Chapter Forty-One: Kangzhuang Pharmacy

“Switch the feed to the real-time surveillance of the equipment storage area.”
“Retrieving now.”
I scrutinized the interior of the depot. There truly wasn’t much equipment left, but it was more than enough to arm dozens of people. As expected, luck wasn’t on our side—there were no armored vehicles or other large-scale gear remaining.
At least I could confirm one thing: there were no living creatures in the depot, neither living nor dead. For now, it was a safe place.
“Brother Cao! Look, it’s the security zone where we entered. Oh my god! So many corpses!” Huo Bing’s terrified exclamation snapped me out of my thoughts. I frowned and looked at the screen. Outside the security line, a dense black mass of corpse monsters was pressing in!
They blocked the outside thoroughly, some even pushing past the barricades and rushing inside. The corpse monsters trampled and crushed one another, piling up like a mountain of bodies. The barricades were useless, and some of the creatures had already crossed them.
It seemed the gunfire and explosions had attracted them, but this wasn’t the most dangerous moment yet. They couldn’t smell any living prey nearby, so they would only wander around aimlessly, not converging on the depot as if guided by tracking devices.
“Let’s ignore them for now—let’s get the combat vehicle inside.”
Ten minutes later, Huo Bing and I drove the vehicle directly into the depot. There was still petroleum and electricity stored here, just enough to recharge the depleted combat vehicle.
“Brother Cao! We’ve struck it rich! I’ve never seen so much equipment in my life! Model 996 automatic rifles! Model 886 high-explosive grenades! And Z-5 rocket launchers! Military daggers… and body armor—oh my god, this is the latest model! Not even those corpse monsters could bite through this!” Huo Bing was so delighted by the arsenal in the hall that she was like a child, lovingly handling every weapon.
A pity, though—these were all modern firearms. Even though their firepower was formidable, in this post-apocalyptic era, you couldn’t use such weapons recklessly.
“Check the grade of this equipment for me,” I said in my mind. Since that blade could be assessed, there was no reason these firearms couldn’t be as well.
“Reminder: Among the firearms, only the rocket launcher is rated B-grade; the rest are all low-end C-grade.”
As expected, in terms of destructive force, these guns were just C-grade. It made sense—they were standard issue for most units, far inferior to the gear used by elite forces.
But cutting-edge weapons could never be mass-produced. Ho Tian’s blade, for example, was commissioned at great expense from a laboratory.
Anything that could be mass-manufactured was never truly “top-tier.” It’s the items that take painstaking research and effort to produce even one that are really at the pinnacle.

Still, compared to that A-grade composite titanium blade, yes, these were lesser. But under normal circumstances, this equipment was the stuff countless survivors dreamed of. With these, your chances of survival would rise dramatically—better than facing the apocalypse with just a little pistol and a knife.
“Check the time. It’s four in the morning. We have two hours until the period of absolute safety ends. At six, we head out. Let’s hurry and load as much as we can,” I reminded Huo Bing. Two hours should be enough for two people to haul the goods.
…
Six in the morning.
We’d filled one and a half truckloads with equipment. The remaining half was reserved for medicine, as planned. In this post-apocalyptic world, such supplies were of the highest value.
“Let’s go. The vehicle’s energy is replenished. Let’s check the situation outside in the control room first.”
Just as I was about to leave, I noticed a corner covered by canvas. I walked over, yanked it off, and opened the container. Staring at the quietly resting contents, my eyes widened in shock.
When we reached the control room again and glanced at the security line, sure enough, the monsters had retreated after failing to find prey. A few stragglers remained, but they’d fallen into a dormant state.
Between six and seven, as moonlight and darkness exchanged places, all predators entered a profound, unconditional slumber. Scientists called this phenomenon akin to animal hibernation.
The two vehicles left the depot one after another. As the moonlight faded and the world was plunged into darkness again, I was fine, but Huo Bing was in trouble.
After easily dispatching some low-level corpse monsters stuck in the security zone, we finally left the Wildstone Town area unscathed.
Once we entered the city, it was exceptionally quiet. Not a single corpse monster wandered by, and there were no sounds of predators on the hunt.
This one hour was truly a blessing bestowed on suffering humanity. Survivors often used this time to search for supplies.
But in the dead city of ZM, there was none of that.
If I had to say where we might run into the living, it would only be Shen Dong’s group, or those faint footsteps that had echoed down the street that day.
Fortunately, at this hour, all the corpse monsters were deep asleep. Without a major disturbance, nothing could wake them, so we drove with our headlights blazing, unafraid.
As for pharmacies, well, every city had plenty of those.

I raised my head to look at the pharmacy in front of me. The sign read “Kangzhuang Pharmacy.”
Ha—this world never misses an opportunity for irony. This post-apocalyptic era was “broad and open,” all right—every desire in people’s hearts could be unleashed to its utmost, without restraint.
You could say, in a way, that everyone had their own “Kangzhuang.”
“This is the place. Let’s go in.” Huo Bing sashayed over, carrying her Model 996 rifle with the barrel pointed skyward, looking as tough as could be.
“Hey, do you really think you’re Alice from those movies? The warrior queen herself. If you swing your hips any wider, you’ll rival Han Shuqing’s famous curves.” I couldn’t help but snicker. I didn’t want to treat her as a little girl anymore, but this act was just too forced.
She was obviously a fresh-faced girl of eighteen or nineteen, yet insisted on swaggering around like a seasoned woman in her late thirties.
“Hmph!”
Huo Bing’s cheeks flushed scarlet, and with a huff, she ignored me and strode into the pharmacy on her own.
Sigh. Whenever old Cao tells a tall tale, everyone listens. The one time I speak from the heart, no one appreciates it. What’s this world coming to?
Still, I couldn’t just let her go in alone. If she ran into something… Huo Bing was a capable girl, but her combat skills weren’t the best. Still, she had her own strengths.
Just like me—old Cao’s strength was being strong.
I glanced at the bone blade in my hand and muttered a curse, then followed her inside. As for Fourth Master, that mutt, it was better to leave him outside as a lookout.
“Hey, looks like luck’s on our side. There’s still plenty left in this pharmacy—it hasn’t been looted.” I marveled as soon as I entered. The counter was tidy, barely a trace of chaos.
This also showed that the original inhabitants of ZM City had all perished, and though some people might have come through after, it couldn’t have been many. Otherwise, no pharmacy or shop would have survived—the shelves would have been stripped bare.