In the knee-high tangle of wild grass, Xue Ling bent over, pushing aside the winter melon leaves in the field as she searched.
With no one to tend them, the vegetable and melon seeds left behind from before still sprouted year after year in these fields, growing, flowering, and bearing fruit.
Xue Ling searched with great focus, walking farther and farther away. Just as she finally spotted a large green-skinned winter melon, she heard the sound of a car pulling over coming from the road in the distance.
It was a truck with a cargo bed, and both the driving and braking sounds were quite loud.
Xue Ling hugged the winter melon, straightened up, and quickened her steps back along the path she had come from earlier.
She and Wen Jiuzhe had passed a small town by the roadside that morning. Seeing that there were quite a few vegetable plots nearby, she decided to come look for some fresh produce.
As for Wen Jiuzhe, she had sent him off to nearby houses to look for clothes.
He had been getting by pretty roughly before, owning only two T-shirts that he rotated between, one black and one white.
She had torn one of them at the zoo, and the other had been clawed full of holes by her, turning it into a distressed shirt. The only thing he could still wear was the museum collaboration T-shirt she had brought back.
Xue Ling now had more clothes she could wear than he did.
Wen Jiuzhe, who was rummaging for clothes in the abandoned roadside house, heard the commotion outside earlier than Xue Ling did.
He dropped the clothes in his hands, leaned out of a second-floor window to take a look below, then picked up a bag and went downstairs.
Three men got down from the truck, two middle-aged men and one young man. There was also a young girl on the truck, leaning against the window and talking to them.
They were chatting about the car Wen Jiuzhe had parked nearby.
“Wow, that car’s nice. It’s been modified, right?”
“No one’s around. Maybe it’s an abandoned vehicle. Dad, Second Uncle, how about we just drive it away?”
“Don’t be stupid. One look and you can tell it’s not abandoned. The owner’s probably gone inside to look for things.”
It was at this moment that Wen Jiuzhe walked out.
He glanced at the people present, opened the car door, tossed the bag in his hand inside, slammed the door shut with a bang, and leaned against the car.
He stood more than half a head taller than all three men present, and the shape of the muscles in his arms and chest made it obvious that he used his body a lot on a regular basis.
Even without mentioning his imposing build and hard-to-mess-with aura, just the gun and short blade on his body were enough to make them suppress any thoughts of robbery.
The young man who had suggested driving the car away reined in the greed in his eyes and walked back to his own vehicle.
The oldest middle-aged man was clearly much smoother in manner. He sized Wen Jiuzhe up a couple of times, broke into a smile, took out a cigarette, and offered it as he tried to make conversation. “Where you coming from, young man?”
Wen Jiuzhe didn’t take it and waved a hand to refuse.
When traveling alone, you had to stay on guard. He had run into people before who tampered with cigarettes.
“Don’t know the place, just driving around,” Wen Jiuzhe said.
The middle-aged man took the cigarette back, lit it himself, and said with a smile, “From the direction you’re heading, are you planning to go to Ping District Base, or to Chuan’an Base?”
From this road, turning left or right would lead to two different bases.
He briefly introduced the people with him. “My younger brother and my son and daughter. We came over from Chuan’an Base, planning to go scavenging.”
These days, entering abandoned cities to search for usable supplies was called scavenging.
There were quite a few people like this. Usually several people would form a small team, most often based around a family unit.
Like the team in front of them, they would search for small items around towns or the outskirts of cities, and would not go deep into the city interior.
Wen Jiuzhe replied casually, “Probably going to Ping District Base.”
The middle-aged man smiled and asked, “You’re from Ping District Base? We’ve been to Ping District Base before, but I don’t think we’ve seen you.”
There were plenty of people in the base, but not everyone dared—or had the conditions—to go out. Most people still worked inside the base or around its vicinity.
This young man in front of them looked like he was traveling alone, yet he had a car like this and enough gasoline to drive around freely. He was definitely not an ordinary person.
People like them who frequently went out were well-informed. It was unlikely they hadn’t heard of him.
“I stayed at Ping District Base for a while,” Wen Jiuzhe said, impatience beginning to rise in his heart.
His gaze swept over the middle-aged man who looked friendly on the surface but whose body was slightly tense, the other dark, thin middle-aged man nearby with a vigilant expression, and the two young man and woman who stayed silent.
Running into people outside was something that required even more caution than running into zombies, because it was very possible to encounter killers who robbed travelers.
Although they had four people and Wen Jiuzhe was alone, making it seem as though Wen Jiuzhe was at a disadvantage, this four-person team was even more unwilling to start a conflict.
Wen Jiuzhe looked more relaxed than they did and asked in return, “Are you planning to scavenge around here, or just rest a bit and then leave?”
They had been to this area long ago; there was nothing good left. If not for spotting this car by the roadside, they wouldn’t have deliberately stopped to take a look.
The middle-aged man laughed twice. “It’s getting late. We’re getting ready to leave now.”
He called to the other two to get on the truck, and the blue truck quickly drove away from in front of Wen Jiuzhe.
Wen Jiuzhe watched the truck leave. The young girl stuck her head out of the window and looked back. When she saw him still standing there watching, she was so frightened that she hurriedly pulled her head back in.
After the truck had gone far away, Wen Jiuzhe turned and headed toward the back of the house.
His steps were quick, but he stopped abruptly as he came out the back door.
Xue Ling was squatting under the back wall, hugging a large winter melon, looking up at him.
The indifferent expression he had worn just moments earlier toward those people instinctively turned into a smile when he saw Xue Ling hiding there.
But that smile quickly faded again.
She had never been a big person to begin with, and he didn’t know if it was because she had shrunk after becoming a zombie. Squatting there in a little ball, she looked somewhat pitiful.
“Did you hear people coming and get scared, so you hid here?”
He took the winter melon from her, pulled Xue Ling up, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders for a light hug.
Without her writing board on her, Xue Ling pointed toward the road. Wen Jiuzhe then said, “They’re gone. It’s fine.”
He walked forward together with Xue Ling. Looking at the winter melon he was holding with one hand, he suddenly complained in a low voice, “I don’t even like eating winter melon.”
Xue Ling glared at him. Having something to eat was already good enough, and he still dared to be picky!
Seeing that he was about to lead her out to the car, Xue Ling hurriedly tugged at his clothes to remind him—clothes.
Wen Jiuzhe said, “They’re all too small. I can’t wear them.”
Xue Ling didn’t believe him. Wen Jiuzhe followed her into the house. Xue Ling picked up a T-shirt he had casually tossed onto the pile of clothes, spread it out, and compared it against Wen Jiuzhe’s body.
It did seem a bit small, but clothes had some stretch. Maybe it could be worn.
Wen Jiuzhe took off the clothes he was wearing with one hand and put on the one she was holding.
Xue Ling held back her laughter. It looked like an adult secretly wearing a child’s clothes, stretched tight all over—so stupid and so ridiculous.
This one wouldn’t do. She found another, a middle-aged man’s shirt. Wen Jiuzhe put it on; the front couldn’t even be pulled closed, and the sleeves were still short.
Xue Ling: Seriously, why are you so tall? You can’t even find clothes that fit.
They returned to the car, and Xue Ling saw an extra bag on the seat. Inside were colorful clothes—hers.
His own clothes hadn’t been found, yet he had gone and found new ones for her.
She took one out: a chiffon dress with the temperament of a middle-aged woman.
Wen Jiuzhe said, “This area is closer to bases where there are people. We might run into people often next. Next time, you stay in the car. Even if someone talks to you, don’t respond.”
She couldn’t let people discover that she was a zombie. Xue Ling knew that.
She had long since prepared herself for full coverage. As long as she changed into long sleeves and long pants, wore gloves and a hat, covered all exposed skin, and didn’t get too close to people, it should be fine.
“Perfect timing. You can change into this outfit. This long-sleeved base layer, then put this chiffon dress over it, and then wear black leggings…”
Xue Ling had long known that his sense of aesthetics was as shitty as dog shit, but she was still shocked by his combination.
A high-neck long-sleeve layered under a chiffon dress—how did he even think of that?
With such an unconventional sense of aesthetics, could he be some kind of luxury brand designer?
And besides, that wasn’t black leggings. It was a pair of women’s thermal pants.
Xue Ling rejected Wen Jiuzhe’s outfit arrangement and changed into the long sleeves and long pants she had found last time, with a slightly oversized shell jacket over it, enough to cover half her face.
Luckily, zombies weren’t afraid of heat. Otherwise, dressed like this, she would have gotten heatstroke for sure.
Wen Jiuzhe dug out several pairs of gloves for her to choose from.
Xue Ling opened the car window and coldly tossed the pink-and-blue strawberry knitted gloves out, then put on the plain, unremarkable black cycling gloves.
“And a hat.”
This time there was no choice—only a mori-style straw hat, with a girlish floral ribbon and lace flowers on it.
Even though wearing an outfit like this and a hat like that inside the car felt utterly unhinged, Xue Ling endured it.
“Sunglasses.”
These sunglasses were probably the one accessory Wen Jiuzhe had found that satisfied her.
Xue Ling happily set the oversized sunglasses on her nose, covering those dark red zombie eyes, and checked herself in the small mirror in the car, feeling pretty good.
It had been a long time since she’d felt this human.
Wen Jiuzhe also put on sunglasses—the same model as hers.
They were actually rather tacky sunglasses. Some people would look like a blind fortune-teller wearing them, but on Wen Jiuzhe, they looked cool and handsome, like some kind of retro fashion item.
Sure enough, on the road ahead, they ran into people several more times in succession.
However, Wen Jiuzhe didn’t deal with them. Most of the time, he simply drove past. Even if someone took the initiative to strike up a conversation, he ignored them.
Wen Jiuzhe planned to go to Ping District Base to replenish some supplies. This was the base where his cousin Dai Ying lived with his aunt and uncle. He had run into them here by chance before and stayed for a while.
The convoy Dai Ying was in wasn’t the first convoy Wen Jiuzhe had followed.
While searching everywhere for people, he had been to dozens of bases of all sizes, and had followed many convoys.
However, with every convoy he followed, his interactions were lukewarm—purely exchanging labor for supplies. When disagreements arose, they would simply part ways.
The convoy Dai Ying was in had gone to Anxi to move machinery and had been stopped by people from Qiuzhuang Base, returning empty-handed. Judging by the timing, they should be back by now.
Wen Jiuzhe didn’t plan to look for them. He drove the car to the entrance of Ping District Base, planning to get out, exchange a few things, and leave.
Near the base entrance, there were places to trade supplies, allowing passing convoys to do business without entering the base, which reduced the chances of trouble from outside vehicles staying inside.
Before getting out of the car, Xue Ling pulled a bag out from the space beneath the back seat and handed it to him.
Wen Jiuzhe saw the words “Anxi Wenkang Hospital” printed on the bag, then glanced at another medicine bag placed on the back seat.
So the bag containing allergy medicine, sleeping pills, and psychiatric drugs was his exclusive supply, and there was also another bag hidden away.
“How much medicine did you take that time, exactly?”
Xue Ling indicated that this was all of it. This bag she had stuffed randomly, with all kinds of medicine inside, and she didn’t even know if it would be useful.
But now that medicine was scarce, it should be able to fetch a good price.
Xue Ling generously declared: take it all to trade for money!
Once again eating soft rice, Wen Jiuzhe got out of the car carrying the rich lady big sister’s reward.
