After leaving the noodle shop, Mu Ying continued on, leading the ox.
With more trees of the same kind appearing, she finally could pick up the pace.
Along the way, she avoided zombies whenever possible and, if unavoidable, she lured them together, bound them with her Oak Stick Technique, and took them out in one go, all to conserve her Mana Value.
Luckily, the route she chose was quite good, with a green belt and a road between her and the apartment buildings, and few wandering zombies.
In fact, if you were careful, you might not see a single zombie at a glance, but if you made a slightly louder noise, those zombies would emerge from who knows where.
Mu Ying had observed for a long time and realized that zombies prefer to stay in dark places when they have no prey, instead of walking blatantly on the sunny roads.
However, they weren't afraid of sunlight and would resolutely follow once they spotted a target.
This facilitated her movements considerably, but as the sun was about to set, she had to quickly find a place to stay overnight. The green belt on this side provided no cover, so it was obviously not suitable.
Mu Ying turned her gaze to the houses across the road.
Shops with glass windows were out of the question for safety reasons, and those with rolling doors were rejected for their noisy opening and closing.
Eliminating these, the only option left was the three-story building of Anping Driving School up ahead.
With so many rooms, there surely would be a suitable one, and with its large area and multiple passageways, it was also convenient to escape.
Mu Ying left Old Yellow Bull in the green belt near the driving school; she didn't tie it up.
Old Yellow Bull, having lived a long life, was smarter than an average animal. After being fed so much Recovery Spring, it had become almost human-like in wisdom, so there was no fear of it running away. In case it encountered danger, it wouldn't be bound by a rope.
The driving school's building was by the street, with a sizable practice field behind it, but now without a single car or zombie in sight.
Mu Ying entered the driving school to find two glass doors; one was locked with a large padlock, the other was broken on one side.
She entered through that broken door. At the entrance, the stairwell was blocked by a large amount of debris, leaving only a narrow space to pass through.
First floor, second floor, she checked room by room, finding neither zombies nor people, but Mu Ying couldn't relax.
The disarray here signified the struggles that once took place. During midday, when the apocalypse hit, the driving school wouldn't have been empty. Now, its "cleanliness" suggested someone had cleared it out.
On the third floor were three restrooms, their doors tightly shut, the only windows covered by thick curtains.
Mu Ying tried but couldn't open them.
The third floor had the most rooms, and the windows were smaller, giving a greater sense of security.
Unable to open the doors, she just raised her hoe and struck down.
"Bang~ Bang~ (Bang~ Bang~ Bang~)"
Mu Ying withdrew her hoe in surprise, stepped back two paces, and looked towards the adjacent rest room.
As she smashed the glass, a lesser but persistent striking sound came from that room's window.
After a few hits, that glass finally broke.
A head pushed the curtain aside, and upon seeing Mu Ying outside, eyes filled with a gleam of surprise.
"Need a hand?"
Mu Ying looked at her gagged mouth, the bruises on her forehead, and the glimpses of her body, which was still bound.
Nie Ying nodded repeatedly, relieved that it was a girl outside, as it made her feel much safer.
"Step back a bit, I'll smash the window open a little more."
Nie Ying hopped away, giving space.
Mu Ying cleared the remaining glass from the window.
"All set!"
Mu Ying pulled Nie Ying through the window and untied the strips of cloth that bound her.
Before Mu Ying could ask what had happened, Nie Ying wrapped the cloth strips around herself, barely covering her exposed body.
"Hurry and save Jingjing! She's next door, and once she's safe, we'll run! If we're caught by those people, it's all over!"
Mu Ying had an inkling of what happened, sighed internally about the maliciousness of people in the post-apocalyptic world, and felt some admiration for the girl before her.
Jingjing's full name was Zheng Jing, who was held in the adjacent break room—exactly where Mu Ying had just smashed the window.
Mu Ying parted the curtains and approached, only then hearing a "thump thump" sound from inside.
A girl around Nie Ying's age was bound to a bed. The sound was her hitting the bed frame with her head.
Nie Ying slipped through the window, swiftly helped Zheng Jing free of her restraints, and found a few pieces of clothing to cover themselves with before stumbling out of the break room.
"Finally out, sisters, thank you for rescuing us. Let's go quickly and find a safe place!"
Nie Ying, clutching the still dazed Zheng Jing with her left hand, reached out with her right to grab Mu Ying.
"It's too late, someone's coming," said Mu Ying, standing by the corridor and pointing towards the entrance where three middle-aged men led a horde of zombies into Anping Driving School.
"They're back! Ying, we can't escape," Zheng Jing said, trembling at the sight of those men, with despair almost spilling from her eyes.
Suddenly, as if making a decision, she fiercely grabbed a piece of broken glass from the floor, "You two go up to the second floor and find a place to hide, and once they go upstairs, run. I'll hold them back. In this world filled with monsters, we ordinary people without superpowers have no real reason to keep on living!"
"Jingjing, don't be foolish. If we can't defeat them, we still need to seek revenge. You're the one who should hide. Find a place to lay low until they leave tomorrow. They haven't seen you, so you should be able to escape," Nie Ying said, looking apologetically at Mu Ying.
"Don't worry, is it just the three of them?"
Mu Ying patted their backs, urging them to stay calm.
"Just the three of them, but they possess some strange abilities. Two have extraordinary strength, probably having awakened the Strength superpower, and one is quite fast, likely a speed superpower. Jingjing and I are ordinary people. Even if you're a superpower user, facing three of them is dangerous. Don't do anything rash, girl. You look even younger than us. Falling into their hands is worse than death!" Nie Ying hastily explained. This girl had come here on her own, so she must have some kind of edge, but one against three, plus the zombies and both of them as burdens, it was nearly impossible to succeed.
"?" Mu Ying was full of question marks. Superpower user? What was that? The girl must have read too many novels.
But Mu Ying realized where the problem lay. The two of them likely had no contact with the outside world since the apocalypse began, let alone ever killed a zombie. But there was no time for detailed explanations, so she got straight to the point, "Do you guys want superpowers?"
"Of course, we do!"
"Then follow me, kill one zombie and you'll have it. If there are only three of them, I might be able to deal with them," Mu Ying thought, her Mana Value still plentiful, and she remembered the mound of tables and chairs by the stairwell, probably arranged by those men to fend off zombies.
"We have to be quick, let's go to the cafeteria on the second floor to grab a kettle of oil, and you two find some handy weapons for yourselves."