Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 23 – Ambush in the Stairwell

The moment Lin Fan set foot on the first step of the stairs, she sensed something was wrong.

The sensation under her feet was off.

She crouched down and gently brushed the ground with her fingers.

Mud.

Damp mud, carrying a foul smell.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Ming asked in a low voice.

Lin Fan didn’t answer, instead carefully observing the tracks on the stairs.

It wasn’t just one person’s footprints.

At least three people.

And the mud was still fresh; it must have been left while they were out.

Her gaze swept to the windowsill.

There were several small, circular gray marks.

Cigarette ash.

Lin Fan’s pupils contracted instantly.

She had gone up and down the stairs countless times while moving supplies and remembered every detail clearly.

There had definitely been nothing on the windowsill.

Someone had been here.

And it was during the time they were out.

Looking down from this position, one had a clear view of the community’s main gate.

These people had been lying in wait here all along!

“Ruyan, what on earth is wrong?” Zhou Ming’s voice held a trace of anxiety.

Lin Fan slowly stood up, her mind rapidly analyzing the situation.

Three people.

A premeditated ambush.

And the chosen location was extremely clever.

Judging by the freshness of the mud, they must have seen Lin Fan and him return to the community and immediately gone upstairs to set up the ambush.

Their objective was obvious.

To wait for the prey to walk into the trap.

“Ming-ge,” Lin Fan lowered her voice, “we’re being targeted.”

“What?” Zhou Ming’s face instantly turned pale.

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“There are people upstairs.” Lin Fan pointed to the muddy tracks. “At least three.”

“They’ve been watching us.”

Zhou Ming tightened his grip on the engineer shovel in his hand. “Then what do we do?”

Several options flashed through Lin Fan’s mind.

Run?

Impossible.

All their supplies were on the eighth floor.

That was her entire capital for survival in the apocalypse.

She absolutely could not abandon it.

A frontal assault?

The enemy had the geographical advantage, and she didn’t know what weapons they had.

The risk was too great.

Wait?

Even more impossible.

The longer they waited, the more variables could arise.

Besides, night was about to fall, and the zombies’ activity would increase significantly.

There was only one option.

A preemptive strike.

The two of them silently crept to the corner of the seventh-floor stairwell.

Lin Fan took out two Molotov cocktails from her backpack, her movements so gentle they were almost silent.

She handed one Molotov cocktail to Zhou Ming and kept the other for herself.

The moment Zhou Ming saw the Molotov cocktail, he knew what Lin Fan wanted to do.

“I’ll count to three. We’ll light them and throw them on the eighth floor at the same time.”

“Then we immediately hide in the stairwell corner.”

“They can only run towards the escape route.”

“When they come, we’ll take them out one by one.”

Zhou Ming’s hand trembled slightly.

Dealing with zombies was one thing.

But killing people…

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“Ming-ge.” Lin Fan gripped his hand. “Think about what happened to that woman this morning.”

“If we’re caught, my fate will be even more miserable than hers.”

Zhou Ming’s eyes instantly hardened.

To protect Ruyan, he was willing to do anything.

Even kill.

Lin Fan nodded in satisfaction.

She lit the Molotov cocktail in her hand, and Zhou Ming did the same.

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One!”

The two Molotov cocktails flew towards the eighth floor at almost the same time.

Orange flames instantly erupted in the corridor.

The entire eighth floor was engulfed in a great fire.

“What’s going on?!”

“Fire!”

“Run!”

Panicked shouts and hurried footsteps came from upstairs.

Lin Fan and Zhou Ming quickly hid in the stairwell corner.

She gripped her engineer shovel, her heart pounding like a drum.

The footsteps grew closer and closer.

The first figure appeared at the top of the stairs.

It was a man with yellow hair, his face filled with terror.

Just as he stepped onto the landing, Lin Fan’s engineer shovel smashed viciously into his forehead.

Thwack!

A dull thud.

The man with yellow hair didn’t even make a sound before collapsing on the stairs.

Fresh blood trickled down from his hair.

The second person followed close behind.

It was a bald, burly man.

He saw his fallen companion and was just about to shout a warning.

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Zhou Ming’s engineer shovel had already swung over.

The edge of the shovel sliced precisely into the bald man’s temple.

The burly man’s body stiffened for a moment, then crashed to the ground.

Two people dealt with in less than ten seconds.

Lin Fan felt a surge of excitement.

This feeling of controlling life and death made the blood in her veins boil.

But where was the third person?

She pricked up her ears, listening intently.

The fire upstairs had begun to weaken, but the smoke was still thick.

Suddenly, a grim voice came from within the smoke.

“Don’t move.”

The scar-faced man who emerged from the smoke held a black pistol in his hand, steady as a rock.

Lin Fan’s heart sank.

A gun.

Even at Lei Li’s settlement of nearly a hundred people, she hadn’t seen any firearms.

She never expected this scar-faced man to actually have a pistol!

In these early days of the apocalypse, possessing a firearm meant absolute dominance.

Her gaze swept to Zhou Ming, who was gripping his engineer shovel tightly, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“Fuck, to think we’d get ambushed by two little shits.”

Knife Brother coughed a few times, his eyes burning with rage.

He glanced at his two subordinates lying in pools of blood.

Yellow Hair and Bald Head, dead just like that.

But he didn’t care; they were just two dispensable lackeys.

Lin Fan quickly raised the weapon in her hands.

“Brother, don’t be rash. We can give you all the supplies.”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you were trying to do.”

Knife Brother’s voice was chillingly grim.

Suddenly.

Bang!

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A gunshot tore through the silence of the stairwell.

A blossom of blood erupted from Zhou Ming’s shoulder. His body slammed heavily against the wall, then rolled into the shadows of the corridor.

Lin Fan’s eyes widened.

“Ming-ge!”

Her voice carried the perfect amount of fear, despair, and devastation.

Knife Brother watched her performance, a savage sneer appearing on his face.

“What dirty tricks haven’t I seen? Your little ploys only work on those two idiots.”

The dark muzzle of the gun turned to Lin Fan’s brow.

“Open the door.”

“Or the next shot will blow up this pretty face of yours.”

Lin Fan trembled all over, fumbling in her backpack for the keys. The corner of her eye darted a quick glance at the shadow where Zhou Ming had fallen.

It was deathly still over there; she couldn’t see the situation clearly at all.

“Hurry up!” Knife Brother growled impatiently.

Lin Fan clumsily opened the door.

The moment the door opened, the mountain of supplies piled up inside made Knife Brother’s eyes instantly burst with extreme greed.

“Holy shit!”

Rice, flour, canned goods, medicine, outdoor gear…

This stuff was enough for him to live comfortably for a year!

“Get in.”

Knife Brother pressed the gun barrel against the small of Lin Fan’s back, pushing her into the room.

Click.

He locked the door from the inside.

Knife Brother greedily scanned every item in the room.

Finally, his gaze fell back on Lin Fan, raking over her from head to toe, filled with undisguised lechery and possessiveness.

“I didn’t expect you two lovebirds to have actually gotten so much good stuff.”

He turned, using the gun’s muzzle to lift Lin Fan’s chin, the rough pad of his thumb stroking her smooth cheek.

“Now.”

His voice dropped, hoarse with desire.

“Take off your clothes.”