The young man held the girl tightly, hiding behind the bedroom bed, using her body to shield himself. “Don’t come any closer! If you do, I’ll kill her!”
This situation was much like what was seen on TV before. But the bedroom was so small, and with Zhang Yi’s marksmanship, as soon as the man showed his head even slightly, he could be shot dead!
Still, it had to be admitted that this tactic was somewhat effective since the man was trying hard to conceal himself. Besides, Zhang Yi was kind-hearted and couldn’t help but worry about the underage girl.
“Get out! I said get out! If you don’t leave, I’ll kill her!” The man shouted again, “Why did you come here? You didn’t come back before, so why now?”
“Did you kill those people downstairs?” Zhang Yi asked. Although the scene already explained a lot, he still asked.
“So what if I killed them? Who says everyone has to stay together and eat all the food waiting for rescue?”
“Ah!” The girl, being pulled by him, suddenly went wild, struggling fiercely. She bit the arm holding the kitchen knife. At the same time, Zhang Yi fired a shot that hit the man’s shoulder. In pain, the man dropped the knife.
The girl’s neck had already been cut, but she paid no attention to her wound. Instead, she kicked the man with all her strength…
Since the man was only shot in the shoulder, he wasn’t completely incapacitated. Ling Qingyun quickly rushed forward and struck the young man dead with a blow of his spiked club, then pulled the seemingly crazed girl away.
“Killed one evil person, gained ten merit points.”
“Saved one person, gained one merit point.”
Ling Qingyun released the girl in his arms, feeling a bit puzzled by the sudden “ten merit points” message—but there was no time to explore it now.
The girl lunged onto the young man, whose body was already battered and bloody from the spiked club blows, and suddenly bit into him, letting out a wail.
Zhang Yi struck the girl with a palm, knocking her unconscious. Such hatred—she seemed to want to drink his blood and eat his flesh…
What followed was much simpler: all the supplies in the room were taken away, saving them the trouble of searching room by room.
“The people here were lucky—none of them turned into zombies. But they were also unlucky…” Zhang Yi took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. It was a pack of soft Zhonghua, something he definitely couldn’t afford before.
When they returned from missions, all supplies had to be turned in. Otherwise, even now, he wouldn’t have wasted such valuable things on smoking.
Ling Qingyun had smoked a lot back when he was roaming around, sometimes two packs a day uncontrollably. But after Zhuang Cheng firmly opposed it, he quit. Since he had promised Zhuang Cheng, he wouldn’t break his word.
Two trucks were loaded with supplies, and they also found several car keys left behind by owners who had died—mostly from the room of the person who had killed the entire building. With these private cars, they had enough space for all the supplies and everyone in the team.
As for the survivors, many of them had their own cars, those without cars squeezed in with others. The entire group formed a large convoy and headed toward the safe zone.
After two days, because people had been around the community, many zombies had already gathered at the entrance. Ling Qingyun didn’t know how many merit points he had now, but it was clear the merit points were good. He also wanted to kill more zombies, so he stuck his head out of the sunroof of a private car and started shooting around.
Maybe marksmanship was something you learned through practice. Maybe it wasn’t just a hallucination that he had suddenly become sharper in hearing and sight. Ling Qingyun felt his shooting had improved a lot. Although he wasn’t as good as Zhang Yi, compared to the others in the team, he was already one of the better shots. After all, even those who had been in the military under Zhang Yi probably hadn’t fired a gun that many times since enlisting.
Shot after shot, the voice “Saved a soul, gained one merit point” rang intermittently in his ears. Finally, after dark, they all arrived at the safe zone.
A large crowd noisily squeezed together. The rescued survivors clung tightly to the food they brought. The guards at the safe gate immediately started registering everyone. These survivors would be assigned housing, and the safe zone would not confiscate the items they brought. However, the food wouldn’t last long, and if they wanted to survive, they had to participate in building the safe zone.
“In order to encourage everyone to go on missions, there’s a new rule in the safe zone: you can keep one-tenth of the supplies you get from missions. Of course, meal coupons are still issued as usual!” Zhang Yi announced excitedly after the handover. Now, almost everyone going on missions was a former soldier, but relying on soldiers alone couldn’t sustain the growing population. The leadership of the safe zone had begun to introduce other policies.
“Great!” the youngest soldier, He Yuan, jumped up excitedly.
Zhang Yi brought back one-tenth of the supplies, mostly non-perishable food. “When we go out on missions, everyone’s contribution is different—some give more, some less—so splitting everything equally isn’t fair. How about dividing it based on merit?” They could all eat their fill just from the meal coupons now, so this kind of distribution was reasonable.
The newly joined middle-aged man grumbled a few words under his breath, but after witnessing how fierce the others were when killing zombies, while he himself could only do grunt work like carrying supplies, he didn’t dare voice any objections.
Zhang Yi’s distribution was very fair. Even though he said those who contributed more would get more, it wasn’t by a wide margin. He even took less for himself than Ling Qingyun did. Most people felt a bit embarrassed after receiving their share.
Ling Qingyun and the two community security guards got sizable portions, as did a few of the front-line soldiers. Even the woman who helped only with cooking, and the middle-aged man who never dared to fight zombies, received a good amount of food. Zhang Yi also set aside a portion for the girl they rescued—who had since woken up but still looked dazed and unresponsive.
The rest of the survivors obeyed the arrangements of the safe zone and left. But that girl clearly had mental trauma—she stayed rooted in place, silent, not even taking the meal coupons they gave her.
A girl like that had almost no ability to survive on her own. Understandable, considering what she had gone through…
It was already nighttime. Once their observation period was over, the group planned to return. Zhang Yi frowned as he looked at the still-dazed girl, not sure of what to do.
The safe zone would take in orphans and even assign caretakers to them, but only if they were under ten years old—and even then, the children had to help with chores. But this girl…
“Captain Zhang, how about letting her stay with me?” the woman who had just joined the team and hadn’t made much of an impression before suddenly spoke up. “I got a room to myself, and my parents live elsewhere. She can stay with me.”
Zhang Yi thought for a moment and agreed. Seeing the issue resolved, Ling Qingyun picked up a sack and packed up his share of the supplies, heading back.
He went out almost every day on missions. Although hoarding some food wasn’t a bad idea, there was no need to store too much. After some thought, he turned and headed toward where Gu Jiabao lived.
When he reached their door, Ling Qingyun hesitated. It was already dark—had Gu Jiabao and the others gone to sleep?
Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly heard Gu Jiabao’s loud, full voice: “Damn it! Jin Xiang, you flipped me over just because of a piece of clothing I was lying on? Can’t you see I’m such a feast for the eyes?”
Jin Xiang’s voice came back: “If not for the clothes, then what else?”
“Hmm… just like this, keep going… You went through all that trouble flipping me over—wouldn’t it be a waste not to touch me a bit more!”
With Jin Xiang’s teasing words came Gu Jiabao’s contented “hmm hmm” sounds.
Ling Qingyun was silent for a moment, not intending to listen further, and then the sounds from the room stopped.
He turned back to his room carrying his things. After dinner, he took a small mirror and touched his forehead.
“Name: Ling Qingyun
Merit: 121 points
Level: 1 (Basic functions activated)”
121 points… Ling Qingyun saw the merit score displayed under his name. He had killed quite a few zombies today.
He touched his forehead a few more times. Before, 10 merit points were enough to unlock some basic functions. Now?
“When merit reaches 100 points, level reaches 2, unlock level 2 functions.”
A prompt sounded, but Ling Qingyun didn’t notice any difference. “What are level 2 functions?” Of course, no one could answer him.
After studying it carefully for a long time, Ling Qingyun kept touching the jade pendant on his forehead. Finally, he suddenly thought of something — ten merit points is level one, one hundred merit points is level two, but don’t tell him that one thousand points is level three!
With such a leveling method, would he even be able to keep leveling up? Of course, the most important thing was, although he felt his hearing and vision had improved a lot, his strength hadn’t increased, so his combat ability hadn’t improved. What use was this thing then?
Just as he was thinking this, Ling Qingyun clearly heard snoring next door, and at the same time realized he could now clearly see tiny black spots and marks on the wall — things he definitely shouldn’t have been able to see before.
Improved hearing, improved vision — was there anything else? Ling Qingyun looked at himself in the mirror, the jade pendant on his forehead suddenly appearing and then disappearing. He felt incredibly bored and still couldn’t come up with any answers.
After being dizzy all night yesterday and not resting these past two days, Ling Qingyun felt his arms aching terribly once he had free time. Without thinking further, he lay down and fell asleep.
That night, Ling Qingyun slept very well. Many people, encouraged by the new regulations in the safe zone, planned to go on missions, while even more people were cheering about one particular thing.
The safe zone was very quiet at night, but during the day several loudspeakers played news from various places all day long. Broadcasts began promptly at six every morning. Ling Qingyun was sleeping soundly when suddenly the loudspeaker woke him up.
“Good morning, everyone! We have some good news to share! A few days ago, the zombies evolved and caused panic among all people, but now, among us humans, evolved ones have appeared!
Yes, evolved ones! They are stronger than ordinary people, faster than ordinary people, or have exceptional talents in certain areas! We must believe that we will surely kill all those man-eating monsters! We must believe we can live peaceful lives again!”
A woman’s excited and passionate voice came through the broadcast, her words clear and repeated as she began reading some news about the evolved.
If someone watched TV often, they might recognize this voice as belonging to a very famous host.
Evolved zombies, evolved humans… Ling Qingyun fell silent. After the initial stage of evolution, would humans and zombies continue evolving like this?