Xue Ling was a little unwilling. She felt that she didn’t look good right now, and wearing this would feel strange.
But she also knew that if she said it out loud, Wen Jiuzhe would snort in disdain and insist that she wear it anyway—the outcome would be the same.
So she directly skipped the middle stage of arguing and pinched the necklace out of the box with two fingers.
She wanted to ask— the clasp at the back of the necklace was very hard to fasten, could Wen Jiuzhe’s hands even manage it?
Then she suddenly noticed his hands.
A zombie’s skin and flesh would gradually become very hard—so hard that even cutting it with a small knife wouldn’t break the skin—but there were many wounds on Wen Jiuzhe’s hands.
There were cuts on the back of his hands and palms; on the pads of his thumb and index finger, the skin had been ground away, exposing the dark red flesh beneath, like the trunk of a tree with a piece of bark peeled off.
Xue Ling held his hand and examined it closely, her pointed nails poking and touching his fingers, then she lifted her eyes and looked at him quietly.
Although she didn’t say anything, everything she wanted to ask was clearly written in her eyes.
With one hand, Wen Jiuzhe firmly grasped both of her hands, and with the other he tapped at the tablet.
“Got them while doing missions in Donghai City. It doesn’t hurt or itch anyway.”
He completed missions in Donghai City so quickly and without much care, dismantling everything directly with his hands— even someone made of iron would lose a layer of skin.
Not just his hands; he had used explosives many times, and there were moments when he nearly made a mistake and got buried, or was struck by flying debris.
But zombies were indeed convenient. As long as the wound wasn’t big, it would quickly dry up— not a single drop of blood, and once clothes covered it, it was as if nothing had happened.
In the past, getting injured would hurt; now it didn’t, so it was hard to notice damage on the body.
At first, Wen Jiuzhe himself hadn’t even noticed that the skin on his hands had been worn away. When he went to the river to wash, the dust and grime on the surface were washed off, but the dark color on his fingertips wouldn’t come clean. Only upon closer inspection did he realize that the skin had been ground off, exposing flesh.
These hands— even when he was human, they had already been covered in scars; now they were even rougher.
Xue Ling felt uncomfortable just looking at them and leaned closer against his chest.
Wen Jiuzhe shook the tablet to urge her on. “Give me the necklace first.”
Xue Ling suddenly slammed her head hard against his chest.
Wen Jiuzhe pried the ruby necklace out of her hands and put it on her.
The clasp was indeed very small and troublesome; Wen Jiuzhe fiddled with it for quite a while before finally fastening it.
The whole time, Xue Ling just lowered her head and leaned against his chest, like someone facing a wall in self-reflection.
Wen Jiuzhe pushed her. “Get up. Don’t just sit here feeling sorry for me—feel sorry for yourself too.”
So thin she was like a monkey.
When had Wen Jiuzhe started noticing that Xue Ling was getting thinner?
It was from last winter.
He was the person closest to her. They spent day and night together, and most of the time were inseparable. Wen Jiuzhe had even noticed her changes faster than Xue Ling herself.
It was just that Wen Jiuzhe didn’t understand what had caused this change.
He was at a loss, and could only watch.
Wen Jiuzhe could do many things, but he never felt that he was impressive, because the things he truly wanted to do would always end in failure.
“We agreed—things you’re hiding from me, you’d tell me when I came back. Say it now.”
Xue Ling was ultimately not as stubborn as Wen Dog. She dawdled and pulled out the tablet, found a PPT, and let him read it himself.
The PPT was something she had made on the road. After several rounds of revision, it not only explained her own situation, but also devoted a large portion to advising Wen Jiuzhe not to be impulsive—especially not to try biting people to achieve the same result as her.
Wen Jiuzhe lowered his head and flipped through the PPT. Taking advantage of this gap, Xue Ling quietly used the car window to look at her own neck and the necklace hanging there.
Actually, it didn’t look that bad on her neck. At the very least, the necklace itself was very pretty—the crystal-clear gemstone had a strong sense of texture, and when it swayed, it looked like flowing blood.
Earlier she had been unwilling to wear it in her heart, but now that she had it on, Xue Ling felt a little happy instead.
Wen Jiuzhe finished reading. He looked very calm, with not the slightest sign of going mad.
Xue Ling stopped sneaking glances at the window and switched to sneaking glances at him.
Wen Jiuzhe asked, “Do you still want anything now?”
Xue Ling was startled. He had accepted reality? He was even starting end-of-life care?
“A merit medal?”
Xue Ling shook her head. “It’s not that I want a merit medal, I just…”
The “just” on the tablet paused there, and nothing appeared below it for a long while.
Wen Jiuzhe added for her, “You just want more people to remember you?”
Xue Ling thought about it, and it seemed like that was the case.
When she was alive, all she wanted was to study well, graduate, take exams for postgraduate studies or civil service, and have a stable job—perhaps a family in the future.
She would plan for the future, imagining what she would be like in middle age and old age.
After becoming a zombie, everything came to a standstill. She felt that she no longer had a future to speak of, and she never thought about later anymore, just drifting along day by day.
Having spent three years alone in the apocalypse, with no interaction with any living person, it felt as if she had been forgotten by the human world she had once been most familiar with.
Perhaps this was what caused her current state of mind: wanting to be seen, wanting to be accepted, wanting to be remembered.
After discovering that an indefinite death sentence had turned into a life with a time limit, she could no longer maintain her former calmness. She began to urgently hope to do something, to leave something behind.
Being able to contribute her own share made her feel satisfied.
If she were to die as a zombie, she wouldn’t be despised; instead, there would be people who knew her and would remember her.
And there was also Wen Jiuzhe. After completing missions, they would be accepted and favored by the base.
They would have a place to stay, no need to wander everywhere, no need to hide from people like she had before. They could stand openly among the crowd and be respected.
She wanted a merit medal, but what she wanted wasn’t the honor itself—it was a credential she could be at ease with.
“Merit medals, certificates of honor, rewards… I want them all.” Xue Ling typed.
“You’re quite greedy.” Wen Jiuzhe hooked an arm around her neck. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“To earn you some ‘little red flowers.’”
༚༅༚˳ . . ˳༚༅༚
They went to take part in the zombie-clearing operation in Long’an Ancient City.
The soldiers started clearing from the ancient city gates at the entrance, while they went from another direction.
When Wen Jiuzhe took out the explosives, Xue Ling grabbed his hand in shock.
“Using explosives is convenient and fast.” Wen Jiuzhe thought that luring all the surrounding zombies into one courtyard and then tossing in the explosives was simple and effortless.
Xue Ling didn’t think so.
The ancient buildings in Long’an Ancient City had all stood there for hundreds of years, and they were exquisitely beautiful. Before the apocalypse, they had been well maintained. Blowing them up like this was too much of a pity—there were clearly other ways.
A pity? Wen Jiuzhe had never felt any pity when he blew up that famous landmark and well-known buildings in Donghai City. What did these have to do with him?
But Xue Ling wouldn’t allow it, so he put the explosives away and prepared to shoot them one by one with a gun.
Xue Ling had something to say again. “Don’t waste bullets. Everyone is tightening their belts to use this ammunition—we should save a bit.”
Wen Jiuzhe: “Then what do you suggest?”
Xue Ling had plenty of ideas.
She was also good at making use of local materials, but unlike Wen Jiuzhe’s big-handed ways, she was thrifty and good at managing resources.
There were various exhibition museums in Long’an Ancient City, all using large ancient courtyards. Inside, glass display cases showcased silver notes, account books, silver ingots from previous dynasties, as well as displays of knives, swords, and weapons—of all kinds.
Xue Ling took out a gong.
The kind that, when held in the hand and struck with a mallet, would produce an extremely loud sound.
The “clang clang” echoed through the ancient city, drawing all the surrounding zombies over.
Wen Jiuzhe then took a large roll of hemp rope taken from a display case and looped it over the zombies one by one, tying them together into a long chain.
Xue Ling walked in front beating the gong, while Wen Jiuzhe followed behind holding the rope, dragging the chain of zombies to an open street corner.
Then, Xue Ling directed him to take a large chopping blade pulled out of an exhibition cabinet and press the zombies down one by one onto tree stumps to behead them.
She had turned it into an “execution at the Meridian Gate.”
Wen Jiuzhe held the blade, measuring it against the zombies’ necks, then looked at Xue Ling.
Such a pure, innocent-looking face—she seemed to feel nothing was wrong with this scene at all.
She suddenly remembered something, made a pause gesture, and took a pair of large gloves out of her bag for Wen Jiuzhe to put on.
That way, his hands wouldn’t get worn so badly.
Satisfied, Xue Ling continued pressing the zombies down.
Seeing Wen Jiuzhe holding the blade without moving, she poked at the tablet in confusion and asked, “Is the blade too dull? Do you think you can’t chop through?”
“Or should I take it to sharpen it first, make it sharper?”
Wen Jiuzhe’s brow twitched, and he began acting as the executioner.
After doing it so many times, all that remained was the mechanical motion of chopping; sometimes he would even feel like he was chopping firewood.
After finishing one batch, Xue Ling lifted the gong and, bringing Wen Jiuzhe with her, continued weaving through streets and alleys, randomly looping some zombies and taking them to be “executed.”
Wherever they passed, every slightly wider intersection was filled with rolling heads, corpses strewn everywhere.
Some curious soldiers in the team observed their situation from atop the high city walls with binoculars, and were stunned by this brutal scene.
Zombies chopping off zombies’ heads!
The soldiers who were more familiar with Xue Ling sighed, “That Wen Jiuzhe is really brutal. Once he came, even bringing Xue Ling along, everything became scary.”
The soldiers who had come with Captain Shen Zhang had seen Wen Jiuzhe’s coldness and lack of cooperation before, and they sighed, “Wen Jiuzhe is really terrifying, to come up with this way of dealing with zombies—too ruthless.”
Compared to that, before he had merely ignored them, which was already very friendly.
“Oh right, brother, that Xue Ling—when she follows you on missions, what is she like? Does she also ignore people?”
“How could that be? Xue Ling is especially nice. When doing missions she even brings us gifts. Last time she found a big ham to add dishes for our team!”
“Before, our team’s cook Old Zeng said the pot wasn’t good. When she went on a mission, she even brought back a new pot along the way. Old Zeng said that pot is really easy to use.”
The soldiers from Shen Zhang’s team: “……”
Is the difference between our external support and other teams’ external support really this big?
The matter of Xue Ling and Wen Jiuzhe roaming the city catching zombies and chopping off heads spread quickly through the several-hundred-person team.
Every day, people would secretly observe with binoculars, then smack their tongues in amazement.
Even Wen Yi, who was buried in research, heard about it.
“So many zombie heads have all been chopped off, and you still have time to come look for me.” Wen Yi glanced at Wen Jiuzhe blocking the doorway and reminded him, “Move aside a bit, you’re blocking the light.”
Ancient buildings had this one drawback—poor lighting.
“Xue Ling’s situation, do you have a way?” Wen Jiuzhe’s voice was hoarse.
Wen Yi kept her head down, the pen in her hand not stopping, as she said, “You people really like making trouble for no reason. Before, you absolutely refused to let me study Xue Ling’s situation, and now you want me to save her. I don’t know anything—how am I supposed to save her? Do you think I’m a god?”
Wen Jiuzhe was silent for a long time, then said, “It can’t be research that makes her suffer. Anything else is fine.”
Wen Yi mocked, “I thought you were going to go bite someone yourself, then let me study you first, and only then go look at Xue Ling.”
Wen Jiuzhe: “If there’s a need for that, I can.”
Wen Yi quietly wrote several more lines before refusing, “No. Academician Ji’s research materials are very valuable. I don’t have time to do anything else for now.”
And she was afraid Wen Jiuzhe would cause a medical disturbance—she still had a good life ahead of her with many things to do, and had no intention of dying in Wen Jiuzhe’s displaced anger.
Unexpectedly, Wen Jiuzhe did not press further, and turned around to leave.
Light once again cast in from outside the door. Wen Yi picked up one of Academician Ji’s manuscripts and fell into thought.
Academician Ji’s research on the virus differed fundamentally from her teacher’s research.
He had discovered a special substance in certain meteorites that could inhibit viral reproduction, but it was very likely another living, unknown organism, very similar to the existing virus.
Academician Ji hoped to use the competitive relationship between the two to resolve the zombie virus problem.
But this was a bold and dangerous attempt. No one knew whether this would be opening another Pandora’s box.
Wen Yi’s thoughts shifted, and she thought again of Xue Ling’s current condition.
If this special substance drug were used on her, rendering the zombie virus in her body inactive, would her condition improve, or worsen?
