Killing intent—that kind of thing couldn’t be hidden.
From the moment Li Feng recognized Jiang Cheng, killing intent radiated from him. Moli sensed it immediately.
But Jiang Cheng raised a hand to stop Moli.
She looked at this old acquaintance pointing a gun at her: “Li Feng?”
Li Feng’s eyes were full of murderous hostility: “Talk! Which country sent you! Talk—! Which country’s spy are you!”
On August 29th, the military camp had suffered heavy casualties.
It wasn’t until August 30th that Li Feng had time to breathe. He remembered to open the cabinet and retrieve the phone he’d had to hand in at battalion headquarters, wanting to contact family and friends, to see if everyone was still alive.
He opened the phone and saw that text message from Jiang Cheng.
Accidents couldn’t be predicted in advance. Only planned attacks could be known ahead of time.
What kind of person could predict in advance that this nation-destroying-level virus attack was about to happen?
Li Feng’s whole body went cold at that moment.
He instinctively dialed the number. It had just started ringing when a comrade roared: “Li Feng! Move—!”
He had to hang up and run after them.
In the subsequent fighting, the phone fell somewhere unknown, and there was no time to look for it.
Losing the phone meant losing the phone numbers of those few people he’d added at the time, and from then on, he lost contact with them.
After that began nearly ten months of displacement and wandering.
Fighting, surviving, searching everywhere for an organization without finding one.
Hearts scattered and broken, each holding their own views, parting ways.
When meeting again, having to personally eliminate the fallen.
Being a screw in a complete organizational system was easy—you could even become an excellent screw.
Only after the organization collapsed did he discover how hard it was to be a leader.
The hardest thing wasn’t zombies at all—it was human hearts.
Leadership was an innate talent. Most people didn’t have it.
Li Feng, having come this far, had gone through a lot of growing pains.
To find an organization, he and his comrades had traveled through several cities.
But he’d never forgotten that text message from Jiang Cheng. He’d always wanted to go to S City and ask Jiang Cheng face to face.
But when he finally set out for S City, the central region’s massive temperature drop and extreme cold blocked him.
In the end, he returned to D City and put down roots.
At that time, D City had no law at all.
After they arrived, they clashed fiercely with several other forces.
Li Feng struck ruthlessly, establishing his authority, gaining a foothold.
With them there, others didn’t dare be so brazen.
He just hadn’t expected that one day, Jiang Cheng would appear in this small city.
The veins on Li Feng’s forehead bulged: “Talk—!”
In these ten months, he’d seen too much darkness. The hostility had seeped into his bones.
If Jiang Cheng said even one wrong word, he’d shoot her!
He didn’t know if she had superpowers.
One person’s superpower couldn’t necessarily beat another’s.
But no one could dodge a bullet.
They’d tried. Even a very strong metal-type couldn’t do it—no time to control a high-speed bullet.
Bullets weren’t necessarily useful against zombies, but against humans they were the most effective.
The local snakes watched from the sidelines, enjoying the show.
The Tech District people were all surprised.
Zhao Yi, Zhang Lesi, and the others didn’t dare act rashly, somewhat tense.
Song Jingshuo understood the moment he heard it.
He turned to look at Jiang Cheng: “You sent him a text too?”
Jiang Cheng: “I group-sent to my entire contacts list.”
Li Feng shouted: “What are you two talking about!”
Song Jingshuo sighed and said: “That day she group-sent that text to everyone in her contacts. Our community had over four hundred people come back.”
He said: “Have you ever seen a spy self-expose their identity like that?”
It was a powerful counter-question.
Li Feng stared at the two of them for a moment, then finally lowered the gun.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
The local snakes secretly felt it was a pity.
Jiang Cheng’s gaze shifted over, giving the local snakes the brush-off: “Sorry, we—”
The local snakes all said: “Oh, okay.”
“Then we’ll go first.”
“Take your time.”
Having not seen a good show, they left reluctantly.
With no outsiders left, Li Feng said: “Explain.”
Jiang Cheng tilted her chin: “Talk in the vehicle.”
She climbed into one of the blade vehicles. Song Jingshuo followed.
Li Feng didn’t hesitate and got in too.
Zhang Lesi clicked her tongue: “Quite the temper.”
Zhao Yi sighed: “He must have been through a lot.”
Zhao Yi had been quite close with Li Feng during that period.
But the passionate, hot-blooded youth he’d known was completely gone. The current Li Feng seemed like a different person.
The three of them talked in the vehicle for nearly an hour.
When they got out, all their expressions were grave.
Zhang Lesi, Zhao Yi, and Li Jiangbing all crowded over: “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Cheng’s face was very cold: “Li Feng hasn’t heard of the Zombie Emperor.”
Everyone looked at Li Feng.
Li Feng explained: “D City is very short on supplies. We all go to the surrounding big cities to search for supplies.”
“The west side has been raining for the past half month. I haven’t been over there much recently. But the last time I went was half a month ago. There were zombies, yes, but I never heard of any Zombie Emperor.”
Everyone exchanged glances.
Li Jiangbing said: “Surely they’re not… messing with us for fun.”
Then this alien would be too bored.
Jiang Cheng: “It’s not that simple.”
“They” could create extreme cold, create earthquakes, harvesting lives in casual conversation.
Even if they were messing with them for fun, it wouldn’t be as simple as making them travel for nothing.
This “messing around” must all be playing with human lives.
Li Feng called his people: “Go bring Old Cheng over. Hurry!”
His people immediately drove off in a jeep.
Li Feng explained: “Old Cheng is a local. He does radio. We brought him into the group.”
Losing contact with the world was actually a state that made people very anxious. In D City they’d met this person surnamed Cheng, who listened to radio with a hand-crank generator. Li Feng and his people also wanted to listen to information, so they’d taken him in.
In twenty minutes, the person was brought over.
Old Cheng was a middle-aged man. It looked like following Li Feng meant he could scrape together a full meal.
He said: “Yes, it’s Brother Jiang and Sister Mao. I listen to them too. That’s how I know there’s extreme cold in the central and eastern regions.”
“Zombie Emperor? What Zombie Emperor?”
“Three days ago—no, four days ago—I stopped receiving their broadcasts.”
“There was an earthquake then. Don’t know where it was, but we felt the tremors here. I figured maybe they died in the earthquake.”
Four days ago was the S City earthquake.
After that, that radio station started being haunted. “They” stopped pretending.
But it wasn’t all lies either, because Li Feng said: “The north really has become a massive canyon.”
“We were in E City yesterday. Some people came from the north.”
“The earthquake was severe. That canyon must be a li wide, running east-west. Don’t know how long. Anyway, north-south is cut off.”
“Those people were afraid the ground would keep collapsing, so they ran south.”
Uncle Jiang had said the north had a canyon, the southern coastline was advancing, the extreme cold air mass was moving west, and the east had a Zombie Emperor.
You didn’t fear it being all truth or all lies—you feared truth mixed with lies, making people gnash their teeth.
Since Uncle Jiang could say the term “Zombie Emperor,” “they” could definitely create such an existence.
The problem was—where was the Zombie Emperor!
It couldn’t be in…
So hateful.
Though Jiang Cheng had said the team would split into two sides to share the risk, in her heart she actually still believed the risk was on her side.
She’d always believed she should be the one to face the hardest, most arduous, most dangerous things.
After she drew the risk to herself, the risk on the other side should be smaller, the survival probability higher.
She’d already faintly sensed “their” toying with her.
As if for more entertainment value.
But she’d missed this point—what if the way they toyed with you wasn’t by toying with you personally, but by toying with the people you hoped to protect?
Jiang Cheng gritted her teeth.
It was rare to see such an expression on Jiang Cheng.
She usually controlled herself very well.
If even Jiang Cheng’s emotions were out of control, it meant things were serious.
“Jiangbing! Tell everyone we… no, not everyone—put together a team for me. We’ll take one vehicle to Q City!”
Jiang Cheng had to see it with her own eyes.
Uncle Jiang had said “east.” Q City was already coastal—the easternmost point.
If they got to Q City and saw no Zombie Emperor, it would confirm they’d been played!
Li Feng said: “Q City can’t be reached right now. It’s raining over there—been raining for almost half a month. The roads are all washed out.”
Jiang Cheng turned her head, staring into his eyes: “Is it disaster-level?”
Li Feng didn’t know why she was looking at him like that. He said: “More or less. There were flash floods. Washed out quite a few places.”
Jiang Cheng turned her head back.
Li Feng saw her cheeks move slightly—she was gritting her teeth.
A team was quickly assembled. Jiang Cheng told Song Jingshuo to stay: “You hold down the fort.”
Song Jingshuo didn’t argue. He was a wood-type. Though his combat ability wasn’t actually weak, the responsibility of providing food was simply too important.
What people looked like when there wasn’t enough food—D City was a ready-made example.
He nodded: “Even if it’s really there, don’t make contact. Retreat immediately.”
He meant the Zombie Emperor.
Jiang Cheng agreed and led her people onto the vehicle.
Li Feng also got on: “I’ll go with you.”
No one objected.
Q City was less than 200 kilometers from D City. In the past, when the highways were clear, driving the expressway, you could make a round trip in one morning.
The driver was an old hand at driving blade vehicles. Once out of D City’s urban area and seeing no living people, he floored the accelerator.
Li Feng asked: “What if there’s nothing there when we arrive?”
Jiang Cheng would rather there be something.
She would rather face the Zombie Emperor herself.
“If there’s nothing,” she said, “we need to immediately turn back and go after Su Yu.”
Li Feng knew she meant the other half who’d gone west. In that hour earlier, Jiang Cheng and Song Jingshuo had explained everything to him.
It was a heavy blow to his worldview.
But it explained zombies, superpowers. Indeed—what was more worldview-shattering than zombies and superpowers?
“Su Yu?” Li Feng thought for a long time. “Is she the quiet one, the one who speaks softly? I remember she had a blue-and-white striped short-sleeve shirt?”
Li Jiangbing glared at him: “You remember what clothes she wore?”
Li Feng was baffled. He said: “Because that shirt looked like a sailor’s striped shirt. What’s wrong?”
A sailor’s striped shirt was navy training uniform.
Li Jiangbing turned his head away: “Nothing.”
Moli rested his head on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder.
Moli could now overcome most cat habits in human form. But the obsession with Jiang Cheng’s shoulder couldn’t be overcome.
Li Feng had already noticed Moli.
He had near-perfect looks and physique for a male, radiating a sense of power throughout his body. That sense of being ready to spring at any moment—Li Feng, a former soldier, felt it especially strongly.
He followed Jiang Cheng inseparably. Getting on the vehicle, he sat directly beside Jiang Cheng. Everyone else was clearly very used to it.
Between him and Jiang Cheng, there was an obvious physical intimacy.
But even if they were a couple, such a tall grown man insisting on putting his head on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder—Li Feng found it hard to look at.
Li Feng had once had feelings for Jiang Cheng. But feelings—that kind of thing—faded with time and physical distance.
These past months, he’d always suspected Jiang Cheng was a foreign spy, connected to the zombie virus, and he’d been through a lot of painful things—pain ultimately all caused by the zombie virus.
In his heart, over and over, he’d hated Jiang Cheng back and forth.
Now that he knew it was a misunderstanding, the hatred dissipated, but it was hard to recover the old feelings.
Jiang Cheng wasn’t the Jiang Cheng of before, and Li Feng wasn’t the Li Feng of before.
Less than a year apart—already unable to go back.
Li Feng was simply uncomfortable watching an adult male make mannerisms unbecoming of his age and gender.
He asked Li Jiangbing: “Who’s this handsome guy? Never seen him.”
Everyone paused.
The fact that this handsome guy was actually a cat—everyone had gotten used to it, accepted it.
But when it came to explaining to an outsider, they suddenly found it very hard to explain.
Zhang Lesi leaned over from the back: “You know him.”
Li Feng: “Huh? Have I met him?”
That shouldn’t be. This person stood out especially in a crowd—you’d see him at a glance. If he’d met him before, it was impossible to have no impression at all.
Zhang Lesi smiled: “You’ve held him.”
Li Feng: “…What do you mean?”
Moli heard them talking, raised his head, and turned to look back.
He actually recognized Li Feng.
But this person had shown killing intent toward Jiang Cheng the moment he appeared, so he somewhat disliked him.
“Yes, you’ve held me,” he said. “I’m Moli.”
Li Feng was still pondering how the name “Moli” did sound a bit familiar.
Zhang Lesi leaned close to Li Feng’s ear: “Moli—Jiang Cheng’s black cat. Remember? He evolved and turned into a human.”
Li Feng spent half a minute and still couldn’t digest this sentence.
He stared blankly at Moli.
Moli sat in the front, looking back at him the whole time.
Only now did Li Feng notice—with light coming in from the side into this youth’s eyes, those eyes weren’t black. They faintly carried green.
Li Feng truly felt the entire world was wrong.
What exactly had the aliens done to this world?
Why?
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