Chapter 16: Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
The water-feeding process lasted for almost half an hour.
Even after that time, only a small portion of the 600ml bottle of purified water had been consumed.
But Lin Jiayao was patient.
She could feel that with the replenishment of fluids, her sister’s heartbeat and breathing were becoming more stable.
Her Awakened physique was helping her recover quickly.
After feeding her about half a bottle, until her sister’s lips regained some color, Lin Jiayao put down the bottle and placed the remaining two bottles beside her sister’s hand.
She looked at her sister’s dust-covered face and the bloodstained clothes around her waist, falling silent for a moment.
Her sister had endured too much at such a young age, all for her.
Now it was her turn to repay her.
Subjectively, Lin Jiayao wanted to stay by her sister’s side until she woke up.
But rationally, her presence here was useless. She might even get her head smashed by her sister if she woke up suddenly.
After all, she was just a zombie head.
She couldn’t even tell her sister who she was.
Her main body could use some zombie abilities, and she didn’t have any blood crystals within her.
She looked human, could control zombies, possessed some zombie abilities, and showed no Awakened traits upon examination—the more she considered it, the more it sounded like the characteristics of a high-level Mimic zombie.
There were too many things about her that couldn’t be explained. It was better to avoid exposure if possible.
But this didn’t mean she couldn’t help her sister.
She could use this time, while her sister was recovering, to pave the way for her return home.
For example, wiping out the Yangzhou Tower Park camp and killing the Wailers blocking the Yangzhou Bridge.
She could even leave a few near-dead Nest Zombies along her sister’s route back.
Lin Jiayao hadn’t found any blood crystals on her sister or in her pockets. When her sister woke up, she would definitely want to return to the camp to find her.
Returning to the camp required blood crystals, and Lin Jiayao couldn’t explain the source of her own blood crystals. She could only find a less conspicuous way to give them to her sister.
Make it look like a stroke of “luck.”
Lin Jiayao checked her sister’s heartbeat again. After confirming it was getting stronger, she reluctantly stood up.
She was ready to put her plan into action.
After checking on her sister one last time at the corner of the room, Lin Jiayao left.
She used two bone spikes to hook the fallen wooden door and put it back in its original position.
Then, she walked out of the iron gate, the “Wel-welcome to Guangmei IKEA” announcement echoing as she closed it behind her.
“Click, click, click—”
Lin Jiayao stretched out all her bone spikes at the doorway, the spikes clicking against each other.
She was in excellent condition. With a little over two hours and twenty minutes until extraction, she had plenty of time.
It wasn’t enough time to reach the bridge and kill the Wailers, but it was enough to deal with a closer threat.
To eliminate the threat of the Yangzhou Tower Park camp to her sister, she had to start with the camp leader.
Lin Jiayao slowly crawled out of the street where the residential complex was located and onto Huangpu Avenue, which was filled with abandoned vehicles.
As soon as she reached the avenue, she sensed two sets of human footsteps walking side-by-side within her 150-meter range.
Without a doubt, they were from the camp.
Lin Jiayao slipped under a car, weaving through the gaps between the stacked vehicles, moving closer to the source of the footsteps.
Even as Lin Jiayao circled behind them, they remained oblivious, continuing to chat and tell dirty jokes.
Swiftly and cleanly, she opened a small, finger-width hole in the back of each of their heads and dragged them under the car before they could fall.
A moment later, the two men crawled out from under the car as if nothing had happened.
Only now, there was a pale head between them.
Lin Jiayao controlled the two bodies to continue walking, all the way to the entrance of her sister’s residential complex. There, she abandoned the bodies and crawled towards the building on her own.
Soon, a female Biter with a pale head crawled out of the complex and slowly positioned herself between the two corpses, placing a hand on each.
Two bundles of bone spikes extended from the back of the white head’s neck, connecting to the corpses.
The two corpses stood up stiffly again, each supporting one of the Biter’s arms on their shoulders, perfectly concealing the bone spike connections at the back of their necks.
It looked like two men were carrying a female corpse.
If there was anything unusual, anything others couldn’t see, it was the inconspicuous wound on the female corpse’s side.
The intestines had been removed from the wound, and inside was a loaded FN 5-7.
From the dreadlocked man, Lin Jiayao had learned that the leader of the Yangzhou Tower camp was lecherous and jealous, not even sparing female corpses or relatively intact female zombies.
So, Lin Jiayao would use this to her advantage, a sort of apocalyptic version of “Jing Ke assassinating the King of Qin.”
But she wouldn’t fail like Jing Ke.
If Jing Ke had had an FN-57 hidden in his map, Lin Jiayao believed he wouldn’t have failed.
Even Awakened couldn’t withstand bullets.
Those who could would have already crossed the zombie hordes and gone to Donghai Province to find “Survivor’s Light.”
The strongest midday sunlight had passed, and the sun was beginning to set.
But even so, sunlight still had a significant impact on ordinary zombies.
However, with the protection of Bone Skin, Lin Jiayao could prevent the Biter’s body she was possessing from being corroded by sunlight.
Moreover, Bone Skin made the skin appear white and smooth, like a recently deceased corpse.
So, two corpses carried the Biter controlled by Lin Jiayao, a one-head, three-body entity, slowly walking to the camp gate.
“Damn! Ale, you’re serious? Where did you find this?”
A short, thin figure, holding a hand crossbow, jumped down from a withered tree inside the camp.
“Where’d you get this? So fresh. From the highway? Or is the bridge clear?”
The short, thin man muttered as he opened the camp gate. “Why aren’t you two talking? Whatever, take it to the boss. It’s disgusting. The boss is at the bottom of the tower.”
“Mm,” Lin Jiayao responded, controlling one of the corpses.
As the two corpses carried Lin Jiayao forward, the short, thin man inexplicably brushed aside Lin Jiayao’s white hair and glanced at her face.
“Damn, quite pretty. Too bad she’s dead. Not my type, though. You guys go ahead.”
The short, thin man turned around with a look of regret and quickly climbed back up the tree.
Suddenly, something caught his eye. He thought he’d seen a reflection from the back of the female corpse’s neck that Ale and the other explorer were carrying.
Was it because her hair was so white?
The short, thin man blinked, wanting to confirm, but the two men were already far away, walking towards the base of the tower.
“Strange… why are they so quiet today? They’re usually the loudest.”
The short, thin man continued to look outside the walls.
After a while, he felt drowsy. “Adong, Adong, wake up! I’m going to take a nap!”
He shouted towards another withered tree and then closed his eyes.
They often took turns resting like this, essentially slacking off.
But after about ten minutes, he suddenly remembered something and abruptly opened his eyes on the tree. He lost his balance and fell.
“Adong! Adong!!! What color was the hair of that spider-head you saw earlier?!”
“White, why?”
“Fuck!”
A chill ran down the short, thin man’s spine. Cold sweat soaked his white vest. A hand seemed to grip his heart, making it hard to breathe.
“Bang, bang, bang, bang!!!”
Before he could sound the alarm, a burst of gunfire rang out from the base of Yangzhou Tower.
“Sound the alarm! Adong! Sound the alarm!”
Ignoring the pain from his fall, the short, thin man screamed with all his might.
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