Chapter 142: Targeted by a Zombie
Zhang Wei knew the elite team had far superior abilities compared to theirs. Expecting Li Qing to take revenge was unfair. So he dropped to his knees in front of Lu Weiyi and the others. “Young Master Lu, please avenge Haozi. I, Zhang Wei, will repay you however I can—even if it means being your horse or ox. I beg you, please…”
With that, he slammed his head to the ground. Thud.
A few people beside him reached out to pull him up but didn’t know what to say. In the end, they could only turn their pleading eyes toward Lu Weiyi.
It was Li Qing who regained his composure first. He scolded, “Zhang Wei! This is moral blackmail. Stand up.”
“Captain…” Zhang Wei raised his tear-streaked face, a red welt on his forehead. “He was a cook. Physically the weakest of us. He awakened a water ability, and because our military has so few ability users, he volunteered to go to the frontlines right away. He said if he couldn’t fight zombies, he could at least be there to help if a comrade was bitten…”
Li Qing’s tears finally spilled over. Since the earthquake, he had witnessed too many life-and-death situations—but each one came with helplessness. For a moment, he wanted to turn and beg Lu Weiyi himself… but he knew that would be wrong.
Just as he was thinking of how to console his teammate, a cold voice spoke beside him.
“I’ll kill it.”
Everyone—including Li Qing and Antonio—was momentarily stunned. Li Zhuang quickly grabbed Lu Weiyi’s arm and flashed an apologetic smile toward the hopeful soldiers. “He’s just talking nonsense. Don’t take it seriously.”
Then he pulled Lu Weiyi a short distance away to speak privately, out of earshot of other ability users. “Kindness has never really been your style.”
Since the earthquake, they’d encountered countless people in need—but Lu Weiyi had never once offered help out of sympathy.
“It’s not that,” Lu Weiyi said, not bothering to hide the truth. “You won’t betray me. I’m a mental-type ability user. That zombie has locked onto me. If I don’t go after it, it’ll come after me.”
“You’re… mental-type?” Li Zhuang paused but didn’t find it too shocking.
“Yeah.” Lu Weiyi nodded. “That soldier died because his crystal core was dug out. That zombie tried to do the same to me—I blocked it.”
Li Zhuang pressed his lips together. “Can you handle it?”
“…I’m not sure,” Lu Weiyi admitted. No one knew how far the zombie had developed its abilities. “But I want its crystal core. It would help my power grow tremendously.”
Mental abilities were harder to level up than others—and mental zombie cores were extremely rare. Out of tens of thousands of zombies, you might not find one. Now that both Zhuang Mingxu and Zhuang Ai Yi were relying on him, Lu Weiyi couldn’t afford to be a slacker anymore.
Li Zhuang smiled. “Alright then, I’ll go with you. Prepare weapons and explosives. If abilities aren’t enough, we’ll rely on firepower.”
“Okay.” Lu Weiyi smiled.
The two returned, and everyone looked at them eagerly. Li Zhuang said to a few of the others, “I’ll go with him.”
Antonio shrugged. “Then I’ll go too. It wasn’t easy to cling to such a strong ally—I’m not about to lose that now.”
“I… I’ll go too,” Liu Rui said, stepping beside Lu Weiyi.
“I’m in,” Gu Qingji added.
“I…”
Li Qing was about to say he would go as well, but before he could speak, Lu Weiyi turned to Gu Qingji and said, “You shouldn’t come. Your ability level is low—you’re too easily controlled.”
Li Qing had nothing to say after that. After all, no one on their military side had leveled up yet.
Being excluded, Gu Qingji pressed his lips together. “…Be careful.”
To avoid getting ambushed later, the group decided to strike first and eliminate the threat.
The four of them took an off-road vehicle and retraced their route. This time, they didn’t stop. Lu Weiyi constantly probed ahead with his mental powers and soon detected the enemy’s spiritual energy spreading out as well.
“I can feel it. The mental zombie’s own ability isn’t very strong, but its attacks are silent and invisible. So it’s best if you shield all your vital areas with your abilities.”
“If all mental-type zombies are like this, they’re practically impossible to defend against,” Antonio said warily, scanning their surroundings. “I can’t even sense its presence.”
“I’m blocking it,” Lu Weiyi replied. His spiritual power was shielding all four of them from the zombie’s detection and attacks.
As they got closer, Lu Weiyi gradually pinpointed the zombie’s location. “It’s inside that three-story building in the factory. It hasn’t moved.”
To get there, they had to pass by several ten-story dorm buildings, go through the main gate, then cross a wide factory yard. Visibly, there were only about twenty zombies—well within their capacity. Li Zhuang drove straight in.
As soon as they got out of the car, the four quickly cleared the zombies in the yard and moved toward the small building.
“It’s on the third floor,” Lu Weiyi said, looking up through the windows—but saw nothing.
“Hey, if that zombie can control humans, could it also control other zombies?” Antonio asked as they entered the empty building.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Lu Weiyi suddenly turned to look at him sharply.
“Retreat!” Lu Weiyi shouted, immediately trying to turn back. Just then, a wave of zombies surged down from the second floor. At the same time, hundreds more poured in from the yard, flooding in from who knew where. The four of them were quickly forced back into the first floor.
“I’ll cover the rear,” Lu Weiyi said, darting to the doorway. His vine whip (Little Green Branch) lashed through the approaching zombies. In moments, a mound of corpses blocked the entrance, forming a wall that kept the rest at bay.
“Shit!” Li Zhuang cursed at the stairs inside. The three of them hesitated for a second, and the surging zombies scratched at them.
“What’s going on?” Lu Weiyi called back as he summoned his vine to help, while the zombies in front of him suddenly seemed to get smarter—climbing the corpse wall and lunging at him. He quickly pulled a watermelon knife from his storage and started hacking.
“My head…” Liu Rui clutched his head, stammering and unable to use his powers. As more zombies pushed in, he was almost swallowed by the horde.
“My head hurts,” Antonio said through gritted teeth, barely managing to protect himself from further attacks.
It must’ve been an attack on the brain by mental power. Lu Weiyi immediately countered with his own spiritual strength. At such close range—and with his level lower than the enemy’s—his mental defenses were quickly breached.
The other three were just one step away from losing all combat ability. Lu Weiyi had to fend off zombies with his knife, protect them with his vine, and battle mentally—all while his energy rapidly depleted and he had no time to absorb new crystal nuclei.
“Explosives!” Li Zhuang saw he was reaching his limit and shouted.
Although they had prepared explosives, no one had expected this—thousands of zombies controlled by a mental zombie in what looked like a deserted area.
Without hesitation, Lu Weiyi pulled out a bundle of explosives from his storage and threw them to Li Zhuang.
“Inside!” Li Zhuang kicked open an office door and yelled at Antonio.
Before the apocalypse, Antonio had lived on the edge of life and death countless times. Even now, in excruciating pain, he grabbed Liu Rui and rushed inside. With a glance, he spotted the best hiding spot—a corner beneath a desk.
He shoved Liu Rui into the corner, dragged the desk to form a triangle with the wall. At that moment, under Lu Weiyi’s cover, Li Zhuang lit two bundles of explosives and quickly passed one to Lu Weiyi.
“One on each floor—second, third, and ground. Toss and run.”
Lu Weiyi took it, shielding Li Zhuang as he continued slashing zombies. He used his vine to throw the explosives through a window upstairs. Then Li Zhuang grabbed Lu Weiyi, and the two retreated quickly, slamming the door behind them and squeezing into Antonio’s makeshift shelter.
Li Zhuang then used earth powers to build a dirt wall over their heads.
With two loud explosions, the intact three-story building from before the earthquake collapsed into rubble. The dirt wall protected them from most of the blast. It didn’t cause much harm, but the collapse buried their shield.
“You guys okay?” After the explosions, the mental pressure from the mental zombie suddenly vanished, and the brain-splitting pain was gone. Antonio asked in the darkness.
“I’m… I’m fine,” Liu Rui replied first.
“I’m fine,” Lu Weiyi said, but as he finished speaking, a drop of liquid hit his face—it smelled faintly of blood. He called out to the person shielding him beneath, “Li Zhuang?” When they rushed in earlier, Li Zhuang had pushed him inside first and then blocked the door from the outside.
“Not dead,” Li Zhuang replied.
But…
Blood kept dripping onto his face.
Lu Weiyi took a walkie-talkie from his storage space and turned it on. Immediately, Gu Qingji’s anxious voice came through: “Lu Weiyi? Lu Weiyi…”
“Copy that. Come help us—we’re trapped under the rubble on the first floor,” Lu Weiyi responded.
“On my way.” Gu Qingji had known things had gone wrong the moment he heard the explosion.
He immediately asked Li Qing for help. Li Qing didn’t hesitate and led everyone in their direction. At the same time, he kept trying to reach the group via the walkie-talkie.
But there was no response. Gu Qingji looked at the mutated plant on his wrist and felt a deep unease. Their entire mission was to retrieve this mutated plant for him. If those four…
Gu Qingji didn’t dare think further and just kept calling their names.
When he finally got a response, he realized he was drenched in sweat.
Li Qing also let out a sigh of relief. If anything had happened to them, he truly didn’t know how he would face the instructors or Zhuang Mingxu when they returned. Before they left, both of them had spoken to him privately, asking him to look out for Lu Weiyi since he was still young.
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