Chapter 144: “…don’t touch me casually”
Yang Xiaoyun and the others came back carrying a wilted shashen plant. It still had several clusters of small purple flowers, but its earth-brown root had wrapped itself tightly upward around Yang Xiaoyun’s arm.
“Let’s bury him here,” Jiang Xun said. “His hometown is Shenjian anyway.”
“Mutated plants and animals will definitely dig him up and eat him,” Chen Qiong glanced around. “If Captain Wen were here, he could grind the body into a handful of ash—that would avoid this problem.”
“How about this,” Xue Qi raised his hand. Snow-white, fine threads licked toward Jiang Yi from his palm as he spoke, winding as they went. “Let’s wrap him up first so he doesn’t decompose. When we find Wen Yuan and the others, we can grind him then.”
“That works.”
Jiang Yi was soon wrapped into a glowing, snow-white oval cocoon. Seeing the worried looks on everyone’s faces, Xue Qi took the initiative to explain, “I’m just wrapping him up. He won’t be digested, and he won’t turn into little spiders.”
“I just think it’s too big—hard to carry,” someone said.
Xue Qi replied, “That’s easy. I’ll wrap it again.”
Snow-white spider silk flew everywhere before their eyes.
With the experience from the first time, Xue Qi worked much faster wrapping the body.
“All done!”
Everyone bent down to examine it, their expressions complicated.
“Too round.”
“Even harder to carry.”
“Again.”
Xue Qi took a deep breath and wrapped it once more—this time into a long shape, even adding a pair of shoulder straps.
Wu Heng gave his first comment, “Not bad.”
Jiang Xun slowly straightened up. “This one will do.”
“Should the straps be adjusted more? Is this length okay?” Xue Qi asked.
Zhou Yi climbed up from the ground. “I’ll try carrying it first.”
Carefully and stiffly, Zhou Yi slowly hoisted the cocoon-wrapped Jiang Yi onto his back. Jiang Yi was a bit taller than him, but with the straps, Jiang Yi’s entire head rose above Zhou Yi’s own—just like back in high school, when Zhou Yi lay prone on the balcony of the floor where the senior students were, looking down at the playground below, the feeling was exactly the same.
He wasn’t the same as Jiang Yi. Jiang Yi had his own faith; Jiang Yi knew exactly what kind of person he wanted to become.
He didn’t. He was someone who drifted with the tide, cowardly and timid—no faith, no ideals. He had entered the military academy solely to follow Jiang Yi. In the team, he was the least soldier-like soldier of them all.
“It’s fine now.”
“Weight isn’t a problem. This much weight is nothing to an ability user.”
“Our Jiang Yi…”
Seeing Jiang Yi—who usually cared quite a bit about his appearance—wrapped into such a strange shape, the others felt like laughing, but their tears surged out first.
“At first, I was afraid I’d become numb,” Jiang Xun said. “Death is becoming more and more common—anyone, civilians or military alike. But it turns out my worry was unnecessary. As long as humanity still exists, humans will never truly become numb. Every time you witness the passing of a life with your own eyes, it leaves an indelible scar.” She reached out and brushed a few leaves off the cocoon.
“My condolences,” she said to Zhou Yi, whose back was trembling uncontrollably.
“We need to find the others,” Chen Qiong said, picking up the gear on the ground. “Then keep moving.”
“Yeah. Captain Wen still hasn’t paid me back for the decks of cards he took from me,” complained Lin Jie. He was tall and skinny, with single eyelids, dark skin, and slightly unfocused eyes—nothing like the sharp, spirited look of the others on the team.
Seeing that Lin Jie was still muttering about his lousy decks of cards at a time like this, Yang Xiaoyun rolled up his sleeves and walked toward him. “Stand still—I’m gonna deal with you!”
Yue Shanqing said, “Is it possible they’re still with us, but they can’t see us, and we can’t see them?”
“That’s not possible. I haven’t sensed any human life other than us,” Wu Heng said, holding X. He lowered his head and sniffed, catching the smell of jerky on it. When had he ever fed it jerky?
“Dead?” Xue Qi thought of the worst possibility. He still hadn’t forgotten the—uh—the feel of Xue Shen collapsing into his arms just now.
“No,” Wu Heng said, prying X’s mouth open.
Wu Heng had almost forgotten—Lin Mengzhi was someone he had personally reconstructed. If the other man were dead, it would be impossible for him to feel nothing at all.
Jiang Yi had mentioned before that the mountain mass was shifting—moving at a speed imperceptible to humans. The others might not actually be far away from them; it could simply be that one group was on this side of the mountain, and the other on the opposite side.
“Then where did they go?”
“They should still be in Shenjian.”
After confirming that X had secretly eaten the jerky, Wu Heng showed uncharacteristic mercy. He didn’t fish the jerky back out, but released it instead.
“Go look,” Wu Heng mouthed to it.
X didn’t make a cool, dramatic turn. It circled unwillingly for a while, then wobbled off into the distance.
—
The fir trees of the forest stood tall and still, like towering iron towers.
Wen Yuan aimed the gun in his hand straight at Doctor Chen’s head.
“Zombie—what do you usually feed it?”
“Don’t call me a zombie. I’m a doctor. Please address me as the great Doctor Chen,” Chen Meng said, straightening the front of his white lab coat, which was smeared all over with filthy blood. A name badge still hung on his left chest—he’d been wearing it ever since Hanzhou.
Lin Mengzhi slid forward in a quick step, steeling himself as he blocked the gun barrel for Doctor Chen. Even though he possessed an ability, as a law-abiding, dedicated citizen before the apocalypse, he still couldn’t stop his heart from trembling. He said stiffly, “Doctor Chen is a good person.”
“A person? You think it’s a person?”
“Ah—no, no, no, he’s a doctor.”
“…”
Ruan Silian frowned and pulled Lin Mengzhi aside. She raised her hand and pressed down Wen Yuan’s gun barrel. Fortunately, Wen Yuan seemed to just want a reasonable explanation, not to kill Chen Meng indiscriminately.
“Doctor Chen only looks somewhat similar to a zombie,” Ruan Silian said, taking a step to the side as she introduced Chen Meng to Wen Yuan. Even though Doctor Chen was drooling like a waterfall, she continued speaking without changing her expression.
“He only looks the part. Doctor Chen’s desire to save people has always far outweighed his appetite. He has the ability to heal injuries and has saved many people. He’s different from those zombies—he doesn’t eat people. He eats raw animal meat instead.”
Lin Mengzhi nodded vigorously in agreement.
Wen Yuan’s brow remained tightly furrowed, his steely gaze fixed without blinking on the zombie before him. It wasn’t just that it looked similar—he had seen the wriggling worms inside its eye sockets.
He kept the gun lowered, not firing, and said in a low voice, “There’s never been a case like this in Jingzhou.”
“Hah? Jingzhou is nothing but a tiny speck of land. The world is vast—there’s nothing that doesn’t exist,” Lin Mengzhi threw everything he had ever learned into convincing Wen Yuan.
While staying on guard in case Wen Yuan suddenly snapped, he also scanned the surroundings. The fir forest stretched beyond sight, knee-high grass filling every gap between the trees, leaving not a single opening.
Where the hell had everyone else gone? Anxiety churned in Lin Mengzhi’s chest—nothing bad had happened, right?
But when he thought of how powerful his childhood friend was, Lin Mengzhi always felt that even if he died ten times over, that person would still be hard-pressed to die even once.
“Can you guarantee it won’t eat people?” Wen Yuan had killed countless zombies; a case like the one before him was something he had truly never encountered.
Based on what they knew about zombies, a zombie’s brain was no longer a brain at all—just a lump of rotten, stinking tofu, driving them to tear and bite at raw flesh endlessly. As for a zombie like this one speaking—pure fantasy.
“I can’t guarantee it,” Ruan Silian said honestly. She had already sensed Chen Meng behind her, restlessly sniffing around.
“Doctor Chen listens to A’Heng more.”
At the mention of Wu Heng’s name, Doctor Chen straightened his posture. A corporate drone’s break time was over in the blink of an eye.
“But Wu Heng isn’t here right now,” Wen Yuan reminded them. “And it’s not like we haven’t seen cases where people couldn’t bring themselves to kill a zombie because it used to be family or a friend—so they kept it at home, killing people to feed it. Zombies are worse than pets. At least with animals, you can foster attachment. But zombies can’t form feelings for humans— not even the way pets feel toward their owners.”
Their expressions grew heavy after hearing this.
Lin Mengzhi opened his mouth. “And then?”
“What do you mean, then?” Wen Yuan asked, confused.
“Then what happened to the family that raised the zombie?”
“…” Wen Yuan froze for a moment, then said, “I thought you’d already figured out why I said zombies can’t possibly develop feelings for humans.”
“Why?” Lin Mengzhi pressed.
“They were all eaten.”
“Holy shit!” Lin Mengzhi stared in disbelief.
“I’ll help keep an eye on Doctor Chen,” Xue Shen stepped forward. “Right now the most important thing is to find the others and make sure they’re still alive.”
“Staying alive shouldn’t be a problem,” Lin Mengzhi said. “They’re all ability users—if they can’t even survive this, that’d be way too useless! Just treat it as a trial before reaching Siwangzhidi!”
“There’ve been plenty of trials along the way already,” Wen Yuan said. As he spoke, he took a compass out of one of the seven or eight pockets on his uniform, found his bearing, and looked at the group. “We’re leaving Shenjian directly. We’re not looking for the others.”
As soon as Lin Mengzhi heard that, he shouted that it was unacceptable.
Wen Yuan felt his temples throb uncontrollably. Over the past decade or so of working with his teammates, perfect telepathy might be an exaggeration, but their coordination was flawless. When he made a decision, he usually didn’t need to explain—everyone understood his intent.
He’d momentarily forgotten that the people in front of him were still only high-school age. The only adult among them was a teacher who seemed dazed and unfocused—worse than the kids, really.
And yet Wu Heng was leading exactly this kind of team—mentally and physically crippled in every sense—and still dared to proclaim they would take over Siwangzhidi. For a moment, Wen Yuan found himself feeling a bit impressed.
“Shenjian is unpredictable and treacherous. We have no reliable way to find the others. Even if we know each other’s general positions, regrouping would be next to impossible. Once we leave Shenjian, we can send out a signal. If they see it, they’ll respond.”
When Wen Yuan wasn’t trying to intimidate anyone, his tone was steady and unhurried—easy to listen to, easy to accept. It was just that he’d killed too many people; the murderous intent in his eyes was impossible to hide, making it equally impossible not to listen.
“What if they don’t see it?” Ying Liuquan questioned softly.
After what happened in Jingzhou, all he wanted was to follow Wu Heng—no one else could replace him.
“They’re ability users. If they can’t even notice this,” Wen Yuan said flatly, “then Shenjian serving as their grave would be an undeserved honor.”
With that, his tall figure moved forward without a trace of emotion. “Keep up.”
The people behind him exchanged looks.
“Are we really following?” Ying Liuquan asked uncertainly.
“Yes,” Xue Shen said. “Let’s get out first and talk later.”
“Aren’t you worried about Xue Qi?”
“I am. But if he’s still alive, leaving this place should actually be a lot easier for him than for us.”
Ruan Silian and Xue Shen were the first to catch up to Wen Yuan. Seeing them move, Wang Meixia and the others hurriedly followed.
Ying Liuquan came right after, with Doctor Chen huffing and puffing as he chased behind him.
Lin Mengzhi hesitated where he stood for quite a while. It wasn’t until a caterpillar at his feet startled him badly that he finally made up his mind to leave Shenjian with Wen Yuan first.
Just then, a bird call came from above his head.
X didn’t land. It only made sure Lin Mengzhi saw it. No matter how frantically Lin Mengzhi waved and gestured below, it couldn’t be bothered to come down. After confirming that the separated people were all still alive, it turned around and flew off.
At this point, seeing the gray parrot was enough for Lin Mengzhi to know Wu Heng was definitely fine. The bird had been sent out by Wu Heng to look for them. Cursing nonstop, he ran after Wen Yuan, shouting as he ran, “That damn—damn bird, stupid bird! Just you wait! Wait till I get out of here—I’ll kill you!”
Night gradually fell. Shenjian’s nights, frequented by all kinds of wild birds, were anything but quiet. The two groups, each holding different light sources, moved quickly in the same direction.
—
Wu Heng carried a vine-woven cage in his hand. Inside were several fireflies with large bodies and bright abdomens. He used it for illumination like a lantern.
Wen Yuan’s people had their own flashlights and had no need for the boy’s method. Still, they couldn’t help sighing inwardly at his unconventional ingenuity.
They placed Wu Heng and Shen Ping’an in the middle of the group. Even though everyone knew Wu Heng was actually far stronger than they were, the sense of responsibility that came with their identities was beyond their control—they still, deep down, regarded them as three delicate flowers of the motherland.
Xue Qi was above their heads, crawling along the tightly packed branches. Moving that way was actually much faster than running on two legs below.
They had barely slept or rested all night. By the time the sky began to pale with a fish-belly white, the dampness brought by dew had soaked many people’s clothes, and their gnawing hunger became increasingly unbearable.
At what seemed to be a flat stretch halfway up the mountain, Wu Heng suddenly stopped.
Jiang Xun, right behind him, immediately went on alert. “What is it?” She thought something urgent had happened.
“I’m hungry.” Wu Heng hadn’t wanted to interrupt the group’s pace; he also wanted to reunite with Lin Mengzhi and the others as soon as possible.
When they were together every day, he felt those people were all more or less dispensable—Lin Mengzhi included. But once they were truly separated, walking alongside a completely unfamiliar group, that sense of ease and leisure vanished by more than half. He hadn’t let his guard down for a single moment.
Jiang Xun called back the teammates who had surged too far ahead. “Eat first.”
Below Wen Yuan were Jiang Xun, Yang Xiaoyun, and Jiang Yi. With Wen Yuan absent, they listened to Jiang Xun just the same. When they heard it was time to eat, they did exactly as before—unloading pots and bowls, their movements no different from usual, even down to taking off their gear.
Lin Jie was in charge of cooking. It wasn’t good. It was downright terrible.
“Lin Jie—no, seriously, how is it that Captain Wen confiscated your cards and you can still make food this bad? Isn’t it the same recipe? How did you manage to cook something that tastes like shit?”
Lin Jie replied expressionlessly, “I’ve lost my spiritual pillar. I can’t cook properly anymore.”
Wu Heng gave his portion to Xue Qi. He and Shen Ping’an ate food from the spatial storage instead.
The others, seeing this, assumed they’d brought their own food. It only made Lin Jie look even worse—so bad that even the person who’d complained about being hungry first wouldn’t touch the slop he’d made.
Shen Ping’an ate cured meat with the small pickled vegetables Zhou Shan had made, looking down the mountain as he did so. Below lay a winding canyon; the river threading through it was like a spirited, soaring dragon, while the mountain mist resembled the white clouds it rode upon.
“The scenery’s really nice,” Shen Ping’an said without thinking.
Wu Heng swallowed the meat in his mouth, paused for a moment, then said, “Yeah. That’s why Jiang Yi completely mutated not long after entering Shenjian. This place is a paradise for plants.”
“How do you feel?” Shen Ping’an looked at Wu Heng.
“I’m fine,” Wu Heng said. He didn’t feel anything wrong, but he knew very well that the encroachment of mutated plants made people lose awareness without realizing it.
Shen Ping’an watched Wu Heng. No one was fixing his hair anymore—if Ruan Silian were here, she’d casually tie all sorts of nice hairstyles for him. Now it was just loosely tied at the back of his head, so loose that a few strands had fallen by his ears.
He wasn’t close to Wu Heng—not as close as Lin Mengzhi, not as close as Xie Chongyi, nor even as close as Ruan Silian, who had joined later—even though the bond between him and Wu Heng was actually the deepest.
The boy finished the meat in his hands in a couple of bites. He found a patch of grass and carefully wiped his hands clean, then walked closer to Wu Heng with cautious, almost cherishing steps.
He made no sound, just quietly watched for a moment as Wu Heng’s cheeks puffed out, stuffed full of meat. Curves didn’t suit Wu Heng—his temperament was gloomy and sharp—but right now, he was a little cute.
Shen Ping’an slowly reached out, wanting to tuck the few loose strands of hair by Wu Heng’s ear behind it, then retie his hair.
Unexpectedly, the other boy suddenly shifted to the side, naturally dodging the touch.
After moving away, the youth didn’t even lift his eyes, only reminding him coolly, “I’m dating Xie Chongyi. You’re a guy—don’t touch me casually.”
Pfft LOL