strictlysupreme Chapter 86 Sunset over Lijiang
Chapter 86 Sunset over Lijiang
The three motorcycles quickly arrived at the gas station that Gu Nanfeng had located. This gas station should be the last road service area on this road to Y Town.
Nowadays, in addition to highway service areas, many ordinary national highways leading to famous towns also have service areas, some even equipped with RV rest areas and hotels. The service area near Y Town has these facilities because the famous sunset over the Lijiang River in X Province is best viewed from this area. Many tourists visiting Y Town usually stay overnight at this service area to watch the sunset over the river.
They rode their motorcycles around the rest area several times. The roads in the service area were filled with cars parked haphazardly, many of which were luxury cars or limited editions. Qin Yuan couldn't help but feel sorry for them. Finally, they stopped in front of the hotel that was part of the service area.
"This place may have fallen a long time ago." Gu Nanfeng looked around at the damage. He looked up at the service area sign. There should be a virus quarantine zone here. It is very likely that many people went to this quarantine zone when the zombie virus broke out.
"Holy crap, there are zombies inside!" After the group stopped the car, Qin Yuan prepared to go into the hotel to check if he could survive the night there. However, before he even entered the hotel lobby, he saw zombies wandering around the hotel and quickly retreated.
With the sun about to set, the zombies that might be hiding in this service area would soon emerge, and they needed to find a place to hide as soon as possible. The hotel in front of them was clearly not a safe haven.
"There's a rest area for RVs over there. Can we leave our RVs there for the night?" Lu Yuan pointed in the direction of the parking lot. Many roadside rest areas now have such areas, which are convenient for tourists who travel by RV.
“No, the number of zombies here is different from the other remote gas stations we’ve stayed at before. Even though your car has been reinforced, it might not be able to withstand an attack from so many zombies.” Gu Nanfeng’s meaning was clear: they couldn’t stay overnight at this service area and had to find another place.
The hotel was designed to complement the sunset and river views, and it's located at the highest point of this service area. Qin Yuan had previously read travel guides about visiting Y Town, and he remembered that some guides mentioned that the superior rooms at this service area hotel offered panoramic views of the entire town, and the prices were ridiculously high.
They can no longer go up to the hotel to overlook Y Town, but that doesn't stop Qin Yuan from finding a high place to observe Y Town with binoculars. The specific situation in the town is still unclear, but it is obvious that some green-skinned zombies are already wandering the streets.
It's still evening, and there are already zombies roaming around Y Town. Nighttime is always a high-frequency time for zombie activity, so entering Y Town now is definitely the worst thing for them.
Suddenly, Du Wenqing pulled Qin Yuan down from the high platform and jumped up himself. He took Qin Yuan's binoculars, looked around, and then looked towards the riverbank.
“Let’s go over there!” Du Wenqing pointed towards the riverbank. Just as he was about to turn around and explain to the three of them in detail, he saw shadows swaying and moving towards them from the direction of the food court. He raised his binoculars and glanced at them. “The zombies are coming. Let’s go first.”
Du Wenqing and Qin Yuan quickly got on their motorcycles, with Du Wenqing leading the way in the direction he had just pointed out.
Not far from the service area, Du Wenqing led them down a narrow path. Luckily, they had come on a motorcycle, otherwise their off-road vehicle would not have been able to get through the narrow path.
Du Wenqing explained to them over the walkie-talkie that his unit had walked this path before when they came to X province to carry out a mission. At that time, they needed to ambush a drug trafficking ship on the riverbank, so they went down this path to the riverbank. He also remembered that there should be a dilapidated building on the riverbank, which was the drug traffickers' disguised landing point back then.
Although the dilapidated building looks run-down, the materials used in its construction were not cheap. It took them a lot of effort to break into it. If that dilapidated little building were still there, they could rest there tonight.
The three motorcycles drove towards the riverbank. The sun gradually set, and the golden sunlight shone on the river, making it sparkle like a golden painting. Lijiang was already a scenic wonder, and with such a golden sunset and red evening glow, it was even more breathtaking. If it weren't for the mountain road collapse, Lu Yuan might never have had the chance to see such a beautiful view in his life.
Before long, they saw the dilapidated building that Du Wenqing had mentioned. It did look quite unreliable, with its gray walls in disrepair and several sections of the roof collapsed.
"Old Du, you're not kidding me, are you?" Qin Yuan was the first to park his motorcycle in the open space in front of the dilapidated building, which looked like it could be blown down by a gust of wind.
Du Wenqing ignored Qin Yuan, got out of the car, and pushed open the seemingly meaningless large iron gate of the small building.
Lu Yuan and Gu Nanfeng followed behind him, and just as they were about to go in, Gu Nanfeng pointed to the motorcycles on the open ground. Lu Yuan almost forgot to put them away first.
After quickly storing the three cars back in their spatial storage, the four of them entered the dilapidated building.
The interior of the small building is spacious, but it is indeed as dilapidated as it looks from the outside. The foundation of the roof has collapsed, and there are still steel bars hanging on it. If the wind is slightly strong, they will make a "creaking" sound, which is quite jarring.
The golden rays of the setting sun shone into the small building through these breaches, forming beams of light. Everything was so dilapidated that it had a real post-apocalyptic wasteland feel.
“Something’s not right here.” Lu Yuan had a bad feeling. Ever since that accident, he sometimes felt that his sixth sense was pretty accurate.
"I don't feel good either." Compared to Lu Yuan's intuition, Qin Yuan's feeling was probably more of an instinct for danger.
"Is it too late for us to run now?" Gu Nanfeng suddenly stopped in his tracks, staring blankly at the dilapidated roof of the small building.
"Run!" Du Wenqing shoved Lu Yuan behind him, leading the group toward the iron gate.
Just after Du Wenqing's shout, a series of squeaks and hisses came from the roof of the dilapidated building. The sound was like that of a monkey. Before Lu Yuan could even look, Gu Nanfeng grabbed him and dragged him outside.
As soon as they ran out of the small building, Qin Yuan noticed that the shadows under his feet were not right. They were still in the shadows of the house, so what were those round heads?
He turned around abruptly and saw dozens of monkeys walking around on the roof of the dilapidated building, with several jumping down.
Lu Yuan and Gu Nanfeng ran in front, while Du Wenqing's voice rang out behind them, urging them to run towards the river. But how could humans outrun a troop of wild monkeys in the mountains?
The sounds of the monkeys behind him grew louder and louder. Lu Yuan almost tripped over the uneven muddy ground several times. If Gu Nanfeng hadn't kept him steady the whole way, he probably would have become the monkeys' food.
The four of them ran all the way to the small ferry crossing by the river. This should be the ferry crossing that Du Wenqing and his group used to ambush the drug dealers back then, but what use is a ferry crossing now? They don't have a boat.
At this moment, if Lu Yuan doesn't take a boat out of his spatial storage, they will be driven to the brink of despair by these monkeys.
Of course, Lu Yuan couldn't really let them fall into a desperate situation. He frantically searched his space, trying to find a ship that wasn't too outrageous.
The monkey troop had already surrounded them. Gu Nanfeng noticed that the lead monkey seemed different from the others. Its skin was rotten in many places, exposing the bones. Its eyes were like those of a human zombie, without pupils, only the whites of its eyes.
Although it looks thin, the fact that it can become the leader of a group of normal monkeys shows that it is very strong.
Under the command of the zombie monkey, dozens of monkeys pounced on them. Du Wenqing and Qin Yuan wouldn't be afraid of dozens of ordinary monkeys, but since the leader was a zombie, they had to be wary of whether these ordinary monkeys carried the zombie virus.
The three of them drew their Tang swords to fight, and Lu Yuan, who was being shielded behind them, finally found a lifeboat, which wasn't an exaggeration. He threw the lifeboat into the river, and it began to inflate automatically as soon as it touched the water.
Lu Yuan turned around to help, but the ferry crossing was too small for either of them to turn around easily. Gu Nanfeng was already considered a nuisance by Du Wenqing and Qin Yuan, so he stopped struggling and just kept turning around to wait for the lifeboat to be inflated.
But the more anxious Lu Yuan became, the slower time seemed to pass. Qin Yuan and Du Wenqing killed several of the charging monkeys. The zombie monkey was furious and prepared to deal with them personally, but the lifeboat was not yet fully inflated. Lu Yuan almost wanted to go up and inflate it himself.
Gu Nanfeng glanced back at the lifeboat in the river. He pushed Lu Yuan onto it first, then jumped on without hesitation. He then shouted at Qin Yuan and the others, "Get on the boat first!"
Qin Yuan and Du Wenqing didn't linger in the fight. The zombie monkey was indeed very fierce. With its first charge, it knocked Qin Yuan's Tang sword away. Qin Yuan used the momentum to jump onto the lifeboat. Gu Nanfeng immediately cut the anchor rope, and the lifeboat began to drift into the river.
"Old Du, jump!" After stabilizing himself on the lifeboat, Qin Yuan immediately drew his pistol. He called out to Du Wenqing, and the moment Du Wenqing turned around and jumped onto the lifeboat, Qin Yuan quickly spotted the zombie monkey behind him. He calmly pulled the trigger, and with a "bang," the bullet struck the zombie monkey right between the eyebrows.
The lifeboat drifted with the river for quite a while before it was fully inflated. Although the monkey troop on the shore had lost its leader, the zombie monkey, they still chased after them for a while. Several monkeys even jumped into the water, trying to climb onto their lifeboat.
The sun also sank below the horizon at this time, leaving only a faint golden glow on the riverbank.
"What a breathtaking sunset over the Lijiang River!" Qin Yuan slumped down beside the lifeboat. He had just used Lu Yuan's Tang sword to stab two monkeys that were swimming by, and now he was completely exhausted.
"The sunset today is truly beautiful." Lu Yuan, like Qin Yuan, leaned against the other side of the lifeboat, watching the golden light gradually disappear from the riverbank.
"Now, our question is, are we going to drift on the river all night?" The sun had completely set, and the river had become pitch black. The four of them, in a lifeboat, were indeed quite helpless on the wide Lijiang River.