Silver Spring Town (VII)

Liang Qing glanced coldly at Nie Yun, the instigator of teaching minors to swear and smiled awkwardly.

"They really came to our door." Nie Yun looked out the window - the boy named Allen and his teammates, along with the third boy in the team, were looking blankly and anxiously in the direction of the old auto repair shop.

Nie Yun was about to open the door when Liang Qing held her hand. She stared at the young man in the middle. He was missing a section of his arm, his upper arm hanging down with blood. He was pale and in shock.

"He must have been bitten by a zombie..." Shi Xiaofeng squinted his eyes to identify it. "In this case, there's a high probability that he will soon become a zombie."

The initial "walking dead" were created by Anna using a dark soul-transferring ritual. Those thousands of miners were the direct cause of Silver Spring's fall. The subsequent zombies were formed by countless residents, explorers, and players who came here one after another to offer their lives, only to be bitten and infected.

"Are we still letting them in?" Nie Yunshi and Xiaofeng looked at Liang Qing in unison.

Outside the door.

"Sister Liang Qing, are you nearby? Robert is dying... He was bitten by a zombie, but he hasn't had an attack yet. Can you give us a place to say goodbye..." Alan's voice became lower and lower.

He himself knew that only a madman would agree to such a request.

After waiting for a few minutes, there was no sound around the old repair shop except the sound of the wind and the movement of zombies wandering in the distance.

Robert's body was getting hotter and heavier, and the two people supporting him could hardly hold on.

"Forget it, let's go, no one will take us in." said his companion.

Alan lowered his head and turned to leave. Suddenly, a light flashed behind him. He immediately turned around and saw Liang Qing standing in the porch that had appeared out of thin air, holding a red whip in his hand.

"The safe house is only open for thirty minutes today, and I'll give you thirty minutes to say goodbye. The condition is that your partner must be tied up with this whip, and we will stand by with guns at the side the entire time. If you agree, then come in."

The eyes of Allen's companions lit up: "Those people are right. There really is a safe house that you can enter by paying..."

Allen rushed to say, "We have no points left. We can't afford to stay here."

Liang Qing shook his head. "I don't need you to give me points. Come with us somewhere later. Your excellent marksmanship will be put to good use."

In the living room, Nie Yun and Shi Xiaofeng were on high alert. Shi Xiaofeng stepped forward and felt Robert's carotid artery. The latter's body temperature dropped rapidly due to excessive blood loss.

They tied Robert to a chair next to the fireplace, and Shi Xiaofeng quickly began to stop the bleeding and apply medicine to Robert. Although it could not prevent the possibility of Robert getting infected, it was all they could do.

While Shi Xiaofeng was busy, Liang Qing handed bread and water to the other two people: "How did he get injured?"

The two said "thank you" and started to eat voraciously.

"After you left, we wanted to earn more points, so we took the risk and went to the main street where there were the most zombies. However, we were so focused on attacking that we didn't expect to be tricked from behind..." The young man named Jason was indignant.

The three teenagers were poorly equipped and had a weak sense of vigilance. They rashly attacked the zombie group late at night and were already being spotted by other players.

The number of zombies and key clues was limited. If their progress was slow and clueless, dragging down and trapping other players was a victory in some sense. With this in mind, someone fired a sneak shot in the direction they were hiding while they were busy attacking.

The shot missed, but it shattered the glass of a nearby old house. The noise instantly attracted a number of zombies. The three teenagers' locations were instantly exposed, and one of them ran out of ammunition, barely escaping death with every ounce of his strength.

The price was the loss of a member.

"This is a survival game, not a game of getting rich. Don't reach for results that are beyond your reach." Liang Qing said lightly.

"Yeah." Alan lowered his head, his voice muffled.

"How did you three meet? Where is your guardian?"

"Our guardians teamed up in the previous game, so we got to know each other. They all didn't survive... so we formed our own team."

Hearing this, Jason looked at Alan and said, "If I had known earlier that we should have found a new protector, Robert wouldn't have..."

"What do you know!" Allen was very excited. "They just want to use us!"

Liang Qing looked at the little kid sleeping in his arms, patted the back of Alan's hand, and signaled him to calm down.

"I'm sorry." Alan gasped, but tried his best to restrain himself from continuing the previous topic with Jason.

"It's okay. I just want to know, if your guardian dies... will you just have to stay in the game?"

Jason and Alan looked at each other and remained silent for a moment, neither of them giving a "yes" or "no" response.

Finally, it was Alan who spoke up: "We are orphans outside the game. We are bullied just as much in the game as outside the game. There is no difference."

At that moment, many thoughts flew through Liang Qing's mind at the same time.

Is Baobao also an orphan in the real world?

If he died here and Bao Bao lost his guardian, would he become a weed in this absurd game like Jason Allen?

Jason and Allen were both teenagers, so they still had some ability to defend themselves, but Bao Bao was still a baby...

Liang Qing stood up and said, "I'll give you some privacy to say your final goodbyes. We'll wait for you in the kitchen. But let me be frank, if something unexpected happens, I'll shoot Robert in the head. Be prepared for this."

The other two boys' eyes turned red and they nodded.

Not long after the farewell ceremony, Alan suddenly came jogging over.

"Sister Liang Qing, Robert said he could hear some unusual sounds."

Shi Xiaofeng frowned: "Hallucinations? But with such a high fever, hallucinations are normal."

"Let's go and take a look." Liang Qing stepped forward and walked over.

Sitting on the chair in front of the fireplace, Robert was left with only a trace of breath. He kept repeating a few words, as if he was determined to warn his friends before he lost consciousness.

"The devil's voice... He asked us to go to Quanxin... Quanxin..." Robert panted softly.

The heart of Spring.

Liang Qing asked, "And then?"

"Tomorrow's midnight... underground water..." Robert tried his best to continue speaking, but he became more breathless after each word. His head drooped heavily on his chest, and his body was still shaking slightly uncontrollably.

After a few seconds, Robert sighed and fell silent.

Jason stepped forward and shook him: "Robert, Robert!"

Alan was sharp-eyed and pulled Jason away - the whip that tied Robert suddenly seemed to be on fire, suddenly emitting a dazzling flame and tightening Robert's body even more tightly.

The severe pain woke Robert up again. He stretched his neck and roared in pain, but the voice no longer had the tone of a human. It sounded like a beast or a ghost.

He suddenly opened his eyes, and the human pupils disappeared, leaving only the whites of his eyes in the empty eyeballs.

Jason gasped in fear and took two steps back.

What they saw now was the zombie Robert.

Baobao, who was in Liang Qing's baby carrier, was awakened by the sound. He turned his head to see what was happening behind him, and then met the frantic Robert.

Before Liang Qing could turn around and Nie Yun could step forward to cover his eyes, he reached out to grab Robert, giggling as he did so.

It was as if Robert was not a new zombie, but an oversized clown in an amusement park.

Everyone: ...

Robert was attracted by the voice of the human cub and could no longer control himself. In rage and hunger, he tried to break free from the red flame rope that bound him.

The Red Flame Rope is only valid for less than a minute.

Liang Qing looked in the direction of Allen, who had already raised his gun.

"I'm sorry Robert." Allen whispered beside him and shot his friend in the head.

——

After the safe house was folded up, several people squeezed into the old car and headed towards Dongquan.

Midnight had passed, and dawn was approaching. Many of the zombies had retreated underground or into the dense forests, and most of the players who had fought all night were resting. At this moment, Silver Spring Town had a moment of peace.

During this time, the system sent another summary of personal information. As usual, 62 players died in the zombie siege last night, and as usual, new players would be coming in to fill the gap today.

Before this, Liang Qing and the others didn't care about what this replenishment mechanism implied. Now it seems that the system is consciously allowing new players to settle in to fill the bottomless pit of zombies in Yinquan Town and keep these inhuman monsters alive.

Everyone's faces looked unhappy, except for Alan's ally Jason, who thanked Liang Qing repeatedly after checking his account.

"Those wooden figures are worth 100 points each! Sister Liang Qing, thank you so much, we have enough money to buy equipment!"

"This is what you got in the attic of the tavern, right? Did you know what it was before?" Alan looked at Liang Qing.

Liang Qing nodded. "We've got some clues. These wooden figures should be holding the souls of the first batch of miners transformed by Anna. If nothing unexpected happens, when this instance ends, these souls will be released and enjoy eternal peace."

Alan was silent for a long time: "You are different from other adults."

"Really?" Liang Qing smiled and said nothing more.

"Dongquan is right here." Nie Yun, who had been staring at the map in the co-pilot seat, turned around and said to Liang Qing and the others.

Shi Xiaofeng hadn't used his headlights the entire way, so when they arrived, they could only rely on the faint starlight to identify the terrain. Dongquan was a small valley formed by two hills. The dark hills were covered with low shrubs, and the only sounds were the whistling wind and the rustling of grass. There were no zombies or people in sight.

"Alan and Jason, stay in the car." Liang Qing got out of the car and went to the Points Mall to buy five walkie-talkies. The signal reception range can reach 3 kilometers. As long as they move within this range, they will not lose contact.

Allen immediately objected: "I'll go down with you."

Liang Qing held his shoulders and said sternly, "I know you want to avenge Robert. I didn't keep you here because you're a minor, but because I need you to cover our rear. Just like when we rushed out of the attic."

"Really? You will come back?" Alan stared at Liang Qing intently and asked back.

Shi Xiaofeng patted his shoulder and said, "I understand how you feel. I've lost my good brother too. It's just that we have different responsibilities in a team. We will come back, for sure."

Allen's thoughts were exposed, and he lowered his head without arguing. Nie Yun adjusted the atmosphere, stuffed all the snacks in his bag at them, and smiled at them: "Eat while you wait for us, time will pass quickly."

After bidding farewell to the young man, the three of them soon arrived at a valley in the middle of the hills. It was a place of chaos and turmoil, with no springs or even wet soil.

Liang Qing gently turned over stones of varying sizes until he finally found a mark in a low spot. The mark was painted with white powder and looked very old. It was identical to the candle formations in Anna's attic during the necromancy ritual.