Fu Qi was shocked that an eight-year-old girl was swearing, but his intelligence remained intact. Once he noticed that the little girl was speaking politely while the zombie sat there without saying a word, he quickly realized that she had something to do with it.
If this really had nothing to do with her, she wouldn’t have been so quiet.
“Sweetie, we’ll discuss your education later.”
Fu Qi said this calmly, then turned and asked in a gentle voice, “Hello, the gap-toothed lady. Did my baby eat properly last night?”
The gap-toothed lady thought about it and said, “No.”
Fu Qi asked, “Why not?”
The gap-toothed lady hesitated twice, then turned to the ten-year-old girl. As the older sister, the girl explained clearly, “Bad people aren’t allowed to eat!”
Fu Qi asked, “And who are you?”
The ten-year-old girl said, “I’m the one who pinched your leg yesterday.”
The zombie, who was apparently responsible for teaching the children bad behavior, guiltily kept silent. Now that she heard this, her feelings were complicated. Yesterday, she had only seen the two children pounce on Fu Qi. She hadn’t known they had attacked him as well.
One had bitten him, and the other had pinched him.
How ruthless.
Poor Sweetie!
“Hello, Leg-Pinching Girl.” Fu Qi remained extremely gentlemanly and said politely, “Our baby is prone to low blood sugar, so she’ll get dizzy if she doesn’t eat. There are some candies in her bag. Could you please help unwrap one and feed it to her?”
The Leg-Pinching Girl hesitated.
“Did you confiscate her candy?”
“No!”
The girls were highly wary of their own kind. But Qin Zhen was also a woman, and she had not actually harmed them. Since the girls sensed no malicious threat from her, they had not hurt her. They had merely tied her up and placed her bag to one side.
“That’s good.” Fu Qi patiently reasoned with them. “Could you please feed her one piece of candy? In return, if you run short on medicine, I have more and can give you some.”
“All right.”
The Leg-Pinching Girl gave in. She threatened the zombie with her knife and ordered the gap-toothed girl to search the bag.
Having children at the age when they were most fond of snacks feed an adult candy?
There was no denying it: Fu Sweetie was a truly wicked thing!
Qin Zhen clearly heard the sound of candy being unwrapped, followed by the gap-toothed girl sucking in a mouthful of drool.
But the little girl showed remarkable self-control. She stubbornly put the candy into the zombie’s mouth, pulled the bag closed, and continued guarding her with the knife.
What a good child.
The zombie sighed inwardly as she bit down on the candy, making it crack loudly between her teeth. The sound made both little girls drool.
Fu Qi heard it too. With laughter in his voice, he said, “Sweetie, are you bored down in the cellar? I brought your sunflower seeds. Would you like some?”
“How am I supposed to eat them?” Qin Zhen asked. “I’m tied up. I can’t shell them.”
“Why not negotiate with them and have them untie you?” Fu Qi suggested. “Otherwise, you’ll have to trouble the two ladies and ask them to shell them for you.”
This wicked man had his eyes on two child laborers. The zombie’s conscience wouldn’t let her agree, but before she could say anything, the human pushed two little packets of sunflower seeds through the gap.
The zombie had no choice but to become his accomplice.
The two little girls picked up the sunflower seeds and exchanged troubled looks. They wanted to find the two older girls, but Ya and Li were inside cleaning the old man’s wounds and had no time to deal with them.
“Zombies are knocking on the gate again. I have to go repair the big iron gate. I’ll come back later to keep you company,” Fu Qi said from above. The crashing sound of zombies slamming into the gate could indeed be heard in the background. “Thank you for taking care of our baby, ladies. I’ll bring down some wound medicine later as thanks.”
The words “wound medicine” struck a perfect chord with the two little girls. After thinking it over, they sat down where they were and began shelling sunflower seeds for the zombie.
In the apocalypse, people had learned all kinds of skills, either willingly or by necessity. Ya and Li, both girls in their teens, had cleaned the old man’s wounds together. But when it was time to give him medicine, they weren’t sure about the dosage.
There were too many numbers on the instructions, and they couldn’t tell which dosage applied. When they came out to find Qin Zhen, they saw her crouching on the floor with the two little girls.
The girls were huddled around her, drooling as they shelled sunflower seeds and fed the kernels into her mouth. Of course, sometimes the zombie found their shelling too ugly and refused to eat what they offered. Those kernels ended up in the girls’ mouths instead.
A small mountain of sunflower-seed shells had already accumulated around their feet.
Ya stared in shock. “What are you two doing?”
The Leg-Pinching Girl chewed the sunflower-seed kernel and said, “Taking care of her. Fragrant Man will give us more medicine.”
Ya opened her mouth, then closed it again. In the end, she walked over with a stiff expression and showed Qin Zhen the instructions, asking how the medicine was supposed to be taken.
Qin Zhen sighed. “See? You can’t read. Even with medicine, you don’t know how to take it.”
Ya’s face flushed bright red, but for the sake of the old man, she endured the humiliation and said nothing.
Most of the time, written instructions were easy enough to understand. But some medicines required the dosage to be calculated according to factors such as body weight and age, and those were always difficult to judge.
The zombie had only been reacquainted with human civilization for a little over six months. This sort of thing was still rather difficult for her.
Under the expectant gazes of the girls, she solemnly studied the instructions for a long while. Then she raised her head and called outside, “Sweetie!”
Ya choked. “So after all that, you can’t read it either!”
Qin Zhen: “…”
Pretend you didn’t hear that!
In the end, Fu Qi asked a few questions about the situation and wrote down the exact dosage and precautions for use on the medicine box before sending it down again. Even then, he couldn’t help asking, “You recognize Arabic numerals, right?”
Ya was once again left red-faced with embarrassment.
That day, Qin Zhen continued serving as a hostage in the cellar while Fu Qi searched for tools and welded the damaged iron gate back together.
Even so, the gate still couldn’t stop the zombies. If there were enough of them, they could simply pile themselves up and climb over into the yard.
But that would take some time.
After finishing everything, Fu Qi informed the ladies in the cellar that if they were too bored underground, they could come outside and move around in the yard for a while.
As the man they were watching most closely, he couldn’t stay behind. Once he had finished those tasks, he went back to deal with Lin Ye.
The ladies in the cellar were not so quick to trust him, however, and not a single one of them came outside. The only compromise they made was to loosen the zombie’s bonds behind her back and tie her hands in front instead. They also fed Qin Zhen some of their food during mealtimes.
The zombie had no sense of taste and couldn’t savor the dried pear slices. She preferred candy and asked for some, even generously sharing it with the girls.
Ya refused, and the others swallowed hungrily before refusing as well.
Their relationship still couldn’t be called good, but the girls had gone too long without speaking to outsiders, and curiosity was inevitable—especially for the two little ones.
When they couldn’t sleep that night, the gap-toothed girl began talking to Qin Zhen again.
“Why does Fragrant Man call you Baby?”
The zombie said, “Because I’m a treasure.”
The gap-toothed girl tilted her head. “I was a treasure when I was little too.”
She was such a tiny child, and the gap in her teeth made her words come out with a slight whistle and a hint of saliva. Yet she spoke of her childhood with complete seriousness. It was childish in a way that was almost adorable.
But if one thought about what she had said, there was something heartbreaking about it.
She was still the same child. The people who had treated her as a treasure were simply gone.
Ya, sensitive to the shift in mood, abruptly cut off the conversation. In a sharp voice, she demanded, “Who are you people, really?”
Qin Zhen: “I told you, didn’t I? We’re the First Squad of the Apocalypse. The Ankang Base hired us to come and, uh, take you to the base.”
Ya: “Nothing about you makes sense—not your squad’s name, not its members. You don’t look like good people at all.”
Qin Zhen wholeheartedly agreed. She felt that Fu Qi ought to take full responsibility for the squad’s reputation.
But internal matters of the squad were not to be aired in public. A family’s shame should stay within the family. So she said, “That’s just a stereotype. We’re all good people—and we’re really strong, okay?”
“What good people trick children into working for them?”
The zombie’s face flushed. She skipped over that point and began talking about all the things they had done along the way: saving younger brothers, rescuing old ladies, overthrowing personal dictatorships, helping find medicine to control epidemics, and so on.
To the children, who had spent years hiding in a cellar, all of that sounded impossibly distant. Ya remained skeptical.
“If the Fragrant Man said that, it might be believable. But not you. You don’t look powerful at all.”
The zombie refused to accept that. “I’m a proper Taoist trained at Qingyang Temple. I know magic, and I’m very powerful, okay?”
Ya let out a scornful laugh.
The gap-toothed girl, who didn’t understand, asked, “What’s magic?”
The zombie said, “It’s like sorcery. I can draw talismans. You know the invisibility talisman? Stick one on yourself, and the zombies can’t see you. That’s how I can move freely through hordes of zombies.”
The gap-toothed girl let out a gasp of wonder. “What does ‘move freely’ mean?”
“It means come and go freely,” Qin Zhen explained. “It means I have magical powers and can go wherever I want, as fast as the wind!”
The gap-toothed girl gasped again.
“Don’t listen to her bragging,” Ya said. She didn’t believe a word of it.
“It’s true!” Qin Zhen protested loudly. “The sunflower seeds and candy I have were all given to me by people I rescued!”
“I don’t believe you.” Ya was very stubborn. She ordered everyone to go to sleep and forbade anyone from speaking again.
Qin Zhen stayed in the cellar with the girls for two days. On the third day, the old woman, having taken her medicine, finally broke her fever and regained consciousness for a while. The girls were all delighted.
Over the past few days, Ya and Li had been busy caring for the old woman, while the two younger girls had been assigned to keep an eye on Qin Zhen.
They still called Qin Zhen “Bad Woman,” but it was easy to tell they meant no real harm by it.
Little by little, Ya became less hostile toward Qin Zhen, and the two younger girls grew increasingly attached to her.
That was how Qin Zhen learned that there was a ventilation shaft leading to the roof. One of the older girls who had originally been with them was very clever with her hands; using the principle of reflected light, she had built a simple observation device out of a mirror. From inside the cellar, they could use it to see what was happening in the yard.
That was how they checked whether the outside was safe before coming out to dry food or collect water.
Qin Zhen also learned that the old woman had originally only cut her arm on a sharp object. Because of the poor conditions, the wound had become infected and gradually worsened until she slipped into unconsciousness.
She also learned that the people in the cellar had originally been complete strangers to one another.
The zombie felt miserable. When she told Fu Qi about it through the cellar door, he said, “What can we do? Come out and let me hold you so I can comfort you.”
The rope around Qin Zhen’s hands had already been loosened, but the cellar was locked from the inside, and she didn’t have the key.
In truth, if she really wanted to get out, there were ways.
But the moment she left, the trust she had painstakingly built with Li and the others would collapse, and all the zombie’s efforts over the past few days would be wasted.
Qin Zhen was a zombie with a strong sense of responsibility. She would not ruin the mission on impulse.
She took out a notebook and pen and, using the light filtering through the crack, muttered as she wrote, “Poor attitude toward the mission. Attempting to undermine my cultivation. One demerit.”
Fu Qi: “…What?”
“Nothing!” The zombie quickly changed the subject. “How are things with Chen Xiang?”
“No progress.”
Chen Xiang and Old Mo had made a wide circuit around Ankang Base and Lin Township. They had run into several locals, but all of them were young people in their twenties or thirties, and they had not been able to learn anything useful.
Since there was no progress on that side, and Ya and the others still had not agreed to return to the base, they could only keep waiting.
“What about Lin Ye?”
Fu Qi replied, “He went to find you some candy.”
Qin Zhen pulled out her notebook and continued muttering as she wrote, “Using public resources for private purposes. One demerit.”
Fu Qi sensed that something was off. “Sweetheart, what are you writing down?”
Qin Zhen: “Nothing!”
The two little girls, who were huddled beside her watching her write, raised their heads and shouted toward the ceiling together, “Nothing!”
Seeing how harmoniously the two children and the zombie were getting along gave Fu Qi a bad feeling.
“Sweetheart, have the gap-toothed lady and Leg-Pinching Girl been following you around these past few days?”
“Yes.”
The two girls had practically evolved into the zombie’s little sidekicks.
Over the past few days, Fu Qi had become their errand boy. He helped them find water and fresh food, but once he found anything, he could only leave it outside the cellar door. He was not allowed inside and could only occasionally exchange a few words with Qin Zhen through the door.
He knew only that Qin Zhen’s relationship with Ya and the others was gradually improving; he had no idea what was really going on. Now that he discovered the two children were following the zombie around, he immediately got a bad feeling.
“You haven’t been teaching them anything strange, have you?”
“Of course not.” Qin Zhen unhappily replied, “I tell them stories every day. I haven’t taught them anything strange at all.”
After the incident with the swear words, Qin Zhen had realized her mistake and never taught them anything weird again.
Fu Qi didn’t trust the zombie. One more demerit.
Fu Qi: “What kind of stories have you been telling them?”
The zombie was getting irritated. “Why do you keep asking so many questions? We girls have our own business. Why does a man like you need to stick his nose into everything? You’re acting like a pervert!”
“Pervert!” the two little girls echoed.
Fu Qi: “…”
This little zombie was completely heartless. She used to cling tightly to him, but after being forced apart for a few days, she couldn’t touch his body anymore and had devoted herself entirely to looking after her little sisters. She had not shown him the slightest bit of affection.
Fu Qi tugged at the corner of his mouth and said coolly, “Fine. I won’t interfere anymore. If something happens, don’t come crying to me, and don’t start drooling over me again.”
“Drooling over my body”—because the children were present, he had shortened the phrase.
Qin Zhen understood his threat, but right now she was acting as the big sister of the two younger girls. Fu Qi had exposed her in front of them. How annoying.
She said, “If you have nothing better to do, go make a few more kites. Stop hanging around here and bothering me!”
Fu Qi, who had been rejected, darkened his expression and went off to make little toys for them.
It would have been one thing if Fu Qi had gone alone, but Lin Ye, the idle and overly “helpful” young man, had to join him. After several days of it, Lin Ye was nearly driven mad.
But Qin Zhen was still being held hostage by the children. As long as she refused to leave, Fu Qi could not leave either. Lin Ye could only suppress his growing impatience and wait.
And so the days passed.
Fu Qi had brought enough medicine. The old granny had taken it in time. Although she still could not get out of bed and walk, her mental state had improved considerably. One evening, she woke up and made a point of personally thanking Qin Zhen.
The zombie waved her hands, her face solemn and her manner dignified.
“You don’t need to thank me. If you want to thank someone, thank the nation! The nation saved you!”
The old granny was suddenly put in an awkward position. After a long pause, she said, “…Qin, you look so young, but you certainly talk like a government official.”
Naturally. She had been a squad leader once, after all. A zombie with vision.
The Zombie felt that she was even more responsible than Fu Qi. If not for her sensitive identity, she really would have been better suited to be captain.
With this regret in mind, she said righteously, “That’s the truth. If you really want to thank me, take them to the base and let them go to school! Don’t let these children remain illiterate for the rest of their lives!”
The old grandmother didn’t know much about the base. With a sigh, she said, “In times like these, being alive is already a blessing. Whether they can read or not isn’t important anymore.”
“It is important!” Qin Zhen retorted. “If you can’t read, you won’t even know how to take your medicine.”
The old grandmother smiled at her. “How could ordinary people like us possibly find medicine?”
What she meant was that if they hadn’t happened to meet Qin Zhen and Fu Qi, they wouldn’t even have been able to find medicine, much less read the instructions on the bottles. So whether they could read or not didn’t really matter.
“Hmph.” Ya was older and had witnessed more cruelty. She was the most hostile toward the base and the class system, and she gave an icy snort from the side, clearly agreeing with the old grandmother more than anyone.
The Zombie had thought that she could use lofty ideals of duty to country and society to pressure the old grandmother into helping persuade the children to return to the base. Who would have thought that the old woman would take such a roundabout route and vaguely end up standing on the same side as Ya?
The Zombie grew anxious and said loudly, “Everyone has to learn to read! Every single person! Otherwise—otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?”
“Otherwise…”
Five pairs of eyes stared at the Zombie, waiting for her to give a reason why everyone had to be literate.
Under their gaze, Qin Zhen became flustered and blurted out, “Otherwise, you’ll be shot!”
She continued with utter conviction, “The new law says that from now on, anyone who can’t read will be dragged out and shot!”
An indescribable silence filled the cellar. After a moment, the old grandmother smiled kindly and said, “Little Qin is such an adorable child.”
Qin Zhen: “…”
This old woman was so annoying!
The Zombie declared that the old grandmother was her eternal enemy.
Seeing how dejected Qin Zhen looked, the old grandmother lowered her voice and said, “Of course being able to read is a good thing. It’s just that these children and an old woman like me are too weak. If we go to the base, we’ll only hold everyone back, and sooner or later we’ll be abandoned… Ya and Li wouldn’t be disliked, but girls their age are too easily targeted by others…”
Qin Zhen was just about to explain that Ankang Base was under government administration and didn’t have any of those terrible problems when suddenly—
Boom!
A deafening clap of thunder rang out, echoing through the cellar so violently that it seemed as if the entire place might collapse.
Everyone jumped and held their breath.
After a while, another muffled rumble came with the soft patter of rain, and only then did they relax.
“Spring thunderstorms can be so sudden,” the old grandmother said with a smile, trying to comfort the girls.
Spring really was a season of frequent thunderstorms. After that, thunder continued to rumble intermittently.
Listening to thunder from underground was actually rather frightening. The girls huddled together in silence, leaving Qin Zhen with no chance to continue the previous conversation.
Well, if she couldn’t say it now, she could say it later. There would be another chance.
The Zombie remained optimistic. She squeezed in with the girls behind the curtain into the resting area and began fighting them for the blanket they were trying to pull over their heads.
As they tugged back and forth, she wrinkled her nose and asked, “What’s burning?”
Ya quickly went outside to check the stove. “It’s not the stove. You must have smelled it wrong.”
Qin Zhen sniffed carefully again. No matter how she tried, she was certain there was a sharp smell of smoke in the air.
Just as she was trying to determine where it was coming from, the gap-toothed lady suddenly sneezed loudly.
“Achoo!”
The Leg-Pinching Girl immediately began coughing and said, “It’s so smoky!”
“There really is a smell of smoke!”
If it wasn’t inside the cellar, then it had to be outside.
Ya rushed to the cellar entrance and pushed against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She ran to the other entrance and tried there, only to find that it was stuck as well. Finally, Li followed her over, and the two of them pushed together with all their strength before they managed to open a narrow crack.
But along with the light and the rain that poured through the gap came a thread of choking smoke.
The two girls inhaled it without warning. Their throats tightened, and they began coughing violently. The cellar door, which they had only managed to move an inch, slammed shut again with a bang.
“There’s a fire outside!”
The fire seemed to be spreading rapidly. Smothered by the damp spring rain, it had produced thick, pungent smoke that seeped through the crack and into the cellar.
In just that short time, smoke had already accumulated underground. Everyone coughed relentlessly. It was easy to imagine that even if they weren’t burned alive, they would eventually suffocate to death if this continued.
The group gathered together and pushed hard against the cellar door through the smoke. Every time they managed to force it open a crack, more smoke billowed inside, making their chests burn and leaving them unable to exert any strength.
In the midst of their panic, the sound of a car horn pierced through the smoke and thunder and reached the cellar.
“Sweetie!” Qin Zhen shouted.
After a burst of chaotic noise, the cellar door was suddenly wrenched open from outside.
“Get out, quickly!” Fu Qi’s voice rang out.
They had no time to worry about anything else. Qin Zhen pushed from below while Fu Qi pulled from above, quickly dragging all of them out.
Only after they emerged did they discover that the enormous jujube tree in the courtyard had apparently been struck by lightning. It was still burning as it had toppled onto the roof, smashing through the walls of the house and sending debris crashing down over the cellar entrance.
The coincidence was far too perfect.
Qin Zhen turned back, wanting to take a closer look, but Fu Qi seized her by the arm and pulled her away. “Leave first. We can investigate later.”
But leaving was not that simple. The fire and the tremendous noise had attracted a huge horde of zombies, which now surrounded the courtyard. They had already engulfed the vehicle Fu Qi had driven there.
If the large iron gate hadn’t been reinforced, the zombies would probably have already broken in.
“Someone has to lure the zombies away first.”
As Fu Qi spoke, he turned to look at the five women they had rescued from the cellar.
It was evening, and the sky was dim beneath the thunderclouds. Just as Fu Qi turned around, a bolt of lightning split the sky behind him. The blinding white light made his figure appear unusually tall and intimidating, while adding a cold, fierce edge to his sharply defined features.
Before him, two children, two young women, and a frail old grandmother huddled together like helpless chicks waiting to be slaughtered.
“Don’t make it sound so noble. When danger comes, aren’t you still planning to use us as bait?” Ya’s sharp, mocking voice rang out. She stepped forward and said bitterly, “There’s no need for all that sanctimonious talk. If someone has to go, then I’ll go!”
Fu Qi frowned and looked her up and down. “You won’t do.”
He looked directly at the two children and the old grandmother being supported by the others. “It’s too dangerous. The elderly and children should go first.”
Then he turned to Qin Zhen and asked, “What do you think?”
“Exactly!” Qin Zhen shouted in agreement.
Then she suddenly wrapped her arms around the coughing gap-toothed lady and let out an evil laugh. “I choose this one. She’s the youngest, and her meat is the most tender!”
The shameless exchange left the two young women stunned.
But Qin Zhen didn’t care in the slightest. She gave the others a sinister smile, picked up the little girl, and climbed over the wall into the yard swarming with zombies.
Ya and Li tried to stop her, but they were too late. They could only watch helplessly as Qin Zhen disappeared from sight.
The next instant, the little girl’s terrified scream rang through the heavens.
“Ahhh!”
