Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 25

Shen Xu’s camp was in the complete opposite direction of Y-City. The last time the three of them had fled for their lives in the middle of the night, they hadn’t gotten a clear look at their surroundings. This time, Tang Yu made a mental note, memorizing about seventy to eighty percent of the mountain’s terrain.

The mountain range ran from east to west. They headed north, crossing over a pass. As they looked back in the morning light, their small camp at the foot of the mountain was buried in the dense forest, almost invisible.

The peaks here were quite high. From the halfway point up, the mountains were covered in coniferous plants like pines, firs, and cypresses. Tang Yu committed this to memory, excitedly sharing her future plans with her teammates. If the camp grew and they needed to expand their housing, this wood would be an excellent choice.

After hiking for seven or eight hours, signs of logging and human activity gradually increased. They were getting very close to Shen Xu’s camp. Xiao Li told the other two that Shen Xu’s camp was called North Stream, named directly after the river below it. The people in the camp usually shortened it to North Camp, something she had learned during her captivity.

The closer they got to North Camp, the more Tang Yu felt that something was wrong.

From a great distance, they could see thick smoke rising above North Camp. This black smoke didn’t look like it was from cooking fires.

The three of them abandoned their leisurely mood and immediately raised their alertness to the maximum.

They approached North Camp, dropping to a crawl in the dense woods behind the camp to observe the situation in secret.

From the other side of the wire fence came the sounds of clamor and fighting. However, their line of sight was blocked by the walls, so the three of them couldn’t see clearly what was happening inside.

A figure ran out from North Camp’s only exit, pursued by two or three Molotov cocktails.

The deserter was hit by a Molotov cocktail and immediately burst into flames. He quickly rolled on the dirt ground a few times, but his clothes and skin were soaked in fuel, making his efforts futile.

A moment later, two men, one tall and one short, came out of the camp and dragged the severely burned deserter back inside.

“Tsk, the infighting has really started,” Tang Yu muttered under her breath.

She had suspected this might happen. With Shen Xu and most of the high-combat-power vanguard dead in Y-City, North Camp was bound to undergo a change. The remaining people would either disband and go their separate ways, or a new leader would emerge to stabilize the situation.

North Camp had clearly chosen the second option. After all, the camp wasn’t that amicable; parting on good terms was somewhat unlikely.

But the transition between old and new often sparked conflict, especially in an environment like North Camp, which had long been managed by brute force. People there would become particularly reverent of power.

Tang Yu guessed that a survivor with some remaining strength was trying to forcibly take over the camp, but others refused to submit, leading to a factional dispute.

However, Tang Yu hadn’t expected the camp to still be enforcing the rule Jian Wu had mentioned: death to anyone who leaves.

So dark, Tang Yu thought to herself. Her own “A Close and Loving Family” was so much better. Every one of her little companions was so lovely.

Xiao Li asked in a hushed voice, “What do we do? It’s chaotic in there right now, so we can’t really pick up any scraps.”

Tang Yu murmured in the communication channel, “No, no, chaos makes it easier to pick up scraps. Look, there isn’t even anyone on patrol outside right now. They’re all guarding the inside.”

When the snipe and the clam grapple, the fisherman profits. She loved to see it.

Tang Yu looked at the wire fence. More dead birds were hanging on it, and even some electrocuted zombies. Perhaps North Camp was in too much turmoil to spare the manpower to clean up these rotting corpses. They just hung there, conveniently reminding Tang Yu that the fence was still electrified.

This is easy!

The first time they came, Tang Yu and Jin Ye were in their initial bodies and were helpless against this defense.

But now, she had an ability!

Tang Yu gave some instructions in the communication channel, and in the blink of an eye, she vanished from her spot.

Perhaps determined not to let anyone escape, the only entrance was blocked with a dense array of sharp wooden spikes. But at this moment, these defenses had been partially breached by the earlier deserter, leaving a gap. Two guards were currently repositioning the wooden spikes.

Having activated her invisibility, Tang Yu deftly twisted her body and slipped through the gap. She didn’t attack the guards, as that would expose her position. She had a better way to get her teammates in.

Tang Yu strolled through the camp as if no one was there, assessing North Camp’s situation. The scene inside was even worse than she had imagined.

The entire camp was divided internally into eastern and western halves, with two rows of sharp wooden spikes placed right down the middle. Piles of fire left by Molotov cocktails were everywhere; the black smoke Tang Yu had seen earlier was coming from these fires.

Two groups of armed men stood guard in front of the spikes, glaring at each other. For now, there were no signs of them making a move, likely still in a state of mutual deterrence. But judging by the state of North Camp, this standoff had probably been going on for half a month. At this point, any small incident could become the spark that ignites the powder keg.

But these people were a whole level weaker than the vanguard soldiers Tang Yu had encountered before.

The open-air stage, previously used for distributing congee, had been turned into a concentration area for the wounded. A group of grimy people were huddled together, held at gunpoint. They seemed to be the weakest members at the bottom of North Camp’s hierarchy. The deserter who had just been captured was now sitting among them, soaking wet.

Tang Yu bypassed the guards on both sides and walked onto the stage for a closer look.

The people huddled together were all injured to varying degrees, but none of the wounds were fatal. An armed man was shouting at them, “Every single one of you wants to run! If you run, who’s going to do the work? Anyone else who tries to leave the camp, I’ll break your legs.”

The people on the ground flinched. Clearly, his words were more than just a threat.

Tang Yu’s eyebrows furrowed into two knots. She hadn’t realized how unstable North Camp was when Jian Wu mentioned it before. With the strongest person holding things together, the deep-seated rot had been kept in check. Once that strong person was gone, the festering sores rose to the surface.

The captured deserters hadn’t been killed, likely because the camp was short on manpower. A large camp like this needed labor for food and electricity. If everyone died, there would be no point in holding the camp.

Another armed man was forcing these sick and injured people to choose a side. Tang Yu stopped to listen for a while and got a grasp of the two factions.

One faction leader was a brute, called Eighth Master, who was now the person with the highest points and strongest abilities in all of North Camp.

The other faction leader was a strategist, full of ideas and with a gentler demeanor. He had once been an aide to Shen Xu and was known as Teacher Gu.

After getting the general idea, Tang Yu lost interest. Leaders who disregarded the lives of their camp members were no good, no matter who they were.

Her gaze fell upon a woman. She wore glasses and a white lab coat, moving among the sick and wounded.

It was Zhou Zhou.

Zhou Zhou was applying medicine to the burn victim.

An armed man reminded her, “Professor Zhou, just put some medicine on him. As long as he doesn’t die, it’s fine.”

“Okay,” Zhou Zhou replied, her expression unchanging, making it impossible to tell if she was being forced or had agreed willingly.

Tang Yu withdrew her gaze, turned, and left the square, heading toward the westernmost building in the first row. The rumbling sound of a generator was coming from there. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was the power room.

As she passed the vanguard’s barracks, Tang Yu glanced inside through the barred window.

That one glance gave her another piece of information.

Inside the barracks, four people were sitting opposite each other at a wooden table, their faces grim. They seemed to be in negotiations.

The door was locked, and Tang Yu couldn’t walk through walls. She could only press herself against the barred window to listen, but most of the sound was blocked by the thin glass. After listening for a while, she only managed to catch words like “take turns” and “one year.”

Sitting on either side of the table were the so-called Eighth Master and Teacher Gu. Well, well, after fighting for so long, they were actually considering taking turns managing North Camp.

Tang Yu snorted with disdain internally. Two leaders who were at odds with each other and had conflicting philosophies taking turns leading? One could only imagine how miserable the workers under them would be. These two were bound to start fighting again sooner or later.

Tang Yu thought, maybe I should give them a hand.

The “hand” in her mind was a completely different concept from its literal meaning.

Tang Yu memorized their faces, left the vanguard barracks, circled around to the back of North Camp, and then returned to the front row of buildings.

As Tang Yu had expected, the power room was indeed on the west side and was secured with an iron lock. Tang Yu raised Startling Dragon and waved it a couple of times, thinking, Attacking a lock shouldn’t count as an attack, right? It won’t reveal my position, will it?

As she thought this, her knife had already fallen. Tang Yu reached out and caught the iron lock, which instantly vanished into thin air.

On the tense square, no one noticed the door to the power room being pushed open a crack and then gently closed again.

Managing a large camp was complicated, so all the equipment had been labeled with paper strips to help the person on duty identify them. This, however, made things convenient for Tang Yu.

The power room was empty, with only the machines rumbling loudly. Tang Yu ran her fingers over the equipment and quickly found the switch for the electric fence. A smile spread across her face as she gently pulled the lever, watching the indicator light above it turn from green to red.

“Climb in over the rearmost wire fence. I’ve turned off the power. Everyone’s in the square right now, so the back is clear,” Tang Yu notified Jin Ye and Xiao Li in the group chat.

The power to the wire fence was cut silently. No one in North Camp noticed. They were still immersed in their gang warfare, unaware that the cunning fisherwoman Tang Yu had robbed them blind.

Tang Yu hurried to the rear to rendezvous with her teammates. She first synchronized with Jin Ye and Xiao Li about the current situation in North Camp, then used her invisibility to brazenly dart around the camp.

She figured out the locations of the food and weapon storerooms, then led the other two to move ten handguns, three bags of rice, five bags of flour, ten jin of potatoes, and two small bags of seeds from some unknown crop.

Most people used invisibility for sneak attacks; only Tang Yu used it for theft.

Using the rear wall of the camp, the three of them managed to get the stolen supplies out.

For firearms, they had only managed to steal spare handguns, which didn’t seem to be high-grade. The more advanced weapons were currently in the hands of the people in North Camp, so Tang Yu couldn’t get them for now. Furthermore, the generator they coveted most was too big and heavy to move at the moment.

Once they had stolen a sufficient amount, Tang Yu set her sights on Zhou Zhou. She remembered Jian Wu mentioning that Zhou Zhou’s research lab was on the right side of the camp, directly behind the open-air stage.

The research lab should have medicine, or at the very least, surgical supplies like scalpels, syringes, tourniquets, disinfectant, and anesthetics. After all, when Captain Liang had captured them, he had mentioned “letting Zhou Zhou open her skull for research.”

These were the things Tang Yu and her group were in desperate need of. Even if no one in their camp knew how to use them, if the time came when they were needed, they wouldn’t know where to find them.

But the research lab was right under everyone’s noses. How to steal from it was still a problem.