“Captain Qin, what exactly is the plan?” Fu Qi asked.
The title sent the zombie’s vanity soaring. She nearly rushed in without a second thought to rescue them.
But now that she was a captain, she had to be steadier than she had been when she was a lone zombie.
Qin Zhen rubbed her cheeks and calmed herself before saying, “You wait here. I’ll go in and see where the people are, knock them out, and carry them out.”
The method was far too simple and brutal.
Fu Qi reminded her, “They have guns.”
“Just for show,” the zombie said, unconcerned.
Fu Qi smiled and asked, “There are so many of them. How are you going to carry them all out?”
Qin Zhen thought for a moment and said, “Find a pet-store cage, put, put them inside, and carry, carry it out. Then they, they can’t bite.”
Fu Qi: “…”
Poor Thunder Squad.
Out of camaraderie between special forces teams, and out of sympathy for their fellow humans, Fu Qi said, “First of all, they must be acting separately. If you can’t knock them all out at the same time, your actions could very well be discovered.”
If she was discovered, that meant her identity might be called into question.
Qin Zhen frowned and thought for a moment before saying, “We’ll just say I used a zombie dis, disruptor!”
“That stuff is in limited supply and strictly registered. The moment they check the records, they’ll know we’re lying.”
“Then what?”
Fu Qi lowered his head and twirled a strand of hair that had fallen onto the tip of her nose. He offered a suggestion. “Darling…”
The zombie shot him a sharp look, and he wisely changed course.
“Captain, mess up your hair, wipe off your makeup, and go in disguised as a zombie. Then no one will suspect you, right?”
Qin Zhen’s eyes lit up, and she was about to agree when she noticed Five-Three, tied to a tree and struggling as it howled.
Five-Three was a carriage-puller she had deliberately chosen. It was strong and sturdy, and relatively clean—not like the other zombies, who were covered in filthy blood and smelled so awful that whenever a zombie came near them, its brain would go numb. The damage to one’s intelligence was comparable to advanced mathematics.
The reason it was clean was that before Qin Zhen had harnessed it to pull the sled, she had held it down in the snow and scrubbed it clean.
If she disguised herself as a zombie, she wouldn’t be able to use her peachwood sword to drive the zombies away. She would have to make her way through the stinking horde like an idiot.
Those zombies hadn’t bathed in years!
“No, no!” The zombie shook her head in horror. “The smell will fum, fumigate my brain into mush!”
Fu Qi secretly smiled, then put on an expression of helplessness. “That is a problem. And secondly, there are at least tens of thousands of zombies inside. Even if they can’t bite you, they’ll gather as soon as they smell you. Once they block the road, you’re only one zombie. How are you going to push through?”
“…Oh. Right.”
Captain Qin felt that things were getting very difficult.
Her brain had only been up and running for a few months, and she still wasn’t good at thinking through such complicated problems.
After furrowing her brows and racking her brains for a while, inspiration suddenly struck. She raised her head and eyed Fu Qi suspiciously.
“When you suggested disguising myself as a zombie, were you, were you just messing with me again?”
Fu Qi coughed. “Of course not. How would I dare…”
He quickly changed the subject. “If we want to rescue them, the first thing we need to do is find out how many of them are still alive, where they’re located, and establish contact…”
Captain Qin was eager to save them, so her attention was easily redirected.
No matter how much they thought about it, doing was better than thinking. To keep heavy snowfall from delaying them further, they immediately put their plan into action as soon as they had an idea.
The method was exceedingly simple: they picked up a loudspeaker from a vegetable stall by the roadside and shouted toward the hospital.
“Anyone from the Thunder Squad still, still alive? Zombie Sis is here to rescue you! If you can hear me, please, please respond!”
Qin Zhen hid inside a cardboard box that had once held a refrigerator. She held a clothes-drying pole in her hands, thrusting it through a hole in the top of the box and raising it high above her head. At the very top was a bright red loudspeaker.
With the volume turned all the way up, the loudspeaker attracted a great many zombies. But because it carried no human scent, the zombies merely followed it without attacking.
This had also been Fu Qi’s idea. As long as Qin Zhen didn’t show herself, they could tell the Thunder Squad that the box contained a hotel robot if anyone asked.
Pretending to be a robot was far better than pretending to be a zombie!
Captain Qin threw herself into her role. Meanwhile, Fu Qi dispatched several zombies with swift strokes before following a water pipe up to the roof of a nearby high-rise. Narrowing his eyes, he surveyed the area. When he saw no response, he picked up two small stones and tossed them at the cardboard box.
At the sound of the two sharp taps, the zombie knew there was no one there. Holding the box aloft, she hurried toward the next block.
Those who weren’t afraid of zombies traveled below, carrying the box as they charged through the streets. Those who were afraid of zombies borrowed climbing nuts, quickdraws, dynamic ropes, and other equipment to move nimbly across the rooftops and between buildings.
Several times, Qin Zhen stopped and looked up through the gaps in the box. She saw Fu Qi swinging through the high-rises on ropes, as agile as a monkey. Each time, she felt especially sorry for the zombies he lured toward the windows before sending them plummeting down with a wet thud.
It was truly miserable to be brainless.
Fu Qi had brought the climbing gear out of the Dayu Base. Qin Zhen had already seen him use it the last time they had gone into the city to search for supplies.
Even seeing it again, she couldn’t help sighing. How else could humans, so physically fragile, have ruled the Earth for thousands of years?
Their minds were quick, and they invented so many things. Even in the apocalypse, they still managed to create all kinds of strange tools and use them with remarkable flexibility.
No wonder Fu Qi and Academician Jiang both said that eliminating the zombies wouldn’t be difficult for humanity.
Thinking this, the zombie worked together with the human, advancing bit by bit toward the hospital. At last, just as the sun was about to set, they received a response.
A white bedsheet floated from a ninth-floor window of the inpatient building. Scrawled across it in bold, sweeping characters was a breakdown of their numbers and locations.
Eight people were still alive in total. Three were on the ninth floor, while five were trapped in the pharmacy on the first floor of the outpatient building. Their survival was unknown.
The three on the ninth floor were clearly hiding in a hospital room and still had signs of life. The first floor of the outpatient building, however, was packed tightly with zombies. Not a sound came from inside.
Fu Qi happened to be between the two buildings. After briefly weighing his options, he used a climbing rope to swing toward the outpatient building, slowly probing several windows on the first floor.
It was an extremely difficult task. He had to control the rope and adjust his position while fending off the densely packed zombies gathering below. At the same time, he had to be wary of a zombie suddenly lunging out of a window.
One zombie even stepped on its fellow corpses and leaped into the air. If Fu Qi hadn’t reacted quickly, it would have grabbed him.
He kicked the zombie away and was about to move to the other side of the building when he suddenly saw a familiar shadow among the mass of corpses.
At first, Fu Qi thought the fading light had played a trick on him. But then he saw the long ropes trailing from the figure, and he suddenly broke into a smile.
It was a uniquely shaped zombie.
She was skinny to the point of gauntness. Aside from her exposed, blue-black hands, almost none of her body was visible, because a large yellow plastic bag covered her head. Printed across the bag in big characters were the words “Medical Waste Bag,” and it concealed her entire upper body.
The chances of her accidentally falling into a trash can and having the bag slip over her were incredibly low.
Fu Qi suspected she had put it on herself.
Perhaps she had a cleanliness obsession.
The “Clean-Freak Zombie” pushed her way through the crowded horde, baring her teeth and waving her claws as she secretly tied ropes around the necks, waists, and legs of the other zombies. Once each knot was secure, she continued charging forward.
She squeezed and shoved her way through the mass of zombies, dragging the ropes behind her as she tied one knot after another around their bodies.
By the time only the tail end of the rope remained in her hands, she abruptly went from charging forward to looking small and delicate, shoved out to the edge by the mass of zombies.
Fu Qi waited until she had finished and found a safe place to hide. Then he swung on the powered line a few times. On the next swing back toward the wall, he bent his knee, pushed off hard with his foot, and transferred himself through the air to the opposite building.
The struggling zombies below surged after him. At that moment, the few zombies that the Clean-Freak Zombie had secretly tied up with rope formed a net.
The more violently the horde surged, the more zombies were caught and tripped. Before long, they had tumbled into a mountain of flesh.
And because they couldn’t untangle the net, they remained trapped for quite some time.
Fu Qi laughed at the sight. He looked into the distance and saw the Clean-Freak Zombie, who had been “forced” out of the horde, crouching in the shadows. She was nothing more than a yellowish lump, and he couldn’t make out a thing.
He guessed she must be secretly gloating.
Fu Qi glanced at the gradually darkening sky, then leaped into a concealed corner and set up the powered line so it could be raised and lowered. He crooked a finger at the Clean-Freak Zombie.
The Clean-Freak Zombie saw him. Soon, she came wobbling toward him again, dragging a string of rope behind her. As before, she secretly tied the rope around other zombies while squeezing her way forward.
Too slow.
After watching her for a while, Fu Qi suddenly dropped a short distance, as if he had lost control. The zombies below went berserk and surged forward.
That frightened the zombie who had been diligently causing trouble.
She thought something had gone wrong with Fu Qi’s equipment. Dropping the rope, she viciously shoved aside every zombie in her path and hurried forward.
At last, she squeezed her way to the front. Just as she saw a zombie’s head being hacked off and jumped in fright, she tried to retreat—but the zombies packed behind her pushed her forward.
She went headfirst into Fu Qi’s arms.
“Ow!” she cried, stumbling.
An arm caught her around the waist, and a cheerful voice laughed beside her ear. “Who was so inconsiderate as to throw medical waste at me?”
The Clean-Freak Zombie glared at him, wanting to tell him that he was heartless. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw several zombies lunging toward them. Her heart jolted. She tried to turn around and shield Fu Qi, but suddenly, an arm tightened around her waist and lifted her off the ground.
The powered line carried both of them upward. Qin Zhen hurriedly wrapped her arms around Fu Qi and, at the same time, kicked the zombies away.
His thick-soled leather boot distorted one zombie’s jaw with the blow.
“Cool move, Captain Qin.” Fu Qi’s voice rang beside her ear, his breath stirring the trash bag over her head with a soft, rustling sound. It tickled, too.
They had already escaped the zombies’ attack range. Qin Zhen was a little afraid of heights, so she bumped her forehead against his chest and refused to speak to him.
Fu Qi continued, “Thanks for coming to save me, Captain Qin.”
That was clearly teasing. Qin Zhen could tell he had deliberately lowered himself just now, waiting for her to come looking for him.
She grew angry and pinched him with the hand wrapped around his back. But when she spread her fingers, she touched his firm, powerful back muscles.
The zombie instantly remembered that she had never properly felt Fu Qi’s physique. With the right time and place handed to her, she casually gave him two hard squeezes.
Fu Qi’s body went rigid. He scolded her in a low voice beside her ear, “Stop touching me.”
“So stingy,” Qin Zhen muttered.
Perhaps afraid that she would continue, Fu Qi found a nearby hospital room, kicked open the window, and tossed Qin Zhen inside.
Qin Zhen rolled across the floor, then got to her feet and chased the zombies away with a chair. Once she had driven them off and locked the door, Fu Qi had already gathered up his equipment and come inside.
The moment he entered, he asked, “Why did you come help me?”
Five years had passed. Aside from the people who came into the city to search for supplies, there were no living humans left. Once she had determined where the survivors were, Qin Zhen could move around boldly as long as she avoided their sight.
She had said earlier that it would be more convenient for her to act alone, and that she and Fu Qi should split up while she investigated from the shadows.
Now she stood ramrod straight and declared with righteous solemnity, “I’m the acting captain. I have to be responsible for the team’s—team member’s safety!”
Fu Qi couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “Do you like being captain that much?”
“Of course.”
Who didn’t like being in charge?
Still, aside from her responsibility toward her teammate, the main reason she had come to save Fu Qi was that she was worried about him. The equipment was supposedly advanced, but that rope was so thin…
“I was afraid you’d fall, get bitten, and turn into a zombie,” she said.
She had said something similar before, telling him that she hoped he would live a little longer.
Fu Qi hadn’t pursued the matter then, but now he said, “If I turned into a zombie, my brain would become useless, and you could bully me all you wanted. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Nice!” Qin Zhen said. “But zombies can’t talk to me. After a while, I’d lose my ability to speak again.”
Just like when they had first met.
There was nothing she could do about it. If Fu Qi turned into a zombie, there would be no one to help conceal her identity. She didn’t dare get to know any other humans, so she would have no choice but to find some random grave and return underground.
Once she went back underground, with no one to talk to, she would become mute again after three to five years.
Fu Qi seemed lost in thought. Only after a while did he speak.
“Then I’ll do my best to live as long as I can and keep you company for a little longer.”
With that, he stepped forward and lowered his head to tear away the trash bag covering Qin Zhen’s head.
But after ripping it open, he didn’t move his hand away. Instead, he rubbed the top of her head for a while, leaving the zombie’s hair sticking up in every direction.
Qin Zhen tried to push his hand away and heard him say, “Why is there such a strange smell? Don’t move. Let me smell you.”
The Clean-Freak Zombie immediately froze.
Fu Qi cupped her face and looked down at her.
She was extremely dedicated to her role as a zombie. She had already removed her makeup, and her blue-gray face tilted upward. Afraid that the smell might be coming from her, she nervously closed her eyes.
“It’s not coming from me, is it?” she asked.
“Don’t move. I’m still smelling.”
Fu Qi rubbed the top of her head, then lowered his head and leaned closer. His nose paused near her cheek. His breath moved upward, brushing over the tip of her nose before shifting to her forehead and finally landing on the top of her head.
Then he pinched the Clean-Freak Zombie’s cold cheek and said, “I wasn’t mistaken, sweetheart. You really do stink.”
Qin Zhen: “…”
She had even been wearing a trash bag to keep herself separated from the zombies!
