would take to reach Donghai City.

“Donghai City is still quite far, it will take some time,” Captain Shen Zhang replied with a level of sensitivity that didn’t match Wen Jiuze’s appearance.

He observed Wen Jiuze for a while before directly asking, “Are you missing Xue Ling?”

Wen Jiuze: “…”

Saying he missed her wasn’t entirely accurate. “Worried” would be a better word.

This feeling had been growing ever since their reunion last year.

Wherever Xue Ling went, he had to follow her, or he couldn’t stop imagining her encountering danger or difficulties.

The longer they were apart, the more anxious he became, even growing impatient with the manual he had been holding in his hands.

He looked like a large animal pacing restlessly in a cage, causing the soldiers around him to feel tense and want to distance themselves.

In this heavy atmosphere, they finally arrived in Donghai City, ready to begin their mission.

The Donghai City Bridge was destroyed, and they needed to cross the river by boat. However, there were many zombies floating in the water.

These zombies weren’t entirely “dead”. As soon as they sensed the presence of living humans, they would suddenly move.

During a previous mission, the team had used small boats, but they were swarmed by zombies, and the boat was quickly capsized.

The first step to entering Donghai City had already cost them several lives.

This time, they decided to first search for a large boat nearby.

Captain Shen Zhang said, “According to the information we’ve gathered, there’s a shipyard in Hancheng County along the coast. We will head there to find a usable boat. The new special recruit, Jia Hou, is skilled in both shipbuilding and piloting.”

A middle-aged man stood up proudly, but Wen Jiuze interrupted him.

“That’s too slow. You go find a boat, I’ll take a speedboat to cross the river. We’ll go separately,” his voice was hoarse and rough, and his speech wasn’t very smooth. Many of the people present were surprised to hear him speak for the first time.

Before Jia Hou could respond, Wen Jiuze cut him off, and Jia Hou angrily retorted, “You’re not the team leader! You think you can act independently, just because you’ve become a zombie and think you’re invincible…”

Wen Jiuze ignored him and turned to Captain Shen Zhang.

Captain Shen Zhang thought for a moment, recalling General Hao’s instructions from when they set off. He said, “This mission centers around you, and you have full decision-making authority. If you think this approach is better, then follow your plan. You can leave now, and we’ll advance slowly from behind to support you.”

Wen Jiuze stood up, not caring what the others thought, and walked away directly.

“He’s so arrogant,” someone whispered.

“Does he think he can complete the mission on his own? Then what do we even need to be here for?”

“Maybe he’ll come crawling back for help soon.”