When other people were terrified because of zombies, she was terrified because she herself had turned into a zombie.
Her skin had turned bluish, the red blood vessels were very obvious against the blue skin, her eyes had turned a dark red, and she could no longer feel any pulse or heartbeat.
Xue Ling stared at herself in the mirror for a long time, then looked down from the window, and in despair discovered that she was exactly the same as those zombies below who chased people and bit them!
She wanted to shout loudly to vent her emotions, but what came out of her mouth was an unpleasant zombie roar.
And she gradually began to feel very hungry, yet she did not want to eat the snacks or rice at home. Instead, when she heard the young couple next door arguing, she really wanted to go over and bite them a couple of times.
By then, things outside had already fallen into chaos, and Xue Ling hid at home.
People went door to door knocking, reminding everyone to stay inside and not go out casually, to prevent the infection from spreading further, and there were also those distributing supplies. Xue Ling did not dare open the door.
After discovering that she had become a zombie, yet was different from those zombies, Xue Ling was extremely panicked. After being frightened and fearful for a while, her first reaction was to go find her family.
Her uncle, aunt, and cousin should still be at home.
Fortunately, the zombies outside treated her as one of their own. At that time, most people were also hiding at home in fear, so there were not too many obstacles on the road, and she successfully made it to her uncle’s home on the other side of the city.
While hesitating downstairs in the building she had lived in for more than ten years, Xue Ling was pleasantly surprised to discover that her mother was actually there as well.
Before the chaos broke out, they had contacted each other by phone; she and her stepfather had been in the neighboring city.
Had she come to pick her up?
Xue Ling was happy and afraid, hiding by the doorway. Only when her mother walked out alone did she slowly walk over.
At the instant she saw her clearly, her mother froze, her eyes widening in shock, tears falling immediately, as she stood there and murmured her name.
Xue Ling also really wanted to cry. She took two steps forward, wanting to call out “Mom,” but what came out was a zombie’s cry.
That strange cry jolted her mother awake. She recoiled in terror, her whole body trembling as she let out a hoarse scream.
“Ah!”
The scream drew out her uncle and stepfather from inside the house.
Her stepfather had previously been a truck driver. He was somewhat dark-skinned, but had a good temperament, and when he married her mother, he had even privately given Xue Ling a big red envelope.
At this moment, he rushed out holding a stick. The instant he saw Xue Ling, he immediately raised the stick and swung it down at her.
The stick whistled through the air as it was swung, as if it could knock a person’s head clean off. Xue Ling was so frightened that she twisted her head and dodged, but the back of her head was still struck once.
Her stepfather wanted to strike again, but her mother reacted in time, screaming as she lunged forward and grabbed him.
“Don’t hit her! Don’t hit her!”
She cried as she shouted, “It’s Lingling… that’s Lingling, my daughter! Ah……”
The second strike never landed. Xue Ling stumbled and ran off, hearing a mess of chaotic sounds coming from behind her.
Her uncle’s repeated, disbelieving questions, her aunt’s lingering fear, her cousin’s crying.
They were heartbroken and afraid, urging her mother to hurry inside and shut the door.
Xue Ling crouched in a corner downstairs, hiding there, and could still hear the crying inside the house going on for a very, very long time.
No matter who it was, stepping out the door and seeing a zombie standing there, the first reaction would be to attack. That was understandable.
She told herself.
If I were still human, and saw such an ugly zombie, I would be scared too. That’s understandable.
That’s how normal people react.
On the way here, she had thought about how to let her uncle and the others know that she still had reason, that she was different from the other zombies.
But just now, seeing the fear in her mother’s eyes, being struck awake by her stepfather’s blow—
No matter whether she still had human thoughts and rationality, no matter how she promised that she wouldn’t bite anyone, it was impossible for her to live together with her family anymore.
That night, she squatted downstairs for the entire night. The next day, her uncle’s family, along with her mother and stepfather, drove away from Yu City.
They were planning to go to a county in a neighboring city. Her stepfather’s hometown was in the countryside—there were fewer people, and even if chaos broke out, it wouldn’t be as dangerous as Yu City. Her stepfather’s son and daughter’s families were also there.
Xue Ling watched their car leave. Only after it was completely out of sight did she stand up and chase after it for a couple of steps.
She suddenly didn’t know where else she could go.
She wanted to go back to the apartment she had rented, the place where she had lived for more than two years.
But when she went back, that building had already fallen into chaos. People were hiding in her apartment. She couldn’t return, and could only wander downstairs.
Her family had left. Friends—she had a few, but the relationships weren’t that deep. At least, after she had turned into a zombie, they probably wouldn’t want to see her.
A lover… they had broken up not long ago.
At first, she hadn’t thought of going to look for Wen Jiuzhe, but she truly had nowhere else to go.
When the building she lived in was set on fire by crazed people, Xue Ling finally decided to leave Yu City.
If she was leaving, she had to have some kind of destination, right?
She remembered Wen Jiuzhe’s hometown, Anxi City. He and Wen Xuan had both gone back to their hometown some time ago.
Xue Ling decided to go to Anxi City to find Wen Jiuzhe—not for any other reason. She was still seething inside over their rushed breakup, and she had just suffered grievances from her family.
So she decided, completely unreasonably, to vent all her anger on Wen Jiuzhe—to go to Anxi City and bite him once, turning him into a zombie too!
With a vengeful mindset, she set off in a fury.
But this journey was truly too long, and too difficult. By the time she finally arrived in Anxi City, she no longer wanted to go looking for Wen Jiuzhe, so she casually found a park and lay down there.
She didn’t want to see Wen Jiuzhe again—yet he suddenly appeared on his own, showing up right in front of her.
At that moment, she was truly annoyed, hoping Wen Jiuzhe would hurry up and disappear… She didn’t want to see the person who used to be closest to her look at her with fear and disgust again.
Xue Ling had never held much hope for Wen Jiuzhe’s attitude from the very beginning. Even her closest family members were afraid of her, let alone an ex-boyfriend who had initiatively broken up with her.
When she collapsed among a pile of zombies, Xue Ling thought, I’m not afraid at all. If you’ve got the guts, then beat me to death. Just shoot me.
But Wen Jiuzhe didn’t. He was just as improper as before, as if he hadn’t even clearly seen her zombie appearance, smiling as he said, “I didn’t even hit you, so why did you fall?”
The small boat drifting on the sea had reached the shore, although it had done so by running aground on the rocks.
Having turned into a zombie for more than three years, having reunited with Wen Jiuzhe for more than two months, and now, today, encountering her family again, Xue Ling couldn’t help but have far, far too many complicated emotions surge up in her heart.
After she had “cried” through an entire bottle of water, Wen Jiuzhe wiped her face with a towel, wiped down the seat that had been soaked, then held her and lay down on the reclined seat, deliberately saying some punch-worthy things.
Xue Ling clawed several holes into his clothes, gripping them tightly in her hand, and gradually calmed down.
“Done being sad about your mom? If you’re done being sad, can you answer me a question?”
Wen Jiuzhe’s thoughtfulness was like a rainbow after a storm—brilliant for a moment, then quickly gone, making people doubt whether it was an illusion.
“I used to think you came to Anxi City before turning into a zombie, and then accidentally became a zombie there. But your mom said that three years ago in Yu City you were already like this, so you went to Anxi City specially to look for me after turning into a zombie, right?”
Xue Ling: “……”
You’ve already confirmed it, so why are you even asking.
She didn’t say a word. Wen Jiuzhe didn’t press her either, and changed the question. “How long did it take you to get here? A year? A year and a half?”
He guessed several times and got them all wrong. Xue Ling reluctantly told him it was more than two years. Exactly how long, she couldn’t quite remember either.
This time, traveling from Anxi City to Yu City, even driving took more than two months. There was no navigation along the way, so they took many wrong turns; road collapses or man-made blockades that required detours; large concentrations of zombies and vehicles that required detours; resting at night; constantly having to figure out ways to get gasoline; and all kinds of unexpected situations.
Going on foot was even more troublesome.
Xue Ling almost got lost all the way to the grasslands. She followed the railway tracks trying to find her direction back, only to find that a long stretch of tracks had been buried by landslides from both sides of the mountains. Heaven knew how she managed to walk out of that.
Being able to reach Anxi City in a little over two years—she was already very impressive!
“Very impressive, being able to find Anxi City,” Wen Jiuzhe praised her as well.
Xue Ling: “……”
Being praised by him like that, she couldn’t feel happy at all.
Wen Jiuzhe: “Did you come to find me to get back together?”
Xue Ling completely stopped wanting to cry. She wanted to sneer.
In your dreams—get back together? She came for revenge!
Wen Jiuzhe: “After going through so much trouble just to find me, and when you saw me back then you didn’t even bite me. You really care about me.”
Xue Ling: “……”
This dog’s memory couldn’t possibly be that bad, right?
When they had just met back then, was it that she didn’t want to bite him? Wasn’t it that she wanted to bite him but couldn’t? He reacted so fast, was so damn strong, and even tied her up so tightly she couldn’t break free at all—yet he didn’t mention that part at all.
In the afternoon, as Wen Jiuzhe was tidying things up by the car and preparing to leave, he saw Ms. Xue Pingying again.
She was holding that little girl from yesterday, only a few years old, and walked over on her own initiative to strike up a conversation with him.
“I still haven’t asked your name. Are you planning to settle down at the Xiu’an Base?”
Hearing the rustling sounds coming from inside the car, Wen Jiuzhe stopped, put on a smile, and replied, “My name is Wen Jiuzhe. We’re getting ready to leave this afternoon.”
He glanced at the little girl in her arms. “This child is?”
Xue Pingying patted the somewhat shy little girl. “She’s my stepdaughter’s daughter. Her father is gone, her mother has to work every day, so I’m taking care of her.”
There were simply too many dead; every family had lost someone. Xue Pingying, who had reddened her eyes that morning upon suddenly hearing her deceased daughter’s name, now looked no longer grief-stricken. After all, for her, it had already been a long time.
But no one had mentioned her daughter to her for a long time, and Xue Pingying suddenly felt the urge to talk and confide in someone.
“Her name is Tiantian. She’s a sensible, well-behaved child, just like my Lingling was. Lingling was like this when she was little too—she rarely cried and didn’t like to make trouble. As soon as I held her, she’d behave herself.”
“She was sensible from a very young age. She even brought me an umbrella for me.”
Wen Jiuzhe leaned against the car window and listened. Xue Ling leaned against him from behind, also listening quietly.
She still remembered this incident. At the time, she had only been living at her uncle’s place for a year. During summer vacation, she received a call from her mother and finally couldn’t hold it in anymore—she cried and said she missed her, that she wanted to live with her.
Hearing her cry, her mother also broke down crying on the phone. She missed her daughter too.
So she took leave and rode the train overnight to pick her up and bring her to live with her, agreeing that after the summer vacation ended, she would go back to her uncle’s place.
At that time, her mother was working alone away from home. Her salary wasn’t high, and her living conditions weren’t good. She lived in a small single room, on the top floor; it was very hot during the day. She couldn’t bear to install an air conditioner and only used an electric fan.
It was only after Xue Ling went there that she installed an air conditioner.
During the day, her mother went to work, and Xue Ling stayed alone in that room. Every day before going to work, her mother would remind her of many things—not to touch knives, not to touch power sockets, not to take hot water.
She went to work every day carrying worry about her, and at noon she would rush back to check on her once, then rush back to work again.
Once, when it was time to get off work, it rained very heavily. Xue Ling didn’t wait for her mother to come back, so she hugged an umbrella and went downstairs. But after going downstairs, she didn’t know where to go, so she could only sit downstairs and wait for her.
“I waited until the rain was almost stopping before going back. I saw Lingling holding an umbrella downstairs waiting for me. As soon as she saw me, she started crying, saying, ‘Mom, a dog bit me.’ When I looked, it was a palm-sized puppy, biting her pant leg.”
Recalling these things, Xue Pingying smiled.
Many years later, thinking back on it, she could still smile. But back then, when she was young, she couldn’t think of anything else—there was only lingering fear. She went up and sternly told her daughter that she couldn’t go downstairs alone.
She often heard about children going missing somewhere. She was truly terrified that if she didn’t look for just a moment, the child would be taken.
Wen Jiuzhe suddenly asked, “Was Xue Ling afraid of dogs when she was little?”
Xue Pingying was taken aback. “No, she liked puppies. That day, that puppy biting her pants startled her. She even told me the puppy didn’t bite her on purpose, that it was hungry. Later, when I took her downstairs to play, every time she wanted to look for the puppy and play with it.”
She had been holding the little girl called Tiantian and talking, and after getting a bit tired, she put her down.
With her feet on the ground, Tiantian didn’t pay attention to what the adults were saying. Seeing a bug on the ground, she suddenly reached out to grab it.
She helplessly picked the child up again and casually said, “Children just like playing with these little bugs. They’re not afraid at all. My Lingling was the same. When she was little, she even grabbed frogs and kissed them.”
Wen Jiuzhe’s expression turned strange. “Grabbed frogs… and kissed them?”
