Li Qiu remembered that not long ago, she had parted ways with Li Dong, and at that time he had still been a robust F-rank Walking Corpse.
But after only a few short hours, Li Dong had already evolved into an E-rank Crawler.
This leveling speed was way too fast…
Li Qiu could not help thinking that this guy must have been an absolute overachiever in school and at work when he was alive, making everyone around him suffer from the pressure of competing with him.
Li Qiu, who had always adhered to the “Doctrine of the Mean,” secretly gritted her teeth and cursed in her heart, Even after becoming a zombie, you’re still trying to outdo me.
However, Li Dong’s arrival immediately made the previously unclear situation much easier to understand.
Resting her chin on her hand, Li Qiu began analyzing the situation based on her rough understanding of the contestants on the field.
The human camp had two participants.
Shen Yucheng, a Level 1 ability user. His ability was an extremely high hand speed. After crossing both hands, the speed could become as fast as an electric fan set to its highest setting, allowing his hands to function like spinning fan blades that could cut things apart.
Chen Mi, merely an ordinary person holding a crowbar.
The zombie camp also had two participants.
Li Dong, an E-rank Crawler, possessed astonishing crawling speed and could rapidly approach his target and deliver a fatal strike.
Fang Qi, a Level 2 dual-ability user, was rapidly transforming into a zombie. Judging by appearances, her level would not be low after becoming a zombie.
There was no need to think too hard about this overtime match to guess which side had the greater chance of winning.
At that moment, another splash sounded.
Chen Mi turned her head and discovered in surprise that Shen Yucheng had actually jumped back into the lake.
Using his hand ability, he moved through the water as though he had installed a pair of oars on himself, quickly swimming farther away.
He clearly did not even dare fight and had directly chosen to flee for his life.
Chen Mi spat angrily on the spot, but seeing the Crawler getting closer and closer to her, she no longer had the leisure to keep cursing Shen Yucheng and hurriedly copied his actions, preparing to jump into the lake. She thought that zombies might not know how to swim, and as long as she entered the water, she should be safe.
Unfortunately, before even half of her body had leaped above the lake’s surface, she was grabbed and pulled back by a sticky hand.
Sharp claws similar to those of a feline had grown from Li Dong’s hands, complete with barbs, allowing him to catch anything with ease.
His gray-white pupils stared fixedly at Chen Mi.
Li Dong had no intention of pursuing Shen Yucheng. After all, the food in front of him was the most important thing.
Fang Qi let out a sigh of relief and collapsed onto the ground, closing her eyes. The unbearable heat within her body was scorching her blood and bones, rapidly taking away the last remnants of her human consciousness.
When Fang Qi opened her eyes again, from that moment onward she would only be a zombie, a merciless feeding machine wandering the wilderness and ruins.
Zombie Fang Qi trembled as she climbed up from the ground and looked at Zhao Siyuan’s corpse.
Perhaps because of instincts left behind from when she had been human, her way of eating was to first punch the body until it was smashed apart, and only then begin eating.
Li Qiu had already emerged from the reeds. As she passed by Fang Qi, the unique aura that belonged to a human ability user had already disappeared from Fang Qi’s body.
Li Qiu looked at Zhao Siyuan on the ground, and her stomach churned violently, though nothing came out. Zhao Siyuan’s miserable state was comparable to the scene of a car accident. Who could look at that and not want to vomit?
But Li Qiu felt that her tolerance was slowly increasing.
Zombie Fang Qi had been concentrating on pounding the corpse when she suddenly heard the sound of a human and abruptly turned her head.
What attracted Fang Qi even more was the bloody scent emanating from Li Qiu’s body.
Fresh, moving food was naturally more attractive than something already dead.
Crawler Fang Qi immediately dropped to all fours and rapidly lunged toward Li Qiu’s back.
Fragrant, moving, human.
But when Fang Qi crawled in front of Li Qiu, she suddenly felt that the scent was not quite right and stopped in place with a confused expression.
Li Qiu turned around, patted her chest, and kept muttering, “Why are you like Li Dong? Take a closer look. I’m a zombie, not a human.”
Although she said that, Li Qiu still felt a little afraid inside. She feared that Fang Qi might be a mutant among zombies just like herself.
Fortunately, Fang Qi merely stared at Li Qiu coldly and sniffed her for a while before turning around and running back toward Zhao Siyuan’s corpse to continue what she had not finished.
Li Qiu let out a sigh of relief and ran to Li Dong’s side.
She was not familiar with Fang Qi. An introvert who had turned into an introverted zombie still preferred staying near someone familiar.
More importantly, Li Qiu clearly remembered why she had nearly starved to death during the month before she regained her human consciousness.
Because zombies actually had the bad habit of guarding their food!
Those zombies that were larger and stronger had absolutely no sense of sharing. If too many zombies tried to snatch food, they would even fight each other.
Most of the time, Li Qiu ran very slowly. Every time she arrived, those people had already transformed into zombies.
On the rare occasions when human survivors happened to be nearby, she had barely gotten excited for two seconds before she could pounce, only to be shoved aside by other zombies rushing over and end up falling on her backside.
But Li Qiu was not afraid of Li Dong. After all, she had even given him his name.
If zombies also had a household registration system, then the two of them would definitely count as relatives.
At the lakeside, Li Dong was holding onto Chen Mi. His bluish-green face was stained with some blood.
Chen Mi was dead.
She probably never could have imagined that this would be her ending.
When the human body was damaged beyond a certain degree, even if infected with the zombie virus, it could no longer turn into a zombie.
Li Qiu squatted to one side and watched a life disappear just like that. She could not help being stunned, and a sense of sorrow for those of her own kind arose within her.
Li Dong had no objections to Li Qiu squatting beside him, nor did he display any food-guarding behavior because of her arrival.
Li Qiu turned her head and looked toward where Fang Qi had been. Fang Qi was no longer there.
Fang Qi, moving on all fours, had already crawled into the banyan forest and soon disappeared from sight.
No one knew where she was going. Perhaps she was searching for a new target.
Only hunger had been carved into the genes of zombie mutation.
Li Qiu also picked up the large backpack that Fang Qi had left behind.
Fireflies flew out from the reeds, their glow reflecting upon Li Qiu’s face.
She scooped up some lake water and washed her face, then cleaned her hands, removing the unknown stains upon them.
Li Qiu raised her head, water droplets dripping from her face. The long-lost feeling of fullness made her very satisfied, and even her limbs seemed to have gained quite a bit of strength.
Li Dong had stood nearby from beginning to end, not knowing what he was thinking.
“Since you’ve come back again, then let’s travel together for one more night.”
Li Qiu picked up the backpacks scattered on the ground and dumped all their contents out, beginning to sort through them.
In the end, she selected two bottles of drinking water, one lighter, one emergency flashlight, one first-aid medical kit containing iodine, alcohol, a tourniquet, painkillers, cold medicine, fever medicine, medicine for intestinal infections, tweezers, gauze, razor blades, and cotton swabs, one sleeping bag, one climbing rope, one fishhook and a spool of fishing line, along with two packs of compressed biscuits and one can of meat.
She stuffed all these items into her own backpack, while placing the remaining things into another backpack and making Li Dong carry it.
Li Dong allowed her to fuss with him, but his cold gaze was directed toward the depths of Yanhu Lake. He had not forgotten that another target had escaped there.
Li Qiu stopped beside the footpath, turned on the flashlight she had just found, and carefully read the signpost standing there.
This path was called Joy Avenue. Going forward, it would first pass through White Horse Bridge, then Water Cloud Terrace and Moon Inquiry Pavilion, and finally arrive at Yanhu Lake Grand Hotel.
That was exactly where Li Qiu wanted to go.
Li Qiu did not know that the escaped Shen Yucheng had already come ashore at another part of Yanhu Lake and was running toward their survivors’ camp.