CHAPTER 286: CHAPTER 286: SAVING THE IDIOTS

As they walked out of the second-hand clothes shop, the cold wind brushed against their cheeks, carrying with it the faint but unmistakable stench of rotting flesh.

Leng Pan didn’t bother to turn back, but her acute senses had already spread out to cover the area.

She could feel the faint fluctuations of movement, some the same as superpower users, proving that whatever was coming had some power.

Shambling figures slowly converged on the store where the two groups were still bickering only moments before.

Janna glanced back once, her face pale. "Sister Pan... are they going to be surrounded." The girl was still young after all. She had only been out a few times since the apocalypse started and hadn’t experienced anything this violent before.

"They brought it upon themselves," Leng Pan replied coolly, her footsteps never faltering. "Janna, you have to understand that in the apocalypse, stupidity is deadlier than zombies."

Lu Zhen’s gaze swept over his wife, a faint smile tugging at his lips. He knew she wasn’t truly heartless.

She had simply learned the harshest lesson of survival, the strong couldn’t waste energy saving fools who couldn’t even save themselves.

With the memories of their last life recovered, she was even more enlightened. She knew that saving such people may end up costing more lives in the future.

Thus, even when screams followed after them, they didn’t stop walking forward.

From behind them, a shrill scream pierced the cold air. The sound was sharp and desperate, the kind that only came from realizing too late that life was about to end.

Unfortunately, such a realization came too late for some people.

Juan Ke frowned. "Should we at least clear out some of the zombies around them? If we leave them, they’ll be dead in minutes."

Leng Pan didn’t answer immediately. She stood silently in the middle of the snow-covered road, her eyes narrowing as she sank deep in thought.

Part of her wanted to walk away and leave them, after all, those two groups had proven themselves petty, selfish, and shortsighted.

Yet another part of her, the part that remembered the innocent young girl clutching a sword while watching them warily couldn’t settle her conscience.

She knew that not everyone in those two groups was to blame for the situation they were in. It’s just that the others had not stepped forward to stop them when they should probably because the status of the two ladies suppressed them.

Finally, Leng Pan exhaled. "We won’t save them. But we’ll clean up the mess. Zombies multiplying near our base is not an option."

Even though she felt sorry for the innocents, if they couldn’t even stand up for themselves against those people who put them in danger, then they will put more people in danger in the future if saved.

Clearing the zombies would be enough.

The moment her words fell, water gathered around her hands and instantly froze into sharp ice spears.

It was incredible how easier it was to make lethal weapons out of her water superpower now that the whole world was covered in snow.

With a flick of her wrist, they shot forward like arrows in the wind. From the distance, the sound of piercing skulls cracked through the howling winter air.

She had started to clear the zombies that were still gathering from a distance.

Janna’s eyes widened in awe. "She didn’t even miss one..."

Janna didn’t know that this was the result of countless battles in her previous life. Since she had the same superpower, she was already very familiar with its use.

"Of course she didn’t," Lu Zhen said with quiet pride. It was rare to see him talking to others on his own initiative.

However, this also had to do with his love for Leng Pan. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t bother talking to anyone.

Juan Ke shook his head with a wry smile. "Her control over the water element is terrifying." he wished his own superpower could grow that much but he wasn’t sure if it could.

Inside the shop, the survivors were still panicking. When the zombies that had nearly grabbed them suddenly collapsed, their brains punctured cleanly through, they froze in shock.

Looking through the broken glass windows, they saw the four figures standing calmly in the snow outside, Leng Pan at the front like a war goddess cloaked in white frost

In the end, she couldn’t let them die. Lu Zhen was the one who knew her best. Even though she had said not to save them, her heart still softened and she had ended up eliminating all the zombies.

She hoped that those people had learned their lesson and wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Otherwise, she would regret her decision today.

Some of them felt shame, others relieved, but no one dared to shout or complain anymore. They had just been handed a second chance. If they didn’t cherish it, then they could just die.

Leng Pan turned on her heel without a word and began walking again. "Let’s head further north. There’s an abandoned supermarket two streets away. We’ll train there before heading back."

She and Lu Zhen had found that supermarket during the time they went out to train daily. She hoped that it hadn’t been swept clean.

Janna jogged up to her side, face flushed with excitement.

"Sister Pan, you’re amazing! Even when you said you wouldn’t save them, you still ended up doing it." She thought that her idol was such a good person.

Even though her mouth was tough, her heart was tender.

Leng Pan’s lips curved slightly, though her expression remained distant. "I didn’t help them. I only killed zombies to prevent them from swarming our area. Whether those people live or die depends on themselves.

She knew that if those arrogant women didn’t cause any more trouble, all those people would live. But that had nothing to do with her anymore.

Her words were cold, but everyone knew the truth. If she had wanted, she could have left the zombies alone. But she hadn’t.

Lu Zhen reached out and gently squeezed her gloved hand. She didn’t look at him, but the corners of her eyes softened, and the restless tension in her chest eased slightly.

Her husband understood her and was using his own way to comfort her.

Behind them, the screams had died down, either because the survivors had finally fought back properly or because they had been silenced forever.

After all, she had killed all the zombies there at that time, so if those people didn’t use the chance to escape, other zombies would arrive.

Leng Pan didn’t check. She simply moved forward.

She was aware that in this world, only those willing to grow stronger had the right to see tomorrow.

As the four of them trudged through the snow, Leng Pan looked towards the sky and it looked white then grey.

She knew that the white was an illusion created by the heavily falling snow.

The crunch of their boots was the only sound in the silence, broken occasionally by the distant groans of zombies carried on the wind.

Before long, the outline of the abandoned supermarket came into view. Its wide glass windows were shattered, broken shards still clinging to the frames.

Snow had piled outside and inside the building, covering toppled shelves and scattered goods.

She hadn’t expected such a scene. It seemed like the temperature was colder than she thought. Without the cover of the windows and with some of the walls broken by the falling meteorites, the building couldn’t keep the snow out.

"It looks like others already looted this place," Juan Ke muttered, scanning the wreckage of a building when he saw some supplies scattered on the ground covered in snow.

"It might have been looted, yes, but that doesn’t make it empty. Such places attract zombies, particularly the intelligent ones." Lu Zhen muttered as he remembered similar experiences in his previous life.

Leng Pan stopped at the entrance to listen and observe. Even though it tried to hide well, she still detected some movement.

It was very faint, but she heard it. Moreover, although it looked like something was different, there was still the stench of rot.

She knew that there was a stronger zombie there.

"Careful," she warned softly.

The moment they stepped in, the stench of blood hit them. Dark stains marked the floor, frozen into black patches beneath the snow. A collapsed human skeleton lay near the cash registers, half-picked clean.

Leng Pan would never understand such people. What was someone doing robbing cash at a time like this? It was of no use. Or maybe these are the people who believed that things would go back to normal soon and they would become rich if they collected a lot of money.

As they looked around, they heard a crashing sound coming from the back of the store. They could hear heavy steps as if something of huge weight was moving towards them.

There were also heavy grunts that almost penetrated their brains.

Everyone turned to look towards the place the sound came from.