The vines blocking the ground were cut down one by one before they could even get close.
These vines had extremely strong adhesive properties, with tiny hooks on them that could both suck blood and cling to human skin. Once they latched onto someone, they were very hard to shake off. And they had already tested it—ordinary fire did not do much against them. After burning for a while, the flames would lose strength and go out on their own.
“So where are we supposed to go now?” Xie Fei, who was walking at the front, looked at the nearly identical dorm buildings around them and asked in confusion.
“There are just too many dorm buildings here. Chaozi, can your tracking pinpoint exactly which building Jingyang is in?” Lin Yang waved his hand and cut off another vine, then turned and asked.
There were ten dorm buildings in the East District altogether—six for boys and four for girls. If they did not know which building the person was in, then searching them one by one like this would indeed be very inefficient.
“I still can’t use tracking right now. But I can try using my ability to find him.” Jiang Jingchao had barely finished speaking and had not even started activating his power when he suddenly noticed something, and his whole face changed in an instant.
“Chaozi? What’s wrong?” Lin Yang was standing right next to Jiang Jingchao and was the first to notice the change in him.
Jiang Jingchao took a deep breath, looked at his right wrist, and said in a trembling voice, “This is bad. The life signs belonging to Jingyang on the watch have disappeared.”
Of course, the watch failing to detect life signs did not necessarily mean that the person wearing it was definitely dead. It could also be that the watch had broken, or that some other accident had happened.
But Jiang Jingchao still felt an indescribable panic rising in his heart. All this time, he had relied on this to reassure himself that his family was safe. Now that his younger brother’s life signs had suddenly disappeared from the watch, how could he possibly stay calm?
At that moment, Jiang Jingchao no longer cared about conserving his ability or not. He stopped holding anything back, and a huge psychic net spread outward in all directions, searching more than half the residential area in a very short time.
Seeing him use his ability so recklessly, Gu Yicheng could not help frowning, but in the end he said nothing. It was just that the lower the level of a psychic ability user, the more limitations there were. If Chaozi kept doing this, he might not recover for quite some time.
Jiang Jingchao rarely ever spread such a massive psychic net like this. The skill consumed far too much mental energy.
Very quickly, his lips turned pale, his complexion grew worse and worse, sweat covered his forehead, and just before reaching his limit, he barely managed to pull the psychic net back. Gasping heavily, he braced himself with both hands and turned to look in one direction.
“Jingyang—Jingyang is over there!” he said anxiously.
Even though there were other places in the residential area where signs of life could still be detected, Jiang Jingchao had a feeling that his younger brother was in that dorm building.
Seeing how miserable Jiang Jingchao looked from overusing his ability, Lin Yang said, “Chaozi, just rest here. Don’t go over there.”
“Let me go. Don’t worry—if Jingyang is still inside, I’ll definitely bring him out in one piece.”
“No. I’m going too.” It was not that Jiang Jingchao did not trust Lin Yang with the task—if there was anyone he trusted, it was him and Brother Gu. But now that Jiang Jingchao could no longer detect Jingyang’s life signs, there was no way he could stay here.
“Chaozi, in your current condition, even if you go, everyone will just worry more about you. Listen to Lin Yang and stay here to rest.” Gu Yicheng’s tone left no room for refusal. “Lin Yang, it’s not safe for you to go alone either, so I’ll go with you. Xie Fei and Li Bao, you two stay here with Chaozi.”
“As for Ningning, you…” He paused, wondering whether he should take her along too.
Noticing that the male lead was looking at her, Ruan Ning very tactfully spoke up on her own: “Brother, I’ll be good and wait here with everyone.”
Gu Yicheng’s brows furrowed almost imperceptibly, though nothing could be heard in his voice. “Mm.”
Xie Fei’s fire-type ability was much more effective against these vines than the others’ abilities. It did not take long before they had already cleared out a relatively safe space between two buildings. Ruan Ning only needed to occasionally step in and help kill a few zombies.
After killing the last stray zombie, Ruan Ning let out a long breath and looked up toward the building the male lead and Lin Yang had gone into. The walls were covered in emerald-green vines, making the entire surface look as though it had been painted green from a distance.
Things on their side had calmed down for now. She just did not know how Gu Yicheng and Lin Yang were doing inside.
—
The lock on the door at the base of Dormitory 3-A had long since been destroyed. Gu Yicheng only gave it a light push, and the door swung open.
With a creak, the door half-closed itself again.
Hearing the noise, a zombie turned to “look” toward the entrance. Unfortunately for it, someone had locked it inside the guard room, and its head and body were jammed into the small window opening. Even after noticing people come in, it could only slap at the walls of the guard room, turning its head in the direction of the living scent. The sight of it was almost ridiculous.
Gu Yicheng and Lin Yang glanced at the zombie, but had no intention of killing it. Finding the person was more important, so they ignored it and went inside.
The structure of the student dormitory building was very simple. Standing in the corridor, you could see all the way to the end at a glance. The only issue was that each floor had dozens of dorm rooms. They had no idea which floor or which room Jiang Jingyang was currently in.
“Lin Yang, let’s split up and search, then meet back here,” Gu Yicheng said.
Even if Jiang Jingyang was still alive, something unexpected had probably happened to him. Otherwise, he would not have neglected even the watch.
The sooner they found him, the more reassured they could be. After all, Jiang Jingyang was Jiang Jingchao’s only younger brother. If he died here, neither Lin Yang nor Gu Yicheng would be able to answer to him.
Just as the two of them were about to split up and search floor by floor, hurried footsteps suddenly came from upstairs.
There was someone up there!!
Gu Yicheng and Lin Yang exchanged a glance, then changed tactics. Holding their weapons, they ran up the stairs one after the other.
…
In the corridor on the third floor—
“Jingyang, watch out for the zombie!”
Xi Chen used a piece of firefighting equipment from the hallway and smashed it down onto the zombie from behind, punching a hole straight through its head. Brain matter splattered at once, and the crystal core fell out with it.
With Xi Chen’s help, Jiang Jingyang managed to shake off the zombie on him. But the place on his right wrist where the watch had been was now empty, and the pieces inside the watch face were scattered all over the floor.
The watch was ruined. No matter how upset Jiang Jingyang felt, it was useless now. Besides, the current situation did not leave him any time to dwell on it.
Just now, a zombie had viciously bitten a large chunk of flesh off him. The wound was a bloody mess, and blood kept flowing from it. Afraid of losing too much blood, he could only wrap it a few times with strips of cloth, which at least temporarily stopped the bleeding.
But the smell of blood in the air only made the surrounding zombies grow even more frenzied.
“Xi Chen, stop worrying about me. Leave here on your own,” Jiang Jingyang said. “If you take me with you, neither of us will get out.” Not only was his hand injured, but during their escape his knee had also slammed into something sharp. By now, his whole leg was numb and without feeling, so there was no way he could run fast.
Right now, he was basically half-crippled. If Xi Chen stayed with him, he would only end up being dragged down by him.
Jiang Jingyang had not been lying earlier in the dorm. He truly did not want both of them to die here.
But no one ever knows when danger will suddenly arrive—just like now. One moment the two of them had still been lying in the dorm resting, and the next, the glass by the balcony shattered, and the vines that had been lurking outside the windowsill for so long quickly started drilling their way into the room.
After staying in this hellhole for a month, the two of them already understood the vines’ habits very well, so of course they would not let themselves get entangled by them. But the door they had used to block the zombies ended up trapping them inside instead. In the end, Jiang Jingyang held off the vines in front while Xi Chen moved the desk away, and only then did the two of them barely manage to escape from the dorm.
But that was only the beginning.
There were still plenty of zombies in the corridor. As soon as they ran out of the dorm and shook off the blood-sucking vines, the zombies heard the commotion and came after them. The zombies in the hallway were not very high-level. If the two of them had been in peak condition, escaping from them would have been no problem at all. But there was no “if.” They were exhausted in both body and mind, unable to use their abilities, and before they even made it down from the third floor, they were completely surrounded by zombies.
When Jiang Jingyang told him to leave alone, Xi Chen only hesitated for a moment before his expression hardened with resolve. He helped Jiang Jingyang up from the ground and said, “I’ll say the same thing as before—if we go, we go together! Back when I was in danger, you never abandoned me, so I’m not going to leave you here on your own either. Otherwise, how would I be any different from those faithless backstabbers? If you can’t walk, then I’ll carry you out of here if I have to.”
Seeing that Xi Chen had not left, Jiang Jingyang felt both touched and guilty.
The zombies kept closing in. The two of them stood back to back, covering each other, their eyes red from killing zombies. But without their abilities, and with their strength failing, they were like lambs that had wandered into a wolf’s den.
By the end, they had killed not even half the zombies, yet both of their clothes were already covered in blood. It was impossible to tell whether that blood belonged to the zombies or to themselves.
Fortunately, both of them were ability users and were not afraid of being infected by the zombies before them. Otherwise, they would not have survived this long.
Xi Chen was forced by the zombies into a corner, and Jiang Jingyang, having overexerted himself, was barely able to remain standing. It was only through sheer determination to stay alive that he had managed to keep going until now.
Just when the two of them had already lost hope of leaving this place alive, a burst of gunfire rang out, and the surrounding zombies fell one after another.
Was… someone here to save them?
Both Jiang Jingyang and Xi Chen wore expressions of utter disbelief.
After all, in the entire residential area, the survivors had either run away or died. There were not many people left, and every one of them was struggling just to save themselves and escape this place. Who would possibly come here to rescue them??
“Jingyang, are you alright?”
Once he saw who had come, the shock on Jiang Jingyang’s face was impossible to hide. His voice trembled with excitement. “Brother Gu? Brother Lin Yang! Why are you here?! Am I dreaming?”
“You’re not dreaming. It’s us.” Gu Yicheng stepped forward and reached out to support Jiang Jingyang, who was on the verge of collapsing, while stuffing the gun in his hand into Jiang Jingyang’s grip. Frowning, he said, “We’ll explain that later. First, we’re getting you out of here. Chaozi is still outside waiting to meet up with us.”
“My brother came too?” Hearing that his brother had come as well, Jiang Jingyang’s heart swelled with even more excitement. The joy of surviving certain death and seeing familiar faces washed away the terror of almost being bitten to death just moments before.
Lin Yang glanced at Xi Chen beside Jiang Jingyang and asked, “Do you know how to use a gun?”
Xi Chen now knew that the two men were friends of Jiang Jingyang’s brother, so the wariness in his heart vanished. He nodded. “Yes.”
“Good.” After saying that, Lin Yang handed his gun to Xi Chen and told him to protect himself.
As long as the people were safe, everything else could be dealt with.
Lin Yang and Gu Yicheng quickly finished off the remaining zombies on the third floor, then took the other two with them and headed downstairs.
Meanwhile—
The situation on the side of those who had been left behind suddenly became grim.
“What is going on?” Ruan Ning stumbled several steps backward in a row. She was wearing long trousers, and now they were covered in plant slime. She had seen with her own eyes how the fibres of the fabric were being corroded by it.
Originally, things had been relatively peaceful here. Xie Fei alone had been enough to deal with the vines, while Ruan Ning and Li Bao worked together to kill zombies. But for some reason, the surrounding vines suddenly seemed to go mad. Without any regard for anything else, they all started surging toward them.
“This is bad—looks like that third-tier zombie is coming this way!”
Jiang Jingchao was a psychic ability user. Although he was only second-tier right now and could not detect the location of zombies stronger than himself, he was far more sensitive to changes in the surrounding environment than ordinary people. The moment the vines began moving this time, he sensed that something was wrong.
“We need to get out of here right away and find another place to hide. If it catches up to us, we’re in trouble.”
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