Pei Si tried to keep her voice steady as she asked the child, "That older brother, does he have slightly curly hair, is he very handsome, and is he wearing a white shirt?"
The child, with tears welling up in his eyes from complaining, nodded vigorously under the watchful eyes of several adults.
After he nodded, the atmosphere suddenly froze.
After a long while, Lu Chao turned his face to the side, his eyes red, and muttered a curse under his breath: "Damn it."
The little lucky charm who had been unharmed by their side escaped all the way out of the monster, but was actually kicked off the car.
Pei Si clenched his fists tightly. After trying to catch his breath, he hugged the child who had complained to him and walked out.
"Take me to identify the bad guy, and I'll buy you candy."
Needless to say, Lu Chao followed as well. The two of them were filled with self-reproach and regret, and they couldn't calm down without doing something.
As Xie Chiyuan watched them walk away, the image of the young boy he had met not long ago came to mind.
What a pity.
Yu An, still unconscious, was unaware of what had happened at the base. He lay prone in front of the house filled with stones from dusk until nightfall.
Summer nights are filled with the chirping of insects.
Unidentified insects rustled and chirped in the shadows, occasionally punctuated by strange howls.
When Yu An was woken up, her eyes were blurred by the blood on her forehead.
He couldn't see anything clearly, and sat up blankly, saying, "I...I'm blind!"
He was blind for several seconds. He rubbed his eyes to remove some of the blood before he could barely see the scene before him.
A large stone lion sculpture, and a tightly closed room door.
This is where he kowtowed!
Yu An looked around warily, and seeing that there were no zombies, he quickly ran to push open the door.
It was dangerous at night, so he needed to hide inside the house. Luckily, the door wasn't locked and could be easily pushed open.
The house wasn't very big, and it was quiet inside; there wasn't a sound at all.
Yu An sneaked into the bedroom, checked the room, and then slammed the door shut.
The bedroom light was broken, but there were a few candles. The red candles even had the character "囍" (double happiness) engraved on them; Yu An really liked such bright colors.
Light the candles.
Yu An unexpectedly discovered an old cell phone. The phone looked bulky, like an antique, but surprisingly, it still had two bars of battery left.
He fumbled around and entered his father's phone number.
"Drip, drip, drip."
The call didn't connect, and it automatically switched to a voice message. Yu An clutched the phone and left a message for her father: "Dad, this is Yu An. I've escaped from the research institute. I'm safe now, so you don't need to worry about me."
"If you receive a voice message, remember to contact me."
After leaving a message for his father, Yu An looked at his phone, unsure who to contact next. His children had been away for too long, and even with cell phones, he didn't know their numbers.
The small bedroom connects to an even smaller bathroom.
The bathroom was rudimentary, with only a faucet and a few basins.
Yu An had always been a clean person. He looked down at his clothes, which were filthy. Not only were his clothes dirty, but his body also ached, probably from the fall when he jumped off the car.
There was complete silence outside the door.
Yu An ultimately couldn't resist the temptation to take a bath. He went into the bathroom, gently turned on the faucet, and poured the water into the clean basin.
The cool water rubbed against his skin. Strangely, when Yu An touched his face, it wasn't cool at all; in fact, it felt a little hot.
Do I have a fever?
No one was around, Yu An muttered to himself softly. He avoided touching his forehead, which had been bruised, and said, "It's a little hot."
As I was washing, I ended up washing my arms.
Yu Anyi turned his head and was shocked to see a purplish-red, bloody tooth mark on his right arm.
The color around the teeth marks wasn't normal skin tone; it was the same color as the biting zombies outside.
Tooth marks, discoloration, fever.
Yu An was so frightened that he fell to the ground with a thud.
His mind raced, and in a short time, he figured out why he wasn't surrounded by zombies while he was lying at the door.
It turns out, he had been completely bitten by zombies!
Yu An had heard Pei Si say at the research institute that zombies are highly infectious. Once bitten or scratched by a zombie, one will mutate and become a new zombie over time.
Becoming a new zombie means he will become ruthless and devour anyone he sees.
Yu An stared blankly at the bite marks, the water in the small basin in front of her unknowingly overflowing and meandering into several thin streams on the ground.
a long time.
The bathroom door opened, and Yu An, who had washed up, came out, his eyes still wet. He put his wrung-out white shirt back on and then found a light-colored long-sleeved sweater in the closet to put on over it.
After doing all this, Yu An climbed onto the bed and tied his ankles with a rope.
Then, he lay down quietly, waiting for himself to completely turn into a zombie.
The wait was too unbearable, so Yu An couldn't help but take out her phone, which only had two bars of battery left, find the recording function, and start recording her last words.
"My name is Yu An, and I'm about to die."
“I don’t want to die at all. I haven’t found my baby or my father yet.”
"If anyone finds me, could you please bury me in the soil? I'll try my best to sprout if I'm buried there, and maybe my dad and baby will see the little sprout that grows."
Yu An's last words went on for so long that he yawned and couldn't help but fall asleep.
the next day.
Yu An's fingernails had grown a little longer and harder, but she hadn't completely turned into a zombie yet.
The third day.
Two small, sharp teeth sprouted from the front of Yu An's hand. He tested them, and they couldn't even bite through the back of his hand.
Day four.
Yu An's persistent high fever finally subsided, but it went too far; his body temperature was only around 32 degrees Celsius.
Day 5.
Yu An peered out the window. He grabbed a bag, packed his clothes, phone, and a few other odds and ends, and went out.
The homeowner, whether murdered or fleeing, has not returned.
Yu An carried her bag and walked forward without looking back.
He needs to find out where Xie Chiyuan is, or where Xie Chiyuan has stayed.
As Yu An walked, he kept thinking about Xie Chiyuan. He was a little annoyed because their meeting had been too rushed, and Xie Chiyuan's face had been covered. To this day, he still didn't know what the other person's full face looked like.
Lu Chao did mention it briefly during a chat, saying that if their boss Xie ever quit, he could definitely make a lot of money by selling his face and body.
The zombies that roamed the main road were like ghosts.
Yu An, this half-finished little zombie, dared not run into them. He was instinctively afraid when he saw the bloodied appearance of the other zombies.
We've been traveling for several days.
Yu An got lost and ended up in the suburbs. He looked around, bewildered and helpless: "Where is my way?"
How come the road just disappeared as I walked along?
Just as Yu An was becoming increasingly confused, he caught a faint crying sound in his ears—the tender cry of a baby.
Besides him, several other uninvited guests also heard it.
"Tell the baby to be quiet. These guys are deliberately refusing to leave; they're coming to find us." Along with the baby's cries, there were also the voices of adults.
"The baby is so hungry, and I have nothing to feed her," the woman sobbed. "You can't expect me to smother her, can you? She's only five months old; she'll cry when she's hungry."
The voice was actually very soft.
Yu An rubbed his ears, but felt that he could hear them very clearly. Since being bitten, he felt that his hearing was much better than before.
The baby is still crying.
The zombies, roaming the outskirts, dragged their feet as they approached. Their bodies were in a state of severe decay, their fates unknown.
The zombies' bodies were rotting, their gruesome faces still showing their mouths opening and closing. Saliva dripped from the corners of their mouths as they searched for food.
Despite being terrified, Yu An did not turn and run as the zombies approached.
In this monster-infested world, morality is often no match for the will to survive. But occasionally, there are exceptions.
Relying on her keen hearing, Yu An was the first to identify the survivor with the baby.
The survivors consisted of one man, two women, and a baby crying from hunger. Yu An's appearance startled them all.
"Don't be afraid, I'm here to help you escape."
Yu An rummaged through her bag and found some biscuits and water, handing them to them. The woman took the food and hugged her baby tightly.
"Follow me."
"I know where there are cars, but can you drive? I can't."
Yu An's wanderings these past few days weren't just about finding his way; he also stocked up on some supplies. The woman holding the baby was very grateful to him, following behind him and whispering, "I can drive, and I also know how to get to the nearest survivor base."
Yu An: "!"
You've found the right person!
The woman fed the baby softened biscuits. She looked frail, but spoke with remarkable clarity: "We originally had a car, but on the way to the base we encountered a monster, a half-human, half-spider monster. Only a few of us escaped from the car."
Although she didn't go into details about the monster, only a few people survived from the entire vehicle, so it's easy to imagine how horrific the situation was.
The surviving man lowered his voice and added, "That monster has a name, it's called the Aberrant, or you could call it a Deformed. They appeared long before the zombies."
Upon hearing this, Yu An's heart skipped a beat.
“Those things are like zombies, they’ll all die out sooner or later.” The man said through gritted teeth, “Don’t worry, we humans will definitely outlive these ghosts.”