The time it took for a person to completely turn into a zombie was related to how they were infected with the zombie virus, and also to individual constitution.

Fast cases took a few minutes; slow ones took a day or two.

If it was only a scratch that broke the skin from a zombie’s toxic nails, the infection speed might be slower.

But this kind of neck-tearing bite was very fast.

Zou Hong quickly completed the transformation process, swaying as he stood up, instinctively beginning to seek out the scent of living people.

He walked toward A-Yang, who was lying on the ground groaning softly.

Already in pain and half-unconscious, A-Yang failed to evade the attack, and was viciously pounced on and torn at.

Painfully jolted awake, A-Yang opened his eyes and saw Zou Hong’s face, screaming in terror, “There’s a zombie… ugh!”

His neck was also opened up by his zombie brother.

That shout carried into the building, drawing the attention of several people inside.

There were four Yi Lion Gang members in the building. Not long after Brother Gang entered, one on his side had already been shot in the head.

This cooled the boiling fury in his brain a little, and made him more cautious.

He kept the remaining two brothers by his side, not giving Wen Jiuzhe a chance to pick them off separately, while inch by inch sweeping the places he could be hiding; at the slightest movement, they would fire.

He was calm and cautious, but his enemy was even calmer and more cautious, not showing himself, only hiding in the shadows.

In the past, Wen Jiuzhe had used exactly this method to confront and maneuver against enemies several times his number, ultimately dealing with everyone.

Brother Gang’s sharp gaze swept the empty room, confirming that no one was hiding there. It was at this moment that he heard the “There’s a zombie” from downstairs.

Thinking of Zou Hong below, his expression changed slightly, and he turned to leave the room.

The two people following him were also drawn by it, following behind him.

It was precisely at this moment of relaxed vigilance that a bullet struck one person squarely in the back of the heart.

Brother Gang’s ears twitched, and he dove down in the corridor.

As he dove to take cover, another brother let out a scream, clutching his abdomen and collapsing to the ground, dragged by him behind the wall.

The brother lying prone on the floor had a pool of blood steadily gathering beneath him.

Wen Jiuzhe was hanging outside the window with one hand; beneath his feet was the height of several floors, with only a protruding balcony edge supporting his body.

If Brother Gang had been a bit more careful just now and walked to the window to look down, he would have discovered him.

But they didn’t dare casually approach the window, because the first person who died had been by the window, where Wen Jiuzhe seized an opportunity from the opposite room and shot him dead.

Wen Jiuzhe bit the gun in his mouth, flipped his body onto the window ledge so narrow it was only a single edge, and jumped to the next one over.

The next second, the window glass was shattered by gunfire, shards raining down.

Brother Gang saw a fleeting shadow outside the window. When he got up and kicked open the door of the adjacent room, he didn’t see anyone inside.

Wen Jiuzhe had already flipped down to the next floor, jumping in through an open window.

He quickly turned out through the door and glanced down through the side glass window at the end of the corridor. He didn’t see Xue Ling, only Zou Hong who had turned into a zombie, and another man who had also zombified and was slowly crawling up.

They followed the scent of living people and the sounds, heading into the building.

Wen Jiuzhe heard the sound of Brother Gang coming downstairs, and flashed into a nearby room.

This building had long been abandoned; every room was empty, with very few places to hide.

So Wen Jiuzhe didn’t hide—he just leaned against the wall.

Hiding was also a skill he had trained since childhood.

If he didn’t know how to hide and could only take hits, he would have been beaten to death long ago.

As long as he was careful, bold, and patient, he would always have the last laugh.

Brother Gang had a fire bottled up in his chest. He had never encountered someone as hard to deal with as Wen Jiuzhe. Clearly holding a gun, yet unable to find the person; every time he fired, it missed, while on his side, his brothers would be shot if they weren’t careful.

Another change downstairs made him suspect Wen Jiuzhe had accomplices, making it even harder for him to stay calm.

Dragging footsteps sounded on the stairs. Brother Gang raised his gun to fire, but froze when he saw who it was.

“A-Yang?” He had turned into a zombie.

“Bang.” Brother Gang didn’t hesitate, blowing his head off, watching him tumble down the stairs.

At this moment, another scream sounded from upstairs, along with gunfire.

His thick, bushy brows twitched, and he immediately turned back and ran upstairs.

A-Feng, who had just taken a shot to the abdomen, was pinned to the ground and bitten by someone, the gun in his hand fallen to the side.

Seeing his cousin Zou Hong’s bluish-white face, Brother Gang finally couldn’t hold back, his eyes reddening—this was his only remaining family.

But he clenched his teeth and still raised his hand, firing at that zombie’s head.

Wen Jiuzhe’s figure silently appeared at the end of the corridor. He also raised his hand toward him, and fired at the same time.

Two gunshots overlapped into one, and Brother Gang and zombie Zou Hong fell to the ground together.

Then came two more puh puh sounds, the sound of bullets entering flesh.

Only after confirming that whether human or zombie, none here could possibly get back up again, did Wen Jiuzhe head downstairs.

Six people in total, all left in the building; in the camp’s open ground, only bloodstains remained.

“…Xue Ling.” Wen Jiuzhe called out once.

No one responded. He quickened his pace, walked to his car, and saw Xue Ling standing in the darkness.

There was a lamp at one corner of the camp; it wasn’t completely dark here. Wen Jiuzhe could see the blood on her face and the front of her clothes.

She stood there quietly without expression, staring at him.

Maybe it was an illusion, but in the dim light, Wen Jiuzhe felt her expression looked a bit more ferocious than before, like she really wanted to pounce over and bite him.

His steps paused slightly, but he still moved closer, tentatively shaking her shoulder. “Wake up, do you still have your rationality?”

Xue Ling: “….” Freak.

How could she possibly lose her rationality just from biting someone once? It wasn’t like she hadn’t bitten before.

She smacked his arm away with the back of her hand. Wen Jiuzhe relaxed; as long as she still had reason, it was fine.

He reached out to wipe the blood at the corner of Xue Ling’s mouth, but instead smeared the ash on his hand all over her face, so he could only give up for the time being.

Without raising any objections to her look that could be put straight into a horror film, Wen Jiuzhe said first, “It’s all taken care of. I told you it’d be quick, right?”

Xue Ling was angry, and he still dared to show off?

Wen Jiuzhe didn’t explain in detail, and Xue Ling only treated this as yet another black-eats-black operation.

This time, the haul was far richer than last time. The two cars left behind had several boxes of food and many weapons, as well as quite a bit of gasoline.

Wen Jiuzhe moved all the looted things into their car. He didn’t even let the fuel tanks of those two cars off, siphoning all the gas out and taking it with them as well.

He bustled about, and only when it was almost dawn did he take Xue Ling and leave fully loaded, driving away from this camp.

“Do we still need to find a camp to rest at night?” Wen Jiuzhe asked.

Xue Ling shook her head heavily.

She never wanted to go to a camp again. Too much trouble.

The two of them found a clear small river and washed the blood and dust off their bodies.

Wen Jiuzhe helped Xue Ling simply wipe her face and neck, then took out a toothbrush and was about to help her brush her teeth.

If it were in the past, Xue Ling would have already been feeling for her writing board, asking this and that, but since the camp she had been silent.

When he asked her whether she wanted to brush her teeth, she only gave a slight nod.

Wen Jiuzhe and Xue Ling sat facing each other. He used the web between thumb and forefinger to brace her jaw, making her open her mouth, one hand holding the toothbrush and fussing around inside her mouth.

“Your teeth—when you look closely, they’re a lot sharper than before. Don’t you feel that?”

“……”

“Hey, can you bite through bones now?”

“……”

Xue Ling stared at him, then suddenly bit through the toothbrush in her mouth.

Wen Jiuze held half of the toothbrush handle: “……”

Just now, his fingers had almost gone in.

“Peh.” Xue Ling kept her eyes on him and spat the other half of the toothbrush out to the side.

Wen Jiuze swallowed back the sentence he hadn’t yet said—“like dog teeth”—then went to open a new toothbrush and silently helped her finish brushing.

When he went to carefully wash her face again, Wen Jiuze made conversation for no reason and asked, “Do you want to put on some face cream? You still have quite a lot of cosmetics there that you haven’t used.”

Already unhappy, Xue Ling immediately remembered how he had previously mistaken makeup remover for toner and forcefully patted it onto her face.

She suddenly reached out and shoved him into the small river.

Wen Jiuze wasn’t prepared for her move and ended up plopping straight into the river. After a long moment, he raised a hand and grabbed a handful of dripping-wet hair.

…What had he done to provoke her this time?