A gun was pointed directly at Su Ling’s forehead. The man holding it was a burly, muscular fellow.
The man glanced at the Tang knife in Su Ling’s hand and beckoned, “Hand over the knife.”
The man knew good steel when he saw it, recognizing the Tang knife in Su Ling’s possession as a fine weapon.
Su Ling looked at the man, who disliked her gaze, finding it chillingly cold. “What are you looking at? Don’t you understand me?”
As if to punish Su Ling for her defiance, the man deliberately increased the pressure, jamming the muzzle of the gun fiercely against Su Ling’s brow.
On Su Ling’s forehead, a red mark began to appear, visible to the naked eye.
Su Ling complied with the man’s demands and handed over the Tang knife.
The man eyed the Tang knife, still smeared with the blood, flesh, and bone fragments of the zombies, and felt a surge of nausea. “Wipe it clean.”
Su Ling lowered her gaze and slowly wiped down the Tang knife.
Once the Tang knife was clean, she handed it to him again.
Seeing this, the man reached out to take it. Su Ling loosened her grip, and the Tang knife fell into the man’s hand.
The moment the man grasped the Tang knife, something bizarre happened. His hand, gripping the knife, suddenly dropped, and half his body tilted and sagged to one side.
In that brief instant, Su Ling snatched the gun from the man’s hand. She bent her body, extended her arm, and the Tang knife was back in her possession.
This time, the person with a gun to their forehead was the man, not Su Ling.
The man remained in a crouched position. A coolness touched his forehead. He looked at Su Ling and swallowed hard.
That knife, it was so heavy!
This woman, she was so strong!
With the knife in her left hand and the gun in her right, Su Ling looked at the man. “Take me to your leader.”
The man, still half-crouched, looked up at Su Ling. “I… I am.”
“Take me to your stronghold.”
The man led Su Ling through rows of shelves, finally arriving at a corner of the supermarket.
There, a group of people were gathered – men, women, adults, children, and the elderly, a mix of all.
At a distance from the group, a table was set up, laden with food and drinks. Four men sat before the table, each with a gun placed beside them.
Perhaps due to the firearms held by these four men, the others remained huddled in the corner, gazing longingly at the food on the table and swallowing hard, none daring to resist.
Not far from those four men, a corpse lying in a pool of blood served as a stark warning to any who might consider defiance.
The four men were gnawing on bones. They looked up and saw their leader approaching, with a gun pointed at him.
The four men immediately became enraged and reached for their guns to retaliate.
“Don’t move, anyone who makes a move, I’ll shoot him dead.”
Su Ling acted first. Her words stopped the four men in their tracks. None dared to make a rash move.
The man led Su Ling to where the four men were seated and stopped. Su Ling glanced at the guns on the table, then at the food. “We won’t interfere with each other.”
Having said that, Su Ling returned the gun to the man.
The man took the gun and put it away, then looked at Su Ling. Having experienced her strength, he knew that despite her delicate appearance, she was not to be trifled with. “My name is Xu Daqiang, what should I call you?”
“Su Ling.”
After stating her name, Su Ling walked alone to a quiet corner and sat down. She took a meal box from her bag and placed it on the floor.
To others, her food appeared to come from her bag, but in reality, Su Ling retrieved it from her space, using the bag as a cover.
Tearing open the packaging of disposable chopsticks, Su Ling opened the meal box and, without regard for her surroundings, removed her mask and began to eat.
Xu Daqiang sat back down at the table. His brothers looked at him and made a throat-slitting gesture. He shook his head and said in a low voice, “She’s very strong. We are no match for her. That knife beside her, she picked it up with ease, but I couldn’t budge it.”
“It’s better to avoid trouble than to court it. Risking our lives would be a loss.”