Chapter 33

When they were still dating, Wen Jiuze would occasionally get too angry. At such times, the way he thought of to make peace was-

“Would you like to go somewhere fun?”

He’d take her out, and as long as she was having fun, she wouldn’t care about being upset.

Just like the last time at the zoo.

Wen Jiuze stood up from the river, his clothes drenched.

Inside, he felt a little unhappy. He hadn’t said anything wrong or done anything to upset her, so he didn’t understand why she suddenly exploded.

But when he saw Xue Ling sitting on the shore, hugging her legs and burying her face in her knees after pushing him, he couldn’t help but feel soft-hearted.

He stepped onto the shore, wiped his face dry, squatted in front of her, and asked gently, “Why are you unhappy?”

Xue Ling didn’t look up, only showing him a swirl of hair and the back of her head, which no longer looked round.

He gently touched Xue Ling’s arm again.

“How about you push me down again? I’ll let you push me down again, okay?”

He grabbed Xue Ling’s hand and shook it. Xue Ling didn’t look up. Slowly, she clenched her fist and lightly punched him in the chest.

The punch wasn’t hard, but it made Wen Jiuze’s heart beat faster as if the punch had gone straight to his heart.

Unknowingly, he started to laugh. He covered her fist with his hand and said, “Why don’t you hit me harder?”

“Come on, I’ll take you…” He lifted her up and held her in his arms. “Take you to a place.”

After changing into dry clothes in the car, Wen Jiuze drove away from the planned route and took a deserted road.

The road was bumpy, and soon, there were no roads visible ahead.

The terrible road gradually lifted Xue Ling’s mood. She looked out the window, her mind full of questions. Where was he taking her?

When the car left all the visible roads and drove into thick bushes, Xue Ling couldn’t help but stick her head out. A branch from the side of the road hit her face.

“Ahem.” Wen Jiuze closed the window, “Don’t stick your head out.”

I can’t stay silent anymore!

Xue Ling grabbed the writing board and asked, “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to a special place,” Wen Jiuze replied mysteriously.

The road ahead was blocked, so Wen Jiuze got out of the car, pulled Xue Ling out as well, and led her deep into the thick grass.

He walked in front, his tall figure blocking most of the sharp blades. When he encountered thorny grass, he stepped on it to clear a path.

The grass wouldn’t leave any marks on the zombies’ tough skin but left thin red scratches on Wen Jiuze’s arms.

But he didn’t mind. He casually pushed aside the tall grass, trying to gauge the direction and recall where they were as they walked.

Xue Ling kept her head down, watching her steps, fearing that a snake or other frightening insect might suddenly appear.

“This is it,” Wen Jiuze said.

The grass became sparse, and they walked out of the wild field to an open, flat area. The ground was scattered with broken stones and sand, and there were several strange holes.

“Can you guess what these holes are?” Wen Jiuze squatted beside a large pit and smiled. “Take a wild guess.”

The pit was several meters deep. There was a pool of water at the bottom, with some green grass growing beside it.

Xue Ling’s stubborn brain worked hard, and after a moment of hesitation, she wrote two words: “Robbery hole?”

Wen Jiuze: “…” This guess was too bold.

He smiled and revealed the answer, “It’s a meteorite crater. Do you remember the meteor shower?”

Three years ago, when the zombie virus was rapidly spreading, there was a meteor shower.

On that day, many satellites launched by humans fell, along with meteorites of all sizes.

Viewed from Earth, it was a spectacular meteor shower.

“I was nearby at that time and saw the meteorites falling,” Wen Jiuze said.

He had been on his way back to Yu City from Anxi City to find Xue Ling.

He had been extremely anxious, but then the ground suddenly shook, and the car overturned on the side of the road.

A meteorite hit a tall signal tower in the distance, causing the cables to catch fire, and a huge blaze erupted.

The sky seemed dark, despite it being daytime, and the entire scene was reflected in a fiery red glow.

He had been forced to stay nearby, watching the “shooting stars” streaking across the sky, and for the first time, he agreed with the idea that “the end of the world is near.”

“What about you? Where were you at that time?” Wen Jiuze looked at Xue Ling.

Xue Ling took a while to scribble two words – “At home.”

She had already turned into a zombie by then. With nowhere to go, she had wandered among other zombies, aimlessly thinking about life.

Her fellow zombies were all searching for the scent of humans, roaring and becoming restless. She, on the other hand, stood there wide-eyed, staring at the “meteor shower” in the sky.

The scene was so shocking that she watched it from beginning to end without blinking, losing track of time.

When the meteor shower ended, she snapped out of it, only to find that all the other zombies nearby had left, headed somewhere with purpose, leaving her alone, standing there confused, unsure of what to do.

The meteor shower hadn’t caused her any trouble because no meteorites had fallen nearby. She had only seen the spectacular meteors streaking across the sky.

For someone who was still a human being not long ago, her first thought at that moment was: “What a pity, my phone was lost, and I couldn’t take a picture.”

Then she heard someone upstairs nearby collapse and shout, “It must have been the meteor shower. The zombie virus came with it!”

Even though the zombie outbreak had happened first and the meteor shower had come later, the man who was crying and shouting clearly didn’t care about the order of events anymore.

There is no definitive conclusion as to whether the zombie virus is connected to the meteorite shower, but it is true that after this event, global communication signals completely collapsed.

As Xue Ling, a zombie, wandered around, listening in on conversations, she overheard many people discussing this issue.

Some suggested that the meteorite shower caused a shift in Earth’s magnetic field, disrupting communication signals.

After all, all forms of communication had failed, and even now, three years later, they had yet to be restored.

If you turn on a car radio now, you’ll still hear nothing.

Two figures, one tall and one short, squatted in the crater, looking down into it.

“Gudong.” Wen Jiuze threw a small stone, and it hit a puddle in the pit.

“Why don’t we go down and take a look? Maybe we can find a meteorite,” Wen Jiuze suggested.

He remembered how Xue Ling used to love meteorites and had excitedly bought a meteorite pendant.

He had looked at it for a long time, wondering why the “meteorite” seemed no different from the stones on the roadside, so he asked her, “Do you think this might be a fake meteorite?”

Xue Ling replied, “This is a fake meteorite. A real one wouldn’t be so cheap.”

“You knew it was fake, but you still bought it?” Wen Jiuze was puzzled.

“Just like when I buy a fortune bracelet—do I think it will really bring wealth?” Xue Ling replied as if it was obvious.

Aren’t they just expressing romantic fantasies and hopeful expectations? Who would take it seriously?

This was when Wen Jiuze learned that she liked meteorites.

Later, due to some online theories claiming “meteorites cause cancer,” Xue Ling reluctantly put away the pendant and replaced it with a bracelet that promised good exam results, which she bought from a temple.

She had been struggling with exams at the time, memorizing lessons late into the night.

By the way, she also bought him a silver bell bracelet for his health, though Wen Jiuze refused to wear it until his death.

Wen Jiuze slid down the sloping wall of the crater, causing gravel and sand to fall beneath his feet.

He stretched out his hand to Xue Ling, “Be careful. Give me your hand.”

Xue Ling found it a bit troublesome. It would be much quicker to just roll down into the pit, something she had done before, and she wouldn’t get hurt or feel pain.

But with Wen Jiuze waiting for her, arms open, she had no choice but to do as he wished.

She reached the bottom of the pit, stepping next to the small puddle.

Xue Ling looked up at the sky. It was blue, and the weather was perfect.

Wen Jiuze was already squatting there, picking up rocks from the ground, and asked her, “Can you recognize any meteorites here?”

Xue Ling squatted down as well, looking for stones.

She wasn’t planning to search for meteorites—she just wanted to find a couple of nice-looking stones.

Though she had liked meteorites a lot as a child, her interest had waned as she grew older.

It was normal for many kids to become fascinated with aliens, the universe, and stars when they first encountered the concept.

When Xue Ling was little, she had watched a cartoon about an orphan searching for his family.

The stone he carried was a meteorite, and he was an alien child left on Earth. One day, his alien relatives would find him using the meteorite and take him back to their home in a spaceship.

At that time, young Xue Ling couldn’t help but wonder if she, too, was an alien child and that one day, her loving relatives would come to Earth to reunite with her.

However, when this thought crossed her mind, she immediately felt guilty, as if she were rejecting her mother.

So the little girl was seriously worried at the time, wondering whether she should leave her Earth mother if her alien parents came looking for her.

This made it a bit hard to talk about her love for meteorites as she grew up.

When Wen Jiuze asked her why she liked meteorites, she pretended to be very literary and spoke about the birth of stars, saying that she loved meteorites because the universe was romantic.

Now, as Wen Jiuze insisted on finding a real meteorite before leaving, Xue Ling couldn’t help but regret her pretense… Why had she said all that?

She held two pebbles, tugged at Wen Jiuze’s clothes, and urged him to leave.

Wen Jiuze let his clothes stretch and continued digging for stones without moving.

“The two you found aren’t meteorites.” He sneered at the stones she found.

“See? This is a meteorite.” He pulled out a black stone with holes on the surface and tiny reflective crystals.

He held it up and asked, “Is one enough? I’ll find you another.”

Xue Ling: “…” He actually knew what a meteorite looked like.

Okay, that’s enough. Let’s go.

Wen Jiuze was surprised. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

It wasn’t anything serious, but Xue Ling was worried that there might really be radiation in the crater, and if Wen Jiuze stayed too long, something bad might happen to him.

He wasn’t normal to begin with, and if radiation affected him, he might become even more grotesque. What should she do?

Hearing the slight tearing of his clothes, Wen Jiuze stood up and said, “Alright, let’s go.”

Xue Ling took the meteorite from his hand, put it back in its original place, and buried it.

After returning the meteorite to the crater, she pushed Wen Jiuze up.

Wen Jiuze went up first and then pulled her up.

“You’ve come here for nothing. You’re just like Ye Gong who loves dragons but doesn’t dare to touch the real meteorite,” Wen Jiuze laughed.

Xue Ling took the two white pebbles she had found and was about to hit him with them, but Wen Jiuze raised his hand to block.

“Why are you in such a hurry to leave? I was planning to camp here with you tonight.”

“Don’t you want to rest in a sinkhole like this?”

No thanks.

Xue Ling thought to herself, it’s not like I haven’t slept in a meteorite crater before.

She didn’t tell Wen Jiuze that she had actually seen this type of meteorite crater several times.

On the way from Yu City to Anxi City, she had gotten lost several times. She had seen meteorite craters and even a satellite crater.

The satellite in the pit had been torn to pieces, leaving only debris.

Next to it was another large crater.

She rolled down into the pit, dug at the bottom, and found a large meteorite.

That night, she lay beside the meteorite, using it as a pillow. All night, she felt both peaceful and excited. Thoughts from every sci-fi movie she’d ever seen filled her mind as she wondered if she’d mutate or if zombies would undergo some super-evolution.

But nothing happened that night, and the sun was particularly hot at noon, so she had to climb out of the pit in disappointment and continue walking along the road.