Surviving the Apocalypse with the Young Miss - Chapter 84

Chapter 84: Rescue

Over the next half month, Song Ge and Tong Xiangyu traversed many cities municipalities, counties, and towns alike. They only stopped to collect leftover usable supplies; the rest of the time was spent driving. If a car broke down, they swapped it for another; if they ran out of gas, they found a gas station.

This half month hadn’t been as smooth as their time in Zihu. Sometimes, due to the complexity of a city’s layout, they would circle around for three or four days without finding an exit. However, one thing remained constant regardless of the city: they were completely deserted.

The same was true for this place, called Jinyun County.

Tong Xiangyu’s “dog-gnawed” hair had grown quite a bit. Driving past a barbershop, Song Ge remembered their previous conversation and pulled over to the side of the road.

Song Ge opened the shop doors to let the air circulate. She did a quick cleanup of the rotting corpses on the floor, righted the overturned chairs, and used a cloth to wipe the dust off a seat and the blood off a mirror. The blood had been there too long and left a stubborn stain.

“It’s okay,” Tong Xiangyu said. “Leave it like that. No need to keep scrubbing.”

Song Ge pulled over a rolling workstation. There were many types of scissors inside. After a bit of study, she chose a pair of straight-edge shears without serrations. Tong Xiangyu sat in the chair Song Ge had cleaned. “Just make it even, okay?”

“Mhm,” Song Ge replied.

Song Ge looked around. The barber’s cape was crumpled in a corner; not only was it thick with dust, but it was lying right next to a corpse crawling with maggots. Song Ge frowned and decided against using it. Instead, she used her hands to lift Tong Xiangyu’s hair, section by section, trimming the uneven lengths to a shorter, uniform style.

Tong Xiangyu felt a bit depressed. “It’s been twenty days without washing my hair or bathing. I’ve turned ‘sour.'”

“You’re not sour,” Song Ge said as she clipped. “You’ve always smelled nice.”

“Liar,” Tong Xiangyu countered, watching Song Ge in the mirror. “When we didn’t have a car and had to trek, I’d sweat two pounds a day. I could wring water out of my clothes when I took them off. I was pickled in sweat long ago.”

Song Ge asked, “Can’t you smell it yourself?”

“Smell what?”

“The fragrance.”

Tong Xiangyu certainly couldn’t. She studied Song Ge’s expression in the mirror, skeptical for a moment before pouting. “Song Ge, stop teasing me.”

“I’m not,” Song Ge said. She leaned down to sniff near the nape of Tong Xiangyu’s neck, then straightened up and said with certainty, “There really is a fragrance. Sweet, like some kind of candy.”

Candy? Tong Xiangyu was sure Song Ge was messing with her. She had never used skincare or bath products with that kind of scent.

Song Ge’s precision was remarkable. Without needing to measure, she lifted the hair and made a clean cut; the lengths were perfectly even, as if measured with a ruler. However, in Tong Xiangyu’s eyes, Song Ge’s technique was clearly unprofessional and purely “improvised.”

Expectations for “neatness” lowered, Tong Xiangyu thought about how they hadn’t seen a soul in fifteen days. She asked, “Hey, Song Ge. If this disaster wiped out humanity and you and I were the only two left in the world… what would you do?”

Song Ge kept her eyes on the hair and answered, “There is no ‘if’.”

“Oh, come on, just a hypothesis!”

“I wouldn’t do much,” Song Ge said. “I’d find a place in the countryside, grow food, be self-sufficient, and live until I died of old age or sickness.”

Tong Xiangyu asked, “Just you and me?”

“Isn’t there also a dog?”

Seeing that she didn’t deny it, Tong Xiangyu giggled. Song Ge glanced up. “What are you laughing at?”

Tong Xiangyu shook her head, refusing to say. Instead, she asked, “What if I don’t know how to farm?”

“I’ll farm.”

“Then I’ll cook for you.”

“Mhm.”

Tong Xiangyu thought for a bit and added, “We shouldn’t just grow grain. We should plant fruit trees and flowers. It’s best to choose a big courtyard with a water well, and lots of potted plants out front…”

Hearing her plan so far ahead, Song Ge said, “Why think so much? It’s impossible. If you don’t want to find your parents, I’ll take you to the countryside to farm right now.”

“But we don’t have seeds.”

“…Are you actually considering it?”

Tong Xiangyu looked up at her. “It’s a hypothesis, otherwise it’s so boring. How much longer are you going to clip?”

“Almost done,” the “barber” Song Ge said. “Don’t move. Did you fidget this much when you got your hair cut before?”

Tong Xiangyu stuck out her tongue and sat still.

Just as she was finishing, Song Ge suddenly froze and turned her head toward the door. Tong Xiangyu, who had been stealing glances at Song Ge in the mirror, immediately asked, “Song Ge, what is it?”

“Nothing.”

Song Ge thought she had heard footsteps and voices about four or five people approaching from a distance. But listening closely, there was nothing. Moreover, the mutant dog, Baibai, should have been more sensitive, yet he remained stationary at the entrance.

But just as that thought crossed her mind, Song Ge caught a scent in the air.

Tong Xiangyu exclaimed, “Wow, why does it smell so good?”

As she spoke, a fierce round of barking erupted outside.

Song Ge immediately looked out and found that Baibai, who had been at the door, was gone. She tapped Tong Xiangyu to signal her to stand up, simultaneously grabbing a heavy hair steamer from the shop as a makeshift weapon, and crept toward the door.

The footsteps and voices outside became suddenly clear. It was as if they had appeared out of thin air. Song Ge shielded Tong Xiangyu behind her, peeking out.

There was a group of five: three men and two women, all looking quite young. The man in the lead held a net in one hand and a long animal catcher pole in the other, pinning Baibai firmly to the ground. Another man drew a dagger and stepped toward the dog, raising his hand to deliver a fatal blow to the head.

Knowing how much Tong Xiangyu valued the dog, Song Ge stepped out from her hiding spot. “Wait.”

The five people turned in unison. A girl with straight bangs brightened up. “Wow, there are actually people left in this city? Hello there~~” She then asked, “By the way, what did you just say?”

Song Ge said, “Don’t kill the dog.”

The leader asked, “Is this dog yours?”

“Sort of.”

The man raised an eyebrow, seemingly used to such sights, but he didn’t loosen his grip on the tools. “It’s mutated.”

“I know,” Song Ge said.

“Mutated animals are extremely aggressive,” the man countered. “If a normal person is bitten, they’ll turn into a zombie too.”

Tong Xiangyu couldn’t help but poke her head out from behind Song Ge. “Baibai won’t bite! He’s a mutant dog, but he’s smart and understands humans!”

The group froze again upon seeing Tong Xiangyu. No one expected another girl, especially one who looked so fresh and beautiful despite the dire circumstances like a pampered flower that had never seen a day of hardship.

The man kneeling with the dagger was stunned by her beauty. He twirled his knife and looked at Tong Xiangyu. “Do you have other companions? Where are they?”

Tong Xiangyu was no longer the naive girl who bared her soul to everyone. She was wary of these people who had tried to kill her dog. “Why are you asking?”

The man with the knife said, “It can’t just be the two of you girls, right?”

The girl with the bangs chimed in, “Did you just arrive in Jinyun? Last time we were here, there were almost no survivors left.”

“Almost?” Song Ge questioned.

The girl didn’t want to elaborate. “Yeah, there was one person we saved.” But that person was in a wretched state hardly human anymore.

The remaining man took a small ID badge from his pocket. “It’s my police ID.”

Song Ge stepped forward. Tong Xiangyu, fearing a trap, grabbed Song Ge’s sleeve. “Song Ge…”

Song Ge patted her hand. “It’s fine.”

Song Ge took the ID and opened it. Qiao Minshan, Special Police. She compared the photo to the man’s face; he obligingly lifted his bangs to let her see clearly. Song Ge could feel that the ID was genuine just by the touch. Besides, it wouldn’t be easy to forge such a thing after the outbreak.

She handed it back.

Qiao Minshan tucked it away and explained, “We aren’t bad people. When this disaster first started, we thought it was just a group of criminals causing trouble. Our team was responsible for suppressing riots and rescue. But then the ‘corpse tide’ broke out, the city spiraled out of control, and we took a group of civilians to hide temporarily.”

Song Ge looked at the leader and the man with the knife. Qiao Minshan introduced them: “Zhou Bo, Xiang Weijun. They are also special police, members of my team.”

The more Tong Xiangyu heard, the more untrustworthy she found them. She linked her arm through Song Ge’s, hoping to convey her desire to leave. But Song Ge didn’t move.

“You kill dogs to prevent them from biting survivors?” Song Ge asked.

“Correct,” Qiao Minshan replied.

Song Ge said, “What if we can prove this dog won’t bite and understands humans?”

Xiang Weijun, holding the dagger, scoffed. “How? We’ve seen owners refuse to kill their mutant pets only to be bitten to death and dragged out to be eaten by a pack of other mutant dogs.”

Song Ge pointed at Tong Xiangyu. “She’ll prove it.”

“Zhou Bo,” Qiao Minshan said. “Release the tongs.”

“Yes, sir.”

The moment the tools were released, Baibai as a mutant dog lunged toward the hostile group! But because he was still partially in the net, he only looked manic, baring his teeth.

Tong Xiangyu immediately shouted, “Baibai!”

Zhou Bo was about to re-clamp the dog, but he saw it come to a screeching halt and turn back toward the girl who called it.

“Come here.” Tong Xiangyu clapped her hands.

Baibai turned around, dragging the net, and bounded happily toward Tong Xiangyu, his short tail wagging furiously. Song Ge noticed the man with the knife tense up instantly, ready to strike if the dog showed any intent to harm. From his instinctive reaction, this man definitely had combat training.

“You mentioned a rescue,” Song Ge asked Qiao Minshan. “How many people have you saved?”

Tong Xiangyu tried to stop her. “Song Ge!”

Song Ge understood her intent. “Forget it.”

But Xiang Weijun stood up and sheathed his knife. “Forty-two. Six of them are Ability Users.”

“Six Ability Users?” Song Ge’s heart sank slightly. She suddenly turned her head toward the only person in the group who hadn’t spoken: a woman wearing sunglasses.

The woman was raising her hand to take off the glasses. As Song Ge looked, she felt a jolt of horror the woman’s right eye had three pupils!

Support