Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 136

For the next three days, all five members of Tang Yu’s team were incredibly busy.

Zhou Zhou buried herself in the hospital, studying the inhibitors and zombie spinal control devices left behind by the previous members. Coincidentally, Peng Min had once worked as a nurse here, so for these three days, she was forcibly dragged along by Zhou Zhou to act as a free guide and assistant.

They wouldn’t have known if they hadn’t asked, but they discovered that the hospital had been requisitioned by the military during the initial zombie outbreak, leaving behind a large amount of high-quality military medical equipment. It was far from a simple civilian institution. Zhou Zhou’s face lit up with joy, and she spent all day thinking about how to come up with new innovations.

Regarding the delegation of control over the “family corpses” that Tang Yu had requested, she had a new idea. She planned to combine the modified control device with zombie serum to create a three-tiered command system. This way, even if Tang Yu left the camp, these living corpse people could be led by other trusted teammates to protect the camp. Furthermore, to prevent the abuse of power, only Tang Yu would possess the highest level of control.

As for Jian Che, besides helping Zhou Zhou during the day, she spent the rest of her time tinkering with her computer. She would provoke Chaos from time to time, not only to obtain information about it but also to grow stronger through their confrontations. However, Chaos keenly sensed her intentions and chose to lie low, no longer engaging in direct conflict with Jian Che.

Realizing that attacking too often could easily reveal her weaknesses, Jian Che pulled back and began to hide her own strength, learning from Chaos. Instead, she focused her efforts on researching the language interoperability issue.

Meanwhile, Jin Ye and Tang Yu roamed the city. They spent a great deal of time taking inventory of Songming City’s supplies, syncing the information with Li Luo on one hand, and recording the items they wanted to take on a list on the other.

When Song Lengzhu had handed the city over to Li Luo, she had made it clear that both their teams could take any supplies they wanted, so Tang Yu didn’t hold back.

The first priority was weapons.

The ammunition in the armory was small by peacetime standards, but in the current era where every gun and every grenade was precious, the inventory here far exceeded their expectations.

Without hesitation, Tang Yu wrote with a flourish: six helicopters, twenty shoulder-fired grenade launchers, a hundred grenades, eight rocket launchers, a hundred hand grenades, a hundred landmines, fifty fully automatic rifles, fifty handguns, thirty walkie-talkies, fifty sets of body armor, and various military-grade defensive fence spikes, tire spikes, riot shields, and tear gas.

Li Luo’s hand trembled as she held the list. The supplies listed amounted to a quarter of the armory’s entire stock. She stared at it for a long time before asking Tang Yu, “Your camp must be huge, right?”

Tang Yu smiled innocently and held up two fingers.

Li Luo: “Two hundred people?”

Tang Yu didn’t answer, just giggled and turned to inventory other things. What two hundred people? Their camp only had twenty-four members so far.

However, Tang Yu wasn’t particularly greedy. Aside from weapons, she took far fewer other items—mostly tables, chairs, benches, pots, and pans from abandoned houses. She didn’t touch Songming City’s food reserves at all.

The “A Close and Loving Family” camp was built by a mountain and had an abundance of fresh ingredients. Coupled with the excellent crop growth, the aunties were already self-sufficient. There was no need to empty Songming City’s rations. However, while taking inventory of Lin Zhongqi’s private villa, she did help herself to a case of aged red wine.

Song Lengzhu had drunk this wine too, so she had to try it.

While Tang Yu and Jin Ye were busy stocking the camp’s inventory, Xiao Li was busy recruiting manpower.

For three days, Xiao Li followed Li Luo from door to door, getting to know the situations of some of Songming City’s residents. Xiao Li’s recruitment skills became more and more polished. She would start chattering non-stop, leaving people completely dazzled.

However, she continued to follow the recruitment criteria Tang Yu had initially set, only recruiting single women without many ties. Whether they were vulnerable NPCs or capable female players, as long as she felt they were decent people she could get along with, she would spare no effort in promoting the benefits of her camp.

No worries about food or clothing, a united and loving community, a paradise on earth—she praised it all without even blushing.

Xiao Li didn’t hide the fact that there were zombies and NPCs in the camp, but she was smart enough to be vague about the specific details and location, which made the accompanying Li Luo very suspicious. This camp sounded so mysterious, so loving, so appealing.

Xiao Li regretfully informed Li Luo, “You have a duty to defend the city, City Lord Li, so you’re not within my selection criteria.”

Li Luo was speechless.

In the end, the list Xiao Li handed to Tang Yu had thirty-seven new women. The majority were NPCs in difficult circumstances, but surprisingly, there were also twelve female players.

For NPCs, their screening criteria were more lenient, but for players, regardless of gender, they needed to be extremely cautious.

So Tang Yu set up an interview.

It was called an interview, but it was just a chat with the players in an abandoned conference room, conducted by Xiao Li and Jian Che. Meanwhile, Tang Yu and Jin Ye watched online from the next room, using a police-grade infrared night-vision fiberscope they had acquired.

During her two days of running around the city, Tang Yu had intentionally used her invisibility and teleportation abilities to blend into crowds, with the goal of triggering the Zombie King mission for everyone. Now, the players all knew there was a C-Class Zombie King in Songming City, but they weren’t clear on its appearance or gender, so she didn’t have to worry about exposing her identity.

The first female player to enter the conference room was tall and dressed in light sportswear, her wheat-colored skin showing beneath a short sports tank top. She paused for a moment upon seeing Jian Che next to Xiao Li, then casually greeted them both.

The camp’s group chat was live, and Tang Yu was quietly giving Jin Ye a running commentary: “She didn’t pay too much attention or react to the NPC. Seems pretty normal.”

Xiao Li appeared very enthusiastic. She remembered the player’s name. “Catherine, I just wanted you to meet my teammate today. We’re just going to ask a few simple questions for an assessment, is that okay?”

Catherine sat at the other end of the conference table, her posture very relaxed. “No problem, I’ll answer anything.”

“The one talking to you today isn’t me, it’s…” Xiao Li placed a hand on Jian Che’s shoulder. “This one.”

The corners of Jian Che’s mouth, usually turned down, lifted slightly. “Hello.”

“Hello.” Catherine was a little surprised, her expression unconcealed. She hadn’t expected the person in charge to be a teenager, and an NPC at that.

“I want to know why you want to leave Songming City. The living conditions here are much better than at our camp,” Jian Che asked.

“I’ve only been in Songming City for half a month. The conditions are good, but the residents don’t get along well. I want a new living environment, a place that respects people’s personalities.” Catherine pointed to her clothes. “At least a place where I can wear what I want without getting weird stares,” she said bluntly.

Xiao Li let out a chuckle. “Then you’d better be careful. The aunties on my team might worry you’ll catch a cold and try to make you wear more.”

“As long as they don’t catcall me, I don’t care,” Catherine replied nonchalantly.

It was a simple answer, and Catherine delivered it with sincerity, not fabricating some story to justify her reasoning. This came across as natural and made her seem easy to get along with.

Jian Che asked again, “Do you have an ability?”

Catherine paused. “Do I have to disclose that?”

Jian Che said, “You can also choose not to answer.”

Catherine pondered for a moment. “I do, but my ability is useless. It’s turning stone into gold. It was useful at the beginning of the outbreak to trade for money and hoard supplies, but now it’s pretty much useless.”

Tang Yu thought to herself that it was indeed not very useful for survival, as precious metals were now difficult to circulate. But Jin Ye said it would be very useful at the camp. Gold is corrosion-resistant, highly malleable, and a decent conductor of heat and electricity. The tool group could probably come up with something creative to do with it.

“But, I’m very skilled with basic trap-setting,” Catherine added.

Even better! The camp was in need of someone just like that. The landmines they had swiped from the armory now had a purpose.

Jian Che chatted more with Catherine about her past survival methods and her views on NPCs and zombies. Based on the information, Jian Che determined that Catherine was easygoing and straightforward, with no ulterior motives. Thus, she was added to the “A Close and Loving Family” admission list.

Following that, Xiao Li and Jian Che had brief chats with the other eleven female players. Their ages varied greatly, from those who had just passed the game’s minimum age limit, like Xiao Li, to middle-aged women in their fifties. Their abilities also ranged from high to low. Three of them honestly disclosed their abilities; besides Catherine, the other two had a protective barrier and water escape, both defensive abilities.

Xiao Li asked those without abilities if they were willing to become zombie players. This was the most direct way to show their stance, but the cost of having their points reset was too high, so only three of the eleven players were willing to convert. Xiao Li didn’t force the issue.

But among the eleven, there were also suspicious and unfriendly individuals.

Some grew suspicious upon hearing that there were zombies in the camp and tried various ways to fish for information about them. Xiao Li cautiously cut the conversation short and asked them to leave the conference room.

Those who lied about having an ability but couldn’t demonstrate it when asked were all labeled as “harboring ill intentions” and removed from the list.

A more common situation was people who were perfunctory in their answers to Jian Che but tried to suck up to Xiao Li. Tang Yu was also very strict about this, as most of the camp’s members were NPCs, and differing views could easily lead to turmoil.

So, out of the twelve female players, only seven successfully joined the family. Still, this was more than they had expected. Including the NPCs, the camp’s population had nearly doubled.

After spending a week in Songming City, Tang Yu decided to take a trip back to the camp, setting the time for the next day. These newly acquired supplies and people needed to be properly settled in.

But not all was joyful. Another matter weighed on Tang Yu’s mind: Song Lengzhu hadn’t spoken to her alone for a week.

During this week, Tang Yu had been so busy her feet barely touched the ground, while Song Lengzhu seemed quite leisurely. Her group of four wandered around the city, occasionally chatting with other players.

While running around invisibly, Tang Yu once stumbled upon Song Lengzhu discussing matters with a player. It was then she realized that Song Lengzhu wasn’t the type to be oblivious to the outside world, solely focused on her own missions. She would build relationships with other player teams to obtain information or win people over. It was just that Yan Qi did most of the talking, while Song Lengzhu simply stood there, a symbol of leadership.

Come to think of it, Tang Yu recalled Lan Lin, Shen Xu from North Stream Camp, and even Zhou Zhou before she joined their camp. All of them were already acquainted with Song Lengzhu before Tang Yu met them. Even if their relationships weren’t all friendly and cooperative, they had connections.

Tang Yu suddenly realized that the Song Lengzhu she saw was not the complete picture, and that she didn’t know her that well at all.

However, this strange feeling of awkwardness and disappointment would vanish whenever she saw Song Lengzhu in the evening.

For the past few days, whenever Tang Yu was on her small balcony enjoying the night breeze, she would always see Song Lengzhu cooling off in the small courtyard. Sometimes Yan Qi and the twins were there, and other times it was just Song Lengzhu alone.

A wicker chair and a round table, brought from somewhere, were placed in the weeded courtyard. Song Lengzhu would sit in the chair to rest. Sometimes, there would be a glass on the table, filled with a grape-colored liquid.

And so, Tang Yu would stop troubling her mind. The night breeze and the evening scene were intoxicating.

At first, their times for cooling off were not fixed, and for two days they didn’t run into each other at all. But at some point, their timing became synchronized. They would both appear at their usual spots just as night fell, and it was unclear who was accommodating whom.

But Song Lengzhu didn’t talk to Tang Yu. She rarely even greeted her. Sometimes she would glimpse the figure on the balcony and just give a faint glance, leaving Tang Yu’s heart in turmoil, unable to figure things out.

Tang Yu didn’t want a repeat performance—rushing up to someone only to be unable to say a word. Their official business was mostly settled, and there was nothing to talk about privately. So most of the time, they just enjoyed their own breeze and their own view.

But today was different. Tang Yu thought that since she was leaving Songming City tomorrow, she could at least use it as an excuse to say goodbye to Song Lengzhu.

So when Song Lengzhu was alone in the courtyard having a small drink, Tang Yu’s figure flashed, and she appeared on the other side of the small round table.

Song Lengzhu looked up at her, a very faint smile on her lips. “You finally decided to come down.”