The rain poured down in sheets. Though it was only mid-afternoon, the sky was already dark as night, and the thunderous roar of rain was the only sound between heaven and earth.
Jiang Fu sat by the car, quietly watching the downpour.
After confirming that it would rain, she had given up searching for a water source. She drove both vehicles back into the small courtyard and used the waterproof tarps from the cars to set up a five- or six-meter square shelter between them.
Now she sat beneath the tarp. A faint aura of resentment formed invisible walls around the space, keeping the rain out completely—not even a trace of dampness touched the hem of her clothes.
A folding table was set up in front of her. Water bubbled on a portable gas stove. A camping lantern hung from the back of the car, casting a warm orange glow over this small patch of dry ground.
Not far away, in the courtyard, Wen Zangyu stood directly beneath the torrential rain, pacing back and forth from time to time.
The rain seemed to contain some kind of energy beneficial to her. She had been limping before, but after standing in the rain for an hour, the limp disappeared. Her fractures and wounds healed at astonishing speed.
Soon, she was leaping onto the courtyard wall and running along the top of it—
Crash.
The wall collapsed.
She climbed onto the roof next. The already dilapidated house quickly gave way under her rampaging, and the structure caved in, burying her beneath the rubble. A moment later, she clawed her way out with her bare hands, then scrambled up a large tree and began viciously destroying its branches.
After a while, she dragged Wen Zicheng out and beat him viciously—left, right—grabbing his broken leg and swinging him like a sandbag, smashing him repeatedly into the ground.
Wen Zicheng’s screams rose endlessly, the perfect accompaniment to the rain.
Jiang Fu: “…”
This promising lady zombie was truly durable.
She turned her head and looked at the boy sitting on a small folding stool, tilting his head as he watched her.
He had just bathed in the rain and changed into a nearly new black short-sleeved shirt. His hair was still slightly wet, clinging to his face and making his already pale, delicate skin look even fairer. His large, dark, grape-like eyes stared at her without blinking—like a puppy whose gaze constantly follows its owner.
When Jiang Fu looked at him, his eyes brightened. He subtly straightened his back and said, somewhat unfamiliar yet clear, “Sis… ter.”
“…” Jiang Fu pointed at Wen Zangyu. “That’s your sister.”
The boy glanced at Wen Zangyu, who was still swinging her “sandbag,” and called out, “Sis.”
Then he looked back at Jiang Fu. “Sister.”
As if to say: Wen Zangyu is sis. You are sister. He could tell the difference.
Jiang Fu: “…”
At that moment, the water on the stove came to a boil. The boy reached out to pour her some, but as soon as his hand passed through the steam, he hissed in pain. His fingers immediately turned red.
Then he sneezed and shivered visibly from the cold.
Jiang Fu: “…”
She had already been rendered speechless several times today because of this pair of siblings.
The older sister leaped about like a wild monkey. The younger brother, however, was refined and quiet to an extreme. Especially after being cursed by her—he was now truly delicate, like fine porcelain that would shatter at a touch.
At the time, she had only said he was “frail and prone to injury,” but she hadn’t expected him to become this fragile. Looking at his reddened fingers and his shivering body, she realized he was not only prone to injury, but also to illness.
But fundamentally he is still a zombie, right? Since when does a zombie catch a cold from standing in the rain? What kind of logic is that?
Jiang Fu sighed. Seeing his pitiful expression, she went to the car and found a pure white towel that looked unused, along with a jacket of unknown ownership but fairly clean. She tossed them to him.
“Put on the jacket. Dry your hair.”
He immediately obeyed. His limbs were still somewhat stiff, so his movements were clumsy, yet he carried them out with meticulous seriousness.
Jiang Fu condensed the resentment energy around them a bit more. Now not only could no rain drift in, even the cold wind was kept out. She poured him a cup of hot water and waited until it cooled slightly before handing it to him.
“See if you can drink.”
He held the cup with both hands, took two sips, and swallowed smoothly, showing no discomfort.
So he could eat and drink normally.
Jiang Fu brought out food from the car. The two of them shared it while watching Wen Zangyu wreak havoc in the rain. At the same time, they chatted intermittently.
“Your name is Wen Heyu?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you this year?”
“Sev… enteen.”
Jiang Fu glanced at him. Seventeen? He did not look it. She had thought he was fifteen or sixteen at most. His frame was not fully developed, and his face still carried a youthful softness—though one could already see the foundation of striking good looks.
Although Jiang Fu was quite disgusted by men, her tolerance was much higher for minors—especially good-looking ones.
“Do you remember how you turned into a zombie?”
Wen Heyu thought for a moment and replied slowly, “In the chaos… someone… slashed me. Sis said… that knife… had cut zombies before. It wasn’t cleaned.”
That detail hadn’t been mentioned by Wen Zicheng.
She asked again, “Then how did your sister become a zombie?”
This time Wen Heyu took even longer before answering uncertainly, “Sis… fought those people. She was hurt… almost died. So I… bit her?”
Jiang Fu thought to herself: So Wen Zangyu was injured, and her zombie brother—unable to control himself—accidentally bit her? Or did Wen Heyu see that she was about to die and decide to bite her deliberately? After all, turning into a zombie was better than dying completely.
If it was the latter…
She studied Wen Heyu with fresh eyes. Already a zombie, yet still capable of such clear reasoning—and decisive action. This one wasn’t simple either.
“But if you’re the one who turned your sister into a zombie, how is it that she’s so strong, and you’re so weak?”
Generally speaking, if you’re bitten by a powerful zombie, you become relatively strong after turning. The reverse should follow the same logic.
Yet in this case, a weak zombie had created an extraordinarily strong one.
Wen Heyu didn’t get upset. In a gentle tone, he said, “Since we were little… Sis has always been strong.”
…
While the two of them chatted here, over there Wen Zangyu had already beaten Wen Zicheng to the brink of death. Blood streamed from the wounds all over his body, trailing across the ground in long, winding streaks. Wherever it passed, the grass seemed to receive some kind of nourishment and began sprouting rapidly.
All kinds of insects crawled out of the soil, scrambling for the blood. They didn’t just drink it—they followed the trail straight to Wen Zicheng, excitedly gnawing at his wounds. In no time at all, his entire body was covered in crawling bugs.
Wen Zangyu stopped and crouched nearby to watch, listening to Wen Zicheng’s terrified, shrill screams. His ability had long since been exhausted in resisting her brutal beating. Now he could only collapse into despair, shrieking futilely, “Kill me! Just kill me!”
Wen Zangyu grinned, clearly delighted by the sound.
The smell of blood and the screams drew other creatures. In the distance, one swaying zombie after another appeared. On the rooftops, oversized cats, dogs, and rats leapt into view.
Wen Zangyu turned her head, her tiny pupils contracting. She glanced at Jiang Fu and Wen Heyu beneath the awning, then suddenly dashed off. In the dim light, they could only see her plunge into the zombie horde, fists and feet flying, sending the zombies flipping through the air one after another.
After finishing off the zombies, she climbed onto the rooftop and began fighting the mutated beasts. For a time, the air rang with cat screeches and dog barks—it was extraordinarily lively.
Jiang Fu sighed. “She really has a lot of energy.”
Some insects crawled toward Jiang Fu. She gave them a faint glance and flicked a slap of resentful energy at them; they obediently retreated.
So while the surrounding weeds grew visibly taller at an alarming speed, a vacuum-like buffer zone formed around the two vehicles.
After Wen Zangyu finished dealing with everything, she crouched on the ground, busy for a while. Eventually, she returned with something gathered in the hem of her clothes.
Jiang Fu withdrew her resentful energy and let her approach.
Wen Zangyu tipped the contents of her clothing onto the small table.
Clatter—
It was a pile of crystal cores, in all different colors, washed clean by the rain. She had probably only picked the high-level ones; each shimmered with a gemstone-like luster, excellent in quality.
She looked at Jiang Fu and nudged the crystal cores toward her.
Rainwater streamed down her hair. The bloodstains and grime on her face had been washed away, revealing pale skin. The corpse-like aura of death around her had faded considerably, and even her eyeballs no longer looked so strange.
This was the effect of evolution. She was becoming more and more like a living person.
“I don’t need these,” Jiang Fu said. “You use them yourself.”
Wen Zangyu studied her, as if confirming she wasn’t lying, then turned to Wen Heyu and pushed the crystal cores toward him.
Wen Heyu blinked. “Sis, I can’t eat those. If I do, I’ll… boom!”
Wen Zangyu looked at his thin arms and legs. A trace of something resembling disdain flashed across her face. She turned to the black cat lying in the car. “Wu… cat…”
The black cat happily squeezed out through the car window. “There’s a share for me too?”
Without ceremony, it jumped onto the table, pawed through the pile, selected the two biggest and brightest crystal cores, and stuffed them into its fur. “Alright. You can eat the rest.”
To the siblings, the cat had merely meowed a few times. Strangely, though, Wen Zangyu seemed to understand.
She cast a curious look at the plump cat’s black fur, then grabbed the remaining crystal cores from the table and began stuffing them into her own hair.
Jiang Fu, who had been drinking water, nearly choked.
She waved her hand. “If you’re not going to eat them right away, just leave the crystal cores here. I’ll keep them for you.”
Jiang Fu: …That’s really not necessary.
But after thinking about it, she chose not to interfere.
In the past, this powerful zombie’s path of evolution had been exactly like this. Heaven and earth—anything that aided her evolution—there was nothing she wouldn’t consume.
This time, Jiang Fu had already changed some things. She really shouldn’t meddle any further.
She looked at the well-behaved boy beside her, clean and holding snacks in his hands. “Let’s not eat those. That’s good.”
…
Hongri Base.
The torrential rain had come too suddenly. From the rolling in of dark clouds to the first raindrops, only a few minutes had passed.
Many people outside the base didn’t have time to rush back.
So quite a few chose to take shelter where they were.
But that decision quickly proved disastrous. In just a short while, they discovered all kinds of insects burrowing out from underground and from corners. In the air, mosquitoes, moths, flying ants, and other bugs swarmed in, biting people relentlessly.
Turning around, they found that the vines on the walls had somehow grown tall and dense, their leaves edged with serrated teeth. A brush against bare skin caused both pain and itching. If one wasn’t careful, clumps of weeds would tangle themselves around vehicle wheels.
While they were busy dealing with all this, waves of cats, dogs, snakes, rats, bats, and birds began appearing one after another…
Even though most of those who dared venture outside the base possessed abilities, they couldn’t withstand the endless stream of trouble.
So people could only fend off the attacks while running back toward the base in the pouring rain.
The squad returning from West Town was no exception. They had rescued a large number of people and were severely overloaded—three vehicles packed far beyond capacity. Not long after the downpour began, the cars broke down.
The dense, concentrated scent of so many humans attracted all kinds of enemies. They struggled desperately to hold them off, but in the end had no choice but to abandon the vehicles and flee. Because they still had to protect a group of injured survivors, the journey back was chaotic and miserable.
By the time they finally returned to the base, every single one of them was covered in wounds. Many were swollen all over from insect bites. Some even had leech-like creatures burrowed into their flesh.
Zhou Liangji had only just escaped the agony that had felt like ten thousand arrows piercing his heart. The three hours of intense pain had nearly sent him into heart failure.
But upon hearing about the miserable state of his companions, he hurried over. Seeing how wretched each of them looked, he was overwhelmed with guilt.
“It’s all my fault. You only went out because of me. I’m the one who harmed you.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Who knew it would suddenly rain like that? Those zombies and bugs went crazy,” his companions said through gritted teeth, comforting him in turn. “It looks serious, but it’s all superficial wounds. We just exhausted our abilities. Once we absorb some crystal cores, we’ll be fine.”
Zhou Liangji looked them over and saw that it was true. He relaxed a little. “That’s good.”
But when he turned his head, he saw that the people rescued from West Town were in far worse condition—every one of them was in critical danger.
He quickly called for healing-type ability users to treat them. However, there were wounded everywhere, and there simply weren’t enough hands. Even the ordinary medical staff were stretched thin.
After much effort, he finally managed to pull over a healing ability user using his personal connections. “Quick—treat them first! They won’t hold out much longer!”
His companions: “……”
Wait—we said they were just superficial injuries. Are you really just leaving us like this?
It was true their injuries weren’t severe. But the burning pain was real. The life-and-death dangers along the way were real. And it was also real that they had gone through all of it for Zhou Liangji.
Now they were simply left aside, watching him rush around anxiously for a group of outsiders… even though more than half of their injuries had been sustained because of those very outsiders.
To say he was wrong felt unfair—he hadn’t really done anything wrong. He had always been this warm-hearted and kind.
And yet… the feeling it left behind was hard to put into words.