Translator: Law Editor: Hitesh_
Lin Qiao and Xie Dong had also been driving toward Hangzhou City. The city wasn’t far, just hours away.
It was the same car, and Xie Dong became the driver again. He enjoyed driving his car. He was away for only about ten days, but he missed his car already.
Three hours later, they entered the city. As expected, more and more zombies showed up, shambling around. The closer they got to the city center, the more zombies were seen.
Zombies could be found in every street and alley and in all sorts of buildings. The ordinary zombies which sensed Lin Qiao would all start to move away while they were still tens of meters away from her, as though they couldn’t risk getting close to her. Most of them were crowded in nearby streets or alleys.
Xie Dong kept driving on the unimpeded road while Lin Qiao was sticking her head out of the window in the front seat to look around.
When the car passed by a bookstore, she raised a hand to signal for Xie Dong to pull over. The latter turned toward the bookstore, then parked the car before it.
Then, they both got off the car and glanced at the broken door of the bookstore before walking in.
“Roar!” Once they got in, a zombie roar was heard, delivering a threatening and warning message. Hearing that, Lin Qiao and Xie Dong both realized that they had stepped into the small territory of a relatively high-level zombie, which was at about level-three.
They turned toward where the roar came from and saw a zombie on the second floor, leaning against the stair railing while staring at them with its teeth bared.
Lin Qiao ignored it and just calmly walked in toward the map shelf. But of course, she didn’t intend to show mercy to this level-three zombie.
A level-three zombie nucleus wouldn’t contain a giant amount of energy, yet it would still be valuable.
On the other side, Xie Dong didn’t move, glancing at Lin Qiao. Once she moved inward, the zombie uttered another roar while fiercely staring at her like a raging beast.
“Roar!”
Before coming into this bookstore, Lin Qiao had restrained her vibe, as she had sensed the level-three zombie already. That was the reason why the level-three zombie dared to roar at her like that.
Lin Qiao ignored the zombie again and kept moving forward.
The zombie had finally lost its patience. It climbed onto the railing, then jumped down at Lin Qiao. It didn’t wonder why she made no response to its roars, only wanting to kill this invader as fast as possible.
However, it didn’t even manage to approach Lin Qiao. When the zombie was still about a meter away, Lin Qiao abruptly raised a hand and swung her claw at it.
Puff! Thud! Thud!
Following the series of noises, the zombie was cut into two and fell on the ground, its black blood splashing all over the ground. Xie Dong glanced at the dead zombie and then turned around to lean against the door with his arms crossed, looking outside.
It was almost noontime; The sun was burning, and it was actually quite hot. But, he couldn’t feel the temperature, only Lin Qiao could. That was why she wore the hat, because she didn’t want her bald head to smoke under the sun.
Lin Qiao kept looking for the map shelf. The bookstore wasn’t large, and there were signs, so she found it soon.
This place had been visited by human survivors before. Lin Qiao found the map shelf and found that many maps were gone. Fortunately, the last batch of visitors still left her a couple of map books.
She picked up one and first shook the dust off, then slapped and swung it. Finally, the thick layer of dust on the book was gone.
She leafed through it and found that it was a map book for tourists, mainly introducing the famous scenic spots in the province. It wasn’t so useful, but could help her in recognizing places.
She then checked another book: it was a driver’s map of this province.
After collecting these two map books, Lin Qiao turned to check the other books. She only roughly browsed some of them, then put all of them into her space along with the shelves.
About twenty minutes later, the bookstore was emptied by her. Then, she dug out the level-three zombie’s nucleus and left the bookstore with Xie Dong.
Lin Qiao put the car into her space. The two of them stood by the roadside to check for directions, and then chose one direction to go.
They were already in the city now. This place was filled with zombies, so the car became unnecessary. Driving in this area would be a waste of gas. Lin Qiao needed to restrain her vibe and hunt for higher level zombies, so they couldn’t drive fast.
Lin Qiao walked for about ten meters, to a building which had over ten floors.
She hopped onto an abandoned old bus in front of the building, then turned and leaped onto the building. Within a blink, she had grabbed a window frame on the sixth floor, then swung herself up to a balcony, leaping higher afterward.
Xie Dong watched Lin Qiao nimbly climb onto the roof, then leaped into a balcony from the top of the bus. He wasn’t as agile as Lin Qiao, so he climbed much slower than she did.
On the roof, Lin Qiao sniffed around and sensed a strong zombie stench mixed with all sorts of smells. Without waiting for Xie Dong, she leaped toward another building.
She didn’t need to sniff around like a dog if she were only looking for higher level zombies, because she could sense any higher level zombie within the area two or three miles around her.
She sniffed the air for the scents of human beings, as she wanted to know if any living human beings were in or had been in this area. This area was at the outskirts of the city. Many zombies existed in this place, but they weren’t scary enough to keep human beings away from here.
Lin Qiao had sensed some faint scents left by human beings from quite some spots. However, those people weren’t there now. The scents should have been left by them yesterday or the day before that.
Lin Qiao sensed a level-four zombie from two miles away, so she moved toward that direction.
Xie Dong climbed up the first building, then saw that Lin Qiao was already three buildings away from him. So, he hurriedly followed up. He didn’t know why she went that way, but he didn’t care, only following behind her.
He was at a lower level than Lin Qiao, so he wasn’t as powerful as she was, and his sensations weren’t as keen as hers. Therefore, even if he did want to know why she chose that direction, he had no way of finding out.
He considered himself lucky for meeting Lin Qiao before turning into a zombie. If he hadn’t met her, he might have become a soulless zombie.
He would chew human flesh and eat human brains like a beast.
Xie Dong pictured himself like that and felt that it would have been even worse than death.
