Chapter 60 Forming a Squad

At dawn, Lin Qingqing’s figure emerged from the morning mist. Seeing her, Lei Min immediately rushed forward: "Sister Lin, are you alright?"

"I'm fine..."

Looking at Lei Min’s worried eyes, Lin Qingqing offered a reassuring smile.

"What about that fire..." Recalling the distant glow from last night—which had appeared precisely in the direction Lin Qingqing had left—Lei Min could not help feeling anxious.

"I started it. Don't worry, the fire is already out!" Lin Qingqing explained.

Seeing that she seemed alright, Lei Min thought better of asking any further questions. Yesterday, Lin Qingqing's state had been truly terrifying; even she herself had been shaken by that overwhelming aura of slaughter.

"It's good to go out and vent, otherwise you'd end up falling sick from keeping it all bottled up," Lei Min patted her chest and let out a sigh of relief.

Hearing her murmur to herself, Lin Qingqing suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"Lei Min, did you mention before that you wanted to team up?"

"Yes! Sister Lin, do you agree?" Hearing this, Lei Min felt a jolt in her heart.

"Mm, I've thought it through. Teaming up is indeed a good choice."

"Then, you mean..." Lei Min widened her eyes, instinctively holding her breath.

"Lei Min, are you willing to team up with me? We can take turns driving and keeping watch, kill zombies together, take on missions at the base, and survive together in this apocalyptic world!"

"Of course I am! I'm so happy to be able to team up with Sister Lin!"

Hearing Lin Qingqing's invitation to form a team, Lei Min beamed from ear to ear.

Seeing her agreement, Lin Qingqing let out a breath.

"Then let's make a proper re-introduction." Lin Qingqing raised her right hand. "I am Lin Qingqing, 28 years old, a Tier-2 Ice-attribute esper!"

"My name is Lei Min, 21 years old, a Tier-1 Lightning-attribute esper!" Lei Min grasped Lin Qingqing's hand and shook it vigorously.

Then she softly called out, "Captain?"

"Mm!"

Hearing Lin Qingqing's confirmation, Lei Min happily spun around her in a circle. "Captain! Captain Lin! Then what should our team be called?"

A name? Lin Qingqing paused. "Do we need a name for a team?"

"Of course! A team has to have a codename, otherwise how are we supposed to introduce ourselves when others ask?" Lei Min placed one hand on her hip and mimicked the scenario of the two greeting someone.

"Hey? I am so-and-so from the Awesome Team, who are you?" Lei Min said in a rough voice.

Then she switched back to her normal tone: "I am... Lei Min from the Nameless Team." After saying that, she wore a look of utter dejection.

Lin Qingqing was amused by her exaggerated expression. "How about I leave the naming to you? Vice-Captain Lei!"

"I can do that!" Lei Min readily agreed.

She then began counting on her fingers one by one: "How about Qingxiao? Doing chivalrous deeds in the apocalypse? No, no, that sounds too much like some celebrity. What about Qingshu? Since you're Ice-attribute, but then again, that sounds a bit too delicate? Qingshuang? Qingyun? Qingfeng? Qing...?"

"Wait," Lin Qingqing reached out to interrupt her, asking in puzzlement, "Why do you insist on including my name?"

"Because you're the captain, representing the entire team! If we don't use 'Qing', then we could use 'Ice' instead!" Finished speaking, Lei Min lowered her head and resumed counting on her fingers.

Seeing that a string of intensely Mary-Sue-style names featuring the word "Ice" was about to spill from her mouth, Lin Qingqing hurriedly stopped her: "Can't we pick something more ordinary?"

She couldn't quite fathom the mindset of these young people nowadays; why were they so fixated on adding those two characters related to her into the team's name?

Those two mere characters had been flipped and combined by Lei Min into dozens of variations. By the end of it, she felt as though she didn't even recognize her own name anymore.

"No way, everyone names theirs like that!" Lei Min resolutely disagreed.

They say there is a three-year generation gap; I'm afraid there are two bottomless chasms between her and me, Lin Qingqing sighed inwardly.

"Then let's call it Qingmang!" she said after a moment of thought.

Hopefully, our team can be like this light piercing through the fog—forever bright and sharp.

"Qingmang... Qingmang Team! Hey! This is a good name, truly worthy of our captain!" After repeating it back and forth twice, Lei Min immediately clapped and praised it.

"From now on, I am Lei Min of the Qingmang Team!"

"No, you are Vice-Captain Lei Min of the Qingmang Team!" Lin Qingqing corrected with a smile.

"I really am the vice-captain?"

"Of course. Would the captain lie to you?"

"Haha! Thank you, Captain. Then I won't be polite!"

In the distance, the sun had broken through the clouds in the east, casting a brilliant radiance across the ground. Lin Qingqing and Lei Min thus stepped through the morning light back to the convenience store.

The dead were gone, and the survivors had to keep moving forward.

Now only Aunt Zhang and Yue Xuanxuan remained. The older woman and the child had zero capability of surviving on their own, so Lin Qingqing decided to escort them to the nearest base first.

"Lei Min, I remember you saying you know the location of the base?"

"Mm, I did hear people talk about it before."

"How large is it? Is it an official base?" Lin Qingqing asked, as she certainly didn't want a repeat of the betrayal she and Wen Ling had suffered from.

"Well, it's a very large base. They say there are tens of thousands of people!" Hearing her ask, Lei Min roughly guessed Lin Qingqing's intentions.

"Is it far from here?"

"Not far, right over at the newly built High-Tech Zone in Rongcheng."

Lin Qingqing roughly recalled the map and formed a plan in her mind, though she still needed to discuss this matter with Aunt Zhang, as she remembered Aunt Zhang originally intended to go look for her younger brother.

"What's wrong?" Lin Qingqing walked a couple of steps before noticing Lei Min hadn't followed.

"The captain can call me Minmin, everyone in my family calls me that," Lei Min said, looking at her.

"Alright... Minmin."

"Yay! I'm going to tell Wen Ling this good news."

Talking as they went, the two entered the door.

Inside the convenience store, Aunt Zhang and Wen Ling were already awake; only Yue Xuanxuan was still sleeping.

Lin Qingqing told Aunt Zhang about Zhao Na's suicide the previous night. Aunt Zhang wore a dazed expression for a long time before finally snapping out of it, and then she buried her face in her hands and began to sob softly.

"It's all Old Chen's fault. I advised him not to save those people, but he insisted. They were nothing but a pack of wolves!"

Through Aunt Zhang's intermittent sobbing, Lin Qingqing and the others finally learned the cause of the whole incident.

"Miss Lin, after you left yesterday, those people started picking a fight. First they asked where the woman we rescued together had gone. When I said I didn't know, they claimed you had kidnapped her."

"Sister Man? She left on her own as soon as she reached the gas station, and she wasn't together with them," Lin Qingqing explained about Yu Man.

"Hmph, I said so too, she didn't look like she was with them, but that scar-faced man insisted that woman was his wife and demanded an explanation from Old Chen. What kind of explanation could Old Chen give?" Aunt Zhang wiped her tears and said, "Old Chen said he didn't know, so those people claimed Old Chen was hiding his wife and demanded he compensate him with another wife, and then they set their eyes on Tingting."

At the mention of Yue Tingting, Aunt Zhang could not hold back her grief and burst into loud crying once again.

"Old Chen wouldn't agree, so they..." Recalling what happened yesterday, Aunt Zhang trembled all over, her every sentence broken and disjointed.

"They killed Old Chen right in front of everyone, and when Taozi tried to avenge his father, he was... was crippled by that man called Lao Jiu!"

"That man is a devil. They used Tingting's younger brother to coerce Tingting, and used Taozi to coerce Zhao Na..."

"In the end... in the end..."

"Those beasts!" Listening to this, Lei Min could not help gnashing her teeth in hatred.

"What a classic tale of Master Dongguo and the wolf!" Even with mental preparation, after hearing the whole story, Lin Qingqing still felt a chill run deep down into her heart.