The next day, Ling Qingyun arrived early at the place Zhang Yi had notified him about in advance. The things he learned yesterday left an empty spot in his heart, and he was eager to go out and kill zombies—perhaps only by doing so could he find some peace.
Now, the teams going out on missions from the safe zone were mostly led by soldiers, and some were composed entirely of military personnel. These teams took on even more difficult tasks.
The place where Ling Qingyun and the others waited was one of the entrances to the safe zone. Although he hadn’t been standing there long, he had already seen several groups leave the zone, and one group return. All of those returning were soldiers riding on military trucks stained with blood and rotting flesh. Just by their appearance, one could imagine how brutal the battles had been! It was said that since most survivors fled to the safe zone, many zombies also moved toward the area, making it increasingly difficult to get supplies or rescue survivors.
Zhang Yi had not arrived yet, but others came one after another. Most of them were discussing news about the evolved beings. Ling Qingyun didn’t engage much with them, they treated him with a mix of respect and fear, and no one approached to talk to him.
Even standing alone in the corner, Ling Qingyun could clearly hear their discussions. The mysterious jade pendant on his forehead had at least granted him extraordinary hearing.
But although he heard them, Ling Qingyun didn’t care at all about their conversations—whether about the evolved beings or about who was bullying others in the safe zone. He no longer paid attention to such things.
Last night, holding Zhuang Cheng’s student ID, Ling Qingyun had barely slept. The interactions between Gu Jiabao and Jin Xiang made him secretly jealous. If only Zhuang Cheng hadn’t died…
But Zhuang Cheng was already dead. Ling Qingyun had seen with his own eyes Zhuang Cheng being bitten by zombies. Gu Jiabao wanted to rescue his uncle but had no way. Ling Qingyun also wanted to visit the construction site near the building where the two had hidden, but he knew he couldn’t get there alone.
What else could he do? He could only kill more zombies to ease the pain in his heart. And by keeping busy, he wouldn’t feel the constant anguish that made living feel like a burden.
The atmosphere in the safe zone was tense—or rather, the entire world was tense. Compared to some countries, however, the situation in Z Country was much better. When the catastrophe struck, it was nighttime here, so zombies couldn’t open doors and escape, leaving many survivors behind. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Earth, it was afternoon…
Compared to Z Country, which could still establish safe zones and maintain communications, some countries—such as the once-powerful M Country—could not control the rapidly deteriorating situation. Survivors there lived even harder lives. Some nations resorted to bombing cities with missiles to kill the hordes of zombies, a method effective but which also wiped out any survivors still inside. If the whole world chose this path, even if zombies were ultimately exterminated, Earth would no longer be livable for humans.
Among zombies, mutated zombies appeared, among humans, evolved beings emerged. Zombies neither knew death, fatigue, nor fear. Fortunately, humans still had firearms. In Z Country, where civilians had previously been forbidden to own guns, weapons were now being produced day and night. The conflict between the two sides grew increasingly brutal and fierce. Amid this tense atmosphere, everyone welcomed the New Year of 2015.
Everyone in the safe zone harbored deep hatred toward zombies. But while they all had grudges, very few actually dared to fight and kill zombies. Among all these people, there were hardly any like Ling Qingyun.
Zhang Yi watched Ling Qingyun charging at the front, always eager to kill zombies and take on the most dangerous tasks. He sighed slightly. Although Ling Qingyun never said anything, it wasn’t hard to guess that he must have lost a lot in this catastrophe, which explained his intense hatred for zombies.
Aiming his gun at the zombies’ heads to ensure Ling Qingyun’s safety as he cleared the supermarket entrance, Zhang Yi then gave the order for the rest of the team to disembark from the vehicle.
It had been nearly a month since the catastrophe began. At first, survivors came to the safe zone every day, and they could bring back groups of survivors with each mission. But now, the number of survivors they encountered was dwindling, while the number of zombies kept increasing. For every human lost, a new enemy appeared.
The supermarket’s main doors had long been opened. Survivors had clearly been here before. But as food became scarcer and the number of people in the safe zone kept growing, they had no choice but to search harder and farther for supplies.
Their team was relatively lucky. Perhaps because there weren’t many formal soldiers among them, the authorities hadn’t assigned overly dangerous missions. So far, they hadn’t faced too many threats. Even so, they had lost two members: one was the middle-aged man who had joined the team two days after Ling Qingyun, and the other was a newcomer. Over the past month, their team had grown to more than twenty people.
Both the middle-aged man and the newcomer had family in the safe zone. That’s why they risked their lives—to earn enough food. After their deaths, Zhang Yi, out of sympathy, gave a lot of food to their families. But now, there was nothing more anyone could offer.
Ling Qingyun quickly killed the zombies at the supermarket entrance and slipped inside. Recently, every time he killed a zombie, he received a system notification saying he had gained one point of merit. His merit count was slowly increasing. However, since they didn’t go out on missions daily and not every mission allowed him to freely kill zombies, his merit had only reached a little over 800 and hadn’t yet hit 1,000.
Perhaps it took ten times as much merit to level up. Because of this, Ling Qingyun didn’t feel any noticeable changes in himself. That said, his stamina and agility had improved significantly from constant combat, and wielding the spiked mace had become second nature. His marksmanship had also improved greatly.
There was food inside the supermarket, which inevitably attracted survivors. And the scent of living humans, in turn, attracted zombies.
As Ling Qingyun slipped into the supermarket, what he saw were many clumsy zombies.
Over the past month, mutated zombies had become increasingly common. The safe zone had also seen the emergence of many evolved humans. Ling Qingyun’s team had encountered a few mutated zombies themselves. Fortunately, mutated zombies lacked intelligence, and as long as they worked together, their team could still take them down.
The zombies inside the supermarket weren’t mutated ones, which made Ling Qingyun breathe a sigh of relief. He was now the core combat force of the team, and Zhang Yi treated him generously, helping him gather a full set of good equipment. Now he was completely wrapped in protective gear—unless it was a mutated zombie, even if a regular one grabbed him, it couldn’t hurt him.
By the time Ling Qingyun entered the supermarket, the rest of the team had already rushed in as well. Seeing the supplies inside, everyone’s eyes turned red with excitement.
The zombies were quickly taken care of. Ling Qingyun and Zhang Yi stood guard at the entrance, shooting at any approaching zombies, while the others scavenged for supplies.
“Tomorrow is January 1st, 2015…” Zhang Yi said as he blew the head off a crawling zombie with his pistol. In the early days, most of the zombies they encountered were intact, but now, more and more were missing limbs—those were the ones who had been eaten and then turned.
Once humans turned into zombies, they stopped decomposing. However, those who had been bitten were often stained with blood and rotting flesh. That stuff did rot and smelled terrible. Still, everyone who left the safe zone on missions had long since gotten used to it.
“Oh.” Ling Qingyun responded. New Year’s Day was supposed to be a festive occasion, but now, who even had the mood to celebrate? At most, some people might reward themselves with a better meal that day. As for him—he didn’t even want to bother doing that much.
“We’re not going on a mission tomorrow. Got any plans?” Zhang Yi asked.
“Tomorrow? I’m not sure… But there’s a place I’ve been meaning to visit for a while,” Ling Qingyun said calmly. Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes. “Careful! Mutated zombies!” He had already learned to skillfully make use of his heightened hearing and vision, which helped him detect abnormalities faster than others.
Two mutated zombies—and both were the speed type! Ling Qingyun quickly fired at one of them. Although it was fast, his eyesight was sharp, and the zombie didn’t know how to dodge, so he shot it right in the head!
Thanks to Ling Qingyun’s timely warning and the zombies’ straightforward charge, Zhang Yi also opened fire. Unfortunately, he only hit the neatly dressed zombie in the jaw. Ling Qingyun didn’t hesitate—he rushed forward a few steps and smashed its head in with a blow, then began digging into their skulls without a second thought.
“What do you even want with those things?” Zhang Yi muttered. Everyone now knew that mutated zombies had crystals inside their skulls. About ten days ago, the higher-ups in the safe zone had brought back several of these crystals for research—only for the researcher to turn into a zombie after handling one! Since then, people had been avoiding them altogether. After all, it took serious mental grit to dig around in brain matter for something. Only Ling Qingyun did it every time without fail.
Still, without Ling Qingyun, they wouldn’t be able to detect mutated zombies early, let alone kill them. Although Zhang Yi was aware that some people were secretly collecting these crystals, he tacitly allowed Ling Qingyun to keep them all to himself.
“I don’t know either,” Ling Qingyun replied as he had already dug out the crystal cores. He washed them clean with the water he carried and placed them into a small pouch. He just had a gut feeling that these crystals were useful!
Zhang Yi didn’t ask any further. Their haul this time was decent. Although many of the food supplies in the supermarket had already been taken, daily necessities were still there. Some items like cooking oil and condiments were also untouched, and puffed snacks—which took up space but couldn’t be used as staple food—were completely untouched. Currently, S City was swarming with zombies. In the beginning, they could still clear out some roads, but now it was practically impossible to move forward, which made supply runs increasingly difficult. A harvest like today’s was already quite good.
When several trucks returned to the safe zone, Ling Qingyun noticed that the guards at the gate were unusually stern. Normally, Zhang Yi was the one handling handovers with them, and this time was no different.
When Zhang Yi came back, the expression on his face was hard to describe—perhaps worry, perhaps frustration. “The safe zone has just issued a new set of regulations.”
“Captain Zhang, what is it this time?”
“They’re now allowing anyone to form their own teams to go out and search for supplies. From now on, the safe zone will no longer issue food coupons for missions—you’ll need to trade collected supplies for meal coupons, and they’ll also charge a 10% tax. The safe zone is being divided into an inner zone and an outer zone. Also, all those working within the safe zone will have their meal coupon wages cut in half…” Zhang Yi explained. To be honest, none of this was surprising. While the safe zone was large, the number of survivors was growing so quickly that it was now overcrowded. With too many people crammed into one place, even without zombies, the poor living conditions could easily make people sick—and things like waste and sewage had become impossible to manage.
“How could it turn out like this?”
“Are they trying to make us die?”
“With rules like these, won’t a lot of people choose to leave the safe zone to look for food on their own?”
“That’s how it should be! Why should we risk our lives to grab food just to feed them?” Everyone started talking at once. They were all gathered at the observation point, and there were many people there now. Most were discussing this issue.
Ling Qingyun didn’t care much about the laws everyone was complaining about, he only cared about one thing: “Will it be less strict to leave the safe zone from now on?”
He had long wanted to visit the place where he and Zhuang Cheng had parted ways. Before, it was because the safe zone strictly controlled who could come and go, and also because he felt he hadn’t killed enough zombies to avenge Zhuang Cheng. Plus, back then, he had nothing and couldn’t have made it there—he probably would have been buried by zombies along the way! But now was different. Recently, he had found a sturdy Hummer H3 and enough gasoline—both very hard to find, since a solid vehicle and fuel were among the most needed supplies in the safe zone.
He found that Hummer at a repair shop overrun by zombies, and he had charged in alone to drive it out. Afterwards, he insisted on keeping the vehicle, and Zhang Yi didn’t oppose it. He even traded food for some ammo, so now he was fully equipped to make a run there!
“From now on, this ‘safe zone’ won’t be called a safe zone anymore but the inner zone!” Zhang Yi gave a bitter smile. Although they hadn’t yet said under what circumstances people would be forced to leave the inner zone, it was clear many would be asked to leave the safe zone altogether.
Respecting elders, caring for children, being helpful—these things were luxuries in the apocalypse! Although the government initially claimed it would protect everyone’s safety, now it was clearly beyond their ability. But they couldn’t just bomb cities to kill zombies, if they did, aside from the destroyed environment and the survivors inside the city who would die, the survival supplies for the safe zone residents would become a huge problem!
As long as a city still stood, at least there was hope—people could still find some food there!
Ling Qingyun didn’t care much about this. He didn’t know many people in the safe zone now, and even fewer did he care about. Besides, he no longer cared about his own survival, so how could he care about others? All he knew was that the pain of losing Zhuang Cheng was piling up inside him, becoming heavier and heavier, almost suffocating him!