Chapter 182: Against the current
Translator: Legge Editor: Legge
Wang Fugui and the others stood at the gate and watched as Ren Xiaosu headed back into the dangerous stronghold. Sometimes, Wang Fugui felt that Ren Xiaosu was way too brave. He just had to head back into a place everyone was trying their best to run away from.
Though, Wang Fugui felt he had made the wisest decision of his life when he chose to bring Wang Dalong with him and follow Ren Xiaosu in their escape. If it weren’t for that, he would probably have perished in another disaster even if he were fortunate enough to survive the one that happened at Stronghold 113.
The world today was simply too dangerous a place.
The past couple days, Ren Xiaosu and Wang Fugui had both been doubted countless of times by the stores they bought their escape supplies from. It even caused Wang Fugui to sometimes feel that if it weren’t an earthquake or some other natural disasters occurring, no harm would befall the stronghold.
But as the facts had proven, Ren Xiaosu was correct after all.
At this moment, Yan Liuyuan could only watch helplessly as Ren Xiaosu headed back in. Xiaoyu sighed and said, “Liuyuan, are you worried about your brother?”
Everyone knew how close these two brothers were, so it was only natural that Yan Liuyuan would be worried about Ren Xiaosu. However, Yan Liuyuan shook his head and said, “No, I’m just thinking if I should go over to remind him that he’s still carrying his bike around.”
Xiaoyu was surprised.
It was only at this moment that everyone realized in shock that Ren Xiaosu still was carrying his bicycle with him when he turned back to the stronghold.
But the earlier situation was simply too pressing, and with Ren Xiaosu’s shocking decision to head back into the stronghold, they couldn’t get a handle on the situation.
Wang Fugui felt that the mighty presence and image Ren Xiaosu had built up in their minds had all but poofed.
Yan Liuyuan got onto his bicycle and said, “Let’s go! My brother naturally knows what he’s doing if he dares to go back in there. We’ll head north!”
Chen Wudi looked at the stronghold and said in a sad voice, “Master will probably elope with the ruler of Womanland 1 now. How can we go and seek the Buddhist scriptures from the Western Paradise?”
Yan Liuyuan consoled, “Don’t worry, we’ll just bring the ruler of Womanland with us.”
Chen Wudi mulled over this for a long time before saying reluctantly, “Well, alright.”
…
The high-rise building Yang Xiaojin was on was only about a kilometer away from the stronghold’s gate. Ren Xiaosu glanced at the building, then sighed as he put the bicycle down by the road. How careless of him to have forgotten to hand it to Yan Liuyuan for safekeeping first.
The 15 cubic meters of storage space he had was already stuffed full of supplies. Actually, he could just take some of the supplies out and put the bicycle in, but there was no time to fiddle around with it now.
Suddenly, Ren Xiaosu saw many people in front of him fleeing toward the stronghold gate near him. Behind them, several Experimentals were frantically chasing after them.
The Experimentals were so terrifying that the stronghold residents cried with fear. Some people even lost their shoes as they ran, while others were fleeing wearing only a thin pair of pajamas. From the looks of it, they must have run straight out of their homes.
These stronghold residents who had recently been talking about music festivals and fashion trends finally understood just what the world outside the stronghold was like.
When Ren Xiaosu first came into the stronghold, he had a thought: Everything in the outside world seemed to be changing at an extremely rapid pace, but the strongholds remained the same throughout. These people were enjoying a false sense of peace and prosperity behind the stronghold walls that seemed to be protecting them but were actually shackling their progress.
Ren Xiaosu looked up at the high-rise building Yang Xiaojin was on. He saw an Experimental climb almost to the top. However, just as it was about to leap over onto the rooftop, it was greeted by the large muzzle of a gun.
The Experimentals were not afraid of bullets. Even bullets fired by an automatic rifle from 50 meters away would get lodged in the surface of their skins due to their tough muscles.
However, that did not include being fired upon by a sniper rifle.
Yang Xiaojin had such great strength that she was actually able to use the sniper rifle as a close-range artillery weapon. With a ringing shot, the Experimental that was the first to reach the rooftop had its entire head blown off!
The recoil from the sniper rifle packed a punch. If a normal person were wielding this weapon, they would probably have been thrown back by the recoil after firing one shot.
But Yang Xiaojin looked like she wasn’t affected at all. Very quickly, she fired at another Experimental.
For some reason, Ren Xiaosu always felt an extreme amount of contradiction seeing Yang Xiaojin’s petite figure wielding that sniper rifle. Yet this contradiction exuded a unique aesthetic of violence.
…
Ren Xiaosu had originally been worried about if he would get there in time. Ren Xiaosu knew that if nobody went to support her, Yang Xiaojin would definitely reach a point where she would get overwhelmed. After all, there were simply too many Experimentals.
But now he was a little relieved. At least he still had some time to get there!
Or rather, Yang Xiaojin was buying time for herself!
Ren Xiaosu picked up his pace and accelerated forward. But with everyone else heading toward the stronghold gate, Ren Xiaosu was going against the current.
When the fleeing people passed Ren Xiaosu by, even in this life and death situation, every one of them could not help but look at him in amazement. How could someone be going in the opposite direction, towards the Experimentals? All of them wanted nothing more than to get away from those creatures right now!
At this moment, everyone in the city was fleeing for their lives and were being driven towards the stronghold’s gate by the Experimentals. On these streets, only one person was heading in the opposite direction of everyone else.
Yang Xiaojin was watching this scene from the building in the distance. When she saw Ren Xiaosu making his way back towards the stronghold, she suddenly felt that the current Stronghold 109 was not that scary anymore.
Then an old man recognized Ren Xiaosu in the crowd. Wasn’t that the boy who had bought a lot of food supplies from his store?
This old man was the grocery store owner from before. Yesterday, he was still making fun of Ren Xiaosu for worrying too much. But now he finally realized just how great of a fool he was.
How did this young man know there would be danger?
Moreover, since he already knew there would be danger, why hadn’t he fled in advance? Why was he still heading in the opposite direction from them at this time?
Those two questions kept swirling around in the grocery store owner’s mind. As he continued running, he kept wondering why. But as soon as he passed Ren Xiaosu by, screams burst from the front of the fleeing crowd!
At the far end of the street, many Experimentals suddenly rushed out from the left side of the intersection in front. These Experimentals had actually taken another path to outflank them!
However, only Ren Xiaosu, who was going in the opposite direction, was not surprised by this. This was because, having taken on the Experimentals before, he knew well that their hunting style was to leave no survivors.
If they were not fully prepared, there was absolutely no way they would have waited so patiently underground in ambush.
The intelligent being that helmed these Experimentals surely had greater ambition!
Footnotes:
Ch 182 Footnote 1
The Tang priest and his three disciples, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy, journey through Womanland on their way to India to obtain Buddhist scriptures. In Womanland, the priest is horrified when the Queen decides she will marry him and make him king of Womanland and father to future kings. Monkey has a plan to extricate the travellers, but things start to go wrong when the priest is carried off in a whirlwind by an unknown woman. | https://books.google.com.sg/books/about/The_Womanland_of_Western_Liang.html?id=AVEXHAAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
