As Wen Jiuzhe asked, his hand had already gone to the gun at his waist, while the other hand drew a short blade.
His gaze locked onto the tiger in the forest; with a flick of his hand, the short blade shot out, embedding itself in the trunk of a tree to the tiger’s left front side.
The golden tabby tiger did not advance to attack. It twisted its head and burrowed into the woods, quickly disappearing.
Xue Ling finally loosened her grip on Wen Jiuzhe’s clothes.
Wen Jiuzhe looked down at his slack collar and the several holes she had torn in the hem, thinking that her strength really had increased now.
He walked over, pulled his short blade out of the tree trunk, and shoved it back into its sheath.
“Let’s go.” He got into the car and started driving.
Xue Ling didn’t have the energy to be angry with him. Still shaken, she grabbed the writing board and wrote: “Tiger!”
Wen Jiuzhe gave her a strange look. “What about the tiger? What’s there to be afraid of?”
Tigers eat people! Xue Ling wrote.
Wen Jiuzhe said, “Aren’t there man-eating zombies everywhere? A tiger is just a bit rarer, that’s all.”
Xue Ling: “……”
That… actually seemed to make a bit of sense.
Wen Jiuzhe flipped through a large pile of new and old maps he had collected and found one of the nearby area. “Jiashi Zoo… we’ll cut through from this road.”
Xue Ling looked at him speechlessly. So he wasn’t just saying it casually—he really was going?
But—
“The tiger already ran out!” she wrote.
If all the large animals from the zoo had escaped and were wandering around nearby, wouldn’t that be extremely dangerous?
Wen Jiuzhe comforted her. “It’s fine. There are lots of animals in the zoo. If the tiger ran out, we can still go look at the others. It’s not like all of them could have escaped, right?”
Xue Ling: I’m not worried about that!
In the end, they still went to that zoo.
The zoo was built in the outskirts of Jiashi, covering quite a large area—much larger than the Yu Zoo Xue Ling had been to before—and there weren’t many zombies to be seen here.
Was it because there hadn’t been many visitors here at the start of the apocalypse, or for some other reason?
Whatever the reason, it made their visit into the park much smoother.
Xue Ling worried that some large ferocious beast might pounce out at any moment. Walking behind Wen Jiuzhe, she kept glancing left and right, looking like a thief.
Wen Jiuzhe grabbed her hand and led her forward, laughing at her. “Even if there really is a fierce beast, it wouldn’t like to eat you. Don’t be nervous.”
When Xue Ling was led by the hand like this, she suddenly froze.
Wen Jiuzhe hadn’t put on leather gloves to isolate danger. Just like before, he held her hand directly, his warm palm pressing against the back of her hand.
She suddenly remembered the scene from several years ago, when the two of them held hands for the first time.
…Don’t misunderstand, that wasn’t some romantic memory.
At that time, it hadn’t been long since the two of them had confirmed their relationship, and they were still in a somewhat unfamiliar stage. Xue Ling was polite and reserved toward him, and Wen Jiuzhe was also rather indifferent toward her.
That day, Wen Jiuzhe was waiting for her by the side gate of her school when he suddenly took the initiative to extend his hand to her.
Previously, whenever the two of them went out together, Wen Jiuzhe would either walk in front of her or beside her, his hands always in his pockets. Only occasionally, when Xue Ling walked closer to the roadside and nearer to passing cars, would Wen Jiuzhe reach out to pull her back a bit. Holding hands had never happened.
So when he took the initiative to extend his hand to hold hers, Xue Ling felt a little strange, and also a little nervous.
She reached out, and he grasped her hand.
Feeling the warmth of his palm, just as that bit of shyness and nervousness began to sprout in Xue Ling’s heart, she suddenly noticed that there was something slightly wet in his hand?
She withdrew her hand to take a look. On the back of her hand, where it had been pressed against Wen Jiuzhe’s palm, there was some grayish-white… bird droppings? Bird droppings!
Wen Jiuzhe propped up that hand and said with a smile, “When I was waiting for you just now, I accidentally got some bird droppings on my hand from the railing.”
“……”
Probably from that moment on, the way they got along changed—from an awkward, overly polite distance, into one person being deliberately obnoxious and the other getting angry, gradually turning into playful bickering.
Before they realized it, they had started holding hands often, although every single time, Xue Ling would carefully check whether there was anything in Wen Jiuzhe’s hand before she would agree to hold it.
Compared to the shyness of holding hands with her boyfriend, what she thought about more was whether this person was planning to pull some stupid stunt again today.
Xue Ling snapped back from her memories of the past, not even noticing where Wen Jiuzhe had pulled her to. When she looked up, she saw the ferocious beast area.
You really are the type who, knowing there are tigers in the mountains, still heads straight for Tiger Mountain.
Fortunately, there was a huge gap broken in the fence of the ferocious beast area, and all the beasts inside had already run off.
…Wasn’t this even more terrifying? What if they were still wandering around nearby!
“All ran off?”
Wen Jiuzhe raised his eyebrow and lifted his foot, walking toward the hole, wanting to enter the area that tourists hadn’t been able to access before to take a look. Xue Ling yanked him hard from behind, making him stumble.
She practically dragged Wen Jiuzhe away from that place.
The areas for zebras, giraffes, ostriches, and elephants were all empty.
They walked to the aviary area. Large cage-like rooms were lined up in a long row. Signs for various parrot species were still hanging outside the cages, but the birds inside were already gone.
In some of the rooms, bones left behind after the birds’ deaths could be seen; others were completely empty.
Xue Ling was feeling somewhat distressed when Wen Jiuzhe gestured for her to look up. On the trees above their heads stood two parrots with bright, beautiful feathers.
Xue Ling felt a bit happier and pointed at the parrots, letting out an “aowu.”
The parrots on the tree looked down at the humans and zombies below, opened their beaks, and said, “Aowu.”
Wen Jiuzhe said, “Pfft hahaha, it even learned it pretty well.”
Another strange burst of laughter sounded from the forest: “Gaga gaga gaga gaga, just like it!”
Turns out there was another parrot in there as well.
Xue Ling and Wen Jiuzhe both: “……”
Compared to these animals that had been kept in cages and compartments, the swans, mandarin ducks, and red-crowned cranes that had been placed by the water as part of the scenery had survived in greater numbers.
Xue Ling even saw a nest of eggs in the grass on the other side of the lake. She didn’t know what kind of bird had laid them.
The peacock enclosure next door was empty, but the peacock itself was fine, dragging its long tail as it strolled along the road.
Seeing people approach, it lifted its long neck, wearing an arrogant, condescending expression, and swayed past without even glancing sideways.
Wen Jiuzhe’s gaze followed it as it moved, and he asked, “I wonder if peacock tastes good.”
Xue Ling hesitated for a moment, then still pushed him forward. Forget it—since it looks so pretty, don’t eat it.
Ahead were small bridges over flowing water, large lakes and small lakes, and schools of ornamental fish swimming in the connected ponds, their leisurely demeanor no different from before the apocalypse.
Pretty ornamental fish are usually not good to eat.
To prevent Wen Jiuzhe from getting ideas about them again, Xue Ling hurriedly pointed at the fish, shook her head, and crossed her arms, signaling that they didn’t taste good.
Wen Jiuzhe also pointed toward the fish pond. What he pointed at was the edge of the pond. Xue Ling took a closer look and saw several bloated zombies soaking there, with a group of red and yellow fish gathered around, pecking at them.
—Zombies disdain fish for being bad to eat, but fish don’t disdain zombies for being bad to eat.
Xue Ling: Anyone who saw this scene would lose their appetite for these fish.
Over the past three years, Xue Ling had seen animals bitten by zombies. Basically, they would die very quickly and would not undergo mutations like humans did.
Then what about these fish that had eaten zombies? Would they die too?
They squatted by the fish pond watching the fish for quite a while but couldn’t tell anything. Two zombies wandered over nearby and were chopped up by Wen Jiuzhe and tossed into the pond, giving the fish an extra meal.
However, once fresh zombies entered the water, the fish immediately scattered and didn’t go to eat them.
“Won’t eat fresh ones—only eat them after they’ve soaked and puffed up. Could it be that after soaking, they’re not as poisonous and can be eaten?” Wen Jiuzhe guessed.
Xue Ling held a different view. She wrote: “Maybe if they haven’t soaked, they can’t bite through.”
As zombies exist longer, their bodies become harder, their skin filled with toughness. When a knife stabs into them, it clangs like metal, and lower-quality knives might even snap. How would fish be able to bite through that?
What Xue Ling found even stranger was how Wen Jiuzhe managed to so easily cut off zombie heads with a short blade.
The fish in the ponds lived freely; the ornamental fish in tanks were a bit more unlucky.
The murky water hadn’t been changed for a long time, and the oxygen supply devices had long since stopped. The water in the tanks had turned green. Needless to say, all the pretty little fish in the tanks had died.
They only glanced at them before moving on. Wen Jiuzhe led Xue Ling to a place built to resemble a rocky cave.
Xue Ling hadn’t paid attention to the sign and was just wondering what area this was when she saw a giant python behind the glass.
Xue Ling: “!”
Wen Jiuzhe heard the sound of his T-shirt being torn.
Fortunately, Xue Ling still had her rationality. She didn’t rake her fingers across him to leave several scratches, but only tore his T-shirt.
The giant python behind the glass didn’t move at all. Looking at the bright, gorgeous patterns on its body, Xue Ling nearly pressed herself against Wen Jiuzhe.
She wanted to ask whether it was alive or dead, but was afraid that if she asked, Wen Jiuzhe would break the glass to find the answer for her.
She could only turn her gaze away and push at Wen Jiuzhe’s back with her fist, urging him to hurry forward.
She didn’t dare look carefully at those snakes. If she accidentally saw an empty nest, she would suspect that the snake had run out and feel as though a snake might appear under her feet at any moment.
After passing through this area, the two of them saw crocodiles behind the glass again.
The motionless crocodiles had their mouths open, looking like statues.
Wen Jiuzhe squatted down to look for a while, then knocked on the glass.
“Dead or alive?”
Xue Ling knew him well. Because after Wen Jiuzhe asked that, he immediately started testing the edge of the glass with his hands, as if preparing to dismantle it and pull the crocodiles out to take a look.
When he started hammering the glass hard, Xue Ling also started hammering him hard.
In the end, they didn’t manage to take the glass apart, and could only regretfully leave behind a pile of questions of “are they alive or dead, exactly.”
After leaving that place, Wen Jiuzhe’s old T-shirt had been torn and yanked by Xue Ling until it had practically turned into strips of rags, close to being scrapped.
Dressed in this beggar outfit, Wen Jiuzhe and Xue Ling continued on to the next area.
The next area was Monkey Mountain.
Compared to the other areas, where the animals were either gone or had run off, this group of monkeys had directly proclaimed themselves kings of the place and expanded their clan.
As soon as they passed by, the artificial rockery and the nearby trees were full of monkeys! At a glance, there were at least several hundred.
When they appeared, one monkey started screaming, and a whole group of monkeys followed suit.
Just as Xue Ling felt that something was wrong, Wen Jiuzhe had already made a decisive move—he wrapped an arm around her, turned, and ran back.
“Run!” Wen Jiuzhe said.
A fierce man who could face a tiger without changing expression had ultimately still yielded before several hundred monkeys.
Although she herself was unlucky too, Xue Ling couldn’t help but think it was a bit funny, rather unfairly.
Bro, bro—you also have a day when you know fear!
There were sounds of monkeys chasing from behind. They didn’t know what things they had grabbed, screeching and chattering as they hurled them at the two of them.
Crackling clods of dirt, small stones, and dried fruit pits pelted them, bouncing off their bodies and landing at their feet like rain.
Wen Jiuzhe shielded Xue Ling’s head, almost not letting her get hit at all, half dragging and half carrying her as he ran out of the Monkey Mountain area.
When they stopped and took a look, his body was covered in all kinds of gray marks, and even his hair was full of dirt crumbs. He was completely unpresentable.
Xue Ling wanted to laugh. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make a “haha” expression, so she only bared her teeth slightly.
Wen Jiuzhe looked at her with understanding and patted his own hair. “Happy now?”
No! Xue Ling immediately pulled back her bared big teeth.
For no reason at all, they had gone to the zoo and gotten beaten up by monkeys. The two of them set off again.
