Chapter 4 Temporary Team Formation Thanks to Xiaomei Five Crowns

  "Sister, I'm scared!" Luo Xiaonian tightly hugged my waist, she was three centimeters taller than me, but at this moment she was desperately curled up, as if wanting to burrow into my arms. After growing up, she rarely did this again. When we were young and slept in the same bed, whenever she had a nightmare, I would hold her tight, because I was braver than her.

  "Lu Xiaonian, aren't you afraid of being unable to survive? You're not holding a knife just for show, are you?" I scolded her sternly, but it was strange - if I were alone today, I would definitely be scared out of my wits. But with this little sister who needed me to protect her, I didn't feel as afraid, because I knew I had to be strong.

  When I was young, Luo Xiaonian was bullied by someone outside. The other party was twins, taller and fatter than me, but when I saw her crying back with a scratched face, I rushed to the front of the two sisters with a fiery temper, punching and kicking them, and surprisingly beat them until they fled in disarray. If you think I only have the ability to fight with little girls, then you're wrong. All the boys in the alley who provoked Luo Xiaonian would be beaten by me until they were scared out of their wits, relying solely on a fierce momentum and anger. Of course, older boys couldn't bully us either.

  So this will make her look so scared, the zombies outside are automatically replaced by a group of arrogant little boys, my anger gives me double strength, damn it, bullying my sister? I'll kill you all!

  "Alright, hold the knife like this. If you encounter someone shorter than you, stab them in the eye socket. If you encounter someone taller than you, thrust upwards from under the chin, aiming for the brain. Even if your face gets smashed up, it's useless..." I ignored the shocked gazes of others and began teaching Luo Xiaonian. I raised the knife tip upwards, my left hand loosely grasping the imaginary enemy's shoulder, while my right hand's sharp blade poked at the imaginary enemy's chin, smoothly piercing through the air.

  "This move I remember too!" Luo Xiaonian's eyes lit up, "The chin enters the brain, and they become real dead men's heads!"

  "You dare to hit me?" The tall girl tilted her head and stared at me.

  "Are you waiting for them to make a move? If they bite me, that's fine, but if they bite my sister, no way." I looked up at her, and couldn't help it - we were standing too close, and she was so much taller than me, with me only being 1.64 meters tall.

  "My name is Jin Man, I'm 24 years old." The tall girl said, staring at us like that.

  I was stunned for a moment before reacting, "Oh, I'm Luo Liangchen, 29 years old. This is my younger sister Luo Xiaonian, she's 27."

  "Let's form a team, you see, I'm a bit taller, so it's easier for me to take down the tall zombies. You two can cover me, and if we encounter short ones, I'll cover you guys. It's very dangerous outside, and it's unrealistic for anyone to fight alone. What do you think?" Jin Mao suggested.

  "Great! That's great!" Luo Xiaonian and I replied in unison.

  "Hey, we're in too!" The couple hastily raised their hands.

  Two high school girls also said timidly, "Take us with you..."

  Jin Mang was about to speak, when Short and Plump coughed and said, "Why don't we just act together, the dozen or so of us? Running into something like this is fate, I'm Sun Zhe, 36 years old, consider me your big brother. This is my wife Malina, one year younger than me. Before the police rescue us, our only chance of survival is to stick together."

  No one has any objections, I find that humans with a common external enemy will naturally unite together, even if they normally don't get along and would argue over bumping into each other on the street.

  "My name is Xing Ze, I'm 17 years old. She's my classmate Fu Ran, 16 years old." The doll-faced girl with sparkling eyes pointed to herself and then to her classmate with a high ponytail, Fu Ran. Although she didn't look particularly outstanding, she was quite tall and gave off a neat impression.

  "My name is Pan Feng, yeah, I'm 28. This is my girlfriend Wen Yan, she's 26."

  "I'm Liu Jinchun, 38 years old. This is my husband Nie Xiong, who's one year older than me. It seems we're the oldest couple here, but when it comes to those things outside called zombies, we don't know as much as you young people do. It's really embarrassing." The middle-aged wife sighed, her hand clutching the fur coat she had taken off and put on the back of the chair during dinner. Her hair was perfectly styled, and although her well-maintained face only had a faint wrinkle at the corner of her eye, her mouth was slightly downturned. She tightly grasped her husband's arm, while Nie Xiong himself looked stern and didn't say a word, his tall and thin body...

  Only the little chef and the child's mother were left, but she didn't know her name. The little chef saw everyone staring at him, scratched his hair shyly, "I, I'm Tang Xiao Zheng, 25 years old, unmarried." From his demeanor, we could all tell that this young master wasn't from the city, and he had a rustic air about him. His arms, exposed by his short sleeves, were covered in smallpox scars - definitely not something you'd see on a pampered city boy. He was only around 1.75 meters tall, which isn't considered very tall in the Northeast, but he was absolutely sturdy.

  The child's mother was still wiping away tears. Among these people, only she had lost a loved one, and it was already very strong that her emotions hadn't collapsed. Seeing everyone sympathetically looking at her, she smiled miserably, "My name is Wu Qiong, 28 years old, this is my son Huanhuan, he's just one and a half years old, and...and his dad is gone. If it wasn't for his grandparents and father protecting us mother and daughter earlier, would we still be able to stand here introducing ourselves? Hehehe, hahaha..."

  Wu Qiong's nonsensical words made everyone fall silent, I thought that if everyone could have helped them a bit earlier, or even rescued the child's grandparents and father, but things happened too suddenly, we were lucky to be able to take care of ourselves.

  Although this is the case, it's heartbreaking to see the mother and son on the verge of collapse, with others at a loss for words to comfort them, as any speech seems pale and powerless at this moment.

  "Be strong, there is strength in numbers, we will help you protect Hanhan." I said weakly to Wu Qiong, actually I hoped everyone would say something to Wu Qiong, but only I spoke up.

  Tang Xiao Zheng pulled out a new knife from under the cooking table, longer than the one in my hand. He gently stroked the blade and nodded.

  "Hey, do you guys have this kind of knife in the back kitchen?" Sun Zhe, a short and chubby guy, was holding a small knife that looked like a toy compared to Tang Xiao's. He suddenly became uneasy.

  "Take it all of you, this knife is just one, and it's brand new." Tang Xiao shook his head.

  Sun Zhe's eyes showed disappointment, Jin Mao looked at the cleaver in his hand and shook his head, apparently not very handy. After thinking for a moment, he said, "There is an Iris Life Living Museum on the fourth floor, they have a corner with many kitchen knives, mainly multi-purpose knives, we can go pick a few."

  Sun Zhe raised an eyebrow, "The Blue Sea Gate has a rolling ladder at the entrance, which can directly lead to the fourth floor. We don't have any suitable equipment in our hands, so we can't do anything about it. Let's go get some knives first, how about that?"

  "Let's wait a bit longer, we don't know what the situation is like outside, and who knows when the riot police will arrive." Nie Xiong finally spoke up, his voice low and deep, opposing the idea of venturing out.

  "The noise outside has stopped." Tang Xiao Zheng stuck close to the door, paying attention to the situation in the mall.

  "Let me listen!" Sun Zhe stuck his ear to the door and listened for a long time, his face relaxing. "Hey! It's really quiet now, those things have all run away!"

  He stood up straight, waved the small knife in his hand and said, "In my opinion, with such a big thing happening in the city, it's unreasonable for the police not to take action. If they could have come earlier, they would have definitely been temporarily unable to get through. It's no big deal for us to stay here in the back kitchen and not go out. You see, there are both men and women in this room, if someone has an emergency, how can we solve it in front of everyone? Besides, nowadays everything is about taking the initiative to attack, we've all formed a team, and we all have some kind of tool in our hands, let's not go far, just go from the third floor to the fourth floor to get knives and investigate the situation at the same time. I think it's no big deal."

  It has to be said that Sun Zhe's words are quite reasonable, and what's more, everyone had a lot of drinks earlier, plus they were frightened, so it's no wonder that they all suddenly felt the urge to urinate.

  "It's pretty quiet in the restaurant, let's do this, open a gap in the door and take a look first. If it's safe inside, we'll slowly move outwards, if something's off, we can quickly run back and lock the door! You know what, the men will go out first, the women won't move for now, don't block our retreat route when you're withdrawing. We'll let you guys come out later." Sun Zhe saw that everyone didn't object, so he began to deploy an action plan. This time, Nie Xiong didn't express his opinion again, only Liu Jinchun said anxiously, "Be careful, dear!"

  Sun Zhe's wife Malina and Pan Feng's girlfriend Wen Yan also reminded their respective men.

  Like this, Sun Zhe and Tang Xiao Zheng took the lead, first opening the door to explore the movement in the dining hall, after confirming it was safe, they called Nie Xiong and Pan Feng, four people holding big and small knives, tiptoeing towards the entrance of the dining hall.

  We didn't dare to follow, except for Wu Qiong who was still hiding in the doorway with Huanhuan, everyone else squeezed at the back door, ready to retreat into the house at any time.

  At this time, I finally saw that the entire Blue Ocean restaurant was in a terrible state, almost as if it had been washed in blood. The floor of the restaurant was a mess, with broken plates and cups rolling around in the thick blood and flesh. The iron plate that should have been emitting a fragrant aroma was instead filled with the pungent smell of blood and the sour smell of vomit, making people's heads dizzy and swollen.

  The restaurant floor, which should have been littered with corpses, had only a lower half of a human body, with a broken pelvis and two thighs exposing white bones. The upper half of the body was nowhere to be seen, leaving one wondering whether it had been eaten or crawled out on its own...

  Watching this scene, we can't help but want to vomit again, but our stomachs have been emptied long ago, and except for the bitter bile, there's really nothing left to throw up.

  Tang Xiao Zheng turned back alone, beckoned us and whispered, "Hurry up! Come out quickly!"

  He added another sentence, "The ground is slippery, be careful not to slip."

  The ground was covered in blood and vomit, making it very slippery. I held onto Luo Xiaonian, while Xing Ze and Fu Ran supported Wu Qiong on either side. We hastily made our way to the entrance of the Blue Ocean Restaurant, thinking that the mall had already been evacuated. However, we were surprised to see several zombies wearing employee uniforms wandering around the courtyard beyond the skywell. Upon seeing us, they suddenly became frenzied and charged straight towards us, eventually flipping over the railing and crashing onto the first floor.