Ch 195: Guide to Running a Shop in Another World II

The area was surrounded by zombies, slowly converging toward the group in the center. Their movements were sluggish, but the sheer number made the threat overwhelming.

In just a few minutes, the dozen or so survivors would likely be torn to pieces—not even enough to satisfy the horde’s appetite.

Under the crushing pressure of imminent death, Chen Xin’s screams failed to garner any sympathy or concern. Instead, it served as a metaphorical hammer, striking the already fragile nerves of the group.

Upon seeing the bite wound on the back of Chen Xin’s left hand, the others instinctively stepped back, quickly distancing themselves from him.

As a team captain, Chen Xin’s combat skills were formidable. If he turned into a zombie, it would be nearly impossible for ordinary people to take him down.

Regular zombies moved slowly and lacked higher cognitive functions, relying purely on instinct to locate humans through sound, scent, and the smell of blood. However, a person’s body weight, height, and physical attributes could still influence the zombie’s attack strength and movement.

The surviving members of the two scavenging teams subconsciously moved closer to Lu Mingxiao and Lu Yao. No one knew the exact nature of their relationship, but the ease with which Lu Yao had dispatched the mutated zombies left a deep impression. Staying near them seemed like the safest option.

Gradually, the team members widened the gap between themselves and Chen Xin, inching toward Lu Mingxiao and Lu Yao. Even Chen Yu and An Xia subtly shifted closer.

An Xia’s gaze at Lu Yao was complex, her attention falling on the woman’s wrist. In just a few seconds, the small knives attached to the red cords had returned neatly to their sheath.

The last time they met, Lu Yao hadn’t been wearing that knife harness. Those small blades were terrifyingly sharp, severing the mutated zombies without even touching them.

“It’s not her,” An Xia thought. “It’s that weapon.”

Her eyes briefly flickered with a calculating gleam as she observed the knife sheath strapped to Lu Yao’s leg.

For Lu Yao, this reunion brought an unfamiliar sense of joy. She clung to Lu Mingxiao, reluctant to let go. Seeing him dazed, she leaned in again, giving him two quick pecks on the cheek, her smile growing even brighter.

Lu Mingxiao snapped back to reality, meeting her sparkling gaze. His expression remained calm, but he lowered his eyes, the hand that had thrown the “potato” curling into a fist before dropping to his side. His voice was flat and emotionless: “Get down.”

Lu Yao, now familiar with his awkward restraint and inner turmoil, kept smiling. “Then let me go.”

Still holding her with one hand, Lu Mingxiao turned his head away, refusing to meet her eyes. “…Get down yourself.”

The scavenging team was thoroughly confused.

“The instructor doesn’t seem very willing. Is their relationship not what we thought? Did we misunderstand something?”

An Xia and Xie Yu exchanged a glance. At this moment, there was no sense of hierarchy between captain and vice-captain; instead, there was a subtle undercurrent of rivalry.

No matter the relationship between the instructor and Lu Yao, they both resolved to survive by staying close to the duo and using any means necessary.

Meanwhile, the zombies continued to close in. Zhao Ye, baffled by the humans’ lack of urgency, raised his voice to remind them, “Boss, the zombies are closing in. Shouldn’t we hurry up and leave?”

The scavenging team members grew excited upon hearing this. “There’s a way out? Just who are these people?”

The Dream Fulfillment System, silent until now, chimed in with a grumble: “Stop spoiling that guy. Look at him, acting all high and mighty with that sour face.”

For some reason, the system found Lu Mingxiao increasingly irritating.

Lu Yao jumped lightly to the ground, glancing around the area. That’s when she noticed An Xia, Xie Yu, and the team members behind them.

In a good mood, she greeted them, “Fancy seeing you again.”

An Xia and Xie Yu nodded awkwardly, recalling their previous attitudes toward Lu Yao. A sense of unease crept into their hearts.

“She wouldn’t just leave us behind, right?”

Lu Yao tilted her head to look at Lu Mingxiao. “We’re about to leave. Are you coming back to the shop with me?”

At that time, they hadn’t expected to use it so soon. Given the unstable environment, they were merely preparing for the future, thinking it might come in handy later.

This afternoon, they once again reached the Golden Tower to collect supplies. Passing by a smashed gold counter, a few members casually took some more items.

Zhao Ye was responsible for accounting and collecting the gold, while the scout sparrows, took out business cards from a cloth pouch and handed them to teammates who had paid.

Lu Yao pulled out three pens from the same pouch and passed them over. “Hurry up.”

An Xia and Xie Yu were pushed aside, feeling awkward, regretful, and anxious—a mix of complicated emotions.

Despite passing by the Golden Tower’s gold counter several times yesterday and today, neither had considered taking a piece to hide on themselves, which might have been useful.

At this moment, a young team member handed over a gold bracelet. “Team Leader An, Deputy Team Leader Xie, would you like to place an order?”

The expressions on An Xia and Xie Yu’s faces turned indescribably complex.

This member had only recently joined the team and had been scolded harshly by An Xia earlier that day for being slow when moving supplies at the Golden Tower.

Faced with his kind gesture, An Xia lowered her head, unable to utter a word.

Xie Yu, without hesitation, accepted it and expressed gratitude. “Thank you.”

The team member scratched his head. “It’s nothing. I saw the seniors taking some earlier, so I grabbed a bit too. There’s plenty anyway. Let’s just get out of here quickly. I really want to return to the base.”

The gold bracelet he gave to Xie Yu weighed seven to eight grams, enough for both him and An Xia to place their orders.

Other team members also shared gold with their teammates, ensuring no one among the remaining dozen was left out.

Except for Chen Xin.

While still conscious, the skin around his zombie bite had begun to fester. It was only a matter of time before he fully transformed.

No matter how much he pleaded, members of both the Seventh and Tenth Squads avoided him.

Self-preservation is an instinct of all living creatures, and humans are no exception. Chen Xin, bitten and infected, was no longer seen as one of them.

With the zombie horde closing in, customers were wrapping up their orders.

Lu Yao unsheathed a short sword from her back. Holding the blade in her left hand, she instructed Zhao Ye, “I’ll take the lead. You cover the rear and ensure the customers’ safety.”

Zhao Zhaoge retrieved three pitch-black triangular boomerangs from the pouch.

These were magical weapons crafted from deep-sea black iron, a gift from Lady Jiao. Sharp and precise, they were simple to wield, making them perfect for a young demon like him, just beginning to learn the ways of cultivation.

As the store owner cleared the way up front, Zhao Ye focused on handling any stragglers in the rear.

The task wasn’t difficult. Even with the zombie tide in pursuit, once they started moving, they would quickly leave the horde behind.

Despite hiring a courier service, the search team remained pessimistic about their chances of survival.

They could tell the courier’s survival skills far exceeded theirs, but with zombies surrounding them on all sides, cutting through the horde seemed almost impossible.

Chen Xin had been injured simply by a falling potato that broke his skin. Now they had to actively charge into the zombie swarm. Their survival rate seemed perilously close to zero.

All those who had placed orders silently prayed, beseeching the heavens and all deities to see them through this ordeal.

After forming up, Lu Yao charged into the zombie crowd without hesitation, left hand wielding a sword and right hand controlling a dagger.

Her speed was so fast that it left afterimages. Wherever she passed, it was as if a lawnmower had swept through—zombie heads rolled like peeled potatoes.

An Xia was the first to rush out, sticking close behind Lu Yao for fear of being left behind.

Xie Yu followed half a step slower, frustrated at himself as he hastened to catch up. The other team members finally snapped out of their daze.

With a wide and flexible attack range, the crimson dagger cleared a broad path. Lu Yao followed up with precise strikes using the sword in her left hand to finish off any stragglers.

Lu Mingxiao stayed half a meter behind her on her left side, clearing fallen corpses to prevent them from touching her clothing.

Zhao Ye, at the rear, found little opportunity to act and focused instead on urging slower customers not to fall behind.

In just a few dozen meters, the mindset of the customers had shifted drastically.

Though part of a search team known for a survival rate many times that of the average person, they had never witnessed such a brutal and efficient breakout. Walking in the middle of the formation felt like being guarded by dozens of bodyguards; the grotesque, clinging zombies couldn’t even touch their clothes.

In under two minutes, the nearly twenty-person team successfully broke free from the pursuing zombie horde and arrived in the spacious information hall, now just thirty meters from the hospital’s exit.

Lu Yao suddenly stopped in her tracks, raised her hand, and made a “stop” gesture.

The group stopped without needing any further explanation, as they had already seen the horrific scene ahead.

Chunks of torn flesh were scattered across the center of the consultation hall, and a tall zombie dressed in a white lab coat was bent over, greedily devouring the pile of flesh.

There were a few scattered zombies wandering around the consultation hall, twisting their heads, staring blankly at the bloody and stinky pile of meat, but none of them approached to join in the “feast.”

The members of the seventh team recognized the clothing fragments hanging from the meat. The deep blue denim was especially noticeable, and they shouted in shock, “Brother Gao and Brother Li, how could this happen!!!”

Lu Yao frowned. “When I entered, those three men were following behind. I warned them at the door, but it seems they didn’t take it seriously.”

In fact, when those three men caught up, they had ill intentions from the start.

Lu Yao had heard plenty of foul language but still patiently warned them once more.

Zhao Ye’s face darkened. “The one we encountered on the sixth floor was him. He was incredibly fast and strong, completely different from ordinary zombies. It seems now that the mirror signals were probably one of his hunting methods.”

Lu Yao said, “While he’s eating, we…”

Before she could finish her sentence, a nearby green-skinned zombie lifted its head and slowly stood up.

As it walked toward the group, it continued chewing, its teeth grinding through raw flesh and thick blood, producing a wet “slap slap” sound. Paired with its blood-soaked half-face, it was enough to make anyone’s scalp tingle.

It wore glasses, with gray, unfocused pupils, yet it walked directly toward the group with precision.

Xie Yu looked at the exit, only a few dozen meters away, the hope of survival so close yet feeling as unreachable as a distant shore. His emotions were on the verge of breaking down. “What do we do?”

Lu Yao sighed, got into position, and hid her right hand behind her back while raising her left hand with the short sword. “Don’t scream, and don’t run around.”

Even though the green-skinned zombie was much faster than regular zombies, Lu Yao could easily track its movements.

She hid the red-line dagger in her right hand, stepped forward, and gradually distanced herself from the guests behind her.

Her left-hand short sword acted as bait. As the green-skinned zombie leaned back to avoid the sword strike, Lu Yao controlled six short knives to fly from all four directions, aiming to first disable its limbs.

Once it lost its ability to move, she threw the final short knife. With a light flick, the thin blade flew horizontally and made a shallow cut along the zombie’s weak neck.

The green-skinned zombie seemed stunned for a moment, its lips about to curl into a smile, as if preparing to mock her.

Before it could even raise its smile, its vision suddenly became distorted. The green head rolled across the ground, and it saw its own body tipping forward, collapsing straight down.

Lu Yao retracted the seven short knives and the short sword, slowly exhaled, clapped her hands, and turned to call the guests, “Let’s go.”

The stunned search team snapped back to reality, unable to believe they had just survived the life-or-death crisis.

What kind of monsters are these couriers?

After successfully walking out of the hospital’s front door, the group collectively let out a breath.

The suppressed emotions from earlier exploded. Some people raised their hands and wailed loudly, running wildly into the street, only to stop after a few steps, raising their hands to cover their mouths, nervously glancing around in fear.

Zombies are especially sensitive to sounds at night.

Lu Yao, Lu Mingxiao, and Zhao Ye were at the back.

In just a few minutes, they successfully completed seventeen errands, and they hadn’t lost out.

Lu Yao had been busy all day, her mind highly focused. Once she relaxed, she felt incredibly exhausted. She shook her head forcefully and pointed to the road: “The car is across the street. Finally, we can head back.”