Chapter 50: Man-Eating Society
Translator: Law Editor: Hitesh_
Xie Dong’s off-road car was running on the highway, pa.s.sing many abandoned vehicles that lay along the highway. Before, many roads and highways were jammed by abandoned vehicles; but as people often drove out of bases to hunt zombies during these years, some paths were slowly cleared in the areas where they had been.
People all panicked when the apocalyptic era began. No one remembered any traffic rules, and everyone wanted to drive and leave. As more and more cars squeezed into the roads and highways, one could imagine the result. Car accidents happened one after another, and every accident was a pileup. The corpses of the people who didn’t manage to run were still lying in their cars, while the ones who survived had abandoned their vehicles.
Therefore, since the post-apocalyptic era started, many places started looking the same. Only after the bases of survivors were built up did people slowly realize what had happened, and gradually found a way to keep living amidst zombie crowds.
Lin Qiao and Xie Dong kept driving southward day and night. When the car ran out of gas, they would take out the gas from her s.p.a.ce to refuel. When they encountered zombie-hunting squads, they normally would avoid them; but if they couldn’t, Xie Dong would have no choice but to deal with those people alone.
Like now…
“You alone? Where’re your teammates?” A group of burly guys barred the road, standing in front of Xie Dong’s car.
Xie Dong stopped the car and sat still in the driver’s seat. With his eyes, he quietly measured the seven men who had surrounded his car.
These people fiercely blocked his way once they showed up. All seven of them were wearing thick bullet-proof jackets and black combat uniforms, holding rifles in their hands. More guns were worn on their waists, backs, and legs. These people were armed to the teeth. As soon as Xie Dong stopped the car, they rushed up and surrounded it.
All seven of them showed a really surprised look in their eyes when they found that Xie Dong was in the car alone. They greedily scanned across his car over and over again, but after finding nothing good in there, began talking to him in a cold and rude tone.
At the sight of these people’s looks and gears, Xie Dong knew that he had encountered with the post-apocalyptic world version of robbers.
There were one kind of people who were capable of fighting but weren’t willing to make the efforts and guard their bases, nor come out to hunt zombies and trade their harvests for food. They only liked to stay in the bases and sneakily rob the others, or steal and gain things by cheating. They were a bunch of rascals and rogues.
Over time, these people were reported by the others and kicked out by the administrators of their bases. They lived a vagabond life out here, holding a grudge against the people in the bases. Therefore, they would often attack zombie-hunting squads, committing robberies and murders. No one was restraining them out here, which made them even more savage.
Most people who encountered them or were targeted by them wouldn’t be able to make it back to their bases alive.
Judging by these people’s behavior and the look in their eyes, Xie Dong knew who they were. He remained sitting still without answering their question.
A man thumped at the car window by Xie Dong’s side and yelled at him fiercely, “You, get out!”
Xie Dong knew that if he got out of the car, these people would tip the car over. After all, these people weren’t ordinary, all having superpowers.
He silently opened the car door and got off.
All these men had impressive appearances. Some of them were tall, some were short; some were fat, and some were slim. Seeing Xie Dong get off the car, they immediately jumped in and searched every corner, but failed to find any food.
“d.a.m.n it, this kid got nothing in his car.” A fierce-looking, tall and muscular man impatiently rummaged through the car and found nothing, then cursed in anger at once.
Hearing him, the others started showing sulky expressions as well.
They had been searching in this area for nearly a month, and this was the first car they had found. These starving people rushed up at the sight of Xie Dong’s car to see if they could find some food in his car. But after forcing the car to stop, they found nothing but a man in it, and their hearts sank.
There was only one man in the car, which meant that this man wouldn’t have much food. But, the seven robbers had been starving for days. Unexpectedly, they found nothing from the car. Not to mention food for one man, there was no food at all.
After knowing that there was no food in the car, they immediately glared at Xie Dong and asked, “Tell us, where is the food? Did you hide it?”
While speaking, one of the robbers approached him and attempted to search him for food.
As he came nearby, Xie Dong took a step backward.
‘Speaking of food, the only food here is your flesh,’ h e really wanted to tell them that .
But at the moment, he couldn’t speak at all. And of course, he wouldn’t really eat human beings. Even though he had become a zombie, the humanity that he had been having for more than twenty years hadn’t disappeared, and his mind was still righteous.
Even though the smell of these people was very tempting, and it made him want very much to pounce upon them and bite their throats, he restrained himself from doing that.
Seeing Xie Dong stepping back, the one who was approaching him was immediately infuriated. He raised the gunstock to hit Xie Dong’s face while growling, “d.a.m.n you! Why did you move? Stand still if you don’t want to die miserably! Otherwise, we’ll slice off your flesh and eat you later.”
Eating human flesh was no longer something new in these people’s eyes; they could be even scarier than ghosts when they were starving. How could they possibly survive out here while the world was filled with crowds of zombies if they didn’t eat other people?
This was the reason that most of the people who had encountered them didn’t manage to survive; those people were eaten! Food was severely scarce in this apocalyptic world. Therefore, some people had become crazy in order to survive. For the first, second, or even third time, people might find that it was hard to accept things like eating other people mentally. But, after the first few times, they would slowly accept it and get used to it. After all, suffering from hunger would make people lose their minds and drive them crazy.
This was the post-apocalyptic world.
This man said this to frighten Xie Dong, to scare him, and make him panic. They wouldn’t let Xie Dong leave in the end either, because human flesh was also food.
All the survivors in this apocalyptic world would rather encounter zombies when they came out of their bases than run into these man-eating human beings.
After all, man-eating people were more horrible than unintelligent zombies!
Watching that man swing the gunstock at his face, Xie Dong tilted his head to dodge and raised his arm to defend himself.
Seeing that Xie Dong actually dared to defend, that man was enraged instantly. He raised a foot to kick him instead.
Xie Dong dodged immediately. He didn’t fight this robber who was actually shorter than himself; but instead, turned around and slammed out a heavy punch at another man who was behind him.
The man behind Xie Dong was a fat one. As the human s.h.i.+eld, he was supposed to prevent the latter from running away. But to his surprise, Xie Dong suddenly turned around to punch his face instead of fighting the short one who had attacked him. The fat man didn’t manage to react timely; as a result, he suffered a severe blow in the nose, which immediately squeezed his tears and snot out of his face.
“Ou-ch” The fat man screamed, then covered his nose and squatted down.
Xie Dong knew that this would happen when he struck out this punch. Therefore, he didn’t even take back his hand before swiftly leaping over the fat man.