Chapter 12: News of Her Sister
“Brother Fei, I don’t see anyone? Could the gunshots have come from that building behind us?”
“Impossible… Look over there.”
The four-person exploration team walked towards the mangled remains of the Nest Zombie.
“Someone killed a Nest Zombie?!”
“Hiss—”
“The casings are still fresh. Whoever did this must be nearby…” The man called Brother Fei picked up a casing, feeling the residual warmth.
The Nest Zombie’s uncoagulated blood proved it had died recently. Its ripped-open abdomen confirmed someone had taken the blood crystals.
Brother Fei’s gaze hardened. Whoever it was, they were definitely an Awakened, and a powerful one at that.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to kill a 3-meter-long Nest Zombie. Those disgusting things were too fast.
“Brother Fei, Brother Fei! Look at the elevator shaft!” One of the explorers, scanning their surroundings, noticed movement in the elevator shaft and quickly pointed it out.
Clear zombie growls emanated from the shaft. They could even see an arm reaching out.
But the mysterious person who had killed the Nest Zombie was nowhere to be seen.
Brother Fei seemed to give up. He stood up from beside the corpse. “Let’s go.”
Reaching the doorway, he stopped, turned, and shouted back into the mall, “You used a gun here, so you must be from the highway side. If you want to trade supplies, come find us at Yangzhou Tower. We took in another exploration team a few days ago.”
With a sigh, Brother Fei waved and led his three team members away.
After confirming their footsteps had faded, Lin Jiayao slowly crawled down from the ceiling to the window, watching them leave from above.
They… took in another exploration team?
Could that other exploration team be her sister’s?
The thought took root in Lin Jiayao’s mind.
She desperately wanted to follow them to Yangzhou Tower and see if the other team was her sister’s.
But after some thought, she abandoned the idea for now.
Something felt off about that four-person team.
Their clean clothes indicated they’d found supplies, but why did they look like they hadn’t eaten properly?
If they’d found a supermarket, they should at least have found some canned food and drinking water, right?
And when they moved, there was the sound of metal and plastic rubbing against their clothes; they were likely carrying concealed weapons.
Most importantly, Lin Jiayao was still in zombie form. Even if she wanted to approach them and ask, she would scare them to death.
It was better to check the location of the extraction point first…
Her focus had been so fixed on the Nest Zombie that she hadn’t paid attention to how far the extraction point was.
「Extraction Time 52:20」
【Extraction Point: 3.9km】
The extraction point wasn’t far, and correspondingly, the system hadn’t given her much time.
But the direction of the extraction point seemed to be somewhat close to the Yangzhou Tower those men had mentioned.
Since it was on the way, Lin Jiayao decided she had to check it out.
She might get news of her sister.
Lin Jiayao quickly crawled down to the first floor and walked out of the building into the sunlight.
“Huh?”
The sunlight and ultraviolet rays didn’t seem to have any negative effects on her.
On the contrary, she was almost dazzlingly white in the sunlight.
When she had controlled the Sprinter, the sunlight had burned her.
“Tap, tap—”
Lin Jiayao tapped her face with a bone spike. The sound was crisp.
It seemed that the Bone Skin was blocking the sunlight, protecting her from its effects.
Lin Jiayao crawled into the jumble of cars on the road, moving unhurriedly beneath them, following the group of people from a distance.
She didn’t need to see; her bone spikes allowed her to pinpoint their location.
If she got closer, she could even hear what they were saying.
“They can’t detect me anyway…”
Thinking this, Lin Jiayao quickened her pace slightly, allowing herself to sense the vibrations of their voices.
“Damn it, there are more and more idiots coming from the highway side lately, firing their guns in Haixin District without knowing anything.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? The more people, the merrier. Maybe there’ll be women.”
“Speaking of women, do you think that bitch is still around here? Maybe that guy from the highway saved her?”
“Impossible. She got hit with three or four arrows when she tried to run. She couldn’t have gotten far. She must still be near Yangzhou Tower.”
“But this area is too wide, it’s hard to find her…”
“We have to kill her, we can’t let her recover, understand? And those two blood crystals…”
“We’ll be rich if we get them. She’s too alert; she somehow knew we were…”
“…”
The more Lin Jiayao listened, the more uneasy she felt.
What happened at the bridge? There weren’t any Wailers there?
And their conversation didn’t seem to be about escaping, but about searching for someone…
A wounded woman.
Could it be that Yangzhou Tower wasn’t a gathering point for recruiting explorers, but a lure?
In the apocalypse, human hearts were as terrifying as zombies. Lin Jiayao had long known this, so she would prepare for the worst.
One thing was certain: they were definitely not distressed survivors; they were more like “fishermen.”
“Click, click, click—”
Lin Jiayao rapidly moved her bone spikes and sprinted forward, passing the four people searching the shops along the road, and crawled quickly towards Yangzhou Tower.
The four were completely unaware that a head-spider had just crawled past them under the cars.
Yangzhou Tower was a landmark building, located within Haixin District, not far away.
It only took Lin Jiayao ten minutes to reach a point less than 500m from Yangzhou Tower.
The tall tower stood in place. The gates of Yangzhou Park below were tightly closed, the iron fence wrapped with layers of UV lamps and barbed wire.
All of this indicated that the park was an inhabited settlement.
But on the park’s large iron gate, several corpses were tied—human corpses—covered in maggots.
Getting a little closer, Lin Jiayao could see the faces of those hanging there.
Her pupils slowly dilated.
She didn’t recognize most of them, but one male corpse, with one eye gouged out, was very familiar.
It was Zhang Mu, Grandma Zhang’s son, an Awakened. His eyes were like thermal imaging night vision goggles, able to highlight zombified targets within a 50m radius, ignoring walls.
Lin Jiayao’s sister had told her more than once how much she envied this ability, so Lin Jiayao remembered it very clearly.
But now, as if in revenge, his eyes had been gouged out, his corpse hung at the gate like a gruesome display, waiting to be devoured by maggots and crows.
Lin Jiayao felt her mind about to explode. Her eyes frantically searched the other corpses, her steps getting closer and closer to the fence.
Fortunately, she hadn’t seen any corpses that resembled her sister.
Suddenly, a strong sense of danger washed over Lin Jiayao.
The feeling was like a needle pressed against her eye, making her instinctively step back.
“Whoosh—”
A gleaming arrowhead, whistling through the air, embedded itself in the concrete in front of Lin Jiayao.
A crossbow bolt?!
Judging by the direction, it had definitely been shot from within the park, from the settlement.
There were guards.
Lin Jiayao’s mind raced. Almost instantly, she made her decision.
Run.
She couldn’t determine the exact location the bolt had been fired from, and even if she could, her marksmanship was no match for them.
Running was the best option.
Turning to flee, she raised rows of bone spikes behind her head, protecting her skull.
“Damn it, did you guys see what that was?”
“No, what was it?”
“A fucking head crawling around, and it dodged my bolt…”
The panicked curses behind her faded. Lin Jiayao’s heart sank.
Her sister’s team had been wiped out.
Neither she nor her sister had imagined that such a settlement existed in Haixin District, one that not only hunted zombies, but also humans.
This was Haixin District! The most densely populated area before, and now the area with the most mutated zombies! How had they settled here? Why hadn’t they sent out a distress signal?!
Ignoring the increasing distance to the extraction point, Lin Jiayao rushed back the way she came.
Soon, she sensed four sets of approaching footsteps.
Now Lin Jiayao knew what the plastic and metal rubbing sounds from their clothes were.
Hunting crossbows and compound shortbows.
These were the best silent weapons for hunting humans and zombies.
Lin Jiayao crawled under the cars. When she reached the four men, she quickly extended a bone spike, its tip forming a barb, hooked it onto the nearest man’s thigh, and dragged him under the car.
“AAAAAH!!!”
The man, suddenly dragged into darkness, screamed in agony.
“What happened?”
“Brother Fei? Alert! Alert!”
The remaining three quickly pulled out hand crossbows from their clothes and aimed them under the car.
“Brother Fei?”
No sound came from under the car. Brother Fei’s cries of pain had stopped.
But a moment later, a blood-stained hand reached out from the darkness.
The expensive gold watch on the left wrist instantly identified the owner.
“Brother Fei? What’s wrong?” One of them took a small step forward and asked cautiously.
“No… nothing…”
Brother Fei’s hoarse voice came from under the car. The three breathed a sigh of relief.
The closest one put away his crossbow and reached out with both hands to grab Brother Fei’s left hand. “Brother Fei, I’ll help you.”
“Brother Fei” gripped his hand tightly and was slowly pulled out.
When Brother Fei’s head emerged, everyone froze.
Snow-white hair, a pale and handsome face…eyes with only whites darted back and forth, scanning them.
“No… nothing’s wrong,” the head said in Brother Fei’s voice. “Tell Brother Fei… Brother Fei… about… about the exploration team… from a few days ago… Ha ha ha… Ha ha…”
It mimicked Brother Fei’s voice and speech patterns, but with a strange, awkward cadence. A cold sweat broke out on the backs of the three men. The one whose hand was gripped felt his legs go weak.
They desperately wanted to stop “Brother Fei” from crawling out, but they didn’t dare move until he stood.
Because in “Brother Fei’s” right hand was the FN 5-7, pointed directly at them.
“Talk.”
“Brother Fei’s” voice turned cold.
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