Chapter 163 Return to Zone D
The questioning and investigation lasted for two days. No suspicious points were found among the existing staff of the research institute, including all personnel in the virus research laboratory and other departments. Next, they will be transferred to the base under the protection of the military.
Lin Xi and Xiang Xin stayed behind for the time being.
Before leaving, Song Heng patted Lin Xi on the shoulder: "Be careful while you're out and about. We'll go to the base and wait for you."
Lin Xi was somewhat moved when her rigid and serious mentor suddenly became very humane after the apocalypse.
Before he could express his emotions, Song Heng added, "The lab can't do without you. Come back to work soon."
Lin Xi: "..."
Before leaving, Song Heng quietly told her, "When the higher-ups questioned me, we didn't mention that you had a gun, and we didn't reveal that you were a 'spy.' Go and make your way in the world with peace of mind."
Lin Xi felt a chill run down her spine—
This old man genuinely considered her a spy.
After the research institute leaves, the remaining armed forces will also gradually withdraw. Before the withdrawal, there will be some cleanup work. After that, this temporary shelter, which is based in a prison, will be gradually abandoned, but some protective measures will be retained so that if any survivors from the city end up here, they will have a place to stay.
Lin Xi had informed Lu Wei that she was going to District D, and in addition to Xiang Xin accompanying her, Lu Wei also referred Liang Hui to assist her.
After all, District D is an old urban area with poor building defenses and a dense population, making it difficult to carry out zombie cleanup work smoothly. Therefore, it is still a high-risk area.
After the truck drove some distance away from the shelter, several zombies attracted by the sound of the truck began to appear on the street.
Liang Hui sat in the back seat with a grin: "Brother Lu always makes me protect the young ladies. This is the first time I've had the privilege of sitting in the back seat and not having to do anything. Hehe, thank you for taking care of me, ladies."
Xiang Xin sat in the passenger seat, observing the situation on the roadside through binoculars, and glanced at him as she said, "You can't even beat San San, so who needs your protection, right, San San?"
Lin Xi gripped the steering wheel intently. Before the zombie outbreak, all three of them were members of the martial arts gym. Lin Xi often asked Xiang Xin and Liang Hui to spar with her. Liang Hui couldn't beat her before, but he always had a "chivalrous" attitude towards girls, so he didn't spar with them very hard and didn't know their true level.
But his ability to fight zombies and his marksmanship are quite good, so Lu Wei has always been determined to make him her partner.
Lin Xi nodded perfunctorily to Xiang Xin.
Xiang Xin asked again, "What did you mean by protecting the little girl?"
Liang Hui sighed and put his hands behind his head, saying, "Brother Lu is a playboy."
"Sea King Duck?"
Liang Hui exaggeratedly showed a troubled expression: "I secretly checked his messages. He has several small groups for post-apocalyptic survival. The group of the four of us is just one of many groups."
Xiang Xin: "What does that have to do with the little girl?"
Liang Hui: "There are also young girls like you who can fight, but they can't drive trucks..."
Lin Xi sat quietly listening. She had only ventured out of her home and struggled for two lifetimes. In this lifetime, she gathered them together to escape and save the world. Lu Wei had been wandering outside for several lifetimes. If he could also gather his former companions, there would indeed be several groups.
She was just one of the many passersby in several lifetimes.
When she came to her senses, Liang Hui and Xiang Xin were engaged in an exaggerated "pushing and pulling" motion:
"Let me hang out with my two older sisters!"
"Get lost, you old codger, stop pretending to be young. San San and I are the only ones enjoying ourselves."
The journey was smooth, and the two of them joked and bickered without a care in the world, which annoyed Lin Xi a little.
"Hold on tight." As soon as they entered an open section of road, Lin Xi reminded him, then shifted into reverse and slammed on the gas.
The people in the car were initially thrown forward by inertia but were pulled back by the seatbelts, and then they swayed back and forth.
The jolt was caused by the zombies under the wheels.
The truck reversed, revealing a pile of zombies it had just run over, with a few whose skulls hadn't been crushed and whose limbs were still wriggling.
"Hey!" Liang Hui had never experienced this before, and just like in his previous life, he was very unaccustomed to it and almost vomited.
Lin Xi calmly reminded him, "There's one more time."
The car suddenly lurched forward, flattening the zombie pancake on the ground even more. The raised finger trembled slightly and then stopped moving completely.
Liang Hui swallowed hard: "If you guys all drive like this, I take back what I just said. I'll stick with Brother Lu."
"..."
As the truck drove into Zone D, night had already fallen. In the dim light, the shadows of the dilapidated old buildings in the urban village resembled ruins.
The streets were littered with the wreckage of crashed cars and broken limbs, including bones and freshly severed limbs covered in rotten flesh. This was the scene all the way here, but it was particularly chaotic here.
Lin Xi's home is in an open old neighborhood without a fence, with many narrow lanes and alleys that make it difficult for trucks to drive in.
Moving the supplies down box by box was too time-consuming and laborious, and there was also the possibility of encountering zombie attacks along the way, which was very dangerous. Lin Xi parked the car on the street directly below her window and prepared to go upstairs with Xiang Xin. They used outdoor ropes to lower the car down, where Liang Hui would meet them downstairs.
Lin Xi first checked the security camera footage on her phone. The footage showed no one or any zombies in the stairwell. After confirming it was safe, Lin Xi and Xiang Xin, fully armed with night vision goggles and carrying knives and baseball bats, entered the building. The unit door was a dilapidated iron door with peeling paint, offering no resistance, and the two entered smoothly.
The motion-activated lights in the stairwell had been sabotaged, so they didn't turn on when they came up and didn't attract the surrounding zombies.
This was Lin Xi's first time walking in her own building's hallway after the zombie outbreak, and it felt completely unfamiliar.
It was actually an unfamiliar scene—
Both Li Rong's and Gu Lanjuan's doors showed signs of being forcibly broken open; the doors were half-closed, making them even more perplexing than if they were fully open.
No one knows whether there is a living person secretly observing behind that half-open door, or whether several zombies will suddenly jump out.
What worries Lin Xi even more is that since these two doors have been opened, she wonders if her own door will also be broken open and the supplies inside will disappear.
Lin Xi and Xiang Xin held their breath and carefully went upstairs. There was a patch of dried, blackened bloodstains on the ground in front of Fu Minjun's house.
Lin Xi roughly knew where this came from. In the original world setting, Gu Lanjuan went out to borrow food after the zombie outbreak, but ended up leading the zombies upstairs, resulting in her being eaten right in front of Fu Minjun's house.
Fu Minjun's door was half open, while Lin Xi's own door was tightly closed.
This made people immediately feel that something was wrong.
Her house hadn't been renovated; the door was similar to other people's doors, and if other doors could be broken open, this one could be broken open too.
But the door is intact, what does that mean?
It might be occupied.
Lin Xi can still access the surveillance footage from her front door on her phone, but it only goes back to footage from more than 20 days ago, and she may not be able to see the crime scene.
Lin Xi took a deep breath, gripping the dagger in both hands—
Never mind, in this life, she and Xiang Xin are both highly skilled in Sanda (Chinese kickboxing) and are familiar with the terrain. They can fight whether there are zombies or people inside, or they can run away if they can't fight, unless there are bombs inside.
Xiang Xin made two gestures: one person quietly inserted the key into the lock and turned it once, while the other person held a dagger to the crack in the door.
The door was gently opened, and a strong smell of farts mixed with cigarette smoke wafted out of the house.
have to.
There are living people.
Xiang Xin frowned, covered her nose, and gripped the baseball bat tightly.
Through the earpiece, Liang Hui whispered, "How's it going over there? Have you gotten inside yet?"
However, both of them remained tense, and no one responded to him.
The living room and dining room were a mess, littered with food wrappers, empty water bottles, and used self-heating hot pots piled on the coffee table. A fat human figure lay motionless in the garbage.
However, judging from the distinct odor of the fart, which is clearly different from the smell of a corpse, the person on the ground was alive.
As you get closer, you can even hear their even breathing.
As for why they slept on the floor, it's probably because it was too hot during the power outage, and sleeping on the floor was cooler.
Lin Xi understands this kind of thought process.
Upon seeing the face clearly, Lin Xi immediately recognized who it was—
Ding Yong, the owner of the small, shady shop downstairs.
One dark and stormy rainy night, Ding Yong and his son broke into Lin Xi's sunroom and invaded the house from the roof. The front door had never been changed; it was an ordinary door.
Lin Xi immediately understood what was going on with the door downstairs.
After the zombie outbreak, many people lacked supplies. Ding Yong's family ran a small shop downstairs. Even though they had sold some at high prices before, they still had enough stock in their warehouse to survive. It wasn't until the water and electricity were cut off and there was a shortage of clean water that Ding Yong went out to scavenge the buildings.
It's quite difficult for one person to sweep the building. Based on her memories from her past life, Lin Xi deduced that Ding Yong's son might also have come.
The Ding family had little sense of morality to begin with, and with the apocalypse, there were no more laws to restrain them. They probably put into practice what they said in their previous life: looting supplies and killing people. Then they found that Lin Xi's family had a lot of things, so they simply stayed there.
Lin Xi glanced at it briefly, unable to tell from the garbage scattered all over the ground how much they had consumed and how they had made such a mess of their home.
She wanted to check other rooms to see if there were any accomplices, but Xiang Xin was trembling as she gripped the baseball bat, about to rush up and smash someone's head with it.
Lin Xi tugged at her.
Xiang Xin lightly stomped her foot and silently mumbled something while pointing at Ding Yong's head.
But Lin Xi understood what Xiang Xin was trying to say from her lip movements and expression:
"My itabag! That fatso used my itabag as a pillow! My itabag! Aaaaaaah!"
Although Lin Xi wasn't in the entertainment industry, she had spent so much time with Xiang Xin that she knew what that ita bag meant to her.
She gently patted Xiang Xin's shoulder to comfort her, and silently replied, "Don't get agitated, keep an eye on him, I'll go check if there are any accomplices in the other rooms."
Xiang Xin gritted her teeth and forcefully suppressed the urge to go up and smash the person to pieces.
Just then, a faint sound of footsteps came from inside the room.
The two stopped moving. Lin Xi gestured with her lips, and Xiang Xin went to Ding Yong's side to keep an eye on him, while Lin Xi walked towards the room by herself.
That was her bedroom; judging from the footsteps, the person inside had entered the ensuite bathroom.
Then came the sound of water splashing; judging from the sound of the water hitting the water, it was a man.
Lin Xi was right; Ding Yong did indeed have an accomplice, who was very likely his son.
Murder?
In their past lives, these two people barged into the house with a plan to harm Lin Xi.
Lin Xi had always been a little snail hiding in its shell, never paying attention to the turmoil outside, except for the two who had forcibly invaded her territory.
They preemptively killed them.
Just as Lin Xi was briefly reviewing the situation, the sound of water inside stopped, and the footsteps didn't approach the bed but instead got closer and closer to the door.
Lin Xi also heard a short curse: "Damn, it's so hot."
Liang Hui's voice came through the headset: "Hey, what's going on over there?"
"A terrifying noise," Lin Xi whispered.
As Ding Yong's son said this, he had already reached the door and confronted Lin Xi. As soon as Lin Xi finished speaking, the dagger was thrust out.
Ding Yong's son wasn't wearing night vision goggles, so his eyesight wasn't very good. He could only see blurry black shadows in the darkness. The blade flashed past, and he quickly retreated, narrowly escaping death.
He immediately switched from defense to offense and kicked out, and the two started fighting, making sounds of hitting walls and cabinets.
"Dad!!" Ding Yong's son shouted.
Ding Yong was sleeping soundly on the ground outside when the gu pupa suddenly rolled over, revealing a flattened sore spot.
Xiang Xin watched Lin Xi and Ding Yong's son fight, feeling both anxious and conflicted:
"I've never killed anyone!"
"No way! You crushed my pain pack! I'm going to kill you and then go help San San!"
"Ahhh, but this motive for murder is insufficient."
"What should we do about San San? What should we do?!"
Lin Xi: "..."
Sometimes, they protect Xiang Xin too much.
Liang Hui's voice came through the headset: "What's the situation over there? Do you need any help?"
Lin Xi replied absentmindedly, "Then knock him out."
Xiang Xin: "He was sleeping like a log, he was unconscious even without being hit."
Lin Xi: "...Then come over here and knock this one out."
Ding Yong's son, Zhou Xuan, had already taken out a dumbbell from the room and threw it at Lin Xi's head, but Lin Xi easily dodged it.
With this action in mind, Lin Xi no longer hesitated to draw his knife.
Her grudges with them in her past life ended with Lin Xi killing someone in self-defense; the grudges in this life are that they occupied Lin Xi's house and belongings.
But such a person must have taken many lives, and just now he also committed murder.
Having made up his mind, Lin Xi stopped fighting and went straight for the man's head, ending the battle.
Xiang Xin was squatting in the living room. She had just taken out her pain bag, and tenderly squeezed the doll inside. Then, smelling the stench of the pickled food, she disgustedly moved it away.
However, the baseball bat was not used to strike Ding Yong's head directly.
Lin Xi shook her head, but she understood.
"I'll go upstairs to check and take stock of the supplies. You can worry about it slowly."
Unless Ding Yong strikes first, Xiang Xin cannot truly bring herself to kill.
Even if she sleeps on it until it's flat and smelly, it's still not okay!
Lin Xi searched the entire house and found no other accomplices.
The supplies at home were wasted. The two strong men consumed a lot of purified water, self-heating rice, and self-heating hot pot, while they hardly used compressed biscuits and other similar items, choosing to eat the best things first.
Fortunately, the purified water in the truck was basically untouched and was enough for the time being; all that was needed was to take the food.
Lin Xi greeted Liang Hui and then found a rope to slowly lower the usable supplies down from the building.
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