Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 48

Tang Yu lifted one end of the wooden pole and carefully flipped the corpse over. In the dim light of night, the water around the body was a deeper shade than elsewhere. Tang Yu recognized it as bl00d.

Looking closely at the corpse’s face, she saw it was a man as skinny as a monkey.

It was indeed one of the three men they had just encountered.

Tang Yu sucked in a cold breath and retracted the pole.

They had been following them from a distance the whole time, yet they hadn’t heard any gunshots or noticed any disturbance on the water’s surface. How did he die?

An ambush. The women grew vigilant. Each freed a hand to draw their weapon, forming a back-to-back circle as they scanned their surroundings for any movement.

Without anyone paddling, the raft came to a stop in the middle of the water.

Just then, a dark cloud slowly drifted over the moon, extinguishing the surrounding light. An ink-black shadow fell over the water’s surface, and over the hearts of the women.

It was so dark.

Beads of sweat formed on Tang Yu’s forehead. The situation was highly unfavorable for them.

In the silence, a faint sound of something cutting through the air shot toward them from the front. It was as subtle as the wind rustling through bamboo leaves, yet it was aimed straight for the space between Tang Yu’s eyebrows.

Just as Tang Yu raised her knife, she heard it hum as if it had collided with metal.

Someone was ambushing them.

But the attacker was hidden in a darkness so thick it felt impenetrable, and none of them could pinpoint their position.

They had expected a second attack to follow immediately, but the five of them waited for a long while, and the ambusher did not strike again. During the stalemate, the moonlight broke through the clouds once more, casting its glow upon the water.

“Strange. Why attack once and then run?” Tang Yu muttered, looking down at the weapon that had just flown through the air.

It was a silver needle. Startling Dragon had deflected most of its momentum, and it was now lodged diagonally in the wood, its tip buried halfway, a testament to the force behind it.

Tang Yu bent down to pick it up but was stopped by Jin Ye’s hand. “Be careful, the needle might be poisoned.”

Those who used silver needles as weapons often supplemented them with poison, since a needle alone was unlikely to be fatal. Such weapons were rarely used in the apocalypse, but for ambushes and long-range attacks, they were incredibly effective, just like now.

Tang Yu ignored the needle for the moment and poled the raft closer to the skinny man’s corpse.

They first checked the corpse’s forehead; there was no needle hole. The man hadn’t been shot to death.

Tang Yu prodded the body a couple of times with the pole and found the fatal wound on the neck. There was a neat incision, as if a silver wire had been tightened around his neck, cutting his windpipe and causing his death.

A shiver ran down their spines as they looked at it.

Just as Tang Yu was about to straighten up, she caught a flash of silver in the corner of her eye.

“Get down! Stay low!” Tang Yu shouted, swinging her knife at the empty night air.

A faint sound, like a zither string snapping, rang in their ears. A second later, and they would have shared the skinny man’s fate, their throats slit.

In the air just above the river, someone had stretched a thin metal wire. If not for the moonlight’s reflection and Tang Yu’s enhanced vision, it would have been nearly impossible for an ordinary person to notice the anomaly.

What a vicious weapon.

In just half a day, Tang Yu’s eyes had been opened. The players she usually encountered mostly used guns; she never imagined there were so many strange and hidden weapons.

Tang Yu hauled the skinny man’s body onto the raft and stripped off his gloves, backpack, and the tool pouch on his belt.

They had no tools at all right now, so they had to scavenge what they could.

After a brief moment of shock, the others also began to search the body. The skinny man had a compass and a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck, which had kept them from sinking into the water.

For some reason, his other two teammates were nowhere to be seen, and they hadn’t taken these tools with them.

The four of them divided the supplies. Jin Ye took the backpack, which contained a folding shovel, a set of ropes and pulleys, a small medical kit, and five packs of compressed biscuits.

Tang Yu fastened the tool pouch to her waist. It held a climbing axe, a multi-tool folding knife, and a camping light with a wrist strap, all securely fastened.

After confirming there was nothing else of use, Tang Yu pushed the skinny man’s body back into the water.

They poled the raft forward for a while longer until the river channel suddenly narrowed, revealing a terrain that was half land and half water.

The vegetation on the land was lush. Among the reeds by the bank, a floating object bobbed up and down with the ripples. Tang Yu’s sharp eyes recognized it as the inflatable raft used by the three brothers. It was empty now; she didn’t know if the other two had fallen into the water or gone ashore.

Jin Ye steered the raft to a stop near the inflatable one and tied the extra length of vine to a tree on the bank. The four of them went ashore one by one, and someone quickly noticed that the grass by the water had been trampled.

Tang Yu glanced back at the center of the river and made a judgment.

The person who fired the silver needle was likely hiding here when they ambushed them.

“Let’s go. We’ll check the woods,” Tang Yu said, holding Startling Dragon in her hand as she led the way into the dense forest.

Tang Yu and her group were very sensitive to the scent of bl00d. They noticed that the deeper they went into the woods, the stronger the smell became. Dark brown drops of bl00d appeared on the leaves. They quickened their pace, following the scent.

Soon, they saw a dark figure stopped in the grass. The figure occasionally made a gurgling sound, like someone choking on a mouthful of water.

Tang Yu lunged forward. With a swift movement of her knife, she pressed the tip to the figure’s brow before it could react.

But the man didn’t resist, or rather, he was unable to. His neck had also been cut by a thin wire and was bleeding profusely, staining all the surrounding grass red.

This was the tall one of the three brothers. Beneath him lay the body of the other, fatter man, who was face down in the mud, a deep gash also visible on the side of his neck.

From the looks of it, the fat man had been carrying the tall one while fleeing, tripped on a root, and finally succumbed to his injuries here.

Tang Yu looked at the dying tall man before her, frowning in hesitation for a moment. She had Zhou Zhou translate, “Choose to stay in the game later. We have questions for you.”

After speaking, Tang Yu extended her claws and scratched the man’s hand.

The game notification told Tang Yu that the tall man’s name was Li Chengjian. His injury was less severe than the skinny man’s; the silver wire had sliced his neck and damaged an artery, but it hadn’t been completely severed.

Li Chengjian was quickly zombified. After turning, the bl00d flow from his wound slowed noticeably. He snapped his eyes open, flipped over, clutched his neck with one hand, and threw a punch at Tang Yu with the other.

“Hey, didn’t this player stay in the game?” Seeing the man’s frenzied actions, Tang Yu fumed. Why was it so hard to convert a conscious zombie?

But Li Chengjian spoke. “You killed my brother. I’ll make you pay with your life.” With that, he reached for the weapon at his waist.

Tang Yu saw it was a silver needle launcher made of two silver tubes. This man was indeed the one who had ambushed them. She twirled her knife, sidestepped his punch, and then shot her hand out, pressing the flat of the blade firmly against his neck. “Don’t move. Want to have your throat slit a second time?”

Li Chengjian froze. Clarity finally returned to his eyes. He pursed his lips and tilted his head, his gaze filled with confusion and ferocity, but he finally stopped howling.

“Does he think we were the ones who set the wire trap?” Fu Mengqing realized and said to Tang Yu. Their companion had just had his throat slit, and the five of them appeared on the scene right after. It certainly made them look like the culprits who had come to inspect their work.

“Weren’t you?” Li Chengjian’s throat gurgled. His larynx was injured, making it difficult for him to speak clearly.

“We almost got our throats slit too. Don’t go making false accusations,” Tang Yu said, tapping Li Chengjian’s neck with the flat of her blade. “I have questions for you. Answer honestly. Have you seen two girls, one petite and the other blind?”

“No.” Li Chengjian was sparing with his words. He looked at the four women and finally added, “You’re zombies? Zombies can communicate?”

Tang Yu and Jin Ye exchanged a glance. This person probably hadn’t read the server-wide forum.

“Zombies can’t, but we can,” Tang Yu replied.

“If you didn’t set the trap, then who did?” Li Chengjian’s mind was still on revenge. It seemed that was his reason for choosing to stay in the game.

“You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?” Tang Yu continued, “Are you sure you haven’t seen those two girls? What about hearing anything? Like… about a blind person.”

Tang Yu suddenly remembered that the twenty-odd people in the swamp had mentioned the word “blind man.”

As expected, Li Chengjian reacted. He looked puzzled. “You’re also looking for the blind man?”

“Didn’t I just say? The girls we’re looking for, one of them is blind.”

Li Chengjian snorted. “The blind man isn’t a girl. He’s an old man.”

“What?” Now all four of them were confused. Where did an old blind man come from?

“In this Ghost Valley lives a blind man. He knows some beast-taming arts and keeps company with wolves, tigers, and bears,” Li Chengjian explained. He took off his backpack with one hand, pulled out a bottle of what looked like hemostatic powder, and poured it all over the wound on his neck.

“Is the blind man an NPC?”

“No, he’s a player with a rather eccentric personality.”

“Then why are other people looking for him?”

Li Chengjian glanced at them. After their conversation, he already believed that Tang Yu’s group had truly come to Ghost Valley to find someone. Since they weren’t enemies, he dropped his hostility. After a moment’s thought, he said, “There’s a rumor that a large tomb has appeared in this valley, and it contains high-level weapons. But entering this tomb requires a pack of wolves to clear the way, so everyone goes to find this old blind man first… But this is just a rumor, no guarantee it’s true. Rumors like this pop up every so often.”

Tang Yu immediately lost interest. As she’d figured, players were after things dug up from dead people’s piles.

To be honest, she had no fondness for tombs. Even if they were filled with gold and jewels, she would steer clear. After all, she was a bit afraid of ghosts—afraid of those ethereal things you couldn’t cut or touch.

Zombies could be killed, but ghosts couldn’t.

As he spoke, Li Chengjian’s gaze fell on the hilt of Tang Yu’s knife. He let out a sound of surprise. “That’s Cold Ice Jade.”

“What’s that?” Tang Yu had a bad feeling.

Li Chengjian gently pushed Tang Yu’s knife aside with his hand and pointed at the hilt. “Doesn’t it feel cool to the touch? And it never warms up, no matter how much you heat it? This is Cold Ice Jade, completely black. A player dug it out of a large tomb in the western mountains before. It was sold off later. To think it’s now in the hands of a zombie.”

Seemingly on the topic of his expertise, Li Chengjian became a bit more talkative.

Hiss. Tang Yu quickly sheathed Startling Dragon and wiped her hands on her clothes.

Tang Yu had picked up Startling Dragon from the exploded vehicle. Even though it had been scorched by high temperatures, it had felt cool to the touch.

So this thing came with its own chilling aura!

“Don’t be so resistant,” Li Chengjian said. “Countless people want this thing and can’t get it.”

Tang Yu shifted her attention from the knife. She asked, “How many players have you seen come here?”

“About ten teams.”

“That many?”

“Yes, and that’s just the ones I’ve seen.”

Tang Yu took a deep breath. With so many people around, what would happen if Xiao Li and Fu Xingyue ran into other players?

Their only consolation now was that Xiao Li and Fu Xingyue were still in human form. If they appeared as zombies, their situation would be a hundred times more dangerous.

Seeing the grave expressions on their faces, Li Chengjian said, “It seems you really are here to find people. How about this: we travel together. I’m often active in this area, so I can help guide you. But if we run into the player who uses silver wire, you have to help me get revenge. How about it?”

“Deal,” Tang Yu agreed with a clap of her hands, then pointed at the fat man’s corpse on the ground. “Do you mind if we take the supplies?”

Li Chengjian glanced at the pack on Jin Ye’s back. “Haven’t you already done that?”

Tang Yu gave an embarrassed laugh and quickly stripped the fat man of his supplies as well. She handed the backpack to Fu Mengqing and the weapon, a small dagger, to Jin Ye.

Then, the group explained to Li Chengjian the circumstances of their teammates’ fall from the cliff and the clues they had found.

Li Chengjian thought for a moment and said, “The girl named Xiao Li was probably picked up by other players. Players tend to follow the river downstream. If we head forward, we might be able to catch up. As for the other girl, the place where she fell—were there hanging coffins on the cliff face?”

“Hanging coffins?!” All of them stared with wide eyes.

“It seems not. Then she’s probably not in the river’s basin. You’ll likely have to follow the river to an underground stream, then pass through a forest. She should be around there.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“The burial custom of the natives here is to build hanging coffins on the cliffs above the river. The coffin lids aren’t nailed shut. The bodies are either pecked by birds and ascend to heaven, or they fall into the water below as the wooden coffin rots. The belief is that people are born from water and return to water in death. They don’t build hanging coffins on cliffs that aren’t over water. Besides, you mentioned seeing mist. The forest at the end of the river is shrouded in miasma year-round. That’s probably the thick fog you saw.”

Tang Yu rubbed the goosebumps on her arms.

Li Chengjian had provided very useful information. They decided to follow the river downstream to see if they could find Xiao Li first, then go to the miasmic forest to find Fu Xingyue.

By the time their discussion ended, it was the latter half of the night. After some deliberation, they decided to backtrack to retrieve the inflatable raft and then travel by land.

The river’s gradient increased downstream, making the current faster. There might be more silver wires stretched across the water. If they noticed too late or couldn’t stop in time, their necks would be slit.

The forest was teeming with beasts, insects, and birds. They even encountered some wandering zombies, their clothes rotted beyond recognition, making it impossible to tell what they had been.

The group detoured whenever possible, avoiding fights almost entirely. Firstly, the sound of fighting could easily attract the attention of other players. Secondly, there was no benefit for them in killing these wild animals and zombies.

However, Tang Yu did catch a rabbit and hung it on Fu Mengqing’s backpack as their next meal.

Every few steps, Li Chengjian would glance at Zhou Zhou. Having a human in the group made his gums itch with an unbearable craving.

“The weakest little girl in our team can control her desire to bite people. You’d better not get any ideas,” Tang Yu said, poking Li Chengjian in the spine with her climbing axe to make him focus on the path.

Li Chengjian pursed his lips and said nothing, turning his head to walk at the very front.

After walking for two or three hours, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, they saw people standing under the trees ahead in the morning light.

There were quite a few of them, a scattered group of thirty to forty people.

Tang Yu quickly pulled the others down into the grass. Fearing that the group of players might have someone with an ability to locate by sound, they crawled backward a short distance.

Tang Yu parted the blades of grass and saw two familiar teams in the crowd. One was Lan Lin’s, whom she had met in Huang Village. She had swapped her cheongsam for a dark yellow windbreaker.

Li Chengjian muttered, “Wearing yellow in the mountains. Isn’t she afraid of being carried away by bugs?” Most insects are phototactic, and some are extremely sensitive to yellow, swarming towards it, especially a type of small black insect called thrips.

The other team was one Tang Yu was all too familiar with: Song Lengzhu’s.

Tang Yu wasn’t surprised by Song Lengzhu’s appearance. That team was always on the front lines of any mission, masters of showing up unexpectedly. If she didn’t run into them, Tang Yu would actually feel a bit strange.

Tang Yu shifted her gaze, surveying the rest of the people. They seemed to be a patchwork of about ten teams, each led by their own captain, resting by the trees. On the side closer to the river, dozens of inflatable rafts of various sizes were moored. By the looks of it, they had camped here for the night and were now preparing to set off again.

With such a large force, were they going to find the great tomb Li Chengjian had mentioned?

Tang Yu and her group were too far away to hear the specific conversations, but their guess was surely pretty much on the mark.

Tang Yu searched the crowd for Xiao Li, but unfortunately, she was not among them.

Soon, the large group began to move. Tang Yu suddenly saw two people in a raft, fiddling with something at opposite ends of the bank.

The rising sun had already cast its gentle rays. In the reflection of the light, Tang Yu could clearly see what the two were holding. It was silver wire!

This was a team of players she had never seen before. Based on their positions, the team had four members, two men and two women. One of the men was pulling the silver wire from a spool at his waist.

The wire was extremely thin. Judging by their movements alone, the two looked as if they were performing a dance in mid-air.

Li Chengjian took out his silver needle launcher. His points had been reset to zero, but his skill with hidden weapons hadn’t rusted one bit. With a pull and a push of the two silver tubes, he was about to fire a needle.

“Wait a bit longer,” Tang Yu said, shaking her head to stop him.

Someone in the main group shouted, “Qin San, stop setting up that stupid thing! What’s the point of blocking anyone? You can’t stop a real expert. The players coming up behind are just like us, let’s have a fair competition.”

The player called Qin San had a shifty look. He chuckled, “What’s wrong, isn’t this fair competition? Using dirty tricks requires skill too. You couldn’t do it even if you tried.”

“Whatever,” the player who had spoken spat, ignoring him and turning to step onto his raft.

The others also boarded their boats, preparing to depart. As a result, Qin San’s team fell to the very back.

“Go,” Tang Yu said, patting Li Chengjian and Jin Ye. The three of them, holding their cold weapons, closed in on Qin San’s group, who were still setting up the silver wire.