"Huff, huff, ugh..."
Zheng Xinyu breathed heavily. As the tense atmosphere passed, she noticed the ground beneath her was littered with internal organs. The air was thick with a foul stench, causing her stomach to churn, and just like that, she vomited.
"Sister Xinyu...are you okay?"
Startled by Zheng Xinyu’s sudden vomiting, Zhong Xiaoshan sidestepped to avoid the splattered filth, gently patting her back. "Don’t look at the ground, and try to think of sothing delicious. You’ll feel better soon!"
"Sothing delicious..."
Zhang Su thought to himself, isn’t thinking of sothing delicious at a ti like this just asking for trouble?
He lit another cigarette, exhaled smoke, and closed the door. Then, he put the cigarette to Zheng Xinyu’s lips. "Take a drag, it’ll help calm you down!"
Nostrils flaring, Zheng Xinyu took a deep puff from the cigarette. The harsh smoke made her cough, but the urge to vomit vanished.
"There’s...another one!"
At this mont, Zhong Xiaoshan nervously pointed at a zombie crawling from the direction of the living room.
This zombie had only half its body left; everything from the abdon down was gone. It used its arms to crawl laboriously, and even so, its white teeth continued to grind loudly, not abandoning its hunger for fresh flesh.
The urge to vomit resurged as Zheng Xinyu saw the zombie, stronger than ever. The cigarette was useless; she bent over and retched violently, but there was nothing left, just bile.
Zhang Su patted Zheng Xinyu’s trembling shoulder. This was sothing she had to overco herself. He then approached the broken zombie with his axe.
After dealing with the two zombies, the trio entered the living room and found, unlike an ordinary ho, it was styled like an office. Two rows of desks faced each other, with six computers in total.
"Turns out it’s for e-comrce after-sales. I didn’t know people were working upstairs..."
Zheng Xinyu spoke nasally as she flipped through a booklet on the table and discovered it was an e-comrce company.
Zhang Su shook his head as he ca out of the kitchen, shaking his hands. "There’s nothing!"
"This company might have just been established or moved from sowhere else. The bedrooms are filled with empty shelves and packing boxes. These zippers and tapes might be useful."
Zhong Xiaoshan also looked frustrated as she left the bedroom, shaking a box in her arms. It contained more than ten rolls of tape and so plastic zip ties.
"Let’s search the desks; maybe there’ll be sothing."
Zhang Su suggested as he started pulling open drawers. Just then, a loud shout ca from outside the window, followed by a shadow flickering across the pane, a desperate scream coming closer then fading away, descending downwards.
"What was that!?"
Alard, they rushed to the living room window to look below. What t their eyes made their hearts sink.
"No, it can’t be..."
Zheng Xinyu’s face twitched as she pointed upstairs.
Zhang Su, frowning, gazed at the blood spreading from the corpse in the center, and sighed, "It must be that person from 1201. In just a short mont, and now..."
He felt a bit mournful; in one mont, the neighbor who generously shared food had turned into a bloody ss.
Being kind might seem foolish now, but it remains a rare quality.
Zhang Su admitted he would never be a kind man, but he held respect for those who were.
Covering her mouth, Zhong Xiaoshan shook her head, "Why jump? Isn’t it better to live? Why choose this way to end things?"
Despite the hardships, she always thought living was beautiful. As long as one could live, enduring was nothing. She couldn’t comprehend the thoughts of those who chose death.
"Could it be because he heard us talking about how chaotic the outside world is, so...his shout was so full of despair just now."
Zheng Xinyu spoke with a touch of sadness at the corner of her mouth.
In the three days since the zombie outbreak, many have chosen to end their lives. So gave up on themselves, while others had different reasons.
"So pain, if not personally experienced, can’t be understood. His choice to die has nothing to do with us. Look beside him at the corpse, it’s probably the family mber who was infected with the zombie virus before..."
Zhang Su withdrew himself, not intending to keep watching the human drama. But just then, while he was retracting his gaze, a figure inexplicably appeared in his peripheral vision!
In a compound full of wandering zombies, a living being stood out starkly, even for just a fraction of a second. He could confirm that he saw a living person!
"Huh?"
A trace of doubt arose in Zhang Su’s mind. Scanning again, he quickly locked onto the target, at the very bottom of the east side of building four, soone was peeking!
Due to construction design, perhaps for moisture control, the first-floor balcony wasn’t ground level, but had a space of about forty centiters from the ground. Sotis stray cats could be seen in those narrow spaces, often a place kids picked to hide during gas of hide-and-seek.
But now Zhang Su saw soone hiding under the balcony!
"Brother Su, what are you looking at?"
Zheng Xinyu noticed Zhang Su’s eyes were keenly fixed sowhere, very different from his expression when he saw the death just now.
"Soone!"
Zhang Su pointed at the hiding spot. "Over there, at the east side on the bottom, look, there’s a person there!"
Following Zhang Su’s description, Zheng Xinyu and Zhong Xiaoshan peered in that direction. After a while, both looked at Zhang Su with puzzled eyes.
"He’s hiding again!"
Zhang Su confidently pointed downstairs. "There was soone poking their head out earlier, one hundred percent!"
Zheng Xinyu and Zhong Xiaoshan exchanged glances, seeming to reach so silent agreent.
"Hmm, there was soone, right..."
Zheng Xinyu answered earnestly.
"Yes, yes."
Zhong Xiaoshan nodded in agreent.
Zhang Su, perceptive as always, noticed the acting in the two won’s attitude and frowned. "I really saw him, why don’t you believe ...never mind, whether there’s soone or not, it doesn’t matter."
Saying so, Zhang Su shrugged and headed toward the desks, no longer bothered. Whether there was soone was irrelevant; what irked him was their disbelief.
Quickly, the trio finished searching and found lots of snacks from the desks, richer than what they got from the old couple’s ho. Just the big box of Snickers bars could feed them for several als. Mainly, it was convenient, no cooking needed, with high calories and fat!
There were other snacks too, like chips, dried mango, nuts, and common office treats...
However, the biggest find wasn’t snacks, but four entire slabs of bottled water, nearly a hundred bottles totaling sixty liters, enough for each to have twenty liters, manageable for ten days with rationing!
"We’ve hit the jackpot!"
Delighted, Zhang Su pulled out a bottle of water and kissed it, then unscrewed and gulped down a mouthful, before cramming everything into his backpack.
They had plenty of drinkable items among their supplies, but pure water wasn’t abundant, mostly various drinks and beers. These waters were a crucial addition.
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