Chapter 118: Ordinary Person’s Battlefield
The girl in the room suddenly raised her head, looking at Zhang Min through the glass.
Even her eyes were light gray, with a hint of light gray-blue, like the gloomy sky outside the window, without a trace of vibrancy.
Zhang Min’s mind trembled, and she couldn’t help asking, “Who is she?”
“That’s not for you to ask. Time’s up. There are still many experiment tasks today.”
The man didn’t linger, and Zhang Min could only follow him forward, but her gaze still lingered reluctantly on the girl.
She suddenly noticed the girl’s eyes turning in her direction.
‘She can see me?’
……
The bed in the laboratory was very narrow and very hard, equipped with various restraints for hands and feet.
Her skin prickled with goosebumps from the cold metal.
Lying on it, she was like a little white mouse.
No, she was a little white mouse.
A somewhat aged male voice interrupted Zhang Min’s random thoughts. “Subject 0135, 46th experiment beginning.”
Before she could react, her arm was held down by rubber gloves, cold iodine swabbed on it, and the next moment, a cold prick pierced her skin, accompanied by the injection of liquid, the chill seeping into her bones.
Zhang Min bit her lower lip, shadows flickering under the bright lights.
But for some reason, she felt that every mask concealed Su Huan’s smiling face.
A restlessness born from deep in her bones gradually devoured her consciousness.
Vague sounds appeared faintly in her ears.
“Evolution in progress… Subject showing accelerated heartbeat, rapid breathing…”
“Same as the previous ones.”
“Probably going to fail again.”
“Record it, adjust the direction.”
“…”
She felt her memories beginning to blur.
Eighteen years of life’s details were all fading away.
Whether joyful or sorrowful.
But for some reason, that man’s damn appearance became clearer and clearer.
Clear enough to burn her body.
‘Train Conductor, I will survive, and then prepare a particularly big surprise for you…’
……
“This is a gun, these are bullets. Bullets go in the magazine, magazine goes in the gun.”
“Alright, you’re now an excellent soldier, ready for the battlefield.”
Lin Jin didn’t expect this joke to be real.
Not only did it happen in the real world, but it happened to him.
Of course, it wasn’t as exaggerated as in the joke.
But the Steel Council had trained them for a total of three days—full three days!
The first day was for grouping them, meeting their superiors, learning various orders, to avoid friendly fire mishaps.
The second day was for familiarizing with weaponry and equipment—actually just an old-fashioned rifle older than him, holding only five bullets at a time, who knows where they scavenged it from.
The only good news was that this rifle could fire bursts.
Though five-round bursts were useless in this era.
Each person got one magazine of bullets—that was all the ammunition they had for training and combat.
So Lin Jin fired a few shots to get the feel and then stopped wasting them.
On the third morning, they were taught some tips on identifying zombies, and by noon that day, they were thrown into the battlefield in Changli County.
The teammate with the watch told them it was January 5th, the second day that Lin Jin and other survivors had been thrown into battle.
The frontline cannon fire was still fierce.
Even when hiding in buildings to sleep, they were often awakened by machine gun fire and zombie roars.
They had to guard not only against Tier 1 zombies that could break through the defense line at any time, but also stay vigilant against acid rain erosion.
Many survivors had already started fleeing, including the guy in front of him who was the only one with a watch.
Lin Jin analyzed seriously, “The Steel Council isn’t running a charity. Since they gave us supplies and threw us onto the battlefield, they definitely have measures to prevent us from escaping.”
The guy opposite him was draped in a raincoat—or more accurately, a rain cloth.
It was made from canopy scraps torn from several umbrellas and stitched together, with poor waterproofing, often getting soaked by seeping rainwater.
But it did prevent direct acid rain corrosion of the skin.
There was no choice; all the raincoats in Changli County had been scavenged by survivors.
The man clutched a map, tension in his expression, pointing to a location on it. “I heard the defense line here was breached yesterday by a Tier 1 Butcher. The commander was killed, and many people are planning to flee through here.”
Seeing Lin Jin about to speak, the man quickly raised his hand. “I know, I know, there’ll definitely be heavy oversight from above there. I don’t plan to go that way. I plan to follow the frontline toward the interior of Changli County. If I’m careful enough, there’ll be a chance to escape.”
Lin Jin thought for a moment and sighed. “There is some hope, but you’re likely to die.”
The man gripped the map tightly, almost wringing water from it.
“You don’t understand. My mom has only me, her son. I have to go back. I must survive and go back!”
Lin Jin sighed faintly. Who didn’t have family?
He handed his extra bullets to the other man.
These past few days, he had finally figured out why the Steel Council didn’t give them more bullets.
Even with guns, facing zombies, they were just running meat.
By now, the original survivors had lost a third. Rifle bullets were everywhere; just scavenging from corpses was enough.
He saw everyone picking them up, collecting a full three magazines of ammunition.
Plus the three teammates who died today, he now had three rifles and one magazine of ammunition.
The man stared at him in a daze, choking out, “Thanks.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tonight. The new captain arrives tomorrow morning, and I won’t have a chance.”
“Alright, don’t worry. Anyway, most of our team is dead. No one will care about one more or one less.”
“Thanks.”
The teammate said thanks many times tonight, as if soothing his inner unease.
In the middle of the night, Lin Jin saw him stand up.
He didn’t speak, just narrowed his eyes and watched the figure in the darkness.
The other man stood dazed in place for a long time, then approached Lin Jin, standing in front of him for ages, giving him the creeps.
Lin Jin vaguely understood what the other was thinking.
But in the end, the other didn’t do anything.
Who knew if it was the camaraderie of holding guns together these past few days or the pack of bullets that worked.
After checking his equipment, the other left a little thing beside him and departed the room.
After five minutes, when Lin Jin could no longer hear footsteps outside, he opened his eyes.
He groped to the side in the darkness.
Soon, his palm touched a hard solid about the size of a fingernail.
By the faint light, he could barely make out that it was a crystal.
