Chapter 40: Bamboozled
The off-road vehicle drove onto a tree-lined avenue in the center of District Six.
Even though autumn had already set in across the Highlands and a bleak cold wind swept over the streets, kicking up plumes of white dust, the roadside trees on either side remained lush and green. Dense foliage extended from both sides toward the middle, striving desperately to retain the lingering warmth of summer.
The entire road was sheltered in the shade of the leaves.
“Planting so many trees—won’t they freeze to death in the winter?” Chi Xiaoxian asked out of curiosity. “The temperature’s going to plummet in a couple of days.”
“They will,” Fang Yue said. “After winter sets in, however, people will dig them out and replace them with artificial trees. They are planted in pots hidden underground, so the entire tree gets relocated when the time comes.”
Chi Xiaoxian opened his mouth in surprise: “As expected of wealthy District Six—they even go through so much trouble for roadside trees.”
The further toward the district center they drove, the more trees there were, the buildings grew shorter and shorter, and unexpectedly, the collapsed houses gradually decreased as well.
The off-road vehicle drove into an upscale community featuring brownish-red exterior walls and a quaint, antique archway gate. Chi Xiaoxian caught sight of those small, exquisite five-story white buildings in a single glance. Nestled among tall sycamore trees, they lay sheltered beneath the green shade.
Inside the community stood various fitness equipment, and in the central garden rested a modern-looking fountain sculpture—resembling a pair of hands cradling a droplet of water, though the pool inside the fountain was dry.
Had it not been for the occasional bloodstains appearing on the ground and splattered across the polished, mirror-like glass windows, one would truly assume this place was an Eden completely untouched by the catastrophe.
The car came to a stop in front of an equally exquisite and pretty small building. It hadn’t collapsed, standing intact and undamaged.
The surrounding area was dead quiet, however, an eerie silence that felt somewhat unsettling.
Chi Xiaoxian’s heart gave a sudden, sharp leap—he sensed the presence of his own kind once more. Looking out through the car window at his surroundings, he failed to spot any trace of zombies.
“There’s something outside,” he said with certainty. “I don’t know where it’s hiding.”
Fang Yue and Kevin slung their backpacks over their shoulders, grabbed their guns, chambered a round into each, and walked to the entrance of the stairwell together.
Although Chi Xiaoxian sensed zombies, aside from the sound of their own three pairs of footsteps, zero other commotion could be detected.
A thick, brownish-red door stood at the stairwell entrance, bearing claw marks that had scratched through the red paint to reveal the iron-gray door panel underneath—zombies had attempted to break through this door, but seemed to have failed.
A facial recognition scanner rested by the door. Fang Yue passed the facial recognition, typed in the access passcode, and the door lock disengaged with a *click*.
The moment the door was pulled open, a zombie hiding from who-knew-where leaped down, landing at the entrance with a heavy *BANG* as if appearing out of thin air, reaching out to grab Kevin, who stood closest to it.
Kevin fed it a bullet, and the three quickly entered the building and closed the door behind them. That zombie continued to pound against the stairwell door with loud thuds.
Chi Xiaoxian couldn’t help thinking: if their dorm room had used such a sturdy door back then, they probably wouldn’t have…
“Fuck, where did that thing spring from?” Kevin had acted purely on instinct moments ago, speaking while still shaken.
“I heard metal scraping sounds earlier,” Fang Yue analyzed. “It was likely hiding on the air conditioner bracket.”
“Could they be lurking around waiting for people to open the door for them simply because they can’t break in themselves?” A terrifying thought popped into Kevin’s head.
“Possible.”
—
Fang Yue lived on the second floor. Chi Xiaoxian had originally assumed Fang Yue meant a spacious, bright apartment when he said he lived somewhere nice. Upon stepping inside, however, he realized his imagination had been far too limited.
Though this residence appeared to be on the second floor, it actually connected the first floor, second floor, and a basement, forcibly creating a villa-like space.
As for the decor on the second floor… it was thoroughly hard to describe.
Pure white marble floors reflected the brilliant light of a European-style crystal chandelier, while the dining table and chairs were draped in white lace-trimmed cloths. Turning his gaze toward the living room, however, presented an entirely different scene—a mahogany Eight Immortals table and four mahogany chairs stood awkwardly in the living room, and the deep red balcony curtains were embroidered with large, blooming peonies.
Chi Xiaoxian felt European court style and Chinese style had engaged in a fierce brawl inside this house—a fight so chaotic it dazzled the eyes.
Noticing zero signs of daily life on the second floor, he followed Fang Yue down to the first floor. A single glance was all it took for him to know that this floor was where Fang Yue actually lived.
The first floor featured matte gray tile flooring, looking somewhat cold in color. Furniture was sparse, with only a dining table and two chairs in the living room, zero television, replaced instead by a massive projector screen in an extremely clean, minimalistic style.
“I want to live on this floor,” Kevin said decisively.
Fang Yue acted as if he hadn’t heard a thing: “The second floor only has two bedrooms. Chi Xiaoxian and I will live on this floor; you go live upstairs.”
“Fuck—” Kevin said in dissatisfaction, “Why does it have to be me?”
Fang Yue raised his eyelids to cast a glance at him: “You’re too noisy.”
“.”
On second thought, Fang Yue was harboring him after all. Having a place to stay was already great, and he possessed zero right to be picky, so Kevin pursed his lips, grumbled under his breath, and headed upstairs.
—
Chi Xiaoxian strolled around the house, suddenly saying, “Hey, why isn’t the power cut off here?”
“Power supply in District Six uses a hybrid model: eighty percent is factory power, and twenty percent relies on solar and wind generators on rooftops and exterior walls. It relies on solar power in summer and wind power in winter.”
“Where are the generators? Does the community actually have its own power plant?”
Fang Yue walked over to the window and pointed it out for Chi Xiaoxian. Chi Xiaoxian asked in confusion, “Isn’t that an air conditioner outdoor unit?”
“Dual-purpose. The fan blades inside can dissipate heat, and can also store wind energy.”
“So high-tech! Looking at it this way, our school’s facilities really are too backward. What’s the property price around here?”
Fang Yue casually stated a figure, leaving Chi Xiaoxian dumbfounded in shock.
That was likely a property price where working his entire life would only yield enough to buy a single bathroom.
Such a wealth gap made one grit their teeth in envy.
Fang Yue picked up a water kettle to fill it, only to find the water supply cut off, as expected.
Fortunately, several cases of distilled water for experimental use were stockpiled in his underground laboratory, so daily drinking water shouldn’t pose much of a problem.
When he finished straightening up, he discovered Chi Xiaoxian sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, slumping against the wall as if he had no bones, holding a remote control to adjust the projector.
Seeing Fang Yue emerge from the kitchen, he raised his head and said, “Why don’t you buy a sofa?”
“You certainly have a lot of demands,” Fang Yue raised an eyebrow gently.
“It’s far too wasteful for such a big living room,” Chi Xiaoxian let out a sigh. “If there were a sofa, I could sit here all day without moving an inch. Just thinking about it feels heavenly.”
“Then you’re likely daydreaming,” Fang Yue looked at him with a complex expression. “First off, I plan to devise a rehabilitation program for you.”
Chi Xiaoxian thought he was hallucinating.
“R-Rehabilitation?” He repeated Fang Yue’s words with difficulty.
“You can’t choose to remain idle simply because walking and running are uncoordinated. Otherwise, your joints and muscles will atrophy.”
“But I’m a zombie—” He attempted to refute Fang Yue’s proposal.
Fang Yue interrupted him: “Those zombies outside are lively as can be, running around every day, diligently hunting humans. What about you?”
“…” *Okay, he truly couldn’t out-compete them.*
*When he was human, he couldn’t out-compete humans. Now as a zombie, he couldn’t even out-compete zombies.*
“If I refuse this rehabilitation, will there be any consequences?”
“This is part of my experiment,” Fang Yue said flatly. “If you don’t cooperate, I can only go outside to capture another zombie to bring back for research, giving it all the resources originally reserved for you. If you crave blood, I won’t give you any either—you can go hunt on your own.”
The moment blood was mentioned, Chi Xiaoxian’s heart thudded wildly out of nowhere. A warm current gathered at his chest, rolling uncontrollably down toward his lower abdomen…
He could barely suppress his physiological instincts, scrambling up to cough violently several times, attempting to cut off this process mid-activation.
“What is it?” Fang Yue asked, seeing him cough so abruptly.
“Nothing,” Chi Xiaoxian said as if nothing had happened. “Choked on my saliva.”
After a long moment, his desires were forcibly suppressed at last, and Chi Xiaoxian muttered, “Fine, but the rehabilitation intensity can’t be too high.”
“Rehabilitation is meant to progress step by step anyway. My plan will be very scientific,” Fang Yue said with certainty.
The moment he turned to leave, Chi Xiaoxian let out a sigh of relief.
He rubbed his face hard, despising himself for lacking even a shred of willpower—how could merely thinking about it even slightly cause…
Concurrently, however, a loud, hungry rumble echoed from his stomach.
Chi Xiaoxian felt his mood collapse a bit.
Fortunately, Kevin had gone downstairs to cook for them—that was good news. The bad news was that Fang Yue’s home contained nothing aside from pasta and instant noodles, severely lacking food diversity. Rummaging through the refrigerator for a long time, Kevin finally located a few pieces of beef frozen like bricks in the bottom drawer.
Setting them out for a long while yielded zero signs of thawing, so he threw them all into a pot of water to boil. When half-cooked, the bloody water dissolving slightly, Chi Xiaoxian poked his head out by the kitchen entrance. Catching the faint sweet scent of blood, an empty, lonely craving stirred in his stomach.
Kevin turned his head to look at him, scooping up a piece of dripping beef with a spoon, asking, “Want to eat it right now, little zombie?”
Chi Xiaoxian hesitated slightly. Compared to cooked food, raw meat held far greater attraction.
“Don’t give him random things to eat,” Fang Yue’s cool voice dropped down.
*Why did this guy always appear out of nowhere at critical moments?!*
“Me as a zombie not even getting raw beef to eat—isn’t that a bit too inhumane?”
“You’re a zombie; humanity doesn’t apply to you,” Fang Yue skillfully exploited the loophole in his wording.
“…”
Chi Xiaoxian touched his stomach in gloomy resentment, swallowing hard.
Fang Yue handed him a bottle of nutritional liquid, explaining: “It’s not that I won’t let you eat it, but raw beef contains bacteria and parasites. What if you get an upset stomach?”
“But I’m a zombie…”
“You only see those zombies eating humans; you don’t see them suffering from diarrhea.”
“I think you’re bamboozling me. How could they suffer from diarrhea?” Chi Xiaoxian knit his brows.
“For animals, excretion is a vulnerable moment where they are easily attacked, so they must be more vigilant. They likely hide away when excreting.”
“…”
*Even though he knew clearly Fang Yue was bamboozling him, why did it sound completely unrefutable?*
“hilarious,” Kevin interjected out of nowhere. “While you two were chatting away for half a day, the meat is already fully cooked.”
Chi Xiaoxian realized out of nowhere that it had all been Fang Yue’s trick, turning on his heel to leave in a huff.
—
Arriving at the guest room Fang Yue had arranged for him, he hung his backpack onto the coat rack by the door.
The guest room decor continued Fang Yue’s personal style. The room was extremely clean, without a speck of dust on the desk, and furnishings were sparse—only a bed, a wardrobe, and a long desk.
The wardrobe was a pale yellow, emanating a subtle woody fragrance. The bed was draped in lotus-root pink bedsheets, the color gentle, looking remarkably comfortable.
Chi Xiaoxian threw himself onto the bed, stretching his limbs out in pure bliss.
*So nice! Far more comfortable than the dorm room. I can get a proper rest and sleep tonight.*
The moment he relaxed, the fine thread at his wrist grew active along with him.
It burrowed out unhurriedly, floating and drifting around the room, researching this new place out of curiosity.
Catching sight of the slender, silver-bright thread floating in midair, Chi Xiaoxian asked out of nowhere, “How far can you go at most?”
The tiny tentacle paused in midair for a moment, swaying finely as the gently flowing air in the room blew against it, appearing to process Chi Xiaoxian’s words.
After a moment, it reversed direction and exited the bedroom door without turning back.
Chi Xiaoxian followed it out, yet failed to locate its trace.
The fine silk connected to the tentacle was far too transparent and delicate, displaying a faint reflection only under specific sunlight angles, making it hard to detect in dim areas normally.
Chi Xiaoxian waited for a moment, only to hear Kevin let out a phantom shriek from upstairs.
“Fuck, what was that just now?!”
Chi Xiaoxian smiled, saying into the empty air, “You’re pretty amazing.”
Although he couldn’t see where the fine thread was, he vaguely sensed a portion of it remained on the second floor.
After another moment, the tiny tentacle reappeared before Chi Xiaoxian’s eyes, spinning two joyful circles in midair as if showing off a successful prank, before burrowing back into Chi Xiaoxian’s wrist.
*Looked like it got tired from running around.*
*How was this trait so similar to him—getting exhausted after moving just a tiny bit.*
Chi Xiaoxian lay back down on the bed, the fatigue of the journey enveloping him once more. Just as he was sinking gradually into a deep slumber, a ticklish sensation touched his cheek.
Without opening his eyes, assuming it was the fine silk tickling him, he brushed it away with a hand, only to touch something with a distinct tactile feel—drier and stiffer than the fine thread. Opening his eyes to look, it turned out to be a long strand of hair.
It displayed a faint burgundy color, lacking luster, yet slightly curled as if permed.
Clearly a woman’s hair.
Chi Xiaoxian snapped fully awake in an instant.
The fine thread wrapped around this strand of hair, holding it up before him as if showing off an object it had discovered.
“Where did you find this?”
Understanding his words, the fine thread pointed its tiny tentacle toward the gap between the headboard and the wall. It seemed someone had slept here previously, accidentally dropping a strand of hair into the gap. Had the fine thread not searched for it, finding it while straightening up the bedding would have been difficult.
Chi Xiaoxian looked at the strand of hair, falling into deep thought.
A woman’s hair appearing on an adult man’s bed—how many possibilities were there?
“Dinner’s ready, dinner’s ready!” Kevin’s booming voice pierced through the bedroom door out of nowhere.
—
Wrapping the scalding pot handle in a dishcloth, he set a steaming pot of beef soup onto the table, along with three plates of pasta.
Chi Xiaoxian could still catch the aroma of normal food, but that fragrance felt somewhat superficial to him, like taking a sip of foam that dissolved into a faint void upon entering his mouth.
To a certain extent, however, it could still line his stomach a little.
Kevin and Fang Yue were starving, devouring the pasta cleanly with forks in two or three moves, then drinking two bowls of beef soup back-to-back.
Chi Xiaoxian drank a bowl of soup, leaving a bit of pasta on his plate. Having been trained in the psychiatric hospital long ago not to waste food, Kevin moved that plate of pasta together with the utensils directly before himself, shoveling it into his mouth with a fork…
“W—” Chi Xiaoxian didn’t even have time to remind him.
Only after swallowing did Kevin realize his “clean plate action” target was food left over by a zombie…
The metal fork fell onto the dining table with a loud *clatter*. He raised his head rigidly, looking toward Fang Yue as if seeking help.
“Zombie bacteria shouldn’t transmit via saliva,” Fang Yue had already guessed what he was going to say.
Though precise, the word “shouldn’t” diminished the comforting effect.
“Are you sure it doesn’t transmit via saliva?” Kevin still felt a surge of panic in his heart.
Setting his ceramic spoon against the bowl rim, Fang Yue raised his head to cast a cool glance at him: “After all, I’m still fine.”
Kevin and Chi Xiaoxian: “?”
Chi Xiaoxian thought for a long time, failing to recall when Fang Yue had ever eaten his leftovers either.
Ever since his infection, he had basically been riding in the car with Fang Yue, eating inside the vehicle, with each person eating their own food. Aside from that, he held zero other impressions.
*Oh! It was that time eating toasted bread by the riverbank!* But that time Chi Xiaoxian had eaten the piece of bread left over by Fang Yue—it wasn’t the other way around.
Chi Xiaoxian said in a bit of a daze: “Did you remember wrong? I have zero impression of that.”
Finishing his meal, Fang Yue pulled a napkin to wipe his mouth with unhurried grace, rolled it into a ball, tossed it into his bowl, and then said: “Think carefully.”
“?”
“You’re an adult zombie now; take responsibility for what you’ve done.”
“???” Chi Xiaoxian felt even more bewildered.
Having spoken, Fang Yue cleared the dishes and entered the kitchen, leaving Chi Xiaoxian staring at his receding figure in complete bafflement.
