Chapter 23: The Journey
After sleeping for an unknown duration, when Chi Xiaoxian opened his eyes once more, the interior remained shrouded in dim gloom, save for a narrow sliver of pale yellow light filtering through the gap beneath the rolling shutter.
His head still ached with dizziness, his limbs throbbed with soreness, and an intense hunger gnawed at his stomach—though compared to the pain, the hunger felt almost negligible.
He took a deep breath, trying to bring a bit of clarity to his senses, but it felt as if a fistful of sand had suddenly poured into his respiratory tract, causing him to break into a violent, racking cough.
He pulled out a bottle of mineral water and gulped down two mouthfuls, yet the sensation did not ease in the slightest.
Immediately after, an even more excruciating headache struck. The pain radiated outward from the wound on the side of his head, growing into a net of sharp thorns that clamped down mercilessly over his skull.
The agony was so intense that Chi Xiaoxian fell off the lounge chair, writhing on the ground, seized for the first time by a desperate urge to tear his own head off.
Only after an immeasurable stretch of time did that sharp, piercing pain finally subside a little.
Chi Xiaoxian opened his eyes, only to find that tears had soaked his entire face at some point. He wiped them away frantically, scrambling to search his bag for that small makeup mirror.
Through a thin veil of moisture coating his eyes, Chi Xiaoxian blinked hard, finally catching a somewhat clear look at his reflection.
Those pupils, which had originally been pitch-black and clear, had turned a deep, murky gray.
They resembled a desolate wilderness enveloped in thick fog—a heavy, dense gloom through which not a single ray of light could penetrate.
The mirror slipped from his hand and shattered onto the floor. Chi Xiaoxian collapsed back onto the ground, unable to compose himself for a long time—he could hardly recognize the person in the mirror.
That face was utterly foreign to him.
Time seemed to freeze within the dim room, his heartbeat thumping sluggishly. After who knew how long, Chi Xiaoxian slowly pushed himself up.
He realized that no matter what, this was who he was now. If he wanted to cling to survival, he had to accept himself first.
Reaching out, he picked up the mirror that had slipped to the floor earlier, finding a long, diagonal crack running across its surface. It divided his face into two distinct halves, almost as if symbolizing a clean break from his past self.
Chi Xiaoxian searched the room for a long while before finding a white plastic water pipe under a meter long—likely left behind during renovations. Using it as a makeshift crutch, he supported his body and tottered unsteadily out through the back door.
The edge of the sky was already turning the color of a fish’s belly. A faint ray of dawn broken through the hazy layers of clouds, casting pillars of light wherein tiny specks of dust danced softly in the air.
It was morning already.
Chi Xiaoxian gazed into the distance, realizing his eyesight had been affected as well.
Objects far away appeared blurrier than before, though it was different from the blurriness of nearsightedness—it felt as if he were looking out through a sheet of tissue paper, a murky, uncomfortable sensation.
Still, a whole night had passed, and he hadn’t lost his mind or consciousness. He supposed that made him one of the chosen ones.
Chi Xiaoxian dusted off his clothes. Just as he went to step down the stairs, his rear landed squarely on the ground with a heavy flop.
*?*
*Did something feel wrong?*
He tried to stand up again, only to tumble back down once more.
His limbs suddenly refused to obey his commands—his brain clearly issued the instruction to stand up, yet his joints and muscles reacted as if receiving only a fragmented signal, responding briefly without following through to the end.
This fall brought on a fresh wave of intense pain. It felt as if he had run a ten-day marathon back-to-back with an Ironman triathlon; his very bones felt on the verge of falling apart.
Chi Xiaoxian sat on the ground in a daze for a while, then realized that walking with just a crutch wouldn’t cut it—it was far too exhausting. He needed to find something else.
The academic building wasn’t far off. He suddenly remembered that during their earlier escape, many people had abandoned their personal mobility devices by the roadside because they found them clunky. Perhaps he could scavenge one.
Grasping his crutch, he pressed the tip of the plastic pipe against the ground, propped himself up with his arms, and stood up with great difficulty. He then tottered forward unsteadily, looking for all the world as if he had downed two pounds of hard liquor.
Chi Xiaoxian suddenly realized that this walking posture already bore an eighty percent resemblance to a zombie.
*Talk about unrefined…*
After staggering along “crazily” for a short while, he fortunately spotted one under a streetlight. Turning it on, he found it surprisingly still had two-thirds of its battery remaining.
He originally intended to squat down onto it, only to find that none of his joints were cooperating—even squatting down to hug his knees proved an impossible task.
After finally settling into a seated position with great effort, he thought for a moment and decided to go look for Zhang Wensheng first.
Where could Zhang Wensheng be? He wasn’t near the dormitory building, nor near the cafeteria. The only place they frequented left was… the academic building?
He wasn’t sure if he would run into Zhang Wensheng at the academic building, but he had a strange intuition. He had always trusted his instincts, so he pressed the switch on the mobility device and glided toward the academic building.
The sun had already risen. Brilliant summer sunlight bathed the glass windows of the academic building, reflecting the clear sky in a dazzling shade of azure blue.
Chi Xiaoxian felt as though he hadn’t seen such a clear blue sky in a very long time.
For as long as he could remember, a hazy, overcast sky had been the background hue of his memories, everything submerged beneath a dreary, dull gloom that sapped one’s spirits.
Chi Xiaoxian tilted his head up and stared for a long while, as if staring long enough would allow that blue to slowly saturate his pupils, dispersing the deep, dark fog within.
It wasn’t until the brilliant sun brought a faint, burning ache to his eyes that he averted his gaze.
Such a blue sky brought him a subtle, lingering sense of familiarity.
He suddenly recalled that in that game *Wanderings of the Old World*, he and Gu-Ji had also visited a lake together. Sitting on a long log, they looked up at an autumn sky rendered in a breathtakingly striking blue.
That blue was pure and vivid, reflected in the lake water as an incomparably gentle, light blue ripple. Gu-Ji had stared at the water’s surface, its round pupils filled with that shimmering reflection of light.
Chi Xiaoxian dazed for a moment, snapping back from his memories.
Riding the mobility device, he circled the two academic buildings once and encountered several zombies, yet none of them were Zhang Wensheng.
*Could he be inside the building?*
Chi Xiaoxian brought the mobility device to a halt, hesitating over whether to go inside and look. Searching in an open field was simple, but entering a building—considering he was now a mobility-impaired zombie—meant the exertion required was on an entirely different level.
After a moment’s hesitation, Chi Xiaoxian decided to go in anyway. After all, Zhang Wensheng was one of the few friends he had at school. He wanted a friend by his side during whatever little conscious time he had left.
No one was immune to the fear of loneliness.
Spasms of pain struck in waves once more, leaving Chi Xiaoxian feeling dizzy. In a daze, a patch of light flickered briefly across the concrete ground at the entrance of the academic building.
*Huh? There really is something inside the building?*
Chi Xiaoxian composed himself, leaned on his crutch, and huffed and panted his way up the steps.
He discovered he had to go with the flow of a zombie’s natural swaying inertia, like singing in tune with a melody; if he tried to force his body straight, his joints would ache intensely.
Before taking more than a few steps, that patch of light flickered past his eyes once more.
This time, Chi Xiaoxian found the source—right at the first-floor stairwell, the light source came from a wristwatch. Hearing the noise, the owner of that wristwatch turned his head sluggishly to look in his direction.
It was Zhang Wensheng!
Yet his gaze harbored no emotion whatsoever, resembling a pool of congealed gray concrete slurry that couldn’t be stirred into a single ripple.
Chi Xiaoxian was delighted nonetheless, calling out, “Old Zhang!”
Zhang Wensheng’s body twitched with an extremely faint tremor, yet Chi Xiaoxian caught it all the same.
Drawn by the sound of his voice, Zhang Wensheng tottered unsteadily toward him.
“You really can run, kid! Your old man got completely exhausted looking for you!”
Chi Xiaoxian grinned wide.
He opened his arms with breezy ease, saying lightly, “We’re of the same kind now. Your dad is still your dad—”
Zhang Wensheng stepped forward with a wooden expression, failing to recognize Chi Xiaoxian, but Chi Xiaoxian was overjoyed all the same.
Leaning on his crutch, he followed behind Zhang Wensheng in a crooked, wobbly fashion, wanting to see where he was heading. Though Zhang Wensheng wandered through the academic building like a headless fly, Chi Xiaoxian could still sense that he seemed to be searching for something.
*Was he looking for prey?*
Zhang Wensheng walked faster than him, and Chi Xiaoxian gradually fell behind, unable to help muttering, “Can’t you walk a bit slower?”
Hearing the voice, Zhang Wensheng’s footsteps paused slightly. Turning his head, he looked at Chi Xiaoxian with murky, grayish-fogged eyes.
“I don’t taste good; I’m one of your kind,” Chi Xiaoxian smiled.
Zhang Wensheng’s eyes remained hollow and void of emotion, like a machine woodenly aiming its camera lens at Chi Xiaoxian.
After a long pause, Zhang Wensheng mechanically turned his head back, though his footsteps seemed slightly slower this time.
Chi Xiaoxian watched him continue forward, keeping pace behind him.
They crossed the long corridor of the academic building, finally coming to a stop outside a classroom door.
Another figure stood there in place.
Chi Xiaoxian recognized her with a shock—it was Liu Ling, who had been infected on the very first day of the zombie outbreak.
Her once lively eyes were now thoroughly clouded and filthy, her braided hair matted together with dark, dried blood clots, yet Chi Xiaoxian recognized her instantly—having stared at that phone wallpaper for so long.
Amidst his shock, Chi Xiaoxian faintly sensed something.
People who turned into zombies, though stripped of their consciousness, seemed to retain certain cognitive and behavioral inertias—habits unrelated to feeding.
This academic building was where Chi Xiaoxian and Zhang Wensheng took the most classes during their freshman year, and it was also where Zhang Wensheng had met Liu Ling during that general elective.
By some mysterious turn of fate, both zombies had wandered here, and Zhang Wensheng had even found Liu Ling.
Chi Xiaoxian spoke no further to Zhang Wensheng, merely watching them in silence.
Zhang Wensheng followed behind Liu Ling at a constant, moderate distance. The two zombies tottered along, their shadows drawn long by the setting sun, overlapping and parting on the ground from time to time.
Chi Xiaoxian watched them until they departed from the academic building.
His gaze dimmed slightly for a moment before he finally picked up his crutch.
He decided to leave the school.
While he still retained his consciousness, he could ease some of the survival burdens for those still alive at the university, take a look at the world outside along the way, and find a quiet, beautiful place to enjoy a good, long sleep.
Under a crisis, everyone had their own path to walk.
This would be a journey belonging uniquely to him.
