Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 117

Tang Yu and Jin Ye followed docilely behind Li Luo, moving with the group like a pair of tamed zombies.

As they passed the dark-faced man in combat gear, Tang Yu lifted her head and sized him up.

The moment their eyes met, the corner of the dark-faced man’s eye twitched violently. An undeniable panic flashed in his eyes, and his body reacted faster than his mind, subconsciously raising his gun.

Tang Yu noticed that his movements—drawing and raising the gun—were incredibly precise, as if measured with a ruler, not off by a single fraction of an inch.

Lou Yan noticed the dark-faced man’s action. He reached out and pressed the gun barrel down, shooting the man an almost imperceptible glance. In an instant, a fine layer of sweat beaded on the man’s forehead, whether from Tang Yu’s scare or Lou Yan’s, it was hard to tell.

But Tang Yu knew that many more gun muzzles were still hidden in the shadows; not all of them had been withdrawn. If she and Jin Ye made any sudden moves, they would be guaranteed to be shot to pieces by heavy artillery.

Tang Yu retracted her gaze, marveling inwardly.

She could tell that this dark-faced man was not a player. If he were, the moment he had spoken to question them, the Zombie King mission would have triggered, and he would have shown fear. He was afraid of the Zombie King; a simple test would reveal that. But at that moment, his expression had been resolute, and he hadn’t made any move to check his panel.

Tang Yu recalled the writing on the dark-faced man’s chest, then turned to look at the other two men standing near the armored vehicle. They wore the same combat uniforms.

Strange, there were NPCs here too.

And they were armed soldiers.

The high wall in the mist was incredibly majestic, estimated to be four stories high. The concrete surface was smooth and offered no handholds, making it nearly impossible for zombies to climb.

The only entrance and exit was the aluminum city gate before them. The heavy gate was nearly five meters tall and was currently shut tight, showing no sign of opening even as Li Luo’s group approached.

Tang Yu looked up at the gate, and the hood of her windbreaker slid back with the movement, revealing her face.

When Lou Yan turned back, he couldn’t help but study Tang Yu for a moment. After a single glance, he looked away and gestured with his hand. “This gate only opens for vehicles. Miss Li, please come this way.”

Following his gesture, the group noticed a smaller door in the lower right corner of the main gate, about two meters wide, for pedestrians.

The small door opened, and two armed guards walked out. One of them held a square metal box and approached Li Luo’s group of six.

Tang Yu had seen this kind of metal box before. It had a thin needle at the top and red and green indicator lights.

It was an infection detector.

“Apologies, Miss Li. As a precaution, every member entering or leaving must be tested before we can grant passage.”

“It’s no trouble, I understand.” Li Luo proactively extended her arm and let the needle prick her.

The indicator light showed green.

Immediately, the guard replaced the needle with a new one and tested everyone else.

The results for Tang Yu and Jin Ye were, unsurprisingly, red. Lou Yan looked at the metal box and remarked pointedly, “How did you find this Zombie King, Miss Li? And how did you manage to tame them?”

“We happened to run into her on the road.” Li Luo wasn’t exactly lying. “This Zombie King must have just turned. She’s very weak. I fed her something, and now she’s not aggressive.”

After speaking, Li Luo suddenly pointed, and her finger was aimed at Jin Ye.

Jin Ye stood quietly, not even lifting an eyelid.

“Does it have an ability?”

“No, most D-Class Zombie Kings don’t have abilities.”

“And this one next to her?”

“Probably a subordinate,” Li Luo said without a change in expression.

“I see.” Lou Yan seemed thoughtful. “The D-Class Zombie King in the southern province has been causing quite a stir recently. What a coincidence that you also discovered a D-Class Zombie King, Miss Li.”

“Isn’t that normal?” Li Luo stepped through the gate. “D-Class Zombie Kings have a high probability of appearing. The map is vast, so it’s common for several to appear at the same time. However, I heard the Zombie King in the southern province consists of three people, right? These two zombies don’t have a human with them.”

Lou Yan glanced at Xiao Li, who was standing next to Li Luo. Wearing a baseball cap, Xiao Li was holding Li Luo’s arm, looking very close to her.

“Cousin, this city is so prosperous!” Xiao Li’s eyes widened as she pointed ahead, acting as if she hadn’t heard the conversation between Lou Yan and Li Luo at all.

Her surprise was genuine. When Tang Yu looked up, she too was stunned by the sight before her for a long moment.

Twenty meters from the city gate was a security cordon. Beyond it lay the streets. But these streets weren’t abandoned. The shops on both sides were open, with stalls piled high with goods set up at their entrances. People in various clothes bustled about, seemingly shopping for things.

The fear that had become the norm in the apocalypse did not hang over these people. They talked loudly, their expressions and postures very relaxed, and some were even laughing heartily.

Inside the high walls, it was so peaceful it felt like another world.

Even Li Luo was taken aback, finding it difficult to adjust for a moment.

Lou Yan led the group forward. Looking back at everyone’s astonished expressions, he introduced with a hint of pride, “Miss Li, you’ve come at a good time. Today is market day, so the city’s residents are all out exchanging goods.”

“Is there a currency in circulation here?”

“Yes.” Lou Yan pulled a round metal object from his jacket pocket. It was about the size of a coin, silver in color, with carved patterns on both sides. “This is the currency introduced by Mr. Lin, called the Credit Coin. Citizens can use it to freely exchange goods or purchase weapons and reputation points from the General Administration.”

“The General Administration?” Li Luo raised an eyebrow and took the metal coin. It felt like it was made of aluminum, but the intricate, root-like patterns on it made it difficult to counterfeit, even if the raw material was common.

“Yes, the General Administration.” Lou Yan’s expression flickered strangely for a moment before he concealed it again. “Mr. Lin couldn’t think of a better name at the time, so he borrowed the title from the Interstellar General Administration.”

Tang Yu understood. This probably wasn’t a case of not being able to think of a better name, but a deliberate choice.

In the blink of an eye, they had passed the security cordon and were in the middle of the main street.

As Tang Yu passed, many residents glanced down to check their panels. But they only looked up in surprise, and seeing Lou Yan in the lead, they made no move to attack or approach.

People in the middle of the road saw Lou Yan, nodded in greeting, “Mr. Lou,” and moved to the side, their tone clearly respectful.

Tang Yu looked up at the person who had greeted them. He had a gun at his waist and a scar on his face; he looked like a player.

Meanwhile, the people trading at the shops in front of the stores only gave them a seemingly casual glance before continuing to haggle over prices as if nothing had happened.

How strange. Their acceptance of zombies entering the city was surprisingly high; no one even came over to gawk.

Upon closer inspection, the items displayed on the stalls were mostly household goods: clothes, towels, bowls, chopsticks, and even needles and thread were everywhere.

On the balconies of the residential buildings on both sides, some people leaned out to watch, but they didn’t spare them more than a glance before their eyes quickly drifted elsewhere.

Tang Yu observed carefully and noticed that most balconies had clothes hanging out to dry. Presumably, these residents lived right here.

Li Luo spoke up, asking, “Are the people living here all players?”

Lou Yan replied, “Not all of them. There are also NPC refugees who fled here. We take in these refugees, and they are also members of Songming City.”

“They get along so harmoniously,” Li Luo remarked. “It’s a rare sight. Mr. Lin truly has a compassionate heart.”

“Mr. Lin would be very happy to hear your praise.”

The two exchanged pleasantries, but their pace never slowed. The group followed Lou Yan as he wound through the streets, finally stopping at a fork in the road blocked by a barricade.

Lou Yan waved his hand, and about ten armed guards surrounded them. They encircled Tang Yu and Jin Ye, the muzzles of their guns pressed against their bodies.

“Miss Li, please leave the zombies to them. I will take you to see Mr. Lin Zhongqi.”

Li Luo didn’t move. She asked, “Where will they be taken?”

“To our laboratory.”

“Will they be dissected?”

A hint of a smile appeared on Lou Yan’s stern face, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes betraying his age. “No, at least not for the next two days. We’re conducting other experiments. If you have time later, I can give you a tour.”

Tang Yu looked up at Li Luo, waiting for her response.

Li Luo’s expression didn’t change. She didn’t press further, simply responding with a soft “okay.” Then, she took Xiao Li’s hand, led her two bodyguards, and followed Lou Yan’s steps without a single glance back at Tang Yu and Jin Ye.

A strong sense of distrust rose in Tang Yu’s heart. She could see that even after entering the high walls, Li Luo was not entirely at ease. Li Luo seemed to be constantly probing for information, which was somewhat audacious, but she always stopped just short of digging too deep.

She was playing a strategic game.

How could someone who could barely control her own situation guarantee her and Jin Ye’s safety? Tang Yu began to suspect that all of Li Luo’s previous promises were lies.

However, Tang Yu hadn’t entrusted her safety entirely to others. She mentally assessed the situation; with her current abilities, it wasn’t impossible for her to launch an attack and escape unscathed.

Tang Yu clutched her windbreaker and started walking.

Before handing her backpack to the two bodyguards, she had taken the zombie serum and essential supplies with her. The Startling Dragon was also hidden close to her body.

Clothes and pants with many pockets had their advantages. In the pocket of her cargo pants, she even had a bag of biscuits.

The guards escorting Jin Ye and Tang Yu didn’t search them. Perhaps they didn’t even want to touch the zombies. After putting handcuffs on Tang Yu and Jin Ye, they made no further physical contact.

They were still somewhat wary of the “Zombie King” title, a wariness that became even more pronounced after Lou Yan’s figure disappeared into the mist.

That was why their gun barrels never left Tang Yu and Jin Ye’s bodies for a second. Jin Ye, who was mistaken for the Zombie King, was watched especially closely.

The two were escorted for about ten minutes before they stopped in front of a building. The words “City Hospital” were written on it, though its current purpose was unknown.

The group passed through a dim corridor and climbed several flights of stairs before seeing another seven or eight people.

A young man in a white lab coat stepped forward, raising his left hand to check something. “D-Class Zombie King? The one with short hair… hmm… take her over there, solitary confinement.”

He pointed to a patient room down the corridor.

Tang Yu glanced over. The doors of these patient rooms were reinforced with steel bars, and the observation windows on the doors were sealed with iron plates, making it impossible to see inside.

Though called patient rooms, they were more like prison cells.

“The one with long hair… take her to the regular ward opposite.” The young man put away his panel and said to the people behind him, “Dr. Bai won’t be back for a while. For the next two days, just check their basic stats. Oh, and don’t forget to inject the medication. A rampaging Zombie King is no joke.”

“Yes, sir,” someone responded.

Tang Yu and Jin Ye were separated and locked in two different rooms. Tang Yu was pushed onto a bed, and before the lock was engaged, someone took out a syringe and jabbed it into her neck.

“Hiss, strange, why won’t it push down?” the woman in the white coat muttered. No matter how hard she pushed the plunger, the clear white liquid remained in the tube, not a single drop entering Tang Yu’s body.

Tang Yu looked innocent, neither resisting nor crying out at the injection. She had secretly used rapid healing. The pinprick-sized wound was instantly sealed with bl00d, and by tensing her muscles, the needle tip embedded in her flesh was completely blocked.

“Is the syringe broken?” another woman nearby guessed.

“This has never happened before. I should have brought an extra tube.” The woman pulled out the syringe. To test if it was broken, she habitually gave it a hard push. The previously blocked syringe suddenly became clear, and she couldn’t stop in time, spraying most of the medicine out. “Weird, it’s not broken! The medicine is all gone.”

“It’s fine, I have the oral version here.” The other person took out a white medicine bottle from her pocket, poured a white pill into her palm, and said, “But how do we get it to swallow this?”

Tang Yu glanced at the bottle and saw the large characters “Inhibitor” handwritten on it. She thought for a moment and voluntarily opened her mouth.

The woman in the white coat was startled, but then she realized Tang Yu wasn’t opening her mouth to bite. Her eyes were fixed on the pill in her hand. The woman flicked her wrist and tossed the pill into Tang Yu’s mouth like a peanut.

Tang Yu chewed twice, her throat moved, and she swallowed.

“This zombie… why is it so silly? It doesn’t even attack. Does it think this is candy?” The woman found it somewhat amusing.

“Alright, let’s get this done and get out of here,” her companion urged.

The two walked out side by side. The armed guard unlocked Tang Yu’s handcuffs, then closed and locked the iron door. Tang Yu lay quietly on the bed, still able to hear the two nurses’ conversation from a distance. “If you look closely, it’s clean and well-behaved, quite cute.”

“Are you crazy? Thinking a zombie is cute.”

“What does it matter? Once the experiments are done, it’ll become like a pet anyway. Isn’t it normal to think a pet is cute?”

The voices grew fainter and eventually disappeared.

Only then did Tang Yu turn her head, her obedient expression vanishing, replaced by a serious and solemn look.

This so-called regular ward did not contain only her. The large room was filled with more than ten simple hospital beds, on which thirteen zombies lay quietly, staring at the ceiling like inanimate objects.

Tang Yu looked up and saw a camera in the top left corner of the ceiling. The camera’s red light blinked intermittently, clearly indicating it was in operation.

She confirmed two things: one, this city had electricity, and two, her every move was being monitored.

Tang Yu rolled her tongue, retrieving the white pill that had been pressed underneath it. At the same time, a black shadow emerged from a corner and covered the camera.

“How is it? Any unusual movements from them?” A message from a superior appeared on the electronic screen.

“No, they’ve all lain down. Everything is normal.” The young man moved the mouse away from the monitor screen. In front of him were over thirty monitors, displaying hundreds of zombies lying quietly. Apart from a momentary blackout in Tang Yu’s room, there were no other incidents.

The young man didn’t report this malfunction because the screen had returned to normal after being black for just a second. The newly arrived zombie was lying quietly, looking no different from the others.

“Not even the Zombie King?”

“No, it lay down after being injected with the medication.” The young man glanced at Jin Ye, who was in solitary confinement. The screen was silent.

“So it really is a newly turned Zombie King, without even an ability. Keep a close watch.”

“Yes, Mr. Lou.” The young man replied, then turned off the screen, stood up, and lit a cigarette.

In the smoke, the respectful demeanor vanished from the young man’s face, replaced by a look of contempt and disdain. Ash fell onto the monitoring console, and he casually flicked it away.

“This shitty job, earning just two damn Credit Coins a day. What’s the fucking point, damn it.” The young man cursed, venting his dissatisfaction.

His cheeks hollowed as he took several deep drags, then he threw the cigarette butt down and crushed it with the tip of his shoe, along with the resentment in his heart. Feeling bored, he simply flopped onto the nearby cot, flipped through an old magazine, and soon, snores filled the monitoring room.

He didn’t see that in Tang Yu’s room, the black shadow had appeared again. Not only that, but the shadow moved away from the lens, revealing its asphalt-like true form, and even began to dance.

Tang Yu had the shadow sway left three times and right three times. She stared wide-eyed, playing the part of a corpse on the bed. By the time the shadow swayed for the fourth round, she was finally certain that no one was monitoring the camera.

At least, not at this moment.

Otherwise, the guards outside would have already rushed in, instead of chatting about women so loudly that even Tang Yu could hear them.

Did they really think zombies couldn’t understand human speech?

Tang Yu scrambled up from the bed. She put the damp pill from her palm into her pocket, then took out a dozen blue serum vials and injected every zombie on the beds.

If her opponents were a bit smarter, they wouldn’t have locked her in with these zombies.

But as it was, this act of delivering teammates to her was something Tang Yu greatly appreciated.

The injected zombies’ eyes regained focus, successfully becoming members of her zombie family. Tang Yu didn’t let them move, keeping them in their original positions. She herself stood directly under the camera, opened her wristband, and sent a message to the camp’s group chat.

First, she updated them on her situation, then she asked Xiao Li about her circumstances, and finally, she described the inhibitor’s characteristics, taste, and post-use reactions to Professor Zhou.

Xiao Li didn’t reply immediately, but Professor Zhou was the first to give a judgment: “It’s likely some kind of drug that blocks spinal nerves, but it probably isn’t effective long-term and might have some side effects.”

“That makes sense. If something this useful really existed, they would have eliminated all the zombies by now.”

“Tang Yu, bring some back for me to see, please.” Professor Zhou was getting curious.

“If I can make it back,” Tang Yu replied, then lay back down on the bed, recalling her shadow.

She didn’t close her panel, keeping it open to receive messages from Xiao Li.

But Xiao Li didn’t reply, either because it was inconvenient or because something unexpected had happened. Right now, Jin Ye had probably been injected with the inhibitor, and Tang Yu had no idea how she was doing.

Tang Yu lay with her eyes open, quietly sorting through everything she had seen on the way here.

The leader of this city was named Lin Zhongqi; she had learned this from Li Luo. Song Lengzhu had made some kind of deal with Lin Zhongqi, a deal that involved her. Li Luo was the person handling the exchange for this deal.

So, Li Luo’s encounter with her was no accident, but a long-planned “coincidence.”

Tang Yu easily concluded that Song Lengzhu had sold her out. Perhaps she had been swirling a glass of red wine, legs crossed, telling Lin Zhongqi, “Hey, you’re researching zombies, right? I happen to know a Zombie King. I’ll lure her over for you, and you give me some benefits, hehehe.”

Tang Yu dismissed this image. Firstly, Song Lengzhu wouldn’t speak like a treacherous merchant. Secondly, Song Lengzhu wouldn’t sell her as a bargaining chip for no reason. After all, that woman had said in the library that she wanted to help her.

Help, not tie up. Tang Yu was sure she hadn’t misheard.

So, it was very likely that Song Lengzhu had discovered something and led her to Songming City. But because the situation here was special and her identity was sensitive, she had to resort to such methods.

Songming City.

The towering city walls and prosperous streets flashed through Tang Yu’s mind.

As a survivor camp, this place was already massive in scale. Half of Songming City’s core district was encompassed within it, housing at least two or three hundred people. Compared to this, Tang Yu’s own camp and the North Stream Camp were like little shrimps meeting a great white shark.

The residential and office buildings here seemed to have been restored to use. If not for the conspicuous bullet holes and bloodstains on the walls, Tang Yu would have almost thought this city had never been overrun by zombies.

The players and NPCs living here were peaceful and harmonious. They had smiles on their faces and seemed friendly and kind, with no conflict or oppression. The city also seemed to have electricity and water, and even trade had been restored. For survivors, this place was practically a paradise.

But… as she walked on the street, Tang Yu had a faint feeling that something was wrong. As for what was wrong, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it for the moment.

The panel in front of her flickered, and a new message appeared, interrupting Tang Yu’s thoughts.

Xiao Li’s reply was short, but explosive.

“I saw Song Lengzhu, and she’s drinking red wine!”