Back in the old days, every rescue required a rough plan — who would lead the zombies away, who would drive the vehicle. This time, Qin Zhen asked Fu Qi as usual how they should go about the rescue. Fu Qi said, "No plans needed at all. Just let the drones spot us."
Once the drones picked up their trail, the people from Country A would come chasing after them. Given how ruthless they were, they would make such a huge racket that it would be more than enough to draw all the zombies away.
Those drifters who had survived out in the open for so long were quick on their feet by nature, and would definitely find a chance to escape on their own.
The only tricky one was Yellow Helmet. She was trapped on the rooftop, with the entire stairwell and the area below packed thick with zombies, so there was no easy way for her to get down.
"Actually, I've dreamed of becoming a huge star who can hold my own concert ever since I was little." Yellow Helmet sounded like she had made up her mind to meet her end. She held up a loudspeaker and yelled at the top of her voice, "Now my dream has finally come true. Thank you all for coming to my concert. Next, I'll sing a few songs for you right here, right now..."
She cleared her throat and started to sing.
Leaving aside how well Yellow Helmet could sing, the atmosphere was completely fired up by her. The zombies down below were going wild at the sound of her voice, surging upward like massive waves, their enthusiasm absolutely terrifying.
It really did feel like a concert with tens of thousands of people in attendance.
"I... I can sing that song too," Qin Zhen said.
Fu Qi was scanning the surroundings to find a usable car down below. Hearing that, he said, "We're in the middle of the apocalypse, and you still want to compete for the spotlight? If people saw this online, they'd call you out for being a vain girl."
Qin Zhen was so mad that she snapped, "You're such a troll!"
No wonder every other team was hostile towards their Apocalypse First Squad!
"Let's go. This troll only has five minutes of freedom left."
The zombie disruptor was about to wear off, so they had to hurry.
Fu Qi led Qin Zhen out, locked the door carefully, rushed downstairs, and headed straight for a convertible with a dented front bumper. It must have been driven here by some grandkid coming to visit their elders, and it was covered in a thick layer of dust.
Fu Qi had gambled that this specific model had a notoriously tricky convertible top that most people would avoid using, so the car would still be drivable.
Turns out he was right — the top was not only a pain to close, it was completely broken.
This was the first time Qin Zhen had seen a convertible ever since she came out of the tomb. She was dying to drive it, but Fu Qi turned her down.
"You have to help me fend off the zombies," he said.
Qin Zhen pulled out the zombie disruptor he had stuffed into her backpack earlier.
"Save that for Yellow Helmet," Fu Qi said. "She's been sitting on the very edge of the rooftop this whole time, barely moving. She must have injured her leg."
That made perfect sense, but Qin Zhen really, really wanted to drive the convertible. She imagined putting on a pair of sunglasses later and looking so cool that she would blow everyone's mind.
"Last three minutes," Fu Qi reminded her about the time limit of the zombie disruptor, then gestured for Qin Zhen to look up. In just those few minutes, they had already been spotted. A dozen drones were buzzing around, circling right over their heads.
"I hate you so much!" Qin Zhen shouted as she climbed into the passenger seat.
"Yeah, you hate me the most," Fu Qi said calmly.
She used to hate Taoist priests the most too, but look at her now, playing the part more than happily.
The car roared to life, crashed straight through the horde of zombies, and headed in the direction of Yellow Helmet.
Yellow Helmet was still going on with her "concert". The five-story run-down building was completely surrounded by zombies. Amidst the deafening snarls of the undead, the clanging sound of zombies ramming the door was clearly audible — the iron door leading to the rooftop wouldn't hold for much longer.
There were also a large number of zombies swarming around a shorter building right across from her. Through the glass windows, a few human figures could be vaguely seen.
Qin Zhen huffed in anger, pulled out her big red loudspeaker, and yelled against the wind, "Hey you, Yellow Helmet! Your singing is... is so terrible!"
Yellow Helmet's singing stopped dead.
The convertible, with its sleek lines, cut through the horde of zombies like a streak of light. Fu Qi started his countdown: "Two minutes left."
"Hello? Hello?" Qin Zhen stood up, holding onto the car window with one hand and the loudspeaker in the other. She cleared her throat and yelled at the top of her voice, "All the people on both sides listen up! You're already surrounded by... by zombies. Now, the glorious members and captain of the Apocalypse First Squad have come to rescue you. Get ready, seize the right moment, and run for your lives!"
"Wait a minute —"
"Shut up!" Yellow Helmet tried to say something, but Qin Zhen cut her off sharply.
She held up the item in her hand and stated in a serious tone, "I'm giving you a zombie dis... disruptor. Inject it, it kicks in in two seconds, and works for two hours. Got it?"
She tried her best to sound cool and collected. When she finished speaking, she took a deep breath, raised her arm with all her strength, and threw it.
*Smack* — the zombie disruptor, wrapped in a thick cloth, flew over the heads of the zombie horde, landed on the awning outside a second-floor window, rolled down a few times, fell onto the ground, and was instantly swallowed up by the crowd of zombies.
"Pfft." Fu Qi let out a chuckle.
"Aaaaah!" Qin Zhen shrieked, slapped his arm, stumbled out of the car, and darted into the zombie horde to retrieve it.
She pushed and squeezed her way through the zombies. From behind the wheel, Fu Qi watched her flustered look and, as if to make her even more anxious, rested his elbow on the car door and started a countdown.
"Twenty-seven, twenty-six..."
His voice was like a death timer, making Qin Zhen so frantic that she could barely think. She finally fished the disruptor out from under a zombie's feet, and her clothes were reeking of the undead stench.
Luckily, she had wrapped it up really well before, so the disruptor was still completely intact.
"Twelve, eleven..." Fu Qi continued the countdown from the car.
"Aaaaaah!" Qin Zhen screamed.
Why was he the one in no danger, but she was the one panicking this much?
Qin Zhen was so frustrated that for a second she almost wished Fu Qi would just get eaten by zombies!
She shrieked and threw the disruptor a second time. This time, her luck was good — the device landed steadily on the third-floor awning.
"Eight, seven..." Fu Qi paused the countdown and said, "That's far enough."
From a two-story distance, Yellow Helmet could either climb down with a rope, or shimmy down the water pipe. She might get hurt a little, but she would definitely make it out alive.
With her task completed, Qin Zhen squeezed her way back toward the car, yelling into her loudspeaker the whole time: "Later, a bunch of bad guys will come chasing us. Lots of them, and they're super fierce! Hide yourselves well, and wait till the zombies are all drawn away by them before you move!"
As she was yelling, two drones buzzed right over, flying so close to her face that they were almost touching her. Annoyed to no end, Qin Zhen pulled the mahogany sword hanging behind her backpack and swatted the drones down in a rage.
"Three, two..."
"Aaaaaah!" Just in the nick of time, before Fu Qi could say the last number "one", Qin Zhen threw herself headfirst into the convertible, her upper body landing right on top of Fu Qi, with her legs still dangling outside the car.
"One." Fu Qi pulled her inside the car properly, retrieved his hand that was pinned under her. The second the word left his mouth, all the zombies that had been ignoring them under the effect of the disruptor froze for a second, then turned around all at once.
Just at that moment, the engine roared, and the red convertible shot out like a tiger released from its cage.
By the time Qin Zhen pushed herself up from Fu Qi's lap and scrambled over to the passenger seat, the convertible had already crashed through the horde of zombies and sped a long way off. Fu Qi reminded her, "Baby, help me fend off the zombies, and knock down those drones that are still following us."
There were way too many zombies. They caught the scent of humans and went completely crazy, lunging straight at the convertible. Even with Fu Qi stepping on the gas, two of the undead managed to cling onto the back of the car.
"Always making me do all the hard, backbreaking work!" Qin Zhen complained loudly, swinging her peach wood sword to knock the zombie behind them away.
To stop the zombies from lunging at the vehicle, Fu Qi was swerving the convertible like a slithering water snake, zigzagging all over the road and ramming into zombies nonstop. Qin Zhen was jostling around on the ride, feeling like she was on a crazed, over-the-top bumper car straight out of an amusement park.
She knocked down two more zombies, brushed back her wind-tousled hair, and heard a loud "boom" of an explosion. She lifted her head to look, spotting thick smoke rising a few blocks away.
Fu Qi glanced back too, and said, "They're catching up."
"What do we do now?"
"Don't panic." Fu Qi stayed perfectly calm. "Zombies make perfect obstacles for them."
The two sides were not that far apart, but there were countless barriers in between. Especially now that the zombie repellent had worn off, Fu Qi was out in the open in the convertible with nothing to mask his scent, so nearly every zombie nearby was surging toward him in a horde.
If the pursuers wanted to close the gap, they'd first have to cut through that wave of zombies. What's more, as Chen Xiang had mentioned earlier, their group was huge, and there was no way every single one of them had an endless supply of zombie repellent—they were stuck dealing with the same zombie problem too.
"Aren't you good at singing?" Fu Qi said. "Sing something, draw all these zombies to follow us."
Qin Zhen was sure she knew how to sing, but when put on the spot, not a single song came to her mind. She stammered for a second, then said sheepishly, "You sing."
Fu Qi: "You sing. Or even go off in a wild, screaming fit, just like you did a little while ago."
Right then, a crowd of zombies rammed into the side of the car. Fu Qi slammed on the gas and jerked the steering wheel hard, making the car swerve sharply to the right.
The zombies missed their pounce and tripped over one another, piling up into a little hill. Qin Zhen yelped "Ouch!" and crashed right into Fu Qi's back.
She scrambled back up and smacked his shoulder hard.
How dare he bring that up? She'd screamed earlier for his sake, after all!
Fu Qi hissed under his breath, swatting a drone that had drifted right up to the side of the car out of the air, and said, "If we lose all these zombies later and have to go back for Yellow Helmet and the others, all your hard work will go to waste."
As a responsible, proud zombie (well, at least in her mind), Qin Zhen would never let that happen.
She swatted away a few zombies that were trying to clamber onto the car, rummaged in her pocket for a second, and pulled out a cellphone.
"Huh?" Fu Qi sounded confused.
"Don't think you're the only one with a phone," Qin Zhen said smugly, then warned him, "This is mine! Don't drop it!"
It really was hers. Back when the accident broke out at the Great Yu Base, she'd fled the scene ahead of Fu Qi with Academician Jiang. Later, when Fu Qi found her, he lied and told her none of her other precious belongings had been salvaged, only a copy of Advanced Mathematics and this cellphone.
Because it was such a rare treasure to her, Qin Zhen had never even turned it on to play with it.
Now it finally had a use.
Fu Qi just said "Oh" and focused on driving.
Qin Zhen kept swatting zombies away while powering on the phone, but her good mood instantly turned to shock the second she saw the battery level.
"Why is it only at 10 percent?!"
The little brother who gave it to her as a thank-you gift had said it had tons of battery life!
"No idea," Fu Qi said without taking his eyes off the road. "That's your phone, you've been the one keeping it this whole time."
"You don't know jack!" Qin Zhen thumped his shoulder. "It must have been you! You're the most underhanded, wicked person in the whole world!"
The so-called underhanded wicked Fu Xiangxiang said, "So are you going to attract the zombies or not?"
Of course she was.
Qin Zhen fumed and stored that grudge away for later, angrily opened her phone, cranked the volume all the way up, and held the speaker out.
The second the heart-wrenching, raucous song blared out, the zombies that had been falling behind perked up like they'd been injected with stimulants, and came surging after them all over again.
Fu Qi drove the car while Qin Zhen cleared away zombies and drones. Just as they were about to leave the zombie-choked street, a low-hanging tree branch swatted Qin Zhen on the top of the head. She grabbed it on instinct, and found herself holding a fluffy, soft little flower.
She looked up and realized they had just driven down a tree-lined avenue. From where she sat, she could see both sides of the road lined with lush, deep green trees, bright sunlight filtering through the leaves to land on a few scattered pink blossoms swaying gently in the breeze.
Qin Zhen remembered what the crazy old lady had told her—this small county town was full of albizia trees, and every summer the whole street would be lined with these beautiful blooms.
It wasn't even the right season yet, so only a handful of albizia flowers were in bloom, but you could still make out the traces of the peaceful, lovely scene that used to be here.
That is, if you ignored the dirty, stinking, mindless zombies snarling in the shade under the trees, and the street further back echoing with nonstop gunfire.
"What are you spacing out for?"
Fu Qi's voice pulled Qin Zhen back to her senses.
She shook her head to clear it, knocked a drone hovering over her head out of the sky, and yelled at the top of her lungs, "Sweetie, I think I... I love this place!"
Fu Qi didn't say anything.
The two of them worked perfectly as a team. By the time they pulled onto the wide open roads on the outskirts of Lin Township, the zombies had fallen far behind, and no more drones were trailing them. Fu Qi rammed down the last few straggling zombies and stopped the car at a fork in the road.
"You get off here," he said. "Hide yourself in the horde of zombies. I'll lead them away."
"Got it." That was the plan they'd agreed on earlier. Qin Zhen nodded and reached for her backpack. "How long this time?"
"As short as three months, or as long as a year."
"Okay." She turned to reach for the car door handle, then paused with a confused "Huh?" and spun back around. "Wait, how long did you say?"
Fu Qi repeated his answer.
"Why so long?"
Before, he'd always come to pick her up after just two or three days.
"This time is different," Fu Qi said. He paused for a moment, met Qin Zhen's confused gaze, and said in a low, solemn voice, "Country A made a public announcement to the whole world, claiming that there is an unusual zombie by my side, and that this zombie holds the key to curing the zombie virus."
Qin Zhen froze for a second, then frowned and huffed angrily, "Who's a zombie?! I'm clearly a jiangshi! You humans are so rude!"
The second she finished her indignant rant, she saw Fu Qi staring at her quietly, his eyes dark and unreadable, not saying a word.
For some reason, that look made Qin Zhen's heart twist with unease.
She thought back to all the years she'd spent living alone in her tomb, then glanced over at the mindless, twisted zombies in the distance, screaming and throwing themselves at any human in sight. She thought to herself, we're nothing alike at all.
She got even more riled up, grabbed Fu Qi by the arm, and said, "I'm clearly a jiangshi... You humans look more like zombies than I do! Sweetie, go tell them that!"
Her speech was still stuttering, and the sound of it made Fu Qi's heart ache with a soft, fond amusement.
He wrapped his hand around Qin Zhen's, his voice low and gentle, and said, "There are things I don't know how to explain to you."
Like the fact that she'd woken up alone in that tomb, so how could she be so sure she was a jiangshi?
Or the fact that one of the victims of the Haiyin Charity Hospital incident 40 years ago shared her exact name, and went missing right near her tomb along with the last remaining dose of the special experimental serum.
And the truth that the second they'd stepped out of the bomb shelter, Fu Qi had gotten a message from Chen Xiang saying Qin Zhen's identity had been exposed.
It was something he'd known would happen sooner or later, ever since the day he first met Qin Zhen deep in that tomb.
But he never imagined Qin Zhen's secret wouldn't get out because someone noticed her odd skin or her unkillable nature—she was recognized by someone who knew who she really was.
Kobayashi Kayo was dead. The footage of his final moments was transmitted back to Country A, and Qin Zhen's figure was clearly captured in it.
The current head of the Kobayashi family and Kayo's nearly seventy-year-old uncle, Kobayashi Hirochi, recognized Qin Zhen from the footage. He explicitly stated that after the plane crash years ago, three Country B nationals, while being pursued by Country A's police forces, hastily hid the last remaining sample and an experimental patient from the program they were bringing back to Country B inside a tomb.
They only received that message, with no knowledge of the exact location, which was why Country A later launched a carpet search across the area.
Now, all these events have been made public by people from Country A.
The events of forty years ago are only preserved in sparse written records, and the full details have long been lost to the merciless tides of time. Fu Qi could not figure out why this head of the Kobayashi family was still able to recognize Qin Zhen from just a single image after so many years, nor did he know what past connection they shared. All he knew was that Qin Zhen was in extreme danger right now.
Fu Qi had no idea how to break this cruel truth to Qin Zhen.
There were moments when he thought it would be best to let Qin Zhen never know about it, but at other times he felt she had the right to the truth. Yet was it really appropriate for him to be the one to tell her?
The only thing Fu Qi was grateful for was that he learned of this matter far earlier than Qin Zhen, so he had already managed to accept it rationally and work out the best possible plan.
"It doesn't matter if you think it's unimportant," Fu Qi said. "What matters right now is that you are seen as the only source of a cure for the zombie virus, a resource that everyone is desperate to seize. You have to leave, and go into hiding."
His voice was steady, cutting straight to the core of the matter.
Qin Zhen, on the other hand, was completely confused. She asked, "W-where am I supposed to go?"
"Anywhere at all," Fu Qi said, "just don't go to any places you've been to before, and don't look for anyone you've met before. You can hide underground, or even wander around pretending to be a zombie... If you get lonely, you can seek out wandering survivors like Ya, but stay alert and get away immediately if you sense anything wrong."
Most of those survivors were women who hid away all day long, with very limited access to information, which made them relatively safe to a certain extent.
"Then-then how will you find me?"
"I will find you." Fu Qi cupped her face in his hands, gazing at her. His voice was unbelievably clear and firm. "I will always find you. I promise, this time I won't make you wait too long."
Qin Zhen thought the way he spoke was very strange.
She wanted to ask Fu Qi what she should do if someone as bad as him tried to hurt her while she was alone, and what she should do if she ran out of food when she got hungry.
After a flurry of thoughts raced through her mind, Qin Zhen said, "But-what about you?"
She had barely ever been separated from Fu Qi ever since she came out of the tomb. Most people knew she was a member of the number one squad in the apocalypse, so if they couldn't find her, all the heat would surely turn to Fu Qi.
"This is nothing I can't handle," Fu Qi said.
Whether you looked at the case from forty years ago or the entire zombie apocalypse situation, Qin Zhen was the most innocent party of all. She did not deserve to bear responsibility for any of this.
The reason she had to go into hiding was that everyone now saw her as their only hope. Even if the authorities wanted to protect her, they could not hold back the hordes of crazed people.
Someone had to step in and mediate behind the scenes.
And he was the perfect candidate for that.
"I'll take care of everything," Fu Qi said. "All you need to do is hide away for a little while, and wait for me to find you."
Qin Zhen had never really seen herself as a human or a zombie, and now she had somehow become a target for all humans to chase after. Her mind was all muddled, but since Fu Qi said so, she would do as he told her. After all, staying away from other humans couldn't do her any harm.
"Okay." She waited quietly for a while longer, and when she saw Fu Qi had nothing more to say, she turned to get out of the car, but then stopped and looked back at him.
"No," Fu Qi knew exactly what she was about to say. "It's true that being a zombie has its perks, but you can't do that."
Humans had so many flaws: they were jealous, vain, aggressive, and cruel by nature, and their bodies got sick, injured, and died easily. They could never compare to zombies.
But he could not let her become a zombie.
He couldn't, and neither could Qin Zhen.
She had no memory of it, but there was a couple who once left everything behind, even sacrificed their own lives, just to make sure she could grow up healthy.
Qin Zhen had to stay human, and become a healthy, ordinary human girl.
It might be extremely hard, but it was a chance worth fighting for.
"There are things I don't know how to explain to you, and I don't know why your heart has suddenly started beating the way it does now," Fu Qi said as he lifted his index finger, pressing it against Qin Zhen's beating heart. He slowly traced the letters "DF" over her skin.
He looked down at his own fingertip and said slowly, "I hope it stays just like this, and doesn't change any further. If it does, if you start to develop a human's body temperature and skin color before you even realize it, don't be scared."
He continued, "All this time, you've been around so many humans. You know how they move around, and how they survive in this apocalypse. Even if you suddenly turn fully human, you'll be able to get by just fine, right?"
"Of course I will."
Qin Zhen was still completely confused by what Fu Qi was talking about, and she didn't really believe she could ever turn into a human. But she was sure she could handle it.
Fu Qi had managed to dart around avoiding zombies even when he was being chased, and he had brought her along to save so many people. There was no way she couldn't take care of herself.
"I'll be fine," Qin Zhen said firmly, then frowned and added, "But Sweetie, can you stop looking so upset and grim?"
Fu Qi had clearly gone over all these words and plans in his head long before, so his tone was calm and his expression was composed, but Qin Zhen could still feel the heavy weight in everything he said, and she hated that feeling.
"We promised, after we go visit that Crazy old lady's friend's house, you'll get back to normal," Qin Zhen mumbled. "You're being so serious, saying all this stuff... it sounds like someone's last words in a TV drama..."
Fu Qi was speechless for a moment.
He rubbed his temple and sighed, "If I really died, you'd probably forget about me really quickly."
Qin Zhen thought about it, then nodded honestly. "I definitely would."
A zombie's brain couldn't hold onto that many memories. If Fu Qi died, in a few decades, she would definitely forget him.
That harsh, honest answer made Fu Qi's chest feel tight. He glanced at the horde of zombies that was almost catching up to their car from behind, then turned back to her. "Baby, before the apocalypse, our internet was a mess in a lot of ways, I wasn't lying to you. But there's one topic that people almost never disagree on, you know what it is?"
Qin Zhen perked up immediately, looking like a curious kid. "What?"
"Sex," Fu Qi said. His sharp, handsome features held a completely solemn expression, as if he was delivering some kind of academic report. "Naked bodies pressed against each other, rough physical collisions, the fierce, sweaty urges and carnal indulgences that are the most primal, animalistic instincts... Whenever people talk about those kinds of things, the atmosphere is always pretty harmonious."
Qin Zhen's eyes went wide with shock at his completely proper delivery of such a bold statement.
"You'll never get to experience any of that," Fu Qi said with a hint of regret in his tone, then his eyes glinted as he spoke in a low, slow voice. "But what about kissing... You said before that you wanted me to help you experience what being in love feels like. Does that still count?"
Qin Zhen's eyes grew even larger.
Fu Qi stared at her intently, slowly closing the distance between them until their noses were nearly touching. Seeing that she still made no move to pull away, he tilted his head slightly, and his pale crimson lips gently pressed against Qin Zhen's.
Ever since the incident back at the hospital when she'd exposed herself while looking for medicine, Qin Zhen had never resisted wearing makeup again.
Her face was caked thick with powder, and there was even some on her lips, but neither the temperature nor the soft, warm feel of the kiss was diminished in the slightest.
She looked at Fu Qi's face, so close it was right before her eyes, and could feel the warmth and softness of his lips on hers, feel his slightly heavy breath fanning across her cheeks, and distantly hear the rapid thud of a heartbeat.
It could have been hers, or it could have been Fu Qi's — thump-thump, thump-thump, beating so hard it felt like it was about to burst right out of their chests.
Qin Zhen's mind went completely blank. When Fu Qi cupped her face again, she thought he was about to end the kiss. Not knowing what came over her, she lifted her hands in a flurry and gripped tightly onto his arms.
But Fu Qi's lips didn't pull away. Instead, still holding her face, he shifted his weight and leaned forward, pressing down hard on her.
Stunned, Qin Zhen was pushed backward under his weight until her back hit the car door, and the gentle kiss on her lips suddenly turned fierce, like a summer storm breaking loose.
It was as if a torrent of pent-up, raging emotions had suddenly been set free, shattering every restraint to surge forward uncontrollably.
Fu Qi parted his lips, holding her face in his hands to guide her to meet his, their mouths moving together in a tangle of lips and teeth, nibbling, nipping, as he tried to pry her lips open.
Crushed under his heavy frame, Qin Zhen's heart was hammering wildly, her whole body growing hot and tingly as her limbs threatened to go limp, yet the hands she'd fisted on his shoulders held on tight.
A fire seemed to ignite in her throat, and she was just about to surrender to the moment and let her lips fall open to make a sound she could no longer hold back when there was a sharp click. Her back suddenly met nothing, and she nearly toppled backward right out of the convertible.
The one-sided, heated kiss came to an end.
Fu Qi wrapped an arm around her to help her step out of the car. His rosy lips were parted, his breath coming in hot, ragged little gasps as he leaned in and whispered, "Do you remember me now?"
Even his voice sounded thick, warm, and clinging.
Qin Zhen's brain had completely short-circuited. She stared blankly at his lips as they moved, not reacting at all.
"Little tease," Fu Qi chuckled softly, lowering his head to nuzzle her playfully on the tip of her nose.
Then he stepped back, his expression turning sharp and serious as he called out loudly, "Qin Zhen!"
Qin Zhen jolted awake with a start, instinctively meeting his eyes as she snapped back, "Present!"
"As the captain of the number one end-times squad, I am issuing you your very first independent mission: protect yourself," Fu Qi stated gravely, his voice clear and firm as his gaze locked onto hers. "Before I find you again, you must do everything you can to keep yourself safe!"
"Yes, sir!" Qin Zhen shouted back.
Fu Qi seemed to ruffle her hair gently, then turned and got back into the car.
The engine rumbled to life soon after.
Qin Zhen stood frozen in place, staring dazedly as the red convertible sped away into the distance.
It wasn't until a zombie bumped into her, making her stagger and nearly fall, that she realized she was completely surrounded by the rabid, roaring sounds of the undead.
Her legs felt weak, and she drifted along for a while, swept up in the tide of zombies, until she heard the buzzing whir of drones overhead, chasing after the same direction Fu Qi had driven off in.
A little later, a zombie knocked her over, and she fell onto the roadside, ending up half-buried in a small mound of piled-up corpses. Through the gaps between them, she watched a dozen off-road vehicles plow through the horde of zombies, roaring past as they raced down the road.
Qin Zhen thought back to what Fu Qi had said, then lowered her head and closed her eyes.
She told herself, it's just a few months apart. If Fu Qi can handle it, so can I. Zombies aren't about to lose to humans.
Then her thoughts drifted again: Fu Qi is so annoying when he talks, but how did his lips end up being that soft?
She found herself thinking next, humans really are so shameless. Just kissing alone can be full of so many thrilling little tricks... No wonder everyone always seems to get along just fine when it comes to sex.
Finally, Qin Zhen frowned worriedly to herself. Fu Qi must have really gone off the deep end.
No, there's no "must have" about it. He's definitely become a total pervert.
That man's a full-on pervert now!
