060 genuine or fake 213-2

The moon stood at the zenith and all else was still as stone, only Ma Tian, who was on night watch on the terrace, still battled the tenacious late-autumn mosquitoes. He muttered oaths that he would find a place for a mosquito net the next day, otherwise before the insects had fully frozen to death there would be a few desiccated corpses on the terrace for certain.

Having just killed another mosquito that had crept up on him, Ma Tian checked his digital watch: it was just midnight. He had an hour before the shift changed, and the itch at his wound kept reminding him he ought to get up and stretch.

He rose, wincing as he loosened his stiff lower back, and out of habit performed a few stretching motions. As he was mulling over whether to go fishing with Fang Qiang in the morning, a pale gleam blurred through the dense, ink-black night.

For a moment he thought he was imagining things, but then he rubbed his eyes and snatched up his night-vision binoculars. In the bus lights he caught sight of a large coach rocking as it rounded its front wheels and came down the tarmac road by the reservoir toward the electric substation.

“What in the world are they doing at this hour?”

With a whistle clenched in his mouth, Ma Tian limped down from the terrace. A sharp blast of it rang through the substation, and within moments not only the just-awake members of the team but even Zhou Anwen, who was usually half-asleep, jolted awake.

By the time Special Operations Unit Eight were fully armed and their heavy machine gun on the command platform was in place, the bus had lurched over and halted at the main gate.

From the dented, mottled damage on the bus front and the bloodstains browned in the headlamps, one could tell it had not driven here easily.

The door opened. By the coach lights a middle-aged man stepped out. He made no defensive or confrontational gesture at the gun muzzles, and instead called out in a loud, clear voice:

“Is this the base of Special Operations Unit Eight? Please send out your commanding officer. I am Cui Yongzhi, vice-county chief of Neihuang County. These civilians behind me have been gathered together. We need help!”

Since he could correctly name the unit, his official identity seemed credible enough. Fang Qiang glanced at Wang Chen. Wang Chen tilted his mouth toward the wall in a little smirk—his meaning was plain: at my age, if I go out to negotiate, will anyone believe us? Fang gave him a dry look and tapped him with his hand. The gesture said: “This is routine when you’re around your man, Fang, isn’t it?”

Little games aside, Fang Qiang smoothed his uniform, slung his rifle, and stepped out through the front gate. Wang Chen followed close behind as his subordinate.

When Cui saw a member of Special Operations Unit Eight appear, he hurried forward two paps and, with the respectful authority of a county-level official, said earnestly, “I am Cui Yongzhi. Comrade, may I ask who you are?”

“Captain Fang Qiang, Special Operations Unit Eight.”

Fang measured him in turn. Broad ears, a heavy-boned nose, thick-drooped brows—he had more of a magistrate’s face than a peasant’s, and his posture too was no ordinary one. Fang thought well of him on that alone, and still, for caution, pressed, “How did you learn where our base was?”

Cui sized up Fang as well, and inwardly thought: this fellow is plain enough to be ugly, and if he can be a unit captain in security work, then he has something other people lack. I’d better be careful.

“This is a long story,” Cui said. “Why not let these civilians in first, then we talk?”

“No. You might as well keep it brief,” Fang replied, giving the deputy county official not even the courtesy of patience.

As the words left his mouth, one young man behind Cui exploded, unable to hold back. “We have people who are sick here. Why your nagging? Isn’t this supposed to be serving the people? Life is at stake! Let’s treat the sick first, then we can talk!”

Fang shifted his stance, glanced at the youth from Unit 213 behind Cui, then at Cui, who stood awkwardly and said nothing. Fang merely smiled. “I insist.”

The youth shouted a final insult. Fang drew his pistol and chambered a round.

At the same instant, metallic clicks of magazines racking and bolts locking rolled from the armored vehicle behind him and from the terrace, and in the dead night they sounded oddly satisfying. It was obvious that the young man had wasted more words than he should have.

He would not speak after that.

Cui had never expected the “special staff” to be this sharp; he backed up half a step, waving his hands, voice urgent.

“Don’t act rashly. Don’t act rashly, everyone. We got your address from the official rescue site. The state has published, for civilians to survive as fully as possible, safe locations still under state control for evacuation. Your unit’s location was listed there. That is how we found it.”

Which idiot had dreamed this up, he wondered? Special Operations Team wasn’t a People’s Liberation Army garrison. It was a band of survivors in full combat gear. If a crowd discovered only a few dozen fighters, one armored vehicle, and tried to test them, it would become a brawl in no time—and there’d be no chance to explain themselves afterward.
Wang Chen, hearing the words from Fang’s shoulder, frowned as well. He shared Fang’s contempt for the same suicidal plan. What difference was there between this and holding them over live coals?

“By the way,” Cui added in a quick rush, “there’s also a satellite communication kit on the bus. It was dropped by higher command. We picked it up and brought it. If you still doubt us, connect to the network and check.”

Complaints aside, what Cui said was sound, and these were official personnel coming under the team’s own official title. Either the squad could simply shoot the lot of them down and claim they’d never existed, or they had to take them in. A Special Operations unit represented the government, and sheltering civilians was exactly the government’s obligation.

And even aside from principle, if they refused or killed them, these civilians might still post complaints and petitions on the official portal. The unit’s designation could be revoked. Then no official intel, supplies, or military support would come from above—again, nothing impossible.

At that thought, Wang Chen stepped two paces closer and murmured to Fang: “Boss Fang, let the people off the bus first. Let’s see what condition they’re in.”

As second-in-command, Fang ordered it, and Cui obeyed, stepping toward the bus only under the pressure of gun barrels.

When seventeen or eighteen men, women, and children came down, along with a young mother carrying a baby, Yang Xiaohua checked the infantry radar once more: no suspicious signal source. Only then did Wang give the order. He told them to divide by gender and wait in the open yard outside the substation while the bus lights helped them inspect their bodies for zombie bite wounds. If all was clear, they could enter to rest.

Last, one young woman was carried off the bus. Since she was brought down by hand, she was certainly the sick person the Unit 213 youth had mentioned. Assigning shelter for civilians was naturally left to Yang Xiaohua and the others. Cui pulled Fang aside for a polite inquiry and mutual verification. The actual care and examination of the patient fell to Sheng Qingru and Wang Chen: the former had a little medical knowledge, the latter feared no zombie bite and could serve as a human shield when needed.

Wang Chen’s eyes lingered on the girl, still half-comatose on the ground. A beauty, he thought. No wonder that youth had panicked. She did not have the trendy “cone” face of internet stars, and she seemed to have had a little cosmetic work done, but overall she was still an unforced beauty. Unlike Sheng Qingru, whose face was carved sharp and plain, this girl had a round small face, a small forehead, fine brows, wide eyes, and a cherry mouth. Even lying flat, her figure still curved with soft, lush elegance. Any sane man seeing her would find his thoughts straying, unless he were truly blind.