The roars of the walkers outside the vehicle gradually attracted more of them from nearby.
Before the sky was completely dark, a dense crowd had already gathered outside the windows.
Their numbers were comparable to the horde that once trapped Shen Feng and Shen Xue.
The vehicle kept echoing with banging sounds as the walkers outside pounded against it.
The windshield at the front was slightly lower than the windows near the back seats, giving a clearer view of what was happening outside.
At this moment, the front window was completely blocked.
The walkers were roaring and clawing at the glass in vain, like a pack of hungry wolves, trapping the few of us inside the compartment with no way out.
Fortunately, the bus was fairly large and could be considered sturdy.
Even though there were a lot of walkers outside, they weren't an immediate threat to our safety.
But... just how long this sense of safety could last was anyone's guess.
The compartment was pitch-black, with all the curtains drawn shut.
Aside from a faint bit of light coming in through the front windshield, we could barely see our own hands while sitting in our seats.
I had no idea how much time had passed.
During that period, I kept trying to think of a way to escape, but I shot down every idea that came to mind.
Eventually, my brain went completely blank—I couldn't think of anything at all.
"What should we do?" Shen Xue's voice trembled slightly, though she was clearly trying to suppress it.
"For now, we can only wait until morning and figure something out then," Xu Shu said.
"But judging from how things are going, it's uncertain whether this vehicle can even protect us until morning. And with so many walkers outside, we can't even get to the door," Yangyang added, sounding a bit discouraged.
As the hours passed, more and more walkers swarmed toward the vehicle, and under their pushing and shoving, the bus had begun to rock slightly.
"Chen Yang, do you have any ideas?" Shen Feng asked me.
In the darkness, I could only judge Shen Feng's position by the direction his voice came from.
At first, I shook my head to indicate I hadn't come up with anything, but I quickly realized they couldn't see me in the dark.
So I cleared my throat and said, "Not yet."
I couldn't help but feel that, in the face of such an obvious crisis, we shouldn't be this calm.
I didn't know whether everyone truly wasn't afraid, or if they were just deliberately hiding it.
But as for me—I was so nervous my hands wouldn't stop trembling.
The vehicle suddenly rocked violently again.
I hurriedly grabbed the armrest of the seat to steady myself, my heart sinking—this was bad!
There were too many walkers.
The bus couldn't hold out much longer; it could be overturned at any moment.
If that happened—if the glass shattered and the walkers swarmed in all at once—then the few of us would be heading straight to heaven together.
Sitting beside Chen Pu, Zheng Rongrong finally broke under the immense psychological pressure.
She began to sob softly, her cries echoing in the dark.
Her sudden outburst was like a crack splitting open a once-intact piece of glass.
The calm façade we had all forced ourselves to maintain, suppressing our fear, shattered instantly.
In the darkness, we couldn't see each other at all.
Rongrong's sobs continued, her trembling voice drifting through the bus, striking hard against every one of us who was barely holding it together.
The pounding sounds from outside the windows had become as constant and rapid as firecrackers.
With my eyes closed, I could almost imagine how many decayed, rotting hands were now slapping against the bus.
None of us spoke again.
No one even tried to comfort the sobbing Rongrong.
We all understood—this time, we were in serious trouble.
Unless a miracle happened, all of us might...
Suddenly—whoosh—a beam of bright light shone in from outside the window, illuminating the entire vehicle.
Everyone who had been sitting silently with their heads down in the vehicle suddenly looked up, drawn by the blinding light.
The few of us exchanged glances and immediately moved to the nearest windows to look outside.
Something was happening!
I pressed myself against the window, trying to follow the light source, but the glare was so intense I couldn't keep my eyes open.
It was impossible to tell exactly where the light was coming from.
However, the light did illuminate a huge area outside, turning the darkness into something almost as bright as day.
With the help of that illumination, I finally saw just how many walkers were out there.
Seeing that sea of heads packed together, I sucked in several sharp breaths—so many more had gathered in just this short amount of time!
Hundreds—possibly thousands—of walkers had completely surrounded the bus, leaving no space at all.
But now, they were all distracted by the bright light.
One by one, they turned away from the bus, no longer pressing against it in a chaotic mob.
Before we could make sense of what was going on, a loud male voice suddenly boomed from outside, amplified by a speaker:
"Everyone inside the vehicle, get down on the floor! Immediately!"
I didn't hesitate.
The moment I understood the command, I turned and shouted to the others inside the bus:
"Quick! Get down! Do what they say!"
Everyone knew this was definitely not the time to ask questions.
One after another, they stood up from their seats and quickly lay flat on the floor of the bus.
Jun Di was also pulled down to the floor by Shen Feng.
Just as everyone got down, a sharp sound suddenly rang out from outside the bus.
Da-da-da… da-da-da…
Along with the sound of shattering glass and the shrieking cries of the walkers, I finally understood what that sound was—
Gunfire!
For a long stretch of time afterward, all I could hear was the intense, continuous gunfire from outside, mixed with the frenzied roars of the walker horde and the sickening sound of flesh being blown apart.
Chunks of mangled flesh and severed limbs kept flying through the shattered windows, landing inside the bus.
I shouted at Chen Pu, who was closest to Rongrong, to cover her eyes.
But the chaos outside was deafening.
Though we were only two or three meters apart, Chen Pu didn't seem to hear me at all.
Rongrong had her eyes wide open in horror, her mouth agape in what looked like a scream.
Her body twisted and writhed, trying desperately to avoid the falling gore.
The aisle was littered with broken glass shards, and with my left hand injured and unable to bear weight, I couldn't crawl over to her.
All I could do was shout from where I was, telling her to shut her eyes—don't look.
But just as I shouted a couple of times, a severed hand with only one finger left landed right on my face.
At that point, I didn't dare open my mouth again—terrified that a chunk of rotting flesh might fly right in.
I think this was probably the hardest, most unbearable moment I'd ever experienced in my life.
The outside world roared in chaos, with the thunderous gunfire practically swallowing every other sound, making it seem like nothing else existed.
I forced myself to stay calm and alert, trying to make sense of the situation.
Just judging by the intensity of the gunfire, there had to be a lot of people out there.
And whoever they were, they possessed weapons that normally weren't even legal—and they were handling the massive horde of walkers so efficiently and calmly.
Then a thought flashed through my mind: Could they be government troops?
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed likely.
Who else besides the government could have this kind of firepower and organization?
The gunfire outside gradually slowed down.
The few of us remained lying on the ground, not daring to move a muscle.
I strained my ears to pick out any detail from the now more scattered shots—and realized the walkers' roars had mostly faded.
Instead, I heard the sound of many footsteps.
Shen Feng turned his head toward me and asked, "Chen Yang? What do we do now?"
I waved my hand at him, signaling don't move yet.
After making sure there were no more gunshots outside, I slowly lifted my upper body and stretched my neck to peer out the window.
The curtain had been knocked aside by shattered glass, conveniently leaving a gap just wide enough for me to observe the situation outside.
The ground was already a grotesque mess of blood and flesh—severed limbs and rotting meat practically formed a thick layer over the earth.
The stench of blood was overpowering, dizzying and nauseating.
A few men in matching black uniforms were moving back and forth through the piles of gore, searching for any walkers still twitching, and finishing them off with knives.
I ducked back down, a bit hesitant.
Though their outfits were clearly uniform, they… didn't quite look like anything official.
Could it be a new type of military gear I just hadn't seen before?
"Sis? What's going on out there?" Yangyang turned to ask me.
"Not too sure," I shook my head and said to the others, "Shen Xue, stay here with the kids. Yangyang, Shen Feng, Xu Shu—you three come with me to check things out."
Seeing Xu Shu suddenly freeze, I remembered—she had only recently joined us, practically a stranger.
There wasn't really any established bond, and here I was, casually giving her orders.
No wonder she looked surprised.
Fortunately, Xu Shu didn't say anything.
She simply stood up with us.
Just as we reached the bus door, a few burly men with guns blocked our path.
One of them, sporting an exaggerated full beard, gave us a once-over before gruffly asking, "Who got bitten?"
"No one's been bitten," Xu Shu responded from the side.
I hesitated to speak.
Though I knew the wound on my arm came from a normal human bite, Xu Shu didn't know that.
The bearded man scanned us again, then pointed his gun toward the bus with a nod and asked, "Anyone else inside? Who are they? How many?"
"There are a few kids still inside," I replied.
"You two, go check it out. If anyone's been bitten, put them down," the bearded man instructed two of the men in the same uniform, his tone cold and emotionless.
At those words, my chest tightened sharply.
I instinctively shifted my left arm behind my back in an unnatural motion.
Judging by the way these men operated, it was clear they were well-trained.
They knew exactly how to eliminate any potential threat.
If they discovered the wound on my arm, no matter how I explained it, they'd see me as a risk.
And they absolutely wouldn't allow me to stay—or even get near them.
Not being allowed near them wasn't such a big deal on its own.
After all, we were already out of immediate danger.
Worst-case scenario, we could just leave and go our own way.
But what I was really worried about was what the bearded man had just said: "If anyone's been bitten, put them down."
If they found out about my bite, would they do the same to me?
Looking at the group of people in front of me, all wearing identical black uniforms of unknown origin, my heartbeat quickened uncontrollably.
An inexplicable sense of having just escaped the tiger's jaws only to fall into a wolf's den crept over me.
At the same time, a strong wave of doubt spread through my mind—
Who exactly are these people? What is their true identity?
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