Upon hearing the cry for help, Lu Chen’s eyes instantly sharpened. Grabbing his gun, he rushed outside.
As soon as he reached the yard, Lu Chen spotted Ling Jiujiu.
The little one was clinging desperately to the pillar in front of the courtyard gate, using both hands and feet. His short legs flailed wildly, and his small head tilted back as far as it could go.
“G-go away!”
Beneath him, a large goose was flapping its wings, stretching its neck, and strutting proudly as it menaced him.
Lu Chen: “…”
Truly the most pathetic little zombie he had ever seen.
Ling Jiujiu’s small mouth trembled uncontrollably, his voice tinged with a sob from fear:
“Don’t come any closer, I won’t grab you!”
Hearing this, the goose actually paused.
Thinking it had understood him, Ling Jiujiu was about to sigh in relief when, suddenly, the goose leaped up and pecked him right on the butt cheek.
“Aaaaaahhh—!”
At this, Ling Jiujiu completely lost his composure. Clinging to the pillar, he broke down in tears:
“You bit me, you bad goose, wuwuwu…”
Lu Chen looked on speechlessly, striding over to grab the goose by the neck.
Caught off guard, the goose had no time to react before its neck was snapped with a crisp crack.
Tossing the dinner onto the ground, Lu Chen lifted Ling Jiujiu off the pillar.
Seeing the goose’s head separated from its body yet still twitching, Ling Jiujiu was utterly terrified.
No wonder the goose was so fierce—it had been infected, just like those stupid zombies.
Too scared to set foot on the ground, he clung to Lu Chen instead.
“It’s just a goose. Its beak is so small—what’s there to be afraid of?”
Lu Chen’s tone carried a hint of helplessness.
Ling Jiujiu pouted pitifully, “It was so fierce, just charging at me like that.”
The memory of the goose, eyes red and sharp-toothed beak wide open, lunging toward him made Ling Jiujiu shudder.
Usually, the creatures he encountered were small rabbits, birds, fish, or mice.
Those little animals would run away in fear at the sight of him. Only this goose had charged at him so aggressively, intent on biting him.
It was just too fierce, too terrifying.
Resigned, Lu Chen let him cling on and carried the headless goose, still flapping on the ground, back into the house.
Only when the goose had completely stopped moving did Ling Jiujiu release his grip on Lu Chen’s neck.
Lu Chen noticed a small patch of red on the pale skin of Ling Jiujiu’s exposed calf.
“Does it hurt?” Lu Chen asked.
“Huh?”
Following his gaze, Ling Jiujiu finally noticed the purplish-red bruise on his leg.
He was startled.
Lu Chen crouched down and rolled up his pant leg to take a closer look.
“Probably from the goose pinching you. Looks pretty nasty—does it hurt?”
Ling Jiujiu shook his head. “I can’t feel anything.”
Though he couldn’t feel any pain, the sight of the large purplish bruise filled him with both grievance and anger.
Lu Chen fetched the first-aid kit from the cabin and applied some ointment to the bruise.
He wasn’t sure if the ointment would even work on a zombie.
Then Lu Chen remembered that Ling Jiujiu had also been bitten on the butt cheek earlier.
“…”
He handed the ointment to Ling Jiujiu, turning his face away as he said, “Apply the rest yourself.”
With that, Lu Chen turned and carried the goose into the kitchen.
Ling Jiujiu couldn’t feel any pain and, still shaken from the earlier scare, couldn’t remember exactly where the goose had bitten him.
He twisted and turned, but his body wasn’t flexible enough to see the spot.
Helpless, he had no choice but to ask Lu Chen for help:
“Lu Chen, what should I do? I can’t see it.”
Lu Chen, who was plucking goose feathers in the kitchen, paused his hands. What a delicate little waste who needed to be waited on hand and foot.
“Don’t tell me you want me to… wipe your butt for you?”
Ling Jiujiu’s face flushed with embarrassment. Though that was indeed the case, couldn’t he have phrased it more tactfully?
He had his temper too.
Ling Jiujiu let out a soft huff and stopped asking Lu Chen for help. Lying face down on the bed, he squeezed out some ointment and applied it haphazardly.
If he couldn’t see it, then smearing it all over should do the trick, right?
Despite his earlier words, Lu Chen washed his hands clean and came over to help Ling Jiujiu apply the ointment.
But when he arrived, he saw Ling Jiujiu lying on the bed with his little butt raised, struggling to reach behind himself.
Ling Jiujiu hadn’t expected him to come over.
Their eyes met, and the awkwardness was palpable.
“…”
In that moment, Ling Jiujiu wished he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
While he was still searching for that crack, Lu Chen turned and slipped back into the kitchen.
With ointment applied to his buttocks, Ling Jiujiu couldn’t sit down and had to stand.
After such an embarrassing incident, he didn’t want to see Lu Chen at all.
Both the human and the zombie were on the same wavelength, maintaining a silent, mutual understanding.
It wasn’t until Lu Chen picked up the plucked goose and headed outside that Ling Jiujiu finally spoke up.
“What are you doing?”
Without looking up, Lu Chen replied as he gutted the goose, “Preparing dinner.”
Ling Jiujiu was shocked. Could this ferocious thing even be eaten?
More importantly, it was infected.
He quickly said, “It’s infected. You can’t eat it.”
“Infected?” Lu Chen paused.
After the Zombie Virus spread, not only humans could be infected and turn into zombies—animals could also be infected.
Typically, infected animals became more aggressive and mutated faster, making them even more dangerous than ordinary zombies.
He had once encountered a mutated rat as large as a tiger.
Animal mutations were usually obvious at a glance, and he hadn’t noticed any signs of infection in this goose earlier.
But there were always exceptions, so it was better to be cautious.
He took a sealed small box from his pants pocket, pulled out a test strip, and placed it in the goose’s mouth.
After a moment’s thought, he took out another half and held it in his own mouth.
A few minutes later, he removed the test strip from the goose’s mouth. It hadn’t changed color—no infection.
Then he took out the one from his own mouth. The test strip had turned red, the deep crimson shade indicating the highest level of infection.
It seemed tonight’s goose meat would be his last supper.
“It’s fine, it’s edible,” Lu Chen said, speeding up his preparations.
Ling Jiujiu watched him perform his “magic trick” from the side.
Lu Chen cleaned the goose legs, liver, and feet and handed them to Ling Jiujiu.
The remaining goose meat was partly roasted for dinner and partly preserved with salt.
Looking at the delicious meal on the table, Ling Jiujiu’s last trace of worry vanished completely.
Though the goose had been fierce, once stripped of its skin, it looked no different from rabbit meat.
Ling Jiujiu picked up a piece of goose liver and put it in his mouth.
“!”
Smooth and delicate, with a light, rich aroma of fat filling his mouth.
“So delicious!”
Lu Chen chewed on the goose meat, but it tasted like sawdust.
His sense of taste was fading—a precursor to mutation.