Unrelenting

"I'm not a policeman."

"You're wearing a police uniform."

"I stole it."

"You fought with the kidnappers and killed them."

"So what? I'm still not a policeman."

"But you're definitely a good guy."

"Kid, I don't want to talk about this anymore. You'd better hide in the corner, shut your mouth, and wait for help to come. As for your mother's life, only God can decide."

The boy named Ronnie stared at Zhou Qingfeng with that pitiful gaze of his, silently pleading for the good guy to save his mother. Zhou Qingfeng could only harden his heart and force himself to turn away. He said his last sentence impatiently and walked into the fire escape tunnel, not turning back.

Zhou Qingfeng hoped that he could reach the upper levels of the hospital as soon as possible. The layout was more complicated there, so it would be more convenient for him if he wanted to fight, escape, conceal himself, or deceive his enemy. It was much better than the parking lot that provided no places to hide.

Seeing Zhou Qingfeng leave without hesitation, the little boy stood rooted on the spot, not daring to move. He could only cry silently, looking more pitiful than ever. Zhou Qingfeng had been able to steel his resolve and ignore the boy because he knew half of the population of New York would be dead after the Catastrophe, even before the nuclear attacks.

According to the movie, New York would be a graveyard of bones after the Catastrophe. Dead bodies were everywhere. Scenes like that, characteristic of the end of the world, provided no space for self-proclaimed "saviors" with soft hearts. Zhou Qingfeng knew that he could not save many people. His abilities were limited, so limited that even saving himself would be hard.

Zhou Qingfeng aimed his gun diagonally upward and took the stairs up quietly. When he walked two floors up, he got a whiff of men's cologne that came from the stairwell on the negative first floor.

Hmm… Those foreigners had body odor so strong that they had to use perfume. They used it so regularly that they forgot about its existence, but to Zhou Qingfeng, who was not accustomed to such scents, the strong odor was something that could not be covered.

What should he do? Zhou Qingfeng did not know how many people there were in the stairwell. It would be a piece of cake for him if there was only one person. If he surged forward, attacked first, and pulled the trigger repeatedly, there was no reason he would not be able to contain the enemy. If there were two, though, he would be the one who could not escape.

Should he retreat?

A tiny sliver of cowardice and hesitation crept into Zhou Qingfeng's mind. He changed his mind immediately, though, as he knew the enemies would probably come in a bigger group from the direction of the parking lot slopes. The people behind the stairwell were stationary, so they were probably fewer in number. They would have rushed downward otherwise.

Zhou Qingfeng decided to bide his time and wait behind the stairwell for a while. He aimed his gun forward and waited for the enemy to jump out.

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds… Zhou Qingfeng's time was extremely precious. Sweat trickled down his forehead in rivulets. Every second he began to doubt his judgments, or whether he had wrongly interpreted whatever he had smelt. If he wasted too much time and lost the opportunity to escape, he would lose his life.

Under the overwhelming disadvantage in terms of manpower, the stress Zhou Qingfeng was under made him tremble all over. He knew that the enemy could possibly surround him from both sides, but he could only wait patiently and hope for a flaw in the enemy's plan.

Zhou Qingfeng did not move. He tried to adjust his breathing to make it calm and stable. He did not make a sound. After two minutes, he heard the cries of a child come from below the stairwell.

Damn it, it was that brat Ronnie. He must have encountered some trouble.

Zhou Qingfeng's heart constricted when he heard the cries. He was not a heartless person. He would feel worried whenever he came across the weak and helpless. In his original world, he would definitely save someone like Ronnie, but now he had no means to.

"I can't save him, I can't. If I try, I'll just risk my own life. I have to calm down, calm down…" Zhou Qingfeng tried his best to convince himself to stay put, but when Ronnie's cries became louder and more gut-wrenching, he felt so miserable that he was almost in tears.

"I really can't save him, really!" Zhou Qingfeng struggled to control his emotions and harden his heart so that he would not be disturbed by the child's cries. "I have to save myself first. Right now I have no choice but to be selfish."

Just as Zhou Qingfeng was on the verge of breaking down in panic, the bang of a bullet firing put an end to his tangled emotions. The child's cries stopped abruptly, too. He felt like the bullet had shot through his heart, the pain he felt.

As the child's cries stopped, Zhou Qingfeng heard the sound of the door opening. Someone was coming up from downstairs. His heart beat fervently, unstoppable.

'Someone is coming up from below. I am surrounded. Should I charge out, or not? Should I?'

Zhou Qingfeng was sweating like crazy. His eyes were bloodshot. His entire body was drenched in perspiration. Just as he was about to waver, he heard crackling static. It seemed like the kidnappers were contacting one another.

Zhou Qingfeng calmed down when he heard the noises. His hands stopped trembling, his heart no longer beating wildly, and his gaze sharpened somewhat. He heard the kidnappers downstairs clearly as they asked those upstairs to come down and start searching together so that they could attack their quarry at the same time. 

'There really were people behind the stairwell. I was right when I decided to wait. Luckily I didn't run out impulsively. If I did, I would've been an easy target for them. Come on, come out!'

The person in question really did come out, and he was alone! He was armed with an assault rifle, but he rushed out recklessly. When he turned around and saw Zhou Qingfeng, who had been squatting behind the stairwell, he stumbled for a moment, surprised.

'You've kept me waiting!'

At the sight of Zhou Qingfeng aiming his gun at him from behind the stairwell calmly, the thug was probably thinking, 'God, it's been silent this whole time behind me. Why is there suddenly someone here?'

Under these circumstances, it was Zhou Qingfeng's turn to shoot at his target. As they were practically within touching distance of each other, less than half a meter away, his bullet sank deep into the man's chest after he pulled the trigger. The thug fell to the ground and instantly died a tragic death!

After the death of the poor b*stard, Zhou Qingfeng dragged the body toward him and used it as a shield. He turned back, aiming his pistol behind him. Shortly after the sound of gunfire from the shot, the walkie-talkie on the dead man rang. The kidnappers approaching from downstairs were asking what had happened.

They called out a few times but there was no response, so the thugs downstairs contacted their other comrades as well. The answer they got was that there was no sign of Zhou Qingfeng. With that, they concluded that their friend upstairs was already dead.

Sh*t! So many people were attacking that single cop, and yet they had let that brat slip past them.

The kidnapper downstairs situated himself in the turning corner of the staircase. He held on to his assault rifle tightly and bent his head sideways, responding to his two accomplices. He said, "That policeman should be up there. I've already summoned the others here. Let's wait here first…"

That was a good idea, but before he could finish, he heard something roll down from upstairs noisily. The leader of the small group was shocked for a while. He immediately pointed his gun on it, his gaze focusing on it as well. The object that rolled down was a corpse.

At the same time, Zhou Qingfeng leaped out from the stairwell. In the second he was airborne, the Wittier than All ability was activated.

This time, Zhou Qingfeng's weapon was no longer the weak Glock 17 pistol, but an automatic M4A1. The 30 bullets equipped burst out in a fiery assault. The scorching and blinding fire signified a ferocious scream for revenge.