Chapter 45

After word of the plant mutations spread, panic spread with it. The entire convoy quickened its pace; everyone pushed themselves, setting out earlier each morning and resting later at dusk. Each night's camp required clearing away all nearby plants before anyone could feel safe.
At last, on January 29th, the eleventh day since they set out, they crossed into Ning City's territory. But that morning the sky was gray and the air heavy with moisture, as if rain were imminent.
Lin Tantan watched the sky and worried. Could it be about to rain? She wouldn't have fretted before, but the fact that mutated plants had appeared early had put her on edge.
Historically, most of the south endured a three-day downpour in February. After that wash of rain, zombies rioted like a frenzy and evolved rapidly; plants, bathed in seemingly endless nourishment, grew wildly, and mutated flora sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain. Human survival became even more precarious.
Could that storm be starting already?
As if summoned by their fears, the weather stayed overcast all morning. Shortly after ten the drizzle began, then grew heavier and heavier until visibility worsened. The already poor road quickly turned slushy and slippery, with puddles forming everywhere.
This was very bad for driving.
Sure enough, the convoy slowed down.
In the middle of the convoy, inside an armored vehicle, Zhu Xin muttered, "With rain this heavy we should stop and wait for it to ease."
Xing Guoliang hesitated a moment, then called Ye Xiao. "Captain Ye, the rain's heavy. Why don't we wait a while? The base isn't far."
Ye Xiao, who was in the lead vehicle, glanced at Cheng Qinan after hearing Xing. Cheng's face was pale; he stared at the white curtain of rain ahead and shook his head at Ye Xiao: "We can't stop."
Ye Xiao replied to Xing, "There's only about twenty kilometers left. Let's push on and get there, better than risking anything here."
Xing Guoliang was annoyed. They were almost home; what could possibly go wrong? They'd met a few waves of zombies along the way but suffered little loss. They were nearly there, how dangerous could it be now?
He thought Ye Xiao was being overly cautious and resentful that Ye Xiao wouldn't take others' advice.
What he didn't know was that Cheng Qinan had a premonition: the rain would last a long time, and it would bring with it something bad.
Cheng Qinan's instincts were usually uncannily accurate, the more far-reaching and severe the event, the truer his sense.
After ending his call with Xing, the radio buzzed again. A short number flashed on the screen, it was Lin Tantan. Ye Xiao picked up immediately.
"Ye Xiao, are you still in front of the convoy?" Lin Tantan's voice was grave.
Ye Xiao said, "Yes, I'm here."
"How are the road conditions? I mean, is there any way to speed up?"
Ye Xiao looked at the muddy gravel road ahead. To avoid Ning City's center they had taken a suburban route; the main streets were blocked and only this gravel road could accommodate such a large convoy. But it had been neglected for years: many sections showed bare soil and were uneven, so once it rained it turned to muck, and there were plenty of bends.
Ye Xiao said, "We could speed up, but it'd be dangerous."
"I see…" Lin Tantan's voice blended with the rain.
Ye Xiao said softly, "Don't worry. Keep this pace, we can be there in at most three hours."
There was reassurance in his tone. Lin Tantan watched the speedometer needle dip briefly to "10," then looked back at the slowly passing landscape. "Alright. I'm just a bit uneasy. It would be good to reach the base sooner."
With such a large group and so many people, they tended to attract zombies; they'd encountered quite a few on the road, and now it was raining... It was said that during that three-day deluge anyone caught outside met a grim fate: zombie numbers surged and human losses were severe.
But the rain had only just begun, within three hours, nothing should happen, right?
She was trying to calm herself, but Ye Xiao's brow furrowed. "Do you think something will happen?"
Lin Tantan couldn't say for sure, not from fear, but from uncertainty, so she answered vaguely, "I just feel rain makes things dangerous."
Ye Xiao thought for a moment. "Alright, I understand." He then contacted Bai Cheng from the fourth convoy and the two discussed the matter. Afterwards he called Xing Guoliang again. Xing Guoliang was surprised by Ye Xiao's plan: "You're going to abandon the supplies?"
"We'll leave the supply vehicles here and come back for them later, Major General Xing. We've decided. I suggest you do the same. Getting these people safely to the base is far more important than the supplies."
Xing Guoliang thought Ye Xiao was being utterly unreasonable. With only two or three hours of road left, abandon the supplies? Without supplies, how are people supposed to survive? Besides, there were more than a hundred supply trucks in their convoy alone.
When he left the Ning City base, the food situation there was already tight; now things were certainly worse. If you had no supplies in hand, you were worth nothing.
So Xing Guoliang refused the suggestion without hesitation.
Ye Xiao didn’t press the issue. Immediately, anyone in the ten convoys who had a radio or a horn heard Bai Cheng’s urgent order: abandon all supply vehicles except those carrying medical shipments.
The supply trucks were separately numbered. Each had two drivers and had been given special training before departure, so they tended to follow orders more reliably than ordinary people. Abandoning the supply trucks was part of the contingency plans, if an emergency evacuation was needed, the drivers knew exactly what to do.
So even though the order sounded odd, those drivers steered their trucks out of the formation, parked them in the roadside wasteland, killed the engines, snapped off the keys, and sprinted for the nearest vehicle that was still carrying people.
There were fuel tankers, trucks full of rice and vegetables, vehicles piled with bottled water, and others carrying tents, bedding, pots and pans, basically the heavy, clumsy rigs that were treacherous in wet weather. Even the front-end loader that had been clearing the way was left behind.
Each convoy had a dozen or more supply trucks, with the fourth and fifth regiments having the most. Once those trucks peeled off, the convoys instantly became leaner and faster, quickly widening the gap with the lines behind them.
"These idiots, actually dumping the supplies!" Zhu Xin sputtered. "Brother Xing, they don't want the supplies. We do!"
Xing Guoliang frowned. He hadn’t expected Ye Xiao to really abandon the supplies, and to do it so decisively and quickly, as if they were going to put the pedal to the metal and run for their lives. He felt a prickle of unease. Had something happened to them?
"The drones didn't pick up anything, did they?" he asked.
"No. The area around them is clear and seems safe."
Xing Guoliang nodded. Looking at those fully loaded trucks made his mouth water. Since they'd been abandoned, taking them wouldn’t really be stealing, and later Ye Xiao would have no reason to complain.
He signaled to Zhu Xin to send people to start the engines and take the vehicles.
He trusted Ye Xiao, but he also thought someone with Ye Xiao’s personality might not do well back at the base. Even if Ye Xiao succeeded there, Xing Guoliang might not benefit. With these extra supplies, he could support more loyal followers; while others were out scavenging for resources, he could sit back and reap the gains.
He sighed. Fine, let it be.
Of course the supply trucks had their engines off and keys removed; it took time to restart them, and each truck needed to be manoeuvred forward and back a few times to get back on the road. With the rain intensifying and the road growing worse, the commotion quickly cost them the sight of the ten lead convoys.
Some people tailing the military noticed the front convoys accelerate and pull away. The sharper, better-equipped drivers simply overtook the army and followed, prompting people like Zhu Xin to mutter as one after another bolted forward as if reborn.
By then the ten lead convoys had pushed their speed back up to around twenty. The world outside the windows had gone white with rain; the downpour slapped against the ears like a hammer. Windshield wipers swished back and forth, and every driver kept a hawk’s eye on the taillights of the vehicle ahead, headlights on, neither close enough to risk collision nor far enough to lose sight.
Thankfully, radios and in-cab horns kept chirping updates, how far ahead a turn was, where the potholes or obstacles lay, each small unit warning the next, passing the information down the line to help prevent accidents.
All in all, Lin Tantan was on edge, gripped by the sense of a life-and-death rush.
After more than half an hour, the GPS showed they were approaching the former guard district, the present Ning City safe base was nearly within reach. Suddenly Jiang Xiaotian in the cargo hold shouted: "Zombies! A horde! It's a horde!"
Lin Tantan jumped. Qian Kai, who was driving, jerked the wheel, and Lin Tantan grabbed him: "Hold it steady!"
She climbed from the passenger seat into the cargo area. "What do you mean, a horde?"
"Look, look!" Jiang Xiaotian pointed at the screen for her and Mei Baisheng. He'd been flying several drones at once; this was video from one of them. The rain made the image fuzzy, but because the drones couldn't fly high in such weather they were close to the ground, otherwise these details wouldn't be visible.
Between the city buildings and along the streets, figures with strange appearances and odd movements were emerging from cover, walking and even running in the rain, gathering toward one direction.
Jiang Xiaotian's fingers flew over the keyboard. One monitor switched to a satellite map; red dots marked the drones, showing a location on the outskirts of Ning City nearest to them. Thick yellow arrows near the red dots simulated the flow of the zombie horde, and a long blue icon a short distance away represented their convoy.
It was painfully clear: the largest of the yellow arrows seemed to be converging in their direction. Another wave was moving toward the rear, that would be the convoys behind them.
"My God, these things are insane! How could they have spotted us from so far off?" Jiang Xiaotian said, then reached to report to Ye Xiao. Lin Tantan beat him to it and dialed Ye Xiao's radio.
As soon as it connected Lin Tantan said, "Ye Xiao, a horde has appeared!" Jiang Xiaotian added, "Captain, your computer's on, I’ll send you the feed."
Ye Xiao replied, "It's on. Send it." After a brief pause his voice remained steady: "I know. Don't make a scene. Xiaotian, keep tracking their movement and report to me and Bai Cheng at once."
Then the call ended. Not long after, Bai Cheng's gentle, steady voice came on, telling everyone to accelerate smoothly. That was the right move, if someone had shouted that a zombie horde was coming, people would panic. If even one car suddenly skidded and overturned now, it would trigger a chain of brutal pile-ups.
After a while, Ye Xiao took the initiative to contact them, asking Jiang Xiaotian whether he could reach Xing Guoliang in the rear.
Jiang Xiaotian tried: “No, it's too far. The walkie-talkies don't reach that distance. Try contacting him on a military channel.”
“Tried that already. No luck.”
That left them with no options.
Ye Xiao stopped worrying about it, right now everyone was just trying to survive.
He glanced at two maps: one showing they were still 4.8 kilometers from the guard zone, the other a satellite map with a bright yellow arrow creeping closer and closer. He felt a sharp jolt of anxiety between his brows.
Then he said a word to Bai Cheng and, climbing into the highly maneuverable scout vehicle, tore off ahead toward the base.
At Ning City Base the gate was crowded: people jostled and pushed, eager to get inside. Most of them were base residents who had gone out to scavenge supplies and hadn't expected such a sudden downpour.
“What a rain!” one of a group of clearly organized young, armed men said after they entered the base. He wiped sweat from his face and patted another young man's shoulder. “Glad you insisted on coming back, if you hadn't, we'd probably be surrounded by zombies right now.”
He looked at the people still pouring in from outside and the zombies trailing behind them. The zombies hadn't reached the walls yet, soldiers on the ramparts and sentry posts were shooting them dead, but the terror of being pursued by zombies the whole way is something you can't understand unless you've lived through it; it's almost like being chased by a ghost.
When he got no response, the young man glanced at the one he'd patted. The other was staring into the rain with a pale face, muttering, “How could it come so early? Did I get the time wrong? Impossible... Could this be an upgraded version of the apocalypse?”
The young man narrowed his eyes; a flicker of suspicion crossed his gaze.