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墨書 Inktalez
Chapter Seventy-Nine: Daliugou Coal Mine Shelter
Before dawn, Chef Wang led his team of cooks and security guards, armed with machetes, towards the Quick Hotel. Unfortunately, they arrived too late; the hotel was already deserted.
Fuming, Chef Wang jumped up and down, pointing at his subordinates and unleashing a torrent of curses. With a face full of anger, he returned to report the situation. Principal Huang was equally surprised that Jiang He and the others had left early. Although frustrated, he refrained from saying much more and simply comforted Chef Wang before letting him go.
The Heavily Made-Up Woman shared an office on the second floor with Principal Huang. Seeing Old Huang return with a gloomy expression, she wrapped herself around him and whispered in his ear, "What's wrong, Principal? Not happy?"
"Sigh, the duck that was almost in hand has flown away," Old Huang forced a smile, pinching the Heavily Made-Up Woman's ample bosom as he lamented, "It's hard to get people out here."
"Don't sigh; your wrinkles are getting deeper," she teased playfully, helping Old Huang out of his clothes and resting her head on his sagging chest while her fingers toyed with a tuft of chest hair.
"Well, I'm an old man; how can I not have wrinkles?" Old Huang grinned, indulging in some intimacy with the heavily made-up woman before asking, "Are those Zombies behaving? Is the fence secure?"
"Don't worry about my brother's work," she replied with a sultry smile. "But those Zombies are something else; they don't eat or drink or see the light of day, yet they're still lively after all this time."
"That's good; our safety here relies entirely on those Zombies. We can't afford any slip-ups," Old Huang nodded contentedly, blowing out the candle on the nightstand and pulling up the heavy blanket.
Meanwhile, Jiang He and his group had no idea how narrowly they had escaped danger. As dawn broke outside their car windows, the desolate mountains and forests along the highway gradually came into view.
Two vehicles sped along the road, one behind the other. The scenery outside changed continuously until noon when they finally arrived at Yicheng Toll Station.
This place was just as desolate and dilapidated as the towns they had passed through earlier. The midday sun blazed down fiercely, casting a golden sheen over everything. A few Zombies wandered aimlessly on the road, dressed in tattered clothes with skin that looked shriveled and yellowed—evidence that they hadn't eaten in quite some time.
"Seeing Zombies now feels normal; it's strange when there aren't any," Song Yao said as he pressed his face against the car window, watching those staggering Zombies lurch toward their vehicle. Unfortunately, their movements were so slow that they couldn't reach the car but could only trail behind it, kicking up dust from the exhaust.
"But there aren't many Zombies here; they look like refugees," Jiang He remarked after catching up on some sleep during the drive. Now wide awake, he peered around curiously while Yellow Dog squeezed in beside him, its head restless as it tried to poke out of the window.
Ming Junwei was driving and turned down several empty streets before slowly stopping in front of the Yicheng Coal Management Bureau.
The entire street was eerily silent. Shops and restaurants stood wide open on either side, revealing nothing but chaos inside—scattered debris and dried black bloodstains were all that remained.
"The map on Luci doesn't have the address for Coal Mine, so we can only search here." Ming Junwei turned off the engine and glanced at the fuel gauge, feeling a bit overwhelmed. They had been driving at high speed for the past two days, saving a lot of time, but now they were running low on gas.
"I'll go inside to look for something. You try to find some fuel," Jiang He said as he picked up a machete and jumped out of the car. He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked down the street, puzzled. "There aren't many cars around?"
"That's strange. There are quite a few vehicles at the toll station. Should I head back there?" Ming Junwei ran over to the minibus, filled a container with Pure Water, and quickly shared their current situation with everyone.
"Let's split into two groups. We shouldn't go too far for fuel. Even though the Zombies here look malnourished, they're still Zombies. We stirred up quite a few when we entered the city earlier; they must have gathered by now," Chao Yifan said as he climbed onto the roof of the car, holding his yet-to-be-bloodied Great Cleaver. He scanned the surroundings and pointed, "Over there! There are quite a few cars. I'll go with Xiaomi. Brother Ming, you and Jiang He go find the address."
"Sounds good. Just be quick about it; if you can't find anything, don't wander too far," Ming Junwei replied as he saw Jiang He already climbing over the gate of the management office and hurried over.
Jiang He jumped down from the iron gate and brushed off the rust from his hands. Turning around, he noticed several Zombies staggering out from either side of the Tree-Lined Path. These Zombies looked equally sickly; if someone stripped them of their clothes and wrapped them in toilet paper, they could easily pass for mummies.
Ming Junwei followed closely behind and was curious about what he saw. He glanced back at the welded iron gate and mused, "It looks like someone was locked inside."
"Indeed. The small towns we've passed through recently have been pretty ruthless; look at what they've done to these Zombies," Jiang He nodded in agreement and strode toward the half-open door.
Not interested in waiting for the weak Zombies to approach, Ming Junwei checked around before entering the lobby behind Jiang He, securing the door behind them.
The lobby was empty, littered with countless papers and promotional posters. Several bodies lay sprawled across a row of seats in the waiting area, many dressed in police uniforms.
The two felt a sense of unease as they cautiously approached. The corpses were highly decomposed, flesh hanging off in chunks, stuck to metal seats, while maggots crawled all over the floor.
"They were killed by someone," Ming Junwei said, covering his nose as he pointed at one corpse's head with his machete. "The neck is nearly severed—pretty brutal."
Understanding immediately, Jiang He turned to check the waist of one body and found it empty; both gun and handcuffs were missing.
"Attacked by robbers?" Jiang He asked in surprise.
"Who cares about that now?" Ming Junwei replied nonchalantly, gesturing toward another side of the lobby. "Look over there."
In the corner of the lobby stood the elevator entrance, its silver-gray doors tightly shut. A large smear of blood on the door was shocking, and even more perplexing was the body lying face down at the elevator's threshold, its lower half seemingly stuck to the door.
"Damn, was this person crushed by the elevator?" Jiang He felt a wave of nausea rise in his stomach, but then he recalled a scene from "The Grim Reaper Has Arrived," where a woman had been killed by an elevator. However, she had been pulled up and down multiple times before her head was finally severed.
"The elevator doors can't crush someone like that," Ming Junwei said, clicking his tongue as he pointed at the dark red streak on the door. "It must have been someone inside who cut it off to avoid delaying the elevator's ascent... Look, the blood goes all the way to the top."
"Let's focus on what we need to do," Jiang He said, making an effort not to imagine what had happened there as he turned and headed toward the stairs.
Initially, they were worried about encountering those who had gone up in the elevator, but it turned out they were overthinking it. The elevator doors on the second floor were wide open, revealing a pool of blood and flesh inside. It seemed that those who had attacked their companions hadn’t escaped either; upon opening the elevator doors, they had been overwhelmed by zombies.
The office building was quite large, with many offices. Once they confirmed that the floor was safe, they split up to search through the offices on either side.
Ming Junwei found himself in an official's office, which made searching more complicated. The office was filled with decorations, making it difficult to find items like folders. After rummaging for a long time, he finally spotted a copy of the Coal Mine Safety Management Regulations on a bookshelf.
"I found it!"
Jiang He's voice echoed from the hallway. Ming Junwei hurried out to see Jiang He standing at the restroom door with a look of delight on his face.
"You found something in the restroom?" Ming Junwei said, sweat pouring down his face. He thought to himself that this mission's leadership was utterly unreliable—was everyone working in the restroom?
Jiang He rolled his eyes and pointed at a promotional poster on the wall: "
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