Chapter Seven: A Veteran Is Truly a Veteran (2/4)

Ye Yutian and Makoto Ito, under Chen Mo’s cover, stumbled as they piled up abandoned desks, chairs, and all sorts of debris in the path of the advancing zombies.

“It seems these two at least have some sense of what it means to be a Reincarnator,” Qi Xiaoxiao remarked with a smile to Liu Mengchao. “I originally thought these two students would be the first ones to cause trouble.”

“It’s not time yet,” Liu Mengchao replied, shaking his head. It was only the beginning—there was still no reason for problems to arise.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Liu Mengchao’s words had barely faded when the rotting, blood-soaked hands of the zombies began clawing through the gaps in the barricade. Bereft of reason, the undead had no notion that the desks before them were lifeless. The overwhelming hunger drove them ever forward, desperately seeking anything that might fill their empty bellies.

“Mr. Xu... Please kill me…”

Jing Hao Yong, his silver hair gleaming, slumped against the rooftop railing, longing etched in his gaze.

“No!” The moment he spoke, Rei Miyamoto’s eyes welled with tears. She looked at Xu Zhengdong with a pleading gaze, “Yong is still conscious. Don’t kill him.”

No one answered her.

The six Reincarnators, along with Liu Mengchao, formed a circle around Jing Hao Yong, like spectators at a zoo. He was their exhibit.

“What a cowardly man!”

Suddenly, Makoto Ito shouted, shattering the tense silence and startling Ye Yutian beside him.

“Why don’t you just die already!” The cruelty and coldness in Ito’s eyes made Rei Miyamoto, so pitiful before him, suddenly seem the ugliest thing in the world. “You’d throw away your life for a woman!”

“It seems that in his previous world, Makoto Ito suffered quite a blow,” Qi Xiaoxiao murmured as she subtly shifted her stance. She had sensed it—an intense hatred for women seemed to lurk in Ito’s heart.

“If you don’t want to live, let me end it for you!” Liu Mengchao watched as Makoto Ito, sneering, moved toward Jing Hao Yong. At the same time, the value on his Points Pool fluctuated violently.

Points Pool: 71,000.

“Aaah!”

As Ito approached, Jing Hao Yong, the beautiful silver-haired youth, let out a wretched howl. A torrent of black blood gushed from his mouth, splattering both Rei Miyamoto and Makoto Ito.

“Danger!”

With a shout, Chen Mo, the special forces soldier, lunged behind Rei Miyamoto in a flash, pulling the disbelieving girl behind him. In the same instant, a blade, cold and deadly, appeared in his hand—swift as a seasoned warrior. The blade’s shimmering edge found its mark, aimed unerringly at the soon-to-be-zombified Jing Hao Yong, and the now-frozen Makoto Ito’s brainstem.

“What a clever scheme,” Qi Xiaoxiao whispered in Liu Mengchao's ear with a cold laugh. “If Jing Hao Yong turns into a zombie, he’ll attack Ito first.”

“And Ito, being bitten, will instantly lose his ability to act,” Liu Mengchao continued, nodding.

“Exactly. The moment Ito is bitten, his brainstem will become Chen Mo’s primary target, just as special forces teach—to aim first for the brainstem in a surprise attack. Chen Mo can use Ito as a human shield to deal with his greatest threat.”

“All because there’s one Reincarnator too many.”

“And since Ito is the best target—after all, he’s a character from a manga world—killing him first is more acceptable to the other Reincarnators,” Qi Xiaoxiao said softly, though Liu Mengchao, her childhood friend, could hear the hidden anger in her voice.

“Chen Mo won’t get his wish,” Liu Mengchao concluded, shaking his head. He’d noticed that the long-overlooked Komuro Takashi, though expressionless, had flared nostrils and a shifting gaze directed at Jing Hao Yong below. His feet had unconsciously slipped into a fighter’s stance.

If the FBI manual was right, when someone did all three actions at once, they were preparing for only three things:

To argue, to run,

Or... to fight.

And what about Komuro, gripping a baseball bat?

At that thought, Liu Mengchao looked at the visibly excited Chen Mo with a trace of mockery in his gaze. He hoped the blood wouldn’t splatter into Chen Mo’s half-open mouth.

Bang!

The bright yellow baseball bat swung down without hesitation, cracking against Jing Hao Yong’s skull. Already wracked with pain, Jing Hao Yong turned in shock to his friend.

“I’m sorry!” Komuro Takashi roared, striking again with even more force. Silver hair whipped through the air, following the arc of the battered head.

Crack!

Jing Hao Yong’s head finally gave way, bursting open like a helpless watermelon, red pulp spraying everywhere.

Makoto Ito’s face was splattered with blood, yet he smiled with satisfaction and even tried to comfort Komuro, “You did the right thing. It was for his own good.”

“No…” Rei Miyamoto collapsed to the ground with a dull thud, her eyes empty as she stared at the carnage between her two lovers. Both, in that instant, became her ex-lovers—one abandoned, the other claimed by death.

“Pitiful woman, pitiful man,” Qi Xiaoxiao sighed softly by Liu Mengchao’s ear.

“You’re still as sentimental as ever,” Liu Mengchao said with a faint smile, glancing at her.

“Don’t forget to call me ‘big sister’,” Qi Xiaoxiao retorted, but her expression grew somber. “Liu Mengchao, you’ve survived a horror movie before, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then, this time, you have to survive too.”

“And you?”

She didn’t answer—only offered a gentle, serene smile.

Qi Xiaoxiao turned abruptly and ran toward the fire equipment. She remembered from “Highschool of the Dead” that at the story’s beginning, Komuro and Rei used the fire hose to clear the zombies below and escape. This was a loophole left deliberately by the Main God!

She pivoted, slamming her elbow into the glass of the fire hydrant box. With a crash, the glass shattered. Without hesitation, she pulled out the hose and hurled it toward Liu Mengchao. The heavy nozzle arced through the air, defying gravity, and landed squarely in Liu Mengchao’s hands.

“Liu Mengchao!”

Only then did her shout—and her brown ponytail—flash vividly in Liu Mengchao’s mind.

Wheel open.

Valve turn.

Water surged forth!

The limp fire hose swelled visibly, a coiled dragon slowly revealing its fierce visage.

Roar!

In Liu Mengchao’s hands, the hose unleashed a deep, guttural bellow as a torrent of water surged toward the distant zombies.

Behind Liu Mengchao, Chen Mo’s eyebrows involuntarily drew down. Regret flooded him. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have bothered with Ito’s affairs. Now, the first batch of Main God points had escaped right under his nose!

Where some felt loss, others rejoiced.

Xu Zhengdong lowered his head and smiled.

Indeed, a veteran is a veteran.

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Flipping tables... What’s going on here... People are setting off firecrackers at six in the morning...

The third update will come at four in the afternoon... So many urging tickets, but I absolutely won’t let you take her away ╭╮

Luckily Qidian doesn’t have twenty thousand tickets for update requests~ I’m dizzy

A deep bow of thanks to King 0 Meow, Justice Is Moe, Frozen Speechless, The Escaping Ice Cube, Starry Musings, and Second Dimension Moe for your generous support