Li Feng said he had seventy-three people who would go with him.
Li Feng had over two hundred people. Only seventy-three were willing to go with him, yet he was very happy.
“Because,” he said, “these seventy-three are all my comrades-in-arms.”
The people who’d survived from battalion headquarters had later splintered, each with their own ideas, each making the choice they thought was right.
After learning the whole story, Li Feng and his seventy-three comrades made the same choice—they chose to join Jiang Cheng.
These military-bred people’s superpowers were astonishing.
Li Feng was a fire-type. His superpower would require Wu Jiancheng and Cao Jiacai combined to match.
Figuring out exactly what conspiracy the zombie virus was—that was Li Feng’s obsession.
Whether foreigners or aliens, he had to see for himself.
The convoy headed west.
Fifteen hundred kilometers apart—they couldn’t get there quickly on the road.
There were roads broken by earthquakes, roads ruined by the extreme cold. The driver floored the accelerator as much as possible.
They drove one day. The second day, they encountered the survivors fleeing east.
Half the people were gone.
For the first time, so many people cried the moment they saw Jiang Cheng.
Li Jiangbing listened woodenly as they described how Su Yu had held the rear for everyone.
Zhao Yi’s lips trembled slightly.
The escapees of course couldn’t see the end, but from the descriptions, it was clear—those who stayed couldn’t have survived.
“Okay, understood. Everyone rest first, then…” Jiang Cheng said.
Jiang Cheng felt she was controlling her emotions fairly well, same as usual.
But everyone was staring at her, dead silent.
Jiang Cheng was surprised.
Even Song Jingshuo was staring at her, wanting to speak but hesitating.
Under these people’s gazes, Jiang Cheng raised a hand and touched her face.
She touched a handful of tears.
For whom exactly she was crying, Jiang Cheng herself didn’t know.
Jiang Cheng still clearly remembered that back in June and July, she actually hadn’t liked Su Yu much.
That girl was too soft-hearted. In that kind of environment, someone too soft-hearted and too kind was, in her eyes, a burden.
When had it started to change?
Along this journey, how many nameable people had dropped out halfway.
And the people injured on June 16th, the first batch to go downstairs and fight zombies.
Jiang Cheng, thinking back now, had been too heartless to them then.
At least ask their names.
At least say a word of comfort.
At least express some respect.
They were all people worthy of respect.
How could she have been so cold back then?
When had she become the person she was now?
Song Jingshuo led people to settle everyone.
He spotted Auntie Qian in the crowd.
Auntie Qian was watching him with dark, unreadable eyes.
Song Jingshuo went over joyfully.
Auntie Qian had also escaped death.
Song Jingshuo comforted her gently.
But Auntie Qian told him to lean down, and whispered something in his ear.
Song Jingshuo’s expression changed.
He stood straight, staring at Auntie Qian.
Auntie Qian stared back, calm.
Because what she’d said was all true.
She had no personal grudge against that person, no motive whatsoever to frame or slander a powerful superpower user.
She simply wasn’t good at fighting, so she’d stood beside Su Yu the whole time watching the front line. When they talked, she’d actually been right behind him.
At that moment of life and death, she hadn’t dared disturb them at all—the little old lady had zero presence.
He hadn’t realized at all that someone was standing behind him. Auntie Qian had heard the entire conversation, seen everything that happened.
Song Jingshuo turned and found Jiang Cheng, whispering it in her ear.
Jiang Cheng turned to look, meeting Auntie Qian’s gaze across the crowd.
People walked back and forth between them.
Auntie Qian looked at these two young people in the distance, leaving the choice to them.
Zhao Yi asked many questions about the zombie army.
Someone said: “Don’t know if I saw wrong, but I think I saw someone I know.”
Zhao Yi thought they meant the people who’d died in battle quickly turned into zombies and became part of the horde.
“No, no.” The person said. “It was my neighbor. He died back in June.”
Not just one person. Once someone started, others chimed in: “I think I saw one too. I thought my eyes were playing tricks.”
He’d seen someone who’d frozen to death in the extreme cold.
Many people said that during the fighting, glimpsed in passing, some zombie faces looked like people they’d once known.
Those people had all died at various points over the ten months since the first zombie outbreak.
Various times, various causes of death.
Zhao Yi stood in the open ground, dazed for a long time.
—
The temporary houses were built. The cadres were notified to hold a meeting.
Zhou Wang hurried over.
In the room, everyone of note was present.
Auntie Qian sat in the corner.
Song Jingshuo was speaking with Li Jiangbing—they were very close, close enough to be whispering.
Li Jiangbing suddenly turned his head, eyes red.
Zhou Wang arrived and immediately asked: “Jiang Cheng, what do we do next? Where do we go?”
Speak first, question first, seize the initiative first.
When your heart is guilty, you do unnecessary things to show you’re not guilty.
Moli stood at the doorway.
Song Jingshuo played with the vine ring on his wrist, pinched off a leaf, and tossed it onto the muddy ground.
Jiang Cheng looked at this person, her gaze strange.
Would you say he was bad? His contributions to the collective were actually greater than many people’s.
Would you say he was good? Yet he’d done this thing.
“Zhou Wang.” The one who spoke was Li Jiangbing.
His voice was hoarse.
Zhou Wang knew he was grieving. Li Jiangbing liked Su Yu—everyone knew that.
Zhou Wang still wanted to say a few words of comfort.
But Li Jiangbing asked: “You told her to hold on, said you’d take people to lure the enemy away, right?”
Zhou Wang’s expression changed drastically.
The wind-type superpower user didn’t hesitate—turned and ran, but fell flat on his face.
Thin vines had grown from the ground at some point, wrapping around his ankles. Those in the room who knew watched indifferently.
Those who didn’t know were greatly shocked.
They looked at Jiang Cheng, looked at Song Jingshuo, then looked at everyone else.
No one spoke.
No one wanted to defend someone who’d tricked a companion into death.
“She! She volunteered to hold the rear!” Zhou Wang shouted. “She volunteered!”
Li Jiangbing said: “That was afterward. It has nothing to do with what you did. I’m just asking—did you trick Su Yu into holding on, then run away yourself?”
Zhou Wang tried desperately to defend himself: “She’s just that kind of person! She would definitely have held the rear! Even without me, she would have! She’s a good person!”
But in fact, at that moment, Zhou Wang hadn’t known Su Yu would sacrifice her own life to hold the rear for everyone.
He’d thought she’d escape with everyone.
He was just afraid that escaping together, they wouldn’t make it.
Zhou Wang had actually regretted it at the gas station.
If he’d known Su Yu would be like that, he wouldn’t have done that extra thing at all—it just made him feel bad.
Li Jiangbing’s eyes were deep as a cold pool.
“She can be a good person. She can choose to sacrifice herself for everyone.” He said. “But you can’t trick her into dying.”
Water spheres appeared out of thin air.
Long ago, Jiang Cheng had told Li Jiangbing—water couldn’t kill zombies, but it could kill people.
She just loved to scare him.
How could it kill people.
The water sphere enclosed Zhou Wang’s head.
Zhou Wang lunged left and right trying to escape, but the vines bound his feet—he couldn’t run out of this room.
Not to mention Moli stood at the doorway.
Zhou Wang rolled on the ground, desperately slapping his own face, trying to scatter the water.
But the water sphere precisely followed him—no way to shake it off.
Soon, under everyone’s gaze, Zhou Wang drowned.
The ground opened, the corpse sank, buried on the spot.
Suddenly, a crackling sound of electric current rose in the room.
Everyone turned. On the stand Zhao Yi had specially made, the shortwave radio sat.
It had started again.
Playing ghosts and gods.
In a room where someone had just died, it was especially chilling.
The mysterious man’s voice rose: [Run, run quickly. He’s coming.]
Jiang Cheng asked: “Who?”
[The Zombie Emperor, of course.]
Jiang Cheng asked: “Does he really exist?”
[If you don’t run, you’ll see.]
Jiang Cheng asked: “Where should we run to?”
The mysterious man laughed: [Nowhere to run.]
Li Feng flew into a rage, rushed over, and slapped the shortwave radio: “Who are you! Who the hell are you!”
The mysterious man only chanted: [Run quickly. Run quickly.]
[If you don’t run, he’s coming.]
[…He’s here.]
[I’m here.]
The room was dead silent.
[I’m here.]
A massive block of concrete fell from the sky, smashing the shortwave radio into a pile of parts, then vanishing.
Everyone turned to look at Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng’s eyes were pitch black.
“Go tell everyone—the zombies are coming again. Whoever wants to run, run quickly.”
But where to run?
This was the question everyone asked most.
The people who’d fled from the west and the people who’d come from the east merged. Everyone exchanged information.
The north really had cracked into a massive canyon.
The west had the zombie army.
The east had tsunami and floods. The water had flooded from Q City all the way to D City. By the time the eastern people left D City, the water was already at knee level. The people of D City were also scattering in all directions.
The central region had become a dead zone after the extreme cold. Soon, when it got hot, it would become a plague zone.
No one had gone south, but since the ghost radio said the continental shelf had subsided and the coastline had advanced, it meant they didn’t intend to let anyone live.
Zhao Yi’s theory was fully confirmed.
Everyone understood now—whoever created the zombie virus never intended for humanity to survive at all.
Many people sat on the ground wailing.
Finally, someone asked: “Where’s Jiang Cheng? Where did Jiang Cheng go?”
There was still always the hope that Jiang Cheng could take them somewhere—to the ends of the earth, to the corners of the sea—at least there’d be a direction, a hope.
The sky had darkened. The fire-types had already lit the fire boxes and torches.
Firelight danced on Jiang Cheng’s face, looking calm and mad.
“I’m not going anywhere.” She said. “I’m staying right here.”
“I want to see the Zombie Emperor.”
“I want to ask him why he toys with us like this.”
“Those who want to leave, leave now.”
But they’d already driven for two days—at least seven or eight hundred kilometers.
If the zombie army could still chase them at this distance, it meant there was truly no safe place in the world.
Jiang Cheng actually very much wanted to know: “What does the Zombie Emperor look like?”
But no one had seen the Zombie Emperor.
Everyone had only seen the zombie army—all kinds of deformities, monstrosities, horrors imaginable, like a grand collection of imagination.
Plus giant zombies holding the line.
The Zombie Emperor should be behind, but no one had seen what he looked like yet.
This fellow who’d been playing ghosts and gods all along.
As if to answer “what does the Zombie Emperor look like,” at dawn the next day, the Zombie Emperor arrived in full glory.
How glorious?
The zombie army cleared the way, a sea of zombies.
The giant zombies were used as labor, carrying a palace.
Yes, carrying a palace.
Tall, resplendent with gold and jade, as if afraid Jiang Cheng wouldn’t see it.
If this were a comic, Zhao Yi seeing this would definitely curse: Does the author have some serious illness?
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