Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 141

Inside the cabin, there were three rows of long benches. Tang Yu and Song Lengzhu sat facing each other in the front, while Jian Che consciously sat down next to Tang Yu. The two zombies, who had been shooed to the back row, remained quiet, like inanimate objects. A flashlight was propped on the metal rack overhead, adding a touch of human presence to the boundless wasteland.

Song Lengzhu took off her gloves and pulled out a bag of compressed biscuits. “We’re out of fuel. We’ll have to walk from now on.” She looked up at Tang Yu. “Tang Yu, have you decided which direction we should go?”

To the west was a snow-capped mountain, and to the north was a desert. They had chosen a good landing spot, situated between the Gobi and a canyon, making it relatively convenient to head in any direction.

“Mmm,” Tang Yu mumbled while chewing and thinking, her cheeks puffed out. She wasn’t eating compressed biscuits, but the flatbreads the aunties had made. “The most identifiable landmark here is that snow mountain. The last two anchor points were in provincial capitals, very conspicuous. Maybe the anchor points are set up with that preference in mind. Let’s head for the snow mountain.”

She held out the plastic bag of flatbreads to Song Lengzhu. “Have this. It’s easier to swallow.”

The flatbreads were completely cold and a bit dry and hard, but they were still easier to eat than the compressed biscuits. Song Lengzhu’s outstretched hand paused. “Do you have enough rations? If we can’t find the anchor point right away, we might be stuck here for half a month.”

“It won’t last half a month, but that’s okay. We’ll eat the perishable stuff first, and then we can pool the three of our rations. If it really comes to it, there are pine needles and grass here.” Tang Yu didn’t seem to care, casually using “we” as if it were the most natural thing, unlike Song Lengzhu, who still distinguished between “you,” “me,” and “her.”

But Song Lengzhu didn’t take it. Her hand remained outstretched, but her entire body seemed frozen, her gaze fixed on the flatbread.

Tang Yu thought she was disgusted that she had handled the flatbread, and felt both anxious and angry. She muttered, “I didn’t touch the flatbread, and I don’t have any wounds on me!”

“Shh.” To her surprise, Song Lengzhu let out a soft sound, reminding her in a very low voice, “Listen.”

The sudden warning put all three of them on high alert, and they froze in place.

Jian Che also stopped chewing and pricked up her ears. The cabin door was heavy, muffling the sounds from outside. All that reached Jian Che’s ears was the faint howling of the wind and a surging sound like waves. Louder than the wind, however, was her own heavy breathing, a result of the tense atmosphere.

What had they heard? Jian Che had no idea, but she saw Tang Yu and Song Lengzhu draw their weapons at the same time. With practiced coordination, they bent down and peered out of the portholes on either side.

Outside, sand and stones flew. A strong wind had picked up on the Gobi at some point. The yellow earth was swept up by the wind, moving rapidly backward in a trajectory parallel to the ground. Visibility couldn’t have been lower. Night had fallen, and apart from their small patch of light, the world outside was completely ruled by darkness.

“See anything?” Tang Yu lowered her voice, speaking almost in a whisper. She had used her vision enhancement ability, but visibility was only ten meters. She couldn’t see anything where there was no light source.

“No,” Song Lengzhu replied. There was nothing suspicious outside the window, only the three zombies standing as steady as stone statues.

But just as she finished speaking, another sound of shifting gravel arose, extremely faint amidst the sounds of wind and water. No matter how strong the wind, it couldn’t carry away gravel. Something had kicked those stones.

Tang Yu used her precognition, but nothing happened within the one-minute time limit. She couldn’t help but wonder if the geology of the desert plateau was special, and the wind here was strong enough to move gravel.

With a click, a sudden sound came from Song Lengzhu’s direction. Tang Yu turned to see that Song Lengzhu had already opened the cabin door and leaped out.

Then, Song Lengzhu casually pulled the door shut behind her. Tang Yu immediately spun around and braced herself against the closing door. “What are you doing?” She frowned. Acting without a word of warning was too risky.

“Coming out to take a look,” Song Lengzhu replied from outside. She was used to taking the lead in her own team, acting on impulse without the habit of reporting to others, which was quite different from Tang Yu’s style.

“I’m going too.” Tang Yu turned back to instruct Jian Che, “Stay inside. Don’t come out no matter what happens.”

The zombies in the back row immediately bent over and shuffled in front of Jian Che, shielding her.

“Be… be careful.” Before Jian Che could finish her warning, with a bang, she was the only living person left in the cabin. She took out the sharp dagger Zhou Zhou had given her and clutched it tightly.

Outside the cabin, Tang Yu hung another flashlight on the tool pouch at her waist and stood beside Song Lengzhu, gripping her knife. Her shoes crunched on the ground, making a sound similar to what they had heard earlier. This meant there was a living creature nearby, but she didn’t know if it was a zombie or some nocturnal animal.

A fierce wind carrying a chill assaulted them from all directions. The temperature here plummeted to single digits at night, and it would be even colder at a higher altitude. Tang Yu glanced at Song Lengzhu’s bare hands. Things had happened so suddenly that she hadn’t had time to put her gloves back on.

“Are you cold?” Tang Yu asked.

Song Lengzhu didn’t answer. At a time like this, the little zombie still had the mind to worry about such things. Was her thinking always this scattered before she could talk?

Tang Yu pursed her lips, withdrew her gaze, and stopped paying attention to Song Lengzhu.

She used her control ability, sending one of the zombies to scout into the darkness, or perhaps to act as bait. The zombie left their line of sight and walked into the thick, fog-like darkness.

The two of them waited in place for a while, but nothing happened.

The situation made them begin to doubt their judgment, but then, Song Lengzhu suddenly blurted out, “It’s an animal. There’s a foul smell.”

The strong odor of fur mixed with feces was hardly pleasant.

Tang Yu, on the contrary, breathed a sigh of relief. Knowing it was an animal made things easier. With their current abilities, dealing with a few animals wouldn’t be a problem.

“Can you tell what it is by the smell?” Tang Yu asked, tilting her head.

Song Lengzhu glanced sideways at her. “My ability isn’t that advanced.”

On the Gobi, it would be nothing more than a pack of wolves, or perhaps bears and leopards from the coniferous forest. Humans were wary of them, and they were wary of humans. They just needed to wait it out inside the helicopter.

Tang Yu tried to recall the zombie she had sent out earlier, only to find that it didn’t return after a long time.

“Something’s wrong.” Tang Yu was instantly on alert. The zombie was gone.

No sound had come from the darkness. That shouldn’t be. If the zombie had encountered another creature, it would have attacked on its own, and it was impossible for there to be no sound at all.

What if it wasn’t an animal?

Tang Yu immediately retracted her control ability and switched to precognition. She took down her flashlight and called to Song Lengzhu, “I’m going to check it out.”

“Together.” Song Lengzhu followed closely on her heels, and they plunged into the night almost at the same time.

The white beam of the flashlight cut through the darkness. They encountered nothing along the way, but the sound of kicking pebbles echoed around them, sometimes near, sometimes far, impossible to pinpoint.

Looking back, the point of light from the helicopter was already very small. After running for a while, the two of them suddenly discovered bl00d and bits of flesh on the brown earth.

There were also drag marks.

The bl00d trail ended at the edge of a canyon. Tang Yu shone her flashlight down into it. The canyon was bottomless; the darkness swallowed the flashlight’s beam, making it nearly impossible to judge the depth.

“Looks like something dragged the zombie away,” Tang Yu said. Just as she was about to pull back, she foresaw a creature attacking them from behind. In about ten seconds, standing at the edge, they would be struck by a heavy object and fall off the cliff, without ever seeing the attacker’s face.

Tang Yu immediately grabbed Song Lengzhu’s sleeve and pulled her away from the canyon.

This movement changed the cause and effect. The scene from her precognition didn’t happen. The creature lurking in the dark seemed to realize it had lost its chance for a sneak attack and remained hidden.

Tang Yu’s head throbbed slightly. She recalled the impact from her precognition. The immense force was not something a small animal could produce. There was a large, unusual creature here.

“We’re too far. We need to head back,” Song Lengzhu said calmly, letting Tang Yu tug on her sleeve as she made the suggestion.

“Okay.”

After taking just two steps, Tang Yu suddenly let go of Song Lengzhu, simultaneously dashed three steps to the left, and swung her knife fiercely. Raging flames instantly enveloped Startling Dragon, disturbing the air in front of her and leaving a fiery red afterimage.

“Wolves!” Tang Yu growled in a low voice. Sure enough, a gray wolf was in mid-air. Its dry fur was the same color as the soil, making it look dusty gray. It was snarling, fierce and vicious. The gray wolf was forced back by the flames, twisting its body in the air to land elsewhere.

It wasn’t just one. Several pairs of yellow-green glowing eyes suddenly appeared around them, staring at them covetously.

Tang Yu subconsciously thought the gray wolves had made the earlier noises. But on second thought, the creature that pushed them in her premonition was at least as tall as a person, while the gray wolves in front of her were no higher than her thigh. It was more likely these wolves had been attracted by the flashlight just now, attacking as soon as they smelled living people. They weren’t the creature that had been lurking in the darkness all along.

Before she could think further, Song Lengzhu’s bullets flew straight toward the yellow-green lights. Soon, the howls of wounded beasts rang out. She had successfully killed two wolves.

But they soon discovered that the number of wolves around them was increasing. Ten? More than that. Tang Yu scanned the area. There were already more than thirty pairs of eyes reflecting the light, with more moving in the darkness, too indistinct to see clearly. This far exceeded the size of a normal wolf pack.

Could it be that they were starving in the desert and had mobilized their entire force upon seeing people?

The two of them, torn to shreds, wouldn’t even be enough to fill the gaps between so many wolves’ teeth.

Tang Yu held her flame-wreathed knife to force back the wolves in front. They feared the fire and didn’t approach for the moment, but they kept probing forward, the encirclement shrinking ever smaller.

Song Lengzhu fired a few more shots. “Let’s not go back near the helicopter yet. It would be dangerous for Jian Che. We’ll lure these wolves away first.”

A gray wolf with matted fur suddenly leaped into the air, pouncing straight at Song Lengzhu. Song Lengzhu swiveled her gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The bullet pierced the wolf’s eyeball.

“Or kill them,” Song Lengzhu added.

Then kill them it was. Wolves were belligerent animals. Once they locked onto a target, they would pursue it relentlessly. If they couldn’t defeat them tonight, the wolves would continue to lie in ambush nearby. Even if they fled to the snow mountain, the wolves would follow.

Tang Yu shifted her footing, pushed off with her back foot, and charged directly at the gray wolf in front of her.

The flames scorched the dry fur, causing it to curl at the edges. Tang Yu thrust her knife forward, and in the instant the gray wolf dodged, she slashed it across its body.

The foul-smelling bl00d splattered onto the ground, overlapping with the zombie’s bloodstains from before.

Before Tang Yu could retract her knife, another gray wolf pounced fiercely.

This wolf pack was truly ferocious. Perhaps from surviving in such a harsh environment for so long, they were filled with a relentless spirit when they encountered prey. The corpses of their companions didn’t make them retreat; instead, they attacked with even greater ferocity.

A dozen or so wolves would have been manageable, but with so many, it became tricky. To make matters worse, there was still some unknown creature lying in wait in the darkness. Tang Yu didn’t dare to be careless. She focused all her attention, standing shoulder to shoulder with Song Lengzhu, facing in opposite directions to fight their respective enemies.

As they fought, they noticed something strange. The howl of one gray wolf changed its tune. Tang Yu turned to look. The snarling wolf had bl00d at the corners of its mouth, and its threatening growls became odd, as if it were gargling water, making a gurgling sound.

At its feet were the bloodstains left by the zombie that had disappeared earlier.

“I think it’s been infected,” Tang Yu warned Song Lengzhu to be careful. Zhou Zhou had mentioned that infected animals would become extremely bloodthirsty and aggressive, and their combat effectiveness would increase significantly.

“It’s not just that one.” Song Lengzhu looked up and pointed to the wolves standing at the back.

Those wolves were licking the bl00d on the ground. One wolf even had a chunk of meat in its mouth, picked up from who knows where.