Chapter 56: The Great Battle at Suyuan Bridge and Side Park (4)

The hordes of zombies clustered along both sides of the highway, pressing toward Side Park. Once again, Li Fengyi felt grateful for the barriers mandated by China's road regulations; if the highway could be easily accessed, they would truly be in trouble. He recalled the highways in Western films, stretching wide open across the wilderness, and couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for them.

At least here, without having to destroy the highway, the barriers served to hinder the zombies somewhat. For now, they could still use vehicles to maneuver. It was a relief; the arrangement was strong and effective.

The Reconnaissance Battalion drove their off-road jeeps across the fields beside the highway, sneaking as close as 3,500 meters from the zombie horde. Scattered zombies were already visible, and they dared go no further—for to advance would be not to lure the zombies, but to offer themselves as food.

They assigned two vehicles to each zombie cluster, and every so often, they tossed out chunks of flesh and blood, creating a trail that led all the way to the foot of the tall buildings, before speeding away onto the airport expressway.

Ma Xiaoshuai, covering the rear, blocked the cleared sections of road with cars at intervals, dousing them with gasoline and setting them aflame. They were careful to avoid explosions; damaging the road would be a headache later. The goal was only to create temporary barricades or mask the main force’s scent—anything to gain an advantage.

They sprinted away from the zombie encirclement and the troops continued along the airport expressway. When Ma Xiaoshuai caught up, Li Fengyi, accompanied by Minister Ou and the others, said, “Let’s go up high and take a look.”

The Reconnaissance Battalion set up a perimeter, and Li Fengyi, Minister Ou, and Ma Xiaoshuai, along with several guards, ascended to a vantage point, binoculars in hand. The zombie horde, driven mad by the scent of blood and flesh, surged toward the building like a pack of starving wolves.

The swallows took flight as well. Sensing the zombies competing for their kin’s flesh, they dove in furious swarms, driven by the twin instincts of defending their nests and avenging their own. With wingspans of two meters, they inflicted some harm, but in the zombies’ eyes, it was merely free meat falling from the sky.

If any swallow strayed too close and was snatched by zombie claws, a swarm would immediately descend upon it, tearing it apart. The birds suffered heavy losses, instinctively retreating and circling high above, crying out their anguish before finally flying away.

Watching the animals and zombies battle each other, Li Fengyi felt a measure of relief; otherwise, humanity would have little hope.

The zombies poured into the building en masse. Fortunately, the survivors inside had already been evacuated; otherwise, not even the thickest doors would have withstood the onslaught.

In less than ten minutes, the zombies had reached the rooftop. Li Fengyi noted that their speed exceeded that of ordinary humans by far—it was clear that their tirelessness was a real and terrifying advantage.

Some zombies caught the scent of fresh flesh outside the building, quickly crowding the rooftop’s parapet. Then, one after another, they began leaping from the building in a grisly cascade.

Watching the torrent of zombies spill over the edge like a waterfall, Ma Xiaoshuai felt a chill in his gut. Even from a distance, he seemed to hear bones shattering with each impact.

The scaffolds of flesh set up outside the building were spaced every few dozen meters, a precaution against uneven piles of corpses wasting valuable height. The Reconnaissance Battalion had found it troublesome, but Li Fengyi had explained, at the time, that it was necessary. In retrospect, Ma Xiaoshuai thought Li Fengyi was well suited for command—cleverer than the zombies by far.

The building stood thirty stories tall, each floor about three meters; roughly a hundred meters in all. To the east, there were about twenty such towers. Ma Xiaoshuai lost count—how many zombies would it take to fill them?

“The last twenty or thirty meters aren’t enough to kill them in a fall,” Li Fengyi, reading his thoughts, explained. “Only the first seventy meters or so are lethal. For each building, you’d fill a space seventy by a hundred by thirty-five meters. With thirty towers, that’s about two hundred and forty thousand cubic meters—so, nearly five million corpses required to fill them.”

Ma Xiaoshuai was stunned, left with nothing but awe. “How did you figure that out?”

“It’s an estimate. A hundred-meter building, seventy meters fatal, so seventy. A tower’s perimeter is a hundred meters. As for thirty-five—can you guess?” Li Fengyi smiled.

Ma Xiaoshuai’s head spun. He glanced pleadingly at Minister Ou. “How did you get that number?”

Minister Ou shook his head; improvisational estimates were not his strength. He relied on facts, not conjecture, or he wouldn’t have so many ‘unknown causes’ in his reports.

Li Fengyi, seeing Ma Xiaoshuai’s distress, explained, “Zombies won’t stack up neatly—they’ll pile up in a slope, with the top nearly zero width and the base seventy meters wide. For calculation’s sake, we take the median, thirty-five meters.”

Ma Xiaoshuai finally exhaled. “That works?”

“It’s just an estimate,” Li Fengyi replied, his tone that of a teacher. “You can’t always be precise, but without some numbers, you can’t make plans. So, you estimate based on possible scenarios.”

A shadow crossed Li Fengyi’s face. “Last time we cleared zombies, we found that after the first ones fell over the barricade and died, the ones after stopped falling. I wonder how long they’ll keep jumping?”

As it turned out, the zombie plunges lasted almost an hour, with about three hundred thousand thrown down, and another seven hundred thousand left on the rooftop, milling about, refusing to jump.

Everyone sighed. These zombies were truly formidable. Nothing seemed to frighten them—except, perhaps, their own capacity for learning.

The remaining seven hundred thousand were beyond their means to handle. Minister Ou made a note: “Zombies have begun to show initial signs of learning ability. Cause unknown.”

He had gathered much firsthand observational material during this campaign with the expeditionary army.

The zombies on the roof ceased their suicidal leaps, and those outside the building stopped trying to enter, instead wandering aimlessly about.

“Let’s go,” Li Fengyi said with a wave. “The show’s over. No reason to stay.”

Ma Xiaoshuai watched Li Fengyi’s retreating figure in disbelief. As a career military man, he was used to precision, never expecting that large-scale operations could be governed by such rough estimates. Minister Ou gave him a friendly slap. “Director Li’s got some real talent, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely!” Ma Xiaoshuai nodded vigorously, following after Li Fengyi. For the first time, he felt that working under someone from a civilian background was nothing to be ashamed of.

They dared not attempt a full-scale clearing of the airport expressway, only forging a path ahead. If there were survivors, they would rescue them; if there were zombies, they would clear them out. At intervals, they left car barricades, ready to block the zombie hordes should the need arise.