Chapter 18: Chapter 18

“Yeah?” Mu Ying looked up at him.

“Thank you. And… I chose Ranger…” With that, he quickly shut the hatch.

“This kid… I’m glad he’s figured it out,” Mu Ying smiled. “But what kind of class is a Ranger?”"

"After leaving the noodle shop, Mu Ying led the ox and continued on her way.

As the trees of the same species became more and more numerous, Mu Ying was finally able to pick up her pace.

Whenever she encountered zombies along the way, she would avoid them if she could. If she couldn’t, she would try to lure them together, bind them, and then finish them off with her Rubber Stick Technique, doing her best to conserve her mana.

Fortunately, the route she chose was a good one, separated from the residential buildings by a greenbelt and a road, so there were very few wandering zombies.

In fact, if you were careful and looked around, you might not see a single zombie. But if you made even the slightest loud noise, zombies would come crawling out of who knows what corner.

After observing for a long time, Mu Ying realized that when they didn’t have a target, zombies preferred to stay in dark, shadowy places rather than wander openly in the sunlight on the main road.

But they weren’t afraid of sunlight. Once they spotted a target, they would pursue it relentlessly.

This made her movements much easier, but with the sun about to set, she needed to find a place to spend the night quickly. The greenbelt offered little cover, so it was clearly not an option.

Mu Ying turned her gaze to the buildings across the road.

Shops with glass windows were too unsafe to consider, and the noise from opening and closing rolling shutters was too loud—also a no-go.

Eliminating those options, the only viable choice was the three-story building of Anping Driving School ahead.

With so many rooms, she was bound to find a suitable one, and the building was spacious with plenty of corridors—making escape easier if needed.

Mu Ying left the old ox in the greenbelt near the driving school, not bothering to tie it up.

The old ox had lived a long life and was already smarter than most animals. After being fed so much Spring of Recovery, it had become even more intelligent and docile. She didn’t have to worry about it running away, and if it encountered danger, at least it wouldn’t be trapped by a rope.

The driving school building was right by the street, with a sizable training lot behind and to the side. But now, there wasn’t a single car in sight—nor a single zombie.

Mu Ying entered the driving school and saw that the building had two glass doors: one locked with a big padlock, the other half-shattered.

She entered through the broken door. The stairwell at the entrance was blocked by a pile of debris, leaving only a narrow passage.

First floor, second floor—she checked each room as she went. There were neither zombies nor people, but Mu Ying couldn’t relax.

The scattered signs of struggle made it clear that a fight had taken place here. The apocalypse had struck at noon, so the driving school wouldn’t have been empty. For it to be this “clean” now, someone must have cleared it out.

On the third floor, there were three break rooms, all with their doors tightly shut and the only windows covered by thick curtains.

Mu Ying tried the doors—they wouldn’t budge.

The third floor had the most rooms in the whole building, and the windows were smaller, making it feel safer.

Since the door wouldn’t open, she simply raised her hoe and smashed down.

“Bang! Bang! (Bang! Bang! Bang!)”

Mu Ying was startled by the sound, pulled back her hoe, and took two steps back, glancing at the break room next door.

As she smashed the glass, she heard banging from the window over there too—much quieter than hers, but persistent.

After a few hits, the glass finally shattered.

A head poked through the curtains, and when she saw Mu Ying outside, her eyes lit up with joy.

“Need some help?” Mu Ying asked, noticing the girl’s gagged mouth, the bruises on her forehead, and the ropes faintly visible around her body.

Nie Ying nodded vigorously. Seeing that the person outside was a girl made her feel much safer.

“Step back a bit. I’ll smash the window open a little more.”

Nie Ying shuffled away as best she could.

Mu Ying cleared the remaining glass from the window.

“All done!”

She pulled Nie Ying out through the window and untied the strips of cloth binding her.

Before Mu Ying could ask what happened, Nie Ying quickly wrapped the cloth around herself to barely cover her exposed body.

“Hurry, save Jingjing! She’s right next door. Once we get her, we need to run! If those guys catch us, we’re done for!”

Mu Ying quickly pieced together what had happened, sighing at how cruel people could be in the apocalypse, but also admiring the girl’s courage.

Jingjing’s full name was Zheng Jing, and she was locked in the next break room—the same one Mu Ying had just smashed the glass of.

Mu Ying pulled back the curtain and, as she got closer, heard a dull thumping sound from inside.

A girl about the same age as Nie Ying was tied to the bed, banging her head against the bedframe to make noise.

Nie Ying crawled through the window, quickly untied Zheng Jing, and found a few pieces of clothing in the room for them to put on. The two of them stumbled out of the break room together.

“We’re finally out! Thank you, sister, for saving us. Let’s hurry and find a safe place!” Nie Ying grabbed the still-dazed Zheng Jing with her left hand and reached for Mu Ying with her right.

“It’s too late—someone’s coming,” Mu Ying said, standing by the corridor and pointing to the main entrance, where three middle-aged men were leading a horde of zombies into the driving school.

“They’re back! Yingzi, we’re not getting out of this,” Zheng Jing said, trembling as she saw the figures, despair flooding her eyes.

Suddenly, as if making up her mind, she grabbed a shard of glass from the floor. “You two go hide on the second floor. When they come upstairs, run for it. I’ll hold them off. In this world full of monsters, we don’t have powers—what’s the point of surviving anyway?”

“Jingjing, don’t say that. Even if we can’t beat them, we should at least get revenge. As for you, girl, you should find a place to hide. Wait until they leave tomorrow, then make your escape. They haven’t seen you, so you should be able to get away,” Nie Ying said, looking apologetically at Mu Ying.

“Don’t worry. It’s just those three, right?” Mu Ying patted their backs, trying to calm them down.

“It’s just the three of them, but they have some strange abilities. Two of them are super strong—probably awakened strength powers. The other is really fast—probably a speed ability. Jingjing and I are just ordinary people. Even if you have powers, one against three is too dangerous. Don’t be reckless, girl. You look even younger than us—if you fall into their hands, it’ll be worse than death!” Nie Ying said anxiously. This girl had come here alone, so she must have something to rely on, but fighting three powered men, plus all those zombies, and with them as burdens—it was nearly impossible.

“?” Mu Ying was full of question marks. Powers? What’s that? Has this girl read too many novels?

Still, Mu Ying realized the problem: the two of them probably hadn’t had any contact with the outside world since the apocalypse began, and had never killed a zombie. But there was no time to explain now, so she cut to the chase. “Do you want powers?”

“Of course we do!”

“Then come with me. Kill a zombie and you’ll get them. If it’s just three people, I can handle it,” Mu Ying said. Her mana was still plentiful, and she’d noticed the pile of tables and chairs at the stairwell—clearly set up by those men to block zombies.

“We need to hurry. First, let’s go to the cafeteria on the second floor and grab a jug of oil. You two find yourselves some weapons.”"

"Old Zhu and his two colleagues lured the zombies to the entrance of the driving school building, just as they did every day.

The three of them moved in perfect sync, slipping past the pile of debris at the stairwell and quickly dragging more junk over, trying to block the passage.