Golden Armor "Giant Corpse"

I never take anything related to the enemy lightly. After sending Gao Chen back to the administration building, I stood alone outside the veterans' gate for a long time.

The T-junction, consisting of two secondary thoroughfares, has been thoroughly cleaned day and night. The surrounding businesses, shops, and residences within a hundred meters are exceptionally clean. If it weren't for the recent commotion caused by well drilling, there probably wouldn't even be any wandering corpses.

But if you follow this road west for two kilometers, you'll reach Jiangshan Avenue. It's a wide eight-lane highway built on the edge of the city, nearly 20 kilometers long, connecting to National Highway 233 in the north, leading directly to Yangcheng. The Renhuaji Expressway exit is located ten kilometers down the middle section. There are very few houses on either side of the entire highway; it's all vast fields and wasteland.

Zombies are not afraid of hardship, fatigue, or death. They can easily cross all the areas accessible by foot from Yangcheng to the north of Huaicheng, the provincial capital Fengcheng, Tongcheng to the south, and Luyang County to the east, and merge into Huaicheng.

The reasons for migrating here are quite valid: just wander around and see if you can find any living people to eat. If you can't find any, just wander to the next city. This is the only thought that the body controlled by the virus has.

The initial plan to block the roads was certainly necessary, since the fleeing civilians had mutated on the main roads. The number of zombies on highways and national and provincial roads was definitely far greater than the number of guerrillas in the wilderness. However, if the zombies at the intersections caused congestion, and there were no living creatures to lure them to stay on the main roads for long, it was not impossible for them to scatter and wander around looking for a way out, thus turning into guerrillas.

The local zombies alone are enough to keep us occupied, and now a bunch of outside zombies have mixed in... Sigh. I looked at the empty, quiet streets to the west, feeling as heavy as if I were carrying two canisters of liquefied gas on my shoulders.

The next day, before the field team set off, I gathered the team leaders together and reported on the situation Gao Chen had discovered the previous night. I instructed each team to change their daily priorities: Team One should focus on collecting building materials such as cement and bricks; Teams Two and Three should go to the outskirts of the city to hunt down guerrilla zombies; and Teams Four and Five should blockade and kill zombies at the entrances to the city, making the clearing of zombies the top priority.

After the team leaders left, I found Liao Donghui and asked him to increase security by adding more people. He also ordered an additional sentry post to the rooftop of the tenth floor of the inpatient ward, specifically to monitor the movement of zombies in the distance. Then I instructed him to tighten the noose around the prisoners, giving those who contributed the most to raising and reinforcing the walls the chance to be released and transferred to a regular ward on the fourth floor for supervised living arrangements, with a reward of canned food and cigarettes.

As for the prisoner who was originally held on the second floor and refused to listen to reason, then let him go back to where he was supposed to be.

Before escorting Yu Yu away, I went to the grove behind the inpatient department. The female field team members, led by two burly men, had been undergoing physical training for almost a week. These two were veterans who had both served as squad leaders and led new recruits. Under my instructions, they were quite capable of putting these young women through the wringer, making them run, climb, jump, and even swing knives and axes, leaving them quite exhausted.

I said before that we could quit anytime if we didn't want to do it, but after a week, some of the girls got injured, some were exhausted, and some cried. The only ones who didn't give up are all good daughters of Huaicheng.

Ma Li gripped her long knife, hacking and slashing at a small tree. Her skin was sunburned red, and her eyes held no trace of coquettishness, only ruthlessness, as if she regarded the tree as a zombie or some hated person, wanting to kill it with a single blow.

"You've all worked hard, take a break." I walked over and interrupted their morning training.

The girls were well-trained. They stopped and looked at the instructor. Only after the instructor nodded did they gather around, calling out "Doctor Qi" and "Captain Qi".

There were twelve people in total, all under the age of thirty, of varying heights, but without exception, they were all energetic and vibrant, and each carried a touch of the unique, straightforward and spicy spirit of Huaicheng women.

"I'm going out on street cleaning duty today. I'll take four people out for some exercise first. We have just enough for one car. Sign up!"

Nervous? Anxious? Thinking of playing it safe and waiting? Not a chance. As soon as I finished speaking, they eagerly raised their hands, chattering, "Me! Me! Me! I'm in!"

It doesn't matter who I bring, I'm just worried I won't be able to take care of so many people at once, which is why I decided to have the internships done in batches. I didn't expect them to be so eager to go out.

They were all people who had escaped death before; they wouldn't harbor unrealistic fantasies about the outside world. So, did they develop blind confidence in themselves after only a week of sword practice?

"I already mentioned this at the last meeting. The zombies are now mutating and are quite fast. If a woman gets caught by them, it will be very difficult for her to escape. Moreover, they often gather in groups, sometimes three or five, sometimes a dozen or twenty. So clearing the streets requires coordinated efforts. Once we're out there, we'll really have to fight face-to-face. I don't want to see anyone get injured or killed. Don't be impulsive, calm down and think it over carefully."

"It has to be me! It has to be me!"

The sisters' enthusiasm remained undiminished, and I didn't know who to choose. In the end, I asked the two instructors for recommendations and selected four women who were relatively better physically and had personally killed zombies before joining the veterans' unit.

"Okay, meet at the entrance in half an hour. No guns will be provided yet; you can choose and bring your own weapons."

There was no room for Ma Li, and she looked at me with resentment. I smiled and turned to leave, but even from a distance I could still hear their envious and jealous voices: "Sister Jin is really something now. She's always been competitive, and now she's in the first batch to go on fieldwork. I wonder how she'll brag when she gets back."

"Then you should really train properly. I can do twenty push-ups already, and you can only do five. Do you think you can handle going out and killing zombies?!"

Is going on fieldwork really that fun? I seriously considered my own feelings, and yes, it really is quite fun. In my mom's words, I'm a wild child who loves to wander around outside, and now I'm so happy to have found like-minded people of the same gender.

Using the half-hour break, I moved Yu Yu to his old apartment on the seventh floor. Two people helped me carry him to the bed, untied the ropes, and I personally secured him with the highest level of restraints on his hands, feet, arms, legs, and waist. He had been imprisoned here for two years, spending those two years researching how to break the restraints without any equipment or help, but to no avail.

A professional psychiatric hospital naturally has professional restraint products. This TXN1000 compression material is so strong that it would take him a long time to cut it with a knife.

This time when he came back, his state was very different from when he was last seen in this room. The leisurely air of him lying on the bed and directing Xiao Li to fight this and that was gone. The dark memories that Rong Jun had given him seemed to surge back into his mind, and his eyes flashed with a bloodthirsty light several times.

I remained calm and busy until I was sure all the latches were locked and that none of his malicious attempts would succeed. Then I smiled at him and said, "I was busy all day yesterday and forgot to feed you. Are you hungry? Hang in there a little longer, I'll bring you more food tonight."

The gag caused his lips to crack, his skin to dry and flake, and he made low growls like a beast. His gaze, which seemed to want to slowly torture me, was utterly uninteresting.

“Starting tomorrow, I will take you to the intensive care unit for physical therapy every day. No matter when, the illness always needs to be treated. Look at Zhao Zhuobao, his condition has greatly improved under my treatment. You also need to cooperate and be a good boy, okay? I'm doing this for your own good.”

He took a deep breath, trying hard to suppress his emotions, and his gaze visibly softened. He raised his chin and made two "hmm" sounds at me.

I pretended to rub my temples and said, "Oh, you said you want to talk to me?"

He blinked. I said, "Let's do it another day. I might be free next month."

A storm was brewing in Yu Yu's eyes. He began to shake his head frantically, his heels rubbing together in the narrow gaps of the binding straps, and his fingers gripping the bedsheets with a creaking sound, like the Nine Yin White Bone Claw.

I said to the two guards on duty, "Look, he's having a relapse, isn't he? It's not something that can be done overnight to cure such a serious patient. Luckily, I have experience."

One of the guards said, "No wonder everyone calls you Doctor Qi. So you really are a doctor."

"Yes." I shamelessly and frankly admitted, "It's for treating mental illness."

Yu Yu ultimately couldn't bring himself to faint from anger. He already knew he had been suppressed for far too long. His previous personality was powerful enough to instill a sense of crisis in him; if he couldn't control his emotions and had a relapse, his next period of lucidity might be a distant dream. He didn't want to sleep; he wanted to find a chance to turn the tables; he wanted to repay me for all the humiliation he had suffered.

Let him cherish his dreams, and hopefully he can maintain his unwavering faith even in the intensive care unit.

I drove away from the veterans' quarters with the four girls in my car. I had no specific destination in mind, and I just drove aimlessly through the streets. They seemed a little nervous, and for a long time, none of them spoke, only staring at the city outside the window with heavy expressions.

I usually joke around and laugh with guys, but when I'm with a group of sensitive girls, I don't know where to start a conversation.

"Jinling, I heard you've killed zombies. How many did you kill?"

The mature woman in the passenger seat turned her head, her eyes suddenly reddening: "Three of them are my father, mother, and younger sister."

Me: ...I'd better stay silent.

We bypassed the sections with more jogging zombies and chose a back alleyway that led to both ends, where three or four zombies were wandering. I demonstrated how to quickly disable a zombie while protecting myself, using a knife and an awl to aim straight for its head, swiftly taking down two and leaving the other two for them to practice on.

The four seemed to have coordinated before leaving, and now automatically split into pairs. One person would attract the zombie's attention from the front, while the other would ambush from behind. If the zombie failed to kill them in one strike and turned around, the roles would be reversed and the process repeated.

They were not talkative, nor were they afraid. They were also very decisive in slashing at the zombies, but unfortunately, they were not strong enough to kill them with one blow. It always took two people to finish them off.

Next, we searched for a destination with sparse corpses. I'm not very good at verbally conveying experience, so I just demonstrated as many times as possible, and then let them kill freely. It took several hours to go from two people killing one, to one person killing one, then three people killing four, and four people killing six.

If you lack strength, you can practice; if you still lack strength, you can make up for it with skill. People grow through experience. If the Qi family had raised their daughter to be a lady from a young age, I wouldn't be who I am today.

They ate some compressed biscuits for lunch and continued wandering the streets. They were a bit more lively than when they left in the morning, feeling a little proud of being among the first to go out on patrol. They discussed their experiences killing zombies and occasionally pointed out familiar sections of the road, marveling at the changes in the city.

The car drove slowly down Fenyong Street. I glanced left and right for a suitable spot to practice driving, while listening to the three girls in the back seat recount the tragic stories of many people being bitten while scrambling for food in the early stages of the outbreak. We had cleared this street twice. Many zombie corpses lay scattered along the roadside. Under the relentless onslaught of scorching sun and freezing temperatures, their limbs had shriveled and dried up, their remaining hair resembling scorched weeds. They could no longer even maintain a human form, mingling with the dust and becoming part of the city's garbage.

Something strange flashed before my eyes. After driving a few dozen meters, I stopped the car, checked the rearview mirror, and then put it in reverse and drove back.

Stopping next to a pile of garbage that looked even larger than the others, I said to Jinling, "Look what that is?"

Jinling stuck her head out of the car window, stared at the pile of garbage for a long time, and asked in confusion, "Why is that zombie's head so big?"

Zombies don't spontaneously pile up into heaps of corpses; usually, after we kill them, we drag them to the roadside and stack them together to avoid obstructing traffic. And atop this pile of seven or eight zombies, lay a strangely shaped zombie.

It was filthy, with some intestine-like things wrapped around its body. Its limbs were intact like a normal person's, but it had a huge head. It was the size of two basketballs, very round, and very dirty. The back of its head was covered in a dark mass that was indistinguishable between hair and congealed blood clots.

It looks dead, but I'm still worried. No one could possibly have a head like that unless it's caused by an unpredictable viral mutation. Following the jogging zombie, could it be that a giant zombie has appeared now?

I turned off the engine, picked up my knife, and told the girls to stay in the car and not move. I then opened the door and got out to see what was going on.

I slowly approached the giant corpse. It remained motionless, its massive head hanging low amidst the pile of corpses. Even when observing from within three steps, I still couldn't discern what exactly was pasted onto its head and body. It was too filthy; the zombies beneath it all looked much cleaner.

This is a major discovery. I hesitated whether to load it onto the car and take it back to the veterans' home so that Grandpa Tang could dissect it and find out why it had grown so large.

I poked it with the tip of the knife, but nothing happened. It was a huge lump, and it stank horribly. If I put it in the car, it would turn the car into a cesspool. I decided to focus on the important thing and not worry about my health.

"Give me a big garbage bag from the trunk, I'll cut off its head and put it in there."

With that, I raised the knife with both hands and chopped down at the base of the giant head with all my might. There was a loud clang, sparks flew everywhere, my arm went numb, and I stumbled back two steps, staring in astonishment at the brand-new machete in my hand that I had only recently acquired.

A piece chipped off the blade, yet the giant remained completely still. This... this zombie is going to fly! Doesn't it need to go through a gradual process? It went straight from a slow jog to a monster like the Calabash Brothers! Unbelievable!

I threw down the knife, stretched my arms, and reached behind me: "Get the axe!" If it can still chop me in half with another swing, I'll call it grandpa... Dream on. I'll go back to the veterans' camp and get the chainsaw.

A girl named Jiaojiao in the back seat handed me an axe, saying with regret, "If I had known, I would have brought my family's heirloom sword. It could cut through steel bars."

The mere mention of "ancestral heirloom" sounds incredibly prestigious. If it can even cut through steel bars, is it perhaps made of the most precious and rare black iron? That's quite a shame. I raised the large steel axe I'd looted from the hardware store, aimed it at the giant corpse's shoulder, held my breath, and brought it down with a powerful chop. Suddenly, Jinling shouted, "It moved! Its hand is moving!"

I couldn't hold back any longer and swung my axe down, striking the target with a clang. The giant head jerked up and let out a scream.

"ah!"

Although it was only a short syllable, it surprised me. How should I put it? This "ah" was both easy to understand and full of emotion, just like the cry of pain a person would make when they were hit on the head, stepped on, or had their fingers pinched. It really didn't sound like a zombie.

I gripped my axe tightly, ready for anything, and watched as the giant corpse's body trembled slightly, then swelled into a Parkinson's-like shaking. Its two limp arms slowly bent and reached towards the sides of its massive body. With two sharp "thuds," the giant suddenly fell to the ground, dragging out a plastic tube. At the same time, a head with a pair of protruding ears appeared before my eyes.

Its ears were a bit protruding, but its head was that of a normal person. As if it had used all its strength, it couldn't lift its head, nodding like a chick pecking at rice. The "giant corpse" spoke, intermittently: "Big...big sister, give...give me some...water."

The female team members became agitated: "It's a person! A living person, not a zombie! Save him, please save him!"

I said to them with a stern face, "Okay, you have to carry him and run with the car. I can't have such a dirty and smelly thing in my car."

I don't want to recall the process of bringing the "corpse of the giant" back to the veterans' home. It's just that the Q8 that I drove for the first time today and which I plan to use for a long time in the future has been added to my blacklist.

Besides the more than one hundred veterans, there are other small groups of survivors in Huaicheng. They are few in number, perhaps brothers or relatives, with no more than three or four people in each group. A month ago, we saw them moving around in the city, looking at each other from a distance, not greeting each other or fighting, each looking for their own supplies and fighting their own zombies. After that, we haven't seen them anymore. I pray that they are still alive.

Rescuing someone is the right thing to do, but the corpse of this tycoon was truly stinking. The female team members' kindness only extended to taking him back to the veterans' quarters. After getting out of the car and carrying him, they all ran towards the artificial lake, unable to bear the stench any longer. But I remained calm, feeling that I was already covered in the stench, so I figured I might as well go all the way and do my good deed.

I pulled the giant object out of the trunk, walked over to the man, and kicked him: "Hey, didn't I give you water on the way? Why are you still lying on the ground?"

The man's face was barely recognizable, except for his nose and eyes. He had a deflated backpack hanging from his chest, and his entire body was covered in filth. It was unclear how he had managed to get himself into such a state. He weakly opened his eyes and said, "I...I'm hungry."

I chuckled: "Hungry? No rush. First, tell me who you are, how you ended up alone on the streets of Huaicheng, and," I weighed the smelly, black, heavy, round object in my hand, "what is this thing, and why are you wearing it?"

"This is... the golden armor... the holy garment that saved my life."

Shocking! A man dressed as a giant zombie to survive in the apocalypse, claiming that his survival depended entirely on his golden armor. Is this a decline in humor or a twisted optimism? Neither. It's just that God has no eyes; good people die young, while idiots live long.