Chapter 119: Fatal G City (Part 4)

So, with Lin Jian on edge the entire time, the two followed the zombie horde.

The force pulling the zombies was so strong that even those trapped upstairs began frantically slamming into windows.

Zombies threw themselves out if the windows hadn’t been closed or the glass had already shattered beforehand.

Those falling from lower floors broke their bones but still dragged themselves forward relentlessly.

Those who fell from higher floors ended up in mangled heaps, only able to writhe and crawl across the ground.

Lin Jian didn’t dare look. Despite over a decade of experience as a general surgeon and having seen his fair share of bloody scenes, he couldn’t stay calm in the face of something like this. He didn’t even want to glance at it.

Xiao Muyu glanced at him. “Are you familiar with this area?”

Lin Jian nodded. “I’m a G City local, born and raised. I know this place like the back of my hand.”

“Then you lead the way,” Xiao Muyu instructed. “Stick with the horde, but make sure we avoid any streets lined with windows.”

The zombies on the streets had all been drawn away, so there wasn’t much immediate danger. However, they still had to be careful of any zombies falling from above.

“Got it.” Lin Jian nodded. “Otherwise, we’d be delivering ourselves like takeout.”

Humor was practically a necessary skill for a surgeon to have. Even in this terrible situation, he could still crack a morbid joke.

Xiao Muyu glanced at him, her voice extremely calm as she added, “Not takeout. We’re walking free meals.”

Lin Jian froze and couldn’t help sneaking a look at the level-headed, elegant woman beside him.

He was honestly surprised. How could someone who looked so delicate and fragile stay even calmer than him, a doctor, after such a horrifying disaster had erupted and in the face of such grotesque, horrifying scenes?

But after thinking about it, Lin Jian was sad to discover that among the seven who had escaped from the hospital, everyone else except for the woman who had lost her husband was calmer and far more cold-blooded than him.

It made him start to question the world. What kind of people were they?

But that line of thought didn’t last long, as he had neither the time nor energy for those doubts.

Surviving was the only thing that mattered right now. Lin Jian had to stay alive to see his family again.

Lin Jian almost broke down, thinking of his parents, wife, and daughter.

His phone no longer had a signal. He had tried calling them on the way, but couldn’t get through.

All he could hope for was that this disaster wasn’t nationwide, so that his family, who were traveling away from the city, would be able to escape this living hell.

Xiao Muyu had Lin Jian lead the way, and he didn’t disappoint. He chose deserted backstreets with almost no zombies in sight.

Although buildings surrounded them, none had windows facing the streets, so any zombies inside couldn’t get out to harm them.

Still, his usefulness didn’t last for long. After they turned down two small streets, Xiao Muyu spotted where the zombie horde was heading.

When Lin Jian saw it, he started trembling and let out an almost whimpering gasp. “Oh my god…” he whispered shakily.

Xiao Muyu couldn’t blame him. She, too, felt her scalp tingle at the sight before them.

Less than a hundred meters away on the main street were two commercial skyscrapers side by side—A and B—each about thirty or forty stories tall.

And right now, zombies surrounded the left building. It was so packed that not even water could leak through.

There were countless of them, and more still stumbling their way inside.

The entrance should have automatic sliding doors triggered by infrared sensors, but for some reason, they weren’t opening.

Whatever was attracting the zombies seemed to be inside the building, and they refused to give up. One after another, they rammed against the doors.

Bloody handprints carpeted the transparent glass. Even though the doors were built with quality materials, they started to give after being battered for so long.

They wouldn’t hold much longer.

Xiao Muyu frowned, looking up at the building.

Unfortunately, no sign of a living person was inside, which filled her with disappointment and relief.

Still, she didn’t plan to leave yet. If the situation wasn’t one of the worst-case scenarios she’d feared, following this horde might prove a bigger significance.

Zombies didn’t congregate without a reason. In the apocalypse, anomalies like this could lead to a phenomenal discovery.

Suddenly, there was a stir within the horde battering the doors. Xiao Muyu noticed one or two zombies moving more agilely than the others. When they couldn’t break through the entrance, they stepped onto the other zombies’ heads to climb up the building.

In the blink of an eye, more zombies followed. They surrounded the building from all sides before starting to scale it. But even though they were stronger than the regular ones, scaling the building with bare hands was extremely difficult. Constant dull thuds sounded as zombies fell back to the ground.

The alarming and absurd scene was confusing to watch.

But Xiao Muyu quickly frowned, her face turning serious, and eventually, a trace of urgency appeared in her eyes.

Lin Jian even suspected she might have rushed straight toward the building if the situation hadn’t been so dangerous.

The reason for her sudden change was clear. The building’s entrance was slowly opening. Those zombies hadn’t broken through, but something had triggered the infrared sensor, almost as if someone had deliberately let them in.

It was the first time Lin Jian had seen such obvious worry in Xiao Muyu’s eyes. He was surprised. She hadn’t looked this tense when facing waves of zombies head-on. It meant she had discovered something that warranted such a change in her expression.

At that moment, several zombies climbing the building displayed physical abilities far beyond normal humans. Their climbing skills were especially frightening.

While the zombies on the ground kept pouring into the building, these few had clambered up to the sixth floor using external air-conditioning units and window ledges.

Zombies didn’t get tired. They could climb indefinitely as long as they didn’t fall. Their path quickly gave Xiao Muyu a clear indication of where the thing attracting them was.

It was on the tenth floor.

Xiao Muyu watched as one of the zombies pulled itself up to a window on the tenth floor. But instead of continuing upward, it squeezed through a half-open window.

It didn’t make it far.

A figure appeared at the window—little more than a black speck in Xiao Muyu’s view.

She couldn’t tell what they did, but the zombie plummeted back down like a bird with its wings snapped.

It hit the ground with a heavy crash, smashing into two other zombies below.

The one that fell struggled to get up, only to collapse again.

Zombies fell one after another. Even though she couldn’t see that dark figure’s expression or movements, Xiao Muyu could sense how resolute and steady they were. And more than that, she knew who the person was.

An unexplainable intuition told her it was the person she’d been searching for.

However, the wailing and thunderous footsteps inside the building sounded like a parade of demons. It made Xiao Muyu so nervous that her hands and feet went numb.

Fear and frustration filled her heart. That same feeling she had back in Death Class 7 surged again. Xiao Muyu’s eyes burned with fury. That damn woman! Had she even thought about how to get herself out if something went wrong?

Xiao Muyu looked down at the card in her hand. She tried using “Loving Family,” but it still couldn’t connect. Suddenly, it dawned on her. It wasn’t that she couldn’t use all cards, just some. Those suicidal ones, in particular, almost begged her to use them.

At least several hundred zombies swarmed the building like locusts. Xiao Muyu couldn’t possibly get close.

She looked up at the building. It was part of a twin-tower skyscraper connected from the first to the fourth floors, standing fairly close to each other. Xiao Muyu turned to Lin Jian and said, “You stay here. I’m going in.”

Lin Jian’s eyes widened. “What? Ms. Xiao, that’s the Wanjing International Building. Every floor is an office space packed with employees. Sure, some of the zombies might’ve been lured over to the other tower, but listen to the noise. You can tell plenty are still inside. It’ll be dangerous if you get trapped and don’t know your way around.”

“I know. But I have to go. If I don’t come back down, leave.” Xiao Muyu bent low and sprinted toward the adjacent tower. Lin Jian didn’t even have time to stop her.

The doors were broken, and the lobby was a mess, but she saw no zombies.

Saving time, Xiao Muyu took a risk and pressed the elevator button.

*Ding*

The elevator chimed, and a burly zombie with a crooked head stumbled out, teeth bared as it lunged forward. Xiao Muyu quickly dodged to the side and got into a defensive stance.

Yet, the zombie didn’t even glance at her.

Holding her breath to endure the thick, metallic stench in the air, she pressed the button for the top floor. A faint trace of bitter almond stood out beneath the overwhelming odor. It struck her as strangely familiar.

But as the thought formed, disgust rose in her throat. The same bitter almond taste had been in her mouth when she woke up from her haze. The association was deeply unpleasant.

She didn’t dwell on it, and the elevator took her to the top floor without incident.

Half office space and half a large flat took up the building’s top level. It happened to be close to the neighboring tower. Rows of outdoor units for the central air conditioning system lined the rooftop. Air conditioning had no use at this time of year.

Xiao Muyu moved unhindered all the way. She weaved through the AC units and looked down over the railing. From this height, the view below was much clearer, and she saw Shen Qingqiu.

Although the two buildings weren’t far from each other, no safety measures were in place. Xiao Muyu didn’t dare gamble on whether Shen Qingqiu could make the jump.

But she soon noticed a small platform halfway down the side of this building, which also seemed to be for AC units.

Turning around, she headed back down the stairs. It took her three tries to find it since she wasn’t sure which floor it was on. Along the way, she encountered three zombies who couldn’t get out. After dealing with them, she realized she was on the ninth floor.

She searched around the office, yanked down a blue blackout curtain, and rushed out to the platform. Standing at the edge, she waved it frantically and shouted, “Shen Qingqiu! Shen Qingqiu!”

After several calls from her, Shen Qingqiu finally noticed the small, waving patch of blue. Her eyes lit up. She opened a window and tore down her curtain to wave back.

Shen Qingqiu was overjoyed to see Xiao Muyu. But her window faced south while Xiao Muyu’s platform faced east, so she could only see Xiao Muyu’s head stretching out as far as it could go.

Shen Qingqiu dropped the curtain and disappeared from view.

Xiao Muyu’s heart tightened. Almost immediately after Shen Qingqiu vanished, she saw the first wave of zombies rush into the room Shen Qingqiu had just been in, wreaking havoc.

Then, they all began pouring out of the room as if they’d discovered something. Cold sweat broke out on Xiao Muyu’s forehead. She wished she could sprout wings and fly over there. Instead, she had to watch helplessly.

Xiao Muyu tilted her head back, desperately searching for movement in the opposite building. She firmly believed Shen Qingqiu had understood her message.

As long as she waited and trusted Shen Qingqiu, Shen Qingqiu would come.

The zombies continued to surge forward, swaying and thrashing. Their excited shrieks were like the cries of predators chasing down prey.

At that moment, Xiao Muyu shut off awareness of everything around her. Only the sounds and movements from the opposite building reached her.

She forcibly stilled her breath, fearing she might miss a single sound.

Her hands twisted together tightly. It wasn’t even June, and the weather was cool, but a fine layer of sweat beaded across her forehead.

*Bang!*

A distant sound echoed from the other building. Xiao Muyu snapped her head up in time to hear the sharp crack of something shattering and then another.

A figure burst out of a tenth-floor window, heading straight toward her.

Shen Qingqiu’s leaping figure blocked the sun, casting a striking silhouette that let Xiao Muyu see her clearly.

She fell like a kite with sunlight behind her and a long strap around her waist, looking so dazzling and magnificent that it stole Xiao Muyu’s breath away.

Three zombies had jumped right after her but couldn’t stop in time, and they fell. Xiao Muyu’s already plummeting heart skipped another beat.

She didn’t have time to look where she stepped. Stumbling forward, she opened her arms to catch her.

Shen Qingqiu had jumped from the tenth floor of the opposite building to the ninth floor of this one. That was three meters of vertical drop and five meters of horizontal distance. A dozen possibilities flashed through Xiao Muyu’s mind. Few had good outcomes. Even so, she didn’t hesitate.

After launching herself with a running start, Shen Qingqiu exceeded what an average person could manage. With her exceptional physical ability and immense explosive power, she barely got within twenty centimeters of the ninth-floor platform during that 0.25-second vertical drop.

But those twenty centimeters meant she couldn’t quite make it.

Had it been an ordinary person standing there, Shen Qingqiu might not have died from the fall. However, the force of the impact would have slammed her unconscious against the building’s exterior wall.

But she had Xiao Muyu to catch her.

Xiao Muyu jumped onto the air conditioning unit, hooking her left arm around the railing. She seized Shen Qingqiu’s outstretched left hand with her right and pulled with all her strength.

The momentum of a person jumping down from three meters up proved too much. Her grip on the railing instantly gave out.

But that one hard pull was enough to help Shen Qingqiu grab the railing with her other hand. Her left gripped Xiao Muyu’s wrist tightly while her legs wrapped around Xiao Muyu’s body like vines, fearing she would fall.

Xiao Muyu glanced down, eyes determined. Her left hand found the ninth-floor platform’s ledge, and the two climbed up together.

The entire sequence had been a perilous gamble. If even one tiny part had gone wrong, the two would have lost everything, but they had succeeded against all odds.

Shen Qingqiu pulled Xiao Muyu into a side hug before the latter had the time to react. Suddenly, her gaze grew cold, and she swiftly drove her dagger into the spine of a zombie that had appeared on the platform. With a twist of her wrist, the zombie thudded to the floor.

“I finally found you,” Shen Qingqiu said with relief. “Let me hold you.”

Xiao Muyu wanted to assess the situation, but Shen Qingqiu held her so tightly that she could barely move. All she saw in her peripheral vision was the zombie, its wide eyes frozen in death.

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Author had something to say:

Do you cuties remember why Xiao Shen can attract monsters? Why did she do it?