Chapter 216: Human Meat Workshop
Zhang Xiao Qiang looked at the time and realized that it was 8 pm, he got all the members and captives to shift the supplies. Zhang Xiao Qing did not want them to linger in the place for too long, he had other things to resolve. He found Three that was busying himself and called him over, instructed him on a few things and got him to leave. Not long later, a transport truck carrying the injured personnel and women drove off.
The people around him busied themselves, and that was when Zhang Xiao Qiang suddenly felt a burst of sleepiness. Like the rest, he had fought for the entire previous day and did not sleep in the night, after which he had fought against Liu Tou and exhausted himself.
Upon calming down, he immediately sensed the wave of sleepiness hitting him. He slapped himself to wake himself up. I am a leader and I have to be a role model. Upon thinking about his own water bottle left in the vehicle, he walked to the Land Rover and pulled opened the door…. Shangguan Qiao Yun laid in the back seat and slept extremely peacefully. As the length was not long enough for her to extend her legs, she slept in a fetal position like a baby, her military uniform still lingering with smoke and dust.
Her head was buried into her arm, revealing only a small part of her face. Her originally delicate and sparkling skin had been tainted with smoke and black patches, her unique Lara Croft hair had already lost its former luster and had been coiled up casually.
She was dead asleep to the point that even when Zhang Xiao Qiang opened the door, it did not even induce a movement from her. Looking at the great beauty that had looks worthy of pride sleeping like that, he sighed in his heart. He gently opened up his bag and took out an army shirt and covered her body, then slowly closed the door.
Zhang Xiao Qiang felt extremely good dressed in new clothes, far better than fighting half naked. Although it was already June, Zhang Xiao Qiang felt uncomfortable having many people look at him half naked. He unscrewed the canteen and had himself a cold drink, then lowered his head and poured the remaining cold water onto his head. The cold water immediately dissipated the fatigue he felt.
He shrugged off the water droplets and carried the canteen on his back, not in the least bothered by the dripping water from his hair that made his collars wet. Noticing that most of the supplies of the camp had been moved and a few women and slightly injured men had started boarding the vehicles, Zhang Xiao Qiang looked around and got everyone to prepare, before heading up the vehicle and waited for the fleet to move.
"Brother Cockroach…." From behind, Zhang Xiao Qiang heard Three shouting out for him. Zhang Xiao Qiang turned and saw Three with another member who was narrating something to Three. By the time they arrived before Zhang Xiao Qiang, the member seemed to have finished his words. Three spoke to the man: "You're saying…."
This member had a face full of beard and did not look young. He had a robust body and was someone Zhang Xiao Qiang had a vague impression of. After thinking for a bit, he recalled the time when they recovered a small town and chose a group of temporary engineers.
This bearded man was one of them. At that time, the bearded man was dressed in a colorful female outer jacket. It was this jacket that left a deep impression.
The bearded man looked at Zhang Xiao Qiang with hesitance before speaking, although he looked extremely outspoken and straightforward, he was in fact extremely greedy and especially loved to take advantage of others. While recovering the town, other members had bags of loot but not him, causing him to be envious of them until now.
When Zhang Xiao Qiang recruited new members, the bearded man was the most proactive one, although he was greedy, he was unafraid of death and even had experiences of killing zombies. Adding that he was one of the 30 engineers, Zhang Xiao Qiang had favorable impressions towards the dauntless military engineers, so he was recruited into the Combat Team.
He easily waited for Zhang Xiao Qiang to lead them out for a mission. But his first mission was against the hordes of rats. Inside the prison, he never found anything good. So now that they were at the camp, he did not let go of the opportunity and specifically looked for Li Zhu and sought out Liu Tou's residence and quickly ran into it before the others.
After rushing in, he realized that it was wrong, Liu Tou's residence had extremely simple things, aside from clothes and miscellaneous things, there was nothing of importance. He had rifle bullets amounting up to a few thousand, but that was something the bearded man did not dare hide, ammunition was something to be handed over to Zhang Xiao Qiang. With the thought that the things were hidden, he carefully searched the house but did not find anything except for a locked and hidden door.
Seeing the lock on the door, he became excited with the thought that he had located the secret storage room. Although he could not swallow everything up, he could take the most valuable of things. With that, he started to work on the lock.
With great difficulty, he managed to smash the lock open, only to realize that the door opened out to an empty space at the foot of the hill, but this empty space had been tightly surrounded and sealed by the three neighboring buildings. This empty space was also at an oblique angle from the top, so outsiders cannot locate this empty space easily.
Looking through the empty space, he saw a wall made out of rocks. This wall formed a stone hut inside this depression. Unable to dispel the curiosity in his heart, he walked through the empty space and into the stone hut….
Zhang Xiao Qiang brought Three and the bearded man and stood on the empty ground and inspected the stone hug. The outer walls of the stone hut were made out of rocks with cement, mortar, and concrete used to fill the spaces in between the rocks. This rock wall had a long history, apparent with the moss all over the wall and gradually dropping cement.
A thick smoke emitted out from the top of the stone hunt, if they did not hear from the bearded man that there was something inside, Zhang Xiao Qiang would have assumed that someone was inside the stone hut cooking and using firewood.
The smoke in front of him gave Zhang Xiao Qiang a sense of disgust and nausea. He took out his torch and entered the stone hut. It was extremely spacious inside with a boiling pool near the entrance. Besides the boiling pool was a large wooden basin used by villagers to kill pigs and on the side of the wooden basin were stains of blood that had not been cleaned that resembled the moss on the rocks.
By the side of the boiling pool, there was a pile of firewood. Looking at the messily stored old, dried leaves, Zhang Xiao Qiang knew that the firewood was long piled up here, just that the perverse Liu Tou had used it for his own matters.
The space above their heads was not much, above two black and horizontal logs, the circular wood had plenty of ropes dangling down from it where the ropes held pieces of charred meat. A streak of sunlight came down from the roof shone on one of the charred meat, revealing the glossy and oily surface.
Looking at the piece of charred meat, even Zhang Xiao Qiang could no longer hold it in, he turned back and leaned on the rock wall as he vomited. Zhang Xiao Qiang's actions led to a chain reaction as Three knelt down and vomited as well.
The piece of charred meat was the entire thigh of a lady. The delicate thigh had turned yellow from the curing process over the fire, a layer of human fats flowed down by the side and dripped all over the ground, forming a circle of oil. With the thighs were the calves, and with the calves were the feet. Pieces of human ribs were hung on the other log.
Zhang Xiao Qiang no longer dared to look at it and looked away. He did not know if Su Qian was amongst the charred meat, he wanted to turn and run, while Three had his eyes fixated on Zhang Xiao Qiang's legs, as long as Zhang Xiao Qiang turned to run, he would be the first to run. It was so gruesome that he did not dare take a second look.
The bearded man was in a better situation than him, he had merely cast a glance when he realized the place and immediately ran out. With Zhang Xiao Qiang and Three, he had his eyes glued on the door and appreciated the sun and wind outside, and never looked at the meat the entire time.