Chapter 4
Ye Xuan was woken by a damp, salty, fishy, rotten gust of wind.
The stench came from the rotten-gutted zombie on the neighboring balcony. It was trying to climb over the railing to gnaw on him. Its stomach had been sliced to a bloody mess by the rusty metal, yet it was still persistently stretching out its two deformed hands, waving them wildly in the air.
Ye Xuan pinched his nose and moved back a little.
Last night, he had slept on the balcony just like that.
He remembered Xia Chenxi telling him to get lost and go to the balcony. Then he had pressed himself against the glass door and watched Xia Chenxi circle the dorm room once before stopping in front of his own desk. After the flashlight was turned off, Ye Xuan could no longer see what was happening inside. He only heard faint little noises.
After that, he had curled up and sat on the balcony, unknowingly falling asleep.
So, how was Xia Chenxi now?
Ye Xuan wanted to go in and check the situation, but then he remembered what Xia Chenxi had said to him yesterday.
He was not afraid of dying. He could be reborn. But if Xia Chenxi beat him into a crippled state where he could neither live nor die, then he would truly be finished.
Ye Xuan pressed himself against the glass door and saw Xia Chenxi walking toward him with a pack of instant noodles in his hand.
Xia Chenxi opened the door and handed the instant noodles to Ye Xuan.
Ye Xuan swallowed and looked up at Xia Chenxi, only to be drawn to the bite guard on his face.
Yesterday, when Xia Chenxi had placed his hand near his mouth, Ye Xuan could clearly feel that Xia Chenxi’s urge to bite him was extremely strong, yet he had still flung him away.
So it turned out he had driven Ye Xuan outside in order to stop himself from biting him and put the bite guard on himself.
Xia Chenxi touched the metal bite guard and said to Ye Xuan, “This was a prank from a friend of mine.”
“Oh.” Ye Xuan took the instant noodles from Xia Chenxi’s hand. Why was he explaining this to him?
Xia Chenxi glanced at the zombie roaring beside them.
“Come in.”
He turned and walked through the door.
Ye Xuan grabbed Xia Chenxi’s thick forearm and asked, “You won’t hit me, right? If you really hate me that much, you might as well take off the bite guard and bite me to death.”
Xia Chenxi paused.
“I won’t.”
Only then did Ye Xuan feel at ease and follow Xia Chenxi inside.
There was no change in the room. The food, water, and other supplies were still placed where they had originally been. He had thought that in his frenzied state, Xia Chenxi would have destroyed everything beyond recognition.
The two of them sat on opposite sides. Ye Xuan gnawed on the instant noodles, while Xia Chenxi closed his eyes to rest.
“Do you count as a zombie now?”
As if displeased at being disturbed, Xia Chenxi frowned slightly and slowly opened his eyes.
Unlike the blood-red eyes Ye Xuan had seen last night, Xia Chenxi’s pupils were now light brown.
“I don’t count as a zombie.”
Ye Xuan nodded. As expected, he was not an ordinary person. He could even withstand such a fierce virus.
“But I don’t count as human either.”
Ye Xuan suddenly raised his head. Not human, and not a zombie either? Then what did that make him? Half-zombie?
Xia Chenxi also seemed unsure how to explain it. His hand rested on his knee.
“In short, I can feel that my body has changed. As for what exactly changed, I can’t say.”
Seeing that he could still say these things clearly and logically, he should still count as a person.
Ye Xuan asked, “Then do you get hungry?”
Xia Chenxi said, “Yes.”
Ye Xuan asked, “Has your hearing become sharper?”
Xia Chenxi said, “No.”
Ye Xuan asked, “What about your sense of smell?”
Xia Chenxi said, “No.”
Ye Xuan asked, “Taste?”
Xia Chenxi said, “I don’t know.”
Ye Xuan spread his hands. “Looks like you’re just an ordinary person with antibodies in your body. I thought it’d be like in TV dramas, where you suddenly gain some special ability.”
Xia Chenxi lowered his eyelids, seeming to think about something.
After Ye Xuan finished eating the instant noodles, he asked Xia Chenxi to return his phone.
He opened the dorm building group chat. Some people were already crying for their fathers and mothers because they had no food.
Someone else said that last night, the door of the room next to theirs had been smashed open, and when the person inside was bitten, their screams were truly miserable.
From the corner of his eye, Ye Xuan glanced at Xia Chenxi. The method he had suggested, piling chairs against the door, was still useful after all.
Ye Xuan counted the food they had left. There were only eight packs of instant noodles remaining. If he and Xia Chenxi split them and ate two meals a day, they could only last two days. There was not much water left in the water dispenser either, only about a third.
The news said someone would come to rescue them, but Baihe, the starting point of the outbreak, had still not been controlled by anyone. What exactly was going on?
If no one came to rescue them, he and Xia Chenxi would have to think of a way to get out of here on their own.
He hoped things would not become that bad.
One day later.
Things still went in the worst possible direction.
The entire school not only lost water and power, even the internet was cut off.
The last text message he received on his phone was a notice from the relevant department: The R Virus has spread rapidly and has appeared in various regions. The existing military forces across the country are insufficient and cannot provide aid to all areas. Residents are advised to seek nearby areas with abundant supplies for shelter and maintain vital signs.
This message was telling them that no one would come to save them. Whether they could survive or not was now entirely up to fate.
Ye Xuan lowered his head and let out a deep sigh.
On top of that, they were currently on the fifth floor. From the fifth floor to the first, then from the first floor out of the building, the number of zombies they would have to face was countless.
Not to mention, even if they got out, what could they do?
But if they did not go out, he would starve to death and keep falling into the loop.
Ye Xuan looked at Xia Chenxi and said to him, “How about you just bite me after all?”
Xia Chenxi stood at the doorway, his gaze sweeping across the entire room.
“If I bite you, you might not necessarily turn into a zombie. You might become something like me, and the result would still be the same.”
That made sense.
Ye Xuan temporarily gave up on the idea of letting Xia Chenxi bite him and began rummaging through his drawer for something.
Soon after, he found a whole roll of tape. He took the quilt off his bed, cut open the cotton batting inside with scissors, and wrapped the cotton around his hands.
“What are you doing?”
“Protecting my vital parts. Then we leave this place before tonight,” Ye Xuan answered Xia Chenxi, his hands not stopping.
“Do you want to wrap some too?” Ye Xuan asked Xia Chenxi. “Wait, no. You’re half-zombie now. Would zombies still bite you?”
“I don’t know.”
Xia Chenxi climbed onto his bed and threw everything on it down. Then he lifted the entire bed board off.
Under Ye Xuan’s dumbfounded gaze, Xia Chenxi broke the bed board into two halves, picked one up, and tossed it to him.
“Xia Chenxi, you… were you reincarnated from some kind of strongman?”
Xia Chenxi stepped on the broom head and broke it off, then threw the handle to Ye Xuan.
“Pack everything up. Only take the necessities. There’s no need to bring too much.”
Ye Xuan packed up everything they needed, then picked up the broom handle and the “shield” Xia Chenxi had thrown to him.
Xia Chenxi brought nothing. In his hand, he only held the other half of the bed board.
He pushed away all the chairs blocking the door, turned back, and said to Ye Xuan, “Are you ready? I’m opening the door.”
At the critical moment, Ye Xuan stopped Xia Chenxi.
“Wait. Let’s test whether the zombies will attack you first.”
Xia Chenxi narrowed his eyes, considering the feasibility of what Ye Xuan had said.
He gave a slight nod.
Ye Xuan switched places with Xia Chenxi and said to him, “In a moment, I’ll open the door just a crack. Try slowly going out. If the zombies show any intention of attacking you, hurry back in.”
