Chapter 67: The Establishment of the Red Mist Group

The survivors continued their desperate flight. Since they were scattering in different directions, their numbers grew thinner and thinner.

Shen Lie and the others ran for more than ten miles before finally taking a brief rest. They had been lucky along the way, encountering only two scattered groups of spider monsters—one group of three and another of five. Against Shen Lie and Dui Lili, those few creatures were no threat at all and were dispatched with ease.

“Commander, where are we headed?” Duan Yu was somewhat lacking in stamina. Even as a speed-type ability user, he was exhausted after running continuously for so long, especially since he also had to help his wife. The moment they were ordered to rest, he sat down and began gasping heavily while asking Shen Lie the question.

Ever since joining Shen Lie’s group, Duan Yu had taken to calling him “Commander.” The title naturally came from the Red Mist Group. Although Shen Lie had corrected him several times, Duan Yu continued to do as he pleased, insisting that nothing could be accomplished without rules. Since they presented themselves to outsiders as the Red Mist Group, they naturally needed a commander, and Shen Lie was the obvious choice.

Everyone agreed with Duan Yu’s proposal. Zhang Jing was the first to express her wholehearted support, and Dui Lili had no objection either, so the matter was settled.

In truth, the only people in the entire group capable of giving orders were Shen Lie and Dui Lili. With her cold temperament, Dui Lili would never take on the role of commander, which left Shen Lie with no choice even if he did not want it.

After thinking it over briefly, Shen Lie said nothing more. They already had more than twenty people, and newcomers might join them in the future. A loose, disorganized crowd would have little chance of survival, so forming a proper group was a good idea. Still, since they were now an organized team, certain rules were indispensable. The first was that everyone had to obey orders. No one could simply flee in every direction the moment monsters appeared.

For now, however, Shen Lie had no interest in managing the group. He noticed that Duan Yu was quite enthusiastic about such matters, so he appointed him vice commander. Dui Lili was given the same title.

After becoming vice commanders, Duan Yu and Dui Lili reacted in completely different ways. Duan Yu was delighted. He immediately proposed several rules and regulations, then eagerly laid out a number of plans for the future. Dui Lili merely gave a soft acknowledgment and showed no further reaction.

And so, the Red Mist Group, a small band struggling to survive in the post-apocalyptic world, was officially established. After resting for a while, they discussed matters briefly and resumed their journey. At that point, they still knew nothing of Yang City’s fall, so they continued in their original direction.

Suddenly, the roar of an engine came from ahead. A white SUV came swaying toward them, its two headlights glaring brightly in the darkness. The beams bobbed up and down without pause, dazzling the group until they could barely keep their eyes open.

“Damn it! What kind of idiot is that? If he doesn’t care about his own life, he shouldn’t drag us into it!”

Duan Yu cursed without restraint. They were walking along the edge of farmland, and a vehicle could hardly maintain its balance on such terrain. More importantly, both the roar of the engine and the glare of the headlights would attract large numbers of spider monsters. The fact that the vehicle had managed to reach them safely was nothing short of a miracle.

“Everyone, get into the fields. Don’t make a sound!” Shen Lie’s expression was grim as well. Still, everyone was in the midst of fleeing for their lives, and how others chose to flee was their own business. What puzzled him was that this vehicle had come from the opposite direction.

“Whoever you are up ahead, Yang City has fallen! Don’t go any farther in that direction. If you run into the monster army spreading out from Yang City, you’re finished!”

Before Shen Lie and the others could hide, the people in the vehicle spotted them. The head of a long-haired woman appeared through the passenger-side window as she shouted at them.

“What? Yang City has fallen?”

“That can’t be true. Wasn’t Yang City one of the seven major settlements established at the beginning of the apocalypse? How could it have fallen?”

“No wonder helicopters came this way. They must have been fleeing from Yang City!”

“Yang City is gone? Where are we supposed to go now?”

Everyone in the Red Mist Group stood frozen after hearing the news. They even forgot to continue hiding. The message was simply too shocking. If it was true, the implications were terrifying.

The vehicle sped past and vanished from their sight in the blink of an eye, leaving behind only a trail of smoke as Shen Lie and the others stared blankly after it.

“Commander, what do we do now?”

There was no reason for that woman to lie to them. If Yang City had truly fallen, then they absolutely could not continue in that direction. The thought of a monster horde capable of conquering Yang City was enough to plunge them into despair. A single wave of creatures breaking away from that army could devour them without leaving even scraps behind.

They could no longer go to Yang City, yet no one knew whether there were any other large settlements nearby. None of them knew what to do. Every eye turned toward Shen Lie, waiting for their commander’s decision.

But when they looked at him, they found him standing motionless, completely dazed. His eyes were empty, as though his soul had left his body.

Shen Lie’s mind was in chaos. He was not thinking about where they should go. He was thinking about his uncle’s family. How were they now? Was his cousin, Wen Wan, still alive?

Her figure kept surfacing in his mind: taking him out for ice cream when he was little, bringing him to the movies during middle school, visiting him at university and giving him spending money. At last, his memories settled on the phone call he had made before the apocalypse.

At the time, she had been frantic because he had not gone to Yang City. He had never imagined that the Yang City settlement, which he had once believed impregnable, would fall in less than four months.

“Impossible. Impossible. That can’t be true.” Shen Lie’s lips trembled, and his forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat. He could not bring himself to believe the news. If the monster army had truly conquered Yang City, could his cousin really have survived? He did not dare think about it. He truly did not dare.

“Brother Shen? Brother Shen?”

Zhang Jing stayed close to Shen Lie at all times and was the first to notice that something was wrong.

“No. I have to go to Yang City and see for myself. I have to go. Yes, right now. Yang City couldn’t have fallen. It couldn’t have. You believe that too, don’t you?” Zhang Jing’s voice jolted Shen Lie out of his daze. He suddenly seized her hand, his eyes filled with desperate hope.

“Shen Lie, calm down. We can find out whether Yang City has truly fallen by making further inquiries later. But right now, we absolutely cannot continue in that direction. If Yang City really has fallen, the area will be swarming with monsters. Those enormous white insects may very well have come from there too.”

“We need to find somewhere safe to settle down first, then decide what to do next. If you truly have something you must do in Yang City, I’ll go with you when the time comes.”

It was the first time Dui Lili had spoken so many words at once. She could sense that Shen Lie was nearing the edge of collapse. But they were no longer dealing with one or two people—they were an entire group. Even as their commander, Shen Lie could not lead so many people to their deaths over a personal matter, especially when most of the members were ordinary people.

“Uncle, Tao Tao will go with you too!” Little Tao Tao, perched on Shen Lie’s back, seemed to understand what was happening. Her small face was solemn as she spoke.

“I’ll go too!”

“Me too!”

“We don’t need to look for somewhere to stay. Let’s all go to Yang City now. The commander’s affairs are our affairs. The people of the Red Mist Group have already died countless times. Not one of us is afraid of death!”

One after another, the team members voiced their determination. Shen Lie could see that they were sincere. By then, however, his emotions had steadied. He looked over everyone and said, “All right, I’m fine. We’ll talk about going to Yang City later. For now, we’ll head toward Xing City. If there are still survivors gathered there, we’ll rest in that area. If not, we’ll go around Xing City and make straight for the capital.”

Shen Lie forcibly suppressed his urge to rush to Yang City and investigate immediately. He knew that doing so would be extremely irrational. Yang City was certainly crawling with monsters, and even if they went there, they might not be able to get inside.

Besides, after the monsters breached the city, his cousin and her family would never have simply stayed home waiting to die. Whether they were alive or dead, no one knew where they might be. Going there now would be like stumbling blindly through the dark. Their best option was to find more people and gather accurate information first.