Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 121

“What does the device look like?” Tang Yu pressed, unwilling to let it go. This nurse knew far more than she had imagined. She had originally intended to interrogate the other player, but unexpectedly, this NPC knew so much as well.

A tear finally slid from the corner of Peng Min’s eye, lending her a more fragile appearance. “I really don’t know any more.”

Tang Yu took a step forward, her blade advancing a fraction of an inch with her. The sharp tip pressed against Peng Min’s skin.

“I… I’ll draw it for you,” Peng Min said, hastily holding down the notebook and picking up the pen Tang Yu had tossed on the desk.

Not daring to move her head, she had to twist her body to draw on the paper. The lines on the paper were simple, forming the shape of what looked like a remote control with an electronic screen and six or seven buttons.

Peng Min carefully set down the pen, feeling that her life was about to end.

She had answered all of Tang Yu’s questions. According to standard procedure, it was now time for the kidnapper to dispose of the witness.

But the throat-slitting she anticipated never came. The person before her glanced at the drawing, then sheathed her knife. The murderous aura in her eyes dissipated, instantly replaced by a beaming smile.

“Jin Ye, see how good I am at prying information out of people?” The zombie before her seemed quite smug.

“Stop bullying the poor girl,” Jin Ye said with a smiling shake of her head. “Look how scared you’ve made her.”

“She’s from the enemy camp, after all, not just some random NPC on the street. You can’t get information with just nice words,” Tang Yu said as she put away her knife and picked up a shiny object from the floor.

It was a Credit Coin that had fallen from the eliminated player’s pocket. Tang Yu examined it for a moment before handing it to the dumbstruck, tear-streaked Peng Min as compensation for her emotional distress.

“I really want to ask her about this city, but writing is just too inconvenient,” Tang Yu complained. She had no desire to write another word. The person in front of her wasn’t Song Lengzhu; she wasn’t worth the effort of writing.

“Let’s take her with us. I can see you have no intention of killing her,” Jin Ye suggested. “Once we meet up with Xiao Li, we can have her ask a few more questions.”

“Alright,” Tang Yu agreed, picking up the paper and pen from the desk and stuffing them into Jin Ye’s hands. “If there are any more questions, you do the writing.”

“Fine by me,” Jin Ye said, unconcerned.

Tang Yu crouched down and rummaged through the corpse’s pockets. The female player had four more Credit Coins, all of which Tang Yu pocketed.

“What about the young man?” Tang Yu asked.

“I killed him. Threw the body into the elevator shaft.” Jin Ye opened her palm, revealing five Credit Coins. “We really are like bandits who kill for money.”

“Indeed,” Tang Yu accepted the statement with a calm expression.

Jin Ye changed the subject. “But have you noticed that neither of these two players was very strong? That young man was probably a minor leader, but his agility couldn’t even match mine.”

“I noticed. Same with this female player.” Tang Yu stood up and glanced again at Peng Min, who was secretly wiping away her tears. “They probably joined a camp early on and didn’t have many opportunities to train.”

Jin Ye said, “That makes sense. People who rely on zombies and get used to a comfortable life lose their fighting spirit.”

Tang Yu thought for a moment. “But there are exceptions. Lou Yan’s strength shouldn’t be underestimated. His gait is very steady, and that Tang dao he carries looks like a high-tier weapon. We need to be careful of him.”

Jin Ye replied, “Got it.”

Tang Yu dismissed her shadow and walked a lap around the office.

The layout here had been modified. In the innermost area were some instruments for measuring the condition of zombies. Tang Yu didn’t recognize them and wasn’t interested, but she did flip through the registration forms that recorded the zombies’ conditions with considerable curiosity.

The information inside was fragmented, but Tang Yu managed to piece some of it together: there were 123 zombies awaiting modification, distributed on the sixth floor of the inpatient department, and 521 modified zombies, distributed from the first to the fifth floors.

There were so many. Assembled, they could conquer a city.

Tang Yu flipped further through the registration forms and discovered that each zombie seemed to have a number, from 1 to 521. After turning a couple of pages, she realized it wasn’t the zombies that were numbered, but the control terminals.

These zombies required a terminal to be implanted in their bodies. A physical device wasn’t like a serum; serums could be continuously developed, but these devices had a limit. Currently, that limit was 521. So, if a zombie was injured, died, or lost its usefulness, the terminal inside it would be removed and implanted into a new zombie.

She and Jin Ye were originally meant to be in that queue.

Come to think of it, the “Dr. Bai” the young man had mentioned earlier must be the one who performed these implant procedures.

While Tang Yu was wandering around, Jin Ye was busy writing.

Peng Min hadn’t even finished wiping her tears when another person started showing her a question board.

Jin Ye’s interrogation policy was the opposite of Tang Yu’s. Her expression was calm; she didn’t press or get angry. Even when Peng Min was silent, she would wait quietly, even offering the tissue box from the desk.

It was a classic good cop, bad cop routine.

Peng Min’s mind was in a daze. She had no time to grieve for her dead teammate. She only understood one thing: if she answered the questions properly, these two zombies wouldn’t harm her.

She clutched the Credit Coin in her hand and began to answer Jin Ye’s questions.

“What’s your name?”

“Peng Min.”

“Where is the surveillance room?”

“Third floor.”

“What’s the guard distribution on each floor? Where is the strongest expert?”

“During… during the exchange period after dark, there are fewer guards on each floor, only three. After the exchange period, they’ll dispatch people from other places, and the number of people on night duty will increase to ten per floor.”

“The strongest people…” Peng Min thought for a moment. To her, every outsider here was strong; she really had no frame of reference. “Probably the guards on the second floor. They’re bigger.”

Jin Ye made an OK sign. It was currently the exchange period, which was perfect timing. With a smile of encouragement and praise for Peng Min, she retracted the notebook and wrote another sentence: “We’re taking you with us, but you have to do as we say.”

Tang Yu happened to walk over and see this sentence. She took the pen and added a line after it: “Or we’ll feed you to the zombies!”

Peng Min was terrified by Tang Yu’s words. She had seen zombies devour humans, or devour their own kind under their control. No one wanted to be the one being devoured. The mere thought of it was enough to inspire fear.

Peng Min avoided Tang Yu’s gaze and looked pleadingly at Jin Ye. Seeing Jin Ye’s gentle smile, she suddenly felt as if she had found a pillar of support in a desperate situation and nodded vigorously.

As expected, the good cop, bad cop routine was effective.

Peng Min was a little apprehensive. “Are you going to kill these guards? But… just the two of you zombies… you can’t… you can’t do it, can you?”

Tang Yu and Jin Ye smiled without a word. They stepped over the body on the floor and opened the door.

“Let’s go.” Tang Yu tilted her head, signaling for Peng Min to follow.

The zombies locked up on the fifth floor had already been modified. After killing the three guards, Tang Yu paused for a moment in front of the iron bars.

These zombies looked to be in much worse shape than the ones from A Close and Loving Family. Their bodies and faces were stained with bl00d, they smelled foul and reeked, and some were even barely clothed.

Some zombies had probably been severely injured in battle, their flesh torn open and their steps unsteady. Their faces were mangled beyond recognition. They just huddled in corners, waiting for the devices in their bodies to be removed and placed into the next zombie.

To live as a zombie like this was quite pathetic. A quick death would be better.

Tang Yu watched with a stern face for a while before turning to go downstairs. If these zombies were under her command, she would definitely have them taken for a bath and a change of clothes.

The guards from the fifth to the third floor weren’t very aggressive. Tang Yu’s shadow could easily take care of them. As more players were eliminated, Tang Yu’s physical abilities had slightly improved, and her mental control over her shadow had gradually strengthened.

It was so strong that the three of them didn’t even need to approach the guards. From around a corner, the shadow could emerge from the guards’ own shadows without a sound, transforming into a sharp blade or a face-hugging monster, changing its shape to annihilate the guards.

Peng Min was both amazed and terrified. Amazed that Tang Yu could eliminate these guards so effortlessly, and terrified at how horrifying this zombie was when she killed. She wasn’t particularly close to her colleagues, but they were still familiar faces. Seeing former colleagues become victims of the blade, how could one not be afraid?

Seeing Peng Min’s fear of Tang Yu deepening, Jin Ye had no choice but to pull out the medical record book and clear Tang Yu’s name: “They’re not dead. They just left this place and returned to their original world.”

“Outsiders… their original world?” Peng Min’s worldview was shaken once again.

“Yes,” Jin Ye nodded in confirmation.

Peng Min’s fear subsided a little. She looked at Tang Yu with her special abilities, then at Jin Ye who had barely made a move, and pointed at Tang Yu, blurting out, “This person is the Zombie King, right?”

Tang Yu turned back. “Yes, it’s me. Got a problem with that?”

Peng Min only heard a few growls and had no idea what Tang Yu was saying. Thinking it was some kind of threat, she scrambled to hide behind Jin Ye.

After dealing with the guards on the third floor, Tang Yu found the surveillance room at the far end of the corridor. The light in the room was as dim as a candle in the wind, outlining a man slumped over in a chair. The monitor screens were all black.

Tang Yu approached the chair and reached out to move the man’s shoulder. The man lost his support and instantly collapsed to the ground like a pile of mud. His face was turned upwards, revealing a clear bloody gash on his neck. He looked like he had been dead for a while.

Someone had killed him.

Tang Yu’s head snapped up. She scanned the surroundings of the surveillance room and was startled to see a woman in black standing with her hands behind her back in a dark corner. Her lower body blended into the background, appearing transparent.

Tang Yu was taken aback, but a closer look revealed that the person looked somewhat familiar.

It was Xiao Qi.

Xiao Qi had just revealed herself. Seeing Tang Yu, she complained irritably, “What took you so long? You’re too slow!”

Tang Yu didn’t answer, just blinked, a flicker of joy rising in her heart. Xiao Qi is here. Could Song Lengzhu have sent her to help me?

Xiao Qi noticed a new face in Tang Yu’s group. It wasn’t the yellow-haired girl she’d met before, but a woman in a white coat with tearstains on her face. Xiao Qi teased, “What, picked up another teammate?”

Peng Min’s face was filled with terror. “N-not a teammate, a hostage.”

Xiao Qi laughed. “A zombie needs a hostage? It’s a good thing these two are kind-hearted and won’t kill you. Speaking of which… this one really doesn’t seem to kill NPCs.” She stood in front of Tang Yu, her shorter stature not stopping her from looking Tang Yu up and down with a disdainful gaze.

Oh, but I do, Tang Yu thought to herself. She had killed plenty of NPCs who blocked her way in Huang Village. She was just more cautious when dealing with them compared to players, since they only had one life.

Seeing that Tang Yu was just staring at her without responding, Xiao Qi felt a bit snubbed. She took the lead and walked ahead, saying, “Let’s get out of here. This place is about to be surrounded.”

“Hm?” Tang Yu finally let out a questioning hum, her tone rising at the end.

“On my way here, I heard that guy with the Tang dao secretly gathering freelance players, saying there was a mission in the inpatient department. I figured it had to be for you.”

Tang Yu mulled over Xiao Qi’s words. Lou Yan was gathering players, not guards. Was he planning to use players to eliminate them?

She carried the title of Zombie King, which came with a hefty amount of points. It was indeed a huge temptation for players.

When she was walking on the street during the day, Lou Yan had kept the players in check. But things were different now. Lou Yan had personally opened the door, so the players would no longer have any reservations.

Lou Yan wasn’t even willing to make a move openly, likely out of consideration for Li Luo and Song Lengzhu.

“Then let them come.” Tang Yu lifted her chin and walked out of the surveillance room. She wanted to see if this bunch could even lay a scratch on her.