Eaten Ch.52.1

Chapter 52.1: Warmth

Only Wu Heng himself knew how little he actually cared—and now, Xie Chongyi knew it too.

Unease. Irritation.

The village lay not far ahead. Though the heavy snow covered everything evenly, the traces left by human activity stood out clearly against the untouched natural landscape. Unfamiliar with the area, everyone moved cautiously.

Lin Mengzhi said, “There are so many zombies in the city, but out here in the wilderness, you barely see any.”

Xue Shen replied, “The greatest danger in the wilderness isn’t zombies.”

Xue Qi clung tightly to Shen She’s neck. “This is a campaign of extermination against humanity—damn it!”

The river wasn’t wide—less than ten meters across at its broadest, and narrow enough in places that only one or two people could squeeze through side by side. The bridge spanning it was correspondingly short, just a few steps long. From the middle of the bridge, they could see that the river surface had already frozen over.

Wu Zhi leaned over the railing, shivering. “I’ve seen ice like this on TV before!”

Lin Mengzhi pulled her back. “Stop looking, hurry up.”

Their boots pressed a trail of footprints into the snow until they stopped before a tall, solid wall.

Xue Shen ran a hand along it. “Frozen solid.”

Ying Liuquan hunched his shoulders, his face turning blue from the cold. Glancing to both sides, he said, “The wall’s newly built.”

Xue Qi craned his neck. “How can you tell?”

“The color of the soil—and besides, most villages in the south are scattered. It’s unrealistic for them to wall off an entire settlement,” Ying Liuquan coughed as he spoke.

Lin Mengzhi pressed his cheek to the wall. “Then they’re impressive! The apocalypse hasn’t even been going on that long, and they already have their own safehouse!”

Excited, Xue Qi started punching the air in Shen She’s arms. “Lin Mengzhi, Lin Mengzhi—let’s build one too, and be the kings!!!”

“Let’s find where the gate is first,” Xue Shen said, keeping focused on the present instead of joining in on their daydreams.

After circling more than halfway around, the group finally found an iron gate beside a thick-trunked red pine.

Xie Chongyi raised his hand and gave the gate a few knocks.

No response.

Standing behind the others, Wu Heng nudged the bird perched on his shoulder, dozing off, and gestured for it to go take a look.

X hated the cold. It ruffled its feathers, leapt off, and glided over everyone’s heads, landing atop the wall.

A moment later, it fluttered back down.

“Anyone coming to open the gate?” someone asked.

Too lazy to chirp, X just lifted its right foot.

“Wait—which foot means yes again?” Du Yaoyuan asked.

Dou Lu had just opened her mouth to say “right” when—clang!—a loud noise came from inside the gate. Everyone froze and turned toward it.

The gate didn’t open. Instead, a small palm-sized window at the top creaked open, revealing a pair of weary, frightened eyes. The voice that followed was that of an older woman.

“Who are you?”

Xue Shen quickly blocked Chen Meng, who was wobbling and mumbling incoherently, while Ji Zelan—the only calm, mature adult among them—stepped forward and spoke softly, “We’re just passing through. Could you let us in to rest for a bit?”

The woman’s brows drew tight. “We don’t take in outsiders. Who knows if any of you are carrying the virus?”

Ji Zelan couldn’t help glancing back at the group. She said nothing—because it was true. Some of them were.

“Go on, hurry up and leave. Once it gets dark, there’ll be all sorts of terrible things out there!” the woman said, slamming the little window shut with another loud clang.

Lin Mengzhi smacked his lips. “She’s so fierce.”

Xue Shen turned around. “Not accepting strangers is normal. If this village didn’t have that kind of caution, we probably wouldn’t even be seeing this wall. All right, let’s move.”

“Where’s Old Xie?” he asked, only to realize someone was missing once he turned.

Du Yaoyuan pointed toward the bridge. “Class Monitor went back to the car already.”

Although they hadn’t been able to enter the village at first, it was still the first time in a long while that they’d seen any living humans besides themselves. It proved that mankind hadn’t gone completely extinct—just gone into hiding. That alone was enough to rekindle a bit of hope in most of them.

Back in the bus, Shen Ping’an turned the steering wheel to back up. The tires kept slipping on the ice, so the vines had to both clear the path and brace the wheels to keep the bus from skidding sideways.

Just as the front of the vehicle turned back onto the main road, the iron gate beneath the tall wall suddenly swung open. The same woman from before stepped cautiously out a few steps and shouted toward them, “Come in!”

The village inside was nothing like the ones they’d seen before—nor like anything shown on television, or what they’d imagined. Snow blanketed everything, the place utterly silent. Every household’s door was tightly shut. The wall that had seemed towering from outside now felt even more oppressive from within.

The houses were clearly self-built, none taller than three stories. Each one was inhabited—some had people peeking curiously from behind the windows.

Lin Mengzhi tugged on Wu Heng’s sleeve and whispered, “Good thing we tied Dr. Chen to the bus. If we’d brought it in here, I swear these villagers would’ve rushed us with hoes and beaten it to death.”

The village roads were uneven, full of frozen ruts and pits that made walking nearly impossible. Wu Heng had to grab Lin Mengzhi’s arm just to stay steady as they moved forward.

As he walked, he scanned the surroundings.

The walled area wasn’t large—it enclosed no more than ten houses at most. From that, he could roughly guess that the people within the wall were likely all the survivors left from this village.

Suddenly, his eyes met those of a little girl standing in a yard by the roadside. Her skin was pale and waxy, her face flushed red from the cold, and she was so thin she looked like a stick. She gave him a shy smile before turning and running back into the house.

Up ahead, Ruan Silian and Ji Zelan were talking with the few women who had let them in.

One of the two was a gentle, soft-spoken female student; the other, a world-renowned musician. Between them, just a few calm and well-chosen words were enough to win people’s trust.

“Aiyo, we really didn’t dare let you folks in at first,” said one of the women—they called her auntie. She had a thick towel wrapped around her head, her cheeks were sunken, but she looked energetic enough, her voice firm and brisk as she spoke nonstop. “Those things outside bite people—eat people! But it’s nearly dark, and you all look so young. Our conscience wouldn’t let us just leave you out there. So we went and asked the village chief first—only then did we open the gate.”

“‘Those things’… you mean zombies?” Ruan Silian asked.

“That’s right, zombies!” another woman snapped angrily. “All from your cities! We mountain folk were doing just fine until those tourists came and turned into zombies. Then they bit our people—and who knew the infection was that strong? Once you’re bitten, you change too! There’s no curing it!”

Ji Zelan frowned as she listened. Then she asked, “Are there only zombies?”

“Oh no, not just zombies!” said the first woman, her voice rising. “Plenty of the chickens and ducks grew huge. Heaven help us, those chickens got as big as water vats—pecked two of our village children to death!”

“And the pigs in the pen grew massive too! At first, we thought maybe it was something in the feed, some kind of growth hormone, so we called in a vet. But—” The woman’s face paled with terror at the memory. “That pig went mad. It rammed the vet to death, right there in front of the family, then started eating him—bite after bite! Didn’t even leave a single bone shard behind!”

“After that, it ran off into the mountains and never came back. Damn beast—it’ll get what’s coming to it!”

Ruan Silian’s expression softened with sympathy. After a moment, she asked gently, “Your wall was built just in time, then. It must’ve spared you from a lot of trouble, right?”

“Of course,” said the auntie in the red headscarf proudly. “It was my son who organized the remaining villagers to build it together. You wouldn’t believe it—there’s a whole pack of wolves in these mountains. They come out at night looking for food. At first, we didn’t know, and back then the wall hadn’t been built yet. My son went down to the river one evening to fish, and ran right into them coming down from the mountain. Lucky boy—he ran fast enough that they didn’t catch him.”

As she spoke, her voice began to slow, and her expression dimmed. “But that same night, those wolves dragged away seven or eight people from the village…”

“After that, my son said we needed a wall. There’s no shortage of dirt and stone in the mountains, so it went up quickly.” Her face brightened again with pride as she waved her arm around them. “Look at that—it’s all thanks to this wall we’ve managed to hold off a lot of zombies too.”

“Are there many zombies around here?” Ruan Silian asked.

“Not many, not many,” said the woman quickly. “They used to be our own villagers. We couldn’t bring ourselves to kill them, but we couldn’t cure them either, so we drove them out. Some were tourists too—you could tell by their clothes. City folk. Fancy-looking.”

“We’re here,” said the woman in the floral jacket—the same one who had first turned them away, then opened the gate. She was much quieter than the others, barely speaking on the way. Now she stepped forward and pushed open the door of the house in front of them. “The family who lived here was taken by wolves. The place is empty—clean. You can rest here for the night. If you need to travel, go on in the morning.”

“There isn’t much food left in the village. These days, we only have one meal a day, cooked in a big pot for everyone. When it’s time to eat, someone will come call for you.”

After delivering them to their lodging, the women hunched their shoulders against the cold wind and trudged off, their footsteps uneven in the snow.

—

“Looks like there really isn’t any place spared by disaster,” Xue Shen said, sitting down heavily on a chair. “I was hoping we could stock up on some supplies, but that’s clearly not happening.”

Wu Zhi squatted down beside him. “Then let’s go. They’re so poor—don’t even have anything.”

Xue Shen reached out to rub her hair. “Don’t talk like that. It’s rude.”

Lin Mengzhi and Du Yaoyuan had already run through both floors of the house. When they came back down, Lin Mengzhi said, “This place is cleaner than my wallet used to be.”

Dou Lu sat quietly in the corner. “Everyone’s struggling now. I think I’ll skip dinner later—just sleep here instead.”

Ruan Silian leaned lightly against her shoulder. “They’re kind people.”

Wu Heng was sitting on the floor by the window. He gave Lin Mengzhi a look, and Lin Mengzhi immediately moved closer.

The boy pushed two energy cores across the floor—one neutral, one fire-type.

“You saved those up yourself. Use them. I don’t want them,” Lin Mengzhi said, shaking his head.

“I can’t use them right now. Don’t ask why.” Wu Heng leaned the back of his head against the wall, eyes half-closed. “Mengzhi, let’s both get stronger.”

Lin Mengzhi’s pupils shrank slightly. He stared at his childhood friend’s face, memories flashing back—

When he got suspended from school for fighting in middle school, he’d been so angry he quit altogether and went to work hauling boxes at a supermarket. Wu Heng had come to find him there and told him to go back and keep studying.

He had worn that same expression back then.

‘Let’s both get stronger. Let’s both have a better future.’

Just like before, Lin Mengzhi was moved. He grabbed the energy cores and pressed them into his palms, letting them all absorb into his body at once.

The surge of energy rushed through his veins, bursting straight toward his heart. It pumped twice, violently. Lin Mengzhi’s eyes flew open, his limbs stiffened, and he convulsed against the wall like a limp noodle, taking several long seconds before he recovered.

Meanwhile, Wu Heng was carelessly leaning on the windowsill, smiling at a few children in the opposite yard who were building snowmen.

The kids, who hadn’t seen outsiders for a long time, stared back at him curiously—then couldn’t help themselves. They clambered over the fence and, with their little legs wobbling, ran up to the wall beneath his window.

“Where did you come from?” one of the little boys asked loudly.

“From outside.”

“We know it’s from outside—but where outside?” a little girl said, her nose red and runny from the cold.

They were so small—still just children. Their lives had begun where the world had already ended. They might never know what life was like before the apocalypse; mutation and distortion would be the only normal they grew up with.

Wu Heng reached into his pocket and pulled out a few candies—apple-flavored, strawberry-flavored… He gave each of the kids, none of whom were even tall enough to reach the windowsill, two pieces.

“There’s no ‘outside,’” he said quietly.

<< _ >>