Chapter 16

Wen Jiuze drove the car out of Anxi City and finally found a place in the suburbs to stop and rest.

Driving for a long time can lead to fatigue. Wen Jiuze sat by a clear ditch to wash his face and refresh himself. He felt sticky all over, so he took off his T-shirt and tossed it in the water to wet it, using it as a towel to wipe the sweat from his neck and chest.

It was still very hot, and he had sweated a lot in the car.

As he wiped himself down, he mentally planned the next driving route.

He learned from Wen Xiang that her sister, Wen Yi, had left the Wen family during the chaotic early days of the apocalypse and had gone to Andong City.

Wen Yi had both attended university and found work in Andong City, and she even had a boyfriend there. It was very likely that she was still in that city.

Andong City was right next to Yu City. When Wen Jiuze was active near Yu City, he had heard about a base in Andong City.

So, he planned to take Xue Ling to that base in Andong City to see if they could find Wen Yi and get the Tai Sui from her.

However, Wen Jiuze was also fully aware that this hope was slim.

So much time had passed; Wen Yi might not be alive anymore. Even if she was, the Tai Sui she had taken might no longer be in her possession.

If he was lucky enough that she hadn’t used the Tai Sui, it still might not be useful to Xue Ling in her current state.

There were too many uncertainties.

Wen Jiuze didn’t want to tell Xue Ling about this just yet.

He understood better than anyone else how torturous it was to hold onto hope only to face disappointment repeatedly. It was better not to hope at all than to suffer through such anguish.

Wen Jiuze’s damp hair dripped water, with some droplets running down his chin and splashing onto his broad chest, while others slid down his neck into the groove of his back.

The numerous old scars of varying sizes on his smooth and toned muscles made him appear particularly fierce and dangerous.

Amidst the sound of splashing water, Wen Jiuze caught the sound of footsteps behind him. He twisted the T-shirt in his hands and turned around.

Xue Ling casually strolled over with her writing board, her eyes fixed on his waist.

There was a particularly long scar on Wen Jiuze’s waist.

Last time, Xue Ling had wanted to ask about it, but she had still been pretending to be a confused zombie and felt it was inappropriate to inquire, so she had pretended not to see it.

“Do you want to wash up too?” Wen Jiuze asked, his eyes curving in a smile as he raised his hand to wipe his neck.

Xue Ling shook her head and slowly raised her writing board toward him.

On it, she had written “waist, wound” along with a question mark.

Wen Jiuze glanced at the old scar on his waist and replied with a smile, “Oh, this? I got slashed during a fight.”

Then he added jokingly, “At that time, my intestines were spilling out.”

Xue Ling’s stiff zombie face slowly wrinkled as she pictured that horrifying scene. She squatted down and gently touched the scar on his waist.

Her hand was cold, lacking warmth, almost cooler than the water in the creek.

Wen Jiuze grasped her hand, wanting to ask about her scars as well.

He tossed aside the T-shirt and suddenly pushed Xue Ling onto a large rock, lifting her skirt.

Xue Ling was taken aback by his sudden move. She froze for a moment before jumping up, horrified, covering her skirt as she ran away, forgetting the writing board she had dropped.

She ran a distance away from Wen Jiuze, her eyes filled with panic.

Wen Jiuze: “…”

Seeing that he wasn’t moving, she cautiously approached, like she was near a dangerous creature. She quickly picked up her writing board, ran back a good distance, and wrote a few words to show him.

“Don’t! You will get infected!”

She swiftly erased those words and wrote, “Calm down!”

Her handwriting speed was almost as fast as that of a normal person.

What did she think he was going to do? Wen Jiuze felt both amused and exasperated. To Xue Ling, he must have seemed genuinely insane.

“I wasn’t going to do anything. I just wanted to ask how you got those injuries,” Wen Jiuze said, gesturing for her to come closer.

Xue Ling held the board, looking skeptical. If he were anyone else, she wouldn’t have doubted him so much, but Wen Jiuze was acting far too unhinged.

He could sleep next to a zombie without a care and even kiss her face. What if he really intended to do something crazy like sleep with a zombie? Given his unusual mental state, it wasn’t entirely impossible.

He refused to take the medicine she brought back, leaving her as a zombie worried about him.

Finally managing to coax her over, Wen Jiuze lifted her skirt, pointing to a spot on her thigh where flesh was missing. “How did you get this injury?”

The last time he helped her take a bath, Wen Jiuze had noticed several wounds on her body. The injuries on a zombie were always shriveled, not bleeding or scabbing, just dry and tight on the surface.

He had wanted to ask Xue Ling when those injuries appeared, but since zombies had no awareness, he knew she wouldn’t answer even if he asked. So, he remained silent, pretending everything was fine as he washed her and covered her wounds with clothes.

“This wound looks like a piece of flesh was scraped off,” Wen Jiuze said, gently rubbing his fingers over it. “Who did this, a zombie or a human?”

He guessed wrong, it was neither.

Xue Ling felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her.

Wasn’t she already a zombie? Ordinary bumps and bruises wouldn’t hurt or kill her. She had become a bit reckless and had been curious about everything for a time.

Once, she had seen an unattended motorcycle on the side of the road. It looked incredibly cool, and the key was still in the ignition.

She thought to herself that she had never ridden a motorcycle while alive, so why not try it now that she was dead?

Since she didn’t want to walk anymore, she decided to take the motorcycle.

But she had overestimated herself. Excitedly getting on the bike, she ended up crashing it, leaving it in pieces, while she scraped off a chunk of flesh from her leg.

Seeing Wen Jiuze’s look of concern and the faint hint of aggression in his eyes, as if he wanted to hold someone accountable, Xue Ling didn’t dare to tell the truth.

Because of Xue Ling’s silence, Wen Jiuze reached for another wound on her shoulder.

“This one was from a bullet, right? Do you remember who shot you?”

She remembered, but that guy had been dead for a long time.

Xue Ling felt increasingly awkward. Back when she had just turned into a zombie, she was quite fond of joining the fun. When zombies sensed human presence, they would swarm around, and out of boredom, she enjoyed seeing what was going on.

There was a bulky guy surrounded by zombies in a car, crying and sobbing while shaking a gun in his hands.

The gun wasn’t very good, and he didn’t seem to know how to use it. Most likely, he was just panicking and randomly shooting out of the window.

Xue Ling was quite unfortunate. While peering into the inner area from the outer edge to get a better look at the person standing on the rock, she was accidentally hit by a stray bullet from a man who was wildly swinging his gun.

Apart from her, no real zombies present were harmed.

“Were you scared when you got hit?” Wen Jiuze asked softly.

Xue Ling: “…”

To be honest, the man firing the gun was the one who was scared while she was too busy feeling frustrated.

She had run to the side, trying to figure out how to remove the bullet from her shoulder. When she looked back, she saw that the man had been so frightened that he had taken his own life with the gun.

After witnessing such events repeatedly, Xue Ling felt that the presence of humans no longer interested her.

Now that Wen Jiuze asked her this question, she struggled to find the right words. Speaking out would seem disrespectful to his emotional state.

“Is it because you don’t want to talk about it… because it brings back painful memories?”

It was indeed painful, but not in the way he imagined.

Xue Ling wanted to escape. She held up her board and wrote: “Explain, trouble.”

It’s difficult to explain.

“Alright, I won’t ask anymore,” Wen Jiuze said, clearly imagining a tragic backstory for her, rubbing his thumb over the bullet hole in her shoulder.

There was already a red scar there, and the bullet hole added another small blemish on top, making it look even worse.

As he stared at it, Xue Ling remembered that during their intimate moments, he often kissed that spot on her shoulder.

The scar was from when she was much younger. Back when her mother had not yet divorced her father, her mother went to work every day while her father stayed home but often went out to play cards.

One time, her mother had to be away on a business trip for a day and left her father to take care of her. Unfortunately, her father forgot about her while out playing cards all night, leaving her home alone.

At that young age, she had felt hungry and thirsty, so she went to pour herself some water. She accidentally knocked hot water off the table, scalding her shoulder and leaving a large burn.

It wasn’t until the next day that her mother came home and took her to the hospital, resulting in the scar she still bore.

This incident was also one of the catalysts for her parents’ divorce. She remembered being in the hospital, crying in pain while her parents argued outside.

“As a woman, it’s your responsibility to take care of the child. Whose man would take care of the child? Now that something’s wrong, you still have the nerve to blame me?”

“I told you not to work, to stay home and take care of the child, and to hurry up and have another son, but you refused. How much do you think you earn from working? It’s not enough to cover my losses in a single card game.”

“Enough, I’m tired of arguing. It’s just a burn, it’s not a big deal. You always want to fight over nothing…”

For a long time, that injury had hurt terribly.

Her parents quarreled, filed for divorce, and she moved with her mother and found a new job… The wound on her shoulder also festered repeatedly and took a long time to heal.

Being a zombie was much better than being human in this regard. Whether it was losing a chunk of flesh or being shot, she felt no pain. At most, she just looked a bit ugly.

During the time she was closest to Wen Jiuze, he had asked about the scar on her shoulder.

At that time, she had no communication barriers but hadn’t gone into detail, only saying it was from a burn caused by hot water.

In reality, Wen Jiuze had many more scars than she did. She felt embarrassed to tell him anything that might come off as seeking pity.

When he heard her explanation, he had lowered his head and kissed her scar, just like he did now—

Xue Ling: “!”

She scrambled away from Wen Jiuze, quickly adjusting her clothes and raising her board again: “Didn’t you say you were just looking?!”

“Shut up!”

Wen Jiuze replied, “…No.”

He stood up, deliberately squinting his eyes and spreading his arms as he took a few steps forward. “I’m coming.”

Frightened, Xue Ling turned and ran. Soon, Wen Jiuze caught up to her. She held up her board and yelled, “Ahhhhhh!”

Wen Jiuze couldn’t help but laugh, burying his face in her shoulder as he trembled with laughter.

Xue Ling raised her plastic writing board and playfully banged it on his head.

When Wen Jiuze finally returned to the car wearing a half-dry T-shirt, he seemed no longer bothered by her injuries.

Here’s a little secret: sometimes, when Wen Jiuze noticed that Xue Ling was unhappy, he would deliberately tease her to lift her spirits.

Xue Ling had this skill too.