The air thick with the smell of blood seemed to freeze at that very moment.
Xue Ling suddenly ran over at top speed, grabbed his arm, and yanked him hard toward their own car.
She used too much force, and Wen Jiuzhe was almost dragged off his feet. He dropped the knife in his hand and followed Xue Ling on his own initiative.
He watched as she fumbled in panic to open the car door, took out clean water from inside, and was about to rinse his wound.
Though they both knew clearly that this was nothing but a futile effort.
But Wen Jiuzhe did not refuse. He took the water and rinsed the long wound on his body.
Once the congealed blood was washed away, the bluish discoloration spreading across the surface of the flesh became even more obvious.
As if he felt no pain, Wen Jiuzhe wiped over the torn flesh.
He had seen many scenes of people turning into zombies. Some would burst into tears, unable to believe it; some would fall into madness, beginning to self-harm or take revenge on others.
At the very beginning, there had even been people who tried to stop the spread of the zombie virus by gouging out flesh or chopping off an arm.
But all infected people, even if only a tiny wound was infected, without a single exception eventually turned into zombies—the only difference was how fast the change came.
Wen Jiuzhe estimated it for a moment. His transformation speed should be considered average. He would not turn into a zombie within minutes, nor was it the slowest two or three days’ reprieve; perhaps he could hold on for a day.
After setting down the water bottle, he looked at Xue Ling.
She was still staring at his wound, wearing an ugly expression.
Wen Jiuzhe had seen that expression before—it was a few months ago, when he saw her in front of her mother. It meant that she really wanted to cry, but could not.
Xue Ling did not use water to splash her eyes and pretend there were tears like last time. At this moment, she had fallen into a state of chaotic emotions.
She could not remember what she was supposed to do, only able to feel immense fear and helplessness rampaging through her body.
How did a body that had already died produce such emotions, and why did it still have to half-deadly carry the emotions of the living?
She paced around in confusion, her gaze beginning to drift, both hands stiffly clenched into fists in front of her chest.
She thought of how it was she who had insisted that Wen Jiuzhe come to the Northern Base.
It was her who had insisted he come.
If they had not come, this would not have happened. If they were still near the New Fourth Base…
Wen Jiuzhe reached out and grabbed her stiff hands. “What are you doing, acting like some malfunctioning robot.”
He held her hands tightly, speaking those infuriating words just like usual.
Xue Ling failed to control her strength, and her fingers pricked his hand until it broke the skin. Startled by reflex, she looked at his hand and wanted to pull her own hands away.
Wen Jiuzhe held on firmly and did not let go. “When lice are many, they don’t itch; when debts are many, you stop worrying… why don’t you take advantage of it now and beat me up. Use your claws—use your mouth to bite me, anything’s fine.”
Xue Ling suddenly pulled her hands free and lunged forward, fiercely hugging him, her head crashing wildly against his chest.
Holding him, unable to vent her emotions, she stomped her feet twice, then looked up at him, letting out a string of strange sounds from her mouth, her sharp fingers tearing through the skin of his back.
When Wen Jiuzhe was knocked into her embrace, he likewise reached out and held her, touching the cuts on her arm and waist from the blades.
“I know, I know, you’re uncomfortable, I know, it’s okay…” He lowered his head and pressed against Xue Ling’s temple, kissing her once on her slightly dry hair.
“We should go.” Only after he sensed that Xue Ling had calmed down a little did he let go of her.
He used a crowbar and some tools to pry the wheel out of the pit.
Precisely because Xue Ling was far too unsettled right now, he behaved even more calmly. Before leaving, he even took the time to siphon gasoline from another car, then restarted the vehicle.
Xue Ling climbed into the car as if all her strength had drained away. She took her writing board and wrote on it: “Vaccine.”
Because her hands were trembling, the characters trembled as well.
Her gaze was like the embers of a fire, bursting open with a tiny spark of hope.
Wen Jiuzhe did not comment on it. He knew very clearly that it was already too late.
If they wanted to inject the vaccine, they had to go to the Beizheng Base, and there was still a long, long road ahead.
Leaving aside how to obtain such a precious vaccine, the problem right in front of them was that he had no time. He would turn completely into a zombie before he could reach the Beizheng Base.
Xue Ling knew this as well—she was just too panicked and had forgotten.
Wen Jiuzhe did not remind her. From the driver’s seat, he leaned over and hugged her again, saying:
“If we head in this direction, we should be able to reach Huaixi City. There were a lot of people there before the apocalypse; I heard it was very prosperous.”
So now it was one of the cities with the most zombies. Basically no one went there to scavenge—it was a zombie city closest to this area, and not in the same direction as the Beizheng Base.
“How about we live in Huaixi City from now on?” Wen Jiuzhe said.
He estimated that he probably would not be able to hold on until Huaixi City, but he calculated the gasoline—it should be enough.
“Say something. You’re not going to dump me halfway there while I’m unconscious, are you?” There was a hint of a smile on Wen Jiuzhe’s face as he spoke seriously. “Don’t find me troublesome—keeping me with you will still be very useful in the future.”
“For example, you’re too thin. If there are too many zombies on the street and you can’t squeeze past them, I can clear the way in front.”
“If you run into people, I can also help attract their attention so you can escape while they’re distracted, right?”
“All the other zombies walk alone. You’ll be bringing a follower—how impressive.”
“Xue Ling… you can’t abandon me, understand?”
Xue Ling sat in the passenger seat she was used to. She wanted to scream, wanted to run wildly on the road, wanted to lie down on the ground and not get up.
But none of that could vent her emotions anymore. She was like a volcano whose mouth had been blocked.
Wen Jiuzhe, this damn thing—at a time like this, he still insisted on forcing her to give a response and agree to his demands.
“Say something. You won’t even agree to such a small thing?”
Xue Ling didn’t want to talk to him. In the future, he wouldn’t be able to talk either—he would only follow behind her, howling. She might as well get used to it in advance.
Wen Jiuzhe suddenly said again, “What will you do in the future when there’s no one to go charge things for you at the base? You won’t even be able to use your tablet.”
He then muttered to himself, “Huaixi City is so prosperous. There should be generators, solar charging and all that, right? You can go look for them.”
Xue Ling didn’t want to listen to him talk.
But he just kept talking.
“From now on we’ll live in Huaixi City. Don’t go out casually. It’s such a big place, enough for you to walk around.”
“Huaixi City also has a museum. If you have time, you can take me along to stroll around the museum.”
Xue Ling finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. She grabbed Wen Jiuzhe’s hand and squeezed toward the driver’s seat.
Wen Jiuzhe stopped talking, lifted her up to sit on him, the two of them squeezed together on the seat.
Xue Ling wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling his usually warm skin slowly losing its temperature, and couldn’t help tightening her hold more and more.
Wen Jiuzhe glanced at the road ahead, held her with one arm, and said, “Feels like I’ll be strangled to death by you before I even turn into a zombie.”
Xue Ling loosened her grip, suddenly raised her hand, and viciously slapped him across the face.
Right now she hated him terribly—more than she had hated him years ago when he had inexplicably broken up with her.
Wen Jiuzhe was stunned for a moment from the blow, but soon tugged at the corner of his mouth again. “Hitting the face when you hit someone—so ruthless?”
She hadn’t held back at all with that slap; it split his lip.
But there was no blood flowing from the wound, only a bit of dark red slowly seeping out, then quickly congealing.
Wen Jiuzhe lowered his head to look at her, cupped the back of her head with his palm, and kissed her on the lips.
“I can still feel pain right now. Otherwise, how about you wait until I’ve completely turned into a zombie before hitting me again?”
Xue Ling’s sharp teeth ground together with a clicking sound, and she raised her hand again.
Wen Jiuzhe pulled her hand down and kissed her once more.
The car passed through the wilderness, through dilapidated small towns, the bright sky gradually catching fire.
The splendid sunset on clear days was the scenery Xue Ling liked most during this period.
Leaning against Wen Jiuzhe’s chest, the orange-red sunset reflected on the car window fell into Xue Ling’s eyes. She quietly listened to the heartbeat inside Wen Jiuzhe’s chest, growing slow.
His heartbeat was already below the normal rate. When had it started? When the sunset had just appeared?
His life was slipping away, but in the previous few hours she had already exhausted all her intense emotions, so she no longer reacted to it—she only listened, as if feeling the sun’s final afterglow.
The sunset faded, and their car drove into the night.
After being silent for a while, Wen Jiuzhe said, “The road after this, you’ll have to drive it yourself. Will you recognize the way?”
“……”
“You probably will. You’re so capable.” She had managed to go from Yu City to Anxi City all by herself.
“If the car stalls halfway, do you know what to do?”
“……”
“It’s fine too. If the car breaks down, we can just walk to Huaixi City.”
His speech was starting to become a little slurred.
What did it feel like to turn into a zombie? It was like clearly feeling his blood grow cold, his brain seeming to rust and begin to solidify.
Neither his chest nor the wounds all over his body felt painful. There was some place inside his body that hurt, but he couldn’t tell exactly where.
There were also many thoughts—one moment he would be thinking of something, the next moment it was as if it had been wiped away, turning into a solidified blank.
In the silence, Wen Jiuzhe looked at the darkening road ahead and forgot who he was.
Occasionally lowering his head, seeing Xue Ling, he would suddenly snap awake, remember that she was Xue Ling, and recall that he still had something to say.
“Xue Ling, when you turned into a zombie back then, was it also like this?”
It should have been different. She had turned into a zombie while conscious; it was probably even harder for her to accept than it was for him.
After a long time without making a sound, Xue Ling finally reached out and took over the steering wheel, at the moment when Wen Jiuzhe unknowingly loosened his grip.
She leaned against Wen Jiuzhe and sat upright, turning on the headlights.
Two beams of light illuminated far ahead.
A dark red color appeared in Wen Jiuzhe’s eyes, and his skin began to turn bluish. The face that often carried a careless smile now looked expressionless as it started to stiffen.
After staring at Xue Ling for a while, he slowly reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“…Ling.” He should have been calling her name, but the surname came out a little blurred.
The heavy night outside pressed down, like his heavy body.
Xue Ling took out a pair of silver handcuffs from the storage box beside the seat and cuffed one hand of herself and one hand of Wen Jiuzhe together.
Wen Jiuzhe’s hand moved slightly, pulling the chain and producing a crisp, light sound.
“Didn’t… say not… wearing it would be like a dog wearing… you… wouldn’t be able to run?”
But she was just this kind of person—her mouth wasn’t tough, and her heart was soft too.
A few years ago, when they had just met, the two of them didn’t have any relationship yet. When she ran into Wen Xuan beating him, she would look at him with that kind of unbearably worried gaze.
During that period, she often ran to his school, as if she were looking for him.
When she saw him, she would subconsciously pay attention to whether there were injuries on his body, but she would only look and then leave, never speaking to him.
Wen Jiuzhe had received medicine sent anonymously, but unfortunately someone saw her when she delivered it, so this anonymity also became meaningless.
Only she herself still thought she had hidden it well.
Back then, Wen Jiuzhe really couldn’t understand why she felt sorry for him.
Later he realized that this was a necessary path for those who love.
He would come to like her—she herself had taught him how. Wen Jiuzhe was just learning from her, and then discovered that it became easier and easier to feel sorry for her.
He moved the handcuffs on his wrist slightly and slowly sat up a bit straighter.
He didn’t want to die.
He didn’t want her to live like this in the future, leading around a moving corpse.
When the sky grew faintly bright, Xue Ling drove the car onto a road that had been cleared.
The Wen Jiuzhe behind her didn’t move or make a sound for a while.
“Ao.” Xue Ling suddenly called out once.
“Ao.” The second sound was a little softer.
Wen Jiuzhe, who had his head resting on her shoulder, suddenly moved as if startled awake, turned his head, and pressed it lightly against her cold face.
He muttered a blurry “morning.”
Wen Jiuzhe had, on several occasions between life and death, relied on his own willpower to hold on.
But this time, he felt the omen of death.
How much longer could he hold out? Could he make it until before the sun came up?
At the end of the road there was light shining. Xue Ling saw clearly that it was a temporary camp, with a convoy resting by the roadside. For reasons they didn’t know, they had blocked the road.
If it were before, Xue Ling would have detoured to avoid them, not coming into conflict with people. But today she neither dodged nor avoided, driving straight toward the roadblock, preparing to crash through it.
Someone came out of the camp holding a weapon, sent up a conspicuous signal, and shouted, “No passage ahead, pull the car over to the side first.”
Xue Ling didn’t listen.
There were many people in this temporary camp, and many vehicles. The guards were all well-armed and extremely vigilant.
In this pre-dawn moment, inside a white car in the camp, Wen Yi had not yet gone to sleep and was comparing several sets of data.
Suddenly a burst of commotion sounded outside, interrupting Wen Yi’s train of thought. She didn’t get up to go check the situation, but very quickly someone knocked on the door of her car.
A soldier said at the door, “Dr. Wen, a zombie has broken into the camp outside.”
Wen Yi’s expression was weary, with a hint of indifference. “So? Can’t you handle it?”
The young soldier scratched his head. “No, it’s not that… the zombie came by car.”
