Get password here. Click me!(KO-FI)
After a brief rest.
“I told you not to eat so much!” The short-haired girl smacked her brother on the back. “See? Look! Disgusting.”
Bai Caixie took several deep breaths to ease the nausea, then slowly straightened her hunched-over body, coughing a few times. “Damn… scared the hell out of me.”
Chu Muge helped Gu Yao out, carefully checking her up and down. “Senior Sister, are you okay?”
Gu Yao gave her an OK gesture.
The gesture made Chu Muge laugh. “Senior Sister, where’d you learn that?”
Gu Yao’s gaze shifted.
She hadn’t learned it, she had always known it.
After all, she was a transmigrator. Back then—
Back then…?
For a brief moment, Gu Yao’s expression turned blank.
What… did I do back then?
A long-lost wave of panic surged up within her.
Before it could take root, Bai Caixie’s sudden exclamation broke through her thoughts.
“Tank! Tank!”
The young man pointed in a direction and lowered his voice.
It was a tank, but it sat silently in place, its surface covered with strange scratch marks.
The top hatch was open, revealing its dark interior. Bloodstains marred its exterior, as though the soldiers inside had been dragged out through the hatch by something and gruesomely devoured.
Chu Muge glanced at the tank’s scratches and then looked away.
There were quite a lot of them.
The supplies they’d brought across the river were few, just enough to fill a large satchel.
Since Chu Muge and the zombie dog were the combat specialists, Bai Caixie was half-useless with his injuries, and Gu Yao was the team’s privileged slacker, the task of carrying the bag naturally fell to the Bai Caiwei.
Upon reaching the other side of the city, their task became relatively straightforward: find a vehicle, leave the city, and get back on the main road.
As a tourist destination, J City boasted well-developed facilities and a beautiful environment. Even as they walked through its eerily silent streets, the remnants of its pre-apocalypse prosperity were evident in the ruins.
Gu Yao suddenly stopped, her gaze fixed on a particular spot.
Chu Muge noticed her unusual behavior and followed her line of sight.
What she saw was a helicopter, crashed into the remains of a shop.
Some of its parts were charred black. The helicopter’s shell was nothing but wreckage now, lying in a wrecked izakaya, the once-cozy Japanese-style decor now a chaotic mess.
So, the military had been here.
Chu Muge frowned.
It didn’t seem like a large-scale operation, though, more like a small team had ventured into J City and then…
Something went wrong?
This would explain why the military had later come to investigate the area and discovered the monster hiding in the river.
J City had eventually become one of the unlucky places obliterated by artillery fire.
Having come across both a wrecked helicopter and a tank, the group grew more vigilant with each step.
“So… do any of you know the way?” Bai Caixie asked.
“I do,” Chu Muge replied nonchalantly, pulling out her phone. She frowned and shook her head. “You guys really don’t use your phones?”
The offline map on her screen displayed a clear layout of J City’s various routes.
“There’s a car dealership over there,” she said, glancing at the phone screen before turning it off.
"We’ll head there to find a car."
...
The zombie dog panted as it walked beside Gu Yao, wagging its tail.
The quiet surroundings made their footsteps echo eerily through the desolate city.
Chu Muge hated this feeling.
Once again, not a single zombie in sight.
This time, there weren’t even any corpses.
Every time they didn’t encounter zombies, something bad was bound to happen.
A horde of zombies would almost be preferable.
The strange scratch marks they’d seen earlier, and the avian mutant they’d spotted on the electronics store rooftop, had already set them on edge.
Leading the group, Chu Muge walked along the ruined streets, drawing closer to the car dealership.
But something felt… off.
The way the light refracted seemed unnaturally distorted.
Then, suddenly, Chu Muge stopped dead in her tracks.
Gu Yao flinched, instinctively scanning their surroundings like a radar.
The zombie dog barked sharply.
“Woof!”
As the bark echoed, a faint buzzing sound began to fill the air.
In the pitch-black corners around them, something shifted.
Chu Muge’s pupils constricted as she shouted, “Run!”
From Gu Yao’s perspective, countless winged creatures with dark, chitinous shells surged out from the shadows on either side of the street.
Glass windows shattered with loud crashes.
Compound eyes, translucent wings, hardened shells, and grotesquely intricate mandibles.
These insects were the size of basketballs.
They had likely been in a dormant state, clinging to the walls in the shadows, waiting for their next prey.
Their forelimbs were sharp like scythes. The swarm, thick and overwhelming, gathered in the street and dove toward Chu Muge and the group.
The zombie dog opened its mouth, invisible energy coalescing before it. An air cannon blasted through the swarm, shattering several insects and spraying green fluid.
Chu Muge grabbed Gu Yao’s hand and bolted.
Bai Caixie, undeterred by his missing arm, saw the swarm bearing down and pushed himself to the limit, running at a surprising speed to keep up with Chu Muge.
The siblings seemed to have decent stamina. They sprinted tirelessly, keeping the swarm at bay for now.
But as time went on, the gap began to close.
Bai Caiwei, carrying a heavy satchel, was starting to breathe heavily.
If it came to it, they’d have to ditch the bag.
Chu Muge’s eyes turned blood-red. She glanced behind her, gritted her teeth, and made a decision.
If they were caught, she’d prioritize getting Gu Yao out of there alive.
No choice, saving the most important person comes first.
Just then, several more insects burst out from the street corner ahead.
With one hand gripping her Tang Dao, Chu Muge swung at a scythe-wielding insect lunging toward her, slicing it cleanly in half.
The zombie dog became their main offense, launching air cannon after air cannon to blast apart the smaller swarms blocking their path. It occasionally fired at the horde behind them as well.)
Seizing the momentary reprieve, Chu Muge broke through the encirclement and kept running.
As an powered individual, her stamina was excellent, and Gu Yao, being a zombie, didn’t tire at all.
But the siblings behind them weren’t as lucky. Bai Caiwei was already gasping for breath, barely managing to keep pace.
Falling behind meant being overtaken by the relentless insect swarm, torn apart, and devoured.
To make matters worse, the swarm ahead of them was growing denser.
They were trapped between two deadly fronts. If they kept going forward, they’d collide with the swarm ahead.
Just like two slices of bread with cheese.
Chu Muge quickly scanned her surroundings and locked onto a particular spot.
To the left, a subway station.
“We’re going down.”
She spoke decisively, not bothering to check if the others heard her. She simply grabbed Gu Yao’s hand and sprinted toward the subway entrance.
The subway would lead them to the other side of the city.
They would use this route to break through the swarm, escape the “two slices of bread with cheese situation,” and emerge from the subway on the other side.