After entering the fallen former Jizhou Base, Xue Ling finally discovered her own unusual difference.
—She possessed “claws” sharper than all the zombies.
The first things they encountered were two large dogs infected with the zombie virus.
This was the first time Xue Ling had seen infected animals. After being infected, they showed the same condition as zombies—their flesh had dried out and hardened.
There were also differences from human zombies. Their forms had become deformed, and their eyes were a murky gray.
And they attacked all moving things, whether dead or alive.
The two infected large dogs Xue Ling and the others encountered had deformed skulls, their teeth twisted outward and growing wildly. The flesh on their bodies had split open; when they ran, skin and meat flapped and snapped as they lifted and fell away, exposing the dried muscle beneath the skin. It was simply unbearable to look at.
Before death, they might have been raised by certain wealthy families in the base to guard houses and courtyards. Collars and leashes were still around their necks, worn so much that the ring of skin and flesh around their necks had disappeared, leaving only a circle of red meat.
Xue Ling was startled by the infected dog that suddenly sprang out and reflexively raised her hand to block its attack.
She felt her fingers graze across the dog’s neck, like cutting through a piece of tofu.
In short, by the time she came back to her senses, the infected dog with its head separated from its body had fallen in front of her.
As for the other infected dog, Wen Jiuzhe dealt with it a little slower than she did.
He used a machete, chopping more than half through the infected dog’s neck, then thrust a gun into the split neck and fired two shots before the infected dog completely stopped moving.
Just looking at the force and motion with which he hacked at the infected dog’s neck, Xue Ling could not help but suspect that the infected dog’s neck in front of him was a hundred times harder than the one before her.
She walked over in confusion and tried it. Her darkened fingertips easily pierced into the infected dog’s neck.
Then she pulled Wen Jiuzhe’s finger over and used it to poke as well. It did not go in; she felt obvious resistance.
She immediately widened her eyes and opened her hand toward Wen Jiuzhe, expressing her shock.
When exactly had she super-evolved?!
She had thought that middle-aged manager’s zombie protective suit was really that fragile—turns out it was that she was too special!
“At the Gobi laboratory, Wen Yi used a kind of medicine on you. By a twist of fate, it caused you to undergo a transformation. From that time on, you became a super corpse.”
Wen Jiuzhe explained.
Because at that time Xue Ling had lost her reason, he had isolated her from everyone. The only one who knew about her changes was Wen Yi.
An increase in lethality was not a good thing on a zombie without reason.
But placed in the present, it was something that would make Xue Ling happy.
Without even thinking it through, she typed out a sentence: “Then isn’t this the best divine weapon? If you chopped off my arm, you wouldn’t even need to sharpen it—it would already be the most powerful weapon!”
Much easier to use than the knife in Wen Jiuzhe’s hand!
Wen Jiuzhe fell silent for a moment, then suddenly pulled over her arm and raised the knife in his hand as if to chop.
Xue Ling screamed in fright and yanked her hand back with all her strength. Wen Jiuzhe did not use much force and let her pull her hand away; the knife whooshed through empty air.
“Chop off your arm? Still talking nonsense?”
“……”
Xue Ling hid her hand behind her back. She did not really want to chop off her arm to use as a weapon; she had only said it casually. Why was he angry.
She was certain that Wen Jiuzhe was angry because of what she had just said.
But the next moment he put away the knife as if nothing had happened and gestured for them to continue forward, not looking like he was angry at all.
The two of them were currently exploring the fallen zone alone. Only after figuring out the situation would they let the team follow.
Having been fiercely startled by him, but since they were on a mission now, Xue Ling decided not to argue for the time being.
Wen Jiuzhe turned back and held out his hand to her. Xue Ling kept her hands behind her back and walked past him.
Then she used the watch-style short-distance communicator strapped to her hand and tapped out a sentence.
A calm electronic female voice transmitted: “Retreat behind me.”
Wen Jiuzhe: “……”
This portable watch-style communicator had the same functions as a tablet; it was just more troublesome to input.
Xue Ling tapped the few buttons on the side: “I won’t argue with you for now.”
Wen Jiuzhe also pressed his buttons: “I was only helping you dispel some dangerous thoughts.”
Xue Ling: “Do I have more dangerous thoughts than you?”
Wen Jiuzhe pulled her, telling her to be careful not to step on the zombies on the ground.
Ahead, several mutated zombies—local specialties of Jizhou City—were lying scattered on the ground. These zombies were some unknown batch infected by radiation-mutated zombies.
They were also different from the ordinary zombies Xue Ling had seen most often before. Their bodies all showed varying degrees of deformity.
The one Xue Ling had almost stepped on was a zombie with a swollen, deformed head. Beside it was one with its waist bent one hundred and eighty degrees, and she also saw a zombie with two legs of different lengths whose body had broken into two halves.
This last zombie—how did it usually walk?
The zombie broken into two halves still had not completely died; its upper half was opening and closing its mouth.
But they did not attack Xue Ling and Wen Jiuzhe.
In this area, what posed a threat to both humans and zombies were the infected animals that occupied the fallen zone.
Zombies that made humans fearful outside were also targets of attack for the infected animals here.
It seemed that a new food chain was forming within this mutated toxic circle.
“Be careful. Don’t get bitten or scratched by these mutated things,” Wen Jiuzhe reminded. “There’s already enough fighting inside your body. No need to add another mutated virus to join the excitement.”
Xue Ling: “You be careful too. Otherwise you’ll mutate like them—one arm long, one arm short.”
Wen Jiuzhe tapped the back of her head.
With Xue Ling’s terrible condition that could worsen at any time, bringing her into this dangerous place on purpose gave Wen Jiuzhe a bit of stress reaction.
Xue Ling turned back and smacked him hard, then added: “The advantage is on my side. It’s fine.”
Wen Jiuzhe liked to say “It’s fine” the most; occasionally this phrase would also appear in Xue Ling’s words when she comforted Wen Jiuzhe.
Infected dogs were not the most frightening. So many people had once lived in this area that the garbage and corpses produced had raised many rats.
The scene of a swarm of infected rats densely crawling out from the sewer opening was enough to make anyone’s scalp go numb.
They dragged absurdly fat and long tails, like a snake trailing behind them.
Wen Jiuzhe immediately grabbed Xue Ling, slung her over his shoulder, and ran out of the area.
There were too many infected rats; dealing with them would be troublesome. They were not here specifically to kill rats, and they could not waste time here.
Besides rats, cats were also animals commonly seen in human cities.
Unlike the vigilant and adorable creatures in memory, infected cats had deformed bodies and dull fur.
An infected cat that suddenly lunged at them from a dark corner was swiftly flicked aside by Wen Jiuzhe with a knife.
The tip of the knife failed to slice open the infected cat’s body. When it attacked a second time, Xue Ling stepped forward to block and sliced open its belly.
It was her first time dealing with this kind of infected cat barehanded. Lacking experience, Xue Ling almost had the things that fell out of the infected cat’s stomach splatter across her face.
Wen Jiuzhe blocked it for her. Half his body, including his hair, gave off a putrid stench.
Xue Ling: “……Next time I’ll have experience. I’ll definitely be able to dodge. Wait, don’t hold me yet.”
Wen Jiuzhe reached out and grabbed her tightly.
Xue Ling, whose hand had been smeared with putrid stench: “……”
May I ask, then what was the point of you blocking that just now?
The infected cat, whose belly had been sliced open by Xue Ling, almost cut into two halves, did not lose its mobility. It maintained that split-into-two posture, belly gaping open, and ran off.
Seeing this scene, Xue Ling felt her reason take a slight blow.
Could it be that all infected animals would become like this?
Next, they also encountered infected birds and various animals common and uncommon in the city.
Xue Ling, who had always moved freely through zombie cities, found herself in such a sorry state for the first time.
Finally, when they were about to reach that cryogenic technology center, they ran into several infected horses.
Xue Ling could not help wanting to curse.
What were those rich people doing building a horse ranch beside a cryogenic center?!
These infected horses were also bizarre enough to assault one’s sanity.
The chests and bellies of the infected horses were split open, and from inside were squeezed out messy bird wings, claws, and the fur of various small animals…
Xue Ling could not help imagining—could it be that the infected horses had swallowed these things but could not digest them, so they overflowed from the cracks in their chests and abdomens, causing this kind of blockage?
After finally passing through the horse ranch and entering that cryogenic center, Xue Ling was struck once more by this human creation.
She had once lamented that the 8027 Laboratory in the Gobi was not like the high-tech, mysterious laboratory she had imagined. Now she had encountered one that was.
Very stereotypical white and silver high-end minimalist décor, machines visible everywhere, iris locks and password locks, one security door after another, and extremely science-fiction-like freezing chambers.
The living people placed inside the cryogenic pods looked more like corpses than the two outwardly strange zombies.
When she turned her head, there was something even more fitting of a sci-fi movie scene—the researchers here had placed various mutated zombies and animals in the laboratory as specimens.
There were also some soaked in unknown liquid.
Xue Ling was still looking around here and wandering there, like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden, while Wen Jiuzhe, who had already cleared out many laboratories and research institutes, ignored everything and began packing up the things here.
And he picked up their core cryogenic technology and started reading.
His trip to Jizhou City was entirely for this.
Because of this cryogenic technology, Xue Ling would prolong her life, until in the future a way to save her could be found.
Wen Yi had always said he was a reckless brute who understood nothing and only knew how to threaten people, but over this past year, Wen Jiuzhe had come to understand more and more.
The medicine Wen Yi had used on Xue Ling, the experiments she had done on her, every report she had given, every sleepless night—Wen Jiuzhe had been reading all of these, trying to understand.
As if by understanding them, he could find within them the possibility of restoring Xue Ling.
He flipped through this pile of data and records about cryogenic technology, trying to comprehend and analyze whether they could achieve the result he expected.
But this was yet another new field. He understood and did not understand at the same time; he only grasped that this cryogenic technology was not as entirely safe and harmless as he had imagined.
What he was holding in his hands was a case report of a failed awakening after cryogenic freezing.
He single-mindedly wanted Xue Ling to extend her stalled life through freezing, yet he was merely gambling on a possibility.
Xue Ling walked back and, seeing him looking at these, hesitated. “Are you studying? Studying on the spot here?”
She remembered that before, when she had asked him to go to the laboratory to retrieve materials, he had not wanted to look at the manual Wen Yi gave him at all. Now he even knew to study on his own?
A sense of urgency like that of a top student during school days drove Xue Ling to also pick up a lab report.
“Then I’ll read too.”
She read until her head spun and her brain swelled. For a moment she felt as if she were even hungrier. Fortunately there was no one around, and she quickly regained clarity.
Beside her, Wen Jiuzhe suddenly asked a question: “I want you to maintain your current state through this kind of cryogenic technology and wait for awakening after an unknown number of years. Are you afraid?”
Xue Ling did not answer whether she was afraid. She slowly typed out a sentence: “I was thinking before, the choices I made for you always ended badly, but now I still want to make one more choice for you.”
