Chen Yexun pulled his gaze back from the highway and lowered his voice to speak to the two behind him.
“We can’t take that stretch of road ahead.
It’s crawling with infected.
As long as we’re anywhere near the temple fair and the main road, forget about getting close to the highway.” With that, he turned back first, plunging deeper into the dense forest bordering the highway.
Li Chengyu and Chu Yao followed right on his heels.
Chen Yexun calculated the odds in his head.
Sure enough, the closer they got to the epicenter of the incident and the denser the vehicles were, the exponentially higher the concentration of infected became.
Not only was the highway a dead zone, but even the woods on both sides required extreme caution.
Who knew if an infected unable to find a “toy” on the highway might wander into the trees to go “treasure hunting.” Keeping low, the three used the trees and bushes as cover to carefully advance toward the northwest.
The highway behind them, choked with madness and death, was gradually swallowed by layer upon layer of green barriers.
They trekked through the woods for a long time.
There was nothing around them but trees after trees, the scenery so monotonous it was suffocating.
Chu Yao felt as though she had lost her way long ago.
If she hadn’t been following Chen Yexun, she would likely be pacing in circles.
In contrast, Chen Yexun ahead moved with ease.
He occasionally glanced at the digital compass on his phone, his pace steady and unhesitating.
His phone battery had dropped by over forty percent, but Chen Yexun didn’t mind.
He knew Li Chengyu’s and Chu Yao’s phone batteries were almost untouched, and Li Chengyu had a power bank in his backpack.
That was their current safety net.
Just then, Li Chengyu let out a muffled groan from behind, his footing stumbling.
“What’s wrong?” Chen Yexun immediately turned back.
“N-Nothing,” Li Chengyu waved his hand, his face even paler than before.
“Just a sudden wave of dizziness…
lost my strength for a second…” Chen Yexun stopped immediately, scanning their surroundings with heightened alertness before leading the two into a spot where the foliage was particularly dense.
“Five-minute break.” The three crouched down, suddenly aware of how dry their mouths and throats were.
The single insulated flask was passed around among them, each taking only a careful, tiny sip.
With food being so scarce, no one touched their rations.
Before long, Li Chengyu forced himself to stand up.
“I’m much better.
Let’s keep moving.” Chen Yexun stared into his eyes, confirming repeatedly, “You’re not forcing yourself?” “I’m really fine.” Li Chengyu tried hard to make his gaze look steady.
Chen Yexun asked no further questions, standing up to lead the way forward again.
However, before they had gone far, Chen Yexun suddenly raised his hand and froze entirely.
A short distance ahead, hanging faintly from several trees, were…
humanoid figures.
“Get down!” Chen Yexun’s voice was pressed down to an absolute whisper.
The three instantly dropped low.
Looking closely, those were actual people suspended from the trees by coarse ropes!
They hung completely motionless, like discarded ragdolls.
“So there really are some in the forest…” Chen Yexun’s heart sank.
He was just preparing to gesture for the other two to follow him and bypass them quietly.
Right at that moment, Chu Yao’s breathing caught sharply in her throat.
To her absolute horror, she saw one of those hanging bodies…
slowly open its eyes.
Those hollow, empty eyes locked straight onto the direction where they were hiding!
Immediately after, the corners of the person’s mouth split into an extraordinarily distorted smile, stretching almost all the way to its ears.
“Heh…
hehe…
HAHAHAHA!!!!” A shriek of ultimate mania erupted, like a hysterical alarm tearing through the forest’s dead silence, spreading and echoing wildly in every direction!
“Fuck!” Chen Yexun’s face turned ghastly pale.
He sprang up abruptly.
“Run!
Run!
That fucking thing is an alarm!!” There was no time to think!
Like startled rabbits, the three turned and bolted wildly through the forest floor!
Almost the exact instant they started running, deep within the forest behind them, as if activated by that laughter, a chorus of even denser maniacal shrieks and chaotic, rapid footsteps erupted!
Judging by the noise, at least a dozen of them were converging from all directions!
“This way!” Chen Yexun roared, guiding their path.
Right in the middle of their desperate sprint, he did something that left Li Chengyu completely stunned.
He quickly pulled out his own phone, cranked the volume to maximum, opened a music app, randomly tapped a high-tempo rap song, and then, aiming for a dense patch of bushes ahead to their side, hurled his phone into it!
The phone drew an arc through the air, landing inside the distant thicket as deafening music instantly exploded outward!
“What are you doing?!” Li Chengyu yelled in terror.
“Doesn’t that just give away our position?!” “Our direction was already exposed!” Chen Yexun panted, his speed not slowing in the slightest.
“That human alarm was staring right at us!
They know where we ran!
Before they see us with their own eyes, we can only use another sound to distract them—stall for every second we can!” The three ran with everything they had, oblivious to the tree branches tearing at their clothes and skin.
Behind them, the blasting music mixed with the shrieks of lunatics and pounding footsteps, creating a chaotic and eerie din.
Fortunately, as they ran further away, the music behind them gradually grew faint.
The chasing footsteps and laughter seemed genuinely thrown off by the abrupt sound, pausing before converging toward the source of the noise.
However, just when they thought they had temporarily thrown off their pursuers— Li Chengyu, running in the middle, suddenly went weak in the knees without warning.
With a loud crash, he slammed heavily onto the ground, instantly passing out cold!
“Cousin!” Chen Yexun’s heart violently seized.
He immediately dropped down to check on him.
“Mr.
Li!” Chu Yao stopped in horror as well.
Chen Yexun checked his breathing and pulse.
He had only fainted.
“Concussion…” Gritting his teeth, he cursed under his breath and shouted to Chu Yao, “Help me!
Hold him up!
We can’t stop!
Once they realize it’s just a phone, they’ll turn back and chase us immediately!” Chu Yao nodded frantically.
Flanking the unconscious Li Chengyu, she and Chen Yexun lifted him up, desperately trudging forward.
Supporting Li Chengyu in a panic, Chu Yao suddenly seemed to remember something.
As she ran, she fumbled frantically inside her waist pouch and quickly pulled out a tiny glass bottle—Wind Medicated Oil.
“I…
I forgot I had this!” Crying out, she unscrewed the cap and smeared the pungent liquid onto Li Chengyu’s temples and philtrum, desperately hoping the intense sting would shock him awake.
However, Li Chengyu’s eyelids merely fluttered a few times before he sank back into unconsciousness.
Even the cooling oil had failed.
“Chu Yao!
The compass!” Chen Yexun made a split-second call.
“Check our heading!
We can’t keep running in a straight line, we have to change directions!” Chu Yao struggled to operate her phone with one hand.
Once she cleared her view of the direction, she guided Chen Yexun to veer off toward the northwest.
Dragging a grown man between them, the two sprinted desperately across the rugged terrain.
Their lungs burned like fire, and their legs felt as heavy as lead.
After an unknown amount of time, when no sounds of pursuit could be heard behind them anymore, the three finally collapsed from sheer exhaustion.
They practically slammed through an exceptionally dense cluster of bushes and crashed onto the ground, gasping violently for air, sweat soaking their entire bodies.
Chen Yexun and Chu Yao carefully laid Li Chengyu flat on his back.
Were they…
safe for now?
There seemed to be no sound of pursuers behind them.
The complete collapse after surviving a brush with death, combined with an overwhelming silence, enveloped them both.
Chen Yexun and Chu Yao looked at each other, seeing the shared terror and absolute exhaustion reflected in one another’s eyes.
Slumped on the dirt, Chu Yao pulled out her phone with trembling hands to check the time.
Yet the moment the screen lit up, a new WeChat notification popped up starkly at the top of the display.
Sender: Chen Yexun.
Her heart violently skipped a beat as a suffocating, deeply ominous foreboding instantly wrapped around her.
Hadn’t Chen Yexun thrown his phone away?
With shaking fingers, she tapped open the message.
In the dim shadows of the thicket, the ghastly white glow emitted by the phone screen illuminated her face, which had gone entirely devoid of color.
Inside the chat box was a single line of text, floating like a mockingly malicious greeting sent from the deepest depths of hell: *Where the fuck are you guys?*