Edge of the Apocalypse
Chapter 19 - 17: Lin Xiaojun

Chapter 19: Chapter 17: Lin Xiaojun

It was hard to say if it was the buzz of the drone’s rotors or the scent of blood from the used sanitary pad.

The Brute Zombie on the third floor stopped pounding on the door and charged upstairs.

The drone, carrying the pad, flew nimbly up the stairwell.

As the zombie passed the fourth floor, it didn’t even glance at Yu Dong behind his door, continuing its single-minded pursuit of the drone.

It ran farther and farther away... until the sounds faded completely.

A moment later, a loud THUD came from outside the building!

Yu Dong realized what had happened. He hurried back to his apartment and looked down from the other side of his balcony.

The Brute Zombie was at the bottom. It hadn’t taken the stairs, nor the elevator...

It had simply splattered into a pool on the ground, a mess of red and white.

It was completely silent.

WHIRRRR~

A drone slowly descended in front of Yu Dong’s window.

Yu Dong watched it through his privacy film. The drone snapped a few pictures of his apartment’s interior before flying down.

Yu Dong pushed open his window and looked down. The drone slipped through a window on the third floor.

’It was Liu Ye’ye...’

Although Yu Dong hadn’t seen what happened upstairs firsthand, he could already piece together how Liu Ye’ye had done it.

The building’s stairwell had ventilation windows on every floor, most of which were left open to maintain air circulation.

’Liu Ye’ye sent her drone in through an open window on one of the floors. Then she used the noise and the blood to lure the Brute Zombie, leading it all the way up to a high floor... probably the 32nd.’

’Then the drone flew out the window, and the frenzied zombie followed it right out...’

’SPLAT!’

After a fall from 32 stories, not even a god could save it.

The Brute Zombie was well and truly dead.

This was the first dead zombie Yu Dong had seen...

And Liu Ye’ye had killed it without so much as drawing a weapon.

’Was it because of this morning’s announcement? That noise and blood would attract the infected... Is that why she immediately thought of this plan?’

In that moment, Yu Dong completely overturned his previous, superficial judgment of Liu Ye’ye.

She was no weakling.

Yu Dong set down his long spear and began to ponder Liu Ye’ye’s intention in taking pictures of his apartment.

’She must be gathering information on the entire Building 1...’

A drone could safely scout the inside of any apartment where the curtains weren’t drawn.

It was far safer than Yu Dong going out to investigate himself.

’Interesting... I can’t believe I never thought of a method like this to gather intel.’

’Heh~ A person’s perspective really is limited by their own life experience,’ Yu Dong thought with a self-deprecating laugh.

It was like a peasant imagining the emperor used a golden hoe to farm. A man like Yu Dong, who spent every day grappling with life and pinching pennies, had never even considered a rich person’s toy like a drone.

’Lesson learned.’

Yu Dong cast aside his previous mentality of wanting to protect the weak and began to see Liu Ye’ye as his equal.

’Looks like I’m about to make a new friend.’

Yu Dong liked making friends, especially smart ones.

...

"I think... we need to figure out a way to take out the zombies in the office outside. Otherwise, we’ll be trapped in here until we die."

Liangzi spoke as he squatted on the floor of the property management security room.

"Oh, you’re so tough? Why don’t you go out there and chop them all up! You can’t even handle one zombie, yet you’re always spouting useless fucking bullshit. At least in here we won’t die."

Jiang Xupeng muttered curses under his breath, squatting next to him.

Liangzi, who had just been trying to muster his courage, instantly deflated at the thought of several zombies potentially waiting outside the door.

In a corner not far away lay the corpse of a large woman, her head smashed in.

Liangzi glanced at Sister Zhang’s body, then his eyes instinctively shifted to the person sitting in the boss’s chair up ahead, their back turned to them.

Even though a whole night had passed, he still found it hard to believe, as if he were seeing Lin Xiaojun for the first time.

「Yesterday, at 7 PM.」

Liangzi had been caught off guard by the zombified Sister Zhang’s attack. Fortunately, Liangzi was a P.E. major, and he unleashed incredible potential in the face of extreme danger!

A surge of brute strength allowed him to shove Sister Zhang away and turn to run for his life.

Just as he reached the security room door, two zombified female receptionists lunged at him, baring their teeth.

Terrified, Liangzi slammed the security room door shut.

Meanwhile, Sister Zhang, having been pushed away, had already switched targets to the still-human Jiang Xupeng.

Jiang Xupeng was used to being all bluster. Seeing the monster-like, frenzied Sister Zhang, he actually tried to intimidate her, only to be immediately pinned to the ground!

She opened her gaping mouth to bite him.

Jiang Xupeng’s strength was no match for Sister Zhang’s. He was completely unable to move under her weight.

"Help me! Help me! AHHH!"

Liangzi was still in a daze, hesitating over whether to help and worrying if Sister Zhang would bite him too... when the middle-aged man who had been sitting in the chair the whole time picked up a baseball bat and smashed a hole in Sister Zhang’s head with one swing.

The zombified Sister Zhang staggered and fell to the floor.

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

Right in front of them, Lin Xiaojun brought the bat down again and again, bashing Sister Zhang’s head into a pulp. Bone fragments mixed with brains and blood splattered all over the security room.

Seeing that Sister Zhang had stopped moving, Lin Xiaojun casually tossed the bat on the floor, sat back down in his reclining chair, and lit a Hongtashan cigarette as if nothing had happened.

Liang Mian and Jiang Xupeng, who had scrambled to his feet, both began to vomit violently.

After they finished throwing up, they leaned against the wall and stared at each other in disbelief. Neither of them could have imagined that Lin Xiaojun, the quietest and most honest-looking control room operator, could be so ruthless.

This was especially true for Jiang Xupeng. When he remembered how he’d been cursing out Lin Xiaojun’s mother while checking the monitors earlier... a warm sensation spread through his crotch.

Liang Mian, on the other hand, hadn’t really offended Lin Xiaojun. But in his memory, the 30-something-year-old man was a total loner who did nothing but hole up in his security room, minding his own business.

Liang Mian had even suspected Lin Xiaojun might have some kind of mental illness, like autism or something...

After finishing his Hongtashan, Lin Xiaojun pointed at Liang Mian and Jiang Xupeng.

"You two, clean my office."

The two of them scrambled to clean up. They hadn’t eaten dinner, and they had just vomited everywhere. After cleaning, their stomachs were growling with hunger.

Lin Xiaojun stared at the various monitor feeds and said coolly:

"From now on, you two listen to me. As long as I have food to eat, so will you. Understand?"

With that, he pulled out two cups of instant noodles from under his desk and tossed them on the floor.

「A night passed in the blink of an eye.」

Today, Sister Zhang’s corpse began to give off a putrid stench. The air circulation in the security room was terrible, and Liangzi couldn’t stand it anymore.

Even with Jiang Xupeng objecting, Liangzi stuck to his guns.

"We’ve got Brother Jun, don’t we? Together, we can definitely handle those zombies!"

Jiang Xupeng also looked up at Lin Xiaojun, who was sitting in the boss’s chair.

His face was bathed in the pale blue light of the monitor screens, his back shrouded in darkness.

CLICK~

A flicker of flame appeared as a Hongtashan was lit. Lin Xiaojun took a deep drag, and a dry, hoarse voice emerged from the shadows.

"The time is not yet right..."