“The military already cleared this area a couple of days ago. Regarding the issue of reanimated corpses, they were discovered on the first night, and as soon as the bodies are found, they are promptly cremated,” Yue Zheng briefly explained, walking towards the shelves and pointing at the outdoor hiking clothes. “Check which size fits you. Take a few sets.”
“What about you? What size do you need?” Xu Song quickly looked at the numbers on the clothes.
“I wear size 190 for clothes and size 46 for shoes.”
190…
Silently, Xu Song glanced at his somewhat suppressed height and decided to take a few sets of size 180, in addition to the size 175 clothes. Didn’t they say people grow a bit taller at the age of 23? He was only 21, so what if he grew taller?
While Xu Song was choosing clothes, shoes, and other equipment, Yue Zheng started packing other items such as tents, sleeping bags, Swiss army knives, multi-function shovels, ropes, and more. After going around the store, he walked over to Xu Song with the items in hand and asked, “Are you done selecting?”
“Yes, I think so. I’m not sure if it’s enough to wear.” They each took five sets of clothes in their respective sizes and three pairs of shoes. It wasn’t that Xu Song didn’t want to take more, but he was worried about fitting everything in the car.
“Go and change into one set. I’ll wait outside and keep an eye on the items.”
“Alright, I’ll go first.” Xu Song didn’t fuss and took a set before entering the fitting room.
Men change clothes quickly, and Xu Song came out in less than five minutes. He handed the clothes to Yue Zheng and looked down at the items he had selected, slightly shocked by the large combination of the packed tent and sleeping bag. Thankfully, they had a car; otherwise, it would be impossible to carry so many things!
“I’m done.”
The voice from behind startled Xu Song. He changed in less than five minutes, but what about Yue Zheng? Had it been over two minutes already? Could it be that military personnel were trained to change clothes at such a speed?
“By the way, wear these.” Yue Zheng bent down and handed him a few items.
A mountaineering watch? A military knife?
Putting the knife in his pocket, Xu Song lowered his head to remove his old watch and glanced at Yue Zheng’s wrist. He noticed that Yue Zheng had also switched to the same watch as his. “What about your previous watch?”
“I changed it. This model has better features than the previous one. It can last up to seven months without recharging.”
Yue Zheng smiled and looked at his wrist. He had wanted to switch to a new one before, but it was too expensive. If it weren’t for the current situation, he wouldn’t have saved up enough money to make the purchase.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Efjiis? Tbe’ii tjnf ab afii wf jybea atfrf ofjaegfr ijafg. P tjnfc’a kbgc j kjamt lc wjcs sfjgr.”
We Vbcu kjr regqglrfv ab vlrmbnfg atja rbwfbcf ktb jikjsr tjv j rfglber fzqgfrrlbc tjv tlr bkc qgfofgfcmfr. Lf mtbrf ab lucbgf jcs rqfmlji jrrbmljalbcr atja wluta jglrf ogbw akb ugbkc wfc kfjglcu atf fzjma rjwf kjamt.
They loaded the items into the car and set off once again, following Yue Zheng as he swept through various stores, whether they were necessary or not, Xu Song couldn’t help but think that his previous scavenging efforts were child’s play compared to this. Yue Zheng’s selections could handle various special situations in the wilderness, covering all aspects.
In addition to the items they put in the car, the two of them also packed some essential items in their backpacks that could ensure their survival in case they had to abandon the vehicle in special circumstances.
After a busy day, it was evening, and the city area was no longer safe. They started driving towards the direction of the shelter.
“What about these power banks and phone batteries? What do we do if we run out of battery on the road?” Xu Song fiddled with a phone battery while having a new phone placed on his leg. They had obtained these items from a cellphone store in the city earlier today, and both of their phones were energy-efficient models.
“Tomorrow, someone will install a solar charging panel on our car.” Otherwise, Yue Zheng wouldn’t have taken these power-consuming items.
“So, we can charge our devices on the road?” Xu Song was surprised for a moment, then sighed, “It’s good to work with government personnel. Otherwise, if I had to search in the city, I wouldn’t even know where to find these things.”
Yue Zheng smirked and raised an eyebrow. “There are places in the city that sell these items, but the conversion rates are poor, and their lifespan is short. They provide specialized equipment. After all, there are high-ranking and special personnel in the convoy, so the equipment can’t be too shabby. If it weren’t for many military vehicles being destroyed after the anomaly, I could have gotten a military off-road vehicle.”
Although he accompanied the team to S City this time, he handed over the stone slab and most of the crystal fragments to the military personnel for safekeeping. The incident in the ancient tomb was clearly written in the report, and the higher-ups made the decision to divide the people and the items into two groups and head to B City together for better safety. As a result, even though the military personnel traveling with them knew that the stone slab was initially discovered by the criminal police team, they didn’t know the specific individuals involved.
Once the car was parked, the two of them walked into the crowd with their backpacks and sat down not far from where Xu Song rested the previous day.
Whether it was an illusion or not, Xu Song felt that the atmosphere today seemed much more tense than yesterday, perhaps due to the screams they heard last night?
They took out compressed biscuits, vacuum-sealed marinated eggs, and other things to eat. The mischievous child who was running around yesterday was now wiping his tears not far away. On the other side, in what seemed to be a family, a young couple was arguing about something in a low voice with straight faces.
The atmosphere made everyone feel very depressed. Instinctively, Xu Song leaned closer to Yue Zheng. Although this big brother had a serious face every day, he never radiated coldness towards Xu Song. The atmosphere around him felt much warmer than the surroundings.
“Besides the task for tomorrow, do we still need to go into the city?” Unable to bear the eerie atmosphere around them, Xu Song tried to strike up a conversation.
“There are a few more things we need to collect in the city. We’ll see if the first aid supplies they bring tomorrow are sufficient. If not, we’ll have to go to a pharmacy.” Today, they only found a small first aid kit in the corner of a medium-sized pharmacy. It was unlikely to be enough for the journey.
“Oh, I remember there are two small pharmacies near my house. I just don’t know if there is anything left…”
Before he could finish his sentence, the couple who had been arguing quietly suddenly raised their voices.
“Why don’t we go back? We’ve been exposed to the wind and sun here for days. We don’t even have a tent, just a few packs of instant noodles! We haven’t heard of any zombies in our building. When the time comes, we can just close the door, and no one can get in!”
The man’s face turned red with anger as he shouted, “Those things are attracted to the smell of humans! Go back? Going back would make us targets!”
“There are so many people here, wouldn’t those things come here first?! There are also the cherry tomatoes I planted on the balcony. At least when we go back, we’ll have a house and a bed, a place to store things. It’s foolish to stay here. No one will survive when the zombies come!”
“If you want to go back, go back! I won’t stop you, we’ll see who dies first!”
“I’m going back. As soon as it’s bright tomorrow morning, I’ll leave!”
The conversation between the young couple made the already depressed atmosphere even more somber. The screams and gunshots from last night made the people in the shelter even more frightened. The tents and rescue supplies were yet to arrive. Early in the morning, some people preferred to go home and lock their doors, enduring the days on their own rather than staying here.
Rumors of zombies spread throughout the entire shelter. Some said that if you were bitten by a zombie, you would turn into one yourself. Some people who already had conflicts used this as ammunition, insisting that the injuries on the other person were caused by zombies and that they would eventually turn into zombies as well.
“Zombies?”
Hearing Yue Zheng muttering quietly, Xu Song quickly leaned towards him, keeping his eyes on the arguing young couple. “Last night, we heard screams from the east side of the shelter and gunfire throughout the night. This morning, someone inside the shelter said that the ones eating people at night were zombies.”
He paused and continued, “But I don’t think it’s that.”
“Why?”
“You’ve seen those things too… They’re not something transmitted by a virus. It’s more like being possessed by ghosts.”
Yue Zheng nodded gently.
“Medical institutions have tested the bodies and found no signs of infectious diseases. Although the cause of death is still unclear, we can basically rule out the possibility of those from movies or games.”
“Have they figured out what that black mist is?” Xu Song quickly asked.
“While many soldiers have seen black mists while cleaning up those things, they haven’t been able to successfully extract samples so far. So—” He shrugged. Scientists aren’t omniscient. Without seeing the actual objects, how can they study them? Moreover, with the power outage and the anomalies happening, there is simply no favorable experimental environment, so it’s normal not to reach any conclusions.
The argument between the young couple ignited the entire shelter. Countless ordinary people worried about becoming obvious targets and feared encountering flesh-eating zombies when they returned home. Almost every household was discussing and arguing.
Xu Song and Yue Zheng had made their plans long ago and didn’t need to worry about these matters. They leaned against their bags and closed their eyes to sleep.
Xu Song was awakened by the chaotic crowd around midnight. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at Yue Zheng, who was alertly scanning the darkness. “What’s happening?”
“Zombies.”
How these zombies came to be, no one knew for sure, but it was clear that they required the corpses of the deceased as a medium. Therefore, after reaching this conclusion, the military and the police intensified their efforts to handle any discovered bodies, quickly cremating them. Even the usual procedures for claiming bodies were disregarded, after all, unless they were burned, the corpses would become the living dead!
However, despite the prompt response from the military, they couldn’t match the hiding skills of those creatures. After the first day of the anomaly, no one knew that the bodies would come back to life after death. Many families struggled to rescue the corpses of their loved ones from the ruins, only to mourn and weep over the bodies until the anomaly struck again that evening.
The resurrected bodies turned on their already suffering loved ones. After feasting, before the military and the police could react, and just before dawn, they vanished into the shadows.
Not to mention the numerous undead who hadn’t been unearthed and, taking advantage of the dim light, emerged from the ruins themselves.
According to a conservative estimate, people who died on the spot after the mutation on the first day and whose bodies were not seriously damaged accounted for at least 1% of the city’s population. Excluding some of the annihilated and cremated corpses, how many living corpses are left?
The shelter was filled with a strong and vibrant vitality, which was the undead’s favorite food…
“Squat down! Stay still! Don’t move around!” The military personnel maintaining security in the area discovered that some agile undead had broken through the defense and were charging into the crowd! However, the panicked crowd had no idea how their chaotic movements made it easier for the undead to find their targets.
Already afraid of causing friendly fire, in this situation, once the undead entered the crowd, who could capture them?!
Cries for help and screams echoed as a squad leader of the armed police looked at the chaotic crowd. He had to put away his gun and draw his military knife from his waist, waving his hand to the people around him.
“Close combat!”
They couldn’t shoot, and it was difficult to identify targets. Now they could only deal with this crisis through hand-to-hand combat…
Oh noo!! Please no one dies…