Ye Xuan had been to this supermarket a few times in the past. The parking lot here was built on the top floor, and the ramp up was too steep. Every time he drove up and down, he had to be careful. Due to this, Ye Xuan would rather spend more time driving to other supermarkets than come to this one when the apocalypse had not yet occurred.
However, as he walked unimpeded from the ramp that he originally disliked to the parking lot on the fourth floor, Ye Xuan began to think that the design of the parking lot was very good.
When the apocalypse broke out in the morning, most of the people who had come to the supermarket to buy things had either taken the bus or walked over. There were very few people who had driven over so the entire parking lot had only about 20 cars. The entrance and exit of the parking lot were not blocked. If there were survivors, they would have long escaped by this time. Ye Xuan did not plan on letting of the gasoline in the remaining cars.
After all, after the apocalypse, there were still vehicles, and the value of gasoline had increased because production had ceased.
In the ten years of the apocalypse in his past life, Ye Xuan had acquired the skill of being able to clearly distinguish between the types of gasoline. After he drained the gasoline from most of the vehicles by category, he left a full-fuel off-road vehicle unmoved, and also placed a conspicuous mark on it, lest there were survivors who came to search for supplies like him. He didn’t want them to be stuck because all the cars ran out of gas.
After collecting the gasoline and getting rid of a few zombies trapped in the cars, Ye Xuan put the oil drum he had used back into the space. He locked the doors of the two stairwells on the fourth floor, and entered the building from the main entrance.
If he had a choice, it was actually best to enter a building from a place that was easy to defend and difficult to attack. It’s a pity that this was a supermarket. There were escalators on each floor. Although the escalators were now half blocked by a trolley, Ye Xuan still dared not face his back towards an escalator that might be attacked by zombies at any time. He could only do the next best thing which was to lock the entrances and exits of the stairs on each floor, and guard the escalator entrance to clear the zombies.
Fortunately, the escalators going up and down in this supermarket were all in one place, so he was not exhausted.
Just like what he saw on the surveillance camera, there was not a single zombie on the entire fourth floor. There was only a trolley full of goods stuck at the escalator entrance. Ye Xuan guessed that the owner of the trolley should have become a zombie and was blocked by the trolley preventing it from going up. Due to this, it probably chose to go downstairs to chase the survivors.
He put all the unexpired items in the trolley into the space, then bypassed the trolley and followed the escalator to the third floor.
Ye Xuan did not deliberately cover his tracks. The zombies on the third floor guided by sound and smell, soon gathered towards the escalator, and then were killed by Ye Xuan with his sword.
He had counted the same number of dead zombies as he had seen on the monitor, and waited for a while to make sure that there would be no more zombies on this floor before leaving.
Ye Xuan first locked the entrance and exit of the stairs on this floor, and then blocked the escalator entrance to the second floor with a few large boxes before starting to collect supplies.
For people in the post-apocalyptic world, things like TVs and refrigerators were no different from waste products. Ye Xuan ignored these large appliances and began to look for things with low or no power consumption.
Luckily for him, the supermarket had a new batch of outdoor equipment, including large tent grills and things like firewood, charcoal, and alcohol blocks that could provide energy. He left a small part and then the rest all into the space.
In addition, Ye Xuan collected a lot of household items like bed sheets, quilts, pillows and mattresses. These were not essential but could also be used.
After confirming that there was nothing else for him on the third floor, Ye Xuan took out a bottle of water from the space and rested for a while before heading to the escalator entrance towards the second floor. He was ready to start a new round of sweeping.
Unlike the third floor, where there were fewer people and zombies, the second floor had more than a hundred zombies who had eaten humans and increased their strength. Ye Xuan had made a lot of noise on the third floor. The zombies downstairs had already noticed his existence and began to gather towards the escalator.
Ye Xuan put away the box he used to seal the entrance, stood there and observed for a while. He found out that some zombies had begun to climb up the trolley because he was too attractive as an ability user. He simply took away all the trolleys on the ascending escalator, and then piled all of them on the descending escalator, completely blocking the path by friction and gravity.
The zombies that suddenly appeared in front of the passage quickly gave up their original path, and ran up the escalator that Ye Xuan had cleared out. There was even a zombie who was squeezed to the ground because the escalator was too narrow and was trampled to death.
Ye Xuan looked at the zombies that were rushing towards him like crazy. He was ready to fight with the sword in his right hand. At the same time, he said to the vine: “Go and block the stairs on the second floor, and then come back to support me.”
The natural instinct of zombies was to chase humans, and ability users like Ye Xuan were their favorite food. Now he was standing at the entrance of the stairs, and would soon attract the zombies on the first floor to gather in this direction. Most zombies couldn’t go up the stairs because of their rigid limbs. However, if there were zombies who had gained the ability to move freely because they had eaten a lot of human bodies, it would be troubling if they were mixed in the zombie group and attacked him.
As Ye Xuan chopped off a zombie’s head, he was still thinking that no matter how sharp the Tang Dao sword was, it could only deal with low-level zombies. If a zombie’s level was high, no sharp sword could cut their necks. It was really the world of elemental powers.
Ye Xuan glanced at it and hurried back. He summoned a branch to strangle a zombie’s neck, and sighed. Right now elemental ability users were not as powerful as ordinary people with good physique and fighting skills.
Even with the vine, a big weapon in his hand, he could not use it to fight for long periods because of insufficient abilities. He could only rely on his own strength to block the door and strangle the necks of zombies from time to time.
Otherwise, with the strength of this vine, why would he be afraid of zombies?
Like what he did just now, after killing about 120 zombies, Ye Xuan quickly walked to the escalator entrance from the first floor to the second floor without waiting for any new zombies, and sealed the space over there.
Ye Xuan had accumulated a lot of food on the second floor. He had no shortage of food now. He only took some of his favorite snacks, as well as some foods that might be inconvenient to carry for others. It was easy to use high-calorie chocolate bars. The remaining food was left to the survivors who would come and collect supplies later.
He took all the daily necessities and seasonings that were not in the scope of the survivors’ primary needs, but left a little of each in case someone really needed them urgently.
Collecting things in a wide range was always faster than picking things up one by one. Ye Xuan still had a lot of time so he decided to take cooking oil from shelf to shelf. With all the oil he had collected, he was afraid that he would have to eat fried foods every day as he had more than enough.
“Boom!”
When Ye Xuan heard the sound of a box being hit, his first reaction was that something had happened at the entrance of the escalator. He ignored the remaining shelves and ran quickly towards the entrance leading to the first floor. That line of defense had a tendency to collapse.
Ye Xuan thought about it and took away a small box. Just as he was about to check the situation on the escalator, he met a pair of black zombie eyes with no whiteness.
Zombies had poor eyesight, and most of the time they relied on their sense of hearing and smell to act. But as far as the distance between Ye Xuan and the zombie was concerned, the other party could still see that there was someone there.
Ye Xuan subconsciously took a step back. He stood still, and in the next second, a pair of shriveled hands stretched out from the gap. The overly long black nails were sharp and dangerous, which made people feel chills when they saw it.
Ye Xuan fiercely slashed off the zombie’s hand, and sealed the small entrance with the box again.
The zombies on the first floor had eaten a lot of people, and their strength was not at the same level as the ones upstairs. With just a glimpse, Ye Xuan saw no less than ten zombies climbing up the elevator. Their mobility was higher than those on the second floor. These zombies were not low levelled at all.
To fight or to retreat?
He quickly weighed the pros and cons in his mind.
The advantage of retreating now was that he would naturally be able to leave the supermarket safely. He only needed to find something to block the stairway, and he would be able to successfully leave the supermarket before these zombies broke through. But on the other hand, if he left, he would never have the opportunity to collect the expired food downstairs.
Ye Xuan stared at the pile of cardboard boxes for a while, as if he could see through the boxes and directly see the zombies behind them. He thought “I am afraid there will no such good opportunity to exercise if I leave right now.”
He could definitely defeat these zombies one-on-one but the number of zombies could make up for their lack of individual strength. This should be a risky but a big chance to win. If he waited until his strength increased to kill these zombies, of course, he could get their crystal cores, but he would also miss a good opportunity to exercise and improve his strength accordingly.
Ye Xuan glanced at the Tang Dao sword in his hand, then raised his head and asked the vine hanging on the side: “You can guard my back, right?”
The vine stopped making trouble and summoned a large branch to hang behind Ye Xuan, showing his intentions with his actions.
Ye Xuan smiled, took out a steel pipe from the space, placed it on a prominent point on the cardboard stack, and tilted it violently. The dozen or so boxes containing home appliances rolled towards the escalator because of their unstable foundations, hitting a group of zombies that were rushing towards the defense line.
He threw the steel pipe and knocked down a zombie. He picked up the Tang Dao sword again, and faced the zombies climbing up the escalator.
Ye Xuan looked at the dense number of zombies and thought, “The end of the world is an environment where risks and opportunities coexist. If I retreat when I encounter something like this, how can I possibly become a strong man?”
Without strength to protect what one owns, there was no difference between him and a lamb to be slaughtered.
