"Who drove it away? How long ago? And... why were you two wrestling?" Shawn asked, trying to remain patient.
Of course, he would have seemed more 'friendly' if the veins on the back of his hand, which was resting on Tallahassee, hadn't bulged, and if Tallahassee hadn't shown a pained expression.
Columbus shrank his neck.
It seemed another rule needed to be added to the survival guide—never anger Shawn, never do anything that makes him mad, the consequences are severe!
Didn't he see that even the volatile Tallahassee couldn't make a ripple in Shawn's hands?
Later, Columbus remembered Shawn lifting Tallahassee with one hand for a long time, always bringing it up in front of Tallahassee.
Of course, those were later stories.
"A white man wearing a dark green vest. I don't know his name, only heard his people call him 'Director'."
"After he got the car, he drove towards the city center."
"You just watched him drive away?" Daryl tilted his head.
"He said he urgently needed it, that it was to save people," Columbus said thoughtfully and earnestly.
"Oh, Lord, please look at this naive idiot! He handed over our only car just because the other party said he needed it!" Merle shouted sarcastically, throwing his hands up to the sky.
A Walker swayed closer from the side. Merle, annoyed, stepped forward and kicked it down, then continued to stomp on it to finish it off.
[Experience + 75]
Columbus quickly added, "I was already prepared to fight them, not retreating an inch!"
But then he continued with an embarrassed expression, "It's just that they had more people than us, and more guns."
Hearing this, Shawn understood.
Columbus was cautious, which was good, but he was 'overly cautious'.
He would diligently follow the rules written in the 'survival guide', trying to avoid all conflicts.
"What about you? Could you just watch them leave like that?" Shawn looked at Tallahassee.
Tallahassee was a man of principle, despite being volatile and playful, he had his own set of rules for how he did things.
"They said... they might be able to get some edible cream puffs."
Tallahassee shrugged.
'Alright, these two are useless.'
Shawn almost wanted to go back in time and hit himself with a piece of 'rotten meat' for believing they could guard the car.
"Also, this bastard just said my survival rules were'sissy checklists'..."
"That's right, sissy, but now you also need to add an idiot!" Before Columbus could finish, Tallahassee interjected sharply.
Columbus looked at him, dragging his suitcase, wanting to throw it over, but he was blocked by Shawn, who suddenly appeared between them.
"The car's gone, and you still have the nerve to fight?" Shawn glanced at them and sighed.
'Forget it, it's what I chose after all.'
Then Shawn gave Daryl a look, and Daryl instantly understood.
He picked up his crossbow and pursued along the direction the fire truck had left.
Daryl was skilled at tracking; what seemed like a blank road to ordinary people revealed subtle clues to him.
As long as Daryl was given a target and a direction, he could track it.
Daryl was inherently an 'outdoorsy' talent, which was why Shawn specifically brought him out.
The group of five proceeded along a road outside the forest that led into Atlanta.
Upon entering the city, Daryl suddenly stopped, knelt down, and touched the ground with his rough fingers, then looked horizontally at the road ahead.
"They must have been living here for some time; they know the road conditions very well here."
"When we came back the second time, we still didn't dare to drive the car directly in, but they dared to do so."
"It seems we need to prepare for a tough fight."
After speaking, Daryl looked at Columbus and the other with an expression of disappointment.
Following his gaze, Columbus quickly put his hands in his pockets and whistled, while Tallahassee cooperatively looked at a non-existent watch on his wrist, glancing around.
Sometimes they would bicker until they started fighting, but other times they were overly coordinated.
He really didn't know what was going on with these two.
Daryl shook his head, exchanged a glance with Shawn, and then continued tracking.
As they approached the city center, the few of them instinctively looked up at the building beside them.
"It can't be such a coincidence, can it?"
This building was precisely the one Shawn and the two had left earlier; they hadn't expected to circle around and return to it.
Following the last trace of the vehicle, Daryl pinpointed the target on another building in the city center—Grady Memorial Hospital.
It was approximately 1.4 kilometers from the building Shawn had searched.
It wasn't as tall as that building, but Grady Memorial Hospital looked different from ordinary buildings at a glance.
Compared to abandoned buildings, this one clearly showed recent signs of human habitation.
Bodies on both sides of the street had been cleared, especially at the entrances and exits, where all obstructing cars and military vehicle wreckage had been moved to facilitate vehicle entry and exit.
Grady Memorial Hospital
Looking up at the building, Shawn thought to himself, "Could it be..."
But before the five could make a move, a commotion suddenly came from the end of the street.
A police car was in front, its massive form unable to conceal the fire truck behind it.
They gradually slowed down. As they arrived in front of the ground-level entrance of the building, the main doors suddenly opened, and several figures in police uniforms emerged. After a brief check, they allowed the police car and fire truck to drive inside.
"They didn't go straight in just now? What happened that made them take a detour?" Shawn was a little confused.
Looking at the tracks Daryl had followed all the way, Shawn had thought they had already gone inside. He hadn't expected that the five of them, arriving late, would still happen to witness the fire truck entering the garage; the timing didn't quite match up.
The only explanation was that the fire truck needed to take an extra detour to pick up something or someone...
Shawn frowned and looked at Columbus again.
"What other features did the person who drove the car away have?"
Columbus thought for a moment: "He spoke very fiercely, but it wasn't genuinely fierce; it was like he was faking it."
What kind of vague characteristic was that?
Shawn stopped thinking about it and instead instructed Columbus and Tallahassee.
"No matter what, we need to get the fire truck back. If you want to continue following us, you need to follow orders and stop doing strange things."
Both nodded in unison, patting their chests to assure Shawn that he could be completely at ease.
But little did they know, the more they did that, the more uneasy Shawn became.
Shawn opened his mouth to say something else, but the next second, he suddenly heard several gunshots coming from the ground floor of the building, like distant thunder suddenly erupting nearby. Everyone instinctively ducked down.
Columbus quickly glanced around, and seeing everyone at the same level, he suppressed a laugh and spoke.
"I thought I was the only one who would do that."
"Stop it."
"Shut up!"
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