Chapter 178: Mutated Python
Lu Weiyi felt like his worldview had collapsed in an instant, and he stood frozen in place.
“What’s wrong?” Zhuang Mingxu asked.
The few people ahead immediately became alert and turned around, noticing that Lu Weiyi, usually expressionless, had a look on his face that seemed to show he was shocked.
“No… no problem…” Lu Weiyi lowered his head and continued walking, but once there was a bit of distance, he asked Zhuang Mingxu, “Xu Sa and Liu Rui?”
“Mm, probably they both have feelings for each other, just keeping it ambiguous,” Zhuang Mingxu answered. With only a dozen people in the team, he paid more attention than Lu Weiyi, and he was aware of all these things right under his nose.
It wasn’t that difficult to accept. After all, Xu Sa and Liu Rui often did everything with each other in mind. He wouldn’t believe they didn’t have something going on, but…
“Gu Qingyue and Gu Qingji aren’t brothers?” Lu Weiyi asked, not that he had an issue with homosexuality, but with incest.
“Sigh,” Zhuang Mingxu replied helplessly. “Fortunately, the team members are all quite upright. Otherwise, if they encountered a big storage warehouse of supplies that didn’t care about anything, they’d probably end up devouring every bit of it.” He continued, “They’re from a remarried family and aren’t related by blood.”
“Ah,” Lu Weiyi exclaimed, having always assumed from their names that they were blood brothers.
“Also, they probably haven’t gotten together yet. Gu Qingji has those feelings, but Gu Qingyue probably doesn’t know. They’re close because both their parents died young, and they relied on each other, getting used to being close,” Zhuang Mingxu explained in detail.
“In the future, you need to pay more attention to the team members and the events happening around you. Since you left Qingyuan City, they all acknowledge you and have tacitly accepted you as a half-leader. You need to learn to be responsible for everyone’s choices,” Zhuang Mingxu quietly instructed Lu Weiyi, sharing some of his experience in managing the team.
*
A few minutes later, Lin Yimu caught up with the group, and everyone sped up, leaving the range of Qingyuan City’s base.
Since entering the base, Zhuang Mingxu hadn’t been out, and now, as he looked around, the towering city walls that once blocked the zombies could not hold back the flood. The refugee camp outside the gates was now just a muddy slurry of water, with no trace of its previous existence. The collapsed walls allowed a clear view of the interior of the base, where the bustling crowds still felt like yesterday.
“Life is unpredictable,” Zhuang Mingxu sighed, tightening his arms around Lu Weiyi’s neck as they looked ahead.
They followed the flood’s path upwards. This wasn’t a road that everyone had traveled. Anyone leaving the base had chosen to avoid the flood, but this route was muddy and difficult, even more so when zombies occasionally rushed at them. At first, the group exchanged words, but gradually, they fell into a numb routine, only hearing the squelch of their boots in the mud and the heavy breathing of a few ordinary people.
They seemed like the last survivors, wandering in a broken world, the atmosphere suffocating.
In order to avoid too many zombies, they took a suburban route. After six nonstop hours, they still hadn’t left the city limits of Qingyuan City, but during that time, zombies had attacked them twice, leaving most of the team with injuries from their powers clashing.
“Let’s find a place to rest and eat?” Zhuang Mingxu wiped the sweat from Lu Weiyi’s forehead and suggested.
“Mm.” Lu Weiyi used his powers to snap the necks of a few zombies surrounding them, collecting their crystal cores before glancing around and pointing to a two-story road. “Let’s rest over there.”
The ordinary people were surrounded in the middle, with the power users on the outside, as the team shifted with order. After clearing out the zombies inside, Xi Shi and Lin Yimu were the first to sit down on the ground.
“Brother Mu, how are you?” Lu Weiyi lowered Zhuang Mingxu and handed a bottle of water to the two men, asking Lin Yimu.
Both of them were ordinary people. After an hour, Xiong Jie would carry Xi Shi for a while to give him a break, and Dean almost seemed permanently attached to Antonio’s back, without any sense of embarrassment. Lin Yimu, however, had been enduring alone.
It was clear how exhausting it must be for an ordinary person to keep up with a group of power users.
“I’m fine,” Lin Yimu replied, taking a sip of water. Despite the exhaustion, his face showed a lively smile. “It feels like hiking cross-country in the army.”
“Good to hear.” Lu Weiyi said as he took out a box of water for everyone to drink, while he and Li Zhuang went to survey the surroundings.
After checking both floors, Lu Weiyi took out the meals he had prepared earlier.
After washing his hands, Li Zhuang sat down, chugged a bottle of water, and grabbed a bun, saying, “We can’t keep going like this. It’s taking too much time, and if we get surrounded by hundreds of zombies, we won’t even be able to run.”
“I was just about to say that,” Zhuang Mingxu added, pulling out a map. “Let’s take a detour to the west. There should be a road over the mountain that will let us drive. We can loop back to the base in Xiangning City. It may seem farther, but it will definitely be faster than walking, and everyone will have more energy. Even if we encounter a large group of zombies, we can still deal with it. If worse comes to worst, we can escape by car.”
The group looked at the map, and then, as if confirming Zhuang Mingxu’s words, they all turned to Lu Weiyi. Since leaving the Qingyuan City base, they had gradually come to accept him as the leader of the group.
In a moment, Lu Weiyi felt an indescribable sensation, as if an invisible pressure had settled on him. He carefully examined the route that Zhuang Mingxu had suggested, then nodded, “Let’s leave after dinner. We’ll aim to cross the small mountain and reach the village by nightfall.”
In December, the daytime temperature was like the late winter or early spring, while the night could drop to minus twenty or thirty degrees. Apart from the other threats, the temperature alone made it impossible for everyone to stay outside overnight.
The climate was unstable, and the extreme temperature difference had caused most of the original trees to dry up and wither. What remained were either new sprouts or mutated plants.
Li Zhuang led the way, ensuring that no one had to struggle with difficult terrain, and found a small path through the mountains. It was rugged and hard to walk, but the dry, withered trees and weeds provided some cover and safety.
The forest was sparsely populated, with fewer zombies around, but some other dangers were lurking.
As the group carefully watched their steps, Dean suddenly shouted in surprise, as though something had tripped him. Antonio, who was walking right next to him, hurried to help, but Dean quickly moved a meter away, floating in the air.
“What’s that?”
“It’s… a snake.”
The reply was filled with disbelief. Looking up, they saw a snake, as thick as a child’s arm, wrapped around Dean’s body, tightening around him but not choking his neck.
Dean was terrified, his eyes wide in horror, trying to speak to Antonio but only able to silently shed tears. A snakehead, the size of a soccer ball, was glaring at their group.
The surrounding dry grass rustled as if it had come to life. The group quickly formed a defensive circle.
“There’s another one over here,” Xu Sa whispered.
“Another one,” Li Zhuang’s voice followed.
“Yep,” Wu Yue added.
One by one, they reported, and there were already nine snakeheads visible, not including those possibly hidden in the ground.
“This is definitely a snake nest,” Ning Yuan muttered, his voice low.
“Viper, highly venomous, mutated, and only getting stronger. Be careful, don’t get bitten,” Li Zhuang warned.
“Dean can’t hold on anymore. I’m going in,” Antonio said, his voice cold and calm, his expression matching his usual demeanor.
Lu Weiyi had been focused on protecting the surroundings while carrying Zhuang Mingxu. After acknowledging Li Zhuang’s strength, he had forgotten to use his mental abilities to check the environment.
He regretted his oversight, immediately expanding his mental powers. “There’s one more behind Lu Xi. Create a mental barrier, and everyone deal with the snakes in front of them. If you can’t beat them, just delay.”
As Lu Weiyi issued the command, his small green branch whipped out and bound the snake in front of him. Meanwhile, his invisible mental blade quickly chopped the snake into several segments.
Antonio’s throwing knives flew towards the snake wrapped around Dean, transforming into an invisible shield just before hitting, keeping the snake’s head and Dean apart, avoiding a bite.
The others skillfully cut at the snakeheads from all directions, ensuring they decapitated them with one swift strike.
Once the snakehead was attacked, the snake coiled around Dean loosened its grip. Just as Dean was about to fall back into the unknown grass, Lu Weiyi used his green branch to pull him over, placing him beside Lu Xi, who had created a one-meter mental barrier to protect Zhuang Mingxu from further attacks.
Lu Weiyi and Antonio quickly helped the others—Bai Miao and Li Dongsheng, who had weaker attacks—deal with their snakes. The rest of the group also took care of their mutated snakes.
The surroundings fell into a tense silence, and the group remained vigilant.
“The severed snakeheads can still bite, be careful,” Zhuang Mingxu said.
“Mm,” Lu Weiyi responded. “Liu Rui, burn the vegetation in this area.”
A fiery dragon shot out, and with Ning Yuan’s water wall shielding the group, the fire quickly burned away the surrounding weeds, revealing the three-meter-long, yellow mutated snake bodies beneath.
As the flames spread and Liu Rui retracted his powers, Ning Yuan’s rain curtain fell, creating a light smoke that hovered over the ground. The fire died out, leaving a faint scent of cooked meat in the air.
“Dean, are you okay? Any injuries?” Lu Weiyi asked, looking at Dean, who was being held by Antonio.
Dean shook his head, a little embarrassed, wiping away his tears. “I’m fine, just scared.”
He then patted Antonio, who had been tightly holding him, and said, “David, I’m okay. Mm, I smell meat. Can we eat this?”
Although it was an attempt to change the subject, it helped calm Antonio down a bit.
