Chapter 33: White
In the dead of night, the only sound along the riverbank was the urgent rushing of the water. Waves slammed against the shore, making loud, relentless splashing sounds that surged continuously without end.
On the riverbank, Kevin waited in despair.
Stripping off his clothes to confirm he bore no injuries, he wrung them dry and wrapped them around his body once more. Whenever the wind blew, his teeth chattered uncontrollably from the cold. Wearing the damp clothes felt unbearable, yet taking them off was equally impossible, forcing him to squat down in the cold, curling his body tightly into a ball.
A considerable stretch of time had passed since Chi Xiaoxian submerged into the water, yet the river surface offered zero movement, save for small, pale whirlpools churned up by the current, resembling countless indifferent eyes staring up at him.
Kevin had anticipated this outcome long ago, yet he couldn’t stop Chi Xiaoxian. That guy appeared docile on the surface, yet proved far stubborner than he imagined.
After escaping the psychiatric hospital, he had been acting entirely alone, until moments ago when he finally felt like a member of a small group. Yet in the blink of an eye, this small group was reduced to just him once more…
*How did one pray to God again?*
He was a person without faith. Perhaps he had possessed a tiny trace of it once, but that had long been worn down to nothing across those ten endless years in the psychiatric hospital. If a God truly existed, how could He ignore his prayers and abandon him in hell for so long? What wrong had he ever committed?
“Jesus!” Kevin clawed his withered hair into a chaotic mess. “What on earth am I supposed to do now?”
Answering him was only the silent, bubbling gurgle of running water.
Just as he felt completely helpless, an unusual sound suddenly echoed from behind, causing him to whip his head around instantly.
Right as he assumed a miracle was about to occur, he realized abruptly that miracles and despair were often separated by a single fine line.
Lying on the reef like geckos were two zombies, their hands firmly gripping the protruding edges of the rock, their lower bodies still submerged in the river water.
In the gloomy night, murky eyes flashed with a hungry, fierce glare, staring intently at Kevin without blinking a single time.
Kevin’s heart sank to the absolute bottom.
He was certain that the things he encountered underwater earlier were precisely these zombies.
He wasn’t worried about getting infected in the water himself; after all, he had fortunately avoided getting bitten by the zombies, nor did he have any bleeding wounds submerged in the river just now.
However, these zombies appeared extraordinarily adept at swimming, diving up and down with remarkable agility. Earlier at the riverbed, he had only caught a vague glimpse of their shadows flashing past.
If a direct fight broke out against them underwater, then Fang Yue and Chi Xiaoxian were likely truly…
Before he could worry further about Fang Yue and Chi Xiaoxian, however, he realized abruptly that his current situation was also extremely perilous—
Near the river embankment lay only slippery clay and jagged reefs, completely unfavorable for him to escape. Even if he ran, he stood zero chance of outrunning two extraordinarily agile zombies.
Yet if he didn’t run, facing them empty-handed meant certain death as well.
*Was there any other way?!*
Kevin stood up slowly, preparing to fight for his life, when he suddenly felt a heavy object resting in his pant pocket, pressing icy cold against his thigh.
Kevin reached his hand over surreptitiously, finding an object wrapped in a plastic bag.
That was the stun gun Fang Yue had entrusted to his care before they kicked open the car window!
He had heard about it when Chi Xiaoxian recounted their escape journey!
Kevin’s tension did not ease in the slightest, intensifying instead.
The opportunity lay right in his hands, and he had only this single chance. He swept a rapid gaze across the surrounding terrain.
In the split second he took to think, both zombies had already scrambled onto the shore at lightning speed, lunging straight toward him.
Kevin stood upright in place, however, as if waiting specifically for them.
A gust of wind charged straight toward his face. Just as they were about to touch him, he dropped into a sudden squat.
The zombies failed to notice he was standing right on the edge of a tall reef. Beneath the reef lay a shallow cove near the shore. Surging river water rushed into this depression, gradually pooling into an isolated, small body of water.
The two zombies lunged into thin air, stepping into empty space and plunging into the shallow cove, splashing water onto Kevin’s face. Without a moment’s hesitation, he turned around and pressed the stun gun directly against the water surface.
The shallow cove held very little water, and the high-voltage current surged through the water in an instant. Before the two zombies could even twitch a few times, both flopped down limply.
*Phew,* Kevin let out a long sigh of relief, collapsing onto the riverbank.
Resting for less than ten seconds, he scrambled back up to find a large rock, aiming for the zombies’ heads and smashing it down forcefully several times.
This was his very first time doing such a thing. Thinking that these zombies had also been normal humans in the past made his heart rate spike. He didn’t even dare let his gaze linger on the zombies, focusing his entire attention on the rock in his hand, smashing mechanically with force until their skulls were completely shattered. Only then did he release his grip out of sheer exhaustion, tossing the stone aside.
He wrapped the stun gun carefully in the plastic bag to prevent water from seeping in. Just as he went to stuff it into his pocket, a muffled sound echoed from beneath the reef, as if a soft object had struck against the reef wall.
That sound was very faint, yet it startled him into leaping up on the spot, pulling the stun gun out once more.
Taking two steps back, he waited for a moment, only to see a figure vaguely resembling a human float up to the river surface.
Terror filled his heart—*could that be Fang Yue’s corpse?*
He approached the floating human shape in the water slowly, swallowing hard instinctively.
White clothing floated in the water, resembling a swaying jellyfish—that was unmistakably Fang Yue’s shirt!
Yet as he looked closer, he discovered another white object. A horror far more intense than before welled up in his heart, leaving him temporarily unable to describe what lay before his eyes, much less determine—
Whether it was a human or a ghost.
Counting down ten seconds in his head, he prepared himself mentally, then bent down, using his endlessly trembling arms to drag the person out of the water and lay them out on the bank.
The person lying on the bank was clearly Fang Yue, his shirt and trousers still in the same state as before falling into the water. Yet a layer of soft, white material wrapped around his head, resembling a bizarre hood, or perhaps a silkworm cocoon, appearing thoroughly strange and somewhat spine-chilling. This was the very thing that had terrified him moments ago.
*What on earth was this thing?!*
*What should he do?*
*Could one breathe through this thing?*
Taking a deep breath, Kevin mustered his courage and extended a finger to touch it first.
The tactile feeling of the “cocoon” felt softer to the touch than it appeared, as if a gentle breeze of ideal temperature had brushed past his fingertips, quiet and trace-free.
He poked his fingertip inside, intending to slice the cocoon open, yet the thread-like surface of the cocoon caved inward softly in response, filled with immense tenacity.
Kevin had no choice but to pinch it with both hands and pull hard toward both sides. Just as he tore a tiny crack open, numerous delicate, thin threads extended from both sides of the rift, stretching toward the center.
Kevin retracted his hands abruptly, falling onto his rear on the reef in sheer terror, panting heavily.
This thing was alive!
*What on earth was this thing?!!*
Kevin stared at that “cocoon” with a mix of tension and fear, feeling his heart rate spike to its absolute limit.
Before long, he watched with his own eyes as that crack was woven tight by those thin threads. The entire “cocoon” was silky and perfect, looking as though it had never suffered a tear at all.
Suddenly, he felt a faint itchy sensation on his hand. He couldn’t help scratching it, only to pinch a thread-like, barely perceptible strand of fine silk that brushed softly past the back of his hand, then slid down along his wrist—
The hair on the back of Kevin’s neck stood on end. He shook his hand frantically with force until his arm was nearly dislocated, and only then did that strange tactile feeling vanish from his hand.
He didn’t dare touch this “cocoon” again, but a far more surreal thought surfaced in his mind—perhaps Fang Yue was still alive.
Ever since encountering zombies, he felt more and more that this world had gone to the dogs, where the most bizarre events could occur. Only by maintaining an open mind toward all strange and peculiar things could one preserve their mental health.
—
On the other end, Fang Yue was sinking into a half-dream, half-awake state. He seemed to hear someone calling his name, the voice faint and elusive, as if transmitted across several distant mountains. It sounded familiar, yet he couldn’t recall whose voice it was no matter how hard he tried.
In his daze, he wanted to open his eyes to look around, but his eyelids felt unbearably heavy, and his body felt as if buried beneath soil, unable to move a single fraction, unable to struggle up. Meanwhile, soil overhead continued falling non-stop, gradually submerging his neck, his chin, his lips, his nose…
He was like a tree being buried bit by bit by someone…
Time slipped away minute by minute. Under suffocation and oxygen deprivation, the last trace of warmth in his chest was gradually vanishing, and the voice calling his name grew further and further away, as if unable to find him and resolving to leave.
After a moment, that voice indeed vanished.
Immediately after, he felt an itchy sensation on his calf, as if a mischievous person were lightly tickling his skin with a blade of grass.
Something was climbing spirally along his calf, like slender vines—delicate, yet clinging tightly to his skin, crawling up to his neck bit by bit, even rubbing against the tip of his chin.
Following that, a force seemed to appear out of thin air around him—soft yet tenacious, searching for gaps between soil and stones, boring in forcefully, continuously breaking through obstacles upward.
Finally… the thick layer of soil shell covering him was pushed open, thin air seeped in, and he seemed able to breathe once more.
“Fang Yue!”
That voice suddenly appeared again, as clear as if right beside his ear.
All hallucinations vanished in an instant, and his body felt far lighter as well.
Fang Yue opened his eyes, and the first thing that met his vision was Kevin’s face, brimming with wild joy.
“Fuck, I knew you were still alive!”
“You’re a fucking miracle!”
Kevin shook his shoulders. Fang Yue tried to sit up, only to find his strength felt as if it had been completely drained; he felt weaker than he had ever been before.
“Don’t get up, lie down and rest a bit.” Kevin pulled a bottle of water and a pack of compressed biscuits out of his soaked backpack. “Are you hungry? Want something to eat? Luckily these biscuits were packaged well; I checked, they’re still crisp!”
Fang Yue raised a finger, signaling him to shut up for a moment. His head was still spinning, and hearing dense speech made him feel physiologically nauseous.
Kevin helped him up, leaning him against a concrete pillar beneath the river embankment to sit.
Although his body felt cold and weak, he merely took a few seconds to recover before immediately supporting himself against the pillar to stand up. Looking around to search, he asked in a hurry, “Where is he?”
Kevin froze for a second.
In that single second of hesitation, Fang Yue detected an unusual trace instantly. Turning his head, his gaze locked onto Kevin as he asked once more: “Where is he?”
Kevin couldn’t help averting his gaze, casting his eyes toward the river surface. The current grew increasingly rapid, as if resolved to wash away everything that had transpired here.
Knitting his brows, he murmured, “He hasn’t come up yet…”
“What are you saying?” Fang Yue felt Kevin was speaking a language he couldn’t understand.
Knitting his brows tighter, Fang Yue emphasized heavily, “He came up first.”
Kevin shook his head helplessly: “He thought you were trapped underwater, so he went down to search for you. I tried to persuade him, but he wouldn’t listen, stubborn as hell. After going down, he hasn’t come up to this moment. I’ve been waiting here on the bank the entire time.”
A blank sheet flashed through Fang Yue’s brain.
He felt only a wave of bone-chilling cold. The wet clothes wrapped around his body felt like a hard suit of armor made of ice, freezing his limbs until they went numb, his sensation dulling.
“Do you know how long I waited for you guys on the bank? How could a normal person hold their breath for that long? It could set a world record! I thought you two were going to meet your end in this miserable river. When you floated up, I even thought you were a corpse…”
Fang Yue suddenly began coughing violently, his chest rising and falling dramatically, his lips turning an iron-gray color.
After a moment, he finally managed to stop coughing. Just as he went to walk, his head spun out of nowhere, and he nearly tumbled over.
Kevin caught him swift-handed, pressing him back down to sit, persuading him: “Eat something first to regain your stamina. Frantic pacing won’t accomplish anything anyway—you’ve been unconscious on the bank for a long time, and I waited for half a day before you woke up.”
Fang Yue’s frame froze. Grabbing Kevin’s shoulder in reverse, he asked urgently, “How long did you say I was unconscious?!”
His fingers applied far too much force, the tips turning white. Kevin bared his teeth in pain while shaking his head: “I don’t have a watch to check the time, but estimating it, it’s definitely been over half an hour.”
“How did I come up?” Fang Yue asked.
“You don’t know yourself either?” Kevin asked in confusion.
Fang Yue’s brows knit even deeper.
Kevin had no choice but to recount the somewhat surreal experience from earlier to him. At the end, he added a line: “I haven’t lied to you by a single word; whether you believe it is up to you.”
“…White ‘cocoon’?” Fang Yue pondered for a moment, murmuring to himself.
He raised his head abruptly, “Where is that thing you mentioned right now?”
“I didn’t even manage to tear it open. The moment I pulled it apart, it closed back up like a clam shell on its own. In the end, it detached by itself, so I picked it up and stowed it in my bag—” As he spoke, Kevin stood up to rummage through his soaked bag.
To properly preserve that strange thing, he had specifically wrapped it in a plastic bag.
“Holy shit, where’s the thing?!”
Kevin searched through the entire bag, finding only an empty plastic bag—the knot had been undone at some unknown point.
“Jesus, that thing ran off by itself! It gained a mind of its own!! It can’t be!!”
Kevin’s language system had broken down completely.
Fang Yue yanked his bag over, turning it inside out to search thoroughly, then unfolded the plastic bag and shook it twice, with only a few scattered water droplets falling out. Fang Yue looked up at him in the end, staring fixedly as he said heavily, “Are you sure you put it inside?”
“God please, I don’t have senile dementia yet! I am certain, positive, and absolute that I put it inside, thinking I’d show it to you once you woke up. I even tied a butterfly knot on this bag!”
Fang Yue pondered for a moment, then said out of nowhere, “Give me the biscuits.”
“Ah?” The topic shifted far too fast, leaving Kevin dazed for a second before he handed the compressed biscuits over.
Fang Yue tore the packaging open, bit down, and devoured a slab of biscuits in two or three quick moves.
“These are compressed, after all. Eating them like this, aren’t you going to choke from dryness?”
Before Kevin’s sentence landed, Fang Yue snatched the mineral water from his hand, unscrewed the cap, and chugged nearly half a bottle of water down with loud gurgles.
Finishing the drink, he wiped his mouth casually, stood up, and slung his backpack onto his shoulder, his movements sharp and decisive.
“You’re—”
“Let’s go!” Fang Yue said succinctly.
A cluster of fire burned within his eyes, his voice regaining its usual firm strength: “Go bring Chi Xiaoxian back.”
“Ah?” Kevin was utterly baffled. “Wh-Where do we go search?”
“No specific target.”
“Ah?”
Fang Yue’s eyes burned bright as he said, “Because that idiot is very likely lost.”
