Chapter 52: Underwater

The river water was rapid and piercingly cold. Zhao Qiang realized this the moment he plunged into the current; had it not been for the diving suit, his body temperature would have plummeted rapidly. The murky water carried the turbulence of the surface, and just a moment in the water made him feel the chilling bite of the river.

Beneath the surface, it was pitch black. Zhao Qiang's vision here could reach at most a distance of about one meter, and his hearing was severely restricted. Inside his ears, there was nothing to be heard except the gurgling sound of flowing water. Although the purpose of the diving suit was to allow humans to move freely underwater, this so-called freedom was only relative.

"How is it going?" Sabre kept trying to start the propeller, but met with failure every time. Propelled by the river current, the cargo ship was drifting little by little toward the center of the river. However, if they wanted to leave this dangerous area as soon as possible, repairing the propeller was the top priority.

"Why don't you come down and try?" Zhao Qiang was deeply depressed. The current was flowing very fast, and even with a full set of diving equipment, he could only move toward the stern bit by bit by holding onto the hull. With zero visibility, Zhao Qiang had several times nearly been knocked off course by floating debris in the water.

"You'd better hurry up!" Chen Ergou shouted loudly. As more and more Crushers arrived at the riverbank, the number of ordinary zombies being hurled over was increasing steadily. The pressure on Chen Ergou's shoulders was growing heavier and heavier, and the ranged attacks from the Crushers left Ergou stretched to his absolute limits.

The underwater environment was intricate and complex. Foreign objects constantly struck Zhao Qiang at the bottom of the river. The current was rapid, and those colliding objects flashed past in an instant; in the darkness, there was not even enough time to make out their outlines before they vanished without a trace.

"Turn on the tactical flashlight!" Sabre suddenly realized that in such a pitch-black night, the underwater visibility was shockingly poor, and he quickly reminded him, "That thing works underwater!"

"Damn! Why didn't you say so earlier!" Zhao Qiang groped around and switched on the high-intensity tactical flashlight mounted on the muzzle of his gun.

The moment the beam shot out, Zhao Qiang was startled. Under the light, a pale face flashed past and instantly vanished into the darkness.

"Shit!" Zhao Qiang cried out in fright, thrashing his limbs wildly. There was nothing more terrifying than this scene—human faces had actually appeared underwater! As Zhao Qiang thrashed his arms and legs, the flashlight beam began to swing erratically, and more and more faces appeared all around him.

After a brief moment of panic, Zhao Qiang suddenly realized that those pale and horrifying faces were terribly familiar. Steeling his nerve, he drew his "dog-leg" machete and thrust it toward one of the faces. Underwater movements were completely different from those on land; the resistance of the water made the entire movement feel like slow motion. Zhao Qiang distinctly felt the sensation of the blade piercing through an eye socket and entering the brain.

It was a zombie! Zhao Qiang made his judgment in an instant. The opponent did not dodge, letting the blade pierce straight into its body without a single trace of pain on its face. What oozed from the wound was near-solid clots of blood, rather than the boiling-hot fresh blood of a normal human. Having identified the enemy, Zhao Qiang finally calmed down.

Zombies along the riverbank were being squeezed and pushed into the water one after another. The rapid river current submerged them, but it could not drown this horde of demons from hell. Underwater, they still relied on instinct and the guidance of the mastermind to advance toward the cargo ship. This was the reason why Zhao Qiang kept being struck by foreign objects during his advance; those were not foreign objects at all, but zombies swept away by the river.

A small fraction of the zombies were washed away by the current, but quite a few managed to march along the riverbed, finally surrounding Zhao Qiang at the bottom of the river. The underwater battle was exceptionally fierce. Although everything was in slow motion, the perils involved far exceeded those of a combat on land.

The combat effectiveness of firearms underwater was practically zero; bullets completely lost their lethality after traveling at most two meters in water, and their accuracy was shockingly poor. Zhao Qiang had never received any underwater combat training. Down here, he had to exert several times more strength than usual just to drive the machete into a zombie's head. Furthermore, deprived of the assistance of hearing, attacks coming from behind were almost impossible to guard against.

After breaking through the encirclement of zombies with great difficulty, he finally found the location of the propeller. Under the beam of light, several zombies were plastered motionless against the blades, which was precisely the reason why the propeller could not spin.

"Sabre, I've found the cause!" Zhao Qiang quickly reported the news. Clearing the propeller was much easier than fighting; those zombies had not noticed Zhao Qiang's approach and were quickly dispatched one by one, blade by blade. However, Zhao Qiang failed to notice a massive dark shadow weaving back and forth through the water behind him.

Sabre started the propeller once more. This time, the sound of bearings rotating finally echoed from the engine room, and the propeller slowly began to spin.

"Mission accomplished, I'm coming back!" With the propeller back to normal, the cargo ship would soon be able to leave this dangerous stretch of water, and the stone in Zhao Qiang's heart finally settled. To prevent any other zombies from clinging to the propeller, he swung his flashlight around to illuminate the space behind him.

A dark shadow, like a torpedo, charged fiercely toward Zhao Qiang with lightning speed. Before Zhao Qiang could make any reaction, it slammed directly into his stomach. Zhao Qiang instantly felt his vision go black, his body bending like a shrimp as he lost all ability to resist. He was shoved away by the impact for a long distance before the dark shadow finally broke away, while Zhao Qiang, due to his worsening injuries, had already lost consciousness and drifted far away with the river current.

When Zhao Qiang woke up, he was already lying on the riverbank. The diving helmet on his head was nowhere to be found. Zhao Qiang tried to sit up, only to find that his hands and feet had been bound with rope.

"He's awake!" The boy squatting beside Zhao Qiang retreated two steps cautiously, his eyes fixed tightly on Zhao Qiang's bound hands.

"Where is this?" Zhao Qiang asked. The wound on his chest still throbbed with a dull ache—the signal of misaligned ribs healing. He remembered fighting zombies underwater, and then the propeller starting to spin, but why would he appear in this unfamiliar environment and be tied up? Where was the Tiger Squad? Where was the cargo ship?

"My dad said not to talk to strangers," the boy replied solemnly.

"Then where is your dad?" Zhao Qiang asked again. The sensation of being bound was truly uncomfortable.

"My dad..." The little boy had just opened his mouth when he was interrupted by a voice: "Xiaojie, I told you, don't talk to strangers!"

Zhao Qiang looked toward the source of the voice. The speaker was clearly the boy's father. Finally, someone could answer the full belly of questions he had. However, to Zhao Qiang's utter astonishment, the moment he turned his head, he saw a rapidly enlarging gun butt rushing right toward his eyes.