Chapter 153.2: Alligator Gars
“A’Heng—!”
The moment Lin Mengzhi saw who it was, he completely forgot the reality that he was still standing on a raft about to sink. He jumped up, waved his hand, and then landed heavily.
Everyone on the raft had a bad feeling the instant he leapt—even Dr. Chen.
Sure enough, as soon as the boy landed, one end of the raft sank while the other tilted upward. After the last rays of sunset faded, the raft could no longer hold together. It broke apart, splitting into pieces and sending everyone scrambling for their own lives.
In the distance, several boats were blocked by the floating corpses of alligator gars on the river’s surface. As they watched the group sink beneath the water, a brief silence fell—then the river began to churn.
The people on the three wooden boats hadn’t even had time to feel excited or relieved about finally reuniting with their teammates before witnessing this scene. They weren’t especially worried—just overwhelmed with mixed emotions.
“Captain Wen has never looked this miserable before,” Mo Zhaohong said, crossing his arms and laughing heartily.
Wang Ruixiang smiled faintly as well. “He won’t be able to say again that what matters isn’t the team, but the leader.”
Xue Qi leaned over the side of the boat. “My brother and the others will be okay, right?”
“No need to worry about that. Xue Shen is a water-type ability user. Keeping them alive won’t be a problem,” Yang Xiaoyun replied.
A noticeable tremor came from beneath the boat.
The people onboard stopped joking and watching the spectacle; they grew alert.
With a splash and water spraying everywhere, a drenched boy—still draped with a few strands of fish intestines—was thrown onto the boat. Lin Mengzhi spat out several mouthfuls of water and flashed a fawning grin at the crowd staring at him. “Hehe, hello there!”
He had barely finished greeting them when another person was tossed up—this time it was Luo Lei.
Luo Lei said nothing. He silently climbed up, turned back toward the water, and lifted the limp Wang Meixia onto the boat.
A rotten, shriveled hand quietly climbed up over the gunwale behind Lin Jie.
The rustling, hoarse rasp was unmistakable. Those who had spent months fighting their way through hordes of zombies needed less than two seconds to pinpoint the direction by sound alone.
Lin Jie drew his blade and spun around, driving it straight into the bluish-white back of that hand. But the body beneath the knife didn’t move in the slightest—not a drop of blood flowed. Just as he was about to pull the blade free, a soaking-wet zombie head rose into view, half bone and half face—and not even symmetrical.
Lin Jie’s heart skipped a beat.
How could there be zombies in Shenjian? And how could there be zombies in the river?
“I am a doctor,” it said. “A great doctor.”
“You can talk?” Lin Jie yanked his knife out and thrust it straight toward the zombie’s face.
A hand reached from behind him and gripped his wrist. Wu Heng’s voice sounded. “He’s my doctor.”
Wu Heng didn’t seem to use much force, yet his grip left Lin Jie completely unable to move. “You use a zombie as a doctor?” Lin Jie demanded.
Seeing Lin Jie withdraw his killing intent, Wu Heng released him as well. “If he can treat illnesses, he’s a doctor.”
By then, Doctor Chen had already climbed onto the boat. “Wu Heng is right.”
Lin Jie said nothing more. He simply stared at the zombie in the white coat before him without blinking. Everyone knew what kind of creature a zombie was. A zombie that could talk was still a zombie. A zombie that could heal was still a zombie.
The team regrouped. The three boats were packed to the brim, and they even had to toss quite a bit of equipment into the water just to make room to sit.
The joy of reunion didn’t last long. Soon, everyone realized Liu Dongfan was missing. Wen Yuan also learned of Jiang Yi’s loss of control and death. Even without seeing it with his own eyes, he could more or less guess what had happened. No one spoke.
Ruan Silian asked Wu Heng for a towel and gently dried Wang Meixia’s still-dripping hair. “Auntie, stay strong. Your daughter might still be waiting for you in Yaozhou.”
Wang Meixia gave everyone—including Ruan Silian—a very forced smile.
Wu Heng rested his arm along the edge of the boat. The poppy swept along the wooden boat’s route, clearing away the floating corpses of the alligator gars across the water’s surface. X wanted to eat them too, but Xue Qi pinched its mouth shut.
“This kind of fish doesn’t taste good. Its organs and roe are highly toxic. And right now, there’s no telling whether the toxicity has spread throughout its entire body. You’d better not eat it.”
An entire river full of fresh fish—yet they could only look at it, not eat it.
Only the poppy gathered as much as it could. Whether for itself or for the vegetation inside the spatial storage, it was rare and excellent fertilizer.
The cold, fishy stench lingered and drifted between the hills. At last, as the rain gradually subsided, a long-unseen streak of gold appeared on the distant horizon. Among the endless mountain peaks, the first break in the ridgeline emerged.
After coming ashore from the Chunyin River, the boats were no longer of any use. Everyone in the team retrieved their own equipment, shouldered their packs, and left the boats behind.
Wu Heng pulled on a waterproof short jacket and zipped it all the way up. His neck was long, his back lean and straight—utterly distinct from the others, whose clothes were sour, foul-smelling, and filthy. The contrast was almost natural and effortless.
“Wu Heng, that bag of yours can really hold a lot. One of these days, I’ve got to figure out a way to get one too.”
Yang Xiaoyun was genuinely envious now. He also wanted to dress cleanly and neatly—handsome and sharp.
Wen Yuan took out the map from his coat, still dripping with water, and wiped his face. “We’ve already left the uninhabited zone. Once we completely exit Shenjian, about twenty kilometers ahead is the main city of Shenjian. But the main city was overrun by mutated plants at the very beginning of the apocalypse. When we previously scouted above it, we didn’t detect any signs of human life.”
“If no one’s ever gone in or out of the main city, does that mean there could still be plenty of food, water, and supplies inside?”
“That’s possible. But we’re still fifty to sixty kilometers away from the main city.”
Jiang Xun rubbed her nose and stepped forward. “Captain Wen… about Jiang Yi. Could you help… reduce him to ashes? Let’s bury him here.”
Wen Yuan turned his head. Green mountains and clear waters stretched before him, mist coiling among the peaks that rose like clustered magpies.
This rain had made the entire land more alive than before. Every living thing that depended on it had grown astonishingly stronger and larger compared to a month ago.
Wu Heng stood beside a slab of bluish stone. From the crack beneath it grew a thin peach tree, no taller than a person, yet its pale pink blossoms covered the entire tree in full bloom.
Zhou Yi handed Jiang Yi over to Wen Yuan. At the same time, he set down his backpack and rummaged through the very bottom, pulling out a square metal box.
With a clang, he pried it open. Inside was a box filled to the brim with cards, badges, spent bullet casings, and other odds and ends.
He picked out one bullet casing and poured everything else back into his bag. Then he handed the empty box to Wen Yuan. “Put him in here. Thank you, Captain Wen.”
Xue Qi dissolved the spider silk, and Jiang Yi looked just as he had some time ago—unchanged in the slightest.
Zhou Yi crouched down and carefully removed his equipment piece by piece, holding it in his arms before stepping aside. “Okay.” His voice trembled. When Wen Yuan raised his hand and a gentle breeze stirred, Zhou Yi squeezed his eyes shut in panic.
Several of Wen Yuan’s subordinates turned their faces away, unable to bear the sight.
Wu Heng simply watched as Jiang Yi turned into less than a boxful of gray-white ash. It was more thorough than a funeral home—there wasn’t even a fragment of bone left behind.
“Zhou Yi, go bury him. Yang Xiaoyun, Cao Xian, go help.”
Zhou Yi walked over and picked up the box, closing the lid. His hands trembled so violently that everyone could see it.
In the past, Yang Xiaoyun and the others often teased Zhou Yi for being a kid who hadn’t been weaned yet, and Jiang Yi was naturally dubbed his “nanny.”
Jiang Yi hadn’t treated Zhou Yi in any especially different way—at most giving him a bit of extra attention as a high school and then college junior from the same background, but only just a little. Zhou Yi, however, depended heavily on Jiang Yi. Back in university, after even the most basic weighted training runs, he would squat outside Jiang Yi’s dorm room with a pitiful expression, waiting for him. The roommates all knew perfectly well the junior needed comforting, but Jiang Yi wasn’t one for that sort of thing. He would instead suggest adding another twenty kilograms to the spoiled Zhou Yi’s load—he hadn’t trained enough.
There was no condition to consult feng shui. Yang Xiaoyun chose the spot that looked the most pleasing: a slope behind for support, trees to the left, flowers to the right, and an open river stretching out ahead.
“As long as it looks and feels right to you, the feng shui can’t be that bad,” Yang Xiaoyun said. As he finished speaking, a deep pit opened in the ground before him. “Zhou Yi, put it in.”
Tears streamed endlessly down Zhou Yi’s face. Yang Xiaoyun and Cao Xian waited quietly. Everyone else stood in silence behind them. No matter how intense the emotions, there would always come a moment when they had to settle.
Wang Meixia was even more deeply affected and began sobbing softly with a hand over her mouth.
“Zhou Yi, we don’t have that much time to waste,” Mo Zhaohong said, standing atop a large rock.
Wu Heng straightened up. Beside him, Shukui immediately followed as he began to walk forward.
The boy stopped in front of Zhou Yi. “Give me that bullet casing.”
Though confused, Zhou Yi still took the casing he had just retrieved out of his pocket.
“What were you planning to do with it?” Wu Heng asked.
“String it with a cord… make it into a necklace,” Zhou Yi replied in a low voice.
Wu Heng nodded. He firmly took the box from Zhou Yi’s hands, opened the lid, and pinched up a small amount of still-warm ash from inside, placing it into the bullet casing.
“Wouldn’t this be better?” Wu Heng held out the casing—now filled with Jiang Yi’s ashes—toward Zhou Yi.
Zhou Yi looked at Wu Heng, his tears falling even harder.
“Thank you.”
At last, he understood why this young boy—who seemed understated and unassuming—was someone the others almost unconditionally gathered around. His powerful abilities were far from the most important reason.