The last thing Mo Li stepped on was Li Jiangbing’s head.
Using it as a light touchpoint to launch himself into the air, he instantly expanded his form—rapidly growing to enormous size!
Mo Li rarely grew large inside buildings.
When scouting alone, he stayed in the form of a small cat, able to take shortcuts that humans couldn’t—like ventilation shafts.
When fighting inside buildings, he usually appeared leopard-sized—agile and quick.
He rarely grew huge indoors. This time, he was even bigger than his elephant-sized form outdoors.
Everyone stopped retreating.
They could no longer see the giant zombie, because Mo Li’s body now filled the hallway—just like the giant zombie’s wall of flesh had before.
This time, it was the humans’ giant cat shield.
They couldn’t see anything—only hear the sounds.
The cat yowled. The zombie roared. The floor shook. The ceiling trembled.
It was impossible to imagine how two enormous creatures were tearing into each other face-to-face; you could only tell that both sides were fiercely worked up.
Everyone had stopped retreating.
Su Yu also withdrew her shield, clutching Li Jiangbing’s head, her eyes fixed on Mo Li’s massive rear end without blinking.
Even though she couldn’t see anything.
Li Jiangbing, meanwhile, had his mouth hanging wide open in tension.
Suddenly, a tremendous crash!
It sounded like something had collapsed.
Mo Li let out a loud cry, and his enormous body suddenly shot upward—and vanished.
Dust filled the hallway.
Zhou Wang quickly used airflow to blow the dust away, and only then did everyone see—a huge hole in the ceiling, revealing the third floor!
The giant zombie had punched through the ceiling and fled upward, with Mo Li in hot pursuit.
They could feel the vibrations overhead.
Since it was fleeing, the advantage was on their side! Everyone’s spirits lifted.
“Let’s go up and see! Go up and see!”
With Mo Li on their side, what was there to fear? Everyone surged up the stairs in a rush.
“Don’t push, don’t push!”
“You stepped on my foot!”
“Watch that shovel—you almost poked me in the face!”
“Hold your shovels up high, don’t scratch anyone!”
During breaks, the metal-type superhumans would sharpen everyone’s weapons, keeping them in top condition.
Especially the crescent shovels—more and more people were abandoning other weapons in favor of them. They could chop and smash—dual-purpose!
Everyone raised their shovels above their heads to avoid accidentally injuring their own people.
As Li Jiangbing ran, Su Yu suddenly realized she was still sitting on his shoulder!
No wonder her view was so good.
“Put me down!”
“Oh!”
Su Yu got down and charged upstairs with everyone else.
Jiang Cheng and Li Jiangbing brought up the rear.
As soon as they reached the third floor, they noticed the difference.
The entire structure was different—the hallway was especially wide and tall, looking like a double-height space.
Because the third floor was the studio level, with specific functional requirements: the hallways had to have enough clearance to transport tall sets, props, and equipment.
No wonder the giant monster came up here—here, it could stand upright.
Down on the second floor, it had moved like a gorilla, using its fists on the ground to propel itself because it couldn’t stretch out—its whole body was hunched and curled.
Here, it stood up and looked even more like a giant. Or rather, it shouldn’t be called “like” a giant—it was a giant.
No wonder Mo Li had to get this big—only a body this large could withstand the giant’s strength.
The giant cat and the giant rolled and grappled, terrifying to watch.
Everyone only dared to watch from the other end of the corridor, keeping a long distance—no one dared get close.
Fortunately, this area was open, like a small plaza.
In the distance, a large door was tightly shut, looking like a theater entrance—that should be the studio.
That explained the open space ahead. Downstairs, everyone had glanced at the directory on the wall—this studio could seat 1,200 viewers, essentially a theater.
With a loud crash, the black cat was thrown off, smashing a large hole through the outer wall of the stairwell—revealing the road and overpass outside. Wind howled in.
The black cat lashed its long tail, and the giant came tumbling down with a thunderous fall.
The massive black cat pounced on the giant’s shoulder, twisting its neck—and ripped off one of the giant’s arms in one savage bite!
This was a house-sized giant cat! Its bite force and tearing strength were absolutely terrifying.
Many people suddenly realized that when Mo Li had grown to house-size to kill Cao Jiacai that day, it had been overkill—like using a butcher’s knife on a chicken.
This giant form was meant for opponents like this giant zombie.
“Go! Go!”
“Mo Li, go!”
The giant zombie howled, so loud that everyone clapped their hands over their ears.
The one-armed giant fought back with desperate ferocity, but in terms of speed, how could a human compare to a cat? Humans had been enhanced after turning into zombies, but the mutated cat had been enhanced just as much.
Mo Li sank his fangs into the giant’s throat, piercing deep!
But the giant wasn’t Cao Jiacai—piercing its throat didn’t kill it.
The giant rolled, and the cat refused to let go! They locked together in a tumbling brawl.
Suddenly, they rolled toward the crowd!
Oh god—if they got crushed by that, they’d be dead!
Everyone turned and ran like crazy.
After a few steps, they looked back and saw Mo Li and the giant rolling back the other way.
So they ran back again.
Like the tide ebbing and flowing, with plenty of bounce.
Finally, with a sickening crunch of shattering bones, the giant cat suddenly exerted all its strength and twisted the giant’s head into a strange, unnatural angle.
The giant cat released its grip, and the giant crashed to the ground, motionless.
Its huge, ugly head was still attached to its body, but it looked like a twisted screw.
The brain could no longer command the body, and the body no longer sustained the brain—it was well and truly dead.
The giant cat turned around and gazed at them.
Everyone held their breath, eyes full of awe.
Then this terrifying giant cat let out a sound that was ridiculously mismatched with its colossal body—a high-pitched, sweet “Meow~”
Everyone: “……”
Mo Li and Li Jiangbing were close enough that Mo Li would perch on top of Li Jiangbing’s head and let him carry him around the neighborhood for a sunbath. Li Jiangbing immediately started clapping loudly: “Awesome, awesome, awesome! Our Mo Li is so awesome, so awesome, so awesome!”
Giant cat: “Meow~”
Seemed like that still wasn’t quite enough.
Li Jiangbing cleared his throat loudly.
Everyone snapped out of it, caught on, and burst into a round of enthusiastic applause—
“So awesome, so awesome, so awesome!”
“Amazing, amazing, amazing!”
“Mo Li is the best! So, so good!”
The giant cat was satisfied and swayed its way over with a catwalk stride, shrinking with every step until, by the time it reached Jiang Cheng, it had turned back into a small black cat.
It sat down in front of Jiang Cheng, raised one little paw, and said: “Meow.”
A pack of wet wipes appeared in Jiang Cheng’s hand. She pulled one out and wiped Mo Li’s paws—even between the toes, which were covered in disgusting gunk. The wipe turned dark.
Zhou Wang turned to Little Huang: “How is it now?”
Little Huang relaxed completely: “No more danger.”
The building was very quiet. Aside from the giant zombie, from the first to the third floor, they hadn’t seen a single ordinary zombie.
With the giant dead, Little Huang couldn’t sense any other dangers at all.
Once his paws were clean, Mo Li jumped onto Jiang Cheng’s shoulder.
Jiang Cheng gently scratched his little head: “You worked hard.”
But Mo Li said: “Meow—”
“Survivors? A lot?” Jiang Cheng turned to look at the studio’s large door. “Inside?”
“How many?”
“A lot, a lot?”
Chang Jiaxin whispered to Wang Yunya: “She can understand cat language?”
Wang Yunya was an outgoing, sociable girl who’d been hanging around the older brothers and sisters these past two days and had already heard plenty of legends about Jiang Cheng and her black cat. She whispered back: “I heard it’s telepathy.”
“Whoa~”
Jiang Cheng walked over and stored the giant zombie’s body in her storage space.
Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan exchanged a glance.
The two of them had been making observations, taking notes, and analyzing everything. They also knew that Jiang Cheng’s space wasn’t limited by volume but by mass.
There were still many other items in Jiang Cheng’s space—just what they knew of included cooking equipment for heating meals on the go, and there might be plenty more they didn’t know about.
The giant zombie was clearly not just large in volume; to support such an enormous frame, its muscles and bones had to be far denser. Its total weight was probably at least a ton.
If its bone density matched that of a crocodile’s, it could be pushing two tons.
How much capacity had Jiang Cheng’s space reached now? She’d stored the giant away without any trouble.
In any case, it was no small amount.
Moreover, looking at the giant, you had to look at Mo Li in comparison.
Mo Li was the truly terrifying one.
Thank goodness he was our cat.
Jiang Cheng led everyone to the studio’s large door.
A row of linked seats was wedged diagonally across the door.
These chairs lined the walls on both sides of this open plaza-like space, meant for audience members to wait and rest before entering.
This row of seats was jammed against the door handles, blocking the door completely—neither people nor zombies inside could get out.
Jiang Cheng put the seats away.
Two tall, sturdy boys pushed open the heavy double doors together.
A wave of stench hit them in the face!
It nearly made everyone at the doorway retch.
It was an indescribable mixed odor.
Urine, feces, the body odor of people who hadn’t bathed in days, the stench of zombies, and the smell of rotting corpses.
Everyone had become all too familiar with the last two smells through two outbreaks of the zombie plague—they could identify them instantly. But all these worst odors combined into one, hitting right through the top of their skulls.
Everyone covered their mouths and noses as they walked inside.
A massive, pillarless double-height space—the concrete floor was covered in black cables, and overhead hung dense rows of lighting rigs and curtain tracks, with dozens of large lamps suspended. Various expensive equipment lay on the floor, some of it smashed to pieces.
The walls were a room-within-a-room structure, with seismic isolation layers hidden beneath the concrete floor. The heavy doors they’d just opened were also thick, soundproof, lockable doors.
This space had extremely high soundproofing requirements—so much that once the doors were closed, the intense battle between the giant monster and the giant cat outside hadn’t penetrated at all.
In this stench-filled space, the studio stage lay ahead, and opposite it were 1,200 audience seats.
High up behind the seating area were large glass windows—the control room that commanded the entire studio. Now those windows were stained an opaque brown.
Everywhere in the studio—people.
People lying down, people sprawled out, people leaning against the walls, people curled in corners, people huddled together, people far from the center.
All kinds of people, lying amid urine, feces, and corpses. Some looked barely alive, others looked dead.
On the floor were many empty water bottles and lots of identical packaging.
It looked like bread, braised chicken legs, braised eggs, pies, and pickled vegetables.
The Tech New District zombie-clearing team was stunned.
Zero survivors at the district government.
Zero survivors at the municipal government.
No one had expected that in the TV station’s studio, there would be hundreds of living people!
Seven days. It had been seven days since the second zombie virus outbreak.
How had they survived?
And how had the giant zombie trapped them inside?
Why had it trapped them inside?
Where were the other zombies?
Were there no combat-capable superhumans among all these people?
The middle schoolers started vomiting.
Because the lighting was too bright.
On the stage were many severed limbs—by the different skin colors, you could tell some were from zombies and some from humans.
Scattered across the stage. Like food scraps left behind carelessly by someone who didn’t value them.
Zhao Yi slowly turned around, taking it all in.
“This isn’t…”
Everyone looked at him.
Zhao Yi’s teeth chattered lightly—his mind was reeling.
“It isn’t,” he forced the words out, “a… larder… is it?”
In an instant, everyone felt a chill run down their spines.
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