Chapter 16
by LhaoziChapter 16: Big Brother Will Just Have to Work Hard! [1]
The crisp sound of splintering bone echoed with striking clarity amidst the chaotic night.
Yanking the Standard Machete embedded in the zombie’s skull free, Qin Xi suddenly felt the chaotic noise surrounding her ears drop into sheer silence.
Until she raised her head.
A frightened man’s voice abruptly erupted from behind her:
“She! She! She murdered someone! She killed a person! Call the police! Call the police quickly!”
Hearing the voice, Qin Xi looked over in that direction.
She saw a young man wearing a sports tank top, holding up his smartphone—recording toward her while pointing and shouting.
His yelling snapped the surrounding crowd back to their senses.
Yet looking at the girl standing in the middle of the road—holding a machete dripping with blood, wearing a mask and windproof goggles that obscured her facial features completely…
…as well as the tall, imposing man beside her dressed identically, whose hidden face naturally radiated a cold “keep away” aura—everyone involuntarily felt a chill run down their spines.
This pair of seemingly equally cold individuals had no intention of paying any mind to the crowd’s stares.
After eliminating the man-eating monster, they rapidly sprinted off toward the south side of the street.
Right at that moment, another terrified scream erupted from within the crowd!
Another man-eating monster had chased them out from the residential area!
Qin Xi and Qin Song forged ahead along the road, harvesting zombies as they moved.
After chopping down eight zombies, the two finally reached a main arterial road.
Though traffic here was heavy, it was slightly better than the previous street.
At least the cars could still nudge forward.
Qin Xi pulled the vehicle back out from her spatial dimension.
This time, the off-road SUV started smoothly, merging into the traffic flow on the street.
They left behind the crowd chasing after them, who stared at the vehicle that had appeared out of thin air in absolute shock and terror!
The vehicle drove all the way to the outer ring highway.
However, the closer they got to the highway entrance, the more gridlocked the road conditions became.
Everyone was desperate to flee the city.
Qin Song steered the car past the highway ramp.
Qin Xi turned her head to glance over—countless headlights from the long line of traffic converged into a brilliant, glittering river of stars.
Beautiful and dreamlike.
Sadly, it would never exist again!
Qin Song didn’t drive toward the large gas station they had originally intended to visit.
That place was too close to the highway ramp; there were likely numerous vehicles pulling up to refuel, meaning far too many people.
He drove straight out of the city instead.
About a ten-minute drive along the road past the outer ring highway, there was another medium-sized gas station.
After discussing it with Qin Xi, they agreed that taking the fuel from here first would be enough to last them a considerable while.
By the time the car reached the gas station, it was already 3:00 AM.
The gas station was situated along the national highway.
It was at least one kilometer away from the nearest village.
There weren’t many vehicles on the road at this hour.
Qin Xi figured it was likely because two zombies had been wandering inside the gas station all along.
She and Qin Song stepped out of the vehicle.
The two zombies were both wearing gas station uniforms, one male and one female.
A taxi was parked inside the station grounds, with two corpses collapsed beside the vehicle.
One male, one female.
The male corpse had been devoured clear from the abdomen down, while half of the female’s body was missing!
They were presumably the taxi driver and passenger.
Qin Xi cast a glance at the two nearby corpses, stepping around them.
As usual, she harvested the zombies using her machete.
Eliminating them one slash per target, she pulled four water storage tanks she had purchased earlier out of her spatial dimension, placing one in front of each fuel dispenser.
Then, she rummaged two employee access cards out of the uniforms on the two zombies.
Handing them to Qin Song, she let him operate the pumps.
Meanwhile, she carried the two zombie corpses and the two half-eaten human corpses, placing them separately at the two entry and exit points of the gas station.
She hoped to use these four corpses to scare away any other vehicles intending to pull in for fuel!
She still preferred not to clash with the living if she could help it!
By the time Qin Xi arranged the four corpses at their respective spots, Qin Song had already found two more employee access cards from inside the office.
Four employee cards in total.
Inserting one into each of the four fuel dispensers, the machines immediately began operating.
At this moment, Qin Xi walked over to the northwest corner of the gas station.
Located here was a 30-cubic-meter above-ground gas storage tank.
Walking up beneath the tank, she took a look before absorbing the entire tank straight into her spatial dimension.
Inside her 800-square-meter spatial dimension, things were looking quite packed by now.
Looking at her nearly maxed-out space, Qin Xi let out a sigh—she still needed to upgrade the system space as quickly as possible.
She sat down on a chair in front of the cashier counter.
Pumping out the fuel wasn’t something that could be finished in a flash.
Qin Xi estimated that it would take until tomorrow morning at the earliest to finish pumping all the fuel from this gas station.
She stepped into the office area.
This gas station was like any other: in front of the checkout counter was a mini convenience store stocked with bottled water and snacks.
Qin Song had found an electric kettle from somewhere and was boiling water.
Seeing Qin Xi walk in, he turned to look at her:
“In a moment, I’ll move the tables and chairs over there out of the way. Pull out the bed so you can lie down and get some sleep.”
Hearing this, Qin Xi didn’t refuse.
Having stayed awake for a full day and through the entire night, she was genuinely at the end of her rope!
Though she felt bad for Qin Song, someone had to stay alert and monitor the situation outside at all times.
Her current physical body hadn’t undergone the grueling trial of years in the post-apocalyptic world yet; compared to Qin Song’s physique forged through years of regular fitness training, she was still far too fragile.
So Big Brother will just have to work hard [1]!
However, moving tables and chairs didn’t require Qin Song’s manual labor.
Qin Xi simply absorbed the tables and chairs into her space, carried them outside, and set them down in the yard.
Stepping back inside, she pulled out the double bed.
The bed was the same large one Qin Song had hauled back to the warehouse earlier; Qin Xi had brought it along when they left yesterday.
Qin Xi lay down on the bed.
Qin Song located the light switches, turning off most of the lights in the building while leaving only a small dim lamp at the front desk.
Qin Xi quickly drifted into a deep sleep.
Outside the building, the fuel level inside the four storage tanks rose steadily.
On the highway, traffic sped past continuously as an atmosphere of terror gradually mounted.
Occasionally, a few vehicles attempted to pull into the gas station, but almost all of them screeched to a halt at the entrance, turning around to leave shortly after.
Qin Song sat by the front desk, watching the sky outside slowly pale toward dawn.
The fuel inside the four storage tanks had long stopped rising.
This was a small-to-medium-sized gas station.
Its normal storage capacity should be around 100,000 liters; excluding what had already been sold, there were roughly 60,000 liters of fuel remaining across the tanks.
If it was just for her and Qin Xi to drive, it was temporarily more than enough!
The time reached 7:00 AM.
The sky outside had only brightened briefly for a few minutes before dawn before being blanketed by dense, heavy clouds once again.
The sky turned a heavy, suffocating black.
Qin Song stood up, walked over to the window side, and woke Qin Xi:
“Xixi, wake up. We should head back!”
The vigilant habits developed during the apocalypse allowed Qin Xi to wake up almost instantly.
Upon seeing Qin Song leaning over to look down at her, however, she relaxed immediately.
Burying her face into the pillow, she took a long, deep breath and exhaled heavily:
“Got it, Big Brother. Right away, right away.”
In his memory, it had been a long time since the girl had shown such soft, endearing coquettishness [2].
Looking at the back of Qin Xi’s fluffy head turned away from him, Qin Song let out a light laugh without rushing her.
Qin Xi didn’t linger either.
She quickly got up, absorbed the bed into her spatial dimension, opened a bottle of mineral water from the gas station, and washed her face.
As the cool, damp air outside blew over her, her groggy mind instantly snapped into full alertness.
Walking over to the fuel dispensers, she stored the four water tanks into her space one after another, then pulled out the off-road SUV.
Right at that moment, high above the gas station, the overcast, storm-heavy sky suddenly let out a massive, earth-shaking rumble:
BOOM…
The torrential rain had arrived!
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