He didn’t know where he suddenly found the strength, nor how he was able to do many things he couldn’t do before… When several zombies reached out toward Ling Qingyun, who was turning back trying to grab him, Zhuang Cheng pushed Ling Qingyun hard, sending him toward the truck.
There were too many zombies around him, almost surrounding him completely. Even though he seemed to have endless energy now, he still couldn’t fend off all the zombies.
His stick struck a zombie’s head, and he was surprised to see the head shatter instantly—unlike before, when it took several strikes to kill one. Zhuang Cheng knew something had changed inside him, but it was already too late.
A sharp pain hit his face. Because he had pushed Ling Qingyun away earlier, more zombies had surrounded him. Now, one of the zombies’ claws scratched his face.
Looking up at the truck, Ling Qingyun was staring at him in shock, but he was held tightly by the people behind him and dragged onto the truck… Zhuang Cheng smiled faintly. Since he was destined to become a zombie, he might as well use this moment to draw the zombies away. No matter what, he hoped Ling Qingyun would survive.
Already wounded, he no longer feared contact with zombies. Turning around recklessly, Zhuang Cheng used his stick and hands to push aside the zombies nearby and ran toward where they had been hiding before.
The scent of living humans excited the zombies, but the smell of fresh blood drove them mad.
Zhuang Cheng realized he had become much faster, so despite recklessness, he managed to break out of the zombies’ encirclement, leading a horde of zombies toward the building where they had previously hidden. Of course, his hand gained another wound in the process.
Not far away, the truck drove off and disappeared behind a building. Zhuang Cheng turned and saw only a few wisps of black smoke. Ling Qingyun—are you safe?
“I love you…” he said quietly. He had wanted to shout it out loud just now, but what if he did? Ling Qingyun treated him well, placed him in the most important position, regarded him as his best brother. But if he were to say something like that in the end…
Wouldn’t Ling Qingyun feel guilty for life?
Determined, Zhuang Cheng went to a pile of bricks, grabbed one, and smashed the heads of zombies following him. He wanted to kill all these monsters!
Why had the world become like this?
If it weren’t for this mutation… Zhuang Cheng smashed a zombie’s head with his stick. Ling Qingyun always thought he was a good person, someone full of sympathy. But only Zhuang Cheng himself knew—he wasn’t really a good person… he just chose to be good to Ling Qingyun.
Seven or eight zombies already lay dead at his feet. The whole world now felt completely different to him—almost as if he could control it entirely… If he had gained this kind of power earlier, both he and Ling Qingyun might have escaped safely.
But now… Zhuang Cheng looked at his increasingly numb arms. Within an hour, he would turn into a zombie.
Rather than stay here and become one of the horde, he’d rather return to the room he and Ling Qingyun had stayed in…
He threw away the stick in his hand. Zhuang Cheng had no intention of killing more zombies and dirtying his clothes—what was the point? In the end, he would become one of them.
The room they had stayed in was on the second floor. Below it were the building materials they had thrown down to create a step. Stepping on those and pushing off hard, he managed to grab the window ledge—his strength really had increased a lot!
He flipped himself into the room. Everything inside had become so familiar over the past few days.
Lying on the cement floor, he felt as if he could clearly sense death approaching. He could no longer stay by Ling Qingyun’s side, couldn’t be the person Ling Qingyun relied on. And his own parents… they were probably dead too by now, weren’t they?
Just days ago, he had still been plotting whether to use some drunken excuse to sleep with Ling Qingyun. And now… that chance would never come again.
Ling Qingyun might have already forgotten, but he hadn’t. When Ling Qingyun had just started primary school, because he had never attended kindergarten, he didn’t speak standard Mandarin and was poor at Pinyin. The teacher didn’t like him. At the same time, Zhuang Cheng had lost his beloved grandparents and was taken in by his parents—who had hardly raised him—and became apathetic about school. He and a few classmates, including Ling Qingyun, were frequently kept behind after class by a new, responsible teacher for extra lessons.
All the other kids had parents who picked them up. When the teacher saw parents arrive, they’d let those students go. Only he and Ling Qingyun were always the last ones left, only allowed to leave when the teacher had to clock out.
At the time, Zhuang Cheng had felt humiliated and self-conscious. He hated the teacher, hated his neglectful parents, and even resented Ling Qingyun, who didn’t seem to care about the extra classes and always ran off right after school.
Then one day, he suddenly had the idea to run away from home. Having been raised by his grandparents, he didn’t feel any attachment to his parents’ house and didn’t want to go back. So after school, he simply followed Ling Qingyun home…
He had a meal there: bland, boiled greens and overly soft rice. He even found a tiny, black, hard-shelled bug in the food. It made him uncomfortable, but Ling Qingyun ate heartily. While shoveling down his rice, his bright black eyes kept stealing glances at him.
After eating, he watched the scrawny Ling Qingyun help his grandmother with chores, weeding the vegetable garden. It had rained in the summer, and Ling Qingyun was covered in mud. He even caught a little toad to scare him…
When he finally returned home, his parents had gone out looking for him. His grandmother hugged him tightly, calling him her “precious grandson” over and over. There was meat and vegetables on the table, cooked by his mom, and it tasted better than any restaurant food…
From that time on, he unconsciously began to pay attention to Ling Qingyun. While the teachers disliked Ling Qingyun—who was poorly dressed, often didn’t wash his hair or trim his nails—Zhuang Cheng liked him very much, especially those dark, bright eyes of his.
When the teacher asked them to make paper cut flowers to paste on the wall, he helped sort them and deliberately picked out Ling Qingyun’s to be displayed on the back wall of the classroom.
When the teacher asked him to hand out workbooks and he knew there would be extras, he would always give an extra one to Ling Qingyun.
When he collected homework for the teacher, he would “casually” look over Ling Qingyun’s messy homework first, and if he spotted any mistakes, he’d have him fix them…
Later on, Ling Qingyun started borrowing his homework to copy directly, and he just couldn’t bring himself to say no…
Such distant memories. Zhuang Cheng chuckled at how, back then, he used to arrive at school nearly an hour early every morning just to let Ling Qingyun copy his homework. From third or fourth grade all the way until they graduated middle school. Ling Qingyun was impressive too—despite all the copying, his grades barely dropped.
By the time they were in middle school, he started bringing food for Ling Qingyun. As long as Ling Qingyun ate what he brought, he felt happy.
He hated it when others touched his stuff, but he was always willing to give everything to Ling Qingyun.
After graduating middle school, when he found out his test scores and planned to apply to the same high school as Ling Qingyun, he learned that Ling Qingyun wasn’t going to continue school. For several days, he was so angry he couldn’t eat or sleep. Then, all of a sudden, he understood—he liked men. He liked Ling Qingyun. And he had liked him for a very, very long time.
He thought he was a pervert. He thought he was disgusting. For a time, he tried to avoid Ling Qingyun. But when Ling Qingyun called him, he couldn’t hold back. He ran out of school against the teacher’s wishes and rushed to Ling Qingyun as fast as he could…
That must have been when Ling Qingyun started seeing him as his best brother. But he never wanted to just be “brothers.”
Although Ling Qingyun liked women, he’d never dated anyone all these years. Zhuang Cheng once thought that eventually, they’d be together. He even studied foreign languages hard, planning to someday move abroad and marry Ling Qingyun…
But now, he was going to die. Worse—he would become a disgusting zombie. Zhuang Cheng raised his hand and saw the color of his arm no longer looked human.
The feeling of waiting for death… was truly awful. He couldn’t help but wonder—if he hadn’t pushed Ling Qingyun away, and they had become zombies together, would that have felt easier?
No… one person dying was enough. How could he ever bear to harm Ling Qingyun?
That was the person he loved—the one he cared about the most…
Even when facing so many zombies, Ling Qingyun had never once thought of abandoning him. Given how deeply emotional and loyal Ling Qingyun was, perhaps…
What if Ling Qingyun came back to look for him? What would he do then? If he had already turned into a zombie, lost all his consciousness, he would definitely end up hurting him, wouldn’t he? Just like those they had seen before—parents bitten by their children, wives bitten by their husbands, children bitten by their parents… Humans always softened toward their loved ones…
Ling Qingyun saw him as his best brother, always giving him the good stuff first instead of keeping it for himself. If he came back looking for him…
He mustn’t hurt Ling Qingyun. Absolutely not!
His eyes widened as he clenched his fists tightly. He felt like he could no longer breathe…
No, he absolutely couldn’t hurt Ling Qingyun! Gritting his teeth, his whole body tensed—he tried to resist the transformation that was already underway…
Qingyun… His Qingyun…
He could no longer lift his hand…
He had imagined his own death many times before, but he never thought it would be like this—facing death alone, so cold it felt like he was freezing…
Qingyun… would he come looking for him? He couldn’t hurt him…
Qingyun… Qingyun…
His stomach, numb from hunger, suddenly regained sensation. So hungry… unbearably hungry… What did he need? Fresh flesh and blood? No—he couldn’t hurt him. But… who was he?
Wasn’t he already dead? He didn’t want to die! He was starving… in agony… But he couldn’t hurt that person…
That person… who was he?