It's Hard to Be the Female Lead's Best Friend (Apocalypse) GL - Chapter 21.3

“Rumbling…”

A convoy of vehicles stopped far outside the factory.

Several men, armed with machine guns, wearing bulletproof vests and black helmets, with daggers and ammunition strapped to their waists, one of them gestured, and the others fanned out, surrounding the factory.

A sniper lay in ambush outside.

The people inside the factory were completely unaware.

“Hahahaha!” Qin Qingyan covered her stomach and laughed loudly. “Cheng Ziyu is too silly! What was she doing just now? Was she trying to practice martial arts?”

Gu Qingli smiled faintly. She squinted at the crack, lost in thought, her brows subtly furrowed, like an unyielding glacier, drawing attention.

“Sister Qing.”

Qin Qingyan squatted beside her, originally wanting to ask what was bothering her, but then changed her words: “I can tell, you like Cheng Ziyu a lot. I’m even a little jealous.”

“Hm?”

Gu Qingli chuckled and flicked her forehead: “Don’t talk nonsense. You and she are different.”

“Mm,” Qin Qingyan rubbed her forehead. “Yes, we’re different. You care about her more.”

Gu Qingli shrugged helplessly: “If you say so, then so be it!”

“Sister Qing, I won’t ask you why you’re going to North City, because I know you won’t tell me. But please believe me, no matter what decision you make, I will trust you.”

Gu Qingli’s slightly lowered eyelids were shrouded in shadow, making her inscrutable: “Do you trust Xie Feiyu or me more?”

Qin Qingyan didn’t react for a moment.

The originally humorous atmosphere suddenly fell silent.

Cheng Ziyu rushed over, breaking the silence: “I heard voices again. There’s danger here.”

Gu Qingli stood up: “Hide.”

They scattered, hiding behind the machinery.

Outside, a few men quietly climbed over the fence. They hid at the entrance, attaching explosives to the door. The sniper observed the surroundings, and a loud explosion tore the iron door into pieces. The strong sound gradually spread, attracting distant zombies.

The masked armed men threw several grenades inside. After successfully breaking in, they swept through the area, the “thump-thump” sound deafening, until the bullets in the magazine ran out.

They quickly swapped magazines, and several streams of fire suddenly struck. A few of them rolled on the ground. One person didn’t react fast enough, and the fireball exploded like it hit gasoline.

“Ah… save me…”

The man was engulfed in flames, rushing outside and rolling on the ground, but he couldn’t put out the flames. The other few stared wide-eyed. The unknown situation filled them with fear.

“What… what’s going on?”

“What the hell, where did that fire come from?”

“Whoosh whoosh!” Several more streams of fire shot out.

The few men rolled on the ground again, tumbling out the door, hiding to the side and shooting wildly inside. They were all sweating cold, gritting their teeth: “Die!”

“Dada…”

The smoke obscured the sniper’s vision. He didn’t know what was happening, only seeing streams of fireballs flying out the door. The sniper looked left and right. As the smoke gradually dispersed, he saw a figure with flames burning in her hands, like a demonic god. She walked with leisurely steps, not putting anyone in her eyes.

The sniper’s brow dripped with sweat. He aimed at the figure’s forehead, his finger slowly pulling the trigger…

“Hey!”

A magnetic yet cold female voice suddenly sounded behind the sniper. He was startled, unable to understand how someone could have found him. This place was two thousand meters from the factory, and there were other tall buildings nearby. He had clearly hidden himself very well, and hadn’t even fired a single shot.

There was no reason to be discovered!

He drew his pistol and turned to aim, but the newcomer kicked the pistol away with one foot. With just one strike, his wrist lost all strength: “Damn it!”

The girl in front of him was pretty and slender. She should have been delicate, but possessed strength stronger than a man’s. A casual smile played on her lips, hinting at danger like a succubus.

He pulled out his dagger, showing no mercy as he lunged at her head: “Fvck.”

Gu Qingli’s footsteps were light. As she evaded, she delivered a hand chop to the back of the man’s neck. The man’s vision went black, and he collapsed to the ground.

She sighed: “It seems it wasn’t you.”

Cheng Ziyu rushed over, panting: “How is it? I told you someone was hiding here!”

“Okay, let’s go back quickly.” Gu Qingli picked up the pistol and searched the man’s body for magazines, then turned and hurried back to the factory.

“Huh? I just…” Cheng Ziyu had just run over, and now she had to run back again. “Aren’t you taking the sniper rifle?”

“Too cumbersome, inconvenient to use.”

That’s true, but it’s another two kilometers to run.

I should have known not to follow along.

Zombies on the street gradually gathered. They craned their heads, listening. The gunshots guided them towards the factory.

Cheng Ziyu ran ahead of the zombies. Perhaps the gunshots attracted them, as the zombies didn’t chase the two: “From the looks of it, we need to evacuate from the factory quickly.”

“Mm!”

At the factory entrance, several men dared not rush in. One of them pulled the safety pin from a grenade and threw it directly inside.

Shu Jingyun’s pupils contracted. She turned and ran, quickly dropping to the ground. With a “bang,” an explosion pulverized the concrete floor, sending flying fragments scattering and deforming the nearby machinery.

Shu Jingyun’s back was bloody, and a piece of shrapnel was lodged in her shoulder blade, making her groan softly in pain. Qin Qingyan dragged her injured friend to hide behind something.

The men at the entrance waited for a while. One of them cautiously peered in, and seeing some bl00d on the ground, finally stood up: “She’s injured.”

The men cautiously walked inside.

They stood back-to-back, guarding all directions, up, down, left, and right. They followed the bloodstains step by step, exploring further: “Little sister, we know you’re injured. Come out quickly, and Big Brothers promise we’ll let you die a quick death.”

Bah!

Qin Qingyan held Shu Jingyun’s shoulder, her expression growing more anxious. She gently put her down, gripped her dagger, and crouched, completely silent, like a hunter waiting to strike.

She pricked up her ears and listened carefully.

Footsteps drew closer: ten meters, five meters, one meter. At this moment, her heart pounded rapidly. In an instant, she sprang up and stabbed the man’s neck with her knife.

The man, being trained, unlike civilians who would react sluggishly in such situations, easily grabbed her wrist: “Hehe, little sister is so fierce, Big Brother is so scared.”

Damn it!

The other few gathered around, their expressions malicious, a discomfiting smile on their lips: “You caused so many of our brothers to die, you’ll have to play with us longer.”

“Alright, stop messing around,” another man stopped the others. “Little sister, where are the other two?”

The man embraced Qin Qingyan: “That’s right, little sister, where are the other two? Aren’t they going to help you?”

Qin Qingyan struggled for a moment, but the man’s strong, powerful arms held her tightly. She kicked his instep hard, but he still didn’t let go.

“Hehe, don’t waste your energy.” The man could hold her with one hand, while the other held a gun aimed at the motionless person on the ground: “Big Brother’s target isn’t you. As long as you tell Big Brother where the other two are, Big Brother will let you go.”

“I… I don’t know anything.”

“Then you can’t blame Big Brother for bullying you.”

The man smiled pervertedly, sniffed, and slowly moved his hand downwards. Qin Qingyan’s face turned pale in fright, and a choked sob faintly escaped her lips.

She knew what the man wanted to do.

First facing this kind of situation, for Qin Qingyan, who had just started university, it was completely unexpected. She didn’t even dare to imagine it. The news always reported such incidents, and every time she saw them, she felt a lingering sense of indignation.

Now, she dared not think about what would happen next.

“Wuwu… let me go…”

“Hehe, then tell me where they are?”

Shu Jingyun’s fingertips moved. Something was stuck in her shoulder blade, and even a slight movement caused agonizing pain. Her left hand, however, was perfectly fine. She quietly lay in wait, gathering her strength.

“Hey, stop playing around. If you don’t talk, I’ll chop the girl on the ground into pieces first, let’s see if she’ll talk…”

The man hadn’t finished speaking when Shu Jingyun suddenly erupted. Flames gathered in her palm, and she slapped him in the abdomen. His clothes instantly ignited, and a stream of air directly pierced through his entire body, erupting from his lower back.

The man fell straight to the ground, without even a struggle.

His body slowly burned. Qin Qingyan raised her elbow, striking the man behind her. After successfully breaking free, she pulled Shu Jingyun and hid in the corner.

“Damn those stinking bitches.”

“Shh—” A whistle sounded at the entrance.

The men turned around to see a graceful figure standing in the dazzling sunlight. They squinted, unable to clearly see the girl’s face, but her smile was chillingly cold, and following her wrist, a cold pistol was aimed at them.

“You…” Do you know how to use a gun?

They wanted to mock her.

“Bang bang…” Bullets flew.

They accurately hit their targets in the head, shattering them like tofu. Not a single bullet was wasted, showing how precise Gu Qingli’s marksmanship was.

Bodies lay strewn everywhere, and the smell of bl00d hung in the air.

Qin Qingyan helped Shu Jingyun out. She had never known Gu Qingli was such an excellent shot. Her eyes were complex, but more than that, they held gratitude.

“Roar!”

When Cheng Ziyu arrived, a pile of zombies followed closely behind her: “Run, the factory is surrounded.”

Qin Qingyan released Shu Jingyun and picked up a gun from the ground: “Sister Qing, let’s charge out.”

The number of zombies was easily in the hundreds. Bullets probably wouldn’t be enough. Gu Qingli looked around: “Let’s go to higher ground.”

The entire factory was built with colored steel. There was no leverage point to climb up its ten-meter height. Cheng Ziyu pointed to the factory’s back door: “The toilet isn’t high, let’s go to the toilet.”

The toilet was only two and a half people high. Gu Qingli easily jumped onto the roof with a running start. Even with her injury, Shu Jingyun also got onto the roof with Gu Qingli’s help.

Qin Qingyan crouched against the wall, holding her hands out: “You go first, I’ll help you up.”

“Thank you!”

Cheng Ziyu pushed off and stepped up, getting onto the roof.

Qin Qingyan followed closely. Soon, the zombies surrounded the toilet, including some of the men who had come to kill them. Their flesh was mostly gnawed off, making it impossible to distinguish who was who.

[Food.]

The zombies’ eyes were all fixed on Cheng Ziyu, making her hair stand on end. She braced herself, putting her hands on her hips, and retorted: “What are you looking at? You can’t eat me, you’re just dying of hunger!”

[Fragrant.]

“No matter how fragrant I am, you still can’t eat me.”

Qin Qingyan was puzzled: “What are they saying?”

“What else could they be saying? Just food, fragrant things, and so on.” Cheng Ziyu was utterly speechless about her useless ability. She didn’t want to understand zombie speech at all.

Cheng Ziyu crouched down, staring at the growling, hungry zombies below, trying to see if she could control them.

The bl00d flowing from Shu Jingyun’s back made the zombies frantic. Some zombies pushed and shoved, causing others to fall and be trampled, thus increasing the height of the zombie mass by a zhang.

They reached out, attempting to climb to the top floor.

Qin Qingyan looked down, fiddling with the machine gun. She learned from TV shows how to release the safety, held it with both hands, aimed at one of the zombies, and as she pulled the trigger, a volley of bullets hit the zombie’s body, causing them to fall to the ground, breaking their climbing momentum.

“This thing has too much recoil.” An average girl would find it difficult to handle. Qin Qingyan re-engaged the safety.

Cheng Ziyu rubbed her temples. The zombies showed no reaction. It seemed her ability wasn’t a control type: “Are we just going to wait here quietly for the zombies to disperse?”

Gu Qingli crouched behind Shu Jingyun, using scissors to cut open her clothes. Although her back had bloody scratches, the bones were unharmed.

“Bear with it.”

After sterilizing the dagger, Gu Qingli removed the shrapnel from her shoulder blade. Her expression was meticulous, her bright eyes clear. Her hands, which should have been like the bright moon, now appeared “ravaged” from being stained with bl00d.

Cheng Ziyu’s gaze involuntarily clung to her, following her fingertips, her silly expression seemingly unaware of her own rapidly increasing heartbeat.

After Gu Qingli cleaned the bl00d, she casually held the bloody cotton swabs in her palm: “Qingyan, you bandage her.”

“Oh!” Qin Qingyan put down her gun.

Gu Qingli, in Cheng Ziyu’s dazed gaze, walked to her. Her expression hesitated for a moment, but she finally insisted on pulling Cheng Ziyu up: “Let’s do an experiment.”

Cheng Ziyu saw her detached and distant eyes, and her heart skipped a beat again: “What experiment?”

“Do you want to know what your ability is?”

“Of course.”

“Some people’s abilities might only be fully activated in life-or-death moments, so…” Gu Qingli threw the bloody cotton swabs and gauze to one spot, and the zombies immediately scrambled, pushing and shoving together: “Be careful not to be gnawed down to bones.”

Cheng Ziyu didn’t understand what the last sentence meant. She felt her body uncontrollably leaning backward. Gu Qingli, with a smiling face, gradually shrunk in her vision; only when her body hit the ground did she realize she had been pushed off the roof.

At this moment, it truly felt like falling into an icy river. She vaguely saw herself being continuously gnawed by zombies. This scene seemed to have happened once in a distant past, unable to break free, unable to escape. Fear made her tremble all over; and there was an inexplicable sorrow in her heart.

When her body landed, her back hurt terribly!

Cheng Ziyu unconsciously looked up at the cold-faced Gu Qingli. Only then did she belatedly realize that all their time together had been a joke.

Mocking her own ignorance and incompetence.

Qin Qingyan ran over. Zombies were crowding around the smell of bl00d, but they would eventually discover Cheng Ziyu. She looked troubled: “Sister Qing… what are you doing?”

Gu Qingli remained silent.

Qin Qingyan helplessly crouched down and extended her hand.

Gu Qingli pulled her up: “Look!”

The ground suddenly cracked open with many fissures.

Cheng Ziyu propped herself up. Before she could stand, the zombies all turned their heads, their dead-fish-like eyes staring straight at her.

The zombies’ bodies belatedly turned, seemingly somewhat surprised by the food that had fallen from the sky.

Her heart trembled!

It was as if she was in an icy river. A chilling cold slowly seeped into her skin. A cold bead of sweat rolled down her forehead, passing over her eyelids and seeping into her eyes. The salty, stinging sensation made her unconsciously close her eyes.

“Roar!”

The zombies charged wildly. The food was only a tiny bit, and against their hundreds of numbers, it was a drop in the bucket, unable to satisfy their hunger.

Her eyes were blinded by darkness. The sound of footsteps grew clearer and clearer. Death was getting closer. She didn’t want to die; she especially didn’t want to be bitten to death alive. She had promised her father she would live well.

But… she seemed unable to do it!

Tears streamed down Cheng Ziyu’s face!

On the rooftop, Gu Qingli’s nerves were taut. The hand holding the gun trembled slightly. The zombies were just a step away. She raised her gun and shouted, “Cheng Ziyu!”

She opened her eyes, and a cool sensation coursed through her body. Time seemed to freeze for a moment. Robust root systems suddenly erupted from the cracked ground, trapping her inside like a cage. The zombies slammed against it but it remained firmly intact.

[Food… Food…]

The zombies surrounded the cage, reaching out their hands, but they couldn’t reach her. They began to push and shove. Although hundreds of zombies charged simultaneously, the cage only slightly deformed, with no damage whatsoever.

“This is my ability.” Cheng Ziyu was dazed for a moment, then her fear turned into joy. “So my ability is… plants?”

Indeed, there were plant-type ability users in the novel. They could communicate with plants and trees, and could extensively cultivate plants for better control. Among them, a scientist named Fan Xiaojiang was the strongest plant-type ability user.

He was also the builder of the North City base, and the defensive wall built with plants was the strongest among all bases.

However, these plant-type ability users couldn’t understand zombie speech; but Cheng Ziyu could.

“Roar!”

Shu Jingyun clutched her torn clothes. Seeing zombies surround Cheng Ziyu, it actually provided them with an excellent opportunity to escape: “What do we do now?”

“Save her.”

Gu Qingli took out a piece of clothing from her space and handed it to her. Shu Jingyun didn’t shy away from them and turned to change clothes.

Cheng Ziyu closed her eyes, trying to feel the cool sensation from just now. She opened her eyes, feeling very confused: “Why can’t I feel it again?”

She gave a bitter laugh. Seeing Gu Qingli holding a dagger with both hands, seemingly coming to save her, yet just now she had so easily pushed her into the mouth of zombies, a wave of resentment welled up in her heart: “You don’t need to save me. While the zombies are attracted to me, you two should run quickly!”

Gu Qingli stopped short: “Don’t be silly.”

“Silly about what? I’m telling the truth.” Cheng Ziyu tilted her head, gently mocking: “Even if you save me once, who’s to say you won’t push me into the abyss again next time?”

Gu Qingli’s lips moved, finally settling into a calm expression.

Qin Qingyan swept her gaze between the two. After thinking, she decided to play the bad cop: “Cheng Ziyu, if we really leave, don’t you dare cry and beg for help. Look at the plant roots in front of you. How long do you think they can last?”

Qin Qingyan saw that she was unmoved, then crossed her arms and said: “Once this plant is destroyed, you’ll be torn apart bite by bite by the zombies. Your flesh will be like candy floss, slowly ripped away, and the pain will continue until you take your last breath.”

Cheng Ziyu’s eyes welled up with tears. She had come to the female lead precisely because she didn’t want to be torn apart; but the female lead’s actions just now had truly terrified her, especially when she thought of the tragic death of the supporting female character in the plot.

She started to panic.

From the very beginning, Cheng Ziyu had been wrong.

Even if she wanted to cling to her, she shouldn’t have lowered her stance, nor should she have placed her fate in the hands of others.