The facts proved that using clothes tied into a knot to stop the bleeding was about the same as drinking poison to quench thirst.
Li Qiu lowered her head and looked at the coat that had already been soaked through with black blood, then silently wrung it out. By this point, her hands were covered in layer after layer of blood grime. They felt slick and slippery to the touch. If she carefully felt around, she could even touch several blood clots.
Fortunately, Li Qiu had gained experience from eating corpses. She was no longer what she used to be and did not feel any fear at all. Because she could not smell anything other than living humans, she also felt no physical nausea.
But with a pair of hands like this, and her lower body still continuously bleeding, Li Qiu already looked completely unrelated to the phrase “human survivor.”
“It’s not raining at a time like this. Otherwise I could at least take a bath.” Li Qiu looked up at the sky. The dark clouds had long since dispersed, and there was no telling when the next rainy day would come.
Li Qiu still had other ways to clean herself.
She squatted on the ground, grabbed a handful of sand, and rubbed her hands with it, using the opportunity to let her brain start turning and think about life.
The sand had been soaked by the rain and was damp. To be precise, it should have been called muddy sand. The muddy sand quickly coated both of her palms, and under the cover of the dirt, her hands finally no longer looked so bloody and frightening.
Li Qiu raised her hands and looked at them. Then she swung a palm into the air, the corner of her lips curling upward. “Could this be the legendary Iron Sand Palm?”
She paused and added, “I don’t even remember what chestnuts roasted with hot sand taste like anymore. The Chestnut King shop outside our high school was actually pretty good. Every time evening self-study ended, if I ran a little slower, I couldn’t buy any.”
Li Qiu believed she would never have companions again, so she had returned to talking to herself exactly as she used to.
After saying that, Li Qiu bared her teeth and took a bite out of the packed arm. On the way to the village to find needles and thread, she had to eat every so often to prevent herself from suddenly running out of strength midway.
This method was pretty much the same as charging an iPhone. Once an iPhone’s battery dropped to ninety percent, its owner would become anxious.
My phone’s okay, right? Li Qiu suddenly remembered her precious treasure. Her precious treasure was perfectly fine and came out of her pants pocket completely undamaged.
Domestic phones really were the best, domestic phones were amazing!
Since she had already taken out her phone, it would be rude not to play with it.
Li Qiu’s hand trembled as she pressed the shutter and took a selfie.
She opened the latest photo in her gallery. In the picture, Li Qiu had puffed out her cheeks and was eating meat.
“Loose long hair, lifeless eyes, black-red corners of the mouth, and a human arm hanging from my teeth. This is simply horror aesthetics! Tell me, how did I never realize I had the talent to become a horror NPC in an escape room? If I’d known, I wouldn’t have taken the civil service exam. If I hadn’t taken it, maybe I wouldn’t have been bitten. Taking ten thousand steps back, if I hadn’t taken it, maybe I would’ve become a zombie packed inside some subway station in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen. Then I’d better take the civil service exam. The civil service exam is good. Everyone should take the civil service exam.”
Li Qiu muttered to herself for a long time, then spat repeatedly for a long time.
This zombie arm had a bit too much hair on it, it definitely belonged to a male zombie. It really affected the taste. Li Qiu chewed expressionlessly, pretending she was not eating an arm but boiled corn. Whenever her mother made boiled corn, she never picked all the silk off, saying that the silk was also very nutritious.
Wuu wuu wuu. Li Qiu cried while eating three arms in a row, then lightly burped.
The village was right ahead.
Because Li Qiu had seen many wheel tracks.
All of these tracks led to the same place.
…
With Zhou Jinshi covering the rear, the survivor team only suffered injuries this time, and no one died.
After all the Intelligent Species had been killed, the original low-level zombies became nothing more than scattered stragglers, and were dealt with group by group.
In order to let the team rest and recover, Zhou Jinshi had everyone stay in this village for the night, planning to decide when to depart tomorrow after assessing the situation.
Everyone had just escaped death and had been saved by Zhou Jinshi once again, so naturally not a single person objected.
After conducting a rough inspection, they did not find any survivors in the village. Therefore, they used the three residential houses on the highest ground in the northern part of the village as tonight’s campsite.
Each house accommodated both ability users and ordinary people on average. The ability users took turns keeping watch at night in groups of three, while the ordinary people were responsible for cooking and tending the fire, handling the logistics work for the ability users.
To be safe, Zhou Jinshi also had the men inspect each other and the women inspect each other, making sure that no one had any wounds from zombie scratches or bites.
Fortunately, there had only been a few normal abrasions and bruises. The most seriously injured person had unfortunately been hit by a bullet from an Intelligent Species, but fortunately Jiang Cong, the barefoot doctor who ran a small clinic, had removed the bullet in time and prevented the person from needing an amputation.
After bandaging everyone, Jiang Cong himself was exhausted. When he walked onto the balcony, he discovered Zhou Jinshi sitting there.
“What are you looking at? It’s not even your shift yet, why aren’t you hurrying to sleep?”
Their building was backed against the mountain and was the most dangerous location, so it had been assigned the most ability users. Zhou Jinshi had chosen the watch period from two in the morning until six in the morning. This was when people were sleepiest and most likely to lower their guard.
Shen Yucheng and Wang Kai, who were on the same shift as Zhou Jinshi, had already gone to sleep.
“Not sleepy.” Zhou Jinshi answered concisely.
Jiang Cong yawned. “I really admire you ability users, especially you. Are you made of iron or something? I’ll give you an award someday.”
Zhou Jinshi casually replied with an “Mm.” “Don’t you think this village feels strange?”
It was too quiet.
Standing there, he could even hear the sound of people snoring on the second floor.
It was not only humans that had mutated after the catastrophe descended. Plants grew slowly and were not a threat for the time being, but what about animals? Animals were the most sensitive to disasters, especially in the countryside. There should have been many animals that survived. Where had they gone?
“No. I think the strangest thing in this village is you. Where else could the animals have gone? They ran away, obviously, or they got eaten by zombies.”
Jiang Cong was so sleepy that he could barely keep his eyes open and had no desire at all to chat with Zhou Jinshi.
Without turning his head, Zhou Jinshi continued staring into the darkness. “Zombies don’t eat anything other than humans. Forget it. Go to sleep. Hopefully it’s just my imagination.”
“An illusion, definitely an illusion.” Jiang Cong slipped into the room beside the balcony in one swift motion, and before long, he was snoring too.
Zhou Jinshi: “…”
The dark clouds had completely dispersed, and tonight there were finally a few stars illuminating the area.
Li Qiu had been huddled in a corner of the village the entire time, waiting for the dead of night.
“I can’t do this anymore. If I keep waiting, I’ll bleed dry.” Li Qiu lost her patience.
Her night vision was exceptionally good now. As long as she borrowed a little light from the stars and moon, she could see very clearly.
Li Qiu headed directly toward the nearest house.
A lock! Such a huge lock!
After taking a closer look, this family had probably not returned for several years. Even the pigsty they had built had collapsed and no one had bothered with it.
“My first attempt failed! Then I’ll try again!” Li Qiu marched toward the neighboring house in one determined push.
“The door is actually open. I’m so touched.” In her heart, Li Qiu thanked every god she could think of.
She began searching through the main hall, but naturally found nothing. Li Qiu could only enter the rooms and search them one by one.
In the first room, Li Qiu touched a hand.
Five fingers.
Li Qiu’s first reaction was that she had touched a corpse, but when her gaze shifted over, the hand moved.
Something about the size of a two-year-old child suddenly sprang up, then started chattering noisily.
After seeing clearly what this thing was, Li Qiu decisively grabbed the chair she had touched and smashed it over.
When fully fed, Li Qiu’s strength was astonishing. With that strike, she directly smashed the monkey’s brains out.
Even so, the monkey still reached out, trying to paw at Li Qiu. It spoke in the same language as humans. “Skin! Skin!”
“Your head, more like.” Li Qiu picked up the chair and completely finished off the monkey.
The room fell silent once again.
Li Qiu squatted down and examined it carefully. This monkey’s breed looked pretty much the same as those monkeys at Mount Emei. The reason it had appeared here was probably because it had either escaped from Yanhu Scenic Area or had been raised by the villagers here.
After the villagers had fled or turned into zombies, no one had looked after the monkey that had been locked inside the room. There was no telling how it had survived until now.
Before seeing the other things in this room, Li Qiu had thought her deduction made perfect sense.
Very quickly, she realized that not only was her reasoning wrong, it was ridiculously wrong.
There were piles of bones in the room.
These bones varied in size. Some looked like pig bones, some like chicken bones, and some even looked like human bones. Beside the bones were all kinds of fur and hair. Clearly, the monkey’s digestive system was not very good at digesting hair, which was why these things had been left behind like scraps.
The thing that attracted Li Qiu’s attention the most was a bloody piece of skin.
It was a piece of human skin.
It had been neatly laid out on the bed and spread open like a blanket, which was why Li Qiu had not noticed it immediately.