After hacking down the walking corpse, the group continued forward and discovered that they had entered an area stocked with cleaning supplies. Various shampoos and toiletries were scattered across the floor. The dim lighting barely provided enough visibility, but it was sufficient to make out their surroundings. The once-spacious supermarket had been divided into smaller sections by emergency roll-down shutters. Ironically, these fireproof doors, initially designed for fire safety, were now serving as barriers against the undead. Pressing against one, they could immediately hear the familiar, chilling growls of the walking corpses on the other side.

  "Let's go left!" Hu Laoda suggested, gripping his frozen meat cleaver tightly. The space had two locked fireproof doors on either side. However, the unsettling sounds of numerous walking corpses from the right made their decision easy. Compared to that, the left side was eerily quiet.

  "Agreed. Left it is." Lin Tao nodded. It was obvious that an area infested with walking corpses was unlikely to house any survivors. He wasn’t foolish enough to charge into a room full of them. However, to his surprise, when he turned the handle of the left door, it wasn’t locked. There was nothing obstructing it from the other side either. Just as he hesitated, pushing the door open, a cold fsh of steel came sshing toward his head.

  Lin Tao merely smiled and, without even flinching, raised his left hand to firmly catch the incoming weapon.

  "Ahhh! Help!"

  A high-pitched scream pierced the air. A young girl stood frozen in terror, her hand gripping a kitchen knife that was now trapped in Lin Tao’s grasp. Fortunately, he let go just in time; otherwise, her shrill scream might have ruptured his eardrums.

  "Ugh! What a stench!" Hu Laoda pinched his nose and curiously surveyed the room behind Lin Tao. A beautiful girl sat on the floor, trembling with fear, her small, pale feet bare and dirt-smudged face giving her the look of a pitiful beggar. Behind her stood a group of around ten equally terrified women, all huddled together like frightened quails, their bodies shaking. The air was thick with the foul stench of human waste.

  "Who… who are you?" Seeing that the intruders were not the undead but living people, an older woman cautiously stepped forward to help the girl up, her expression filled with wariness.

  "We’re from the police department. The government sent us to rescue you! Hahaha..." Hu Laoda smirked, proudly tugging at the belt of his brand-new LV pants, his tone dripping with amusement.

  "Do you think we’re children? There's no such thing as a police force anymore!" The older woman scowled, taking a step back, her face darkening with suspicion.

  "Heh! Then just think of us as monks from Shaolin Temple, sent by the Buddha himself to save you!" Hu Laoda chuckled, his lecherous gaze sweeping over the women.

  "Can you stop talking nonsense? Can't you see they're scared?" Axue gred at Hu Laoda, unable to tolerate his crude humor any longer.

  "Tch—just trying to lighten the mood!" Hu Laoda clicked his tongue, secretly cursing under his breath. Back in the day, hadn’t this same woman been on her knees in front of him, acting all submissive? Now, just because she had someone backing her up, she dared to put on airs?

  Axue ignored his venomous stare and turned to the older woman, who appeared to be in her thirties. "Don’t be afraid, sister. We’re survivors like you. We came up here when we saw signs of people inside."

  Women could communicate better with each other, and as soon as Axue finished speaking, the tension among the group visibly eased. The older woman hesitated before asking, "Can you take us out of here?"

  Hope flickered in the eyes of the women behind her, though it was ced with fear.

  "Out? Why? The situation outside is even worse than here. If I were you, I’d stay put. At least you still have food here." Axue sighed, shaking her head.

  "Food?" The woman let out a bitter ugh and gestured at the chaotic shelves. "There’s nothing left. This was the food section, but we’ve eaten everything. We were forced to move the barricade and risk searching outside. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to enter."

  "Are you guys pigs? There are only a dozen of you, and you ate everything?" Hu Laoda shouted, his hands on his hips, incredulous.

  The woman's face flushed with embarrassment. "At first, we thought rescue would come, so we didn’t ration properly. We never expected to be stuck here for so long. And… women tend to eat more when under extreme stress."

  "Are there no other survivors here? No men at all?" Lin Tao frowned. Something felt off. It was strange that only women had survived in this section.

  At the mention of men, the women’s expressions stiffened. Most lowered their heads, avoiding eye contact. Only the older woman took a deep breath and answered, "There were six men originally. Four left to find food and never returned. The other two… we killed them."

  "You… killed them?" Hu Laoda was stunned. He hadn't expected these seemingly helpless women to be capable of murder.

  "Yes. What else were we supposed to do? Let them continue tormenting us?" The older woman’s eyes fshed with hatred. She took a deep breath before continuing, "At first, we all got along, supporting each other and holding onto the hope of survival. But after our leader—the pilot—and his three co-pilots left and never returned, the remaining two men showed their true colors. Hmph! Do you really think we didn’t know what was going through their disgusting minds? With a group of defenseless women around, of course, they wanted to take advantage. They raped and killed two of our sisters. After that, we didn’t hesitate. Each of us took a knife and ended them. Don't think of us as heartless—we were left with no choice."

  "That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think? At least Lin Tao has been with us for a long time, and he hasn’t so much as touched us!" Axue retorted, displeased by the woman's generalization.

  "That’s because you have Lin Tao! What about us?" The woman snapped, her voice rising in hysteria. "You have no idea what it’s like to be in our shoes! If those men had pinned you down and tried to viote you, how would you feel? You’d probably hate them even more than we did!"

  "Hmph. How do you know our suffering wasn’t worse?" Even Cao Mei spoke up, gring at the woman. "Do you know what Axue used to be? She was a college student, a virgin, when the virus outbreak happened. She sought refuge in a food processing pnt. Do you know how many men were there? Five hundred. That’s a hundred times more than what you faced..."

  The other women were stunned into silence. Even Hu Laoda, usually full of sleazy remarks, looked embarrassed and said nothing.

  Lin Tao gnced at the group and said ftly, "Enough. In times like these, everyone has grievances. They just needed to vent."

  "…I apologize." The older woman bit her lip and finally introduced herself. "My name is Zhang Hong, but everyone calls me Hongjie."

  "Doesn’t matter," Lin Tao waved dismissively. He had seen too many broken souls. Their minds were already on the brink of colpse. He gnced around and added, "It looks like you really are at your limit. But following us out isn’t necessarily the best idea."

  "We have nothing left to lose," Zhang Hong sighed. "Even if there was food here, staying in this pce is worse than prison. At least in prison, you get fresh air occasionally. Here, we have nothing. We either waste away or go insane. At least by leaving, we get a chance to breathe fresh air before we die."

  Lin Tao nodded. "Fine. But be prepared for the consequences."