Everyone Mutates — 4-in-1
In the past, in this kind of situation, it would probably have been Jun Yueyue pushing Fang Anyu away and then explaining to him that someone was knocking at the door. But now, Fang Anyu had clearly heard it too. He angrily punched the kang, making Jun Yueyue unable to hold back a laugh.
Fang Anyu looked at Jun Yueyue with a rather resentful expression, the dissatisfaction in his eyes practically overflowing. Jun Yueyue got up, patted his cheek to comfort him, and went to open the door with a smile.
Unexpectedly, standing outside were Li Li and Jun Yu.
Jun Yueyue was a little surprised and was just about to ask what was going on when Jun Yu suddenly stepped forward and hugged her. Then, softly and pitifully, she began to cry.
“What’s wrong?” Jun Yueyue held Jun Yu and looked at Li Li. “What happened?”
Fang Anyu had also tidied himself up and come out of the room. He stood in the doorway, watching Jun Yu cling to Jun Yueyue’s arms and cry.
Li Li said, “We found Old Master Jun. Didn’t I tell you a few days ago that I’d made contact with a team of survivors outside? I promised to provide them with a place to stay at the base, and in return they agreed to go into the sanatorium to look for Old Master Jun. They called just now and said they’ve found him.”
When Jun Yu heard this, she cried even harder with a sob. Jun Yueyue held her and patted her back.
“Isn’t that good? Let them bring Grandpa out. We’ll lower the drawbridge and welcome them in.”
Li Li’s expression changed slightly. He said, “They found the old master, but… he’s already gone.”
Even though Jun Yueyue had never really had much affection for Old Master Jun, after hearing this, she still could not help feeling upset. She was silent for a moment before asking, “How did he die?”
“It wasn’t mutation, and he wasn’t bitten. The old master died of cancer. He passed peacefully. A medical worker stayed by his side and took care of him the whole time. He didn’t suffer,” Li Li said. “But when that group was preparing to bring the old master’s body and the surviving caregiver back, they got trapped in the sanatorium by a horde of zombies. We have to set out now to rescue them.”
Jun Yueyue hugged Jun Yu a little tighter. Her own eyes were slightly red as she coaxed her in a low voice, “Yu’er, don’t cry. We’ll go together to bring Grandpa home.”
Jun Yu gave a muffled hum, let go of Jun Yueyue, and threw herself into Li Li’s arms instead. Li Li said to Jun Yueyue, “Get ready. I’ll go notify Anyan and Ji Fei. While we’re out this time, we’ll also look for Xiao Ding’s family, and that older woman whose mouth had blood splashed on it. After two hours, nothing happened, so I’ve already let her go.”
Jun Yueyue nodded. “All right. You go notify Ji Fei and Anyan. We’ll be there soon. We’ll meet at the resort drawbridge entrance.”
After Ji Fei and Jun Yu left, Jun Yueyue looked at Fang Anyu. This time, they were going out to rescue people trapped by zombies. Jun Yueyue had heard about that team two days ago. There were also two ability users among them. The fact that they had managed to survive outside for so many days and dared to go into the sanatorium to search for someone showed they were not just a disorganized mob. If they were trapped inside the sanatorium, that meant the number of zombies was definitely considerable. It was not hard to imagine that this mission would be very dangerous.
Jun Yueyue looked at Fang Anyu and moved her lips. She wanted to tell him to stay at the base. There was plenty of food and water here, and now that all the zombies had been cleared out, it was very safe. Jun Yueyue still did not want Fang Anyu to take risks.
But Fang Anyu seemed to have guessed what she was thinking. He stepped forward directly, grabbed her hand, and shook his head.
Jun Yueyue said, “It’s very dangerous.”
Fang Anyu took out his phone and typed:
—I can’t leave you, or I’ll die.
If he had said something like, “I’m worried about you,” or “I just want to go,” or “We’ll face danger together,” Jun Yueyue definitely would have still tried to persuade him. But when he put it like that, and when she thought about how every time she had gone too far from Fang Anyu these past few days, or had left him for too long, he had always been in terrible pain when she returned—last time he had even vomited blood and fainted—Jun Yueyue really did not dare test what would happen if she left the base and could not return for a while, even though she did not understand the principle behind it.
So Jun Yueyue dismissed the idea. Instead, she began urging Fang Anyu to change clothes. She changed too, and they armed themselves fully.
This was different from dealing with zombies inside the resort. Inside the resort, they could deal with the zombies in batches, clearing some each day, dividing the area, separating the zombies like slicing up a cake, then eliminating them one by one.
But outside was different. They did not know how many survivors were still in Pingchuan City. That day, they had only passed through the urban area, yet there had already been no small number of zombies wandering the streets. The sanatorium itself had a lot of patients and medical staff. If the wandering crowds outside had also been attracted there, the number would be quite alarming.
Jun Yueyue and the others had not found many survivors in the resort at all. Even if they counted everyone with fighting ability, there were only a few dozen people. But when they went out, they could not take every combat-capable person with them. They still had to leave some at the base. Although they had thoroughly cleared the base, they could not guarantee there were no stragglers.
Besides, after they rescued the people and returned, they would need people to help lower the drawbridge, and even prepare to fight any zombies that followed their vehicles across it.
In the end, they decided to take most of the men capable of fighting with them. Fatty would stay behind. When Xiao Ding heard that they were also going to look for his family, he insisted on going too. Although the wound on his leg had not fully healed and he limped when he walked, his movements were no slower than anyone else’s.
Everyone gathered at the resort’s drawbridge exit. They drove a large truck and loaded some emergency supplies onto it.
Just like when they had first arrived, several people sat in the cab. Jun Yu was actually not suited to going out at a time like this, but this time they were going to bring Old Master Jun back. Jun Yu had been closest to him. Ever since she learned that Old Master Jun had died, she had been depressed. Her eyes and cheeks were red from crying, and she leaned against the seat, staring outside. Even Li Li did not really dare to comfort her.
In the face of a loved one’s death, no matter what words of comfort were said, they all seemed pale and powerless.
Jun Yueyue did not feel good either, but her sadness was only faint. Everyone was silent. Fatty pulled the drawbridge lever. Sitting inside the truck, they watched the boat planks of the drawbridge slowly spread out. None of them felt confident about this rescue.
There were countless zombies outside. They had fought for an entire morning before and had not rested properly. Everyone was exhausted, so they seized the time to lean against each other and rest.
Once the drawbridge fully opened, Ji Fei drove the truck onto it and headed toward Pingchuan City.
The sanatorium was not in the city centre of Pingchuan, but it was not very remote either. They drove through the desolate, silent city filled with a rotten stench. When the zombies wandering the streets heard the sound of the vehicle, they followed behind. But because they were slow, they were continuously left behind and never formed a large group. Occasionally, some clung to the railings of the truck and refused to let go, but the people at the back dealt with them.
Driving straight from the resort to the sanatorium took a little over half an hour in total because the road was blocked from time to time by chain-reaction car accidents. When they arrived outside the sanatorium, they parked at the roadside. Everyone looked inside, but the place was silent. There were only a few zombies wandering in the courtyard, most of them elderly people whose legs and feet had already been much less agile even when alive. They did not look very threatening.
Li Li looked worriedly at Jun Yu. Jun Yu’s face was now red in an abnormal way. At this point, it was obvious she was not red from crying.
She had a fever.
They just did not know whether it was because she had been shocked by the news of Old Master Jun’s death, or whether she was also about to mutate.
But whichever it was, this situation was clearly not the right time.
The call connected. The other side picked up, but for some reason the signal crackled badly.
“We’re here. Where are you?” Li Li asked the person on the other end.
“We’re on the top floor…” The voice on the other end kept cutting in and out. “You come from… both sides together… only then can we kill the group of zombies in the corridor.”
“I can’t hear clearly. Repeat that,” Li Li said with some difficulty. After talking to them for a while, he finally understood.
They were all trapped on the rooftop. There were not many zombies in the courtyard, but there were many inside the building, gathered in groups. Moreover, the zombies moved in a very regular pattern. When they lunged to kill, it was as if they were organized.
“There are second-stage zombies inside the building?” Jun Yueyue frowned.
Fang Anyu sat beside her, closed his eyes, and sensed it. After a moment, he was shocked not only by the number of zombies inside the building, but also by the fact that there was more than one second-stage zombie.
How could there be so many second-stage zombies in there?
Fang Anyu opened his eyes and nervously grabbed Jun Yueyue’s hand.
“They said they have one water-type ability user and one strength-mutated person. Half their companions also died inside the building and joined the zombie horde,” Li Li said gravely. “Whether we face a large-scale frontal encounter or not, there’s only one option. Since they’re on the rooftop, I think the first thing we should do after going in is close the building entrance and stop the zombies from coming out.”
“Then clear the wandering zombies in the courtyard and find a way to get them down from the rooftop,” Fang Anyan continued. “If there really are second-stage zombies inside, going in means we’ll just get trapped too.”
“I think that works. We need to set a bottom line. Under the condition that we can protect ourselves, we save the people on the rooftop as much as possible,” Jun Yueyue said. “After we go in, we don’t need to shut the main gate too tightly. We just need to keep the zombies outside from getting in. We have to prepare for the worst and make sure that, if we really can’t do anything, we can still drive out.”
After everyone discussed the plan, they contacted the people inside the building again and explained their rescue method. The other side agreed too. The highest floor was the seventh floor. There was an external ladder on the side of the building, but it was too old and rusty, with loose screws. A section at the bottom was broken off too. They would have to use ropes or something else to lower themselves for part of the way. Otherwise, even jumping onto the truck bed would be from the height of the second floor.
But now they had no other option. They told the trapped group upstairs to find something that could act as a buffer for the lower half of the ladder. Their side also dealt with the zombies following near the truck, then got out and opened the sanatorium gate.
The truck drove inside. Jun Yu’s face was flushed red, tears still in her eyes as she looked up at the roof of the sanatorium. Fang Anyu looked very tense. This time, he really had no confidence. Sweat had already appeared at his temples. Just now, he had tried to resist the second-stage zombies in the building. One or two would have been manageable, but there were five second-stage zombies in the entire building. He could not take care of all of them, and he also had no way to simultaneously stop all the zombies inside from moving.
Fang Anyu held Jun Yueyue’s hand tighter and tighter. He knew this group had come not only because Old Master Jun’s body was here. The bigger reason was that they had received the trapped survivors’ plea for help.
Fang Anyu was very glad that the people around him had not, because of the apocalypse, begun to only care about themselves. Along this journey, they had made difficult choices, but everyone could still say they had a clear conscience. When people were alive, they had to leave some humanity in themselves. Otherwise, how could they be considered alive?
Fang Anyu had heard them say during meetings that they wanted to establish a survivor base. A survivor base, of course, could not consist of only a few dozen people. In the future, they would go out countless times to rescue people. After all, humans were social animals. No matter how isolated the resort was, they would always have to face the outside world.
So he did not reveal the truth and frighten everyone into retreating just because there were several more second-stage zombies. First, it was not yet the time when he absolutely had to expose himself. Second, no matter how many zombies there were or how severe the danger, he would face it together with everyone.
Fang Anyu only held his phone. After hesitating again and again, he typed a line and showed it to Jun Yueyue.
—You must be careful. You know I love you, right?
Before getting out of the truck, Jun Yueyue looked at the words Fang Anyu had typed. She had expected that Fang Anyu would tell her to be careful, but she had not expected him to suddenly confess at a time like this.
Her movements paused. She looked at Fang Anyu and smiled. “I know. I love you too.”
But Fang Anyu shook his head, deleted the line, and typed again:
—You don’t know. I love you more than you imagine.
Although this was truly not the time for her heart to flutter, Jun Yueyue still felt as if her heart had been wrapped in a warm current because of those words. If not for the situation, if the two of them had been curled up at home, she would definitely have dug to the bottom of it and asked Fang Anyu exactly how much he loved her.
But she was in a hurry to get down and clear the wandering zombies in the courtyard with everyone, then close the building doors to prevent the horde inside from coming out. So she could only quickly hook an arm around Fang Anyu’s neck, kiss him, and say, “I love you more than you imagine too.”
Then she let her heart pound wildly with that fluttering feeling and jumped out of the truck with a smile.
What was there to fear about the apocalypse? In this life, she already had everything.
Fang Anyu watched Jun Yueyue’s back and sat in the truck, closing his eyes. Beside him, Jun Yu’s breathing was very rapid. Her fever was severe, burning so badly that even her eye sockets and breath seemed to be on fire.
Her eyes could barely open anymore. Her head buzzed, and the world spun around her, but she stubbornly looked upward.
Fang Anyu slightly turned his body, facing away from her, and closed his eyes to sense the number of zombies in the courtyard.
There were indeed far fewer than inside the building. Fang Anyu could not find Jun Yueyue’s position and did not secretly help. The zombies in the courtyard were relatively less lethal. Most of the elderly people had already had poor mobility, and after becoming zombies, they had not magically recovered.
Fang Anyu’s eyes quietly turned greyish white. He blocked the second-stage zombies inside the building from sending attack commands outward.
Although there were not many zombies outside, they were scattered everywhere. After the sanatorium gate was shut, everyone, to prevent the zombies inside the building from coming out, not only closed the building doors but also did not try to lure the wandering zombies with sound, so as not to agitate the ones inside.
So they split up to clear them, which took some time.
By the time they finished clearing all of them, the sky was already about to darken. It was really not suitable for battle at this hour, but the trapped people had already run out of ammunition and food. Some were badly injured and had lost a lot of blood. They could not find somewhere to rest and come back tomorrow. Saving them could not wait.
Fortunately, the apocalypse had not lasted too long yet, and Pingchuan’s electricity had not stopped. As soon as the sky darkened, several floodlights in the courtyard lit up.
After everyone finished clearing the zombies in the courtyard, they drove the truck to the side of the building where the ladder was. The truck bed stopped under the ladder. Only then did they meet the gaze of the people who had been watching from above.
“Did you find rope or anything like that?” Li Li lowered his voice and shouted upward.
A man leaned his head out and answered, “No rope. We found a steel bar. We’ve already bent it and hooked it onto the last section of the ladder. People can climb down along it.”
“That’ll work. Throw the steel bar down onto the ground. It’s too dangerous to climb down from above while holding it. We’ll hook it. The ladder is old, so come one by one,” Ji Fei said from the truck cab. “We’ll have people below to catch you.”
“How many people do you have?” Fang Anyan asked. “Is the old master’s body up there too?”
Jun Yu had been forcing herself to stay conscious. She opened the truck window slightly and looked up. When she heard this, her ears immediately perked up.
The man who answered, whether deliberately or not, cleverly avoided the topic of Old Master Jun. He said, “There are more than ten of us in total. Three injured girls and two children.”
“The children come down first.”
Everyone reached an agreement. The first to climb down the ladder was a little girl. The people upstairs had also made preparations. A rope made from tied-together clothes was fastened around the little girl’s waist to prevent her from accidentally falling.
The little girl did not know whether she was especially sensible, scared silly, or numb. In short, she climbed very carefully and did not cry or scream. When she reached the bottom, there was no more ladder below. She obediently listened to instructions, untied the clothes around her waist, and grabbed the steel bar.
However, a child’s arm strength was far too limited. She could grip the ladder because there were footholds, but the steel bar was so thin that she had to rely entirely on her little hands. She had not slid far before she suddenly slipped down.
At the critical moment when everyone sucked in a breath, Fang Anyan opened his arms and steadily caught the little girl. It was only because of his mutation that he could catch that weight, but even so, the impact forced him two steps back.
Once he had the child in his arms, everyone could finally see clearly by the nearby lights. It was not that the child had not cried or screamed; she had something clenched between her teeth.
But this also showed the people upstairs were smart. Not to mention that screaming would attract zombies and crying would waste strength, but if she accidentally fell from a height like this, biting something would also prevent her from biting her tongue.
After handing the child, whose face was covered in tears, to a woman behind him, Fang Anyan clearly became the main person responsible for catching people. The next to come down was a little boy older than the girl, around ten years old. His movements were just as careful. He only fell midway down the steel bar, and Fang Anyan caught him too.
It was a good start. The people above and below both showed faint smiles. The building was also quiet. In the entire courtyard, apart from the still lights, there was only the silent cooperation of the people escaping down the ladder.
Everything seemed to be going very smoothly.
The only exception was Fang Anyu inside the truck. His face had grown paler and paler. He was competing with the second-stage zombies inside. His head hurt as if it were splitting. His eyes were a dead, grey-white colour. He gripped the truck handle, looking even more miserable than Jun Yu, who had a fever.
Jun Yu finally could not hold on anymore and lay down. She had roughly prepared herself mentally, but when the people above really changed the subject, she was still drowned in grief. Old Master Jun had already been dead for so many days. Even if those people had found him, it was impossible for them to bring a corpse that had already begun to rot. Besides, half of that group had died too. They had barely managed to flee to the rooftop, so how could they have carried a body with them?
In truth, in a world now full of zombies wandering everywhere, compared to the living, corpses were the least important thing. But Jun Yu had not been able to see Old Master Jun one last time, and she still could not control her sorrow.
It now seemed that she probably would not be able to see Old Master Jun’s body. Jun Yu lay on the seat, silently shedding tears. By chance, she noticed that Fang Anyu, not far from her, seemed to be trembling. Jun Yu reached toward him and weakly asked, “Brother-in-law, what’s wrong…”
At the same time, the third person outside had already climbed down the ladder. This person was injured, and it looked serious. But adults were still better than children. He did not fall from the steel bar and only let go at the very end, greatly reducing the impact on Fang Anyan below.
The fourth person was a slightly overweight man. He looked around anxiously, his expression full of panic, and his legs trembled as he stepped on the ladder.
He was afraid of heights.
When he reached the middle section, he was still fairly calm. Although he was trembling, in order to survive, he gritted his teeth and tried not to look down.
But suddenly, with a creak, the ladder began to tilt. A screw on one side directly snapped loose. The man abruptly lifted his head and looked up, only to see that one end of the ladder had already broken. The remaining section, because he was hanging from it, was visibly twisting.
The man was so frightened that he let out an inhuman scream. The people below also saw what was happening and collectively gasped. A man directing from above quickly leaned out and growled at the man hanging mid-air, “Don’t scream!”
But seeing one side of the ladder twisting beyond recognition, the rusty iron not even as sturdy as rope, he could not stop screaming. He even glanced down.
That glance was disastrous.
There were still several floors between him and the ground. Whether he fell or jumped, the result would only be death—
The man screamed and suddenly exerted force, but not downward. Instead, by instinct, he climbed upward. The man above had already thrown down the rope made of tied clothing, but the swaying ladder could not support the man’s weight. Without even making the slightest sound, it snapped completely.
The man was only half a palm away from the rope made of clothes, but he failed to grab it. Together with the ladder, he fell toward the ground below.
Everyone on the truck who was waiting to help cried out at once. Fang Anyan growled, “Get out of the way!”
Everyone quickly scattered. In this situation, even Fang Anyan could not catch him. Besides, what fell was not only a man, but also a long section of iron ladder and the steel bar hanging beneath it. Even with his mutation, he was still flesh and blood. It was impossible to catch them. He could only get out of the way.
The fall was only a very short distance. The iron ladder and steel bar separated in mid-air, stabbing straight down toward different parts of the truck.
Clang!
Bang! Clatter!
The steel bar smashed directly into the truck bed. The iron ladder collided with the iron railing on the truck, producing a deafening sound. During the impact, it changed direction and stabbed diagonally into the side window of the truck cab, shattering the glass.
The glass of large trucks was made of special material. After it shattered, it scattered like beans, falling in a loud rush onto the concrete ground. Interwoven with the red spray of blood spreading after the muffled sound of a human body hitting the ground—covered by the thunderous impact—it formed a shocking field of “rubies.”
The ladder became stuck on the truck railing. Everyone crouched down with their heads covered. After the sound stopped, they stood up, still shaken. The man’s scream had stopped abruptly. No one leaned over the side of the truck to look. Falling onto concrete from that height… there was almost no possibility of survival.
When Jun Yueyue heard the sound of glass shattering, she looked toward the direction where the ladder had pierced through. It was exactly the passenger side where Fang Anyu was sitting!
Just as she was about to jump down and check by the truck, a chorus of zombie roars suddenly came from inside the building. Compared with this, the sound of the man screaming while hanging in mid-air was simply like a kitten’s meow beside the united roar of a pack of tigers.
It was as if something invisible had lost control. The instant those sounds rang out, countless windows shattered too. The zombies that had seemed motionless inside the building suddenly all came alive. Driven by the second-stage zombies inside, they did not even head for the stairs to find an exit. Instead, they directly smashed through the windows on every floor and jumped out of the building.
Under the dark sky, the floodlights in the courtyard illuminated only the tip of the iceberg of this spectacular scene of bodies leaping from the building. But the people standing in the truck bed, stunned, saw only that fleeting glimpse and already felt their hair stand on end, their bodies chilled to the bone. In that instant, it was as if they were standing at the edge of the Yellow Springs, watching ghostly demons crawl out from underground one after another, roaring and howling, twisted into all kinds of terrifying shapes, surging toward them one after another. Death rolled over them like a collapsing mountain and a raging sea. Every one of them stiffened, unable to breathe.
“Run! Drive!” As Li Li shouted, the people in the truck bed began screaming one after another.
Facing such a scene, no one could remain calm.
Zombies were not like humans. They were not like the man who had just fallen from mid-air, who had gone silent after smashing into the ground, never able to make another sound or get up again.
No matter how high they fell from, as long as their heads did not happen to split open, they could continue to emit chilling howls. They could continue to move in all kinds of twisted and horrifying postures, with crooked limbs and heads, dragging hearts, livers, lungs, and even broken limbs behind them as they writhed and crawled across the ground like maggots. All of them surged toward the group.
This scene, like hell on earth, made almost everyone lose control in that instant.
Before the zombies reached the truck, Ji Fei and Jun Yueyue jumped down, got into the cab, and the truck shot forward like an arrow from a bow just as the zombies reached the side and began climbing the railings.
The inertia shook off a large portion of the zombies, but some still clung tightly to the railings, trying to squeeze through the gaps and over the top into the truck bed.
Driven by second-stage zombies, they discovered for the first time that zombies could possess such agile limbs and such frantic ferocity.
When Jun Yueyue entered the cab, she saw Jun Yu, who had already fainted, and Fang Anyu, who had also lost consciousness.
Beside Fang Anyu’s face was the ladder that had pierced in diagonally from behind. Half of his face had been torn open by the sharp edge of the ladder, blood staining half his face and the front of his clothes red. Jun Yueyue crawled over the seat and reached out, but did not dare touch his head.
“Anyu… Fang Anyu!” Jun Yueyue shouted several times in collapse. She grabbed the ladder beside Fang Anyu’s face, her eyes bloodshot, and actually bent the ladder by hand, forcing it back out through the window.
Ji Fei glanced sideways during a sharp turn, staring at Jun Yueyue in shock. She controlled the truck, drove around the building, and headed toward the gate from the other side.
At the same time, the people on the rooftop who had not been able to climb down the ladder all leaned over the wall and saw this scene. All the zombies had jumped out of the building. Those that could get up were chasing the truck.
The zombies that had been smashing against the rooftop door had also disappeared. Having lost their chance of being rescued, after a brief moment of despair, they gathered their courage and opened the door leading downstairs.
The corridor was indeed empty. There was not a single zombie. Everyone crowded at the stairwell entrance, and for a while, no one dared step out.
In the end, it was the water-type ability user who had spoken to Li Li on the phone who took the first step out of the stairwell. Only then did the others follow behind him and descend floor by floor.
At first, they walked downward. Later, they gradually began to run.
Seven floors. When they reached the fourth floor, they saw a person standing in one of the rooms.
His clothes looked intact. He faced a row of shattered windows and looked outside. He was very quiet. From behind, it was impossible to tell what was going on with him.
Everyone thought he was also a survivor. One of the strength-mutated men boldly called out, “Young man, why are you standing there? Hurry and run!”
The person called “young man” did not move at all. He did not even turn around. It was as if he could not hear.
The others really did not want to care, but they too were people who had been rescued. They could not ignore someone who seemed to have survived. The people who had come to save them were now downstairs helping attract most of the zombies. They had to go down as fast as possible.
“You go first.” The leading water-type ability user walked into the room. The strength-mutated man withdrew and continued leading the others quickly through the corridor.
“Kid, you…” The man moved the “survivor’s” arm. That person finally slowly turned around.
The moment the grey-white eyes met the man’s eyes, it was already too late for him to retreat.
The abilities of second-stage zombies were almost the same as those of mutated humans. Although the man was a water-type ability user, it had only been a little over ten days. Apart from slight improvements in physical strength and power, the only thing he could do was produce some water for his companions to drink while waiting for rescue. He still could not use water as a weapon. After being grabbed by the second-stage zombie, he had no other option besides hand-to-hand combat.
But people with the same level of ability could not defeat second-stage zombies that felt no pain. Very quickly, he was bitten.
But strangely, after biting him, the second-stage zombie quickly let him go and did not eat him. It was as if it had only wanted to infect him.
The man clutched his neck and ran out of the room, panting as he chased after the others. When he saw them stopped outside another room, seemingly trying to call someone inside, he hurriedly shouted, “It’s a zombie! Don’t get close! Run!”
The group immediately turned around. After seeing the large wound in the man’s neck, they did not need him to remind them anymore. They screamed and rushed downstairs.
The man also saw the zombie in that room. He knew that being bitten meant he would definitely become infected. But his steps paused as he ran downward. He walked into the room. That zombie only turned its head to look at him once, then turned back to look downstairs.
The man followed the zombie’s gaze and looked downstairs at the large truck that was weaving through the garden toward the gate, blocked by the overly dense stone benches and tables. More and more zombies were already frantically climbing up from the back of the truck.
The man thought of what the rescuers had said on the phone about second-stage zombies capable of controlling zombie movement.
Then he turned his head and looked at the zombie standing beside him like a living person, staring down.
He touched his own neck, where the flesh was torn open but gradually losing its sense of pain. Suddenly, he smiled.
This must be a second-stage zombie!
He searched around the room and finally lifted a stool. Aiming at the back of the second-stage zombie’s head, which seemed completely unaware of him and utterly unguarded, he swung it down fiercely.
With a clang, the zombie fell to the ground. But it was not dead yet. As long as its neck was not broken, it would not die. It turned to look at the man holding the stool, but did not try to fight back. It seemed full of confusion, as if wondering why an infected body was not obeying its command.
The man gave the zombie on the ground a chilling smile, lifted the stool again, and smashed it into the second-stage zombie’s head.
“Go to hell, disgusting thing!”
After several blows, only when red-and-white matter flowed from the back of the zombie’s head and it stopped moving did the man put down the chair. He did not run downstairs. Instead, he turned and went upstairs, searching for the second-stage zombie that had bitten him.
At the same time, just as everyone was resisting wildly and was about to be unable to hold on any longer, some zombies among those climbing onto the truck suddenly seemed like puppets whose strings had been cut. Their hands could no longer grip the railings, and they fell straight backward.
Seeing this, everyone on the truck immediately focused on dealing with the zombies still trying to climb in.
“There are too many stone benches and tables ahead. I can’t crash through or drive over them.” Ji Fei opened the window slightly, glanced back, and shouted a reminder to the people in the truck bed. Then she began reversing the truck.
Jun Yueyue placed Jun Yu on the seat to lie down. Jun Yu murmured, “Grandpa.” Then Jun Yueyue laid Fang Anyu down too. But no matter how she called him, Fang Anyu would not wake.
“Watch them,” Jun Yueyue said, wiping her tears messily. “I’m going to the back!”
Ji Fei nodded. Seeing Jun Yueyue open the door and kick down a zombie, she did not jump to the ground. Instead, she climbed directly up the front of the truck, shut the door, then moved along the roof and jumped into the back.
When she rejoined the battle against the zombies, there was something almost red-eyed about her. Holding a welded dagger and iron rod, she swung directly at the heads of the zombies on the truck.
One strike smashed a huge dent into a zombie’s skull. If she hit the railing, the railing was dented too.
This was completely not the strength of a normal person. After the others in the truck were briefly shocked, they assumed she had just happened to mutate. Their confidence surged. After wiping the blood from their faces, they charged in again.
It was impossible for a single sanatorium to have so many people. This could only mean that the sanatorium gate had not been closed before, and large numbers of wandering zombies had entered.
If they had known, even if they still came, they would not have chosen to come in this insufficiently prepared state. Now, their only shelter was the large truck and the railings on it. Otherwise, they would have long been drowned in the zombie tide.
However, as time passed, many of the zombies that had originally been roaring and lunging wildly began to slow down.
It looked… as if they had lost control!
Everyone saw hope. As long as they could get out of here, they could return to the base.
But this small garden they had been forced into had far too many stone benches. Ji Fei’s vision had been blocked by zombies, so she had not seen the stone benches and tables. While reversing, she accidentally knocked one over, and it got stuck between the wheels. The truck was too large to turn flexibly.
It was stuck!
The moment the truck stopped moving, the zombies that had lost control quickly swarmed over again. They could not climb, but they could act as stepping stones for the ones that could. They also stretched their hands through the railings to scratch people.
The people in the truck were once again in extreme danger. Their space to move had shrunk too, making it harder for them to attack the zombies.
Someone had already been scratched. The truck kept trying to adjust direction, but it still did not work. Fang Anyan’s fireballs could not be used at close range. Otherwise, before the zombies burned to death, if they clung to the railings and did not fall, they could easily hurt their own people. He could only throw them toward the rear section of the zombie crowd. But after throwing too many, he was already at the end of his strength. His face was pale as a sheet.
“What’s going on?” Li Li roared toward the cab.
Ji Fei said, “The wheel might be stuck on a stone table! They’re too dense! They’re everywhere!” If she turned to the side, even more would get rolled under the truck.
Seeing that if they stayed stuck here any longer, zombies really would climb over the railings, and then everyone would die, Li Li stepped from the front of the truck onto the hood and jumped down. He glanced at Ji Fei through the windshield and roared, “I’ll go under the truck and check. Don’t turn the wheels randomly!”
Then he directly crawled under the front of the truck.
Ordinary zombies did not know how to bend down and lower their heads to grab people. Most of the manipulated ones had their attention on the people in the truck bed. Under the truck was actually relatively safe.
But with human strength, trying to move the large stone stool and umbrella-shaped stone table stuck under the truck was simply a fool’s dream. Li Li used both hands and feet. He even grabbed the underside of the truck and kicked with his feet, but he could not budge them in the slightest.
The main problem was the stone table. It had tipped over and was bracing against the side of the wheel. One side of the wheel was almost lifted off the ground, unable to exert force. Naturally, neither moving forward nor backward was possible.
In truth, with the truck’s own weight, as long as it rocked forward and backward, sooner or later it could press the stone table into the ground. But the most fatal thing was that they did not have that much time.
Li Li strained until the veins on his arms bulged, but he still could not move it at all. He tasted blood in his throat. He thought of Jun Yu inside the truck. His delicate little flower was burning with fever. Fang Anyu was injured too, half his face torn open so deeply that bone was visible. It was only a matter of time before zombies climbed into the back of the truck and infected them. If the truck could not move, once it was buried under zombies, it would be even more impossible. If the people outside all turned into zombies, Jun Yu inside would not escape either.
Li Li thought of how, before receiving this distress call, he and Jun Yu had still been glued together in their room. He really liked Jun Yu. Although her body had a disability, aside from that, whatever she did, she did very well. She would always be the white lotus he looked up at from the mud. He absolutely could not let her die at the hands of these disgusting, ugly zombies!
At that instant, as Li Li held the jammed stone stool, a strange sensation suddenly flowed through his entire body. He could not describe it. He had not moved the stone stool or the tightly jammed stone table. Instead, the two pieces of stone turned into something soft like light and shadow before his eyes, flowing into his body.
Li Li was stunned for only one second before he quickly remembered the stone-type ability Jun Yueyue had described to him in great detail.
He had never felt so hard before. He felt that right now, he was indestructible!
He crawled out from beneath the truck, walked to the nearest stone stool blocking the way, and placed his hand on it. The stone stool quickly flowed into his body. Ji Fei had been paying attention to him the whole time, and after seeing this scene, her eyes widened.
“We can go!” After shouting to her, Li Li jumped back onto the truck. Following what Jun Yueyue had previously told him, he tried to strengthen his hands and legs. Sure enough, the surface of his skin changed qualitatively. He now had a pair of fists made of stone!
He quickly joined the battle again. Together with Jun Yueyue, the two of them rapidly became the main force in close combat. Fang Anyan attacked from a distance, while the others found opportunities wherever they could.
At this moment, the group who had run down from the rooftop also rushed out of the building. After a brief pause at the entrance, only a few with no combat ability ran toward the main gate. The rest all rushed toward the truck to support them.
There were corpses everywhere. The stench of rot was everywhere. Yet there were simply too many zombies. They formed two layers around the back of the truck, and some were still under the control of second-stage zombies, making them especially difficult to deal with.
At the same time, inside the building, the water-type ability user fighting the final second-stage zombie had, at the most critical moment, already begun to turn grey-white in one eye. His movements were also starting to slow.
The zombie on the verge of losing control sensed that the commands were “malfunctioning,” and its movements slowed somewhat.
Ji Fei drove the truck sharply backward, knocking down some zombies and crushing others. The sudden reverse caused Jun Yu and Fang Anyu, who had been lying on the seats, to fall down together. Jun Yu remained unconscious, but Fang Anyu finally woke because of the pain.
As soon as he sat up, he saw the terrible state of the courtyard. So just as the water-type ability user upstairs completely turned into a zombie and stopped trying to attack the second-stage zombie, Fang Anyu could no longer care about disguising himself in front of his companions. His eyes turned greyish white. He controlled the second-stage zombie inside the building and manipulated it to jump down from upstairs.
At this point, all the zombies lost their control. Their movements all became sluggish. But they did not stop. They still craved blood and living people. They began to follow their instincts, scratching and chasing.
Ji Fei finally drove the truck out of the garden. But when she turned her head, she saw Fang Anyu’s grey-white eyes. Holding the steering wheel with one hand, she quickly pulled a gun from her clothes and pointed it at Fang Anyu. She was about to pull the trigger.
At this moment, Fang Anyu truly looked no different from a zombie. The flesh on his face had been torn open, exposing bone. His whole body was covered in blood, his skin pale. He completely matched the appearance of a zombie. Moreover, his pupils were grey-white, which was already a sign of turning into a zombie.
Most importantly, Fang Anyu could not speak. At this life-or-death moment, he had no way to explain himself.
After a companion turned into a zombie, they could no longer consider any past affection. They had to act as quickly as possible, or more people would be harmed. This was a rule they had set in a meeting some time ago.
Seeing that the unconscious Jun Yu was so close to Fang Anyu that he could grab her with a single reach, Ji Fei decisively switched off the safety and placed her finger on the trigger.
Fang Anyu moved his lips, but turned his head to look out the truck window instead. Jun Yueyue, who had finally almost finished dealing with the zombies and was preparing to open the truck door to check on Fang Anyu, happened to see Ji Fei pointing the gun at him.
In that instant, Jun Yueyue felt as if her scalp exploded. She screamed Ji Fei’s name hoarsely, then violently yanked open the truck door. But it was already too late. Ji Fei had already fired.
However, Jun Yueyue’s speed was astonishing. She grabbed Fang Anyu from the seat and pulled him downward. Although she was fast, she only managed to pull him slightly off course. The bullet passed through his shoulder.
Fang Anyu fell toward Jun Yueyue. Meeting his grey-white eyes, which he had not had time to change back, Jun Yueyue felt as if her heart died in that moment.
But the next moment, Fang Anyu pulled her and turned their positions. The zombie that had lunged from behind, originally targeting Jun Yueyue, bit Fang Anyu’s neck instead.
Jun Yueyue screamed, “Ah!” and punched the zombie’s head apart. But she could only watch helplessly as Fang Anyu collapsed in front of her.
Her vision was full of blood.
She felt that she had probably already gone mad.
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