Chapter 89 Who are you?
"That feels great!" Ma Dayong took a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled with satisfaction. From the carriage behind him, faint sobs could be heard.
Ma Dayong didn't take it seriously, nudged the driver, and said gruffly, "Hey, don't you want a stalk? This is a rare find! You won't get another one like it."
"Pillar" glanced at the cigarette on Ma Dayong's injured hand, swallowed hard, and knew that Ma Dayong had just said it casually and didn't really want to share. "Boss, you can keep this cigarette for yourself. I'm driving."
"As expected, there are still too few people in the world who know their stuff." Ma Dayong unscrewed the bottle cap with one hand, gulped down a whole bottle of wine, and the smell of smoke and alcohol mingled on his body.
The truck drove into the tunnel, where the lights flickered on and off, reminding Ma Dayong and Ma Gan of the rumors about why Beiming City had the character "Ming" in its name, and that they were currently near Beiming City.
"Why do I feel a chill?" Ma Gan rubbed his goosebump-covered arm with one hand.
Ma Dayong felt a pang of panic, but he spat out a dismissive "Don't scare yourself."
As soon as they finished speaking, the car headlights shone ahead, and a figure in white appeared at the end of their path. The figure had long, wet hair and slowly turned around, the headlights illuminating a thin, pale jawline.
"Ah—" Ma Dayong screamed.
The being, whether human or ghost, turned around, revealing a deathly pale face and a pair of dark eyes. Even from that distance, Ma Gan stared eerily into those eyes, and in that instant, his soul seemed to be ripped out; he stopped turning the steering wheel.
It was Ma Dayong who desperately gripped the steering wheel, causing the car to swerve in an S-shape in the tunnel, heading straight for the man in white! Ma Gan snapped out of his daze, narrowly escaping with a slam on the brakes, and the two of them managed to avoid a catastrophic crash into the wall!
Once Ma Dayong caught his breath, the first thing he did was angrily punch Ma Gan twice. Ma Gan was bruised and swollen from the beating, but dared not fight back.
"What the hell is that!" Ma Dayong jumped out of the car and looked at the thing lying on the ground in front of the car. He squinted and looked carefully, confirming that the thing had a shadow and was a person.
Now he wasn't afraid anymore. He walked over with his chest puffed out and said, "Hey! You dare touch your grandpa's porcelain? You want to die!"
When he saw the person with long hair, his first thought was that it was a woman.
He found money! You know, that's exactly what he does for a living. Ma Dayong wasn't so angry anymore. He quickly went over, turned the man over, and his joyful expression immediately changed when he saw the flat surface.
"What the hell are you doing scaring people in the tunnel, you pretty boy! You're fucking asking for it!" His mood was like a rollercoaster, going up and down. He raised his fist high, but was stopped by the skinny guy.
With a trembling voice, Ma Gan said, "Boss, don't hit him yet. He... he seems to be badly injured and is about to die."
Upon closer inspection, Ma Dayong realized that the man was covered in blood and drenched in sweat, his face incredibly pale. No wonder he initially mistook him for 'Sadako'.
This is really bizarre.
In the apocalypse, one person dying is nothing, but at this time and in this place, the two of them looked at each other in the dimly lit tunnel, and both of them felt a little creeped out.
“He’s quite good-looking.” Ma Dayong stroked his chin. “You’re lucky to have met your grandpa. Magan, throw him in the back of the truck.”
——
When Bai Chenzhu woke up, he had a splitting headache and pain all over his body.
He groaned as a warm sensation landed on his arm. Bai Chenzhu opened his eyes and, in his blurry, dim vision, saw a girl with a wounded face kneeling beside him, tearing off a corner of her long dress to carefully bandage his wound.
"Who... are you?" Bai Chenzhu asked in a hoarse voice, his head feeling like it was being pounded by a hammer.
The girl didn't speak. Seeing that he was awake, she silently retreated back into the darkness.
Calling it a wall isn't quite right. Bai Chenzhu observed carefully and found himself on the back of a truck. Besides him, there were three or five women and children huddled in a corner, their expressions a mixture of fear and wariness.
Bai Chenzhu didn't rush to talk to them. He propped himself up to sit up, but failed several times. Finally, he managed to sit up and found that his clothes were all wet and he had many cuts from the pebbles on his body.
"What the hell?" Bai Chenzhu thought, rubbing his forehead. "Wasn't he just at a dinner party? How did he end up in the back of the car in the blink of an eye?"
And when did his hair get so long? Bai Chenzhu frowned, wrung out his wet hair that reached his collarbone, and let it fall behind him.
The car swayed and lurched forward. Bai Chenzhu was exhausted; his eyelids were glued shut. He leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, waking up and falling asleep repeatedly. He didn't know how much time had passed when his rumbling stomach protested violently, and a sharp pain jolted him awake.
Just as he was about to knock on the door to ask, the trunk door opened.
Light shone into the dark carriage.
"All of you, get down here!" Ma Dayong shouted.
Bai Chenzhu was herded together with the women and children, got off the bus, and received drinking water and hard biscuits for the first time.
It was pitifully small; it was gone in just two bites.
Outside the car was a market, with many people setting up stalls to sell everything imaginable: clothes, blankets, pets, children's items... you name it.
Ma Gan picked a few grass stalks, came over, stuck one in Bai Chenzhu's head, and then stuck one in each of the others' heads as a marker for selling.
"Here it comes, everyone come and see, fresh goods!" Ma Dayong shouted, his belly bulging from smoking and drinking.
Bai Chenzhu then realized that he had been sold as a commodity!
His expression changed repeatedly. He lifted his foot to leave, but the girl beside him grabbed him.
"Let go," Bai Chenzhu said impatiently.
The girl, with a bruised and battered face, stared straight at him. "You'll get beaten to death."
What does that mean? Bai Chenzhu frowned, puzzled.
Just then, Ma Dayong and the stall owner next door started arguing over location.
This market clearly has designated stalls. But Ma Dayong was just passing by, and seeing that there was a vacant spot, he simply took it.
The stall owner went through all the trouble of carrying his goods here, only to find his spot occupied. He had no choice but to argue his case.
When they started arguing, they immediately started punching and kicking, each punch drawing blood. The stall owner's group of five or six people couldn't beat Ma Dayong. In retaliation, Ma Dayong beat the stall owner until he lost his teeth.
Bai Chenzhu never expected that such a thing could happen in broad daylight.
His first reaction was to call the police.
But when he reached for his phone, it was gone. The people around him looked indifferent; no one stepped forward to stop him, nor did anyone call the police.
What's going on? Bai Chenzhu gradually realized something was wrong and looked at the taciturn girl.
The girl wore a dirty dress, had shoulder-length hair, and calm eyes like a still pond. Her lip was cut, and her left cheek was swollen, yet her beauty remained undiminished. Looking at her face, Bai Chenzhu felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity.
I feel like I've seen this somewhere before.
The girl whispered, "He's a superhuman."
"What is a superhuman?" Bai Chenzhu asked instinctively.
The girl pointed ahead and saw that Ma Dayong had killed someone. The person was lying on the ground, blood spreading everywhere, bringing the argument to an end.
Bai Chenzhu gasped for breath as the girl coldly said, "This is what a superhuman is like."
Bai Chenzhu didn't speak again. His mind was in chaos, sometimes recalling his fall from the hotel, and sometimes the argument in front of him.
He covered his forehead, his vision filled with static like an old television screen, accompanied by a hissing sound of electricity. He fell backward, but the girl caught him, and Bai Chenzhu sat on the ground with her legs bent.
"Thank you." Bai Chenzhu said breathlessly in a hoarse voice, polite yet distant.
The girl was slightly taken aback, staring at him as if he were a monster, and stated, "You are badly injured."
"Isn't that right?" Bai Chenzhu tugged at the corner of his lips; there wasn't a part of his body that wasn't in pain.
He was trembling with pain, and disregarding his dignity, he leaned against a rock, trying to fall asleep. But after sleeping for so long, he couldn't fall asleep again, with the sounds of people coming and going all around him.
Half-asleep, everyone around him vanished, leaving him with an open space where scattered points of light moved about. Bai Chenzhu's eyeballs twitched beneath his eyelids.
He opened his eyes and looked toward the nearest point of light. He saw a quiet girl sitting with her legs drawn up, huddled next to him. She looked to be about ten years old and was very thin.
What do the spots of light represent?
Bai Chenzhu closed his eyes and sensed the nearby light spots. When he opened his eyes again, he saw the heavily pregnant Ma Dayong.
He frowned. The dots of light were people? But why were the dots representing the muscular man and the women so faint, while the dots representing the girl and Ma Dayong were so bright?
Bai Chenzhu carefully sensed the surroundings. The market was right at the village entrance, and houses lined up one after another in the village. His spiritual energy took a detour, heading in the opposite direction, where there were tiny, almost invisible gray dots in the fields.
Interestingly, when he approached those tiny, almost invisible gray dots, they excitedly followed him.
"Zombies! It's zombies!"
"Run! The zombies are coming!"
...
A jumble of noise filled his ears. Ma Dayong cursed as he pushed all the 'goods' into the back of the truck. He pushed the hemp stalk to the side and started driving himself.
Ma Gan looked in the rearview mirror as if he'd seen a ghost. "Boss, they're chasing us."
"Damn it!" Ma Dayong exclaimed, refusing to believe it. "It must have been an accident!"
He turned the steering wheel and fled down a side road.
What happened next was even more terrifying. Not only the group of zombies at the village entrance, but all the zombies encountered on the roadside also followed. Little by little, they multiplied and swarmed after Ma Dayong's truck, their mouths watering.
Ma Dayong broke out in a cold sweat, and Ma Gan stammered, speculating based on the books he had read, "A...a zombie horde?"
"Shut up! I've never heard of a zombie horde." Ma Dayong got angry, his forehead twitching. "Is it because there are too many of us? Is our popularity so great that they all want a piece of the pie?"
The spineless coward asked, "So, should we unload the cargo?"
It's all merchandise! Ma Dayong was heartbroken, but thinking that it could at least buy him some time, he suddenly became willing to give it up.
Ma Dayong glared at Ma Gan, stopped the car, and quickly ran to the back of the truck, opening the door. The inside was warm and smelled of a musty, unwashed interior.
The carriage was divided into two sides.
The others huddled in a corner, facing a man and a little girl.
The man was picked up on the street, and they didn't want any money. Ma Dayong's eyes lit up, and he immediately made a decision. He forcefully dragged Bai Chenzhu out of the car. The girl saw her chance and immediately jumped out of the car to run away, but Ma Dayong grabbed her.
Ma Dayong gripped the girl's wrist like a vise, holding Bai Chenzhu in one hand and her in the other, engaging in a tug-of-war with the girl. "It's you again! Get back here!"
"No!" The girl gritted her teeth and clung tightly to the car door with both hands. When she realized that Ma Dayong was going to throw Bai Chenzhu out, she changed her mind and started hugging Bai Chenzhu. Ma Dayong couldn't pull her away.
Seeing that the zombies were about to catch up, Ma Dayong was both angry and anxious. He kicked the girl and quickly climbed into the driver's seat.
The truck sped away, and the zombies will be here soon.
Bai Chenzhu, the instigator, coughed twice and turned to look at the flustered girl. "Don't be afraid, help me up first."
He helped the girl stand firm and pointed to the dilapidated mud-brick houses by the roadside.
The tile-roofed house looks like an old building, with holes in the roof and dust inside. It probably used to be a small shop, with only a large table for checking out and a few chairs remaining.
After helping the person into the house, the girl nervously closed all the doors and windows. The glass in the window was already broken, and she could clearly see the zombies wandering outside. She gasped for breath, her gaze shifting back and forth between Bai Chenzhu and the window.
Clearly, she was weighing whether or not to abandon the man and run away.
Bai Chenzhu waited and waited until the girl moved a low chair and sat down next to him. He couldn't help but laugh, "Why are you following me?"
They clearly didn't know each other; the girl should have run away.
“Many hands make light work,” the girl said. “You seem fairly reliable.”
Under Bai Chenzhu's gaze, her voice gradually lowered, "Okay. The point is, there are zombies outside. I just glanced at them, and if I run out, I'll be delivering food to their door."
Bai Chenzhu tugged slightly, "Did he do the injuries to your face?"
The girl nodded, glancing warily at the zombies outside the window from time to time.
Fortunately, the zombies ignored them in the dilapidated house by the roadside and continued chasing the truck. The girl breathed a sigh of relief, while Bai Chenzhu seemed lost in thought.
Are the glowing dots people? Are the almost invisible marks zombies? Why are there differences in the intensity of the glowing dots between people? Why do zombies chase after someone just for touching a small gray dot?
In the experiment just now, Bai Chenzhu has confirmed that he has the constitution to attract zombies. Although he 'shrank' back in time, the zombies, who do not think, still chased after the truck according to inertia.
Zombies are uncontrollable. Now he dares not touch those images that keep popping into his mind, fearing that the zombie horde will swallow him and the girl whole.
——
After a long time, the zombies were gone.
Bai Chenzhu was somewhat restless. He looked around and pointed to a corner outside the house, "There's a well there."
He originally intended to go and see if there was any water, but the girl took the initiative to say, "You sit here, I'll go and see."
There was water in the well, so Bai Chenzhu and the girl washed off the filth and rested against the wall.
The sky was filled with stars. Bai Chenzhu looked out the broken window, his heart filled with mixed emotions. He still couldn't accept that he had 'transmigrated', and to a world inhabited by zombies.
He saw superhumans who used their fists to reason, and he also saw walking corpses, but he still found it hard to believe.
And this person.
His gaze shifted, and he unexpectedly met a pair of clear eyes in the darkness. Bai Chenzhu quickly realized who those eyes belonged to.
"You're not asleep?" Bai Chenzhu asked.
"It's uncomfortable." The girl was experienced. "Maybe tomorrow we can look for a house with a bed and a first-aid kit. I know a little about medicine and can bandage you up."
I'm completely blown away. Bai Chenzhu smiled. "I am Bai Chenzhu, Bai as in white wood, Chenzhu as in green bamboo in the mortal world. I haven't asked your name yet."
"Hello, Brother Bai." The girl paused, then said the rest of her sentence, "I'm Zhou Mengmeng."
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