When Li Qiu was lazy, she was truly lazy, but even lazy people had their diligent moments. For example, when she said she wanted to wander around, she really meant it.
She brought Li Dong from the seventh floor to the sixth floor, and like two dedicated floor sweeping robots, they wandered down one floor after another.
Whenever they saw an open hotel room door, the two of them went inside. As for the closed doors, Li Qiu did not use brute force to break them open, lest the loud noise attract those foolish zombies again.
When luck was on her side, Li Qiu could find some zombie corpses that had been killed by survivors.
Although she had previously eaten two corpses and half a piece of an ability user’s flesh, that amount of food was only equivalent to two appetizers for Li Qiu. The main course had not even been served yet! Moreover, she had just beaten up a group of zombies and had used up some more of her strength, causing her stomach to start growling again.
“You go play by yourself for a while. I’m going to eat.” Li Qiu waved her hand, telling Li Dong to do whatever he wanted, as long as he did not go too far.
Li Dong did not go far. He did not even leave the room. While Li Qiu was eating, he walked to the floor to ceiling window.
His gaze passed through the desolate forest in the distance and landed on some unknown place.
He did not look for very long.
Because Li Qiu’s eating speed was unimaginably fast, and she now only needed five minutes to finish a zombie corpse.
“Don’t just stand around. Carry the backpack for me first.” Li Qiu wiped her mouth, pulled out the map and stuffed it into her pocket, then threw the backpack to Li Dong.
She crouched down and opened the two suitcases and the large waterproof travel bag beside the wall. One suitcase was black, and the other was pink. They had quite a few airline luggage tags stuck on them. It seemed that the original owners of the suitcases had been a couple who loved traveling.
The two large suitcases contained quite a few clothes. Some of them were even brand new and looked as if they had never been worn.
The zombie tide had broken out in August, which was still a very hot season in most parts of the country. Therefore, the tourists had mostly brought cool clothing such as short sleeves and dresses. There were also two or three long sleeved garments and coats.
Li Qiu rummaged through them and picked out two pieces for herself, then took out a dark blue jacket and tossed it to Li Dong.
“Change into some new clothes.” She said this while carrying her own clothes into the bathroom.
After changing clothes, Li Qiu picked up the wet wipes from the sink and cleaned her hands. Then she stood in front of the large bathroom mirror and examined herself.
She had put on an off-white trench coat from the suitcase and changed into a pair of white size thirty-seven sneakers. The shoes were half a size smaller than what she usually wore. If she had worn them in the past, they would certainly have felt uncomfortably tight, but now she felt nothing at all. As long as she could put them on, it did not matter. After all, they were brand new.
In the mirror, she lowered the brim of her hat, her wig combed meticulously. Her scarf covered most of her face, exposing only a pair of yellowish brown eyes.
She was clean and tidy, and looked more human than humans themselves.
Flawless.
Today was another successful day of disguising herself as a human.
When Li Qiu walked out of the bathroom to check on Li Dong, she discovered that he was still standing in the same place. He had one backpack hanging in front of him and another on his back, while the jacket she had thrown over was draped on top of his head. He looked exactly like a bizarre human shaped clothes rack.
“I forgot that you’re rather slow.”
Li Qiu had no choice but to remove the backpacks and set them aside, then used wet wipes to clean his face and hands.
The wet wipes rubbed across his wrinkled bluish purple skin, leaving a damp scent on him while taking away some of the rotten and bloody smell.
“Don’t keep this suit jacket anymore. It’s covered in blood and… that stuff.”
Li Qiu did not want to say the words brain matter.
Like she was playing with a cotton doll, she stripped off Li Dong’s suit jacket and then dressed him in the new jacket.
Throughout the entire process, Li Dong did not move and allowed her to arrange him as she pleased. Only his eyes remained fixed on the outside of the window, looking somewhat distracted.
After finishing, Li Qiu took two steps back to inspect him, then shook her head in disgust.
“No, you’re showing too much skin. Let me remodel you a bit more.”
A short while later, Li Qiu walked out the door with her “completely refreshed” little follower.
The tall and sturdy Li Dong now wore a gray baseball cap and sunglasses. On top was a dark blue jacket, while below he still wore his original suit trousers. His leather shoes had been changed into sneakers, giving him a strangely harmonious appearance. Carrying two heavy backpacks, he followed behind Li Qiu with his head slightly lowered, looking like a taciturn bodyguard.
Compared to when they had first met, Li Dong now looked like an entirely different corpse.
Li Qiu was very satisfied with his transformation.
If Li Dong could become increasingly intelligent, then perhaps the two of them could, like those human survivors, stick together and survive in this strange and unfamiliar world.
They quickly finished exploring the first through seventh floors of the hotel. There were very few rooms with open doors, and there were not many supplies worth taking. It was probably because when the zombie tide broke out, the tourists had all been out sightseeing and not many had returned to the hotel to rest.
Li Qiu counted and realized that she had eaten fewer than a hundred zombie corpses.
Besides that, she found a large amount of already rotten animal meat and seafood in the first floor restaurant. She had originally wanted to give some to Li Dong, who had no living humans to eat, but unfortunately Li Dong’s mouth was like an unopened macadamia nut and simply could not be pried open. She could only give up.
Li Qiu sat on the large sofa in the first floor lounge area and carefully studied the scenic area’s map.
“First like this, then like that, then this, and finally that… and we’ll be able to find the scenic area’s parking lot.”
Perhaps for safety reasons, driving was not allowed inside the scenic area, so all buses and cars had to be parked in the area’s designated parking lot.
Li Qiu believed that there would definitely be usable vehicles in the parking lot.
Li Dong showed no reaction to Li Qiu’s words. This time, he did not even stay beside her. Instead, he proactively walked toward the hotel entrance.
At the same time, the other zombies were also moving outside.
Only after Li Qiu called out to him did Li Dong seem to snap back to his senses and stop.
Li Qiu stood up and walked to Li Dong’s side, then also looked outside.
“Huh… this smell…”
It was a smell she had only encountered once and had never forgotten.
If she absolutely had to describe it, then it was like a person on the verge of starving to death suddenly smelling braised pork, twice cooked pork, sweet and sour pork, crispy roasted chicken wings, spicy pork ribs, honey glazed char siu, stir fried lamb with scallions, spicy hot pot, crossing the bridge noodles, and stone pot bibimbap…
It was the most fragrant and delicious scent Li Qiu had ever smelled. Just thinking about it made her mouth water.
Even now, after having eaten her fill, she could not help but become intoxicated by it and feel the urge to gorge herself once again.
But this intoxication was only temporary. Li Qiu quickly realized what this familiar and captivating fragrance meant.
That person had come.
Inside the garbage bin and by the reeds of Yanhu Lake, she had heard Zhao Siyuan’s group mention that person’s name.
Zhou Jinshi, a man who chopped zombies as if they were ants.
This fragrance was rapidly spreading toward the hotel with the help of the wind.
To lure these zombies out, that person was actually willing to cut himself and spill his own blood?
“Li Dong, we have to run.”
Li Qiu grabbed Li Dong. She had been there earlier, so she knew that the first floor restaurant also had a basement.
The basement was the restaurant’s food storage room and was divided into normal temperature storage and cold storage. On the other side of the storeroom was a sewer entrance that led outside.
Li Dong was obviously finding it difficult to resist this temptation. His body kept turning toward the hotel entrance, and Li Qiu practically had to use the strength of both hands to drag him along.
“If you won’t run, then I will.”
At critical moments, Li Qiu was extremely conscious about adhering to the principle of saving her own life first. Without stopping for even a moment, she ran toward the restaurant.
No one knew what Li Dong had been hesitating about, but in the end, he still staggered after Li Qiu.
…
“Captain Zhou, it’s really working! They’re all starting to run out!” In the small bamboo grove outside the hotel, someone cried out excitedly in a low voice.
They had invited Hao Ming’s group to join the camp and had also adopted part of Hao Ming’s suggestion. However, the plan had originally called for Hao Ming’s blood, but now it had been replaced with Zhou Jinshi’s.
The strips of cloth soaked with Zhou Jinshi’s blood were being carried by the wind toward the hotel entrance by the team’s wind ability user.
Fresh blood that belonged to a powerful human ability user lured the zombies one after another toward the direction they had planned.
Zhou Jinshi switched on the walkie talkie. “Zeyu, how’s it going over there?”
“Visually estimating four D Rank Intelligent Species, around sixty Crawling Species, and the rest are ordinary Walking Corpses.”
After replying, Hu Zeyu focused intently on the hotel entrance. His ability was invisibility, and no one was better at gathering intelligence than him.
The densely packed zombies were like ants whose nest had been overturned. They ran out in groups, unaware that their time of death had already arrived.
“One signal arrow piercing the clouds, thousands of troops come to meet! Watch this!” On the other side, Lu Xiaowu lit a firecracker, then threw it out with all his strength before it exploded.
The sound of the firecracker exploding was amplified infinitely, instantly attracting the attention of even more zombies.
A large wave of zombies that had been lured out was split into several groups just like that.
“Move.” Zhou Jinshi spoke again.
His left hand was wrapped in bandages over the wound, while his right hand tightly gripped his divine art. Leading the ability users assigned to his team, he rapidly advanced toward the hotel entrance.
The four teams that had been divided up all began to move simultaneously. A battle between humans and zombies began.
They had never provoked so many zombies at once before. There were thousands upon thousands of them… Yet, influenced by Zhou Jinshi, every person’s face was filled with confidence, and there was not a trace of fear to be seen. They knew that Zhou Jinshi would never lead them into a battle he was not certain of winning.
Lu Xiaowu raised an eyebrow and shouted toward the group of zombies gathered not far away.
“Let me show you the real thing.”
His ability was known as Demolition Expert. He could condense the energy of his ability into tangible incendiary bombs and fire them out. Now that his ability had reached Level Two, he could create a total of two incendiary bombs each time he exhausted his energy.
Although zombies were not afraid of pain or fire, these things were enough to hinder their movements and vision, interfere with their judgment, and buy enough time for his teammates.
Even after using up all his ammunition, Lu Xiaowu still had self made explosive tubes prepared on him. If the opportunity arose, he could blow up another nest of zombies.
“Beautifully done!” The teammates following Zhou Jinshi from afar shouted praise toward Lu Xiaowu.
No one knew how Zhou Jinshi had bypassed those low level Walking Corpses and reached the center of the battlefield.
By the time they could see clearly, a large area around Zhou Jinshi had already been littered with fallen Walking Corpses. His blade was pulled out of the heads of two Crawling Species and then slashed toward the Intelligent Species. His movements were smooth and flowing, without the slightest pause. It was as though he were an automatic attack program that had already been written into a game. Until the very last moment of the game, he would never stop.
The Intelligent Species quickly realized that the delicious food before them was actually a gigantic trap. The humans wanted to divide and eliminate them.
Clearly, they were not easy opponents either. The two Intelligent Species closest to Zhou Jinshi, along with more than thirty Crawling Species that had answered their summons, crazily rushed forward and surrounded Zhou Jinshi together.
When the others saw Zhou Jinshi being besieged by so many zombies, every one of them anxiously wanted to rush over and help. Unfortunately, the vast number of Walking Corpses blocked their path. Even with abilities, incendiary bombs, explosive tubes, and all sorts of cold weapons, they could not fight their way to Zhou Jinshi’s side in a short time.
They could not get through, but the zombies were different.
The other two Intelligent Species sensed that their kind was in danger and immediately brought the remaining Crawling Species toward Zhou Jinshi as well.
Amid the smoke and chaos, everyone had killed until their eyes turned red. No one could clearly see what was happening to Zhou Jinshi, who was now surrounded by high level zombies.
“Big Brother, hurry.” The little girl tugged at Hao Ming’s sleeve.
The ten year old girl had not remained on the boat. As an ability user, she, Hao Ming, and another of Hao Ming’s roommates had formed the fifth team. They had one and only one mission, to sneak into the hotel while everything outside was in chaos and rescue their “life saving benefactor” trapped on the seventh floor.
Although Hao Ming was worried about Zhou Jinshi’s side, he still quickly ran toward the stairs.
The walkie talkie in his hand remained silent. He still remembered Zhou Jinshi’s words. As long as he did not give the order to retreat, everyone was to continue carrying out the original plan according to their assigned tasks.