Chapter 4: Hengyang Camp
“Huff… huff…”
Lin Jiayao could hear the heavy panting coming from her throat.
Her vision was blood-red.
The feeling of surging strength made her whole body hot, and the buzzing in her brain kept her in a state of extreme rage, unable to focus.
Even the skin ulcerating from the sun’s ultraviolet rays couldn’t bring her a trace of pain or calmness.
She even paused for a second to consider what she was doing.
She only knew that she wanted to kill all living things around her—this thought had filled her mind since activating [Blood Rage].
But Lin Jiayao wasn’t a truly mindless zombie.
In her blood-colored vision: the Blood Gang members who had just run out of the camp gate were frantically pushing back towards the gate, and the camp guards on the simple watchtower had already raised their rifles and aimed at her.
“Roar—”
As if unwilling to give up, the Sprinter roared, picked up the corpse in its hand, and hurled it towards the watchtower.
The crushed corpse flew like a cannonball towards the watchtower, the rag-like body scattering brain matter and blood along the way.
Taking advantage of the moment the camp guards dodged the corpse, Lin Jiayao quickly grabbed Grandma Zhang’s body and chased after the wheelchair that was still rolling down the slope.
The Sprinter quickly caught up to the wheelchair and pushed it into the shadow of the office building.
The panicked crowd didn’t notice what happened in those few short seconds.
They hadn’t even considered the possibility of a zombie “retreating.”
By the time the Blood Gang members ran back to the camp, the guards pushed off the corpse pressing on them, and the Awakened within the camp arrived, the Sprinter was long gone from the slope, leaving only barren trees and weeds, and the silent, dangerous cityscape a few hundred meters away.
…
“Hah… hah…”
Inside the office building, a Sprinter zombie was trembling on the first floor.
At this moment, it had completely lost its previous rage, the blood-red color in its eyes fading.
An endless sense of weakness surged through its limbs, making it want to lie still on the ground like a Lurker.
This was the zombie Lin Jiayao controlled.
In front of the zombie lay the body of an old woman with a caved-in skull and a beautiful young girl lying in a wheelchair with her eyes closed.
Lin Jiayao raised her trembling right hand and looked at her palm.
Last night, under the moonlight, she could still feel that the zombie’s skin was just dry and pale.
But after enduring the ultraviolet rays, the skin all over her body had ulcerated, revealing blood-red muscles.
Just like the ones Lin Jiayao had seen running last night.
However, unlike those zombies, Lin Jiayao had bone spikes that those zombies didn’t—the bone spikes obtained from absorbing the Lurker’s blood crystal.
Could it be that only the zombies she controlled could fuse their abilities?
Without thinking for too long, Lin Jiayao started moving this body.
「Extraction Time 1:55:51」
「Extraction Point 12.3km」
The extraction point was farther than Lin Jiayao had imagined…
And her own body was also out in the open.
Although it was daytime now, she didn’t have to worry about her body being attacked by ordinary zombies.
But the zombie Lin Jiayao controlled couldn’t bring a person to a safe zone during the day and then head to the extraction point.
Not to mention, the system hadn’t specified whether the so-called extraction point was actually safe.
Perhaps it was only safe for zombies?
Lin Jiayao looked at the virtual map in front of her, lost in thought.
Her current situation was extremely dangerous.
Her own body’s combat power was practically zero; she couldn’t survive for long outside the camp, in a place teeming with zombies.
She couldn’t even return to the resort camp.
If she appeared outside the camp now, pushing the wheelchair, she would definitely be mistaken for a Mimic zombie.
That was a type of zombie mentioned on the Survivor’s Light radio broadcasts, possessing the ability to disguise itself as an ordinary human.
Higher-level individuals could even speak human language and were said to be able to fool the bio-detectors made by Survivor’s Light.
Facing this crisis, Lin Jiayao didn’t panic.
She calmed down almost instantly, clarifying her thoughts.
Now that she had the Login Device, she also had the possibility of becoming stronger.
She had to find her sister and take her across most of China to the relatively safe Survivor’s Light.
She also had to kill all those Blood Gang scum.
But all of this required strength as a foundation.
She needed to find a safe place and use the zombies she controlled to help her search for her sister in the city and become stronger.
Soon, Lin Jiayao made up her mind.
She would abandon this Sprinter zombie that had absorbed 9g of blood crystals and not go to the extraction point, but instead take her body to another Awakened camp.
The 9g of blood crystals that would precipitate after the zombie’s death were enough to live in the camp for nine days.
Nine days were enough for Lin Jiayao to control zombies and complete multiple evolutions.
That camp was in the completely opposite direction of the extraction point, about 8km from her current location.
If she completely abandoned this zombie, she could make it there with her body.
This sacrifice was necessary…
After finishing her thoughts, Lin Jiayao mechanically lowered her head and looked at Grandma Zhang’s body lying quietly on the ground.
Back in the camp, Grandma Zhang had often told Lin Jiayao about the flowers and grass of the old world, and the park surrounded by flowers and grass that she loved to visit.
Carrying a large thermos filled with warm water and goji berries, she would go to the park with her old man. He would practice Tai Chi, while she watched her friends play chess.
She had always been stubborn, determined to do what she wanted, and because of this, she often pointed and commented while watching her friends play chess…
Memories flooded Lin Jiayao’s heart, but now there was no Grandma Zhang chattering about the past; only a cold corpse remained.
She wasn’t clutching a large thermos, but a tattered beige boot with spikes.
Lin Jiayao controlled the zombie and found a dust-covered stainless steel thermos in the building, carefully wiped it clean, and placed it in Grandma Zhang’s arms.
She gathered a pile of dry branches and, using a lighter found on a workstation, lit the wood covering the body.
In this apocalyptic world, there was no such thing as a proper burial; those buried were dug up and eaten.
Although this pile of wood couldn’t reduce the body to ashes, it could at least carbonize it, preventing it from falling into the mouths of zombies.
It took nearly ten minutes to completely ignite the body.
After standing quietly by the fire for a while, Lin Jiayao pushed the wheelchair, ignoring the muscle dissolution already occurring in her body, and quickly headed towards the other camp.
As the sun rose higher, her speed slowed, the rusty wheelchair creaking.
Before the zombie completely lost its mobility, she saw another camp on the edge of the city.
Hengyang Stadium.
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