Time flies by, much like flowing water.
In the winter days, one heavy snowfall after another descended, covering the entire city in a layer of ice and snow. Many buildings were completely sealed inside the snow, and some underground tunnels and street openings were also covered. Unaware individuals passing by from above might accidentally step into nothingness and fall through.
Tranquility prevailed in the city as most of the zombies slumbered beneath the snow. Even those zombies that had fought battles in the southern and incoming teams seemed to be hidden under the snow, as if plunged into a deep sleep.
However, these zombies were different from the others in the city. Most of them were buried around the outskirts and the routes in and out of the city. At the slightest disturbance, they would burst out from the snow, investigating or pursuing their prey directly.
Apart from these seemingly scattered zombies around the city’s periphery, there was another group of zombies wandering ceaselessly during the daytime, only “sleeping” during the night. With the exception of days of heavy snow, they remained busy once daylight arrived.
From the quiet neighborhoods to the nearby streets, and even farther…
As the winter’s footsteps hurried away, spring arrived, and all living things revived. The warm climate melted the ice and snow away, making the weather increasingly warm and even hot.
In early spring, the human settlements also revived. People started planting sprouted potato chunks and radish seeds wherever they could, just like they did the previous year. They worked hard to secure their livelihoods for the year ahead.
In the city and the wilderness, after enduring an entire winter, some mutated creatures that couldn’t withstand the cold perished, becoming nourishment for the earth and sustenance for other creatures. The remaining creatures resumed their habitation and reproduction, beginning a new year of life in this desolate land.
Summer arrived, the sun shining brightly, occasional heavy rains cleansing the world and providing precious water resources for the surviving humans, mutated animals, and plants.
Humans resumed their routine of farming in the base, occasionally venturing out to scavenge for resources and hunt. However, they discovered that zombies had become harder to deal with, more formidable in combat. The territories of mutated animals had expanded, and many creatures were reproducing, making the situation even tougher than the previous year.
What weighed on the survivors’ hearts was that several small bases, after the winter and through spring, had lost contact. Perhaps those bases had fallen completely, or maybe they hadn’t survived the winter, and all the people had perished.
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.
Despite sporadic satellite photos occasionally capturing movements near the disconnected small bases, radio communication received no response. With no way to dispatch helicopters to assess the situation directly, they could only assume that the people in those bases had all turned into zombies.
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“Thump, thump, thump…” From just one sound per hour during last winter to now, the sound that could be heard by all the zombies in the neighborhood occurred every few minutes.
Suddenly, as the morning light touched Wei Xuan’s face, his eyes opened without any warning.
Wei Xuan felt like he had slept for a very long time. His mind was hazy, and he could hardly remember what he had been doing before falling asleep. He only sensed a faint sadness and resentment in his chest, without a clear understanding of what he was resenting. What had he not had a chance to do? What was he regretting before falling asleep?
His mind swirled with a mushy sensation. After a moment, he finally focused his gaze, and before him appeared a familiar face with bright eyes.
“…Du… Hang,” he uttered the person’s name, surprised by the sound of his own voice, which was hoarse and almost unintelligible, as if he had been asleep for a long time.
He swallowed with some difficulty and then noticed something perplexing – he didn’t seem very thirsty. Not completely devoid of thirst, but the dryness he should have felt upon waking up was missing. He just felt a slight thirst, a clear awareness that he hadn’t had water in a long time and his throat needed hydration.
Blinking a couple of times, he found his facial muscles seemed stiff. Slowly lifting his hand, before he could even move it or examine his palm, the familiar face was right in front of him, coming close.
Gentle lips touched his, a sensation that was so familiar, so nostalgic… as if he hadn’t felt a real touch like this in a long time. Yet, it was also as if they kissed every day, as if he felt this tenderness every day.
Wei Xuan’s lips twitched, but suddenly, the lips pressing against his parted, and the other person’s tongue slipped inside.
In the intimate connection of their lips and tongues, his chest’s frozen heart seemed to beat a bit faster. At first, he felt like his entire body was stiff, but as the kiss deepened, the exploration, the mingling, he began to recall what happened before he slept…
He remembered the blizzard, a storm that seemed capable of tearing the entire world apart.
He remembered the team he saw in the ice and snow, the sound of gunfire in the midst of the blizzard.
He remembered the zombies that had arrived behind the convoy, instilling a sense of fear in him.
He remembered the wound on his chest.
He even remembered the “before sleep” kiss.
And he also remembered what it was that he couldn’t let go of before dying…
As his hand was halfway raised, he placed it on Du Hang’s cheek, caressing the familiar face of the familiar person. After the kiss ended, Wei Xuan whispered in his dry, almost inaudible voice, “Lamb… well, actually, what I was most worried about was that the kiss wouldn’t be able to infect me…”
Although he had been thinking about the taste of that lamb at the last moment, deep down, he had another vague worry. He was afraid that he might never wake up again after this sleep, and what if the kiss couldn’t infect him and turn him into a zombie?
Wait a minute, what’s the situation now?
Wei Xuan suddenly realized that he had gotten off track again. He looked at his palm – it seemed no different from before he fell asleep. He looked down at his chest and discovered that he was lying under the blanket, just like he usually did when he slept. Pulling the blanket back a bit, he was surprised to find that he was completely naked from the waist up, and there was no trace of injury on his chest.
He pressed harder, but it didn’t hurt.
“Could the wound have healed?” Thinking back to the wound he had suffered in the early days of the apocalypse, while it had healed quite quickly, it still took a considerable amount of time for the wound to become completely imperceptible. So, how long had he been asleep?
Wait a minute, what’s his situation now? How come he didn’t die after being shot in the chest? No, wait, how come he didn’t turn into a zombie?
At that moment, he felt his heart beat again under his hand.
Wei Xuan was perplexed but also relieved. He couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, “I haven’t turned into a zombie… wait, a heartbeat…” He paused, his eyes widening.
Before, he hadn’t felt that his heart rate had slowed down. That was because while the speed of his heartbeat had decreased, he hadn’t counted his heartbeats in a proper way, so he couldn’t judge his heartbeat frequency. But now, after pressing his hand against his chest for so long, why had there been only one beat after the initial one?
Can speak, can swallow saliva, has sensation, can even breathe… Could it be that this is what it’s like to become a zombie? No, no, no, just now, that one beat in his chest – what was that about?
As he puzzled over this, the vibration beneath his palm reminded him again – his heart was still beating!
Thinking about the heart rate measuring apps on his phone, Wei Xuan struggled to sit up on the bed, attempting to find his phone on the bedside table. However, he found it empty. The bed, bedside table, desk lamp, floor, and even the bedding he had been sleeping on were all covered in a layer of dust, some areas deeper than others.
Wei Xuan looked around in bewilderment and then turned to Du Hang, who had been quietly accompanying him. “Du Hang, how long have I been asleep?”
Du Hang, who had only responded to his kiss but not spoken since he woke up, looked at him quietly. Seeing Wei Xuan’s question, Du Hang raised both hands and used his right hand to grab the fingers of his left hand, counting one by one. “One, two, three… three meals.”
“…Huh?” It wasn’t Wei Xuan’s fault for being confused. It’s just… first, Du Hang’s vocabulary had increased. Second, the unit of measurement he used was just too… too incomprehensible for Wei Xuan in his current state.
What does he mean by “three meals”? Is he saying that he only had three meals since I woke up? But Wei Xuan remembered that when he was awake, he fed Du Hang three times a day. Could it be that I only slept for one day? Can a gunshot wound completely heal in a day?
Wei Xuan took a deep breath and was about to say something when he suddenly “heard” something – a sound he couldn’t hear when he had just woken up, when his mind was still foggy. Now, it was unusually clear – “Awake, awake, awake…”
Ok ok ok, good good good, he woke up, he’s awake, and Du Hang can talk.
Well, time flies when you’re lying there like the dead… come to and your bf talks but doesn’t dust… lmao! Thanks for the update 🤣🤣🤣❤️❤️❤️
Well I guess that is one way to do a time skip.
Oh sweetheart…he meant three strange snowfalls didn’t he?…
Thanks for the chapter! That took a while.
Du Hang finally speaks!
wei xuan’s sleeping beauty era has ended 🤩🤩🤩