Zzzzzt zzzzzt.
Blue sparks danced at the tip of my vision.
The two of them immediately understood their predicament, and their fierce gazes quickly softened.
"Young man, you don't seem to be from around here, do you?"
"Did you come from outside?"
Huang Zhigang quietly sized up Zhang Ye's expression, while taking a deep breath to make his protruding belly retract slightly.
The stun baton was almost touching his beer belly.
Zhang Ye still had an innocent look on his face, resembling a naive college student who had just entered society.
"Yeah, I came up the stairs."
Nonsense!
Who doesn't know you came up the stairs?
I want to know how you got in from outside the hotel, alright?
Huang Zhigang's face twitched a few times, seemingly struggling to suppress the anger building up inside him. He felt like this kid was making a joke out of him.
But then a thought struck him, and a look of surprise flashed across his eyes.
Came up the stairs?
Impossible!
The door to the first-floor corridor was locked—
Just then, his gaze suddenly fell on a bunch of keys hanging from Zhang Ye's waist, and he couldn't help but ask:
"Young man, those keys..."
"Oh, you mean these?"
Zhang Ye looked down, then said nonchalantly, "Picked them up off a corpse downstairs."
Picked them up?
Huang Zhigang was utterly unsettled on the spot.
If he remembered correctly, that receptionist had already turned into a zombie.
Could it have starved to death because it couldn't find any human flesh to eat?
"What's the situation downstairs now?"
"What about the zombies?"
The woman beside him, Li Xiaomei, could no longer contain her excitement.
If you can get in, naturally you can get out.
They had been trapped here for a long time, and if this continued, they'd either starve or die of thirst.
Huang Zhigang also stared at Zhang Ye with a tense expression, obviously waiting for an answer to that question.
"The situation downstairs?"
Zhang Ye suddenly laughed, "Why should I tell you guys?"
As he spoke, he extended the stun baton a little closer, and the crackling current made Huang Zhigang break out in a cold sweat.
"We're not that close, are we?"
Li Xiaomei instinctively wanted to say something but was held back by the man next to her.
When she turned her head to look, she understood Huang Zhigang's intention.
Don't speak recklessly.
Indeed, after Huang Zhigang stopped her, he immediately forced a smile and said:
"Ah, come on, young man, that's not the right attitude. The first meeting is the introductory one, right?"
"Let me introduce myself first."
"Huang Zhigang, the general manager of this hotel. People call me Director Huang."
"You can just call me Brother Huang."
Zhang Ye looked at his greasy face wobbling in front of him and felt a bit disgusted.
Brother Huang?
Just look at that face.
You must be in your forties or fifties, right?
It's bad enough you're stealing someone else's wife, and now you want a young man to call you brother?
Do you have no shame?
Seeing him silent, Huang Zhigang's face showed obvious embarrassment, but still, he suppressed the urge to lash out and tentatively asked:
"How should I address you, little brother?"
"Zhang Ye."
"You can just call me Director Zhang."
Zhang Ye's expression was very serious as he spoke, as if he was afraid they wouldn't believe him, so he added:
"My company is nearby."
"Now I have more than thirty employees still busy outside."
This was indeed true.
The distance from the villa area here was less than a kilometer.
As for those more than thirty employees, most of them were busy "stocking up" under Liu Qingqing's command, and as for the rest—
They were all waiting downstairs.
Even at this very moment, right below the two of them on the lower floor, there were two employees, driven by unbearable hunger, ready to rush up at any moment.
"Director Zhang?"
Huang Zhigang was taken aback, his instinct telling him that this kid was deliberately provoking trouble.
He was the general manager, and now this kid was acting like a chairman?
Young, but with such pettiness!
Li Xiaomei, standing beside him, was even more disdainful.
She could tell at a glance that Zhang Ye's outfit didn't cost more than two hundred yuan.
"What do you want?"
"You don't believe me?"
"Or should I bring some employees up here to show you?"
Zhang Ye seemed a bit indignant, as if he was about to turn around and go downstairs, as though, indeed, there were a dozen or so underlings waiting for his orders below.
Huang Zhigang quickly glared at the woman beside him.
Long hair, short on wit.
Is this the time to fuss over whether he's posturing or not?
Understanding the situation downstairs was what mattered most.
If they could figure out how this kid managed to come up alive, would they still need to be trapped in this broken-down hotel, enduring hunger daily?
It's just calling him Director Zhang, right?
As long as they could keep him happy and learn about the situation downstairs, even calling him daddy would do!
"Director Zhang, please, calm down!"
"Calm down, haha, don't take it to heart with a woman!"
Without a sound, Huang Zhigang pressed down the electric baton in Zhang Ye's hand and leaned in closer, chuckling as he tried to smooth things over.
Seeing that Zhang Ye showed no sign of rejecting his closeness, he immediately sighed and said:
"Ah, Director Zhang, you don't know."
"Ever since the incident happened, all of us have been trapped here."
"It's already been a week."
"We wanted to go down to find some food, but there were zombies guarding the way to the storeroom."
"Now we're about to run out of supplies."
"It's not easy."
Zhang Ye nodded in agreement, his eyes filled with sympathy for the proletariat.
He raised his hand and patted Huang Zhigang on the shoulder.
"I understand."
A flicker of glee crossed the depths of Huang Zhigang's eyes.
After all, young people tend to believe whatever sentimental words they hear.
But before he could seize the opportunity to extract information about the first floor, Zhang Ye seriously looked at him and said:
"But what does this have to do with me?"
"Uh."
Huang Zhigang was at a loss for words.
It seemed indeed to have nothing to do with Zhang Ye.
But shouldn't a normal person naturally help fellow human beings in trouble?
Unable to bear it any longer, Li Xiaomei burst out:
"How can you have no sympathy at all!"
"What's wrong with helping us!"
"You look like you just graduated, right?"
"Didn't your school teach you to be brave and helpful!"
"Even if the school didn't, your parents should have—"
As she spoke, she suddenly felt something touch her lower abdomen, followed by an intense numbness spreading throughout her body.
"Zzzt!"
A stream of liquid gushed from below, and in an instant, the air was filled with a foul stench.
The woman had actually been shocked into incontinence!
Zhang Ye watched dispassionately as Li Xiaomei lay on the ground. He lifted his foot and kicked her stomach, and her body immediately rolled down the stairs!
"Hey, wait—"
Huang Zhigang wanted to stop him, but it was already too late.
Li Xiaomei's head hit the corner of the wall, and her body immediately went motionless, not knowing if she was unconscious or dead.
His eyelids twitched as he looked at the tragic scene below.
He wanted to go down and check, but he was afraid that his actions would displease Zhang Ye.
What should he do?
Huang Zhigang hesitated for a moment.
The kid was too ruthless; he had better be careful.