Chapter 12: Golden Seed

By the time the trio arrived on the seventh floor, they saw the bald man discarding his rifle and chopping at zombies with a firefighter axe. Beside him was Qin Yan, a tall and intelligent woman, who knew she lacked the ability to kill a zombie on her own, so she took advantage of the length of the axe handle to stab it in the zombie's belly and used all her strength to hold it back, waiting for the bald man to finish his off before he could help her. As for the stewardess, Hu Qiong, she was providing support on the side but was essentially useless.

The high school student was hilarious, hiding behind the three men, aiming his rifle for a long time, constantly shouting that they were blocking his line of fire, but he hadn't fired any bullets.

"Fuck, if you guys hadn't arrived in time, we'd be goners." The bald man, his face close to tears, finally looked relieved when he saw Lin Weiguo and Tang Zheng coming up the stairs. However, he still complained, "Didn't you see? There are some more zombies climbing up."

"Did you use up all of your bullets? Why can't you conserve them?" Lin Weiguo cursed. Originally, he wanted to take over Qin Yan's duty to defend the other side, but without the rifle to kill quickly, relying solely on melee quickly became too inefficient. Before the Bald man could kill a single zombie, more zombies from below filled in their ranks. Already six had climbed up to the seventh floor and were only a few steps away from the rest of them.

Dat-dat-dat, Lin Weiguo pushed the high school student who was blocking the way aside with one arm, decisively opening fire, blowing off the heads of the two leading zombies from downstairs. The gunshots echoed loudly in the stairwell, hurting everyone's eardrums.

"Do you think everyone's a maniac like you and Tang Zheng? I don't have that kind of courage." The bald man retorted, "These monsters are so irritating, the axe doesn't do shit when it hits their bodies, you can only aim for the head. If not for this, with my years of prison fight experience, I would have beaten them up by now."

"Are you guys nuts? Why aren't you retreating? Can't you see more zombies are climbing up?" Tang Zheng has already rushed over. He used his axe to stop the zombie attacking Qin Yan, and used all his strength to push it down, then hauled Qin Yan by the arm up the stairs, "No more fighting, bald man, you didn't get bitten, did you?"

"Hehe, I'm not stupid, look, what is this?" The bald man sprinted up to the ninth floor, lifting his prisoner suit to show off, "I tore the sheet into palm-sized strips and wrapped them around my body, not bad, right? We also know that being bitten by a zombie will cause infection. By the way, call me Wu Xudong, don't call me bald man."

"You have this bit of wit?" Tang Zheng looked at the bald man who had virtually mummified himself and teased, then quickly turned his head to look at Lin Weiguo.

"Alright, you guess right, I was lying to you just now." Lin Weiguo shrugged and rolled up his sleeves, showing Tang Zheng the layers of cloth wrapped around his arm, thickly wound and without any zombie inflicted damage.

"Old Lin, this isn't fair, you had me worried!" Tang Zheng complained, but in his heart, he let out a small sigh of relief, happy for Lin Weiguo.

Qin Yan leaned against the wall, her full chest rising and falling rapidly with her heavy breaths, drawing attractive curves. But she didn't have time to cover up. After the melee just now, she finally understood how difficult it was to deal with zombies and how much pressure Tang Zheng and Lin Weiguo were under. When a rotting zombie lunged at you with its claws, those with weaker constitutions would break down instantly.

Hu Qiong sat silently to one side with her arms wrapped around her chest.

"That was Old Lin's idea. While you were sleeping, they tore up the sheets and curtains and wrapped them around their bodies," Li Xinlan explained with a laugh. "Kang Songde was the most heavily bound, and he even tucked a few magazines under his shirt. Didn't you notice he was a lot bigger?"

"Can you guys stop chatting? The zombies are coming up." The high school student was annoyed by the hearty laughter and conversation. "We are still not safe."

"Oh, hiding behind us like you, we're definitely safe." The bald man mocked the high school student, clearly displeased with his previous behaviour. One cannot hide behind while a woman was fighting zombies, so what right does he have to make sarcastic comments? If it wasn't for Tang Zheng, the bald man would have grabbed the high school student and given him a beating long ago based on his former behavior.

"You...I also tried my best. Qin Yan also didn't kill a single zombie," The high school student blushed, desperately arguing his case. He didn't want to be looked down on.

"You're right. But she was fighting the zombies hand to hand, and you? Just holding a gun doing nothing?" The bald man handed out the firefighter's axe contemptuously, "Dare you?"

The high school student glanced at the two zombies appearing on the stairs, and did not reach out to take the axe. At this moment he was scared, but Hu Qiong, who was squatting to one side, suddenly leapt up, grabbed the axe, hesitated for a few seconds, then leapt down like a madwoman.

"Instead of talking nonsense, can you give me a hand with these zombies?" Tang Zheng was startled and hurriedly rushed down the stairs.

The train-drag strategy was successful against ordinary zombies. In the most dangerous round, they only had to face four zombies at most. Initially, the bald man planned to force it out, but was lectured by Tang Zheng.

"You could push them down a few floors and repeat the train-drag. Who says you have to stand your ground? Pushing them down is much easier than killing them."

The bald man slapped his head, acknowledging his own stupidity. Even if he understood the tactics, he was too rigid in implementing them and couldn't match others' proficiency.

Gradually adapting to the rhythm, although everyone's killing speed wasn't fast, they steadily wiped out the zombies. Even the high school student managed to kill one, though it cost a whole bullet clip that made the bald man grumble about wastage. Hu Qiong killed one with her bare hands but consequently exhausted herself. If it weren't for Tang Zheng's quick reaction to pull her away, this hot-headed flight attendant would have definitely become the first casualty in their group.

Forty-eight minutes later, following another swing of Lin Weiguo's axe, over forty zombies were wiped out. Descending from the eleventh floor and stepping over the countless corpses, everyone felt a sense of accomplishment. Even the smell of blood and rot in the air seemed somewhat more tolerable.

Within a few more minutes, they safely returned to the third floor without further incidents.

"Um, I feel a bit late in asking this, but do any of you know where the kitchen is? Surely we don't have to search room by room?" Hu Qiong regained her composure after killing a zombie, no longer feeling as inferior as before. "Are we going to employ the human train tactic a few more times? Even if the tactic is sound, we'll eventually run out of stamina."

Everyone turned to look at Tang Zheng. Indeed, this was a huge problem. They weren't made of iron; they couldn't keep this up indefinitely.

"When I was in the elevator, I asked the receptionist about the general location of the kitchen. Of course, I really should get a hold of the hotel's layout to make escape more safe and convenient so we're not blindly fumbling around," Tang Zheng opened his folding knife and sketched a rough map on the ground.

"Always prepared, impressive!" Li Xinlan's comment echoed the thoughts of everyone present. Having this guy on their team made them feel incredibly at ease.

"Alright, you guys wait here, we'll go clear the remaining zombies." Lin Weiguo declared, and the two of them cautiously descended the stairs.

When they reached the location where they had killed the hunter zombie, Tang Zheng noticed a faint golden glow emanating from a small jade stone in the blood pool. The jade, about the size of a thumb cap with an olive-like shape, suddenly shone brighter when he touched it, throwing beautiful golden rays around it. The light eventually settled into a halo that circled the stone.

"What's that? A jade stone?" Lin Weiguo noticed what Tang Zheng was holding.

"Not sure, haha, it looks like a mini version of Jupiter with a halo." Tang Zheng toyed with it for a bit before tossing it to Lin Weiguo. "Here, it's yours."

The moment Lin Weiguo caught the stone, he could feel its warmth. After examining it briefly, he threw it back. "I don't want it, save it for your girlfriend."

He figured the stone could be worth tens of thousands, but he didn't feel right accepting it. He chalked it up as just another decoration from a zombie. After all, women were fond of such trinkets.

"Hah, fine, I'll keep it for my own amusement." Tang Zheng understood Lin Weiguo's intention and didn't insist further.

The growls from the hunter zombie earlier had attracted almost all the zombies from this floor, rounding them all up for good. This allowed the two men to reach the kitchen safely. Tang Zheng spotted two waitress zombies in silk stocking wandering at the end of the hallway. Confirming they wouldn't be alerted, he darted into the kitchen.

Lin Weiguo fetched a few large paper bags and started stuffing clean food into them at the fastest speed possible: Sausages, pastries, assorted fruits, instant noodles, bread, and canned tuna. All were ready-to-eat food. Of course, the majority of the food stored here was vegetables and raw meat. The fridge was packed full of seafood, but nobody dared to cook here, unless they fancied a party with a swarm of zombies.

After transporting the food to the third floor and leaving the three flight attendants to guard it, the four men returned to the kitchen to move as much food as possible. They didn't want another encounter with zombies. If it weren't for the overwhelming volume, they would have moved a month's worth of supplies and holed up in their room until the survival challenge was over.

"Stop, it's crushing me." The bald man, with half a sausage hanging from his mouth and straining under a box of Budweiser and a mountain of paper bags on top of it, looked red-faced and flustered.

"Alright, alright, let's get moving." Prodded by Tang Zheng, they finally managed to haul the boxes and bags filled with food, like squirrels ready for winter, back to room 1207.

However, the Zero Hour Squad's triumphant return was almost cut short. Upon entering the twelfth floor hallway, they saw two zombies clawing persistently at the door of 1207. Alerted by the squad's noise, they started towards them at a trot.

At that moment, everyone's faces darkened considerably, for Zhao Jingye had utterly shirked his duties, failing to complete the task assigned by Tang Zheng.