Chapter Thirty-Seven: Golden Sands

The power of the Star of Demolition was something Xie Han had mostly heard about from others, but had never truly witnessed himself. Now, the thunderous roar reverberated through his eardrums, and the violent explosion blasted a hole the size of a human head straight through the floor. Xie Han was taken aback by the destructive force of the demolition rounds, but he did not hesitate, quickly emptying the remaining four bullets from the Star of Demolition. Soon, an opening large enough for two people to pass through appeared before him.

Peering down through the hole, Xie Han saw that his chosen spot led directly into the bank’s employee area—saving him the trouble of breaking through the counters downstairs. He loaded a new magazine, fully aware that such a commotion would have drawn the attention of any nearby zombies. Fortunately, there were none inside the bank itself; it seemed that when the XR virus struck, business hours had not yet begun here.

After tossing down a rope, Xie Han slid into the darkness below. The entire city’s power grid had been destroyed long ago, and the bank’s emergency systems, after three and a half years, had long since run dry. It was for this reason that the alarm system remained silent, despite the chaos. The lighting was poor, with only a sliver of daylight seeping through the cracks of the front doors, but for Xie Han, it was enough.

Typically, the bank vault was located just behind the employees’ work area. This branch of the Bank of China was not particularly large, so its vault was about the size of a single room. From the entrance, it was clear the entire chamber was reinforced with steel walls. The vault door itself was made from titanium alloy, secured with fingerprint, voice, and retina recognition triple locks. In Xie Han’s view, brute force was the only way in.

After swapping in regular bullets, he once again loaded demolition rounds. “Bang, bang…” Five consecutive shots were fired at the electronic lock. The power of the demolition rounds was terrifying—so much so that even the titanium alloy, hard as it was, was punctured, leaving a hole the size of a fist.

Raising his foot, Xie Han kicked the door hard, and it swung open with a crash. The pitch-black vault was instantly illuminated as the lights flickered on.

“Tsk, tsk—three and a half years, and this vault’s power system still works. And it’s running independently from the bank’s main grid,” Xie Han murmured in admiration. Banks truly spared no expense; a system like this must have cost several million at least. If every bank were outfitted similarly, how much would that add up to?

This was Xie Han’s first time setting foot in a bank vault. Such places weren’t accessible to just anyone—even lifelong bank employees might never set foot inside. The vault’s code was usually held by the manager, and was only used when the cash transport arrived each day.

What greeted his eyes was a city of metal shelves, but instead of goods, they were stacked with neat bundles of banknotes. There were only ten shelves, but the impact on Xie Han was overwhelming—for each one was piled high with crisp, hundred-yuan bills. By his rough estimation, there had to be at least thirty million yuan here, perhaps more. Xie Han felt dizzy; never in his life had he seen so much money.

His reaction was as ordinary and as vulgar as could be: first, he cried out in astonishment, then dove at the shelves, frantically pulling the bundles of notes toward himself. Soon, the bills were heaped before him, so many that he sat atop them, shouting to vent his excitement.

But Xie Han was no ordinary man. This frenzy for money lasted only a minute or so before he sobered up. This was the apocalypse, a world where paper currency was as worthless as scrap. Glancing at the notes, he noticed the print dates—2045 or thereabouts. Even if he hauled them back to the present, not even a recycler would dare take them as wastepaper; the design and dates were simply too suspicious.

“Gold. Damn it, I came here for gold…” Xie Han slapped his own forehead and leapt up from the pile. He started searching the vault. Soon, at the very back, he found a row of thirty greyish-black burlap sacks. He lifted one—it was heavy, filled with something granular. The sack was stamped with “2500g.” Untying it, he revealed the yellow glint of sand inside.

Xie Han’s eyes widened. “Yellow sand? Gold? Gold dust?” The words flashed through his mind until he settled on the right one—gold dust. Suddenly, his breath grew heavy, a rush of indescribable excitement flooding from his heart to his limbs. Now he finally understood why so many people dreamed of robbing banks—not just for the money, but for the thrill.

“Struck it rich…” Xie Han roared, nearly incoherent. All thirty sacks were uniform, each holding 2,500 grams of gold dust. Seventy-five kilograms in total—worth more than fifteen million yuan. Xie Han no longer cared why such a small bank had so much gold dust. Fifteen million was a figure to drive anyone mad. He wanted to stash the gold in his spatial storage at once, but soon realized, to his dismay, that it was already filled with food supplies.

“What an idiot I am…” Xie Han howled, forced to painfully clear out half the food to make space for the thirty sacks of gold. He looked at his discarded supplies with reluctance, but in the end, left them behind, hurriedly exiting the vault and climbing back up the rope.

Ever since acquiring superhuman strength, Xie Han’s senses had also sharpened. As soon as he reached the residential floor above, he sensed zombies gathering outside the door. His earlier noise must have roused the ones wandering below. As Xie Han appeared, the zombies caught the scent of living flesh and began to hurl themselves at the metal door he had locked.

Checking his watch, Xie Han calculated that from the moment he left the van until now, barely seven minutes had passed. That left him less than three minutes. Three minutes—hardly enough to hit another bank, just enough to get back to the van. Gritting his teeth, he loaded demolition rounds, glared at the door being battered by zombies, and growled, “Tough luck for you, running into me.”

“Boom…”

The iron door was no match for the demolition rounds. Where the titanium door had only yielded a fist-sized hole, the iron door was half torn away by a single shot, spraying gore from the zombies pressed against it.

“Damn, that’s some power…” Xie Han muttered in awe, even as zombies began pouring through the ruined entry. Luckily, there were only seven or eight. Disgusted by their hideous faces, Xie Han wasted no extra effort—four demolition rounds reduced them to a pile of useless meat. He dashed out the door and sprinted toward the roof.

The distant stutter of machine gun fire grew ever more intense. Reaching the rooftop, Xie Han didn’t pause, but leaped from one building to the next. As he raced across the rooftops, he saw endless hordes of zombies below, all surging toward the warehouse. By now, he had lost count of how many there were—it was a world of the undead as far as the eye could see. Every inch of the street, every gap and corner, was filled with zombies.

From his high vantage, Xie Han could see dozens of streets in the vicinity, all flooded with zombies converging on the warehouse. He had no doubt what would happen if the convoy didn’t retreat soon. Even if the machine guns could hold them back, how long before the bullets ran out?

(ps: Don’t ask me why there’s so much gold dust in a bank… sweat.)